Baʿja
بعجة · Baja · Baja (Jordan) · Siyot Ujal
Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B·Arabah/South Levantine LPPNB (Basta–Ba'ja horizon)·🇯🇴 Ma'an Governorate, Petra Highlands (Arabah escarpment), Jordan
About
About Baʿja
Vertical LPPNB mountain enclave (c.7200–6900 BCE) where a gorge-bottom two-storey stone village clings between 70 m cliffs and was accessed only via a narrow siq, with collapsed upper-storey beams, turquoise mother-of-pearl necklaces and a single mass-grave of children suggesting hierarchical violence. H. G. K. Gebel's four-decade dig revealed the earliest family-segregated cemetery and intentionally burned two-storey houses — a Late PPNB 'proto-Petra' manifestly built for defensibility just before the Neolithic collapse.
Why it mattersOnly known LPPNB canyon fortress-village — earliest defensivist settlement and two-storey architecture in Levant.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Who burned the village — insiders or outsider nomads?
- 02Children's grave — infanticide or sacrifice?
Theories
- 01Late PPNB crisis — marginal niche defensibility as Neolithic heartland collapsed
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.7400–7000 BCE (LPPNB intrusive to Petrea MPPNB)
- Period
- Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
- Culture
- Arabah/South Levantine LPPNB (Basta–Ba'ja horizon)
- Builders
- Petra-highlands LPPNB mountain foragers-turned-pastoralists
- Purpose
- Defensible nucleated village controlling Wadi Araba copper and sandstone quarry
- Abandoned
- c.6900 BCE (deliberately burned and depopulated)
- Rediscovered
- 1984 Hans Georg Gebel (TU Berlin / Petra project)
- Excavation
- Excavation ongoing
c.7200 BCE
Two-storey agglutinative village built in siq basin
c.7000 BCE
Violence horizon — infant mass-grave sealed
1984
Gebel prospecting south of Beidha finds Ba'ja
On the ground
Structures & features
30.4125° N · 35.4583° E · 1180 m · 3 mapped features
Two-storey collapsed house AR 14
houseJuniper-beam upper storey fallen onto plastered ground floor
30.4127° N · 35.4588° ESiq entrance gorge
gate15 m high, 2 m wide sandstone siq — sole access
30.4120° N · 35.4575° EChildren's collective burial
burialCommunal grave with turquoise beads and mother-of-pearl
30.4126° N · 35.4584° E
Gallery