By Taylor Luck

HALLABAT - What it lacks in grandeur, history and art, the Umayyad-era Hammam As-Sarh more than makes up in technology and shear imagination.
Built a few decades later than Qasr Amra, a recognised UNESCO World Heritage Site, the bathhouse, standing at the entrance to the eastern desert near Qasr Al Hallabat, is a showcase of 8th century architecture and know-how.
With heated marble seats, an audience chamber and a caldarium large enough for over a dozen people, the baths, dated to 740-750AD, were superior to its counterpart Qasr Amra further east.
The hammam took advantage of nearby underground water resources, and pumped water throughout the complex by an advanced irrigation and piping system, which not only provided the baths with hot water, but watered a lush garden and a courtyard.
The bathhouse also featured one of the first Umayyad courtyards, centred around a large fountain, a design which became a defining architectural feature in Damascus, Palestine and elsewhere in the following centuries.
By the time archaeologists began to explore the hammam, some two kilometres east of Qasr Al Hallabat, in the mid-20th century, years of theft had stripped the building bare. Gone were its murals, frescoes, mosaics and ornamental decor, as well as key support structures.
All that was left was its outer walls and vaults, an echo of a time long lost.
“It was a shell standing out in the desert. Renovations were needed to save it,” head of the restoration project, Ignacio Arce, told The Jordan Times.
For the past few years, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Department of Antiquities has been working to save the hammam, and restore it to its former glory.
Following a restoration attempt in the 1980s which used modern cement, Arce’s team is working to restore the hammam by using original bricks, painstakingly replacing each gap in order to bring the structure back to its previous form.
The restoration team is also looking to replace the dome over the hammam’s caldarium, which was once made of rose-coloured cement, in a style similar to that which currently sits atop of the Umayyad palace at the Amman Citadel, expressing hope that once restored the site will bring in tourism revenue for the economically depressed area.
The highlight of the site is the remains of a fountain, which is one of the oldest in the region.
With much of the original water system in place, archaeologists are planning to restore the fountain and have it running to show visitors how the site’s former lush courtyard later became a model for the entire region.
“To see a fountain, a garden in the middle of the desert can really spark people’s imagination of what is truly possible,” Arce said, noting that current residents and farmers should readopt some of the ancient irrigation practices which historically served the area so well.

Reproduced by special permission from the Jordan Times