6. Umm al-Rasas / Kastron Mefa’a (Jordan) along the Limes Arabicus. Transformation and Resilience of a Cultural Landscape between Byzantine and Early Islamic Period

This paper intends to examine the transition period between the Byzantine and the Early Islamic era in the important and sensitive region of today’s Jordan, the semi-desert steppe east of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. During the Byzantine and Roman periods, this was part of the Province of Arabia, along which the Limes Arabicus, an ideal more than a geopolitical boundary, ran. Taking as a case study the site of Umm al-Rasas / Kastron Mefa’a this study will consider the site as a system, or more precisely as a resilient community following the model of the adaptive cycle and operating at different scales of geography, time, and society (Redman 2005), and will attempt to identify some factors that may enable transformation and reorganization processes. With a view to future research, after having identified some possible factors, it will be important to outline the possibility of extending the use of this model to the area ideally covered by the Madaba Map, to reconstruct the cultural landscape of the entire region, and its transformation over the years while also maintaining its distinctive identity.