Cardo street and Roman shops
In the late 2nd Century CE the western slope of the original settlement hill was substantially remodelled to create a 37m wide by 100m long raised terrace running North South. The terrace level was supported on the Western side by 17 basalt and limestone barrel vaulted rooms built into the base of the slope.
The supporting western wall of the terrace was given a basalt façade and the 17 rooms provided with 1.5m wide stone doorways decorated with profiled stone frames to create a row of small shops along a cardo (north south) street linking the decumanus maximus and the western theatre.
The back wall inside the shops formed the foundation for the north south wall of the roman buildings on the terrace above and this wall was later re-used in the byzantine period when the terrace was converted to an ecclesiastical complex.
Following the collapse of many of the buildings of Gadara in the earthquake of 749CE, the terrace and cardo were buried and over time consolidated into a more natural slope on which buildings of the ottoman village were later added.
From 1995 archaeological excavation exposed the terrace, the cardo and the shops and lead to some reconstruction of the façade.