The Kinematics of the 1033 A.D. Earthquake Revealed by the Damage at Hisham Palace (Jordan Valley, Dead Sea Transform Zone)

The reconstruction of the seismic history of an archaeological site is generally based on historical sources and/or archaeoseismological data. However, these data alone give, in most of the cases, only qualitative information and cannot be used to unequivocally recognize the kinematics of past earthquakes and causative fault. A multidisciplinary approach merging archaeological information and geological data is useful to better constrain the age of past earthquakes, identify the fault movement(s), and clarify the seismotectonic picture of a region. The Hisham palace (724–743 A.D. to about 1400 A.D.; Baramki, 1936, 1938; Whitcomb, 1988), which is the main building of the Khirbet al‐Mafjar archaeological site (Jordan Valley), records damages related to past seismic shaking. The site is located within the tectonically active Dead Sea Transform zone in the western Jordan Valley, and it is one of the most famous so‐called desert castles of the early Islamic period (Fig. 1). The 749 A.D. earthquake, for which the macroseismic epicenter is unknown, is identified as responsible for the severe damage at Hisham palace (Amiran et al. , 1994). However, a relatively low (VII degree) macroseismic intensity is assigned at Hisham palace for this event, and surface‐faulting evidence has been found about 100 km north of Khirbet al‐Mafjar (Marco et al. , 2003). Another earthquake that occurred in the area could also have left traces on the palace architecture, that is, the 1033 A.D. event (Table 1, Fig. 1). View this table: Table 1 Macroseismic Evidences of the 749 A.D. and 1033 A.D. Earthquakes in Palestine Figure 1. Geodynamic setting (inset) and schematic map of the Dead Sea fault system in the Jericho Valley. Macroseismic intensity of the 1033 A.D. earthquake occurred in the Khirbet area (data from Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005). Location of the archaeological site and of main fault traces is reported. The white square delimits the area …

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