The Lost Northern-Wing of the Herodian Royal Palace of Machaerus: Preliminary Report of the 2017 Archaeological Excavations

The late Father Michele Piccirillo OFM prophesied the following in his 2004 description on the Machaerus fortified Herodian royal castle: "The upper city was composed of the royal palace defended by four towers, of which only three have been identified". Our mission to Machaerus discovered and fully excavated this foretold Fourth Tower. In addition, we revealed three additional Herodian halls between the fortification tower and the Herodian royal courtyard, thus completing the excavations of the citadel of Machaerus. Among the surprising archaeological results, the discovery of the Fifth Mikveh, and the Early Roman Gate between the citadel and the lower city, crowned the excavation efforts.

The article also exposes the 85-year-old relationship of the SBF with Machaerus, through the unpublished academic notes of Sylvester John Saller OFM. The Custody of the Holy Land had continuous proprietary aspirations to buy the archaeological lands of Machaerus since 1933, but the Government of Jordan acquired it beforehand. The 1953 survey of the SBF was commemorated in a short article by Bellarmino Bagatti OFM, but the ingenious observations of Saller on the siege monuments of the Fretensis in 71 AD remained unpublished among his precious academic notes. The second and third field-archaeologist generations of the SBF, led by Virgilio Corbo OFM (1978-1981) and Piccirillo (1991-1994), continued the American excavations in Machaerus (1968) that were followed by the Hungarian excavations (2009-2016). From 2017, the SBF archaeological mission to Machaerus is in an official joint academic collaboration with the Hungarian Academy of Arts.

The current preliminary study also covers the latest scientific results of the ongoing surveys on the circumvallation wall in Machaerus, and the storeroom works on the Machaeriaca in Mount Nebo and in Amman. The latter is conducted by the restoration-team of the École Biblique, headed by Jean-Baptiste Humbert OP, on the 2016-2017 ceramological material of the archaeological excavations. Their results will be incorporated as an independent chapter into the upcoming MACHAERUS III academic monograph of the SBF Collectio Maior series.