The Umayyad Wellhead from Qasr al-Hallabat (Jordan) and Its Related Hydraulic System

During the project of excavation and restoration of Qasr al-Hallabat, directed by the author, a unique Umayyad stone-carved wellhead (Latin, puteal) was retrieved from the cistern of the main court of the Qasr, broken into pieces. Its relevance is due not only to its uniqueness, being the only Umayyad period wellhead preserved from Bilād al-Shām, but also to the singular architectural decoration carved on its walls, which helps us, on the one hand, to delve into the variegated sources that contributed to the formative period of Islamic architecture and visual culture, offering new and outstanding conclusions. On the other hand, it allows us to understand the subsequent evolution of the decorative elements and patterns applied to Medieval Islamic wellheads, thus filling an evolutionary gap in the chrono-typological sequence between Late Antique and Early Medieval wellheads, an issue that will be analysed in a separate paper. In this paper, we will focus on the analysis of the artefact itself, on the sources of its applied decoration, and the hydraulic water collection system to which it belongs, thus providing a comprehensive technical, historical, and artistic context to it.