The Beginning of Settlement in Adom, Southern Jordan During the Iron Age

Abstract

This paper concentrates on three main issues: First, it shows that there is a great contrasting between the Biblical traditions and the archaeological evidence in terms of the beginning of settlement in Adom, Southern Jordan. The Biblical sources mention that there were settlements in Adom as early the Late Bronze Age, at the time when the Israelites made their Exodus from Egypt around 1220 B.C. Furthermore, there are conflicting statements in the Old Testament itself on the matter of the route the Israelites used within the Kingdom of Adom, for example between the tradition of Number, Judges and Deuteronomy. This confusion causes a great doubt to the Biblical traditions as being untrustworthy historical sources. Secondly, the archaeological excavations and surface surveys in different sites in Adom, such as Buşayrah, Ţawilān, Umm al-Biyārah and Tall al-Halifah indicate that the beginning of settlement in Adom does not go back earlier than the end of the 9th Century B.C. at the very earliest. These settlements point to flourishing and prosperous kingdom during the 8th and especially the 7th Centuries B.C. Thus all the excavation sites and surveys would support the results reached by C.M. Bennett that settlement in Adom is to be dated to the 9th Century B.C. Furthermore, the copper smelting in the Wādiy `Arabah had occurred simultaneously with advent of Assyrians in the 8th Century B.C. Thirdly, Archaeological finding such as pottery, seals, architectural elements and stratigraphies from these extensively excavated sites, indicate some kind cultural continuity from the Adomiyte period down to the Nabataean period. Such evidence would invalidate the cultural gap proposed by N. Glueck and those who followed him, from the 8th century down to the 4th Century B.C. Therefore, we can say with confidence that the Nabataeans were the inheritors of the Adomiyte civilization when they established their kingdom at the same time of the downfall of the Adomiyte Kingdom in the 6th Century B.C.