The site of ‘Ayn Gharandal lies c.70 km north of the Gulf of Aqaba, c.40 km southwest of Petra, and c.200 m west of the mouth of Wadi Gharandal on the E edge of the Wadi Arabah (fig. 1). The ruins lie alongside a paved track running east from the Dead Sea highway. The presence of a spring and small oasis at the mouth of the wadi presumably prompted the first human occupation. Its location controlling an overland pass through the Shara mountain range will have attracted the attention of the Nabataeans and, later, the Roman army, which established an outpost here at the start of the 4th c. A.D.