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BiblicalArch to the Mediterranean Perspectiveson the AncientWorldfromMesopotamia A Publicationof the AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch

Volume60 Number4 December1997

194 Ancient Moab:Still LargelyUnknown MaxMiller

I, pg

tI

229.

Ancient times knew the region immediately east of the Dead Sea as Moab. Until recently, mapmakers and explorers-from Tristram to Glueck-added only fitfully to what we knew of the land of Moab from ancient inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible. Advances in archaeological method and the interpretation of literary traditions have brought new insights to this legacy. The study of Moab is gaining momentum.

205 Roads and Settlementsin Moab J.AndrewDearman

Roadways and cities in ancient Moab? The most obvious road was emperor Trajan's Vianova Traiana.One can only infer predecessor highways during the Bronze and Iron Ages. As far as cities and settlements go, a welter of ambiguities keeps historical geographers in a state of uncertainty.

....1

214 A New Agenda for Research on Ancient Moab GeraldL.Mattingly

The recently initiated Karak Resources Project has set out to document natural resource utilization by the inhabitants of central Jordan'sKarakplateau. The crucial issue is whether the realiaof archaeology can help us discover the very genesis of a people like the Moabites.

222 Moab'sNorthernBorder:Khirbatal-Mudaynaon the Wadi ath-Thamad P.M.MichbleDaviau

?r

r'

Current excavations at Khirbat al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad mark the beginning of an effort to bring the landscape of Moabite ethnicity into focus. Data from excavation and regional survey suggest that Khirbatal-Mudayna may have indeed anchored Moab's Iron Age northern frontier.

229 Egyptand Moab UdoWorschech The earliest references to the peoples of Moab appear in two inscriptions from the reign of Ramesses II. While Egyptian sources offer nothing regarding Moab during the Iron Age, fortunately, other sources, such as the BalT Stele and the Mesha Inscription, step in. On the whole, the evidence suggests that Moab was a larger political factor than historians have realized.

237 Moabite Social Structure page 229

RandallW Younker Was ancient Moab a tribal kingdom, a state, or a nation? While some characteristics of Moabite material culture such as public buildings and monumental art may suggest the presence of a state, there are more than a few hints that argue for the persistence of "tribalism" in Moab.

249 Arti-facts 255 Caughtin the Net On the cover: A modern road (right)traversesthe gorge of Wadi al-Majib.The massivegorge isolates the central plateau of Moab from the northern. Photograph courtesy of R. Cleave. Inside rearcover: JimSauer-In Appreciation

From

the

Guest

Editor

Forseveralreasons,especiallybecause of its politicalisolationand instabilityduring the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologicalexploration of the region east of the Dead Sea has lagged behind that of Palestine as a whole. The limited exploration of this land of the ancient Moabites has occurred primarily in four "spurts."The first spurt was initiated by F.A. Klein's discovery of the Mesha Inscription in 1868. His spectacular discovery focused world attention Moab for a moment and prompted the PalestineExplorationSociety to send two expeditions (E. H. Palmerand C. F.T.Drake;H. B. Tristram)in searchof more inscriptions.The results of both expeditions were disappointing, and the one led by Tristramturned out to be a logistical nightmare. The second spurt occurredduring the decade following 1894,during which time the Ottoman government managed to reassertits authorityin southern Transjordan and provide a degree of security for travellers. No excavations were conducted at this time. By 1905, however, when a Shobak uprising spread quickly to Karakand rendered the whole region unstable again through World WarI, explorers such as, E J.Bliss,R. Briinnow and A. von Domaszewski, and A. Musil had clarifiedthe top6graphical confusion evident in treatments of Moab in nineteenth century maps. The third spurt was touched off in 1930when R. Head discovered, almost by chance, the intriguing BalocStele. Threeyears laterCrowfoot made a sounding at KhirbetelBaltc where Head had discovered the stele, Albrightmade a sounding at Adir where Musil had reportedhuge standingmonoliths,and Glueckbegan his importantarchaeological survey of the southern Transjordan. Not overlooking the important excavations initiated during the 1950s and 1960s at Dhiban, Bab edh-Dhracand Hisban, or the soundings at other sites such as el-CAland cAr'air,I believe it accurate to say that the 1970s witnessed the beginning of another spurt in the exploration east of the Dead Sea. This recent initiative was more calculatedthan the earlierones; except for Petra,southernTransjordanhad emerged by the 1970sas a glaring gap in our knowledge of the archaeologyof Palestine, and archaeologistsworking in Jordanat the time set about to fill in the gap. This was especially true of the Moabiteplateaubetween Wadial-Mijib and Wadial-Hasa. Also the recent initiative has turned out to be more sustained. This issue of the BiblicalArchaeologist containsarticlesby five archaeologistswho have figuredprominently in this most recent phase which has been underway for some two decades now. The papers focus on matters pertaining to the Iron Age-i. e., the specifically "Moabite"period. Much of what we know, or think we know, about the Moabites comes of course from the Hebrew Bible.In this regardone should be awareof another factor,in addition to limiting political and logistical conditions, that has tended to deprive the ancient Moabites of proper attention.Especially during the present century, the study of Moabite history and culture has been conducted largely as an appendage to the study of Israelite history and culture. This is especially evident in.publicationsfrom the 1930sthrough the early 1970s.Scholarswith trainingin biblical studies continue to play an important role in the current,1970s and following, phase archaeologicalexploration of Moab. Therehave been radical changes in biblical studies over the past two decades, however, and nowhere is this more evident than in approaches to and perceptions of ancient Israelite history. One of the concerns of contemporary biblical historians is to rediscover, on their own terms, the history and culture of the other peoples of Iron Age Palestine. This concern to discover the Moabites as a people on their own terms, with their own culture and their own claim to history,will be evident in each of the articles in this issue. Actually, when you think about it, the ancient Moabites are better documented in terms of first-hand written sources than the ancient Israelites. Would that we had additional epigraphicalsourcesfor ancientPalestinecomparableto the Mesha Inscription. Becausethe contributorsto this issue areon the frontierof archaeologicalresearch in an area which remains largely unexplored, one can expect a degree of tentativeness and some differences of opinion. If the differencesof opinion are not apparent from a first reading of the articles,go back and read more closely. Specialcreditfor encouragingand supportingthe latest spurt of researchin Moab should go to Jim Sauer. As director of ACOR in Amman, as ceramics expert and scholar,and as advisor and friend, Jim has influenced each one of the projectsdiscussed here. This issue is, therefore,offered to Jim with grateful appreciation.

Biblical

Archaeologist

Perspectiveson the Ancient Worldfrom

to theMediterranean Mesopotamia

EditorDavid C. Hopkins Art DirectorBucky Edgett,LuckyProductions Book Review EditorMichel Fortin Arti-Facts EditorsBruceand Carolyn Routledge EditorialAssistants Mary PetrinaBoyd, Ellen Rowse Spero Editorial Committee KennethG. Hoglund JefferyA. Blakely Elizabeth Bloch-Smith Douglas A. Knight J. P. Dessel MaryJoan Leith ErnestS. Frerichs GloriaLondon Ronald S. Hendel Jodi Magness Gerald L. Mattingly RichardS. Hess Gaetano Palumbo Louise Hitchcock Paul Zimansky Subscriptions Annual subscriptionrates are $35 for individuals and $45 for institutions.Thereis a special annual rateof $28 for students, those over 65, physically challenged,or unemployed. Biblical is also availableas part of the benefits Archaeologist of some ASORmembershipcategories.For details, contactASORat 617-353-6570.Postage for Canadianand other internationaladdressesis an additional $5. Payments should be sent to ASOR Membership/SubscriberServices,PO. Box 15399, Atlanta,GA 30333-0399Phone 404-727-2345.Email:[email protected]. VISA/Mastercard orderscan be phoned in. Back issues Backissues can be obtainedby calling SP CustomerServicesat 800-437-6692or writing SP CustomerServices,PO. Box 6996,Alpharetta, GA 30239-6996. Postmaster Send addresschanges to Biblical ASORMembership/Subscriber Archaeologist, Services,P.O.Box 15399,Atlanta,GA 30333-0399. Periodicalsclass postage paid at Atlanta,GA and additionaloffices. Copyright? 1997by the AmericanSchools of OrientalResearch. Correspondence All editorialcorrespondence 4500 should be addressed to BiblicalArchaeologist, MassachusettsAvenue NW, Washington,DC 20016-5690(ph:202-885-8699;fax:202-885-8605;email [email protected]).Correspondence regardingsubmissionsfor Arti-Factscan be sent to Prof.B. Routledge;School of Arts and Sciences, Departmentof Anthropology;325 University Museum;33rdand SpruceStreets;Philadelphia, PA 19104-6398 Book ReviewsAll books for review should be sent to: ProfessorMichelFortin,D6partement d'histoire,Universite Laval,Ste-Foy,Quebec, CanadaG1K7P4.Books enteringCanadashould be marked:EducationalMaterialfor Review;No CommercialValue-GSTExempt. Advertising Correspondenceshould be addressed to LeighAnderson, ScholarsPress,P.O.Box 15399, Atlanta,GA 30333-0399(ph:404-727-2327;fax:404727-2348).Ads for the sale of antiquitieswill not be accepted. BiblicalArchaeologist (ISSN0006-0895)is published quarterly(March,June,September,December)by ScholarsPress,819 Houston Mill Road NE, Atlanta,GA 30329,for the AmericanSchools of OrientalResearch(ASOR);656 BeaconStreet; Boston,MA 02215-2010.Phone:617-353-6570. Printedby CadmusJournalServices,Baltimore, MD.

Ancient

LARGELY

STILL

Moab

UNKNOWN

By MaxMiller SEAWASKNOWN TheLandof Moab OFTHE DEAD EAST IMMEDIATELY REGION Moab's terrain is mostly rolling plateau which averas Moab in ancienttimes, and the villagerswho planted their crops and grazed their flocks between the Dead ages about 1000meters in elevation.A dramaticcanyon, Wadi River of the Bible), divides the plateau Sea and the desert fringe were the Moabites. Egypt- al-Mijib (the Amrnon ian recordsfrom near the end of the Late BronzeAge provide into two parts, the northern plateau (biblicalmifgr,Josh 13:9; the earliestinscriptionalreferencesto the region and its inhab- Jer48:21) and the central plateau (Moab proper). In the Joritants. Unfortunately, these Egyptian references are scarce dan Valley below the northern plateau are the "plains of and tell us very little about the people who occupied Moab Moab" (biblicalcarbotmo ab,Num 22:1;33:48).A second and at that time or earlier.Most of our written information about equally formidable canyon, if slightly less dramatic, marks the southern end of the Moabite plateau. This is Wadi alMoab and the Moabites comes from the Hebrew Bible, in fact, and from the so-called Mesha Inscriptionwhich reports Hasa, probably the River Zered of biblical times. the deeds of the ninth century King Mesha of Moab who Typically, there are heavy winter rains and the porous soil holds enough of this moisture for cereal crops and pasfinds mention also in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kgs 3). Assyrian inscriptions from the eighth and seventh centuries BCEpro- turage for sheep and goats. Spots where the soil is deeper vide passing referencesto laterMoab rulers.When the southern and springs available, especially along the edge of the Dead Sea escarpment and shelves above Wadi al-Hasa, produce Transjordan fell first under Nabataean control during the Hellenistic period and then, in 106 CE,was incorporated into fruit trees and vineyards. Thus, Moab is reasonably good the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, most of the indigenous "Moabite"population east of the Dead Sea would have The LejjunMenhirsas photographed by the CentralMoab Survey.In remained in place while the name Moab gradually dropped 1978, sixteen of the pillarsremainedin place (eleven standing and five and out of use.1 Historically, therefore, the names "Moab" fallen) from when Glueckphotographedthe same pillars(see "Moabite"pertain to the Iron Age. below). Allphotographs courtesyof M. Millerunless noted..

SHE

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km S100 Moab'sposition on the map of the Levantand its sub-regions.Two impressivecanyonssubdividethe region:the Wadial-MCsjib segregates the northernand centralplateaus,while Wadi al-Hasa delineates the southern reachesof the territory.Moab'sreasonably productiveagriculturallands are distributedupon this fragmented landscape.

agricultural land in spite of the facts that the soils tend to be thin, there are relatively few springs, and the waters of the Mtjib and the Hasa are virtually inaccessible because of the steepness of the canyons. Moab's agricultural productivity during ancient times is well illustrated, in fact, by the biblical story of Ruth and references to King Mesha. The story of Ruth begins with a time of famine in Judah; thus Elimelech, Naomi, and their two sons emigrated to Moab where there still was food to be had (Ruth1:1-5).King Mesha, we are told, "was a sheep breeder; and he had to deliver annually to the king of Israela hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of a hundred thousand rams" (2 Kgs 3:4). Regardless of the historical accuracy of these passages, they reflect assumptions on the biblical narrators' part that Moab produced food even at times when other parts of Palestine were suffering famine and that, in better times, it produced sheep by the thousands. Moab proper, the central plateau, is relatively isolated by geographical barriers -the Dead Sea on the west, the Arabian desert on the east, Wadi al-Majib on the north, and

Wadi al-Hasa on the south. The northern plateau is more open to the outside world, on the other hand, and during the Iron Age more vulnerable to encroachment by neighboring kingdoms. At one time or another, kings of Israel, Ammon, and possibly Syria claimed northern Moab, for example, and the local population no doubt held mixed loyalties. Numbers 21:21-32 and related passages set forth Israel's claim. Specifically, while these passages refer to the region as "Moab" (consistent with references in Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah), they advance the argument that (a) the Arnon was the original northern boundary of Moab, and (b) Moses conquered all of the region north of the Arnon from an ancient Amorite king and assigned it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad (Numbers 33). The Mesha Inscription, representing a Moabite perspective, recognizes that Gadites dwelt in certain villages north of the Arnon, but presupposes thathistoricallythis was Moabiteterritoryand celebrates its return to Moabite control. Although a full Ammonite statement on the matter has not survived, it is obvious from Judges 11 (Jephthah negotiates with Ammon) that the Ammonites regarded the rich agricultural land of northern Moab as belonging appropriately to them. BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

195

Most of the ancient Moabite towns and villages mentioned in the Bible, and virtually all of those whose locations can be determined today with any degree of confidence,were situated north of the Mujib. When places between the Majib and the are mentioned, the clues provided as to their locations .Hasa specific usually are exceedingly vague. The explanation for this, of course, is that northern Moab was better known to the ancient Israelites because it was more easily accessibleto them. A similarsituationhas existed until recently with regardto the archaeologicalremains of the region. Moab has received relatively little attention from archaeologists compared to most other parts of Palestine, and what attention it has received generally has been focused on northern Moab.

NineteenthCenturyExplorationsin the Landof Moab During the nineteenth century, relatively few outsiders entered the region east of the Dead Sea, and fewer still dared to cross the Majib or the Hasa onto the centralplateau. Those who did cross into Moab proper almost invariably were apprehended by the local Bedouin tribe which dominated the region, held under what amounted to "house arrest"until they paid bakhshish,and then sent hurrying on their way. Among the travellers who traversed the whole Moabite plateau including Moab proper prior to 1870and whose published observationsdeserve specialmention areUlrichSeetzen (1805), Ludwig Burckhardt (1812), Charles Irby and James Mangles (1818), and Louis de Saulcy (1851).2Both Seetzen and Burckhardt died during the course of their travels, and their travel journals were edited and published posthumously by editors who did not always understandthe details. Burckhardt'sjournal was published first, in 1822,and served as the basis for the Moab segment of Edward Robinson'smap of Palestine published in 1841. Robinson's map depicts several strange featuresfor the Moab segment, most of which can be traced to editorial mistakes in Burckhardt'sjournal and/or to entirely understandable misinterpretations of the journal on Robinson's part. Unfortunately,these strange features would linger on in maps of Palestine throughout the nineteenth century (Miller forthcoming). The discovery of the Mesha Inscriptionat Dhiban in 1868 initiated a brief phase of more intentional exploration in the region east of the Dead Sea. Returningto Jerusalemtwo years after the discovery from an expedition into the Sinai sponsored by the Palestine Exploration Society, E. H. Palmer and C. E T.Drake circledaround the southernend of the Dead Sea and journeyed through Moab in hopes of finding more inscriptions. Two years later,in 1872, and also under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Society, H. B. Tristramled an exploratoryexpeditionwhich focused specificallyon Moab. His party, which included F. A. Klein, the discoverer of the Mesha Inscription,approachedKarakfrom around the southern end of the Dead Sea. After some delay at Karak, until satisfactory payment was made to the tribal sheik, the partyheaded north.Plaguedby heavy rainstorms,they reached 196

60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

A View from JabalShihanacrossthe northernMoabite plateau.The rimof Wadial-Mijib is visiblein the distance.Thisplateau region lackedthe naturalboundariesof the centralregion and was apparentlycontested real estate throughout the IronAge.

7

Moab as depicted in the map preparedby EdwardRobinsonfor his BiblicalResearches(1841). Note the strange topographical features such as the crescentof mountainssoutheast of the and the transposedpositionsof JabalShThanand erMOCjib/Arnon of Most these features can be traced to errorsin Burckhardt's RTha. or to Robinson's misinterpretationof the journal. journal

As illustratedby this map publishedby the PalestineExploration Fundin 1890,the topography of the centralMoabite plateau remainedpoorly understoodas the nineteenth centurydrew to a close.

the Mijib the second day after leaving Karak and crossed at approximately the point where the modem road crosses today. Either the party got lost along the way, however, or Tristram's travel notes became garbled, because the place names which he recorded between Karak and the Mtijib do not correlate with the route which they must have followed. The map which he provided with his published travel account (Tristram1873) only increases the confusion.

The main projectundertakenby the Palestine Exploration Society during the 1870s was the mapping of western Palestine. An American Palestine Exploration Society also was founded at that time and undertook as its firstprojectthe mapping of eastern Palestine. Two expeditions set out, the first led by John A. Paine and Lieutenant Edgar Z. Steever in 1872, the second by Selah Merrill in 1875-77. The results were not very satisfactoryin either case and pertainedentirely to northernMoab (Merrill1881;Moulton 1928).In 1881,therefore, after completing with H. H. Kitchener the mapping of western Palestine,C. R. Conder attemptedto pick up in northern Moab where the Americans had left off. Unfortunately, he had to withdraw from the project after only ten weeks in the field because of the limitations of his permit. During that ten weeks, however, he surveyed approximately 500 square miles -from Wadi Zarqa Ma
Changedpoliticalcircumstancesin the southernTransjordanduringthe decade following 1895 allowed explorersto travel in that region more freely. F.J. Bliss,one of the firstto take advantage of the situation, exploredand clarifiedthe upper branchesof the Mujib(left map).At center,one of the maps on which R.BrOnnowand A. von Domaszewskitraced the Romanroadsystem and associatedstructuresthrough the southern Transjordanduring 1895-1898 and filled in more topographicaldetails.They publishedthis along with other maps in Die Provincia Arabia(1904-9). Note that JabalShThanand er-RTha now are in their right places.A. Musilpublisheda 1:300,000scale map of Moab (right)in 1907 which located hundredsof ruinson the Moabite plateau-more than twice as many as Glueckwould visit in the same region 40 years later.

60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

197

Majib, is sketched in very tentatively. Moreover, close examination reveals thatthissegmentof the PEFmap depends heavily on Tristram's confused map, which itself preserved several of the strange features introduced by Robinson, who had relied on and, in several instances, misinterpreted Burckhardt's travel journal (Miller 1997).

Explorationsin Moabfromthe Turnof the Centuryuntil Recently

In 1894, the Ottoman government seized Karakand reasserted its authority between the Majiband the Hasa. For approximately a decade thereafteruntil an incident at Shobek in 1905 createdlocal disturbances that led in turn to the Karakrebellion in 1910-Moab proper was reasonably well policed. Several scholars seized this opportunity, beginning with excursions by F. J. Bliss and Rudolf Brtinnowin 1895.Bliss clearedup the confusion which is evident in the 1890 PEF map regarding the relative positions of the upper branches of the Mtjib. Briinnow, assisted by Alfred von Domaszewski and returning twice (in 1897 and 1898),focused attention on the Roman road system and associated structures, but confirmed Bliss's findings and added further topographical clarifications. Alois Musil preparedthe first comprehensive map of the Moabiteplateau (1:300,000 scale). Musil, who explored extensively in southern Transjordanand northwesternArabiabetween 1896 and 1902,devoted the firstvolume of his ArabiaPetraea(1907-8) to the region east of the Dead Sea and reported the approximate locations of some seventy or eighty ancient ruins between the Majib and the Hasa. Also providing published reports of their visits during this decade of active exploration were A. Hornstein (1895), H. Vincent (1896), C. W.Wilson (1899),L. Gautier(1899),W Libbyand E E. Hoskins (1902), and George Adam Smith (1904).4 The next two and one-half decades, from 1905 to 1930, were as uneventful in terms of archaeological exploration east of the Dead Sea as the preceding decade had been active and fruitful. This is to be expected, of course, in view of the circumstances surrounding World War I. It was during this time, however, after the war and the establishment of the Emirate of the Transjordan,that W. E Albright conducted a brief expedition to the southern end of the Dead Sea by way of the Moabite plateau (February,1924). Along the way, he explored the surface ruins and pottery at JabalShihan,FaqTc, Adir, er-Rabba,Khanzirah,and Karak.At Karak,he collected a distinctive type of painted pottery which he identified as Moabite ware and dated to the end of the Late Bronze and the Early Iron ages. At Adir, he reported what he thought to be an Early IronAge Moabite temple. Albright's evidence for identifying the Adir structure as a temple would not be very convincing by today's standards, to say nothing of his 198

BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

A line of standing pillars("Menhirs")at the BronzeAge site of Lejjj0n as photographed by N. Glueckin the 1930s.FromGlueck1970:fig. 173.

evidence for dating it to Moabite times. When he returned to Adir for soundings in 1933 (see below), a house had been built over the spot. A new inscriptional discovery, the so-called BalIc Stele, initiated another flurry of archaeologicalexplorationin Moab during the 1930s. Discovered by Reginald Head in 1930 at Khirbatal-Baluc,an extensive ruin that overlooks one of the main southeastern branches of the Majib, this conical stone bears both an inscription and a relief. Unfortunately, the inscription is so badly weathered that even the language cannot be determined, but the relief is clear and reflects definite Egyptian influence (Wardand Martin 1964). Following upon the discovery, G. Horsfield and Vincent examined the site of Khirbatal-Balucand published a very sketchy plan in RevueBiblique(Horsfield and Vincent 1932). Nelson Glueck began his surveys in the Transjordanin the spring of 1933. Not surprisingly in view of the recent BaliC discovery, he concentrated that first season on the Moabite plateau. Specifically,Glueck spent about three weeks in the area east of the Dead Sea and visited more than a hundred sites. In November of the same year,J.W. Crowfoot and Albrightmade soundings at Khirbatal-Balucand Adir respectively, but without particularly significant results at either place. Glueck returned to the Moabite region and examined more sites later on in the course of his surveys (AugustNovember, 1936), and his reports, published in the Annual of theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch,served as the standard authority on the southern Transjordanin general and the Moabite region in particular for the next four decades. The importance of Glueck's work had less to do with his discovery of new sites than with the fact that he was the first to examine the surface pottery of a large sampling of sites throughout the Transjordan.Actually,most of the ruins which Glueck examined had been reported already by Musil.

pottery,but again not in clear stratification(Reed 1972).Excavating at CArair(ancientAroer)in 1964,E. Olavarriuncovered the remains of a prominent Iron Age fortress on the ruins of earlierbuildings. The pottery was mainly from the eleventh through the ninth centuries BCE. In contrast to the limited Iron Age remains found at full scale excavations at TallHisDhiban, el-CAl,and CAraCir,5 ban (ancient Heshbon), sponsored by Andrews University and conducted between 1968 and 1976,turned out to be both revealing and controversial. The excavators established that there was an Iron I settlement at TallHisban, but apparently not one during the Late Bronze Age or a settlement of any significance before the twelfth century BCE(Boraasand Horn 1975;Boraas and Geraty 1976,1978). This seemed to conflict with Numbers 21:26,which identifies Heshbon as the city of King Sihon (see below). The Andrews University team also made a systematic survey of other archaeologicalsites within a ten mile radius of Tall Hisban (Ibach 1976, 1978).

CurrentArchaeologicalProjectsPertainingto Iron AgeMoab

Lehan,a Bronzeand IronAge site on the north rimof Wadi al-Mljib, is being excavated currentlyby a Belgianteam underthe directionof Denyse Hom s-Fredericq.An IronIIfortressoccupiesthe rearof the photograph, while the foreground offers impressivevillage remains from the LateBronzeIIB-IronItransitionperiod. Photograph courtesyof Homes Fredericq.

For the next four decades after this flurry of activities in the 30s, very few archaeological projectswere undertaken in the region east of the Dead Sea. None of them ventured into Moab proper south of Mijib except for the excavations at Bab edh-Dhra( in the Jordan Valley, and relatively little was discovered pertaining specifically to the Iron Age. Bab edh-Dhra(, excavated by Paul Lapp between 1965 and 1967, is an Early Bronze Age site. Six seasons of excavations at Dhiban (ancient Dibon) during 1950-56 and 1965 produced a small amount of Iron I material, none of it located stratigraphically (Winnett and Reed, 1964; Tushingham 1972; Morton, 1955, 1957 and 1989). W. L. Reed and F.V.Winnett, the excavators of Dhiban, made four small soundings at el-CAl(ancient Elealeh, the northernmost village associated with Moab in the biblical texts) in 1962.They reported Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Iron I, and Iron II

The veterans of the Tall Hisban excavations have continued to explore northern Moab with well organized and innovative excavations and surveys. In 1984, they initiated excavations at Tallal-'Umayri and in 1992began work at Tall Jaltil. Both digs continue, the former directed by L. G. Herr and the latter by R. W. Younker. In 1996, Michele Daviau, having participated in the Tall al-'Umayri dig and directed excavations at Tall Jawa, began excavations at Khirbat alMudayna on Wadi ath-Thamad. Tall al-cUmayri already is shedding importantnew light on the transitionfrom the Late Bronze to the Iron Age in Moab (Geraty et al 1991); Tall Jaltil and Khirbatal-Mudayna promise to be important Iron Age sites as well. This continued exploration of northern Moab by the veterans of the Tall Hisban project is complemented by excavations underway at Leh-an,initiated in 1980 by the Belgian Committee of Excavations in Jordan and directed Denyse Homes-Fredericq. Lehan, situated on the north rim of the Mijib just east of
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the Roman site of Lejjin southward). The survey team examined over 400 sites with surface remains indicative of concentratedhuman activity (mostly occupationalsites), plus many other less prominent archaeological features such as isolated building ruins, cairns, small sherd scatters,old roadway beds, caves, and cisterns.The Bronzeand IronAges were well represented among the occupational sites (Miller 1991). Two other surveys overlapped and complemented the work of the Central Moab Survey. In connection with S. Thomas Parker's excavations at Roman Lejjan during the 1980s, F. L. Koucky surveyed the surrounding vicinity and reported a number of Iron Age sites (Koucky 1987). During 1983-85, Udo F. Ch. Worschech examined sites in the northwestern quadrant of the plateau and along the slopes to the Dead Sea (Worschech1985a, 1985b;Worschech,Rosenthal, and Zayadine 1986).One of the core staff of the Central Moab Survey, G. L. Mattingly, currently is examining more comprehensively, but still largely on the basis of surface remains, selected sites visited during the Central Moab Survey (Mattingly 1996). Emilio Olavarri, in the fall of 1976 and summer of 1979, conducted soundings at Khirbatal-Mudayna, the ruin of an Iron Age fort which overlooks Wadi al-Lejjiin.Constructed near the end of the thirteenth century BCEat the earliest and destroyed at the end of the twelfth or early eleventh century, this fort would have protected the eastern (desert) side of the plateau. The pottery repertoire included examples of the "collaredrim" storage jar;and of particularinterest from the site was a pillared building with close affinities to the socalled"Israelitefour-roomhouse" (Sauer1979).BruceRoutledge has since conducted soundings at another site with the same name which also overlooks Wadi al-Lejjin approximately five kilometers further south (Routledge 1995).6Beginning in 1985, Worchechbegan limited excavations at Khirbat alBaluc,which so far has produced primarily Iron II remains (Worschech,Rosenthal, and Zayadine 1986,1989;Worschech and Nonow 1992).

ReconsideringEarlierViewsand LookingAhead

During the 1930s, when Glueck conducted his surveys in the southern Transjordan,W. F Albright was working out a correlation between biblical history and archaeology that was to gain wide acceptance (Albright 1935,1937,1939). An important featureof Albright'scorrelationwas his contention that the Israeliteexodus from Egypt, passage through Edom and Moab, and conquest of Canaan, would have occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age (i.e., near the end of the thirteenth century BCE).Glueck was one of Albright's students and reached conclusions during his survey which were informed by, and at the same time seemed to provide support for, Albright's position. Specifically, Glueck concluded from his examination of the surface pottery at selected sites that there had been a break in sedentary occupation from the end of the EarlyBronzeto the end of the Late Bronze Age--i.e., from approximately 1900 to the thirteenth century BCE.This was followed, Glueck concluded further,by a surge 200

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CentralMoab Surveyteam "sherding"a site. Subsequentsherdings and excavationsoften producedifferent picturesof a site's occupationalhistory,enforcing a caution about inferencesfrom surfacesurveydata alone.

of village settlements during the thirteenth century. These new villages represented new settlers, Glueck contended, namely the Moabites and Edomites.7Glueck also discovered what he interpreted to be a string of strong fortresses on the borders of Moabite and Edomite territory and which he dated to the early Iron age. Both of Glueck's findings, the surge of villages during the thirteenth century and the string of early Iron Age border fortresses, seemed to support the biblical narrative, which presupposes that Moabite and Edomite kingdoms were already in place when the Israelites passed through on their way from Egypt to Canaan.His findings were also in harmony with Albright's view that the Israelites would have passed through Edom and Moab near the end of the thirteenth century, on the very eve of the Iron Age. Beginning in the early 1970s, Albright's views began to encounter serious challenges, and the discussion regarding Moabite history and archaeology has shifted considerably in recent years. A major difficulty with Albright's contention that the Israelite exodus from Egypt, passage through Edom and Moab, and conquest of Canaan would have occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age was the results of the excavations of the cities mentioned in the biblical account of the conquest. One after another, archaeologists uncovered little evidence that most of the cities had been occupied during the Late Bronze Age, let alone been strong fortified cities as the biblical account assumes. The absence of Late Bronze remains at Tall Hisban is a case in point. An initial reaction of some was to suggest that Late Bronze-Early IronHeshbon may be representedby some other ruin nearby, perhaps TallJall.8 This notion seems to have lost momentum, however, as three other factors also have taken a toll on the Albrightian reconstruction of early Israelite history and Glueck's conclusions in particular. First, archaeological methodology has come a long way since the 1930s when Glueck surveyed the southern Trans-

Preliminary"on-site"sorting of sherds.Onlyabout ten percent of sherdscollected from the surfaceare useful for diagnosticpurposes. The others are discardedat the site.

jordan, with the result that archaeologists working in the region now are much more cautious about drawing historical conclusions from limited archaeological evidence. Most archaeologists would be less confident now, for example, then when Albrightidentified "Moabitepottery"at Karak in 1924, about assigning ethnic labels to pottery styles. Likewise, contemporary archaeologists are much more cautious than Glueck about assigning specific dates to the occupation of sites on the basis of surface sherds, especially in southern Transjordanwhere there have been so few excavated sites to provide ceramic control. Consequently, while it does seem clear that there was a significant decrease in the number of settlements on the Moabite plateau during the Middle and LateBronzeAges, this may have been more of a gradual trend than a distinctive gap; and it is not at all clear that the trend or gap ended with a surge of resettlementduring specifically the thirteenth century. Second, recent trends in literary analysis and historical studies have led many contemporary biblical scholars to be equally cautious about drawing historical conclusions from details in the biblical narratives. The biblical account of the Israelite encounter with Sihon, for example, written long after the incident would have occurred, seems to have a political agenda. As observed above, it seeks to establish Israel's claim to northern Moab. Almost certainly the Moabites and Ammonites would have told the story differently (Miller 1989b). Third,anthropological and sociological studies warn that the political structuresof whatever early Moabite kingdom(s) existed during the Iron Age, especially during its opening centuries, probably were more complex than generally imagined. Randall Younker explores some of the ramifications of

recent anthropological and sociological researchin his contributionto this issue of BiblicalArchaeologist. There have also been new developments in the study of Moabitetoponymy, again with a trend toward more caution regarding some of the views that were firmly entrenched two decades ago. For example, the author has challenged Glueck'sproposalthatthe Hebrew found only in Num. phrase derekhamelek 20:17and 21:22be translatedas a proper noun, "The Kings Highway," and equated with the age-old, north-south route through the Transjordan(Miller 1982). Brian Jones and others have pointed out serious fallacies in the long acceptedequationof biblicalKir-haraseth with present-day Karak (Jones 1991). Andrew Dearman explores these and related matters in his discussion below of "Roads and Settlements in Moab." Clearly, we are in the early stages only of the archaeological exploration of ancient Moab. The past two decades have witnessed a renewed interest in the region, however, and there is an increasing momentum in its exploration. In anticipation of discoveries ahead, this issue of BiblicalArchaeologistincludes reportsfrom the directorsof two of the newest archaeological projects in Moab after the first field season: Michdle Daviau's reports on the Khirbat al-Mudayna excavation and G. L. Mattingly reports on the Karak Regional Project.As these and other such projectscontinue to produce new information, we can expect an on-going and lively discussion regarding ancient Moab.

Notes I Forcitationsof referencesto Moabin ancientnon-biblicalsources,see Miller1989a. 2The dates in parentheses indicate when these travellers passed through Moab. The bibliography at the end of this article provides dates for theirpublishedreports. 3Palestine: FromtheSurveysConducted ExplofortheCommittee ofthePalestine rationFundandotherSources(London,1890). 4The dates in parentheses indicate when these travellers passed throughthe regioneast of the Dead Sea. Thebibliographyat the end of this articleprovidesdates for theirpublishedreports. 5Also, in additionto these sites, therewere otheroccasionaldiscoveries relevantto the IronAge. Excavationsduringthe mid-1930sin the upper (Byzantine)levels at Khirbetel-Mukhaiyet(usuallyidentifiedas the site of the town of Nebo mentionedin the MeshaInscription)producedsome sherdsfromthe IronAge (Sallerand Bagatti1949).Twotombsdiscovered at Madaba(ancientMedeba)in the processof constructionproducedartifactsdatingto roughlytheend of LateBronzeAge andearlyIronI (Harding 1953;Piccirillo1975).Mentionshouldbe made also of occasionalexcursions into northernMoabby membersof the DeutschesEvangelisches

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des HeiligenLandes,viz.,Noth,Kuschke, InstitutfiirAltertumswissenschaft Donner,Stoebe,and Weippert.SeeMiller1992:79.Primarilyinterestedin historicalgeography,they sherded a numberof sites and made useful observationsregardingMoabitetoponymy. 6Severalarchaeological ruinseastof theDeadSeaarecalledlocally"Khirbet el-Medeineh,"which means "littlecity ruin"in Arabic.Thishas led to someconfusionin secondarysources,a confusionwhichis furthercomplicatedby the factthat"Medeineh"has been transliteratedin to English in various ways (Medeiyineh,Mdeineh, Mudayna,etc.). Forclarification and bibliography,see Miller1990.Routledgeconductedsoundings at Glueck'sKh.el-Medeiyinehsite# 141;Daviauis excavatingat Glueck's Kh.el-Medeiyinehsite # 68. 7Albright'sand Crowfoot'ssoundings at Adir and BalC respectively seemed to supportGlueck's"occupationalgap" hypothesis.Albright's soundingsproducedremainsprimarilyfromEarlyBronzethroughwhat he called MBI and dated 2000-1800 BCE, although at one spot he also uncoveredsome IronIIsherds(Albright1934).CrowfootuncoveredIron Age remainsat two of his probes,includinga casematewall at one of them which he dated to Iron I (Crowfoot 1934).However, neither Albright norCrowfootfoundmaterialsfromthetimeof thesupposedoccupational gap.

Briinnow,R. E., and Domaszewski,A. ArabiaaufGrundZweierin denJahren1897und1898 1904-9 DieProvincia unter-nommenen ReisenundderBerichtefriiherer Reisender. 3 vols. Strassburg:KarlJ.Triibner. Burckhardt, J. in SyriaandtheHolyLand,editedby WilliamMartinLeake, 1822 Travels for the Associationfor Promotingthe Discoveryof the Interior Partsof Africa.London:JohnMurray. Conder,C. R. 1889 TheSurveyof EasternPalestine.London:The Committeeof the PalestineExplorationFund. Crowfoot,J.W. FundQuarterly 1934 An Expeditionto BilfiCah.PalestineExploration Statement:76-84. Dearman,J.A., ed. andMoab.Archaeologyand Bib1989 Studiesin theMeshaInscription lical Studies2. Atlanta:ScholarsPress.

C.M. Doughty,

1888 Travelsin ArabiaDeserta.2 vols. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity. Fischer,H., and Guthe,H. 1890 NeueHandkartevon Pallistina.ImMassstabevon 1:700000nebst 8Fora summaryof the variousproposedsolutionsto the apparentconNamenverzeichnisseund Quellennachweis. alphabetischen Leipzig: flictbetween the biblicalaccountof Israel'sencounterwith King Sihon & Debes. (Themap itself was publishedthe same year Wagner see Geraty1994and Dearand the archaeologicalfindingsat TallIHisban, in Zeitschrift desDeutschenPaldstina-Vereins 13:65). man's articleon "Roadsand Settlementsin Moab"in this issue of BA. L. T. Geraty, Upon restudy of the TallHIisbanpottery, James Sauer suggests that 1994 WhyWeDug at TellHesban.Pp. 39-52 in Hesban: After25 Years, theremay be some ceramicevidencefor pre-twelfthcenturysettlement edited by D. Merling and L. T. Geraty.BerrienSprings, MI: at the site afterall (Sauer1994). AndrewsUniversity. L. Geraty, T.et al. Bibliography 1986 MadabaPlainsProject:A PreliminaryReportof the 1984Season at Tellel- Umeiriand Vicinity.Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof Albright,W.F. 1924 The ArchaeologicalResults of an Expeditionto Moab and the OrientalResearch Supp.24:117-44. Dead Sea. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 1988 The MadabaPlains Project:A PreliminaryReporton the First 14:1-12. seasonat Tellel-Umeiriand Vicinity.AnnualoftheDepartment of 1934 Soundings at Ader:A BronzeAge City in Moab.Bulletinof the AntiquitiesofJordan32:187-99. 53:13-18. AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 1989 MadabaPlains Project:The 1987Season at Tellel-Umeiriand 1935 Archaeologyand the Dateof the HebrewConquestof Palestine. 33:145-76. ofJordan ofAntiquities Vicinity.AnnualoftheDepartment 58:10-18. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch N. 1937 FurtherLighton theHistoryof IsraelfromLachishandMegiddo. Glueck, in Eastern Palestine 1934 I.Annualof theAmericanSchools Explorations 68:22-26. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 14. ASOR. Oriental Research New Haven: of 1939 The IsraeliteConquestof Canaanin the Lightof Archaeology. of theAmericanSchools in Eastern Palestine Annual 1935 II. Explorations 74:11-23. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch of OrientalResearch15. New Haven:ASOR. Bienkowski,P.ed. in Eastern Palestine 1939 Explorations IlI.Annualof theAmericanSchools 1992 EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAge in Southern of OrientalResearch18/19:60-138.New Haven:ASOR. in EasternPalestineIV,Parts1 and2. Annual of the 1951 Explorations Jordan.SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R. Collis. AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch25-28.New Haven:ASOR 1970 TheOtherSideof theJordan.Cambridge,MA:AmericanSchools Bliss,F.J. of OrientalResearch. 1895 Narrativeof an Expeditionto Moaband Gileadin March1895. FundQuarterlyStatement:203-34. PalestineExploration Harding.G. L. Fund 1953 An EarlyIronAge Tombat Madaba.PalestineExploration Boraas,R. S. and Geraty,L. T. Annual6:27-33. 1976 Heshbon1974.AndrewsUniversityMonographs:Studiesin Religion 9. BerrienSprings,MI:Andrews University. Herr,L. G. et al. 1978 Heshbon1976.AndrewsUniversityMonographs:Studiesin Reli1991 MadabaPlains Project:The 1989Excavationsat Tellel-Umeiri gion 10. BerrienSprings,MI:AndrewsUniversity. and Vicinity.Annualof the Departmentof Antiquitiesof Jordan 35:155-80. Boraas,R. S. and Horn,S. H. PlainsProject:The 1992Excavationsat Tellel-Umeiri, 1994 Madaba 1975 Heshbon1973.AndrewsUniversityMonographs:Studiesin ReliTell and Vicinity.Annualof theDepartment Jalul, ofAntiquitiesof MI: Andrews Berrien 8. Springs, University. gion Jordan38:147-72. Brown,R. M. Hill, G. 1989 Excavations in the 14th Century A.D. Mamluk Palace at 1891 With the Beduins.A Narrativeof Journeysand Adventuresin Kerak.Annualof theDepartment of AntiquitiesofJordan33:287Partsof Syria.London:T.FisherUnwin. Unfrequented 304.

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1896 A JourneyEastof Jordanand the Dead Sea,1895.PalestineExplorationFundQuarterlyStatement:24-46. D. Homes-Fredericq, 1992 LateBronzeand IronAge Evidence from Lehun in Moab. Pp. 187-202in EarlyEdomandMoab:The Beginningof theIronAge in SouthernJordan,edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield ArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J.R. Collis.

Morton,W. 1955 Reportof the Directorof the Schoolin Jerusalem.Bulletinof the AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 140:4-7. 1957 Dhiban.RevueBiblique64:221-23. Moulton,W.J. 1928 TheAmericanPalestineExplorationSociety.AnnualoftheAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 8:55-69.

Musil,A. Hornstein,A. 2 vols. FundQuarterly 1907-8 ArabiaPetraea. KaiserlicheAdademiederWissenschaften. 1898 A Visitto Kerakand Petra.PalestineExploration Wein:AlfredH61der. Statement:94-103. Olvarri, E. Horsfield,G., and Vincent,L.-H. 1965 Sondagesa Ar6ersur 1'Arnon.RevueBiblique72:77-94. 1932 Chronique:Une stele gypto-Moabiteau Baloua.RevueBiblique 1969 Fouillesa Ar6ersur l'Arnon.RevueBiblique76:230-59. 41:417-44. 1977-8 SondeoArquelogicoen KhirbetMedeinehjuntoa Smakieh(JorR. Ibach, dania).AnnualoftheDepartment ofAntiquities ofJordan22:136-49. 1978 ExpandedSurveyof the HesbanRegion.Pp.201-213in Heshbon 1983LaCampagnede fouilles 1982a KhirbetMedeinetal-Muarradjeh 1976.Andrews UniversityMonographs:Studies in Religion9. pros de Smakieh(Kerak).Annualof theDepartmentof AntiquiBerrienSprings,MI:AndrewsUniversity. tiesofJordan27:165-78. and the Sites Hesban 1987 Archaeological Region:Catalogueof Surveyof Characterizations Palmer,E. H. of Periods.Hesban5, edited by L. T.Geratyand 1871 The Desert of the Tih and the Country of Moab. Palestine 0. S. LaBianca.BerrienSprings,MI:AndrewsUniversity. FundQuarterlyStatement:3-73. Exploration Jones,B. 1991 In Searchof Kir-hereseth:A Case Study in Site Identification. Parker,S. T. a Historyof theArabianFrontier. American 52:3-24. 1986 RomansandSaracens: Journal for theStudyof theOldTestament Schoolsof OrientalResearchDissertationSeries6. WinonaLake, and C. Mangles,J. Irby, L., IN: Eisenbrauns. 1823 Travelsin EgyptandNubia,SyriaandAsiaMinor;DuringtheYears S. 1817and1818.2nd ed. London:JohnMurray. Parker, T.,ed. 1987 TheRomanFrontierin CentralJordan.InterimReporton theLimes Koucky,F.L. Arabicus Project, 1980-85. 2 vols. British Archaeological in 1 vol. The Roman FronThe Environment. 11-40 1987a of Pp. Regional ReportsInternationalSeries340.Oxford:BAR. tier in CentralJordan,edited by S. T.Parker.BARInternational Series340. Oxford:BritishArchaeologicalReports. Piccirillo,M. 1975 Una Tombadel FerroI a Madaba.LiberAnnus25:199-224. 1987B Surveyof the LimesZone.Pp.41-106in Vol.1 of TheRomanFrontier in CentralJordan,edited by S. T. Parker.BARInternational Reed,W.L. Series340.Oxford:BritishArchaeologicalReports. 1972 The ArchaeologicalHistory of Elealeh in Moab.Pp. 18-28 in Studieson theAncientPalestinianWorld,edited by J.W.Wevers Libby,W.and Hoskins,F E. and D. B. Redford.Toronto:Universityof Toronto. 1905 TheJordanValleyandPetra.2 vols. New York:G. P.Putnam'sSons. Routledge,B. Mattingly,G. L. 1996 The RaceagainstProgressin CentralJordan.BiblicalArchaeolo- 1995a PillaredBuildingsin IronAge Moab.BiblicalArchaeologist:236. 1995b Settlementand Productionat KhirbetMedeinetAlyia, Jordan. gist 59:69. Reportsubmittedat the annualAmericanSchools of Oriental Merrill,S. Researchmeeting,Nov. 16-21, Philadelphia. 1881 Eastof theJordan.New York:CharlesScribner'sSons. S. Saller, J.and Bagatti,B. Miller,J.M. 1949 witha BriefSurveyofOther The TownofNebo(Khirbet el-Mekhayyat), 1982 RecentArchaeologicalDevelopmentsRelevantto AncientMoab. AncientMonumentsin Transjordan. Jerusalem. in Studies in the and 169-73 I, Jordan Pp. History Archaeology of edited by A. Hadidi.Amman:Departmentof Antiquitiesof Jor- Sauer,J.A. dan. 1994 The Potteryat Hesban and Its Relationshipsto the History of 1989a Moaband Moabites.Pp. 1-40 in Studiesin theMeshaInscription Jordan:An InterimHesbanPotteryReport,1993.Pp. 225-81 in andMoab,edited by J. A. Dearman.Archaeologyand Biblical Hesban:After25 Years,edited by D. Merling and L. T.Geraty. Studies2. Atlanta:ScholarsPress. BerrienSprings,MI:AndrewsUniversity. 1989b The IsraeliteJourneyThrough(Around?)Moab and Moabite F. Saulcy, de 108:577-95. Toponymy.Journalof BiblicalLiterature 1853 Voyageautourde la MerMorteet dansles TerresBibliques. exdcute 1990 Six Khirbetel-Medeinehs in the Region East of the Dead Sea. deDecembre 1850& Avril1851,2 vols. Paris:Gide et J. Baudry. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 276:28. 1992 EarlyMonarchyin Moab?Pp. 77-91 in EarlyEdomandMoab:The Seetzen,U. J. editedby P.Bienkowski. 1854-55ReisendurchSyrien,Paldstina,Ph6nicien,die Transjordan-Ldnder, Jordan, oftheIronAgein Southern Beginning ArabiaPetraeaund UnterAegypten,ed. Fr.Kruse,et al. 3 vols. SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R. Collis. Berlin:G. Reimer.Vol.4 = Commentare zu UlrichJasperSeetzen's n. d. Burckhardt-Robinson Featuresin NineteenthCenturyMaps of ReisendurchSyrienU.S.W.,edited by Fr.Kruse,et al. Berlin:G. the KerakPlateau.JamesA. SauerFestschrift.(Inpress.) Reimer. Miller,J.M. ed. Smith,G. A. 1991 Archaeological Surveyof theKerakPlateau.AmericanSchools of 1904-5 The RomanRoadbetween Kerakand Madeba.PalestineExploOrientalResearch.Atlanta:ScholarsPress. rationFundQuarterlyStatement1904:367-77;1905:39-48.

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Tristram,H. B. 1873 TheLandofMoab:Travels andDiscoveries on theEastSideoftheDead SeaandtheJordan.New York:Harper. Tushingham,A. D. 1972 The Excavationsat Dibon (Dhiban)in Moab:The ThirdCamSchoolofOrientalResearch paigan1952-53AnnualoftheAmerican 40. Cambridge,MA:ASOR. 1990 DhibanReconsidered:KingMeshaand His Works.Annualofthe Department of AntiquitiesofJordan34:183-92. VanZyl, A. H. 1960 TheMoabites.PretoriaOrientalSeries3. Leiden:E.J.Brill. Ward,W.A. and Martin,M. F 1964 TheBaluaStele:A New Transcription with Palaeographical and HistoricalNotes.Annualof theDepartment ofAntiquities ofJordan 8-9:5-35. Warmanbol,E. 1983 Lastele de Rugmel-Abd.Levant15:63-75. Winnett,F V.and Reed,W.L. 1964 The Excavationsat Dibon (Dhiban) in Moab.Annual of the AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch36-37. Cambridge,MA: AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch. Worschech,Udo F 1985a NorthwestArd el-Kerak1983and 1984:A PreliminaryReport. Notizen(Beiheft2). Munchen:ManfredGorg. Biblische 1985b PreliminaryReporton the ThirdSurvey Season in the Northwest Ard el-Kerak,1985.Annualof theDepartment of Antiquities ofJordan29:161-73. Worschech,Udo F, Rosenthal,U., and Zayadine,F 1986 The FourthSurveySeasonin the North-westardel-Kerak,and ofAntiquities Soundingsat Balu1986.Annualof theDepartment ofJordan30:285-309. 1989 PreliminaryReporton the SecondCampaignat theAncientSite of el-Baluin 1991.Annualof theDepartment ofAntiquitiesofJordan33:111-21. Worschech,Udo E, and Ninow, F 1992 PreliminaryReporton the ThirdCampaignat the Ancientsite of el-Baluin 1991.Annualof theDepartment of AntiquitiesofJordan 36: 167-74 (=Annual of the Departmentof Antiquities of Jordan38 [1994]195-203). MaxMilleris Professor of HebrewBiblein Emory University'sCandlerSchool of Theologyand former directorof Emory'sPh.D. programin Religion.He has participatedin several archaeologicalexcavationsin Israel,Jordan,and Syria. During1978--83,he directed a comprehensive archaeologicalsurveyof the centralMoabiteplateau,the resultsof which are publishedin Archaeological Surveyof theKerakPlateau(1991).Authorof numerousarticlesand severalbooks pertainingto the historyand archaeologyof biblical and times,Milleris perhapsbest known for his TheOldTestament theHistorian(1976)and A HistoryofAncientIsraelandJudah(1986), whichhe co-authoredwith JohnHayes.

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By J.AndrewDearman

Roadsin Moab In the Roman and Byzantine periods, greater Moab

AND had a few well-documented roads, some of which were paved OFROADWAYS BYTALK NOT BEFOOLED NESHOULD cities in ancient Moab, as if the region were highly urbanized in antiquity. What impresses the modem visitor to the region is the combination of grain farming and sheep/goat husbandry. During most ancient periods, an observer would have received a similar impression. Of course, Moab was more heavily settled during some periods than others. Early Bronze III-IV,Iron Age II, and the Roman-Byzantine era supported a relatively high population density. During the Middle Bronze and Ottoman periods, permanent settlements were rare, particularlyon the centralplateau.In additionto its urbansettlements, ancient Moab had quite a number of "outposts"-walled sites in more remote areas. These outpost sites varied in size, strength, and function. They were used for regional security, communication, storage (?), and care of flocks. N. Glueck interpreted them to be "borderfortresses"and characterized them as a distinguishing mark of a Moab state that had emerged already in Iron Age I (1934:62-66). He was quite right to consider them a distinguishing mark of the region, but probably wrong in attributing them to an early IronAge Moabite administration (Miller 1992).

and used engraved milestones (for bibliography, see Timm 1989:179-216). If we begin with consideration of the Roman road system, it will be easier then to speak about possible predecessorsduring the Bronzeand IronAges (Mittmann 1982; Redford 1982; Worschech and Knauf 1985; Dearman 1989:189-96; 1990; Krahmalkov 1994). In the Roman period, a road crossed Carbotmo ab ("the plains of Moab," Num 22:1;33:48), connecting Jericho west of the JordanRiver with Esbus (TallHisb n) on the northern Moabite plateau. Livias (most likely Tall er-Ramah) on the eastern side of the Jordanvalley was a prominent stop. During the Byzantineperiod, pilgrims came to the plains of Moab to visit the traditional site where John the Baptist performed his ministry. From there, some would continue up to the northern Moabite plateau (biblical mfior [Josh 13:9 and Jer Aerialview of the Wadial-MOjib.Biblicaltexts mention a "King's Highway"that traversedthis colossal ravine.Itwould have been the predecessorof the via nova Traianathat crossedthe canyon south of Dhibanand whose path the modern road follows. Photograph courtesyof R.Cleave.

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48:21]) to the traditional sites of Mount Nebo (Ras Siyagah, west of Jabal en-Neba) and the springs of Moses (cAyun Musa), both located just south of Hisban. One predecessor of this Roman period route across the plains of Moab was known as "the way of BethJeshimoth"(Josh12:3);Jeshimoth is to be identified with present-day Tall al-cAzeime. The emperor Trajancommissioned a north-south road through the Transjordan, which was completed early in the second century CE.A segment of this road, called the Via nova Traiana("Trajan'sNew Road"), bisected greater Moab from Hisban to the Wadi al-Hasa. With some variation, the modern road from Madaba to the Wadi al-Hasa follows the route set out by Trajan'sengineers. VianovaTraianacrossed the massive Wadial-Majibcanyon almost due south of Dhiban and emerged on the centralplateau near the Mahattet al-.Ijj ruin. From there it went through Qasr and Rabbah, passed east of Karak,and eventually began its descent into the Wadi al-IHasacanyon.At intervalsalong the highway,roadsbranched to the east and west. One branchwent east from Madaba and turned south to Umm er-Rasas(as does a modem road). Further south, on the central plateau, there was a branch from Qasr and er-Rabbato the southwest (no modem paved road approximates these routes), and apparently another from Mauta to the southwest (see the modem road from Mauta to Kathrabba).Both of these branches made their way eventually to the Dead Sea. Trajan'sroute and several of its branches had their predecessors. Numbers 20:17 and 21:22 refer to "the King's Highway" or to "royal roads" (depending on one's translation of derekhammelek;Miller 1989:12)which, if "the King's Highway" translation is preferred, may have been a northsouth route through Moab--i.e., predecessor to Trajan'sroad. The King'sHighway would not have been a paved road with milestones, however, and probably it offered travellerssome optional trails. During the IronAge, for example, there were at least two north-south routes through the northern plateau and two corresponding walled settlements ("checkpoints") on the northern rim of the Miajibcanyon (the Amon Riverof ancienttimes).One of these checkpointswas at CAraCir (ancientAroer), the other at Lehin. From Madaba, therefore, one could travel south via present-day Libb and Dhiban (ancient Aroer), or via Khirbat (ancient Dibon) to CAraCir er-Rumeil (an Iron Age fortified outpost) and Umm er-Rasas (ancient Mephaath) to Lehin. Continuing south from either 'Ara'ir or Lehan, one crossed the Mijib to Khirbat al-Bal•'c (biblical"Arof Moab"?cf. Miller 1989:590-95),anothercheckpoint located on a major tributary of the Miajib (Smith 1915:no.29-30; Horsfield and Vincent 1932:418). In this context it is important to recall that Mesha claims to have built (or rebuilt)Aroer and the highway in the Arnon (Mesha Inscription, line 26). A glance at the map shows that the Iron Age crossings of the Majib were east of that used by the Roman road.

Citiesand Settlements Fortunately for the investigator, the present-day Arabic 206

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gorgewelleastof the vianovaTraiana. names of several sites in the plains of Moab and on the northem plateau are cognate with the names of ancient settlements known from written sources. These sites exist now in various forms-as a "tall" ("tell"; mound or hill), a "Khirbat" ("Khirbet")or "Rujm"(a ruin), a "Jabal"("Jebel";mountain), or as a modem settlementcovering the ancientremains.Actually, there are few true tells in Moab, especially south of the Majib. There are quite a number of sites in the region whose modem Arabicnames arereminiscentof ancientnames that the Hebrew Bible associates with this same region. Several of them are mentioned also in the Mesha Inscription. The identification of these modem sites with the ancient places bearing corresponding names would seem a virtual certainty. Yet questions remain in a few cases, as with the connection between TallIHisbanand biblical Heshbon (Geraty 1983;Boling 1988;H. C. Schmitt1988;Knauf 1990;Lemaire 1992). The problem is that the occupational levels of Tall

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Hisban as identified by the excavatorsof the site do not match the expectations generated by the biblical narratives regarding Heshbon. Namely, one would assume from Numbers 21:21-30 that Heshbon was an active urban site during the Late Bronze Age, the capital of Sihon's kingdom. However, excavations at TallHisban produced no Late Bronze remains, only modest evidence for IronAge I occupation, and a more substantial settlement from Iron II. Some scholars have suggested, therefore, that Late Bronze Age Heshbon, Sihon's capital, was some other site-perhaps Jalil, the nearest Late Bronzesite of consequence-and that the name latermigrated to Tall Hisban. This is possible; names do occasionally shift from one place to another over time. In the case of Heshbon, however, such a name shift seems unlikely. Jaltl, the nearest possible candidate (five kilometers east of Madaba), is too far from Tall Hisban to posit a name migration. Thus we are left with at least three other possibilities: (1) The biblical referencesto Sihon's capital at Heshbon may be legendary and unhistorical. (2) The name Heshbon may have referred

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originally to the region and only secondarily to the settlement. (3) There may have been a modest, unwalled, Late Bronze Age settlement at Tall Hisban which the excavators missed. Not only is the location of biblical Heshbon open to question, but also its political affiliation during the Iron Age. Clearly, it was a frontier settlement in an area claimed by the Moabites, Ammonites, and Israelites. Was it primarily a Moabitecity or an Ammonite city (Hubner1988;Lemaire 1992; cf. Isa 15:4, 16:9;Jer48:34, 45; Jer 49:3)? Nebo and Beth/Baal Peor, apparently located near each other in the northwest quadrantof the northernplateau, are two other sites whose recorded history raises intriguing questions. The Iron Age settlement of Nebo probably is to be identified with either Khirbat Mukhayet (ca. 2.5 km southeast of Ras Siyagah) or KhirbatCAyunMusa (at the head of the wadi which marks Ras Siyagah on the north). The Mesha Inscription(lines 14-18) implies that Nebo had a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of YHWH the God of Israel;at least this seems to be the inference of Mesha's claim that he dragged "the [ves]sels of YHWH" from Nebo. Somewhere nearby is Beth Peor (Num 25:1-6;Deut 4:46,34; 6; Hos 9:10), whose deity (Baal) "seduced" the Israelites. Beth Peor is best located near CAyun Musa, either at the springs BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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themselves or on the hill immediately to the north (Mattingly 1992;Cross 1988:50-52).Nebo and Beth Peor may have supported rival cults during the Iron Age, but untangling their relationship is difficult. It may have been the sort of rivalry one encounters in border areas, perhaps like that proposed by A. Alt (1935) for the tension at Mount Carmel between Israelite "YHWH"and a Phoenician Baal. If so, one can only speculate whether the Baal of Peor, "YHWH's"rival, was a local deity (a manifestation of the cosmic weather god?) or an appellative of Kemosh. Another possibility is that the that the indictment of Beth Peor in Numbers and Hosea was a veiled accusation against a variation Yahwism practiced in (the region of) Nebo and which the biblical writers deemed heterodox. Sites of the Mesha Inscription The Mesha Inscription, dating from the mid-ninth centuryBCE, reportsthatthe MoabiteKingMeshagained autonomy from the Omride Dynasty ruling in Samaria and recovered territory on the plateau north of Dibon. At the beginning of Mesha's reign, the Omrides apparently controlled the majority of the northern plateau. The places Mesha claims to have recovered were Madaba, Beth Baal Meon (Macin), Qiryaten (el-Qureiye, biblical Qiriathaim; Kuschke 1967), Nebo (KhirbatMukhayet or Khirbat cAyun Musa), CAtarot (Khirbat(tartis), Jahaz,Aroer (Khirbat(Aracir), BethDiblaten (biblical Beth Diblathaim), Beth Bamoth, and Bezer.In addition, Mesha claims to have carried out building projects in and Dibon (his "homebase"or capital).Qarho is probably the royal quarter of Dibon. With the possible Qarh.o/Qarhah exception of Qarho (Easterly 1991;Smelik 1992:85-89),all of these places mentioned in the Mesha Inscription are mentioned also in the Hebrew Bible.It is safe to conclude,therefore, that they comprise the primary "permanent"settlements on the plateau in the ninth century BCE, with most or all of them possessing a city wall. Only Aroer and Dibon have been (partially) excavated;both sites possessed a city wall by the ninth century,as well as at least two distinguishableIronAge strata. With the exception of Dibon, none of these places find mention in ancient written sources outside of the Mesha Inscription and the Hebrew Bible. Nevertheless, all of them can be identified reasonably or certainly, except for Jahaz, BethBamoth,BethDiblathaim,and Bezer.Of these four exceptions, Jahazis best known in the Hebrew Bible.According to Num 21:21-24, Sihon and his army came out from Heshbon (presumably Tall Hisban; see above) to fight the Israelites at Jahaz. Another account of the battle occurs in Deut 2:26-33, which assumes Jahaz lies between Kedemoth and Heshbon. The identification of Jahaz is complicated, however, by the difficulty of reconstructingthe itinerariesfor the Israelite wilderness wanderings (Miller 1989b;Dearman 1989:171-74; Smelik 1992:74-79).Does the itinerarypass through Moabite territory or not? The question concerns more than historical analysis; there are also questions concerning sources underlying the biblicalaccounts,traditionanalysis and whether--in spite of conclusions regarding these other issues--any of the texts conveys accurate topographical information. 208

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A TallHisbfn preservesthe name of ancient Heshbon,but its archaeologicalprofile does not squarewith the biblicalnarrative. Apartfrom an unlikelyname migration,historicalgeographers must decide if the biblicalreferencesare fictional,the excavation unreliable,or the ancient name more regionalthan localized. PhotographcourtesyM. Miller.

V JabalNebo, visible from TallHisban,preservesthe name of ancient Nebo known from both the HebrewBibleand the Mesha Inscription.Contendersfor the IronAge site include Kh.Mukhayet and Kh.CAyunMusa.PhotographcourtesyM. Miller.

Geographers usually place Kedemoth in the southeast corner of the northern Moabite plateau, to the east or northeast of the Mtjib. Does Deut 2:26-33 reflectgeographical accuracy in placing Jahaz between Heshbon and the eastern reaches of the Majib,or does this literarydescriptionof Israelencamped to the southeast of the Moabite represent a garbled text with untrustworthy geographical information?Scholars disagree on the matter; some search for the site of ancient Jahaz along the major route from Dhiban to Hisban; others search further east and closer to the wilderness area. Another factor is vital to determine Jahaz's location. According to the Mesha Inscription(lines 18-19), the Israelite king fortified Jahaz against Mesha. CAtarotwas similarly described(line 11).Since CAtarot(present-dayKhirbat'cAtaais) is securely located to the northwest of Dhiban on the north

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from the Iron Age. Both exhibit clear indications of perimeter walls. Khirbat er-Rumeil,also a good candidate, is a relatively well preserved with visible evidence outpost/fortress, of a perimeter wall and central tower; its surface sherds are almost exclusively ' Iron Age. The ruins of cAliya are subbut they also are the most stantial, i ????• ?? ?•?• !. ? ? nondescript of the four. The casefor Mudaynais the strongest of the four candidates in terms of size, suggested strength of its perimeterwall lines, and location in the eastern section of the northern plateau. There are two 2 5 smaller,fortified outposts nearby:Khirbat Heri to the north and Khirbat er-Rumeil to the south. These outposts would have been crucial to Mudayna; it is set in a bend of Wadi ath-Thamad and, thus, would have required lookout stations for reconnaissance. CAtarot/Khirbat CAtars also had a small on the tower/outpost (Rujm cAttarras) watershed ridge to its north. One should look for this pattern in identifying other Moab settlements, including possible sites for Luhith and Horonaim (see below). Perhaps the whole mid-eastern section of the northern Moabite plateau was known as Jahaz, while Mudayna, as the largest site in the section, also bore that name. One may observe a similar phenomenon in the Mesha Inscription with its references to the "land of Madaba," the "land of Ataroth,"and "allDibon" (lines 7-8,10,28). Khirbat Attaris and Mudayna are on an east-west axis, which may add furthersupportfor the identificationof Jahazwith Mudaynai.e., everything north of the Wadi Hedan/Wadi Wala/Wadi Rumeil/Wadi ath-Thamad line would have been controlled by Israel,while the opposite side of this frontierwas Moabite. It is a stimulatingintellectualexerciseto weigh the options for the location of Jahaz, but we must admit that the proposals are only informed guesses. This is all the more true of attempts to identify BethDiblathaim (Jer48:22),Beth Bamoth, and Bezer. There are no particularly convincing candidate sites for Beth Diblathaim, which probably is to be identified with biblicalAlmon Diblathaim(Num 33:46).BethBamoth means "house of the high place(s)" and suggests a site with one or more temples or worship centers. Likely it is the same site as biblical Bamoth [Baal] (Num 21:19;Josh 13:17); the vague description of its location may imply a site near Madaba and the plains of Moab (Khirbatet-Teim southwest of Madaba? or a site near Nebo and Beth Peor?). The term bsr in Hebrew (from which the Moabite and biblical name Bezer is derived) is used to describe high walls, inaccessible sites, and fortified cities. According to the Mesha Inscription, both Beth Bamoth and Bezer had been in ruins and were rebuilt by Mesha. The significance of this notice is not 1: :

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Candidatesites for Jahaz.Jahaz must have been located somewhat east of cAtArosFAtarot and north of DhibAn/Dibon.Mudaynaon Wadi ath-Thamadhas the most going for it in terms of overall prominence,but the name Jahazmay have been first and foremost a regional appellation.

side of the Wadi Hedan/Wadi Wala, one probably should look for a fortified Iron Age site east of Atarot and north of Dibon. Only excavation can provide persuasive evidence to date fortifications,and so in the absence of excavation, we must be cautious in drawing conclusion. Nevertheless, there are candidates for Jahaz east of cAtarot/Khirbat and The best candidate on from At.rTis Dhiban the road Dibon/Dhiban. to Madaba-the choice of Miller and Smelik-is Libb.Unfortunately for the topic at hand, Libb is today a thriving village that covers whatever ancient ruins exist. If KhirbatLibb was a fortified site during the Iron Age, it is hard to escape the conclusion that it would have been one of the sites named in the Mesha Inscription.Moreover,for strategic reasons, the Israelites would have needed to occupy Libb along with CAtarotin order to controlDibon. Thus Libbis indeed a strong candidate for Jahaz. There are several candidates to consider for a limited list. Scholars (including the present writer) who are inclined to search for the site of Jahaz further to the east, include only those sites whose surface remains suggest a high probability of substantial Iron Age occupation. (Other candidates might not have such visible remains.) They would include, moving from south to north,'Aliyah, Khirbater-Rumeil,Khirbat al-Mudayna on the Thamad, and Jalil. Of these four, Mudayna and Jaloflare large sites with dense sherd scatters

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Mudaynaon Wadiath-Thamad,one of at least six sites in the region east of the Dead Sea which bear the name Mudayna(Medeiniyeh; Arabicfor "littlecity").PhotographcourtesyM. Miller.

KhirbatHeri,may have served as an outpost for the more prominent site of Mudaynaon Wadiath-Thamad.SinceMudaynais located at a bend in the wadi and sits at a lower elevation than surroundinghills, it would surelyhave requiredsuch "lookouts"for its defense. PhotographcourtesyM. Miller.

clear,but it suggests that neither site was fortified (and hence highly populated) at Mesha's accession, but that both were well-known places on the northern plateau with prior settlement history. According to the Hebrew Bible, Bezer was part of Reuben's inheritance, a city of refuge in the wilderness/steppe land (midbar)of the misor and a Levitical city with pasture land (osh 20:8,21:36).One would expect a site used for asylum to be a walled settlement. Since Mesha does not otherwise name places north of the Nebo/Madaba/Jalwfl line (e.g. Heshbon or Elealeh),perhaps the strong site of Jalfl is the best candidate for Bezer. A number of scholars have proposed Umm al-cAmad north of Jalal and east of Elealeh (present-day el-CAl).While it is a possibility, this sites seems too far north to qualify as Moabite (Hubner 1992:141-44). Mephaath, yet another site on the northern plateau, has been the subject of recent discussion. Scholars often have equated Mephaath with Tall Jawa east of Tall al-'Umayri (Elitzer 1989; Kallai 1993). Tall Jawa is a significant Iron Age site with a ruin nearby known as Khirbat Nefa; some have surmised that this last named ruin preserves a form of the Moabite name. However, the recent excavation of a Byzantine church at Umm er-Rasas (thirteen kilometers east of Dhiban) revealed a dedicatoryinscriptionthat favors Umm er-Rasas itself as the site of Mephaath (Piccirillo and Attiyat 1986).The inscription refers to the inhabitants of CastronMephaa("Camp Mephaa" in Greek), so the excavators quite naturallyconcluded that Camp Mephaa was the ancient name of Umm er-Rasas. This identification finds additionalsupportin the factthat a largeNabatean/Roman fortress stood at Umm er-Rasas. Moreover, Eusebius comments in his Onomasticon(118:21)that Mephaath was the camp site of a Roman army near the desert. One cannotbe dogmatic about such matters, but Umm er-Rasasseems a more likely site for Moabite Mephaath than TallJawa,which seems too far north (Younker and Daviau 1993). Jawa is north of all the

identifiable sites mentioned in the Mesha Inscription and northof the line proposedby Hubneras the boundarybetween Moab and Ammon (Hubner 1992). The results of the excavations at Tall Dhiban make for interestingcomparisonwith referencesto Dibon in the Hebrew Bible and in Egyptian and Moabite texts. Mesha, for example, describeshimself as a "Dibonite"(lines 1-2).Archaeological remains indicate that the city underwent development and expansion during Iron II, but there are no clear correlations between these Iron II remains and the building projects reported by Mesha (Dearman 1989:171-74; Hubner 1990; Tushingham 1990). Moreover, the excavators did not find evidence of occupation during the Late Bronze Age, which one would expectfromEgyptianreferences(SeeU. Worschech's discussion of "Egyptand Moab"in this issue of BiblicalArchaeologist).How are these circumstancesto be explained?Possible explanations include: (1) The Egyptian reference is to some other site with a name similar to Dibon/Tall Dhiban. (2) Actually Mesha claims to have conducted a building program at Qarho/Qarhah, which scholars have taken to be the royal quarter in Dibon. Possibly Qarho/Qarhah was not part of Dibon, but some other place altogether.(3) Possibly the name Dibon applied more broadly than to TallDhiban, which itself has been excavated only partially. In short, the remains of Mesha's building activities may remain unexcavated and may even lie covered by the modern town situated on the hill south of the Tall Dhiban. (4) There are always questions to be raised regarding the literary sources. It is possible that the Egyptians, the biblical writers, or Mesha exaggerated their accomplishments or employed anachronisms. The CentralMoabite Plateau Not as much is known from biblical and Moabite sources about the settlements on the central plateau between Wadi al-Mfjib and Wadi al-Hasa. The majorityof interpretershave placed the biblical sites of Horonaim, Luhith, and

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Kir-haresethin this region-although without agreement on theirlocation,and this is where Nelson Glueck reportedmany of the "border fortresses" which he thought surrounded an early Iron Age Moabite state. Mesha's comment that Kemosh commanded him to go

A Ummer-Rasasis probablythe site of ancient Mephaath.This identificationappearsto have been confirmedby the recent discoveryof a dedicatoryinscriptionat the site. Photographcourtesy M. Miller.

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down and fight against Horonen (lines 31-32), coupled with the biblical notation that Luhith and probably Horonen/Horonaim (depending on one's interpretationof Isa 15:5) are associated with an ascent to Moabite territory,have led scholars to search for Luhith and Horonen/Horonaim on the southwestern slopes of the central plateau. Since none of the ancient sites in this area have been excavated, much of the discussion has to do with the ancient road system and evaluation of surface ruins and pottery. S. Mittmann (1982) traced a Roman road from Kathrabba via Wadi Esal to the Ghor, and thought that it had an Iron Age counterpart along which Luhithwas located. His own proposal for Luhith was KhirbatMedan, a strategichigh point west of Kathrabba, where there are ruins with IronAge II and Nabatean/Roman pottery. Mittmann was noncommittal about the location of Horonen/Horonaim. The present writer cautiously accepted his proposal to locate the ascent of Luhith along this route, and suggested CAi(a Semitic term for ruin), the neighbor village to Kathrabba, as the location of Horonaim (Dearman 1990). The modem settlement at cAi precludes much in the way of investigation, but the presence of a strong spring of water, a significant presence of potsherds from various periods, and its location along an ancient route, combine to make cAi a viable candidate. In fact, this area southwest of Karakalong the slopes of the plateau, supports three villages with over a thousand inhabitants each (Kathrabba,'Ai and CIrak),any one of which would be a candidatefor Luhithand/or Horonaim.Thereareseveral good springs of water on this section of the western slopes, and the small valleys which projectwest into the Ghor areintensely cultivated.Moreover,KhirbatMedan to the west of Kathrabba and Tall al-MWsehon the high point of the plateau west of Kathrabba appear ; from their surface remains to have been fortifiedoutpostswhich kept watch over these slopes during IronAge II and laterRoman/Nabateanperiod.FromTall al-Meseh (ca. 1240 m above sea level), one can see the Dead Sea to the west and at the same time keep an eye on traffic along the modern north-south road between Karak and the Wadi al-Hasa. This follows a pattern suggested above for primary settlements in Moab. Another proposal for Horonaim is the hilltop site of ed-Deir, southwest of er-Rabba and locatedalonganotherRoman period road which led from er-Rabba es to the Ghor (Worschech and Knauf kms 10; 1986:75-85).The profile of ed-Deir suggested by its surfacesherds is consistent with Iron Age and Nabatean/Roman occupation levels. Although ed-Deir is more isolated thanthe village sites noted above, it cannot be ruled out as a candidate for Moabite Horonaim. BiblicalArchaeologist60:4 (1997)

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Perhaps the most intriguing site on the central plateau is Karak,which also is its largest one. Set on a steep hill, Karak is dominated by a large,crusadercastle on the summit. Unfortunately for archeological research, the construction of the castle swept away most of the evidence of the previous occupation. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that the Iron Age inhabitants of Karak were quite sophisticated. A basalt panel from a sculpture depicting the rear portion of a lion was discovered in Karak.Just below the city, a limestone "proto-Aeolic" ("proto-Ionic") capital was found, reminiscent of those found in the royal building projects in Israel(e.g., Hazor) as well as al-MudaybiCon the eastern frontier of the centralplateau (Negueruela 1982).Finally,a second, fragmentaryMoabite inscription was discovered apparently in or near Karak (Reed and Winnett 1963). It is tempting to link this fragmentary inscription with Mesha's activities in Horonen and elsewhere on the central plateau, but the evidence is not decisive (Freedman 1964;Miller 1989:35). Even the Moabitename of Karakis disputed. Recentyears have enjoyeda virtualconsensus thatKarakshould be equated with Kir-hareseth, the Moabite stronghold of Mesha mentioned in 2 Kings 3. Two scholarsrecently(and independently) have questioned this identification (Jones 1991; Smelik 1992:85-90)as well as several conclusions often drawn about the historical context of 2Kgs 3. Their strongest point is that the name Karak (which goes back to the Aramaic word karkahmeaning fortress) is not necessarily a cognate of the Moabite term qir(which can mean city). The biblicalname Kir-haresethmay be a pun, "sherdcity,"on Qarhoh/Qarhah (the royal quarter of Dibon) and not the actual name of the city (van Zyl 1960:70-71; Smelik 1992). There are, furthermore, several variations of the biblical name Kir-hareseth. BothSmelikand JonesthinkKir-haresethshould be located on the northern plateau. If this is correct, then Smelik's tentativeidentificationof Kir-haresethas a pun on Qarhoh/Qarhah becomes more appealing. This reading of the text would confirm Dibon as Mesha's capital (but not Karak as a second capital); the itinerary of the attacking armies of Israel and Judah in 2 Kings 3 can be understood as a surprise approach on Dibon from the south. But what about the identity of Karak in the Iron Age? Again, if Smelik and Jones are correct, the identity of this major Moabite site is wide open. Perhaps Karakwas Horonen/Horonaim. Certainlythis would fit with Mesha's notice that Kemosh commanded him to Horon~n and the (probable) discovery of the second Moabite inscription in Karak.On the otherhand, perhapsthe matterof Karak's identity should simply remain open, pending new discoveries.

A Ed-Deir,perched high on a hill,would have commandedone of the main routes from the centralMoabite plateau down to the Dead Sea. Itsprominencekeeps it in the runningfor the ancient location of Horonaim.PhotographcourtesyM. Miller. V Karakis the largest and most impressivesite of the central plateau. Currentlyit is presidedover by the ruinsof a Frankishperiod castle. If Karakis not Kir-hereseth,then it emerges as a strong candidatefor Horonaim.PhotographcourtesyM. Miller.

Boling, R.

1988 TheEarlyBiblicalCommunityin Transjordan. Sheffield:Almond Press.

Cross, F. M. 1988 Reuben, First Born of Jacob. Zeitschriftfiirdie alttesamentlicheWis-

100:46-65. senschaftSupplement

Dearman, J. A. 1989 Historical Reconstruction and the Mesha Inscription. Pp. 155-210

in Studiesin theMeshaInscriptionandMoab,edited by A. Dear-

Bibliography Alt, A. 1935 Das Gottesurteil auf dem Karmel. Pp. 1-18 in Festschrift Georg Beer zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by A. Weiser. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

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man. Archaeology and Biblical Studies 2. Atlanta: Scholars Press. 1990 The Moabite Sites of Horonaim and Luhith. PalestineExploration Quarterly122:41-46. 1992 Settlement Patterns and the Beginning of the Iron age in

Moab.Pp. 65-75 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningsof the

Iron Age in Southern Jordan,edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 7. Sheffield: J. R. Collis.

Mittmann,S. Easterly,E. 1982 The Ascent of Luhith.Pp. 175-80 in Studiesin theHistoryand 1991 Is Mesha'sqrhhmentioned in Isaiah xv2? VetusTestamentum 41:215-18. Archaeology of JordanI, edited by A. Hadidi. Amman:Department of Antiquities. Elitzur,Y. 1989 TheIdentificationof Mefaatin Viewof the DiscoveriesfromKh. Negueruela,I. 1982 TheProto-AeolicCapitalsfromMudeibiain Moab.Annualofthe Umm er-Rasas.IsraelExploration Journal39:267-77. Department of AntiquitiesofJordan26:395-401. Freedman,D. N. 1964 A Second MoabiteInscription.Bulletinof theAmericanSchools Piccirillo,M. and Attiyat,T. 1986 TheComplexof SaintStephenat Ummer-Rasas-KastronMefaa, 175:50-51. of OrientalResearch FirstCampaign,August,1986.Annualof theDepartment ofAntiqL. Geraty, uitiesofJordan30:341-51. 1983 Heshbon: The First Casualty in the Israelite Quest for the ofGod: Redford,DonaldB. Kingdomof God.Pp. 239-48in TheQuestfor theKingdom edited by H. B. Huff1982 A BronzeAge Itineraryin Transjordan Studiesin Honorof GeorgeE. Mendenhall, (Nos. 89-101of Thutmose III's List of Asiatic Toponyms). Journalof the Societyfor the mon et al. WinonaLake:Eisenbrauns. Studyof EgyptiansAntiquities12:55-74. Horsfield,G. and Vincent,R. P.H. 1932 Une Stele Egypto-Moabiteau Baloua.RevueBiblique41:417-44. Smelik,K.A. D. 1992 Converting thePastStudiesoftheHolyLand.London:Hodderand Hubner,U. Stoughton. desDeutschen Ostraka.Zeitschrift 1988 Dieerstenmoabitischen PalistinaVereins104:68-73. Schmitt,H. C. Notizen51:13-18. 1988 Das HesbonliedNum 21, 27aBb-30und die Geschichteder Stadt 1990 Der erste moabitischePalast.Biblische zur Geschichte, desDeutschenPaldistina-Vereins Hesbon.Zeitschrift 104:26-43. 1992 DieAmmoniterUntersuchungen Kultur,undRelivolkeim.Lahrtausend v.chr.Abhandlungen Timm,S. gioneinesTranjordanischen des Deutschen PalatinaVereins16. Wiesbaden:Otto Harras1989 EinigeOrteundStraBenauf dem Gebietdes altenMoabbei Eusesowitz. bius. Journalof theNorthwestSemiticLanguages15:179-216. Jones,B. Worschech,U. and Knauf,A. E. 1991 In Searchof Kir-hareseth:A Case Study in Site Identification. 1985 AlteStrassenin der nordwestlichenArder-Kerak. EinVorbericht." 52:3-24. Journal for theStudyof theOldTestament desDeutschenPaldistina-Vereins 101:128-33. Zeitschrift 1986 Dimon und Horonaim.Biblische Notizen31:70-95. Kallai,Z. 1993 A Note on "IsMefaatto be foundat TellJawa(South)?"by R.W. Younker,R.and Daviau,P.M. Younkerand P.M. Daviau.IsraelExploration Journal43:249-51. 1993 Is Mefaatto be foundat TellJawa(South)?IsraelExploration Journal43:23-28. Knauf,E.A. desDeutschenPaliistina-Vereins 1990 Hesbon,SihonsStadt.Zeitschrift Zyl, A. H. van 106:135-44. 1960 TheMoabites.PretoriaOrientalSeries3. Leiden:E.J. Brill. Krahmalkov. C. R. Confirmedby EqyptianEvidence.Biblical 1994 ExodusItinerary ArchaeologyReview20:54-62. Kuschke,A. J.Andrew("Andy") 1967 Horonaimand Qiryathiam.Remarkson a RecentContribution Dearmanhas degreesfrom to the Topography of Moab. PalestineExplorationQuarterly UNC in ChapelHill, 99:104-05. PrincetonTheological Lemaire,A. Seminary,and Emory 1992 Heshbon= Hisban?EretzIsreal23:64-70. University.Previously,he Mattingly,G. L. workedwith MaxwellMiller editedby D. N. Freed1992 S.v.BethPeor.TheAnchorBibleDictionary, on the CentralMoabSurvey man. New York:Doubleday& Co. Projectin 1979and 1982.He Miller,J.M. continuesthis interestin 1989 Moab and the Moabites. Pp. 1-40 in Studies in the Mesha Moabas survey directorfor and A. Dearman. and edited Inscription Moab, by Archaeology BiblicalStudies2. Atlanta:ScholarsPress. the Wadiath Thamad 1989 The IsraeliteJourneyThrough (Around) Moaband Moabite ArchaeologicalProject, Toponymy.Journalof BiblicalLiterature 108:577-95. where MichbleDaviauis the in 1992 EarlyMonarchyin Moab?Pp.77-91 EarlyEdomandMoab:The overall Director.Currently editedby P Bienkowski. Jordan, oftheIronAgeinSouthern Beginnings of Old he is Professor 7. R. SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs Sheffield:J. Collis. Testament at Austin PresbyterianTheologicalSeminaryin Austin, Miller,J.M.,ed. TX. In he edited a volume entitledStudiesin theMesha 1989, the Kerak Plateau. American Schools of 1991 Archaeological Surveyof OrientalResearchArchaeologicalReports1, editedby L.G. Herr. and Moab (Atlanta:ScholarsPress).His most recentbook Inscription Atlanta:ScholarsPress. is ReligionandCulturein AncientIsrael(Peabody:Hendrickson, 1992).He and his wife Kathyhave threesons.

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for

Research on

By GeraldL. Mattingly

Ancient

Moab

pursue a new and more focused agenda. Specifically, KRP is continuing to survey the region (giving closer attention OFTHEKARAK PLATEAU, now to selected sites), excavating one of these sites (Mudaybic E MILLER-PINKERTONSURVEY a reconnaissance conducted during 1978-83, covered in the southeast corner of the Karak plateau),1 and giving the whole plateau and gave attentionto its entireoccu- particular attention in both cases to the natural resources of the plateau which have sustained its inhabitants through pational history. The report from that survey calls the ages.2 Two other important features of the KRP project attention to the plateau's rich archaeological remains and are its multidisciplinary approach with emphasis on the sciwarns that these are severely threatened by modem develhave been conducted Several ences, and its focused chronological interest in the Iron Age. 1991). (Miller projects opment on the plateau subsequent to the Miller-Pinkerton survey, NaturalResourcesandHumanSociety most of which might best be characterized as soundingsThe overriding objective of the project is to document Khirbatel-B~lic (Worschech,Rosenthal, and Zayadine 1986, 1989; Worschech and Ninow 1992a, 1992b), Khirbat F^ris ways in which the populationof centralJordan'sKarakplateau (Johns,McQuitty,and Falkner1989),KhirbatDubab(Bienkowski has utilized natural resources, including site location and 1996),and Khirbatal-MudaynatCAliya(Routledge 1995).The access to local and long-distance trade goods. This interest KhirbatFhrisprojectconducted by Johns and McQuittyman- in resources is not an end in itself, but an avenue by which ifests a broader regional interest in the late Islamic period. FieldB in KRP's1997 excavation at al-Mudaybic.The three squaresin The Karak Resources Project (KRP), which began with this excavationarea bisected an IronAge gate structure,exposing a first field season in the summer of 1995, enjoys a special continuity with the Miller-Pinkerton survey if for no other the southern half of a large threshold,gate passageway,and two reason than that the director and some of the participants piersand chambersof the gate. A new proto-Aeoliccapitalwas were involved also in the Miller-Pinkerton project. With found face-down, havingfallen off the end of the gate pier nearthe reconnaissance of the plateau completed, however, KRPcan right of the photo. Photographcourtesyof Reuben G. BullardJr.

V

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KRPteam members measuringand photographinga large bellshaped cisternat Kh.al-Qaryatein.Occupantsof this region have devised a wide range of water management techniques. It is likely that a lackof water was not the problemthat manyWesterners imagine it must have been. Unlessindicated,all photographs by Reuben G. BullardJr.and WilburA. ReidJr

Walled-incave used as a sheepfold at Kh.al-Hawiyyah.Most of the archaeologicalsites in the Karakregion reflect multipleperiodsof occupation.Naturally,the readilyavailablebuildingmaterialson ancient sites are conduciveto modern use as well.

we can probe more fundamental and meaningful issuese.g., how the range of available materials and their use over the course of time contributed toward the appearance of distinct cultures on the Karakplateau. We believe that the realiaof archaeology, by showing how their culture developed along distinctive lines, can help us discover the very genesis of a people like the Moabites (Mattingly 1992). Ancient written sources inform us that the inhabitants of Iron Age Moab were distinguished from neighboring peoples by such things as religion, political history, language, and dialect. The written sources can tell us only so much, however, and unless additional texts are discovered (the perpetual dream of archaeologists), it is unlikely that we will make much further progress in our attempt to reconstruct the specifics of Moabite history.Yetthe materialremains (e.g., pottery, sculpture, ceramic figurines, and architectural features)offerfurthertantalizinghints thattherewere recognizable differences in terms of what the people of ancient Moab made-how they fashioned objects from raw materials. Naturally, differences in material culture result in part from the resources that were available to the potters, artisans, and builders. By paying closer attention to other kinds of data that are available, therefore, such as the natural resources of the region in which the Moabites lived, we hope to advance the cause of "Moabite Studies." Thus, KRP has undertaken to study ways in which the ancient Moabites obtained and used naturalresources (e.g., building materials,clay deposits, water resources, soils, plant and animal communities, site placement, and natural routes of travel). Ian Shaw and Robert Jameson have taken a similar tack in their recent study of pharaonic quarrying and mining

settlements in Egypt's Eastern Desert (Shaw and Jameson 1993;Shaw 1994).Specifically,they examined the mining settlements in Wadi al-Hudi, some with extensive architectural remains. Like the Karak district, the 300 km2 Wadi al-Hudi is geologically diverse, and its sites are threatened by modem development.Shaw and Jameson'sstudy of the procurement of raw materials in this marginal region of Egypt illustrates that "the essential characteristics of each site result from the interaction of technology, economics, environment, and topography" (Shaw 1994:117).Another archaeological project closer to the Karakplateau that has demonstrated a keen interest, almost an obsession, in resource utilization is the Madaba Plains Project.The Madaba Plains team has conducted excavations, archaeological surveys, and regional scientific studies in the territory of the ancient Ammonites since 1968. Unlike the work in Wadi al-Hudi, the Madaba Plains Projectis a large-scale researchprogram conducted in the shadow of a major urban center, Amman, Jordan-a situation which threatens the very existence of the archaeological sites for future study. Along with a number of highly specialized scientific studies, the Madaba Plains team has adopted a "food systems" approachas a focus for its research. Through its excavations at Tall al-cUmayri and Jalil, along with work at numerous smaller sites in the "hinterland" of these major tells, the Madaba Plains Project has given special attention to lines of evidence that reflect variety and shifting patterns in production over long periods of history. The results and potential of this research strategy are especially obvious in a recent publication by Oystein LaBianca, Sedentarizationand Nomadization:Food System Cycles at Hesbanand Vicinityin Transjordan (1990).Methodologically, BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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A Bedouincleaning out a cisternat al-Hmymct.Localvillagersand bedouin possessa wealth of informationthat helps us understand resourceutilizationin the distantpast. <7 Waterchannel leading to cisternon lower slope of Fajjal-cUseikir. The site of al-Mudaybicis located on the western rimof the Fajj,a relativelydry area where the surfacerun-offfrom winter rainswas retrievedand stored in a varietyof ways.

the Karak Resources Project is closely related to Madaba Plains Projectand enjoys close communication and exchange of information with its directors. A very crucial natural resource is, of course, water, and during KRP'sopening season, team members gave considerable attention to the variety of methods used to retrieve and store water--cisterns, wells, reservoirs, and drainage (Pace 1996).At Nakhl (420),3for example, we measured and photographed several majorcisterncomplexes and, in a wadi on the western side of this large site, examined an interesting water retention system. Uncommon in the Karak area, the system consisted of a series of stone dams with associated cisterns constructed in the wadi to retain the surface runoff. The large cisterns gave access to the winter rain that recharged,or saturated,the soft limestone below the cap rock. Surveyors documented another simple, but effective, water retrievalsystem on the lower slope of the Fajjal-VUseikir's western rim, just below Site 364. A long channel had been cut to drain winter runoff from the steep slope of the Fajjinto a large cistern near the wadi's floor. Summer visitors to this part of the plateau forget that enough rain falls here to reward such creative strategies, which were developed in antiquity and are used still today. Another configuration of large cisterns,located high on a slope just north of al-Mraygha (316),indicates that there are many differentways to capture and manage rainfall,and all this technology needs to be investigated more systematically. As noted by Lancaster and Lancaster (1995:122), important insights into water management come from the local bedouin. At al-Hmymat SW 216

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(90), we came across two young men cleaning out an old cistern.When asked how they knew where this water source was located in the first place, they said that their grandfather had used it when he was a boy.

RegionalSurvey

Team members spent most of the 1995 season studying a group of seventeen sites that had been located and documented by the Miller-Pinkerton project.4These sites were selected because they: (1) included significantsurfaceremains; (2) were located in different topographic-environmental zones; (3) represented a variety of site types; (4) yielded surface sherds from a range of historical periods; and (5) were in danger of being damaged or destroyed. KRP undertook this systematic follow-up for four specific purposes. First,we can now establishprecise coordinates for the sites by means of Global Positioning System (GPS), which was not yet practicallyavailable for the Miller-Pinkerton survey. Second, the KRP survey team is devoting more time to these selected sites than was possible for the Miller-Pinkerton survey in view of its broad scope. Also we are using the Madaba Plains Project survey manual as a guide for collecting more detailed data on a wider range of architectural and environmental features. In addition to its usefulness for collecting survey data, our use of the Madaba Plains Projectmanual will make it easier to coordinate our survey records with theirs. Third, in full recognition that most of these ancient settlements will never be excavated and that regional development will continue to encroach upon them, we are completing more archival photography

discrepancybetween Bienkowski'sexcavated pottery and the surface pottery collectedat the same siteby Miller-Pinkerton (1991:148). Technicalstudies on the pottery and other artifacts from our 1995 season were completed by a faculty-student team at the University of Tennessee. This group employed petrographic analysis, mineralogicalanalysis through X-ray diffraction, and chemical analysis through X-ray fluorescence to study selected sherds from the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age I, and the Nabataean period. Localprovenancewas indicated in every sample, but there are significant differences in the composition of sherds from different periods and, naturally,fromdifferentsites.The Nabataean pottery stands out in that sherds from differentsites display remarkablehomogeneity. The clay sources exploited by Karak's ancient inhabitants have not been identified as yet, but this research continues. Photomicrographof EBIIIsherd from Ummal-Habaj,from the rimof an EarlyBronzeAge III Similar laboratory techniques were The large feature near the center of the photograph is a platter bowl (ca. 2300-2100 BCE). applied to a selection of basalt grindfossilizedforaminifera.The largerclear,white, angulargrainsconsistof fragments of the stone and bowl fragments. Since the mineralcalcite (probablyderivedfrom nearby limestones),and the numeroussmallerclear Karakplateauhas an abundanceof basalt grainsconsistof the mineralquartz.These grains(along with hematite particles,which give flows, these tools were produced from the pottery its distinctivecolor)are set in a fine-grainedmatrixof clay minerals.Airvesicles, local basalt in a variety of textures (cf. which appear to be blackin this photograph,are a common feature and may have been Weinstein-Evronet al. 1995).As we purtrapped duringthe mixingof the claysand molding of the platter.The abundanceof intact sue evidence of ancient trade, we need fossils noted in sherdsfrom Ummal-Habajmay indicatea lackof extensive reworkingof the to identify the range of basalts available claysby the potters of this period.The width of the field shown is approximately7 mm (ca. on the Karakplateau and comparethem 1/4 inch).Photomicrographby Aaron K.Dodd, student in the Departmentof Geological with basalt artifacts from sites in adjaSciences,Universityof Tennessee(Knoxville,TN). cent regions (i.e., the Ghor, the Syrian Desert, the region north of Wadi alat each site.5 These pictures will provide a valuable record Mijib, and the region south of Wadi al-HIasa).One of the of the Karak district's rich archaeological heritage. Finally, concerns of the KRP is to clarify the nature and degree of interactionbetween the inhabitantsof the Karakplateau and in addition to resherding the sites, we are collecting systhe surrounding regions. We would like to determine in partematically other surface artifacts and small samples of building materials in order to create a database of resources ticular what the Moabites obtained from the peoples in that were used in crafts, industries, and construction. neighboring regions and what they had to offer in exchange. Of potential significance in this regard is a 7.5 x 10 cm Thus far there have been relatively few discrepancies between the results of our resherdings of the sites and the block of alabaster that was found on the eastern side of alMiller-Pinkertonresults,6but enough to reaffirmMiller'sown Mraygha (316).8Alabaster blocks of this size and shape were transported all over the ancient world so that local artisans warnings about the uncertainties of surface sherding could shape the raw block into cups, vases, and statues. The (Miller 1992:79-80). At some of the sites reexamined, we did block at Mraygha may indicate that sites along the eastern not retrieve, or identify, pottery from some of the periods at four of the sites, on the other border of Moab were involved in the long-distance trade reported by MiUler-Pinkerton; of such materials.Actually,from the damage done to one end hand, we identified sherds from periods which had not been reported by Miller-Pinkerton.7On the whole, the differences of the block, it appears that this particular piece of alabaster has been used as a hammer. Since it was not found through were minimal and could be explained by chance. A soundexcavation, it is possible that this specimen was brought in ing at Khirbat Dubab (399) conducted by Piotr Bienkowski (1995:31-32; 1996) has revealed a more significant by modern bedouin. BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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Most archaeological research in the Near East is caught in up a race against progress. This is especially true in the Karakdistrict where there is constant pressure to open more land for commercialagricultureand to build homes and roads for a rapidly growing population (Mattingly 1996c).To indicate the scale of this development, it is only necessary to note that the 1922 population of Karak governorate was 23,000, while today's population is approaching 170,000.This means that archaeologicalsites are being plowed up, quarriedaway, and looted at an alarming rate. The Miller-Pinkertonsurvey report called attention to this rapid encroachment of modem development and identified several sites in particular, like the huge settlement of Nakhl (420), that are "in urgent need of more detailed examination" (Miller 1991:154).Participants in KRP's first season who had worked on the Miller-PinkertonSurvey observedsigns of continuedencroachment and destruction at site after site. The loss is especially evident at important sites like Khirbatal-Batr8a(355), Khirbat en-Nsheinish (353), Bronze Age and Roman Lejjfin (239, 240), Rujm Birjis (73), and Um al-Habaj (88). The Iron Age site of Khirbat al-CAkfizeh (428) has been damaged severely by two recent road-cutting operations. Even more disheartening is the situation at al-Mraygha (316), where an extensive Roman-Byzantine cemetery is being robbed systematically. This process was well underway when the Miller-Pinkertonteam visited Mraygha in 1982;we estimated in 1995 that more than 800 tombs have been opened and ransacked.

A Kh.aI-'Akuzeh(428)from the northeast,with Wadial-Hasain the background.The IronAge site runsalong the ridge insidea hairpin curveof the "King'sHighway,"in the center of the picture.The site's lower slope has been cut away and its walls and cisternsdestroyed by recent road-wideningoperations. V Robbedcemetery at al-Mraygha.Approximately800 RomanByzantinetombs have been looted from this cemetery over the past twenty years,while the walled town itself (one of the most importantsites in the Karakregion) is being quarriedfor materials for modern buildings.

Mudaybic

We have selected the prominent site of Mudaybicfor excavation in conjunction with the regional survey and to serve as a special case study in resource utilization. By comparing and contrastingit with other sites, we hope to understand how its builders and inhabitants took advantage of its position in the wider landscape. Mudaybic occupies a strategic hilltop in the southeastern section of the Karak plateau, on the eastern side of Fajjal-cUseikir,which itself is an interesting segment of the Karak/al-FihaFaultZone (Powell 1988:6). More specifically, Mudaybic is located just south of the road that descends into this graben from the fertile heartland of the Moabite plateau (to the north and west of the site). Its favorable position clearly was recognized in ancient times, since a tremendous amount of energy was expended in fortifying this ridge. The Mudaybicfortificationmeasures ca. 83 x 88 m and was built from basalt,limestone, and chert.A compact structure,it was none the less well defended by substantial walls, two gates (including a multi-chamber gatehouse on the east),and comrner and intervaltowers.Although constructed originally in Iron Age II, Mudaybic has been repaired and remodeled until modem times. Mudaybicseems a good choice for our purposes because it is relatively isolated, well preserved, and promises to yield significantdata on a wide range of issues related to resource utilization. At few places in the Near East can one find ruins approximatelytwenty-eight centuries old that are so easily accessiblefor surfaceexamination. 218

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A number of specific questions connect this excavation component to the project's primary objective--and to our other avenues of research.Exactlywhen was Mudaybicbuilt, and when was it modified and reused? What materials and techniqueswere used in its construction?How and where did its occupants obtain food and water? What was its original function? How did its location serve that function? How was it related to other contemporaneous sites in this same

Although the KarakResources Project is in its early stages, it is possible to make some preliminary observations. First, it is becoming increasingly clear that the 875 km2 "Karakplateau" consists of a variety of ecosystems. This results largely from the position of the plateau, sandwiched between the Great RiftValley and the SyrianDesert as well as the great canyons of the Majib and the Hasa. This position creates a variety of environmentalzones,with dramatic differences in geology and subtle climatic gradations, which through the ages have called for distinctive patterns of resource utilization (cf. Mattingly a l 1983; Koucky 1987). These zones are demarcatedby elevation, distance from the Mediterraneanand proximity to the desert, and the inhabitantsof Karakdistricthave learnedhow to cope with these variations. Second, the topography of the regionhas tended to isolatethe inhabitants of this plateau and to produce the distinguishable material culture visible in the archaeological record. Yet, third, this isolation has never been absolute; probably there was more interregional al-Mazar trade during earliertimes than we have imagined. Much of the ancient travel in a1-Mudaybi' and out of the Karak plateau moved M Dubab through Fajjal-'Useikir, which linked the "King'sHighway" with the "Desert Highway." This means that it moved o 10 miles past Mudaybic, which more than any other factor explains the history of the 0 kms 10 site. Finally,fourth, there seems to have been considerable continuity in terms of resource utilization from the disKh.al-Mudaybic,on Moab'seastern frontier.Thiscompactfortress tant past until relatively modern times. Even today we was builtto monitor or controltrafficthat passed from the desert find an interesting, practical juxtaposition of ancient and into the Karakplateau'srichagriculturalland. The decisionto build modem techniques. As the Karak Resources Projectcontinthis fortresson the eastern rimof a long valley,which runsbetween ues in the field, we hope to learn more about the interplay the "DesertHighway"and "KingsHighway,"was a majorstep in the of continuity and change in the ways in that people have resourceutilizationalong the so-called "desertfringe." lived and worked on the Moabite tableland. region? How does it "fit" into the interregional and intraregional routes of trade and travel? What "exotic" (i.e., non-local) raw materials were sought by its occupants? Other questions pertain to the "proto-aeolic" capitals for which Mudaybic is well known (Negueruela 1982; Shiloh 1979).What was the original position of these capitals?Why are such fine examples of this style of monumental architecture found out here, near the "desert fringe"?

SomePreliminaryConclusions

Notes 1Also renderedMedeibi(Miller1991:site # 435),Mudeibica(Negueruela 1982),etc. The spelling of geographicalnames is being revised by the RoyalGeographicalCentreof Jordan.Variationin spellingwill continueto be seenin currentpublications untila standardlistis madeavailable. 2The Karak Resources Project operates under the auspices of the Departmentof Antiquitiesof the HashemiteKingdomof Jordan.Theproject is affiliated with the American Schools of Oriental Research, throughits Committeeon ArchaeologicalPolicy.Assistancewas provided by the AmericanCenterfor OrientalResearch.KRPis indebtedto all of

BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

219

these organizations. 3Inthisarticle,sitenumbersassignedto archaeologicalsitesdocumentedby theMiller-Pinkerton Survey are included in parentheses after the names. The Karak Resources Project uses these same site numberswhen it returnsto a Miller-Pinkertonsite for follow-up work. Frequent referenceto al-Mudaybic(435)makesit unnecessaryto include its site numberevery time it appearsin the text. 4The 17 ancientsettlementsexaminedduring thepilotseasonwereUm al-Habaj(88),al-HjmymatNW (89),al-HmymatSW(90),al-Hjmymat SE (92),Kh.al-MudaynatCAliya(143),Kh. al(210),Kh. (270),al-Kfeiraz Qaryatein Kh.en-Nsheinish(353), al-.Hawiyyah (278),al-Mraygha(316), Kh.al-Batr&a (355),Site364,Nakhl(420),Kh.al-cAkuzeh(428),RujmcAbdeh (430),Kfeir/Kh.al-cAbdeh(431),and al-Mudaybic(435). sIn 1995,the KRPphotographerstook over 2,000blackand white photographsand an equal numberof color slides, at a total of 37 sites (the 17 reexaminedplus 20 more). 6Fromthe 17 sitesvisitedin 1995,KRPregistered1,381diagnosticsherds, which were "read"by LarryG. Herr.The 50,000diagnostic sherds of the MiUer-Pinkerton Surveywere datedby JamesA. Sauerand/or Robin M. Brown, and a major study on pottery from this region was published by the latter(1991:169-279). 7In contrastwith the findingsof the Miller-Pinkerton survey,KRPrecovered one Irl sherd at Umm al-Habaj(88);three LB sherds at meimat NW (89);threeEBsherds,one LB/Irl sherd,and one Ir2sherdat Hmymat SE (92);and two Byz sherdsat Kh.MudaynatcAliya(143).

8While there is some disagreement regarding the use of the term

"alabaster"(Ward-Perkins 1992:159), X-raydiffraction(performedby Otto C. Kopp [Universityof Tennessee])indicatesthatthis specimenconsists of calciumcarbonate(calcite).

from the northwest, with modern reservoirin Al-MudaybiC foreground and sheepfold between reservoirand northeastern cornerof the fortress.Thishilltopwas occupiedsporadicallyfrom the IronAge through the LateIslamicperiod, and it is still a crossroadof agriculturaland economic activitiesin the southeasternpart of the Karakplateau.

Lancaster,W.and Lancaster,F. 1995 Land Use and Population in the Area North of Karak.Levant 27:103-24.

Mattingly,G. L. 1983 TheNaturalEnvironmentof CentralMoab.AnnualoftheDepartmentofAntiquitiesofJordan27:597-605. 1992 TheCulture-Historical Approachand MoabiteOrigins.Pp.55-64 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningoftheIronAgein Southern editedby P.Bienkowski.SheffieldArchaeologicalMonoJordan, graphs7. Sheffield:J.R. Collis. 1996a Al-KarakResourcesProject1995:A PreliminaryReporton the Pilot Season. Annualof theDepartmentof AntiquitiesofJordan 40:349-68.

1996b KerakResources 100/3:511-12. American Journal Project. ofArchaeology 1996c TheRaceagainstProgressin CentralJordan.BiblicalArchaeoloBibliography gist 59/1:69. Bienkowski,P. Miller, M., ed. J. 1995 Observationson LateBronze-IronAge Sites in the WadiHasa, 1991 Archaeological Surveyof theKerakPlateau.AmericanSchools of Jordan.Levant27:29-37. OrientalResearchArchaeological Reports1, editedby L.G. Herr. 1996 Soundings in the Wadi Hasa, Jordan, 1995. PalestineExploAtlanta:ScholarsPress. rationQuarterly128:87. Miller,J.M. Brown,R. M. 1992 EarlyMonarchyin Moab?Pp.77-91in EarlyEdomandMoab:The in from the Kerak Plateau. 169-279 1991 Ceramics Archaeological Pp. Beginningof the IronAge in SouthernJordan,edited by Piotr editedbyJ.M.Miller.AmericanSchools Plateau, SurveyoftheKerak Bienkowski.SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield: of OrientalResearchArchaeologicalReports1. Atlanta:ScholR. CollisPublications. J. ars Press. Negueruela, I. Johns,J.,McQuitty,A., and Falkner,R. 1982 TheProto-AeolicCapitalsfromMudeibiain Moab.Annualofthe the and 1986 1988 1989 The FarisProject:PreliminaryReportUpon Department ofAntiquitiesofJordan26:395-401,569-72. Seasons.Levant21:63-95. Pace,J.H. Koucky,E L. 1996 TheCisternsof the Al-KarakPlateau.Annualof theDepartment 1987 The RegionalEnvironment.Pp. 40-47 in TheRomanFrontierin of AntiquitiesofJordan40:369-74. Interim ontheLimesArabicus Central 1980-1985, Jordan. Report Project, edited by S. T. Parker.BARInternationalSeries 340. Oxford: Powell, J.H. 1988 TheGeologyof the KarakArea. Amman: Natural Resources BritishArchaeologicalReports. Authority. LaBianca,0. S. andNomadization: FoodSystemCyclesat Hesban Routledge,B. 1990 Sedentarization 1995 Settlementand Productionat KhirbetMedeinetAlyia,Jordan. andVicinityin Transjordan. BerrienSprings,MI:Andrews UniReportsubmittedat the annual AmericanSchoolsof Oriental versity. Researchmeeting,Nov. 16-21,Philadelphia.

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Shaw,I. 1994 PharaonicQuarryingand Mining:Settlementand Procurement in Egypt'sMarginalRegions.Antiquity68/258:108-19. Shaw,I.and Jameson,R. 1993 AmethystMiningin the EasternDesert:A PreliminarySurvey at Wadiel-Hudi.Journalof EgyptianArchaeology 79:81-97. is concernedwithall orthAmeranm Shiloh,Y. Arhadeolist 1979 TheProto-Aeolic and Ashlar Israelite of Jerusalem: Capital Masonry. aspects AmericanArchaeologyGeographicallyit IsraelExplorationSociety. coversthe continent northof high culturesin Ward-Perkins, J. B. Mesoamerica-the United Statesand part of northern 1992 MainQuarriesof DecorativeStones in the RomanWorld.Pp. it spansthe entirerangeof cultural MexicoTopically Collected 153-59in Marblein Antiquity: Papersoff. B.Ward-Perkins, evolution in America fromPaleo-Indian studiesto Industrial editedby H. Dodgeand B.Ward-Perkins. London:BritishSchool and at Rome. Theoretical methodological articles, Archaeology theirbaseis NorthAmerica,arealsoacceptedand M.,et al. Weinstein-Evron, provided 1995 K/Ar Dating as a Means of Sourcing Levantine Epipalaeresearch basedoncultural resource aswellas management olithicBasaltImplements.Archaeometry 37/1:37-50. and state local societies is solicited with the workby along Worschech,U. F.,Rosenthal,U., and Zayadine,F. more traditionalacademic-museumprojects.The editor 1986 The FourthSurvey Season in the North-west Ard el-Kerak, particularlyencouragespapersthat cut acrossregionalor and Soundingsat Balu 1986.Annualof theDepartment of Antiqtopicalboundariesbut more specializeditems are also uitiesofJordan30:285-309. welcomed. 1989 PreliminaryReporton the SecondCampaignat theAncientSite of el-Balu'in 1991.Annualof theDepartment ofAntiquitiesofJorSubscription informnnation: dan33:111-21. ISSN0197-6931 Pricepervolume(quarterly): Worschech,U. F.and Ninow, F. rate:$136 Individual rate:$40 Institutional 1992 PreliminaryReporton the ThirdCampaignat the AncientSite of el-Balu'in 1991.Annualof theDepartment Postageand handling:$6.50U.S.andCanada,$1t75 of AntiquitiesofJorelsewhere dan 36:167-74 (= Annual of the Departmentof Antiquities of issueavailableuponrequest Complimentary Jordan38[1994]:195-203).

NORTH

AMERICAN

ARCHAEOLOGIST

N

Editor GeraldL.(Jerry)Mattinglyis Professorof BiblicalStudies at JohnsonBibleCollege (Knoxville,TN). He received his Ph.D.fromthe Southern BaptistTheological Seminary,wherehe was a studentof JosephA. Callaway.Mattinglygained archaeologicalexperienceby workingat TellJemmehand KhirbetIskanderand with the MadabaPlainsProject; his interestin Moabderives fromparticipationin the EmoryUniversity ArchaeologicalSurveyof the KerakPlateau,in 1979,1982, and 1983.ProfessorMattinglydirectedthe KerakResourcesProject in 1995and 1997. Underthe auspicesof the NationalEndowmentfor the Humanities,Mattinglyhas done post-doctoralresearchat the AmericanCenterof OrientalResearch(1982-1983),YaleUniversity (1987),and the Universityof Notre Dame(1989).He has contributeda numberof articles,reviews,and essays to a varietyof periodicalsand referenceworksand has co-editedthreebooks: to Syro-Palestinian Benchmarks in TimeandCulture:An Introduction TheBiblein theLightof Cuneiform and Peoples Literature; Archaeology; World.Dr.Mattinglyserveson the editorial of theOldTestament committeeof BiblicalArchaeologist (soon to be knownas Near EasternArchaeology).

ROGER W. MOELLER

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JOHNPFEIFFER Resource Management and Contract Archaeology EDWARD S. RUTSCH General Historical Archaeology ROBERTL. SCHUYLER Industrial Archaeology ROBERT M. VOGEL

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BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

221

Moab's Northern Border Khirbat the ath-Thamad

al-Mudaynaon Wadi

By P.M.MichbleDaviau

The mound of Khirbatal-Mudaynasits on the south bank of the Wadi ath-Thamadat a place that may have servedthe ancient world as a ford. Photographby M. Daviau.

OFMOABISKNOWNFROM Khirbatal-Mudayna TE IRONAGE NATION/STATE

biblical texts that mention its wars with Israel (2 Kgs 1:1;3:4-5), from the royal inscription of its king, esha, who boasted of his successes, and from the inscriptions of its seventh century Assyrian overlords (Dearman 1989). The precise geographical limits and the cultural characteristics of ancient Moab are less well known. The Moabites float in our imagination somewhere east of the Dead Sea, north of Edom and south of Ammon. But this haziness has begun to be resolved. Thanksto the extensive survey of Miller, central Moab south of the Wadi al-Mfijib has been intensively explored, and the published results have encouraged new excavation projects, such as the work of Routledge (1995:236)at Mudaynat cAliya and of Mattingly (1996:69)on the Karakplateau (1995). The assessment of the characterof settlement north of the Wadi al-Mijib has depended primarily on the excavations at the Moabite city of Dibon (modern Dhiban) by Canadian archaeologists Winnett (Winnett and Reed 1964) and Tushingham(1972)in the 1950s.Though they uncovered only a limited amount of Iron Age architecture, they recovered important Iron Age pottery from tombs. The similarity of this ceramicmaterialwith that collected by Glueck and Miller formed the foundation for Moabite ceramic typology.1While it is clear that this Moabite style of pottery appears at Iron Age sites south of Dhiban, the extent of its distribution further north remains to be determined. Currentexcavations at Khirbatal-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad (Daviau) and at Madaba (Harrison 1997) represent the beginning of this search for Moab's northern border. Only an elaborate study of large collections of such pottery and its association with other features of the material culture from IronAge sites will succeed in determining the degree to which these cultural correlates are indicators of ethnicity (Finkelstein 1996:203)and bring the nation/state of Moab into archaeological focus. 222

BiblicalArchaeologist60:4 (1997)

Beginning in 1897, explorers travelling through central Transjordanfrom Madaba to the Wadi al-Miijib made lists of tell sites and fortresses clearly visible in the landscape. Although not the first to visit the site of Khirbatal-Mudayna (aka Khirbet el-Medeiyineh)2, Briinnow and Domaszewski documented the majorfeatures of the tell and its position on the Wadi ath-Thamad. They also published a sketch showing the tell and its surrounding embankment (1904: figs. 14, 15). Later, Musil visited the site, prepared a plan of the mound (1907: fig. 137), and took photographs (Musil 1907: fig. 136). Now that Khirbat al-Mudayna was on the tourist map of Moab, other explorers and archaeologists would follow, most notably N. Glueck, who was the first to collect and publish pottery and figurines from the site (1934:fig. 4; 1939: fig. 45).3Unfortunately,the name Khirbatal-Mudaynaappears at six sites in modem Jordan,and this has caused some confusion in published reports (Miller 1979, 1989). The currentresearchand excavationat Khirbatal-Mudayna (Daviau 1995)4aim to investigate the Iron Age settlement and gather evidence for the nature of its cultural, religious (Mattingly 1989), and political affiliations (Dearman 1989). Exploration of the region surrounding Khirbatal-Mudayna is designed to investigate the relationship of sites to one another during the Iron Age and to assemble a settlement history of the Moabite plateau. Analysis of pottery and artifacts from these sites may demonstrate the extent of Moabite control and the location of a frontier zone between Moab and Ammon. The project is three-pronged, involving research into reports of the early explorers, currently undertaken by J. P. J. Olivier (University of Stellenbosch); regional site survey, directed by A. Dearman (Austin Presbyterian Seminary); and surface survey and excavation of the site itself, directed by Daviau. The 1995 season was a brief four-day surface survey of the tell and of the mound of debris on its northeast slope that

o 0

west. Located at a distance of 500 m south of the lip of the wadi, the tell is surrounded by gently cUmayril I rolling hills on the south and west sides and by kms 10 steep cliffs on the northeast bank of the Wadi athThamad.Although the tell appearsto those crossing the wadi to rise steeply (30 m high) out of the plain aHigh at its north end, it is in fact lower than the surJalol rounding hills and depended on watch towers (Regional Sites 2, 7, 8, 10) to connect it with @Madaba neighboring sites, such as er-Rumeil to the west and Rujm al-Heri to the north. Excavation on the Tell: The FortificationWall Rujmal-Heri The firstfull season of excavation(1996)brought to light the major features of a fortified town conudayna sisting of a free-standing casemate wall (Field B) and a six-chamber gate (Field A). The 5.00 m er-Rumeil thick wall system can be traced at ground level Dibon around the entire tell, enclosing an area 80.0 x 140.0 nmm m. It consists of two parallel walls, intersected by er-Raps cross walls at intervals that formed narrow rooms parallel to the wall line. The builders of A7 the walls used small and medium size limestone boulders (0.25-0.50 m) in boulder-and-chink construction. No ashlar masonry was evident in the wall itself although such stones were present in the where the border between did Ammon and northern Moab: of Iron-Age Map collapse of a monumental building on the tell itself. Casemate walls of similar size and construction these two polities run?Withinthe scope of the Kh.al-Mudaynaon the Wadi ath-Thamadproject,analysisof potterytraditions,iconographicstyles,script techniques were common in Iron Age Israel and to of settlement locations has web the forms, and begun apparentlystrategic Judah (Lapp 1981) and at sites in Ammon such as Iron for frontier. Moab's northern Mudayna's Age IIpottery, help define Tallal-(Umayri (Clark1991) and TallJawa (Daviau of Ammonite sites of Tall al1994:figs. 2, 3). Otherexamplesin Moab itself appear from that the is different example, significantly at Lehun (Homis-Fredericq1992)on the northbank and TallJawa. CUmayri of the Wadi al-Mijib and at Khirbat al-Mudaynat was designed to collect pottery and artifacts and detercAliya (Routledge 1995), although at these sites the wall was an integrated part of the adjoining buildings with the casemine their technological, typological, and chronological 19 mate rooms serving as broad rooms within the houses. characteristics. With a corpus of nearly 3,000 sherds and Outside the casemate wall, at a slightly lower level on artifacts,including several figurines, it was clear that Glueck's identificationof this site as a Moabitesettlementwas intended the slope of Khirbat al-Mudayna, ran a roadway flanked to relateit to sites with similar ceramicware form types south on its outside edge by an earthen embankment. Although of the Mtjib. The pottery is significantly different from late further excavation is needed to understand fully the construction and function of these features, the embankment IronAge II pottery at Ammonite sites such as TallJawa south of Amman (Daviau 1993: fig. 5; 1994: fig. 7), as well as Tall must have added significantly to the fortress-like appearance of the site. al-(Umayri (Herr 1989) and Jalal (Younker, personal communication), both currently being excavated by the Madaba The Six-ChamberGate A tower flanked the roadway as it approached the gate. Plains Project. But where was the northern boundary for these "Moabite"pottery traditions? Can these pottery forms Positioned on the northeastern tip of the tell, the tower measured 4.00 m on a side and was formed of medium and large be securely dated and associated with the political entities that flourished during the Iron Age on the Transjordanian boulders (0.50-1.00 m). Due to collapse and subsequent erosion at this exposed location,its superstructurehas disappeared. plateau? What architectural traditions and settlement types are represented, and how do these correspond to tra- The gate itself is better preserved. It was fronted by a bastion 3.50 m thick. Both the tower and bastion probably ditions at sites in the region of Amman, the central city of ancient Ammon? Only excavation and regional survey of the supported a second or even third story above their founarea north of the Wadi al-Mijib can yield evidence to address dations, raising the height of the northern defenses and such questions. increasing visibility for the watch towers on the surroundThe Iron Age settlement at Khirbat al-Mudayna was ing hills. The north face of the bastion curved sharply south to form the outer, east face of the casemate wall. founded on a narrow oval hill that runs northeast/southmiles

10

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Threerooms (R101,R102,R103)forming the eastern half of the gate complex opened onto a 4.00 m wide centralroadway thatpassed in frontof similarrooms on the west side. The walls that separated one room from another were 1.60 m thick and remained standing a maximum of 2.50m above the originalfloors. The back, east wall of the gate was less impressive, but it was protected by the proximity of the casemate wall which ran south from the northern bastion. Each gate room measured 2.00-2.50 m wide, 3.50 m long and opened onto the central roadway at its west end. The overall size of the gate was 15.50x 15.00 m, somewhat smaller than similar gates in Israel and Judah at the same time. Six-chambergates with rooms flanking a centralroadat Gezer,Lachish,Megiddo, and Hazor ranged in size from 17.00 x 17.00m to 24.00x 25.00m (Herzog 1992: table 2). The small size of Khirbat alMudayna and the location of its gate on the narrow end of the tell side by side with a large (12.00m diameter) depression cut into the bedrock are factorsthat determined the space available for the gate building. The most outstanding find from the gate was a stone basin smashed in situ where it fell into Room 103. The basin measured 0.60 x 1.40 m and was cut from a single block of limestone.Numerous cut markswere etched on the upper surface of its rim, suggesting industrial use, while graffiti decorated both interior and exterior surfaces. Several of these incised drawings seem to representa loom. The groupalso includes a carefully incised palm tree, a checkerboard, and a donkey. Beside the basin, excavators unearthed wooden beams, part of the collapsed ceiling which had been burnt in antiquity. Because they had smolderedwhere they fell,the beams were so well preserved that J. Hansen (Boston University) could identify the wood as olive, carob, and mulberry. MonumentalArchitectureand Artifacts South of the gate there is evidence of a monumental building (B200)faced with ashlar masonry. Each stone was hammer dressed and cut into rectangular slabs. The largest of these blocks 224

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Gridlayout and pre-excavationtopography of Khirbatal-Mudayna.The narrowhill of the tell sits about half of a kilometersouth of the lip of the Wadiath-Thamadfrom which it rises fairlysharply.Excavationhas uncoveredmajorfeatures of an IronAge fortified town consistingof a free-standingcasemate wall in FieldB and a classicsix-chambergate in the northwest cornerof FieldA. Surveyworkand plan by RobertT Force,OntarioLandSurveyor.

BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

:

0.25 m tall. At one end, the concave crushing surface rose to 0.29 cm, forming an edge or rim over which the person using the millstone would lean.5The upper, loaf-shaped millstone used with this lower stone was 0.17 m wide, 0.64 m in length, and 0.17 m in height. It weighed 28.00 kg (62 lbs). Such finds suggest an important building with its associated crafts and industries that will be better understood as our work of excavation continues.

SpecialFinds

I'

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.~ . . . .

101 .

.

.

.

.

Any attemptto define the culturalcharacteristicsof ancient peoples depends heavily on the evidence from pottery and small finds. The major source for such finds at Khirbat alMudayna is the dump on the northeast slope of the earthen embankment where hundreds of sherds and numerous figurines have been collected, beginning with Glueck during his two visits to the site (1939: fig. 18a). During the 1995 and 1996 seasons, two female figurine heads and the torso of a female holding a disc(?) were found on the dump, while the gate complex produced fragments of zoomorphic figures. The female figurines share similarities with the female pillar figurines recovered in the room of a house at BaldI,an IronAge site south of the Wadi al-Mijib (Worschech 1995).Since several of these female figures appear to be holding a disc at the waist with both hands, they differconsiderably from the Judean examples where the most common stance depicts a female holding her breasts (Albright 1943:pls. 55,

.

56).

R 103C

0

m

5

Gate complex 100. Threeeastern rooms (R 101, 102, 103) compose one-half of the widely known six-chambergate. A squaretower flanksthe centralroadway leading up to the gate. Thisgate was built on a smallerscale than the gates discoveredat Gezer,Hazor, Lachish,and Megiddo.

measured 0.36 x 1.11 mx 0.24 m thick. Outside Building 200 was a work area with a stone platform, a scatter of unfired clay loom weights (donut-shaped) and a collection of ground stone tools including extra large hand grinders. The most outstanding of these tools was a basalt, lower milling stone that measured 0.67 x 0.77 m on its upper surface and stood

A second important indicator of culture is writing style, both the content of a text and the script in which it was written. Only one fragment of an Iron Age written text has been recovered from Khirbat al-Mudayna to date. This consisted of a small sherd with four incised letters, s, y, d, n. Based on published Moabite seals (Timm 1989), Dearman suggested that this incomplete text represents a personal name, probably [Chemo]sh-yadin.Herr (personal communication, July 1996, Amman) identified the script as Moabite rather than Ammonite. Of special interest was the shape of the final letter. Seals also provide evidence for cultural and political affiliation. At Khirbatal-Mudayna, no seals have yet been found, although one complete seal impression on a clay bulla and two fragmentarybullae were recovered during the 1996 season. All three impressions were merely decorative and at presenthave no known parallelsfrom other sites in the region.

In Search of a Border:The Regional Survey

In order to locate the cultural characteristicsidentified so far at Khirbatal-Mudayna within a cultural sphere, it is necessary to determine the extent of similar material culture at neighboring sites. Within the survey area, an isolated site with the remains of a one-room structureyielded two female figurines each holding a disc in both hands at waist level. While these figurines argue for a homogeneous Moabite culture, the discovery at the same site of anthropomorphic ceramic vessels (or statues) comparable to those from Horvat Qitmit (Beit-Arieh 1995) and <EnHaseva (Cohen and BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

225

0c3

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Clockwisefrom upper left: 1) Mould-madeceramicfigurine (WT021) found at RegionalSurveySite 13, located south of the watchtower site of er-Rumiel.The female figurine has attached pellets representingher hair. 2) Headof a free-standingfemale from Kh.al-Mudayna. 3 and 4) Kh.al-Mudaynaalso producedceramicfigurines includingthis drawn and photographed head of a female figurine (WTO20). The top view shows details of her hair-do.Photographby RobertMittelstaedt.

Yisrael 1995) in the Negev presents a problem. Such figures have been identified as Edomite, and their find sites have previously been restrictedto settlements near the south and west sides of the Dead Sea. Further study will certainly be needed to understand their associationwith Moabite culture and religion. At the same time, collection of pottery at sixteen sites 226

BiblicalArchaeologist60:4 (1997)

in the Regional Survey produced clear evidence of regional characteristicsthat can be used to determine a borderbetween two cultural spheres, at least on the level of ceramic technology and formaltypology.Of the sites with IronAge pottery, two were settlement sites and five were watch towers. With the exception of Rujm al-Heri, all sites-including the watch towers-yielded pottery with disc bases. These

< Incisedsherd with Moabite Script.The four letters are (r-to-1)s y d n. Of these, the yod and the nun are especiallydiagnostic.Sincewriting style is a potential markerof culture,the discoveryof this Moabite inscriptionhelps to place Kh.al-Mudaynawithin the culturalorbit of ancient Moab.

VA female holding a disc at her waist. Thisceramicfigurine (WT015) was also recoveredat Site 13. The

0

m

site's materialculturefinds, such as the figurines,and its topographicsituation suggest that it was an Iron Age cultic place. Thisfigurine differsfrom those producedin neighboringJudahin which the female figure ordinarilycups her breasts.

3

they served as visual inks between several Iron Age settlements, indicating the strategic importance of the wadi and the settlements along its south bank. No settlements comparable to Khirbatal-Mudayna and er-Rumeil line the north bank; instead, a line of sites appears on the heights several kilometers north of Wadi ath-Thamad.While the position of a border may vary with changes in the political and military situation, the importance of such a frontier zone is apparent from both the location of sites along the wadi and the efforts made to strengthen their fortifications. These factors serve as the beginning of our search for Moab's northern frontier.

..4 "

.1

Notes 1The lack of excavationat well stratifiedsites has made it difficultfor

lp-

archaeologiststo establisha securepotterysequencefor Moab. 2Aka Khirbetel-Medeiyinehon Wadieth-Themed.The spelling of geographicalnames is being revised by the RoyalGeographicalCentreof Jordan.Variationin spellingwill continueto be seen in currentpublications until a standardlist is made available.

cm

3

vessels were made of ceramic fabricscomparable to the ware types identified in the sherd corpus from the 1995 surface collection at Khirbatal-Mudayna. By contrast, Rujm al-Heri, a settlement site that was heavily fortified and strategically located on a prominent ridge three km north of Wadi athThamad,produced pottery with double disc bases, a common feature of Ammonite pottery. This base form is known from Jalul, which is in sight of Rujm al-Heri, and from Tall Jawa, Tall al-cUmayri (Herr 1989: fig. 19.11.15) and Amman itself (Dornemann 1983:fig. 82:784-87). The watch towers or forts (RS 2, 8) on the north side of the wadi that had a good view of Rujm al-Heri, er-Rumeil, and Khirbat al-Mudayna all appear to have pottery of the sort usually characterized as Moabite. They appear also to be in close association with the settlements south of Wadi ath-Thamad and Wadi al-Mijib. Here we have our first clue that these small forts served as markers of Moab's northern border. The forts themselves present a second clue: they form a semi-circle of fortified towers on the southeast, north and northwest sides of Khirbatal-Mudayna. In this constellation,

3Although Glueckcollected pottery at Khirbatal-Mudayna(which he transliterated Kh.el- Medieyeneh),he makesno mentionof theNabataean settlementat the foot of the tell. It too was coveredwith easily recognizable pottery when we first visited the site in 1995.Two buildings, one probablya smallshrine(FieldN), and the othera reservoir(FieldL),are currentlybeing excavated. 4The Wadiath-ThamadProjectis sponsoredand funded in partby Wilfrid LaurierUniversity,Waterloo,ON, Canadaand by participantsand volunteers.TheProjectis affiliatedwithASORandwithACORin Amman where the team lives duringits stay in Jordan.Excavationand surveyis approvedandsupportedby the Departmentof Antiquitiesof Jordan.Special thanksaredue to its Director,Dr.G. Bisheh. 5Aquernof similarsizerecoveredin an IronAge I contextatTallal-6Umayri (Clark1996:241),may contribute,with full documentation,to our understandingof foodprocessingandindustrialactivitiesthatmadeuse of such largeinstallations.

Bibliography Beit-Arieh,I., ed. 1995 HorvatQitmit:An EdomiteShrinein theBiblicalNegev.TelAviv UniversityInstituteof ArchaeologyMonograph11.TelAviv:Tel Aviv University. Briinnow,R. E. and von Domaszewski,A. 1904-5 DieProvincia ArabiaaufGrundZweierin denJahren1897und1898 unternommenen ReisenundderBerichtefrihererReisender,I, II. Strassburg:KarlJ.Tribner.

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Miller,J.M. Clark,D. R. 1979 ArchaeologicalSurveySouthof the WadiMujib:Glueck'sSites Plains 1991 FieldB:TheWesternDefenseSystem.Pp.53-86in Madaba 23:79-92. Revisited.AnnualoftheDepartment at Tellel-cUmeiri andVicinofJordan ofAntiquities Project2:The1987SeasonofExcavations 1989 Six Khirbetel-Medeinehsin the Region East of the Dead Sea. Studies,edited by L.G. Herr,L. T.Geraty,O. ity andSubsequent 276:25-28. Bulletinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch S. LaBianca,and R. W.Younker.BerrienSprings,MI:Andrews 1992 EarlyMonarchyin Moab?Pp.77-91 in EarlyEdomandMoab:The UniversityPress. editedby P Bienkowski. Jordan, oftheIronAgein Southern Beginning Cohen,R.and Yisrael,Y. SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R. Collis 1995 The Iron Age Fortressesat 'En Haweva.BiblicalArchaeologist Publications. 58:223-35. P. M. M. Miller, J.M.,editor Daviau, 1991 Archaeological 1993 PreliminaryReportof the ThirdSeason of Excavationsat Tell Surveyof theKerakPlateau.AmericanSchools of OrientalResearchArchaeologicalReports1,editedby L.G. Herr. Jawa,Jordan(1992).AnnualoftheDepartment ofJorofAntiquities Atlanta:ScholarsPress. dan37:325-40. 1995 New Project Announcement: Excavations in the Land of Musil,A. 59:179. Moab.BiblicalArchaeologist 1907 ArabiaPetraeaI. Moab.Vienna:AlfredHolder. A. Dearman,J. C. and theMeshaInscription.Pp. 155-210 Routledge, 1989 HistoricalReconstruction 58:236. 1995 PillaredBuildingsin IronAge Moab.Biblical Archaeologist andMoab,edited by.A. Dearin Studiesin theMeshaInscription S. man.Archaeologyand BiblicalStudies2. Atlanta,GA:Scholars Tirnm, 1989 MoabzwischendenMiichten.Studienzu historischen Denkmdilern Press. undTexten.Agypten und Altes Testament17. Wiesbaden:Har1992 SettlementPatternsand the Beginningof the IronAge in Moab. rassowitz. Pp. 65-75 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAge in SouthernJordan,edited by P.Bienkowski.SheffieldArchaeo- Tushingham,A. D. at Dibon(Dhiban)in Moab.TheThirdCampaign 1972 TheExcavations logicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R.Collis Publications. 1952-53.Annualof the AmericanSchools of OrientalResearch Finkelstein,I. 40. New Haven:AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch. 1996 Ethnicityand Origianof the IronI Settlersin the Highlandsof Canaan:Can the Real Israel Stand Up? BiblicalArchaeologist WinnettF.V.and Reed.W.L. 59:198-212. at Dibon(Dhiban)in Moab.Annualof the Amer1964 TheExcavations icanSchoolsof OrientalResearch36-37. New Haven:American Glueck,N. Schoolsof OrientalResearch. in Eastern LAnnualof theAmericanSchools 1934 Explorations Palestine, of Oriental Research 14. New Haven: American Schools of Worschech,U. OrientalResearch. PallistinadesDeutschen 1995 Figurinenausel-Baluf (Jordanien). Zeitschrift 1939 Explorationsin EasternPalestine,III.Annual of the American Vereins111:185-92. Schools of Oriental Research 18-19. New Haven: American Younker,R.W.,Geraty,L.T.,Herr,L. G., and LaBianca,0. S. Schoolsof OrientalResearch. 1992 The JointMadabaPlains Project:A PreliminaryReporton the Harrison,T. 1992Season, including the RegionalSurvey and Excavations 1997 Investigations of Urban Life in Madaba, Jordan. Biblical at TellJaluland Tellel-Umeiri(June16-July31, 1992).Andrews 60:53-54. Archaeologist UniversitySeminaryStudies31:205-38. L. G. Herr, 1978 TheScriptsof AncientNorthwestSemiticSeals.HarvardSemitic Monograph18.Atlanta:ScholarsPress. Dr.P.M. MicheleDaviau PlainsProjects1:The1984 1989 ThePottery.Pp.299-354in TheMadaba Associate Professorof is andVicinityandSubsequent Seasonat Tellel-cUmeiri Studies,edited Near EasternArchaeologyat and R. W. Younker. L. S. G. L. T. Herr,O. LaBianca, Geraty, by WilfridLaurierUniversityin BerrienSprings,MI:AndrewsUniversityPress. Waterloo,ON, Canada.She has her Ph.D.in Near Herzog,Z. 1992 Settlementand Fortification EasternStudiesfromthe Planningin the IronAge. Pp.231-74 in TheArchitectureof AncientIsrael,edited by A. Kempinski Universityof Toronto. and R. Reich.Jerusalem:IsraelExplorationSociety. Followingexcavationsat historicsites in North Hom&s-Fredericq,D. America(1973),she 1992 Late Bronze and Iron Age Evidence from Lehun in Moab. Pp. excavatedat Tellel-Hesi 187-202 in Early Edomand Moab: The Beginning of the Iron Age (1975,1977,1981)and at Tall in SouthernJordan,edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield Archaeoal-'Umayri(1987).From Publications. R. Collis 7. Sheffield: J. logical Monographs 1989-1995she was first,field Lapp, N. L. and then director supervisor 1981 Tell el-Ful and Some Iron Age Constructions. Pp. 47-62 in The of excavationsat TallJawa, ThirdCampaignat Tellel-Ful: The Excavationsof 1964, edited by south of Amman,Jordan. N. L. Lapp. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Currently,she is directorof 45. New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research. the Wadiath-Thamad Project.Daviauhas publishednumerousarticlesand a book, Mattingly, G. L. in BronzeAgePalestine(Sheffield, HousesandTheirFurnishings 1989 Moabite Religion and the Mesha Inscription. Pp. 211-38 in Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab, edited by A. Dearman. 1993). Archaeology and Biblical Studies 2. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

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pt

By UdoWorschech

E

SOURCES FROMTHEMIDDLEAND GYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC

and

Moab

Statues of Ramesses IIat the entranceto Amun at Luxor.The statue on the right bears a topographicallistwhich includesthe name "Moab."Egyptiansourcessupplythe earliestepigraphicappearance of Moab. Photographcourtesyof M. Miller.

Late Bronze Ages provide our earliest written referencesto the peoples of the southern Transjordan, and two inscriptions from the reign of Ramesses II tribes, cities, and rulers on both sides of the river Jordan,the 1279-1212 BCE)provide the earliest references to Moab gu-tu are also cursed. (ca. in The Egyptian designation gu-tu calls to mind Num 24:17 (mu'bu) particular. Egyptian sources are less helpful for later periods. As we shall see below, however, there is ample which mentions the "sons of Sheth" (b n et). evidence to suggest significant interchange between Egypt I see him, but not now; I behold him, not nearand Moab through the Iron Age. a star shall come out of Jacob,and a scepter shall rise out BronzeAgePredecessorsto the Moabites of Israel; in of and it interest the territories Palestine Lebanon shall crush the borderlands of Moab, and the territoEgypt's II is the Middle Bronze well ries of all the sons of Sheth (NRSV modified). documented, espeduring period the so-called "Execration Texts." cially through Basically, these texts are curses written on clay vessels or figurines and Because these lines seem to equate the "sons of Sheth" directed against vassals who were rebelling against their with the Moabites, scholars have tended to equate all three--i. e., the gu-tu of the Execration Texts are understood to be Egyptian suzerain. By breaking these clay objects, it was believed that the curse inscribed on them was released. Three essentially synonymous with the sons of Sheth who are none groups of Execration Texts have been discovered: the Mir- other than the Moabites (Worschech1990:94).However, this gissa texts which date from ca. 1870BCE(Koenig 1990:111-12); may be an oversimplification. Certainly the linguistic conthe Berlin texts from ca. 1850 BCE(see Sethe 1926), and the nection between "sons of Sheth (et)" and gu-tu is possible. Brussels texts from ca. 1800 BCE(Posener 1940). Growing Yet it is open to question whether these three terms should unrest in Cis-Jordanmight have turned the focus of Egypt- be understood as references to specific ethnic groups, and ian interest toward Transjordan.Along with various clans, if so, whether the groups were synonymous or may have BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

229

only overlapped in some fashion. Moreover, the gu-tuof the ExecrationTexts seem to have been spread over a larger territory than the Moabites of the Iron Age. Admittedly, it is difficult to locate the gu-tu exactly, yet they seem to have ranged from Wadi al-Hasa as far north as Nahr ez-Zerqa (the biblical Jabbok).1By the time of Ramesses II's reign, on the other hand, when Moab made its first appearance in the epigraphicalrecord,Moabiteterritoryseems to have been confined essentially to the region between Wadi al-Hasa and Wadi alMijib. If one assumes an exact identification between the ?u-tu and the Moabites, therefore, it would seem to follow that the area of (pre-) Moabites settlement was reduced significantly before the time of Ramesses II.In short, we may suppose that the Moabites were a more localized tribal society than the ?u-tuof the Bronze Age, and one which possibly included people of gu-tu stock (whatever that may have meant)but occupied only partof what earlierEgyptiansources termed "'u-tu Land." It is unclear whether, or how long, the name "Moab"had been in use before it appears in Ramesses II's inscriptions. Probably the name "Moab" emerged near the end of the Bronze Age as a general geographical designation for the region east of the Dead Sea. Accordingly, the people who lived in that region came to be known as Moabites, and kings who ruled that region, or even some portion of it, claimed the title "king of Moab." In short, the Moabites whom we encounterin the Hebrew Bibleprobablyshould not be thought of as a sharply defined ethnic group, in spite of the fact that Gen 19:30-38 traces their ancestry to Lot'soldest daughter and Num 24:17 refers to them as the "sons of Sheth." a mural in the tomb Dating from approximately 1900 BCE, of Hnmw-htpfrom Beni Hassan portraysa caravanof nomads from the "land of the ?wt" driving donkeys and bringing msdm.t(cosmetics) to Egypt. Possibly ?wt is to be identified with ?u-tu, in which case the mural provides a glimpse of ?wt t/u-tu which pre-dates even the earliest of the Execration Texts.Worthyof note is that one of the figures of the Beni Hassan mural is identified by name: abi-?arru(Newberry 1893:69). This is somewhat similar to the name of one of the princes of ?u-tu Land in the Mirgissa group of Execration Texts:saripu(m)(Koenig 1990:111). 230

60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

Thisfamiliarmuralfrom the Beni Hasantomb portraysa group of nomadictradersdrivingtheir donkeys and their cargo of cosmetics. The label identifiesthe groups as "fromthe land of fwt," so that they may be a raredepictionof gu-tu. Drawingfrom Newberry 1893:pl.13.

Another term that appears in Egyptian texts dating from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and is relevant for understanding the ancient population stock of the Transjordanis ?34u(Shasu)(Helck 1968:475-83;1971:335-36;Giveon 1971:235;Ward 1972:35-60; Weippert 1974:265-80). Apparently Shasu meant something like "nomad" or "Bedouin;" and while it is clear from the Egyptian sources that Shasu presence was by no means limited to the Transjordan,it also is clear that the Egyptians regardedthe Transjordanas largely Shasu territory. Manfred Weippert, who has made a very careful study of the relevant sources (1974:275-79),points to two texts in particular that provide information about the way of life of the Shasu. Papyrus Anastasi V151-61, a school text, reports a typical small-livestock nomadic situationi.e., in accordancewith their normal transhumantmovement, or possibly because of a drought prevailing in Palestine at the time, Shasu are granted access to the pools of the Temple of Amun. From Papyrus Harris I 76, 9-11, we learn that Shasu in the area of Seir (Edom) dwelt in tents and possessed mostly small livestock for their subsistence. The only thing known about the social organization of the Shasu is that they were to be found in tribes or families. Both the ?u-tu and the earliestMoabites,however they were related,probablywould have been considered by the Egyptians as typical Shasu.

EgyptianPresencein Moabat the Closeof the BronzeAge

Ahmoses and Kamoses receive the credit for expelling the Hyksos from Egypt and initiating Egypt's "EmpireAge." Yet it was Pharaoh Thutmoses III (ca. 1479-1425 BCE)who reestablished Egypt's influence over Palestine. He regularly conducted military campaigns into Syria-Palestine,and these campaigns included forays into the Transjordan.

Recent publications (Redford 1982:60;Kafafi 1985:17-21; Worschech 1990:127) interpret a sequence of toponyms in one of Thutmoses' inscriptions (nr. 95-101) as referring to a segment of a campaign itinerary which begins with Edrei (present-day Deraca on the southern border of Syria) and continued south via Amman (Cayn)to the southern end of the Dead Sea. This interpretationpresupposes three key identifications:the identification of Egyptian cubirwith the Arnon River (present-dayWadi al-Majib),the identificationof Egyptian ti-pu-nu with Dibon (present-day Dhiban), and the identification of Egyptian ya-ru-tu with the recently discovered ruins (Worschech1990:20-27;Miller 1991:53)on the north side of the village of Yarutbetween Wadi al-Majib and Karak. Another possible site identification in the sequence is Egyptian h3-r-ku-rwith Karak.However this entire interpretation of the campaign route does not go unchallenged (see Timm's detailed discussion, 1989:34-60, and Kitchen's reaction, 1992:27-29).2 In addition to providing our earliest epigraphical reference to Moab, the statue of Ramesses II located in front of the temple of Amun at Luxor and another inscription on an interiorwall of the temple provide a number of toponyms pertaining to ancient Moab.3 K. A. Kitchen (1964:47-70; 1992:21-34)has reconstructed the crucial lines of the interior inscription as follows: Town which the mighty arm of Pharaoh, L.P.H. plundered in (the) land of Moab: b(w)trt. Town which the mighty arm of Pharaoh, L.P.H. plundered: yn(?)d..., in the mountain of mrrn. The t[own which] the mighty arm of Pharaoh, L.P.H., [plundere]d, of tbniw. While the schematicdrawing (forclassificationsee Badawi 1948:type 2b) of the fortified town of tbncan clearly be identified as Dibon (present-day Dhiban), known also from the Mesha Inscription and the Hebrew Bible, the town of b(w)trt is more difficult to locate. I have suggested Jabal Batral (ca. 17 km south east of Karak)as a possible candidate (Worschech 1990:102,n.44). In any case, the early mention of Moab and two of its cities along with such major powers as the Hit-

tite and Mitanni kingdoms strongly suggests that Moab must have played an important role in Egyptian foreign politics. This does not necessarily mean, however, that Moab was a fully organized state at the time. While it is not an Egyptian inscription and cannot be dated with any degree of precision, the Balac Stele clearly has bearing on Egyptian relations with the inhabitants of Moab at approximatelythe close of the BronzeAge and beginning of the Iron Age. The circumstances of its discovery are not certain. Probably the stele was found in the walls or vicinity of the Qasr al-BalIc,a massive building ruin which dominates the otherwise extensive ruins of Khirbatal-BalTc. The stele is conically shaped (ca. 70x169 cm) and composed of the same basalt stone used for the Qasr itself and other installations excavated at the site. Below four illegible lines, the stele presents a relief which may show an inauguration or "introduction" scene in which a lower god is introducing a human chief or ruler to a higher god. In any case, the scene is basically Egyptian or "Egyptianizing" in that all three figures are clearly portrayed in Egyptian style (Ward-Martin 1964; Giveon 1971:202-204). The figure to the right is a goddess in a long dress, carrying an ankhsymbol and wearing the crown of Osiris. The center figure is depicted as a Shasu wearing the typical rectangularShasu headdress and a beard. Both featuresare known from Ramesside depictions of Shasu-warriors(Weippert1985:666;Giveon 1971:202).The raised hands of the center figure are held up towards a god on the left who is wearing the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and carrying a w3s-scepter which the god seems to be handing over to the Shasu-man.On the man's shoulders are ancestral symbols: the crescent moon on the left and the sun merging with the crescentmoon on the right. H. Weippert dated the finished stele to the tenth century BCE or later on the grounds that the presentation of the sun disc filling the crescent moon did not become a typical feature of monumental art in northern Syria until that time. However, she conceded that the scene may go back to an earlier draft dating to the time of Ramesses II. The BaldcStele may thus be a provincial type copy mixing earlier Egyptian features of introduction scenes with later north Syrian emblems of gods (Weippert 1985:667). BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

231

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mentioned in the RamessesIIperiod inscriptioncould be identified

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i iiiii~iii i~iiii~iiiiiiiii~ with this site. The other refersunmistakablyto Dibon.Photograph ~iiii•iii~i~iiiiiiiiiii~i iii !!~iiiiiiiiiiiii~ courtesyof

M. Miller. < ThutmosesIll'sitinerarythrough Moab accordingto Redford's qj050 reconstruction.The site identificationsdo not go unchallenged. kiii!iiiiii arailii ii!, i4i-iiiiK i.. iiii-j iii-i' i ii i!iiii ii!il iii iii i!i i liiiiii iiii i!!ii ii iii!i~i!iiiiiiii iii!iii (H a rk u Nevertheless,ThutmosesIII'sexpansionof Egyptianhegemony r)iiiiiiiiiiiiiii~il~ii~iiilli~~~i~~ii' includedmilitaryforays into the Transjordan. II I(amiti]ii i' lii!i i ii

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Bible (2 Kgs 3:4-27). The Mesha Inscriptionis the most extensive pre-Roman inscription discovered thus far in Palestine --------M O • • • •• : : t ] [;• • • •• iiiiiiiiiiii~~i:iiiiiiiliiiii~iiiii~i}iii(34 lines) and naturally is an important text for the study x.... .... ...Mi !1!1 ii i i ; 0 kms of the history of the whole region. Another inscription ,50 fragment discovered at Karak,also in the Moabite language and probably dating from about the same time as the Mesha was left by another king who likewise claimed Inscription, 20000 the title "king of Moab." The fragment reveals no further information. Approximately a century later, after TiglathPileser (744-727 BCE)secured Assyrian control over all of the local Palestinian states, Moabite kings begin to turn up in Assyrian letters and inscriptions. These are only passing references for the most part,but one can glean from the Assyrian texts the names of four more Moabite kings: Salamanu paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser;Kammasunadbi pledged loyalty to Sennacherib;Musuri was a contemporaryof Manasseh of Judah; and Kamashaltu defeated the Qedarites during Ashurbanipal's reign (for specifics, see Miller 1989). While Egyptian sources from the IronAge make no mention of Moab, several items discovered in Moab itself suggest continued Egyptian influence.Admittedly, there are few such in the Iron items to be mentioned. In view of the limited archaeological Moab Presence during Age Egyptian After Ramesses II, Egyptian epigraphical sources have explorationin Moab, however, the few Egyptian-relateditems nothing to offer pertaining specifically to Moab. Fortunately, that have been discovered take on more importance. however, we have some other very useful sources for the Iron Surely the most intriguing of these is the so-called Shihan Age, especially the Mesha Inscriptionfrom the ninth century stele, actually discovered at Faqic in 1851 (Miller 1991:32). This stele (58 x 103 cm) shows a beardless man armed with BCE.Discovered in 1868 near Dhiban (ancient Dibon), the a javelin and clad in a short kilt. His head is turned sideways Mesha Inscriptionis written in the ancient Moabite language while his body is pictured from the front. Behind or beside which was closely akin to Hebrew and was erected by him, a young lion is sitting. The raised javelin may imply King Mesha of Moab who appears also in the Hebrew

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232

BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

The BMIQc Stele. The basaltstele's date is not preciselyknown, but its Egyptianizingfeatures are clearlymanifest.The centralfigure is a shasu who may be receivinghis divine "introduction"from the deities who wear Egyptiancrownsand carrysymbolicobjects. Apparently,relationsbetween Moab and Egyptwere fairlyintense Itransition.FromP Bienkowski,TheArt of duringthe LBII-lron Jordan,p. 35, courtesyof the Louvre.

that the man is ready to strikeat something or someone (Weippert 1985:667).The stele has been dated to the eighth century at which time Assyria was securing control of Palestine, and some observers have called attention to Neo-Hittite stylistic tendencies. Nevertheless, the stele also reflectsEgyptian influence. The figure's Egyptian style kilt is a variation of earlier Egyptian kilts known from cylinder seals discovered at Beth Shean and Bethel (Mussell 1989:248). His coiffure ends in a curl typical of the Baal-Seth-Reshephtype godhead as represented on other Egyptian seals (Keel 1990:320;fig. 97). Hence, the figure may be the Moabite god Kemosh presented as a warrior god of the Baal-Seth-Resheph type (Worschech 1993:401-41) but with various later religio-cul-

The

Stele. A meter tall, the stele possiblydepictsthe Moabite Kemoshas a warriorgod. The stele dates to the period of god Shih.n Assyria'sgrowing hegemony over the smallerpolitiesof the Levant. FromP Bienkowski,TheArt of Jordan,p. 36, courtesyof the Louvre.

tural stylistic influences (Neo-Hittite or Syrian? Mattingly 1992:60). Recently, in the course of excavations at Khirbatal-Balac directed by the author,a clay bulla was discovered in a room together with Iron IIC sherds. The rather eroded surface of the bulla shows a lion attacking a man and a cartouche in which the name of mn-k3-r'can be read. The bulla, which is two cm in diameter, was attached to documents, as is evidenced by the string holes going through its convex side. Also at Balac we found an udjat-eye carved in frit. Only 10 mm long and 3 mm thick,it may have been worn as an amulet since it is pierced through along its long axis (Worschech 1989:116-18). At Khirbat Lehafin,not far north of Khirbat al-BalTcand perched on the northern rim of Wadi al-Mijib, excavators have discovered a beautiful but broken scarab. While the 60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

233

IronIICdomestic rooms from the on-going excavationsof KhirbatalPhotographcourtesyof U. Worschech. B~IOc. Scarabdiscoveredat LehOn.The scarab'sbackcontainsa (family) renditionof the name of Amon-Realong with a sphinxand a ram's head topped with an atef crown.Photographcourtesyof D. Homes-

back of the scarabis damaged, the base depicts a sphinx with a ram's head wearing a stylized atef-crown. In front of the sphinx stand an upraised uraeusand an open lotus flower. The hieroglyphic inscription gives a faulty spelling-the signs are not in the correct order-of the name of the god Amun-Re. It appears as if someone engraved the scarabwho did not understand what he wrote. The excavators dated the scarab roughly to the time of the twentieth dynasty, ca. 1186-1070 BCE(Homes-Fredericq1992:190).At the same site, the bottleneckof a "New Yearflask"was unearthedand dated to ca. seventh-sixth century BCE(Homes-Fredericq1992:198). It is made of light green glazed faience and has a diameter of 3.4 cm. Based on many parallels from all over the Mediterranean world, the original vessel was probably 15 to 18 cm high.

some unrest. The Genesis traditionwhich disparages the origins of the Moabites possibly reflects some of the tension between the various Shasu tribalelements among whom the ancestors of the Israelites and Moabites should be included. The dynamics of the settlement process would have been multi-layered in any case, and the factors which triggered it (was it only "food subsistence strategies"?)remain to be clarified. Neither is it clear how Ramesses II's campaign would have figured in the picture. Possibly some of the local tribes had attempted to enter into an alliance with the Hitin the north.If so, this suggests an emerging political tite rulners consciousness among the previously independent and nonApparently, politicallythinkingtribesin the twelfthcenturyBCE. one blow from the pharaoh was enough to bring this new self-consciousness of a loosely confederated tribal nation to an end-and Ramesses may not have wanted to put an end to the ferment so much as to show who was "Lordof the Manor." One can speculate about whether his presumably successful destruction of b(w)trtmu bu merely furthered the feeling of solidarity and the willingness to confederate.

and Conclusion Sununmmary

Notes

Fredericq.

The foregoing review of epigraphical and archaeological evidence pertaining to Egyptian-Moabite relations indicates a distinct Egyptian interest in eastern Palestine despite the lack of natural resources in the latter region. Egypt's main concern may have been to ensure an open caravan route through the Transjordanand to safeguard its eastern flank. The evidence suggests also that Moab may have represented a larger political factor than historians have realized and for which, admittedly, there remains little tangible evidence. If Late Bronze-IronI Moab was populated by Shasu clans and tribes of various origins in the process of settlementsome of ?u-tu stock,othersperhapsnot-then we may assume 234

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1 See the discussion and differing locations of ?u-tu by Helck 1971:51 and Kitchen 1992:22, fig. 3.1. 2Based on an examination and interpretation of three Egyptian itineraries and their parallels, M. Krahmalkov (1994:5) has concluded that a route through the desert from Sinai to northern Palestine was known to the Egyptians already in the fifteenth-fourteenth century BCE,and that memory of this route, transmitted orally by the ?3sw-yhwh,may have been the Vorlage(prototype) of the biblical exodus itinerary

3In a recently published Habilitationsschriftby S. Timm (1989:5-33), a new evaluation of Kitchen's and other's (Kuschke 1983:254-70; Ahituv 1984) interpretationsof these Moabite toponyms leaves only the "cities"of b(w)trt

MOABITEKINGS

mu buand tbnas genuineMoabitesettlementsof the Ramessideinscriptions.

Bibliography Ahituv, S.

Balak This legendary king is known only from the Hebrew Bible. According to Numbers 22-24 he called on the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites while they were camped in the Plains of Moab.

1984 CanaaniteToponyms on AncientEgyptianDocuments.Jerusalem: MagnesPress. Badawy,A. M. 1948 Ledessinarchitectural chezlesanciensEgyptiens: ?tudecomparative desrepresentations deconstructions. Cairo:Imprimerie egyptiennes national. Giveon, R.

1971 Lesbidouinsshosoudesdocuments egyptiens.Leiden:E. J.Brill.

Km'[ ...]I Mesha's father who, according to the Mesha Inscription, ruled from Dibon and lost much of northern Moab to Omri king of Israel. It is possible, although far from certain, that he was the same ...K]mshyt whose inscription fragment has been discovered at Karak. In that case his name would have been Kemoshyatti, the first part of the name having been preserved in the Mesha Inscription and the last part on the Karak fragment.

Mesha Ruled from Dibon contemporary with Ahab of Israel and the latter's immediate successors. The Mesha Inscription records his royal deeds, including recovery of northern Moab from Israelite control. This is reported also in 2 Kings 3.

Salamanu A cuneiform text on a clay tablet fragment discovered at Nimrud lists him among kings who paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser shortly after 734 BCE.

Kammusunadbi The Oriental Institute and Taylor Prisms mention Kammusunadbi among the local Palestinian kings who rushed with presents to assure Sennacherib of their loyalty when he marched against Philistia and Judah in 701 BCE.

Musuri

Gr6ndahl, F.

1967 DiePersonennamen derTexteausUgarit.Rome:PapstlichesBibelinstitut Typis Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae. Helck, W. 1968 Die Bedrohung Palistinas durch einwandernde Gruppen am Ende der 18. und am Anfang der 19. Dynastie. Vestus Testamentum 18:475-83.

im3. und2. Jahrtausends 1971 DieBeziehungen Agyptenszu Vorderasien v.Chr.Agyptische Abhandlungen 5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Homes-Fredericq, D. ' 1982 Un Goulot de Bouteille de Nouvel An Trouve Lehun (Jordanie). Pp. 79-90, pl. 8-9 in Studia Paulo Naster Oblata II = Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 13. Leuven: Department of Orientalistisk. 1992 Late Bronze and Iron Age Evidence from Lehun in Moab. Pp.

187-202 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAge

in SouthernJordan,edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 7. Sheffield: J. R. Collis Publications.

Huffmon,H. B. 1965 AmoritePersonalNamesin theMariTexts:A StructuralandLexical Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kafafi, Z. 1985 Egyptian Topographical Lists of the Late Bronze Age of Jordan (East Bank). BiblischeNotizen 29:17-21.

Keel,O., Shuval,M., and Uehlinger,C. 1990 Studienzu denStempelsiegeln ausPalidstina/Israel, Bd.33:DieFriihe Eisenzeit. Orbis biblicus et orientalis 100. G6ttingen: Vanden-

hoeck and Ruprecht. Krahmalkov,C. R.

1994 Exodus ItineraryConfirmed by Egyptian Evidence. BiblicalArchaeology Review 20:54-62.

Kitchen,K.A. 1992 The Egyptian Evidence on Ancient Jordan. Pp. 21-34 in Early

EdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAgein SouthernJordan, editedby P.Bienkowski.SheffieldMonographs7. Sheffield:J.R.

Collis.

A cuneiform text on another prism reports that this Moabite king, along with Manasseh of Judah and Qaushgabri of Edom, transported building materials to Nineveh during the reign of Esarhaddon.

Kamashaltu

Y. Koenig,

1990 Les Textes d'Envoutement 41:101-25.

de Mirgissa. Revue d'Egyptologie

Kuschke, A. zu einerSyrienlisteRamses'ILPp. 254-270 in Festschrift 1983 Bemerkungen H. Brunner.G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.

He defeated the Qedarites of Arabia during Ashurbanipal's

reign.

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Sethe,K. Mattingly,G. 1992 TheCulture-Historical 1926 DieAchtungfeindlicher undDingeaufaltdgyptisFiursten,V61ker Approachand MoabiteOrigins.Pp.55-64 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAgein Southern chenTongeffdjscherben desMittlerenReiches.Abhandlungender editedby P.Bienkowski. SheffieldMonographs7. Sheffield: PreugischenAkademieder Wissenschaften,Phil.-Hist.Klasse5. Jordan, Berlin:Walterde Gruyter. J. R.Collis. M. Miller,J. Timm,S. 1989 Moaband Moabites.Pp. 1-40 in Studiesin theMeshaInscription 1989 MoabzwischendenMachten.Studienzu historischen Denkmdlern andMoab,editedby A. Dearman.Archaeologyand BiblicalStudundTexten.AgyptenundAltesTestament 17.Wiesbaden:Harrasies 2. Atlanta:ScholarsPress. sowitz. M. and Martin,M. F. Ward, ed. Miller,J.M., 1964 TheBalucaStele:A New Transcription. AnnualoftheDepartment 1991 Archaeological Surveyof theKerakPlateau.AmericanSchools of ofAntiquitiesofJordan8/9:5-29. OrientalResearchArchaeologicalReports1. Atlanta:Scholars Press. Ward,M. 1972 TheShasuBedouin:Notes on a RecentPublication.Journalofthe M. L. Mussell, Economic andSocialHistoryof theOrient15:35-60. 1989 An IronAge Seal ImpressionDepictinga Deity from Dhiban. in Studies in 247-52 the Mesha A. Warembol,E. Pp. Inscription,edited by Dearman.Archaeologyand BiblicalStudies2. Atlanta:Scholars 1983 La stble de Rujm al-cAbd (Louvre AO 5055): Une image de Press. divint6Moabitedu ixkme-viiimesicle av.N. E.Levant15.63-75. Weippert,H. Newberry,P.E. 1985 Paldstinain vorhellenistischer Zeit. HandbuchderArchdologie: 1893 Beni Hasan I. Archaeological Survey of Egypt. London: K. Vorderasien II,I. Miinchen:C. H. Beck. Paul,Trench,Trubnerand Co. Weippert,M. Posener,G. 1974 SemitischeNomadendes 2. Jahrtausends.Biblica55:265-80. 1940 Princes etPaysd'AsieetdeNubie.Brussels:Fondation6gyptologique ReineElisabeth. Worschech,U. 1989 PreliminaryReporton the SecondCampaignat theAncientSite Redford,D. B. of el-Balu
Udo F.Chr.Worschechis currentlypresidentof FriedensauUniversitywhich is locatednearBerlin.He has receivedhis doctoratein Old Testamentstudiesfromthe Universityof Frankfurt/ Mainin 1982.Prof. Worschechhas a longstandinginterestin the explorationof the Moabite culture.His researchon the regionstartedin 1983when he beganto explorethe slopes of the Moabiteplateau to the DeadSea northof the Wadial-Karak.From1986to the present,Prof.Worschechhas conductedseveralsondagesand excavationsat the famoussite of al-Balo<.He has publisheda numberof articlesand booksabouthis workand on BiblicalArchaeology,particularyas it pertainsto the Prof.Worschechis married.His wife joinsin the Transjordan. archaeologicalprojectsand has considerableexperiencein the field.

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Moabite Social Structure By RandallW.Younker

socio-political development. Some see the presence of at least a "simple political state" in Moab as early as the Late Bronze HAT WAS SOCIAL A PERUSAL STRUCTURE? OF IIAge and a "nation-state"by Iron I (e.g., Alt 1989;Gottwald MOAB'S the recent literature on the Moabites reveals 1979; Kitchen 1992); others believe Moab did not become a that a number of scholars have attempted to "state" until later in the Iron I or well into the Iron II describe the nature of ancient Moab's socioperiod, by which time it may have also become a "nation" (Knauf 1992).Still others question whether a unified "monarpolitical organization.This same survey also reveals that they have employed a considerablevarietyof termsin this endeavor. chy" (i.e. state?) existed in Moab even in the early Iron II (let Moab's socio-political organization has been described alter- alone the Late Bronze II or Iron I periods)-the time of Mesha natively as "pastoral,"a "tribe,"a "state,"a "territorialstate," during the ninth century BCE(Miller 1992). a "simple political state," a "monarchy," a "kingdom," a This lack of consensus concerning the nature and "tribal kingdom," a "nation," and so on (e.g., Gottwald development of Moab's social organization is, at least in part, the result of three problems. The first is a lack of agreement 1979:429;Beinkowski 1992). Some of the variation in terms results from attempts to about what constitutes appropriate terminology for describdescribe Moab's socio-politicalorganizationat differenttimes ing social structureand change;is it correctto describe"early" Moab as a "pastoral"society which developed into a Moabite during its history. That is, most scholars recognize that no society's socio-political organization is static through time; "nation"?A second problem concerns the proper identification and interpretationof "archaeologicalcorrelates"of social rather, it changes constantly. If these differences in sociostructures and their change. Does increasing sedentarism or political structure can be detected in the historical and the presence of monumental stelae testify to the presence of, archaeological records, then they can provide new insights into Moab's origins and development. or development into, a "statelevel" society? Borrowing outIn this regard, scholars are following the path of "social dated theories from other disciplines, such as anthropology, archaeologists" whose goal, as Renfrew and Bahn point out, to serve as models for ancient social processes constitutes is: the third problem. Did Moab undergo a step-like social developmental trajectory from, say, a simple "tribal" society to that of a complex "state"?If so, did Moabite society neces...an understanding of the social organization not just of societies in the present or very recent past (like cultural sarily become "detribalized" when it became a state? Are these social organizations structures mutually exclusive? anthropology) but of societies at many different points in time, with all the scope that that offers for studying change. Only the archaeologist can obtain that perspec- A On the road to statehood? These superimposedIronIIapproach tive, and hence seek some understanding of the processes roadsexcavatedat TallJalOilraisethe question about JalOl'scharacter as an "urban"site and its possible place in a putative ancient state of of long-term change (1991:153).

W

However, it is clear that we have not been able to reach a consensus on either the nature or timing of ancient Moab's

Moab. Do roadsand monumentalconstructionprojectsindicatethe presence of state-level organization?The simpleanswer is "no." Photographcourtesyof the author.

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Typologyof Societies

Although few anthropologistswould hold to it rigidly,the following classificationof societiesis widely accepted.Originallyproposedby Service (1962),who built on earlierideas, the descriptionsof the categoriesare derived fromRenfrewand Bahn (1991:154-57).

Bands Generallyunderstoodto be small-scalesocieties of relatedindividuals (less than 100people) who are usually semi-nomadichuntersand gathers.They are egalitarianand lack leaders.

Tribes Egalitarian,multi-communitysocieties integrated throughkinship.Economyis usually based on agricultureand pastoralismratherthan hunting and gathering.

Chiefdom Chiefdomsocieties are still organizedaround kinship,but people have unequal or "ranked" positions within the sociopoliticalorganization.That is, people obtaintheirposition by ascription(birth).A common componentof a chiefdom economy is the accumulationand redistributionof goods by the chief

States Typicallydisplay a significantamountof ethnic pluralityand/or social differentiation(Kampand Yoffee1980:87);thereis a diminished-to-non-existent role for kinshiprelationswithin the centralpolitical bureaucracy;often religiousand politicalauthorities areseparate;they may maintaina standingarmy;and a significantamountof the populationis usually settled in urbancenterswhich functionwithin a pronouncedsettlementhierarchy,usually three-tiered. All in all, state-levelsocietiesareunderstoodto representthe most complexlevel of social organization.

Before offering my own views on the nature and development of Moabite society, it will be helpful to examine these three problem areas, beginning with the issue of appropriate terminology.

AppropriateTerminology

As a firststep towards a betterunderstandingof the nature and development of social structure in Moab, it will be useful to examinewhat terminologyis appropriatefor describing ancient social structures and their development. What do we mean when we describe Moab's social organization 238

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as a "tribe,""state,"or "nation"?Are these terms even appropriate? Anthropologist Alice Kingsnorth helps focus the problem by explaining: Certain common words in English, along with their Latinized or Greek origin, explicitly coined forms, have been adopted by anthropology as technical terms to describe specialized phenomena.... While anthropology can claim no monopoly on the words: rank, lineage, segmentary, tribe, class, state, stratified, prestige, integration, acephalous, intensive agriculture, etc., when those words come to be used loosely or in a private, personal sense by archaeologistsfrom the nonanthropological traditions for issues related to anthropological ones, they unwittingly introduce a source of confusion (1993:108). I would suggest that Kingsnorth's comments accurately portray the situation that has developed, especially among many biblicalscholars.While a number of us areinterested in the origin and development of the social structures of biblical peoples, most of us have been trained in nonanthropologicaldisciplinesand have, thus, appropriateddifferent understandings about what certain social-organizational terms mean. This is not to say that a biblical scholar's understanding of these terms is necessarily wrong and that we should not use them. It is certainly the prerogative of any scholar to use the terminology he or she feels best communicates. However, if we hope to effect meaningful communication with scholars from other disciplines, it is, at the least, useful to explain what is meant by the terms we use and why these terms were chosen. As is evident from Kingsnorth'sstatement, quoted above, most of the words biblical scholars have employed to discuss ancientbiblicalsocietieshave been assigned fairlyspecific meanings by disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, that are specifically interested in studying social organizations.These include terms such as "tribe"and "state." Although different academic disciplines such as political science have differentideas aboutwhat these termsmean (Tapper 1991), biblical scholars should explore what social scientists and anthropologists -people who are specifically interested in this issue- mean when they use these terms. Then we can choose either to adopt these meanings or to explain why we do not.

Types of Social Structure

In anthropological usage, "tribe"and "state" are generally understood as two of the four basic categories by which anthropologists attempt to classify all societies. Originally proposed by Service (who built upon earlier ideas), the four categories are "band,""tribe,""chiefdom," and "state"(Service 1962).Although the use of these categories has recently been criticized and should not be understood as depicting a simplistic four-step social evolutionary trajectory through

Khirbatal-MudaynaaI-Mraygha,an IronAge fortificationon Moab's eastern frontier.The presenceof fortificationstructuresappearsto demand the existence of state-level organization,but there are many non-state-levelsocieties that created such defensive constructions. Photographby M. Miller.

which all societies pass (Yoffee1993;Kingsnorth 1993), most anthropologists maintain that these terms still "provide a useful vocabulary for variations in [social] organizational form and in trajectoriesof developmental change" (Rothman 1994:4;see also Earle 1987:280).That is, these terms can provide a useful framework or control when attempting to describe and compare the nature and development of social structures from different cultures (cross-cultural comparisons). Indeed, most anthropology and archaeologytextbooks which, as Kuhn points out, tend to reflectthe state of the field as the conservative majority view it (1962), still prefer to categorize societies according to this scheme (e.g. Thomas Wenke1990:282-85; Emberand Ember1993:369-76; 1989:356-57; Renfrew and Bahn 1991:154-57). For convenience, the chart to the left summarizes the descriptions of these four categories provided by Renfrew and Bahn (1991:154-57). The typology of societies shows that terms such as "nomadic," "pastoral society," "kingdom," or "nation" are not really adequate or appropriate to apply to ancient Moab, if the intention is to describe socialorganization."Nomadic" is a descriptive term for residence mode which can be found in all four social categories, not just tribes. Similarly, "pastoralism" is a subsistence strategy, not a type of social organization,and can be found in all types of societies. Terms such as "kingdom" are not precise and need to be defined; "kingdom" could apply to a modern state like Great Britain or a tribal kingdom that is organized along kinship lines such as exist in many places in Africa. The concept of "nation" is a fairly recent phenomenon that originated in Europe and then was applied globally;it does not really apply to ancient socio-political organizations at all (Tibi 1990:132).

Khirbatal-MudaynatCAliya,another IronAge fortificationon Moab's eastern frontier less than five kilometerssouth of KhirbatalMudaynaal-Mraygha,has similarlyelicited the conclusionthat the Moabite plateau witnessed the formationof a secondarystate in the IronIIperiod.There is plenty of evidence, however,that Moabwas triballyorganized. Photographby M. Miller.

ArchaeologicalCorrelatesof SocialStructureand Change?

As noted above, not all anthropologists are satisfied with the use of this four-part typology. One of its shortcomings is that a previous generation of scholars tended to view these four categories as rather rigid. This, in turn, led them to attempt to define each social category by a similarly rigid list of material cultural "traits"(artifacts) that were thought to typify each category. For example, if an archaeologist found only temporary shelters of a certain people, it was assumed that they were made by a band-level society; on the other hand, palaces, temples, or public buildings were assumed to be built only by state-levelsocieties. One reason many archaeologists continue to use these "trait lists" is that they often seem to work. Certainly, the typical band societies ethnographers study seem to live in temporary shelters, and large public monuments are commonly associated with states. However, extensive work by ethnographers over the last thirty years has discovered that there is tremendous variability in the traits associated with real societies (Rothman 1994:3). So many "exceptions to the rule" were found that traditional trait lists lost their viability. Numerous non-state societies, for example, can get large groups of people together for big projects. Thus, anthropologists and archaeologists who are trained within the anthropology tradition recently have tended to eschew the use of simple trait lists to define social organization. This does not mean that the material culture is no longer examined for inferences about the nature of ancient social organizations. However, it is now necessary to look at a broader grouping of artifacts for subtle hints of social complexity and integration (see below). Unfortunately, scholars trained in the biblical and historical disciplines are sometimes unaware of these recent BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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developments among social scientists and anthropologists and continue to categorize societies of biblicalpeoples according to the presence of certainclasses of artifacts.This tendency to use the outmoded method of categorizing ancient societies by the presence of certain archaeological "traits"joins terminological imprecision, I believe, as the second source of confusion in our attempts as biblical scholars to understand ancientbiblicalsocieties, including that of the Moabites. By way of illustration, I will provide briefly some examples of traits that typically are put forth in support of the existence of a state in Moab in the Bronze and IronAges and show from ethnographic and anthropological studies how these same traits are found in non-state societies.1 TraitListsfor a State in Moab? Fortifications.Some have argued that the presence of fortifications (city walls, towers, and citadels) such as appear at sites such as Balac, Khirbat al-Mudayna al-Mraygha, and Khirbat al-Muydanat cAliya required a centralized state bureaucracy to organize the labor to build them. Certainly, state-level societies build fortifications. However, impressive fortifications are not uncommon among pre-statesocieties.During the "earlyHorizon period"(900-200 BCE)the pre-state Chavin culture of the northern Andean highlands in South America constructed impressive fortifications, as did the neighboring Moche culture. Yet, anthropologists do not classify these societies as states (Morris 1980:395-96;Wenke 1990:572). Road Systems. Another argument that has been put forth as evidence that Moab had a state-level society, at least by the time of Mesha, is Mesha's road building activity described in the Mesha Inscription.Thereis apparently some archaeological evidence to support the existence of a road system in Moab during the Bronze and Iron Ages, including the time of Mesha (Dearman 1992:70).Again, it is assumed that only a state could organize such a project. However, many non-state societies have constructed impressive road systems. The Chaco system of the Anasazi ("ancient ones") Native Americans of the American southwest (ca. 950-1300 CE)extended over an area of more than 53,000 square kilometers (20,500 square miles) and included an extensive road system that connected more than 125 sites (Snow 1989:53-56). More than 400 kilometers (250 miles) of roads connecting these settlements have been mapped and scholars believe that at least 1600 kilometers (1000 miles) of roadway arestill to be traced(Snow 1989;Wicklein1994:37). Although some anthropologistshave suggested that these roads and towns may have reflected a state-level society, the general consensus is that this culture also reflects a non-state (tribalor chiefdom) society (Snow 1989:47;Wenke 1990:559; Wicklein 1994). WaterControlSystems.Another argument in defense of the existence of a state in Moab during the time of Mesha is the reference in the Mesha Inscription to his building a water reservoir. Again, it is assumed that a centralized state level government would have been required to organize such a project. However, elaborate water systems are 240

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Jalil, one of the few "tell"sites in Moab. If its size (7.2 ha) is a valid parameter,Jall01may have reached "city"status duringthe Late BronzeAge. Photographcourtesyof the author

also known to have been constructedby many non-state societies. The same Chaco Canyon culture, noted above, is also noted for its extensive water control systems at town sites. These water systems typically included a masonry dam (120 ft long, 20 ft wide, 7 ft high), water canals, and reservoirs (Vivian 1970:69-73). Based on studies of the irrigation systems of recent Native American cultures in the southwest United States, scholars have posited that a similar system was in place by the Hohokam between 800-1300 CE(Wenke 1990:580).South American cultures, such as the Moche, also constructed elaborate irrigation systems (Morris 1980:396). Cities.Some infer that the presence of "cities"in Moab is proof that a state existed. However, the question must be asked: what is a "city"and did they exist in Moab? Falconer (1987) points out the inadequacies of using artificial criteria(suchas the presenceof a wall, settlementsize, or population) for determining when a settlement becomes urban. Rather, he argues that a settlement is a city whenever it grows to the point where it is no longer self-sufficient in terms of subsistence-when it can no longer feed itself. Based on studies of Mesopotamian settlements, Falconer determined that the self-sufficient subsistence threshold was reached at about 34 hectares(85 acres),that is, settlementsover 34 ha were "cities." Dever has questioned this figure for Palestine arguing that different environmental, climatic, and topographical factors would reduce the size of the threshold to 6-8 ha (15-20 ac) in Palestine (1993:99-100). Turning to the settlement data for Moab (Miller 1991), the presently available archaeological data, based mostly on surveys, are inadequate to determine the actual size of any Late Bronze Age settlements in Moab, let alone whether any of them exceeded the minimum 6-8 ha that Dever suggests mark a city. "Tell"sites with probable Late Bronze Age occupation such as Jalil (7.2 ha) barely reach the threshold, but excavation has not yet revealed whether the Late Bronze settlement covered the entire site (Younkeret al 1993).

the most extensive ruinon the centralplateau, may Khirbatal-B510c, have reached "city"status duringthe IronAge. Its 16.2 ha (?) extend well beyond the urbanthreshold-6-8 ha-proposed by Dever. Photographby M. Miller.

At any rate, Jalil is in an agriculturally productive zone, so one cannot assume that it would have reached the self-sufficient subsistence threshold anyway. Single occupational sites that may have LateBronzefiB remains such as Mudayna al-Mraygha (2.5 ha), Mudaynat cAliya (2.5 ha), and Lehin (ca. 1.8 ha) are well below even Dever's threshold for a city. For the Iron I period, only Balic (ca. 16.5 ha?) clearly exceeds the threshold for a city, but the extent of its settlement for this period has not yet been adequately confirmed by excavation. Jalil probably reached close to 7.2 ha during this period. Two other sites, Majdalein (ca. 8.0 ha) and Tadfin (ca. 7.0 ha), just reach the threshold;but these size estimates are based only on surface survey. Iron Age er-Rabba, completely covered now with modem settlement, must also have been a place of some consequence. All other sites in Moab, including Dhiban (ca.3.0 ha), existed below this threshold. The same picture holds for the Iron II period. All in all, Moabite sites appear, on the average, to be smaller than contemporary sites in western Palestine (Gonen 1984). While Dever may be correct that a case for urbanism may be made for western Palestine with sites like Hazor (84.0 ha) and Lachish (20.0 ha), it is very questionable whether a similar case can yet be made for Moab. Yet it is important to note Dever's reminder that, in spite of traditional assumptions, urbanism "is certainly not a prerequisite for the development of social complexity, much less for the attainment of state-levelof [socio-]politicalorganization"(1993:100). Based on present data its possible "presence"in Moab should not be used as an argument that Moab was a state. Monumental Art/Inscriptions/Buildings. Yet another argument used to support the existence of a state in Moab is the presence of monumental architecture such as the possible "palace" and "sanctuary" at Dhiban, the proto-Aeolic ("proto-lonic") capitals at al-Mudaybic, and monumental art/inscriptions such as the Balfc Stele, the Rujm al-cAbd (Shihan Warrior)Stele, and the Mesha Stele.

The Cyclopeanwall at B10ic.Although its constructionprobably dates to the BronzeAge, this wall may have remainedin use during the IronAge. While monumentalarchitectureis on the customarylist of features indicativeof the coerciveand bureaucraticpower of the state, manyarchaeologicaland ethnographicexamplesshow that its existence is not a reliablemeasureof the achievementof state-level social organization.Photographby M. Miller

Again, however, ethnographicand archaeologicalresearch has revealed numerous examples of non-state societies that have created similar and even more impressive "monuments"thanthose found in Moab.Forexample,the Formative era of the Olmec culture in Mesoamerica (ca. 1200-400 BCE) saw the emergence of hieroglyphic writing, monumental architecture ("palaces"and pyramids) within planned ceremonial and religious centers, specialization in art and craft, as well as astronomical observation and intensive irrigation agriculture (O'Shea 1980:382). The Olmec monumental art,itself, would be quite impressive by Egyptian standards, let alone Palestinian. At San Lorenzo, for example, over sixty stone monuments were recovered including colossal heads (up to three meters high), large, free-standing sculptures, carved stelae and altars of massive basalt blocks. Some of the sculpted monuments were carved out of huge basalt blocks weighing as much as forty metric tons; they were imported from about eighty kilometers away (O'Shea 1980:384). Imagine what type of a society a Syro-Palestinianarchaeologist might try to reconstruct if they found monumental remains such as these in Transjordan!Nevertheless, most anthropologists would interpret the scale of the Olmec soci1979:255;O'Shea1980:384; ety as non-state(Lamberg-Karlovsky Wenke 1990:490).As John O'Shea explains, Olmec society: ...was rigidly structured and was able to mobilize considerableman-power for the constructionand maintenance of the ceremonial precincts and other public works.... ...Olmec society could not be classified as a state, as it lacked the complexity, the population density and the monopoly of force that were to characterize later state formation in Mesoamerica (1980:384). BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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O'Shea'sstatementillustrateshow scholarsarenow focusing on complexityratherthan traitlists in attempting to define a society's organization.I will returnto this idea in a moment. However, there is one more caveat about using the traditional four-part typology of social organization that needs to be made beforewe attemptto ascertainthe natureof Moab's social organization. Anthropologists now realize that, while these social categories retaina certainvalidity in describing real societies, a given society is not restricted to being organized along the lines of only one of these categories at a time. That is to say, less complex social organizations such as bands or tribes can be subsumed by, and embedded within, more complex structures such as chiefdoms and states. Kingsnorth illustrates this by noting: Band societies, like the San, the Andaman Islanders, and the Inuit, as often as not are under the hegemony of a state. The quintessential trait of chiefdoms, rankingmeaning that in theory no two people share the same status-also characterizes some political and economic organizations within state systems (1993:110). Failure to recognize this situation has naturally led to some confusion for those who would neatly pigeon-hole a given society into one of these four categories. By focusing only on the more obvious traits, one may assign that society a certainlevel of organization while missing subtle hints that would reveal its true complexity.

Indicationsof Tribalismin Moab Returning now to the Moabites, we have already noted how a number of the more obvious characteristics of their material culture such as their fortifications,roads, water systems, public buildings, and monumental art have been used to assume the presence of a state, but how these same types of remains can appear in non-state societies. This is not to say that Moab never developed a state-level social organization. However, by themselves, these material cultural "traits"are inconclusive. Moreover,there are a few more subtle hints that indicate the persistence of "tribalism"in Moab, even in its later history. LiteraryTraditions.While the Moabites clearly saw themselves as a distinctivepeople and were so seen by Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel, there were apparently very old traditions (of which we have only the Israelite version) which indicated that the Moabites were understood to be related to the Israelites, in remote times (Gen 19:36-38; 25:19-34; 36:9). This belief in an ultimate common ancestor is typical of tribal peoples (cf. Peake 1958; Tibi 1990:131; Barfield 1990:160).The fact that Israelitesociety was clearly organized along tribal lines (Stager 1985) is a further piece of evidence that Moab was similarly organized. Unfortunately,we do not have the equivalentof the Hebrew Bible to attest directly to this point. However, Dearman and Miller have recently highlighted some features of the 242

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Megalithicsculpturedhead from San Lorenzoreachesnearlythree meters in height. Thisand similarsculpturesoriginated in the Early FormativePeriodof Mesoamericanculture(1200-1000 BCE). Despite the labormobilizationand politicalhierarchythese heads suggest, few archaeologistsregardthe Olmecpolity as a state. Photograph0 Picturesof Record.

Mesha and Karak Inscriptions that I believe provide hints of Moabitetribalism.They provide evidence that, at least during the Iron I/II transition, Moab was populated by different people groups who were divided into a number of "territories"within Moab (Dearman1992;Miller 1992).This situation is common among Near Eastern tribal societies (Peake 1958;Abujaber1989;Lancasterand Lancaster1992:151;Wahlin 1994) of which ancient Israel is a convenient example. Specifically, as Dearman has noted (1992), the Mesha Inscription (MI) designates certain regions on the Moabite plateau (i.e., within "Moab")as "the land of X or Y"wherein the key settlement within the region bears the same name as the region (e.g. Madaba, CAtarot,Dhiban, probably Jahaz). After Mesha takes (Atarot from Israel, the people he resettles there, although undoubtedly from Moab, are not called "Moabites"but are given their home territorial/city designations-people of Aharon and Maharit. Thus, Moab appears to have been divided into a number of "tribal"or "clan"territories. Furthermore, Dearman points out that although Mesha designates himself as "king of Moab,"he also describes himself as a Dayboni("Dibonite").That this is not just a reference to an inhabitant of the settlement of Dibon is suggested by

the expression "all Dibon" in MI line 28 which evokes the parallel and more complete expression "a[l the lan]d of Madaba"in lines 7,8 (Dearman1992:73). Thus, Mesha was ruler of "all [the land of] Dibon," which was apparently one among several territories within Moab. Nevertheless, he clearly claimed authority beyond the boundaries of his home city, territory,and people, for he called himself not merely the ruler of Dibon or the Dibonites, but the "king of Moab." But what does this mean? Did he really rule all of what was traditionally considered Moab? Miller suggests not. In addition to the fact that aliens occupied some of this land, there is little evidence that Mesha was active in the traditional Moabite land south of the Wadi al-Mijib (the central Moabite plateau). Indeed, Miller notes that only certainareasnorth of the Wadi al-Mijib

Fromthe MeshaInscription I am Meshacson of Kemosh[yat],king of Moab,the Daibonite.My father ruled over Moabthirtyyears, and I ruled aftermy father... Omri was king of Israel,and he oppressedMoabfor many days because Kemoshwas angry with his country.His son succeededhim, and he also said, "Iwill oppress Moab"... Now Omrihad takenpossession of a[ll the lan]d of Mehadaba... Now the Gaditeshad lived in the land of cAtarotforever,and the king of Israelhad rebuiltCAtarotfor himself... Now the king of Israelhad built Yahas,and he occupied it while he was fighting againstme. But Kemoshdrove him out frombeforeme. I took from Moab two hundredmen, its entireunit. I took it up againstYahas and capturedit to annex (it) to Daibon... (fromlines 1-8,10-11,18-21;translatedby KentJackson) The Mesha Inscriptionassumes sub-regionswithin Moab and thus suggests that Meshawas not the rulerof the whole traditionalland of Moab. Mesha'ssway probablydid not extend south of the Wadi MQjib,and the total territoryof Moab appearsto have been more a constellationof tribalentities than a united monarchy.

0

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Preliminarysurface map of Khirbat MudaynatcAliya on the Karakplateau shows the presenceof a sizeable numberof pillaredbuildings,indicativein Moab as in Israelof a distinctlytribalfamilystructure.PlancourtesyB. Routledge.

were definitely under Mesha's control (the land of Dibon?). Both Mesha's military campaigns and public works projects were concentratedalmost exclusively in this northernregion, in and around Dibon and the lands immediately adjacent to it. It has been suggested that the individual commemorated on the Kerak Inscription, "[K]mshyt,the king of Moab," was Mesha's father, and, by inference, that Mesha and his father ruled over a pan-Moab dynastic kingdom. Yet there is, in fact,no definite evidence thatthis individual was Mesha's father. As Miller points out, "all we know for sure is that a ruler who claimed the title 'king of Moab' left an inscription at Kerak" (1992:87). If [K]mshytwas not Mesha's father,this inscription could, ironically, be evidence of the existence of a non-Dibonite, Moabite kingdom occupying another territory within the traditional land of Moab-i. e., on the central plateau. In

short, there could have been several "Moabite"tribes within Moab, each with its own territoryand "king,"a situation not uncommon among related tribal societies. Mesha's ability to call upon "men of Moab," that is, individuals beyond his immediate kin circle of "obedient" or "loyal" Dibonites (MI line 28), clearly elevated him beyond the level of a local Dibonite sheikh or chief. However, if he did not actually controlthe lands of Moab south of the Mijib, then it is questionable that he was truly a king of "all Moab." Rather,he appears to have been a powerful ruler or "chief" of various Moabite tribes, territories, and settlements north of the MUjib.(A similarsituationmight be seen in Israelwhere certain tribes followed the house of David, while other tribes in the north chose different leaders.) PillaredHouses.There are a number of other "hints"in the archaeological record that Moab's social organization was BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

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"tribal."One of the more interesting discoveries in Moab is the presence of "pillared"houses also known as three- and four-room houses. Lawrence Stager has shown that the settlement plans of sites where these houses appear in Israel can be correlated with the family structure that is described in the biblical literature-a structure that is distinctively "tribal." These family or tribal units begin with the individual or nuclear family (geber),the "lineage" (bayit), the "clan" (migpahah),and the "tribe"(gebet/mat.teh). Archaeologically, Stager equates the residence of the nuclear family (geber)with the typical three or four-room house. The bayitor betcab(literally, "house of the father") is representedby the clustersof these houses thathave appeared at numerous sites such as Tell Beit Mirsim, Tell Far~ah(N), Tell en-Nasbeh, and Tel Masos (Herzog 1992:238-39). The way the pillared houses are modified and expanded through time appears to reflect the growth of family units around the house of the father-a growth that is typical of tribal society. If Stager is correct that the individual four-room houses and the intra-town clusters of these houses represent differentcomponentsof tribalsociety-the geberand the bayit-then it could be inferred that the appearance of this same style of house in Moab suggests that Moabite village society was also structured along tribal lines. Mortuary Practices. "Multiple-burial tombs" offer yet another hint of the tribal nature of Moabite society. These tombs have been found in various places such as the necropolis at Dhiban (Reed 1964:57-60).2The tombs were cut into the side of a cliff; the low entrance, which was framed with small hewn stones, opened into a large roughly hewn chamber.Benches were constructedagainst the two sides and back walls of the chamber.These tombs were clearly designed for multiple-burial;it was estimated that at least forty-five adults were buried in TombJ3 at Dhiban. Multipleburial tombs are another characteristic of tribal or segmentary societies in which everyone is treated pretty much the same in death (Renfrew and Bahn 1991:181).The biblical record, of course, indicates that the Israelitetraditionembracedburial in a family tomb, which would have been a multiple-burial tomb (Stager 1985:23;Bloch-Smith 1992:787). MaterialCulturalHomogeneity.A final piece of evidence that Moab maintained a tribal social structure, even into the Iron II Age, is suggested by the remarkable homogeneity of Moab's material culture with that of its tribal neighbor, Israel,as well as with the fellow Transjordanian peoples Edom and Ammon. Recentstudies of two sub-state"peerpolities"have shown that in certain circumstances neighboring societies of less complexity (tribal chiefdoms) appear to "have been part of relativelyopen, cross-cuttingsocial networks,"which resulted in a cross-culturalmaterialculturethatis surprisinglyhomogenous (Feinman 1994:225). One of these examples includes the North American Southwest, mentioned above. Although this is a large region, it was rarely politically consolidated into hierarchically organized entities. Ironically,this led to a ratherhomogenous material culture in spite of the presence 244

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Thismultipleburialtomb at Dhibanmanifeststhe durabilityof the ancestralfamilyas a meaningful,perhapsthe meaningful,social grouping in IronAge Moab, as it was in Judah.The persistenceof this and other more "tribal"socialforms attests to the weakness of whatever higher polity interpretershave seen in biblicalliterature and tell-based archaeology.

of numerousautonomouscommunities(Feinman1994:226-27). A similar case is the Ubaid culture in Mesopotamia where Berman has documented a homogeneity in the ceramic tradition that transcended the presence of local polities and even local pottery manufacturing industries (Berman 1994:23-33). This discovery that neighboring tribal polities can have similar or identical material cultures is opposite of what some scholars would have expected-they would have assumed that each polity would have produced its own unique material culture. The cause of this puzzling situation has become a new focus of study (Feinman 1994:225). Whatever the cause, I would suggest that this identical phenomenon (of cultural homogeneity) is what we observe in ancient Palestine (both western Palestine and the Transjordan) and, based on the cross-cultural examples noted above, may provide us with an insight into the nature of social organization not only of the Moabites, but also of the Ammonites, Edomites, and Israelites.

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Specifically, one of the strange phenomena that, at least initially, surprised and perplexed many Syro-Palestinian archaeologists was the unexpected appearance of what was thought to be hallmarks of Israelite material culture outside Israel's boundaries. Two of these supposed hallmarks were the four-room houses discussed above and the wellknown collared-rim jars. At firstit was thought that some of the homogeneity could be explained by trade or limited migration of Israelites.Gradually, however, it has become clear that these elements are not simply imported from western Palestine. They are too widespread and common (e.g. Ibrahim1978).Rather,it turns out that these distinctive artifactsbelonged also to the indigenous peoples of Transjordan. This material cultural similarity is not restricted to pillared houses and collared-rimjars (and other pottery forms). Indeed, it seems to extend to many aspects of material culture from "proto-loniccapitals" (Miller 1991:163)and "bench tombs" to "pillar figurines" (Dornemann 1983:131;see also London 1989:48-49). There are of course some differences among the respective material cultures (minor variations and unique artifact classes such as the statues of Ammon), but because of the literary evidence for the presence of different people groups in Palestine, it is the similaritiesthat scholars have found hard to explain. For Palestine, it can be argued that similar environmental,economic challenges, or lifestyle (the requirements of country living) resulted in similar material cultures. Similar suggestions have been proposed for the cases of the Southwestern Native American and the Ubaid people, although the actual causes for material cultural similarity are still uncertain (Feinman 1994:227). Although a full discussion is beyond the scope of this article,I believe that one cause for this materialculturalhomogeneity is embedded within the nature of tribal social organization itself. In the case of similar pottery forms, for example, anthropologists know that food preparation and consumption, including the utensils employed in these activities, often are symbolically loaded behaviors (cf. Berman

1994:29).In a marginal and unpredictable land where food procurementand preparationcould not be taken for granted, the extended family (i.e., the "tribe")played a critical role in subsistence security (Hopkins 1985; LaBianca 1990). Biblical traditions clearly indicate that the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Israelites were, at a most distant level, ultimately related. This belief in an ultimate common ancestor is typical of tribal peoples (see above). One of the advantages of maintaining a tribal society3 is that it reduces risk by creating subsistence security in a marginal and unpredictable land where food procurement and preparation are continuous challenges and cannot be take for granted. The tribe provides a pool not only for extra labor, but in reciprocal food exchange; food is provided to family members in need, with the understanding that they will return the help if the situation is reversed. The texts in Genesis suggest that in the case of Israel this "relatedness" extended beyond the Israelite tribal confederation to the Transjordaniantribes, including Moab. The similar pots these people used may have been "symbolically loaded" in such a way as to remind them of their relatedness on occasions of extreme need; the vessel types that are most common do seem to include those forms commonly associated with food storage and preparation such as the collared rim jars and cooking pots (London 1989). Cultic items that are common among these peoples, such as the fertility figurines, also are generally associated with food procurement (cf. Dornemann 1983:129-36;London 1989:49). While the Bible never refers to such food exchanges, there are a few occasions where apparent cooperation between Israel and the Transjordaniantribes appears-Ruth's family seems to be welcome in Moab when seeking refuge from famine in Judah. Food crises are not the only times of great need when tribal societies may call upon on obscure claims of relationship. There are several instances of Moabites, Israelites, and other tribes in the region forming a short-lived alliance in order to resist a common enemy (although such alliances occur between state societies as well). This latter situation nicely illustratesthe "ethnographiccliche"attributedto modem Arab society: "Me against my brothers;my brothers and me against our cousins; my brothers,cousins, and me against the world" (Barfield 1990:160).

Conclusion:A State in Moab? The question remains as to whether Moab ever truly formed a state-level society.Based on archaeologicalevidence alone, it is at present difficult to say. There is certainly no evidence at present to support such an entity in the Late Bronze Age (Miller 1991;Dearman 1992),4and while there are some data that are compatible with the presence of a state in Iron I and II, they do not require one. There is simply not, as of yet, any evidence for the complexity or integrative mechanisms that true states possess. It must be remembered that there has still been relatively little excavation in Moab and that which has been done has not focused on areas such as 60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

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households, economic enterprises, political associations, classes, and villages where indications of such complexity might be found (Rothman 1994:4). Ethnographic studies show that in some cases, in order to deal with the potential threat of external state powers, tribal societies have organized their own "tribalstate" structures of sufficientpower to force theirneighbors to treatthem as equals (e.g., Barfield 1990).An echo of this situation might be seen in early Israel'sdesire to have a king to "be like other peoples." In the case of Moab, the threatfrom the small states to its north could have resulted in the formation of a "secondary tribal state" (Barfield1990). These adversarial states, e.g., the Arameans as well as Israel, were themselves modelled on the greater states to the east in Mesopotamia. However, it is doubtful that these "tribal states" were ever organized in the same way as the true states of Mesopotamia: the tribal structure never disappeared at the local level. The key to the survival of the tribalstate was continued acquisitionof resourcesfrom outside (Barfield1990:167). Moab was not itself a rich country. While hard work could createan agriculturalsurplus for trade,realwealth and power came from controllingthe trade that went through the region. In the case of Israel, Solomon acquired greatness by acquiring wealth from outside via control of the key trade routes that went through Palestine. Control of trade routes was the key to success for Transjordan kingdoms as well (P. Bikai 1993). It was probably the need to meet the threat of external states and the advantage of control over the trade routes through their territories that motivated the local tribal peoples of Transjordanto consolidate and form their own tribal kingdoms. During this process, they adopted the symbols of the state-levelpowers they hoped to resist and displace. Thus, we see an interesting amalgamation of artistic influences from the great states in the art of Transjordan,especially in the monumental art (Domrnemann 1983). It is important to remember, however, that regardless of the level of social complexity the Moabites ultimately were able to achieve, on the local level these people remainedtribal; thatis, tribalismcontinuedwithin the statestructure(Kingsnorth 1993:110).Stager,speaking of neighboring Israelis, thus, quite correct in pointing out that the ...reorganization of Israel during the monarchy was not so radical as most scholars have maintained, and that some segments [of Israel'stribalsociety], especially at the lineage and clan levels, continued to thrive and have appreciable influence during the Iron II period (1985:24). He is also correct in his warning, "that biblical scholars should exercise greater caution in assigning tribal language and institutions to either the pre- or post-monarchal periods" (1985:24). Regardless of whether either Israel or Moab technically became "states," both societies certainly maintained their tribal structures throughout their respective histories. 246

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1Theseexampleshave been suggestedto me by variouscolleagues. 2Excavatedduring the 1952campaign(locatedeast of the tell and designatedas AreaJ;Reed1964:57-60).Similarbenchburialcaveshavebeen reportedfromat leastsixteensitesin Israel.Gonensuggeststhattheinspirationcomes fromCyprus(1992:24). 31I am using the term "tribal"here to include both tribaland chiefdom

societies, as outlined by Service (1962).Some scholarsfind "tribe"too impreciseand prefer"segmentarysocieties"instead (e.g., Renfrewand Bahn1991:157). Basedon Fried'sstudyof thenotionof tribe,manyanthropologists suggest droppingthe tribecategoryaltogetherand placingall such kin-basedsocietiesunderthe "chiefdom"category(Fried1975;see However,most anthropologistsspecializingin the Kingsnorth1993:110). Middle Eastfind the conceptof tribeso ingrainedthat they tend to subsumebothtribalandchiefdomsocietiesundertherubricof "tribal"society (e.g.,Khouryand Kostiner1990). 4Thisconclusionshouldnot be seen as a contradictionto Kitchen'sassertionthat"Moabwas a realentityin the thirteenthcenturyBCE, sufficiently to engage the attentionsof RamessesII"(1992:28).While I may technically disagreethat a "statelevel" socio-politicalorganizationexisted in Moabat this time,therearenumerousexamplesof complexand sophisticatedtribal/chiefdomsocietiescapableof offeringresistanceto other, even "state-level," polities(Khouryand Kostiner1991).I suspectthatthis was the case with the inhabitantsof LateBronzeAge Moab.

Bibliography Alt, A. 1989 Essayson OldTestament HistoryandReligion,translatedby R.A. Wilson.GardenCity,NY:Doubleday. Barfield,T.J. 1990 TribeandStateRelations:TheInnerAsianPerspective.Pp. 128-53 in Tribesand StateFormationin theMiddleEast,edited by P. S. Khouryand J. Kostiner.Berkeley,CA:Universityof California Press. Berman,J. 1994 TheCeramicEvidencefor SociopoliticalOrganizationin Ubaid andEarlyStatesin the SouthwesternIran.Pp. 23-33 in Chiefdoms edited by NearEast:TheOrganizational Dynamicsof Complexity, G. Steinand M. S. Rothman.Madison,WI:PrehistoryPress. Bienkowski,P.ed. 1992 EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAge in Southern Jordan.SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R. Collis Publications. Bikai,P. 1993 KhirbetSalameh1992.Annualof theDepartment ofAntiquitiesof Jordan37:521-29. Bloch-Smith,E. 1992 S.v.Burials.TheAnchorBibleDictionary,edited by D. N. Freedman. New York:Doubleday. Dearman,J.A. 1992 SettlementPatternsand the Beginningof the IronAge in Moab. Pp. 65-76 in EarlyEdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAge in SouthernJordan,edited by P.Bienkowski.SheffieldArchaeological Monographs7. Sheffield:J.R. Collis Publications. Dever,W.G. 1993 TheRiseof Complexityin the Landof Israelin the EarlySecond MillenniumB.C.E.Pp. 98-109 in BiblicalArchaeology Today1990: edited by A. Biranand J.Aviram.Jerusalem:Israel Supplement, ExplorationSociety. Dornemann,R. 1983 TheArchaeology Milwaukee,WI:MilwaukeePubof Transjordan. lic Museum. Earle,T. 1987 Chiefdomsin Archaeologicaland EthnohistoricalPerspective. 16:279-308. AnnualReviewofAnthropology Ember,C. R. and Ember,M. 1993 Anthropology. EnglewoodCliffs,NJ:PrenticeHall. Falconer,S. 1987 Heartland of Villages: Reconsidering Early Urbanism in the SouthernLevant.Unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona. Feinman,G. 1994 Social Boundaries and Political Change: A Comparative View from Ancient Mesoamerica. Pp. 225-36 in Chiefdomsand Early States in the Near East:TheOrganizationalDynamics of Complexity, edited by G. Stein and M. S. Rothman. Madison, WI: Prehistory Press. Frick, F. S. 1985 TheFormationof the Statein AncientIsrael.Sheffield:Almond Press. Gonen, R. 1984 Urban Canaan in the Late Bronze Period. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research253:61-74. Gottwald, N. 1979 The Tribesof Yahweh.A Sociologyof the Religion of LiberatedIsrael, 1250-1050 B.C.E. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Herzog,A. 1992 Settlementand Fortification Planningin the IronAge. Pp. 231-74 tothePersian TheArchitecture ofAncientIsrael:FromthePrehistoric Periods,edited by A. Kempinskiand R. Reich.Jerusalem:Israel ExplorationSociety. Hopkins,D. C. 1985 TheHighlandsof Canaan.Sheffield:Almond Press. Ibrahim,M. M. 1978 TheCollared-rimJarof the EarlyIronAge. Pp. 116-26in Archaeeditedby R.Moorey Kenyon, EssaysforKathleen ologyin theLevant: and P.Parr.London:Aris and Phillips. Jackson,K. P. 1989 TheLanguageof the MeshaInscription.Pp. 96-130 in Studiesin andMoab,edited by A. Dearman.ArchaetheMeshaInscription ology and BiblicalStudies2. Atlanta:ScholarsPress. Kamp,K. and Yoffee,N. 1980 Ethnicityin AncientWesternAsia Duringthe EarlySecondMilAssessmentsandEthnoarchaeological lenniumB.C.:Archaeological Prospectives. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 237:85-104. Khoury,P.S. and Kostiner,J.eds. in theMiddleEast.Berkeley,CA:Uni1990 TribesandStateFormation versity of CaliforniaPress. Kingsnorth,A. 1993 Complexitiesof Complexity:An AnthropologicalConcern.Bul292:107-20. letinof theAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch Kitchen,K.A. 1992 The EgyptianEvidence on Ancient Jordan.Pp. 21-34 in Early EdomandMoab:TheBeginningof theIronAgein SouthernJordan, edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield Archaeological Monographs7. Sheffield:J.R. Collis Publications. E. Knauf, A. 1992 The CulturalImpactof SecondaryStateFormation:The Cases of the Edomitesand Moabites.Pp.47-54 in EarlyEdomandMoab: TheBeginningof the IronAge in SouthernJordan,edited by P. Bienkowski.SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield: J.R. Collis Publications. Kuhn,T. 1962 TheStructureof ScientificRevolutions.Chicago:University of Chicago. LaBianca,0. S. and Nomadization.BerrienSprings, 1990 Hesban1: Sedentarization MI:AndrewsUniversityPress. C. C. and Sabloff,J.A. Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1979 AncientCivilizationsin theAncientNearEastandMesoamerica. Menlo Park,CA:The Benjamin/CummingsPublishingCompany,Inc. Lancaster, W. and Lancaster, F. 1992 Tribal Formations in the Arabian Peninsula. ArabicArchaeology and Epigraphy3:145-72. London, G. 1989 A Comparison of Two Contemporaneous Lifestyles of the Late Second Millennium B.C. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research273:37-55. Mattingly, G. L. 1992 The Culture-Historical Approach and Moabite Origins. Pp. 55-64 in Early Edomand Moab:TheBeginning of the IronAge in Southern Jordan,edited by P. Bienkowski. Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 7. Sheffield: J. R. Collis Publications.

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Walin,W. Miller,J.M. 1994 Backto SettledLife?RuralChangein the Allan Areaof Jordan, 1992 EarlyMonarchyin Moab?Pp.77-92 in EarlyEdomandMoab:The 1867-1980:Assessmentofa Research editedby P.Bienkowski. Project.Stockholm:KulturJordan, oftheIronAgeinSouthern Beginning SheffieldArchaeologicalMonographs7. Sheffield:J. R. Collis geografiskaInstitutionen,StockholmsUniversitet. Publications. Wenke,R.J. 1990 Patternsin Prehistory.3rd ed. New York,NY:Oxford UniverMiller,J.M.,ed. 1991 Archaeological sity Press. Surveyof theKerakPlateau.AmericanSchools of OrientalResearchArchaeologicalReports1. Atlanta,GA:Schol- Wicklein,J. ars Press. 1994 SpiritPathsof the Anasazi.Archaeology 47/1:37-41. C. Morris, H. Wright, 1980 AndeanSouthAmerica:FromVillageto Empire.Pp. 391-97 in andEarly 1994 PrestatePoliticalFormations.Pp. 67-84 in Chiefdoms Andrew edited TheCambridge by of Archaeology, Encyclopedia Statesin theNearEast:TheOrganizational Dynamicsof Complexity, Sherratt.New York,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress. edited by G. Steinand M. S. Rothman.Madison,WI:Prehistory Press. O'Shea,J. 1980 Mesoamerica:FromVillageto Empire.Pp. 382-90 in TheCam- Yoffee,N. edited by Andrew Sherratt. of Archaeology, bridgeEncyclopedia 1979 The Decline and Rise of MesopotamianCivilization:An EthNew York:CambridgeUniversityPress. on theEvolutionof SocialComplexity. noarchaeological Perspective AmericanAntiquity44:5-35. Peake,F.G. 1988 TheCollapseof AncientMesopotamianStatesand Civilization. CoralGables,FL:Universityof Miami 1958 HistoryandTribes ofJordan. Press. Pp. 44-68 in TheCollapseof AncientStatesandCivilizationseds. N. Yoffeeand G. Cowgill. Tucson,AZ: University of Arizona Reed,R.W. Press. 1964 TheExcavationsat Dibon(Dhib n) in Moab,PartII:TheSecond 1993 TooManyChiefs?(or,SafeTextsforthe90's).Pp.60-78 in ArchaeResearch Schools ofOriental Campaign,1952.AnnualoftheAmerican ologicalTheory:WhoSets theAgenda?,edited by N. Yoffeeand 36-37:37-79. A. Sherratt.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress. Renfrew,C. and Bahn,P. R. W.et al Younker, andPractice. New York,NY:Thames 1991 Archaeology: Methods, Theories, 1993 The JointMadabaPlains Project:A PreliminaryReportof the and Hudson. 1992Season, Including the Regional Survey and Excavations AndrewsUniversity StudRothman,M. S. at TellJalulandTellel-cUmeiri. Seminary 1994 EvolutionaryTypologiesand CulturalComplexity.Pp. 1-10 in ies 31/3:205-38. and EarlyStatesin theNearEast:TheOrganizational Chiefdoms edited by G. Steinand M. S. Rothman. Dynamicsof Complexity, Madison,WI:PrehistoryPress. Service,E. 2nd ed. 1971.New York,NY:Ran1962 PrimitiveSocialOrganization. dom House. Snow,D. R. 1989 TheArchaeology ofNorthAmerica.New York,NY:ChelseaHouse Publishers. Stein,G. 1994 The Organizational Dynamics of Complexity in Greater andEarlyStatesin theNear Mesopotamia.Pp. 11-22in Chiefdoms editedby G. Stein East:TheOrganizational ofComplexity, Dynamics and M. S. Rothman.Madison,WI:PrehistoryPress. Tapper,R. on TribeandState 1990 Anthropologists,Historians,and Tribespeople Formationin the Middle East.Pp. 48-73 in TribesandStateFormationin theMiddleEast,edited by P.S. Khouryand J.Kostiner. Berkeley,CA:Universityof CaliforniaPress. Thomas, D. H. 1989 Archaeology.Chicago, IL: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc. Tibi, B. 1990 The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribesand Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East. Pp. 127-52 in Tribes and State Formationin the Middle East, edited by P.S. Khoury and J. Kostiner. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Vivian, R. G. 1970 Prehistoric Social Organization in Chaco Canyon. Pp. 59-83 in ReconstructingPuebloSocieties,edited by W. A. Longacre. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico.

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RandallW.Younkeris directorof the Instituteof Archaeologyat Andrews Universitywhere he also teachesOld Testamentand biblicalarchaeology.He receivedhis doctoratein Near EasternArchaeology fromthe Universityof Arizona.Younkerhas participatedin numerous archaeologicalprojectsin both Israeland Jordan. Currently,he directs excavationsat TallJalil, in centralJordan,for the MadabaPlainsProject.He has servedas a trusteefor the AIARin Jerusalemand is presentlya trusteeforASOR.He has co-edited two books and publishedover fortyscholarlyarticlesand reviews.

Arti-Facts New

Volute

Capital

Discovered In the initial season of excavation at Mudaybic,Jordan,the KarakResources Project(KRP)team,led by Dr.GeraldL.Mattingly, discovered an Iron Age gate complex and an additional volute capital from a site that had previously produced two complete and two fragmentary capitals.1This brief report will focus on the capital. Previously, archaeologists had assembled a roster of forty of these capitals from sites such as Hazor, Megiddo, Samaria,Jerusalem,Ramat Rahel, and Mudaybic.2 The volute capital, also called "protoAeolic,""proto-lonic,"and "palmettecapital," is characterized by spiral volutes on each end, hence the name suggested here. The size of these capitals clearly indicates their use in monumental architecture. They are usually associated with gate complexes, although none have been found in theiroriginal setting. Excavation reports from Hazor suggested a reconstructionwith the capitals on top of a pier wall in the gateway, and the reconstruction shown in the Israel Museum follows that plan. Several features from Mudaybic shed additional light on the original placement of the volute capitals. The gate at Mudaybic runs east-west and appears to be a fourchamber gate; only its south half has been excavated so far. The pier walls of the gate run north-south. We found the new capital face down within the gate passageway immediately to the north of a pier wall.3The base of the new capital measured exactly 1.65 m long, exactly the width of the pier wall. Apparently, the capital simply fell face down off the pier wall, perhaps the result of an earthquake. Although this wall was not fully excavated during the 1997 season, the two piers of the gateway east of this pier wall were excavated down to an Iron Age floor surface. These two walls reached a height of slightly over 1.5 m. In addition, excavators unearthed several lintels which apparently spanned the opening from one pier wall to the next. This suggests the walls

stand currently almost to their full height for the first story of the gate structure. The location of the lintels, nearly perpendicular to the pier walls they spanned, also supportsthe hypothesis of seismic activity as the cause of the collapse. With this newly found capital,Mudaybic becomes one of the most productive sites for volute capitals.Moreover,they are among the largest and best-preserved volute capitals yet known. The two complete capitals currently visible, and the nearly complete one already reported and photographed by Ivan Negueruela,all have very similardimensions. The three are each very nearly 2 m long, 1 m high, and 0.5 m thick: the specific dimensions are: Mudaybic #1 (Md-1), complete capital on surface, 1.88 m x 0.92 m x 0.44 m; Mudaybic #2 (Md-2), nearly complete capital reported by Negueruela, 1.84 m x 0.97 m x 0.37 m; Mudaybic #5 (Md-5), the newly found capital, complete, 1.86 mx 0.93 mx 0.47 m.4 The capital Md-1 was found almost directly in line with the middle pier wall of the gate complex and, like Md-5, in the middle of the gate complex north of the wall. It lay face up in the balk of square 09. Md-2 lies almost completely buried nearly one meter north of square 09 close to the west end of the square. It is still within the gate passageway. Apparently Md-2 was broken after Negueruela had photographed it. A small fragment that appears to be from the base of Md-2 was excavated in square 09 this season. Also, the half-capital Md-3 was found in the north-west balk of square 09. One must assume that Md-2 and Md3 originally sat on the pier walls of the north half of the gate complex which remainsunex-

cavated. Md-1 and Md-2 were found where Negueruela described them. Md-3 had been moved from the location Negueruela described (west of Md-2) to a location just south of Md-2. Md-4, a small fragment Negueruela located in secondary use in a wall line west of Md-2 and Md-3, was still in that location at the time of our excavation. The base of Md-1 and Md-5 both measure 1.65 m in length. Md-2 appears to measure ca. 1.5-1.6 m as preserved, with a slight break on the base. If the base were complete, it would also be ca. 1.65 m long. Likewise, the pier walls in the gate complex all measure 1.65 m in width. It seems obvious that the capitals sat on top of the pier walls. The lintels would then have rested on top of the capitals, perpendicular to the pier walls and parallel to the capitals and the gate passageway. All the capitals at Mudaybic are clearly sculpted from the same plan, probably by the same stone cutter. In their design, they form a distinct group, similar to, but distinct from those found in Israel:each has

a double line forming the central triangle; each has the two oculi (eyes) flanking the central triangle near the top; the volutes have a very similar design in each. If the gateway at Mudaybicis a four chambergate, as currently seems the case, then one would expect either four or six capitals to have been present. If Negueruela is correctin saying each of the capitals and fragments he discussed are from separate capitals, then we have five capitals or fragments already attested. We might well hope additional excavation would produce another capital.

New

Project:

Safi,

Israel

Notes 1IvanNegueruela,TheProto-AeolicCapitals fromMudeibicain Moab.Annualof the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 26(1982):395-401. 2Theauthoris currently completinga lengthier articleon volute capitals,addingto the catalogueof thirty-fourreportedby Yigael Shiloh in his 1979monograph,TheProtoAeolicCapitalandIsraeliteAshlarMasonry. 3Thecapitalwas excavatedin squareN-9 of Area B at Mudaybic. David Berge, a doctoralstudentat HebrewUnionCollege,

Cincinnati,OH,was the squaresupervisor. 4Thesemeasurements arebasedon Negueruela's reportand drawings, except for the thicknesswhichcouldbe measuredthisseason. The capital lies inverted and buried exceptfor a small portionof the base. The designationsof the capitals are Negueruela's. Joel FEDrinkard, Jr. SouthernBaptistTheologicalSeminary

Tel

Tel Safi is a leading candidate for the location of ancient Gath and an important site in the innercoastalregionof Israel.Tammi Schneider, Aren Meier, and Adrian Boaz directed a preliminaryseason of surface survey in the summer of 1996.This research,as well as recent changes in the status of the mound, suggests that new excavations at the site are more than feasible. Tel Safi sits in a valley on the edge of the coastal plain and the Shephelah. The mound is 100 m above the valley bed and dominates the road that passes by Azekah, through the Wadi Elah, and into the Judean Hills. F. J. Bliss and R. A. Macalisterexcavated the site in 1899 by on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Despite the obstacles presented by the Ottoman village, cactus plantation, and cemetery, the PEF excavaholy mnaqant tions opened in five main areas. While the projectproduced impressive finds, its recording procedures and excavation techniques have led to contradictory reports on the stratigraphy, extent of occupation, and the date and extent of the fortification system. The 1996 season aimed to provide data for planning future excavations. We conducted a comprehensive archaeological surface survey, dividing the site by topographic and spatial features into fields, the majorityof which were intensively investigated (sixty in all). As a result, we now can see more dramatically the extent and loca-

tion of various periods of occupation. The overall size of the site is larger than previously reported, covering some 25-30 ha. Thus, there are areas of the site not considered by the earlier PEF expedition, and these yielded significant quantities of material. While large portions of the site are covered by either the Ottoman village or Medieval remains, the majority of the site is not covered, and there are distinct zones in which the survey found only Bronze and IronAge remains. The EarlyBronzeAge settlement is particularly impressive in the extent and quantity of its remains. The Iron I, Iron IIA-B, and Persian periods are also extremely well represented from surface remains,as is the Ottoman period in the area of the former village. The ceramic evidence

dating to the Frankish period appears to be confined to the immediate vicinity of the castle. The exposed architecture of the castle does not reflectthe Castrimiplan suggested by Ben-Venisti. Due to the abandonment and destruction of the village at Safi since 1948, the results of the present survey do not shed light on the site'smore recentarchaeological past. The data collected in this season emphasizes the archaeological importance of Tel Safi and provide important tools for planning future excavation which hopefully will be conducted in the next few years.

TammiJ. Schneider ClaremontGraduateSchool

Excavations

at

Mudayna During last year'sregionalsurvey,a complete female figurine and fragments of anthropomorphic vessels were found at a site (13) south of er-Rumeil. A salvage excavation was conducted here earlier in the summer. The excavation produced several other figurinesand more fragmentsof anthropomorphic vessels. Most of the figurines were ceramic representations of women holding a disc or grabbing their breasts. Some more exotic finds included murex and cowrie shells, miniature juglet used for perfume (or incense?),a limestone figurinehead, and a blue faience pharaoh amulet. The faience amulet together with the hairstyle and dress of some of the figurines suggest a stronger Egyptian influence here than in neighboring Judah. The collection of finds should help us understand better the religion and cultureof the IronAge people from this region. The complete architecture of Site 13 is still unclear,but the finds and the position of

New

Dolmen

Field

Near

Recent archaeological surveys in the region of 'Iraq al-Amir have revealed two distinct dolmen fields. On the hill slopes east of the Wadi es-Seer, surveyors discovered a field of at least five dolmens, while they recorded ten dolmens in a second field west of the wadi. The discovery of dolmen fields in the 'Iraq al-Amir region fills in the geographical gap between the dolmen fields in the Jordan Valley and those in the Amman region. In the 'Iraq al-Amir region, with two exceptions, the dolmens are oriented north to south. The two dolmens with entrances towards the east are parallel to a contour where an eastern entrance is the most convenient, suggesting that orientation may have been a pragmatic choice. The dolmens show a homogenous repertoire of types, being built of large, roughly shaped stones.

the site suggest that it was an IronAge IIcultic place. The site had been looted, but most of the objectsfound this season emerged from under a layer of cobblestones in what appears to be afavissa (cultic repository). The regional survey, suerpvised by J.A. Dearman, recorded an additional fifteen sites, bringing the total number of recorded sites to thirty-three. Most of these sites belonged to one of the two periods also attestedat Mudayna:IronAge IIor Nabataean. The IronAge settlementswere usually watch towers or agriculturalinstallations.The abundance of strategically located Iron Age II towers adds to the suggestion that this area was at the borderbetween Moaband Ammon. The Nabataean sites were mostly farming settlements located across the wadis overlooking the agricultural land. Some of the sites boast numerous buildings and other features. For example, er-Rumeil included no less than thirty-three cisterns. Only one site with earlier material has been located. Daviau and Abu Shmeis, representativefor the Departmentof Antiquities of Jordan,collected a sample of ChalcolithicEarly Bronze Age lithics at a site occupying a terrace on the south side of Wadi ath-

cIraq

al-Amir,

Thamad. Furtherexploration is planned for future seasons.

P. M. Michele Daviau WilfridLaurierUniversity

Jordan

They consist of a capstone supported by two upright slabs with one to four upright slabs enclosing the back side. In contrast to the Damiyah dolmen field (located on the lip of the Jordan Valley opposite the confluence of the Jordanand the Zarqa),these dolmens are of fairly diverse sizes, with no evidence of standardization. In nearly all cases, the floor is the cleared bedrock, which contrasts with the circular pavements of floor slabs found beneath many other dolmens. The eastern dolmen field presents a unique opportunity to study the relation of dolmens to the rock-cut chambers found in many Transjordanianwadis. These rock-cut chamber tombs should not be confused with natural cave tombs, since they are purely hand-made, single-chambers cut horizontally into detached blocks of rock. So far, about forty rock-cut chamber tombs have been found in the (Iraqal-Amir survey area, the majoritybeing located in the eastern dol-

The

Apocryphal

Acts

Studies on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, vol. 2. Edited by Jan N. Bremmer, v+198 pp. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1996. During the last decades, the Acts of Paul have mainly been studied from a feminist (or anti-feminist) perspective: the role given to women in this text (especially to Thecla)has been the objectof a compound dispute, in which several biblical letters ascribed to Paul have been involved. When some scholars of the University of Groningen and two Hungarian universities met in Budapest in 1995 to analyze the contents of the Acts of Paul,they properlychose a differentapproach: they put aside this one-sided perspective (without neglecting it) and studied other aspects of the text. The proceedings of this conferenceare published in the presentbook. It has to be noted that for an unknown reason, the title of this volume is wrong: this meeting dealt with the entire Acts of Paul, and not only the Acts of Paul and Thecla. The variety of topics and methods which are to be found in this volume may be explained by the fact that the contributors

men field. With some exceptions, the chambers are found to measure ca. 1.0 m in height and width, and ca. 1.5 m in length. The entrance, which seems to have been closed by a slab, averages 80 x 80 cm and is roughly rounded as is the roof. The floor is sunk ca. 15 cm lower than the entrance. The limited available data suggests that rock-cut chambers and dolmens are found side by side mainly in Wadi es-Seer, Wadi Hesban,WadiJedeid,and WadiZarqaMacan, with some sporadic instances in the Jordan Valley.Such juxtaposition in particular regions may be related to the social and religious status of the occupants. Unfortunately, most of the dolmens south of the WadiKefrein appear to have been destroyed by modem occupation. In 1996, a salvage excavation was conducted at a rock-cut tomb chamber that contained a large quantity of human bone. Skulls were laid out in the southern half of

of

Paul

and

Thecla

come from different fields. Most of them are classicists, several teach biblical studies, and a few are professors of the history of religion. Surely, this does not always help the reader,who has to change perspective from one article to another-especially when the same topic is discussed in more than one contribution. But this diversity gives these studies a large scope. The dialogue between theologians and classicists may also explain the numerous interesting parallels that are drawn in almost every article between the ActsofPaul,the Actsof theMartyrs,and pagan literature. The Acts of Paulare analyzed at the same time in detail and from a broader perspective.Severalpassagesarethoroughlydiscussed (such as the description of Paul, the story of the baptizedlion, and the thirdletterallegedly written by Paul to the Corinthians). Other articles deal with a particular issue within the entire work (such as the meaning of the resurrection)or a long section of it (the Acts of Paul and Theclaor the Martyrium).Other contributors try to understand the relation of the Acts of Paul with the New Testamentor to deal with the reception of this text.

the chamber, showing an ordered arrangement. This suggests the possibility that the tomb was used as a site for secondary burialbynomadicpopulations.As forchronology, the excavated pottery was insufficient to permit a close dating of the tomb. However, all of the pottery except one late body sherd appears compatible with a Chalcolithic or EB I transitional date. In terms of ceramic typology, there seem to be general ties with the TeleilatGhassul and the Transjordanianplateau ratherthan with the Negev and Cisjordan. There is need for further studies on the dolmens and their relationships to rockcut chamber tombs. It is hoped that ongoing fieldwork in the region of 'Iraq al-Amir will elucidate this issue. Chang-ho C. Ji La SierraUniversity

These different analyses do not, however, always yield convincing results. The description of Paul, for example, remains unclear in spite of the attempts of J. Bollok and J.N. Brennerat tacklingit. Some authors do not always succeed in reading the Acts of Paul from a literary point of view as they pretend to do, while some parallels are made on such details or commonplaces that one wonders if they are relevant. But each article offers some illuminating perspective on the text, and, here and there, on its origin. In addition, an interesting dialogue is opened on several points with Willy Rordorf (who is about to publish a new edition of the Acts of Paul in the Seriesapocryphorum of the CorpusChristianorum). One can only regret that the bibliography gathered at the end of the volume is far from being exhaustive. Many important works on the Acts of Paul are missing-even when they are quoted by one of the contributors. It is to be hoped that a better bibliography will be prepared for the next volume, which will deal with the Acts of Peter. R6mi Gounelle PontificalInstituteof MediavalStudies Toronto

The

City

in

Ancient

Volkmar Fritz. 197 pp., 60 figures. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995; US$25.00 (paper). Fritz'sTheCityin AncientIsraelis divided into ten chapters. Chapter 1 offers a historical preamble. Chapters 2 and 3 cover Early Bronze and Middle-LateBronze cities. Chapters 4 and 5 describe the cities of Iron Age I-II.Chapter 6 covers capital cities and residencies; chapter 7 treats city fortifications,houses, palaces,and culticareas;chapter 8 deals with water supply systems. Chapter 9 covers "Economyand Administration." Chapter 10 discusses the daily life of the people. The strengthsof the work arethejudicious (though too brief) reviews of the stratigraphy and architecture of the sites discussed and the efforts made to delineate settlement types and the settlement character of each period. There are useful indexes for biblical citations, sites, and authors. Though there is no bibliography, the footnotes contain many useful citations, especially to Fritz's numerous contributions on ancient settlements. Most of the text figures are line drawings, generally of good quality, and illustrate the discussion well. This work, however, suffers from several deficiencies. The most serious weakness is its lack of an introduction. An introduction sets out the author's purpose, methods, limits, key terms, and intended audience. The reader may then judge the success of the book on the basis of these stated goals. Since there is no introduction, aspects of Fritz's work are unclear. For example, Fritzdoes not define such concepts as "city" or "Israel." Is a city a settlement of a particular size; is it one which contains certain institutions which other types of settlements do not possess? If size is not the criterion, why are sites such as Kuntillet CAjrudleft out? What are the borders of "Israel":those of the modem political state, or those of the ancient kingdom? If the focus is on the Iron Age state(s), why are there two chapters on the Early Bronze and Middle-Late Bronze Ages? Who is this book intended for:undergraduate,graduate,or post-graduatestudents or interested lay readers? Fritz only hints at the understanding of

Israel

Chapter 4 concludes with a discussion of villagetypes and house forms.Chapter five ends with a review of the two city types found in Iron Age II: the Residential City and the City with (at least some) Administrative or Military Function (two of Fritz's three types are only variants of the Administrative type). Lacking is a recognition that there were other types of Iron II settlements (e.g., fortresses and cult sites) and that there are regional patterns to the distribution of these sites. The brevity of the author's treatments relegatesmany controversialtopicsto sources in his footnotes; for example, the function of the Megiddo "stables," which he asserts are barracks (p. 142, nn. 11-13). His treatment of Mizpeh is flawed because he had access only to the inadequate 1:400 plan in the site report.Even though no IronAge potter's workshops are known, their kilns are; at Tell en-Nasbeh, a large kiln was found just outside the casemate-like wall. On the other hand, Fritz does a good job showing the Late Bronze antecedents to some Iron

cities operative in this book. He suggests four reasons for the establishment of cities under the Monarchy: the new self-confidence of the state, defense against external enemies, as centers of the new administration,and as centersforthe growingpopulation (pp.13-14). "Thus the process of urbanization which had its new beginnings around the year 1000,"he adds, "is the resultof political change,and not the consequenceof social development." The first reason, self-confidence, is an untestablehypothesis,and reason four, population growth, seems more of a social, than political, reason for cities. The purpose for the inclusion of chapter 2 on the Early Bronze Age is unclear as Fritz sees no connection of the third-millennium cities with those of the Middle BronzeAge. Chapter3 focuses on the development of Megiddo and the nature of Middle-Late Bronze fortifications. The discussion of Canaanite settlements that continued into Iron I and new Philistine w ASJ a i [alR [t settlements should po " have been placed in . ? ArchaeologicalSurveyof the KerakPlateau chapter 4 where it J. M. Miller,ed. could have flowed 1991 354 pages Cloth:$115.00 Code:850001 into a comparison II Shechem with the IronI highE. F. Campbell land settlements. 1992 123 pages Cloth:$74.95 Code:850002 Chapters 4 and Nelson Glueck's 1938-1940 Excavationsat Tell el-Kheleifeh: 5 are the most sucA Reappraisal cessful in presenting G. D. Pratico information. The 1993 223 pages Cloth:$74.95 Code:850003 treatmentof eachsite Res Maritimae:Cyprusand the EasternMediterraneanfrom begins with the site's Prehistoryto Late Antiquity identificationand its H. W. Swiny,eds. S. Swiny,R. L. Hohlfelder, Cloth: Code:850004 1997 384 $79.95 develpages pre-IronAge Then The ASOR ArchaeologicalReportsSerieswelcomesproposals opment. follows an evaluato publishthe finalreportsof excavations,surveysandethnoarchaeologicalfieldwork.Initialproposalsneed not involvea tion of the site's finishedmanuscript,butcan outlinethe project,the work architecture and a completedandwhatremainsto be done. BothASOR-affiliated note on its function. projectsandothersmayqualify.Proposalsforcolloquia,conferit is However, ence papers,andotherproceedingswill alsobe considered. unclear how sites Pleaseaddressall inquiriesto GloriaLondon,ARS Editor 7701 CrestDriveNE, Seattle,WA 98115 were selectedfordisor e-mail:[email protected] for cussion; example, Ordertheabovetitlesfrom why Beth-Shemesh Scholars Press Customerr Service with its confused P.O.Box133089 Atlanta,GA30333-3089 * Fax404-727-2348 Phone404-727-2354 or888-747-2354 (toll-free) stratigraphy,and not Timnah?

Age architectural features and that the key is not who "invented" the four-room house type, but how it was used by the Israelites. Chapter 6 summarizes data on the capitals of Israel and Judah, Samaria and Jerusalem,and the royal residence at Ramat Rahel. The layout of these site types could have been compared; for example, both palace complexes at Samaria and Ramat Rahel are surrounded, in part, by casemate walls. Is this type of wall related to the function of this type of complex? Chapter 7 covers fortifications, private houses, pillar buildings, palaces, and cult places. Fritzdoes not believe that the functions of the individual roomsin the houses canbe determined; however, enough floor-based installations, artifactassemblages, and ethnographic parallels are available to suggest the uses to which some rooms were put. Chapter8 treats the nature of the city's water supply. The focus is on large-scale water systems. It was disappointing to see the use of cisterns and springs passed by with hardly a thought as

these were the only water sources for the majority of Iron Age settlements. Chapter 9 is not well-integrated with the rest of the work. Topics such as "Levies" and "Forced Labour" have little to do with cities,but more with generalsocial organization. Much the same may be said for chapter 10. Since most Israeliteswould have lived in cities (as defined by Fritz), then a connection exists between their daily lives and their cities. More could have been done. For example, Fritz mentions olive oil production. Enough olive presses have now been excavated at sites such as Timnah and especially Tell Miqne that something could have been said about their construction,layout, and location within settlements. There are a variety of editorial lapses. Sometimes the author's German original escaped the editor; for example, "Hiskia" for Hezekiah on pp. 106, 125, 127, while Hezekiah is used on p. 157. The caption for Figure 21 states that it is Tell es-Seba3XII, when it is really stratum VI. Instead of the

Handbook of Archaeology. Culture and Sites. North Africa, Southwest Asia, Mediterranean, Northwest Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, Southeast Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Asia.

site names found most commonly in the literature, Fritz tends to use the less familiar Arabic names; for example, Khirbet Salih instead of Ramat Rahel (p. 131). Though Fritz's site summaries are useful, and his treatments of the functionality of rooms, buildings, and settlements contain useful insights, the lack of a thesis to integratehis summariesand focus his diverse insights makes the work less than the sum of its parts.A thorough and systematic study of the subject using all the site specific and regionalsurvey data now availableis needed. The character of the Israelite city will only be clarified when sites of all sizes and types are analyzed on regional, national, and hierarchical levels. Hopefully this work will serve as an encouragement for someone to undertake this analysis.

Jeffrey R. Zorn CornellUniversity

A

By HomerL. Thomas.4 Volumes. Jonsered:Paul Astr6msF6rlag, 1993-1996. The title of the book is ambitious but it does not relateto the contents.Farfrom being a real handbook, these fascicules contain only crude data brought together by region from the principal Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic sites ("TheTransitionalAge!") of the Mediterraneanbasin and the Near East. The culturallimits vary accordingto the geographical zones, and because of the chronologicalframeworkchosen(10,000-6,500 ca. BCE),the author is forced, for example, to treat the Aceramic Neolithic of the Levant. The material faults are numerous: lack, for example, of maps and scales for the rare illustrations where on the same page one

finds both a house and a small flint blade! The description is accompanied by chronological tables and graphs of the flint industry following a simplified type-list derived from those established by D. Sonneville-Bordes, G. L. Laplace,and J.Tixierand applied without takinginto considerationall the specificity of each region. The author, in a narrow-minded way, gives us the crude data without any critical comments or any attempt to make even a regional synthesis. The most worthwhile aspectof the work is to provide a rapidaccess to the bibliography which, though far from being exhaustive, gives direct way to the original data.

Olivier Aurenche UniversiteLumiere,Lyon2

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CAUGHT IN ELECTRONIC

OPPORTUNITIES

By John Younger This past summer's visit to Tunisia gives me a chance to reflect on the country's opportunities for archaeological work, besides extolling its archaeological wonders; where else can you find Roman capitolia (yes, in the plural) preserved to roof level? I'm still interestedin electronicpublishing, which still seems to be an untapped area. I take a brief look at some e-zines, electronicallypublished journals:their problems are mostly solvable, but they haven't caught on. And finally, fall term has arrived, and while preparing for classes I was devising devious ways to foil craftystudents from turning in term papers written by on-line term paper mills. From what I learned, however, I should not be worried.

Tunisia "Net" before last, I mentioned that Paul Rehak and I had prepared our two week summer trip to Tunisia by accessing the helpful website for Tunisia's National Tourism Office. The trip itself was a constant marvel. Ancient Carthage on the northwestern outskirts of Tunishas an intriguing doughnut-shaped Punic and Roman harbor and the immense Antonine Baths, as well as luxurious but reasonably priced hotels. And both the Carthage Museum and the Bardo in Tuniscontaina dazzling arrayof the country'sfamed mosaics. Tourists hardly ventured way from Tunis, however, and we found ourselves virtually alone at the other Roman and Punic sites. Bulla Regia with its subterraneanhouses and the spectacular Dougga each occupies one of the oblique wheat-filled plains that extend across northern Tunisia. The huge amphitheater at El Djem is very well preserved; while we were there it was being outfitted for an international music festival. Sufetula (modem Sbeitla) has its forum and capitolium intact, a magnificent sight floodlit at night. Other, smaller sites were equally interesting. Utica displays only a small collection of houses, but the mosaics are still in situ. At Maktar, the baths are fine, and the Trajanic Schola luvenum is a gem. Thuburbo Maius is splendidly tucked away in lonely clay hills. For the truly adventurous, we recommend a side trip to the Chemtou quarries that produced the famed giallo antico marble, as well as to Hammam Mellegue where baths dating to the reign of Diocletian are still in operation. We stayed a couple of days at Carthage, at the market town of El Kef where we learned which shops carried what, at Kairouan to visit the Great Mosque and buy rugs, and in a seaside bungalow at Mahdia. Everywhere we went we felt welcomed. By many standards, Tunisia is a modem country, though e-mail and the web have not yet made any appreciable impact. Away from the coast, life seemed simple, and businesses were not entirely equipped to handle Caughtin the Net

THE

NET

IN ARCHAEOLOGY

The Capitolat Dougga in northernTunisiajoins grandiosetemples, theaters, forum, and marketsin a remarkablestate of preservation. The city itself encompassedover 65 hectaresand was home to upwardsof 30,000 people in the Romanperiod. A Lybico-Punic tower, still standing to a height of 21 m, attests to the prosperityof the city in the second centuryBCE.Enjoya brieftour of the site at http://llwww.tourismtunisia.comltogoldouggaldougga.html.

tourism. But there was a restless quality,as if the country was poised to take off. We kept thinking that this is a wonderful time to be a young archaeologist here--our friends at the Carthage dig agreed. Little is known of Tunisia'sprehistory, and current studies show that the country is perfect for site surveying and comparative ethnographic research. And for the classically minded, the countless late Roman mosaics offer a wealth of data for analyzing class and cultural identity. We look forward to returning to see the southern half of Tunisia-in a cooler season than early high summer.

Journals Last year at this time, I was writing a short review of four electronicjournals.The main problemwith journalpublishing is the need to recover costs through subscriptions and yet keep the contents on-line and free. I see three solutions. One has not been tried: to offer the e-zine on-line but accessible via a password that is activated by paying with a credit card. Another is to make the e-zine totally free like the three review e-zines Scholia,and BrynMawrClassicalReviewsor BrynMawr MedievalReviews:BMCRand BMMRoffer reviews only; Scholia publishes reviews, articles, and news. The third solution is the more common: to restrictthe current year to hard-copy available by paid subscription but the previous issues available free on-line. Nestor offers almost all volumes to 1996 on-line as well as on diskette (soon all past volumes will be on-line) and since it has expanded its bibliographical listings to cover most subjects of the eastMediterraneanup throughthe early IronAge, this already emrn indispensable resource will become even more valuable. Other journals follow reduced versions of this solution, like BiblicalArchaeologist/NearEasternArchaeology,and The BiblicalArchaeologist 60:4(1997)

255

Ancient History Bulletin. ArchaeologyMagazine is the most commercial of these on-line-zines with thumbnail images, flashing notices, and multiple links; if readers get inspired by the plentiful full-text articles on archaeology, they can even buy T-shirts and coffee mugs.

Research Papers On-Line

Just before spring term had ended in May, I found out that termpapers were availableon the web, alreadyresearched and written. "Biff," my cynical and suspicious twin, even thought he could recognize a couple of these excellently composed pieces turned in by otherwise lackluster students. While I rushed as usual in late summer to get syllabi and course packs assembled before classes began, I did a quick surf on the Alta Vista Search engine and found several companies that advertised either written term papers for sale or professional advice on writing them. Two companies, "Al TermpaperAcademic and Business Research Source" and "AAA ResearchCentral Termpapers" are similar in several respects. Both offer more over 20,000 pre-written research papers, as well as custom writing on special projects "forresearchpurposes only."And both companies list about thirty categories of topics, including Area Studies, Black Studies, Economics, History, Law, Literature, Political Science, Shakespeare, Sports Recreation, and Women's Studies. The "Al Termpaper" company charges varying prices for pre-written reports, but custom research costs about $20-$30 per page. Within the subject category "Anthropology,"I did a keyword search on "Near East"and came up with twenty-seven titles, several of which seemed to be versions on the same theme. Only two concerned antiquity, one on "Layard's Excavations at Ninevah" (9 pages, $80.55) and the other on "Mycenaean and Minoan Architecture" (25 pages; $223.75); since both papers were written fifteen years ago and Layard spelled his city "Nineveh," I don't think they would have impressed me. "AAA Research" charges a flat fee of $6.50 per page for pre-written papers. I did a word search on "archaeology" and found two papers, "The Relationship between the Four Main Branches of Anthropology" (16 pages) and "Theoretical Archeology" (27 pages); the descriptions seemed very

general, and both papers were old. A word-searchon "Egypt" produced about sixty hits. Many of these again seemed near duplicates of each other: several papers on ancient Egyptian religion, astronomy, and magic, but only one on a pharaoh, Ramses II (10 pages). Many papers concerned modern Egypt: marketing and investment; the political and financial relations among the OPEC nations; the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreements; and US policy toward Egypt. Almost all the papers were 5-15 pages long. The shortestwas entitled "Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece" (3 pages!) and the longest was "The Suez Crisis" (33 pages). A third company, the "ACI Writing Assistance Center," does not list pre-written term papers; instead, "your writing project (term paper, thesis, dissertation or other) is personally directedby a formercollege instructor,Harvardgraduate, and Ph.D." Research costs a flat fee of $40 per page; scientific and technical writing costs more; and editing ranges $10-20 per page-the minimum fee for any job is $250. Each paper is prepared for one customer only; they are not resold to others. The results of this brief survey save me from excessive worry. I do not see here the kinds of topics I expect from my students, which I assign specifically to relate to my own research, and the papers offered are, for the most part, far too short. But I can imagine some papers appropriatefor general introductory courses: "The Organ from Primitive to BaroqueTimes"(11pages) for a music history class, or "Modern Mexican and Ancient Egyptian Art" (6 pages) for an art appreciation course. Instead, I was amused by these companies' self-contradictorystatements that their "termpapers" are not to be used as term papers, and I did notice that many of the topics concerned themes in political science and economics, areaswhere in reallife I also do not believe everything I read. I encourage my readerswho teach, however, to browse these sites and get acquainted with the kinds of products and services they provide-you may see something that looks familiar. If you have any comments or questions, or would like to see a topic discussed, e-mail me: [email protected] or check out my Web home page: http://www.duke.edu/ web/jyounger/.

Internet Sites for the Classicaland Ancient Near EasternWorlds ForAncient Near Eastsites: ABZU(http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ ABZU/ABZU_NEW.HTML) ForAegean, Greekand Romanweb sites: Kapatija(http:•/www.duke.edu/web/jyounger/kapat96.html) Sites &services mentioned in the text: The TunisiaNationalTourismOffice:

Scholia:(httpJ/ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~scholialscholia.html TheAncient HistoryBulletin:http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/ahb/ Nestor: http://ucaswww.mcm.uc.edulclassics/nestor/nestor.html BiblicalArchaeologist:

http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/ASOR/BA/BAHP.html Al TermpaperAcademicand BusinessResearchSource: http://www.altermpaper.com/ AAAResearchCentralTermpapers: http://www.tourismtunisia.com/ http:/www.researchcentral.com/ ArchaeologyMagazine:http://www.he.netl~archaeol/index.html BrynMawrClassicalor MedievalReviews:gopherJ/gopher.Iib.Vir- ACIWritingAssistanceCenter:http://www.aci-plus.com/ /alpha/bmcror /bmmr ginia.EDU:70/11

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60:4(1997) BiblicalArchaeologist

Caughtin the Net

In AppreciationJim Sauer

OF ANYONESINCEW. F.ALBRIGHT SAUERCAMETHECLOSEST to being the one scholar to whom everyone in the country (in his case, Jordan)came for advice, counsel, authoritative answers, and the latest information about everything archaeological. Schooled in the "Albright tradition" by his father, Von Rohr Sauer, his mentor, Paul Lapp, and his professor, Ernest Wright,Jim "controlled" for more than a decade (1970s-earlvl980s), in an Albrightian fashion, all of the available data on the history and archaeology of Jordan. It was a time of rapid discovery, and because everyone turned to him at least to have their pottery "read,"Sauer knew what there was to know long before it was published. He unselfishly shared his knowledge with anyone interestedin learning.As the firstlong-term Directorof the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman (ACOR), from 1975-1981, he excelled at stratigraphic excavation, ceramic typology, archaeological survey,and aerialphotography,not to mention diplomacy,fundraising, cooking, and honky-tonk piano playing! From the director's home and base of operations, Jim turned ACOR into a research center and hostel with the best archaeological library in the country. Thirty years ago, I met Jim at Taanach where I learned that he would be joining me at Harvardas one of ErnestWright'sgraduatestudents. We began a life-long friendship, strengthened when I was able to persuade him to join our excavation team at Tall Hisban. It was on that project that he met his wife, Sue, collected the data for his Ph. D. thesis on the pottery of Hisban, and began a career in the archaeology of Jordan. How appropriate, then, that this issue on Moab-the land few know as well as Jim-be dedicated to Jordanian archaeology's much-loved unofficial American ambassador!

IJIM

Lawrence T Geraty La Sierra University,Madaba Plains Project, and ACOR

Lehin, located on the north rim of the Wadi al-Mfjib, boasts an Iron Age fortress (ruin) and well preserved

remains from the LB 1iB-IronI transition period. ~1/f PliotovraphcOric'ist' H•o•ms-Frc'dt'icq.

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