The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom: The Archaeology of Society in Late Bronze/Iron Age Transjordan (Ca. 1400-500 BCE)

Hesban After 25 Years, 1993

Levant, 2011

We propose that an early Moabite territorial entity emerged south of Wadi Mujib (the biblical Arnon) in the late Iron I -the late 11th and 10th centuries BC. A chain of fortresses protected Khirbet Balu a -the hub of this polity -on the north and east. The Balu a Stele may be associated with this polity. We further propose that the prime-mover behind the rise of the south Moabite territorial entity was the trade of copper from the Wadi Faynan area south of the Dead Sea. Its abandonment in the late 10th century BC may have been the result of the campaign of Sheshonq I in the south and the diversion of at least part of the Arabah copper flow to the west, in the direction of the Mediterranean coast and Egypt.

Antigüedad in progress... Actas del I Congreso Internacional de Jóvenes Investigadores del Mundo Antiguo (CIJIMA I(26-29/03/2014). Pedro D. Conesa Navarro, José J. Martínez García, Celso M. Sánchez Mondéjar, Carlos Molina Valero, Lucía García Carreras (Coords.). CEPOAT, Universidad de Murcia, 2017

El presente artículo se centra en Transjordania durante el período del Hierro I y II, momento de consolidación política de los reinos de Amón, Moab y Edom. El objetivo es presentar modelos interpretativos para comprender los procesos nomadización-sedentarización en este contexto.

Near Eastern Archaeology, 1999

Israel and Jordan in the Iron I (1200-1000 BCE) - archaeology - ethnicity - religion - social change - village life - theories regarding the Early Iron Age and Israelite ethnicity - Late Bronze Age origins of Iron I cultures in Israel and Jordan - Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites - Canaanites -Israelites

Ugarit-Forschungen, 2018

Recently established high-resolution, well-dated south Levantine paleoclimate records that cover the Bronze and Iron Ages allow us to examine the correlations between climate oscillations (dry and wet periods) and settlement activity. We focused our efforts on the desert fringe areas (northern Negev and Transjordan), which fall within the modern precipitation levels of 200-400 mm per annum, since even slight climate changes could be influential in these areas. Based on the finds from numerous excavated sites, we closely tracked the total settled area for each of the periods in these two zones and compared the results to similar data from three regions in the more temperate or “green” zones (the southern Shephelah and coastal plain, the northern highlands and the western Jezreel Valley). Our results demonstrate that expansion and decrease of the built-up area (and thus population) were influenced by a group of factors, rather than climate only. We offer tentative explanations for the settlement oscillations, which were often influenced by the geopolitical and economic environments, which served to mitigate the climatic effects.

2002

At the beginning of the project I had asked myself a simple question: why are there so many Late Bronze Age sites around Deir 'Alla? When I started looking for answers, I stumbled upon another question, a much bigger one: to what extent does the tribal society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reflect human behaviour in earlier periods, and what does that mean for the interpretation of the archaeological record? That question opened a Pandora's box of ideas and possibilities, that is yet far from exhausted. Over time it has influenced and changed my views, and consequently the original scope of the project, as it played an ever increasing role in the answers that I found. In places this process is still visible in the book: some chapters, such as chapter 5, reflect ideas that I had several years ago, but that have developed since then. Should I have to write that chapter now, I would write it differently. Sometimes I feared that my ideas were far-fetched, but when I shared them with others, reluctantly, there were always people who believed in them. The first time that happened was in 1997, at the SBL conference in San Francisco. I was extremely nervous about what I was going to say, but after I had finished, Anson Rainey came up to me to tell me how much he appreciated my ideas. He has never stopped encouraging me since. Since that time there have been many more people who shared my enthousiasm and encouraged me to go on: Israel Finkelstein, Gloria London, Piotr Bienkowski, Mervyn Richardson, and last but not least, Prof. Ed Noort, my supervisor during the last stages of the research, without whose encouragement and occasional pushing there would not have been a book now. Mervyn Richardson also kindly offered to correct my English and remove the Dutchisms from it, and he has been very thorough. A special paragraph of thanks goes to Margreet Steiner. She has stood at the cradle of this project, just like she stood at the beginning of so many other episodes in my life. In the past 12 years we have not only shared our love for the archaeology of Palestine and Jordan, but the ideas, emotions, enthousiasm and frustrations that were the result of that love. She has given me the lion's share of the feedback that I needed to finish it. Eke Bakker and Kees Donkersloot proved to be invaluable friends, who were always there when I needed to unwind from too many potsherds and Bedouin. Last but not least I want to thank my parents for their support, love and encouragement, and for making it all possible in the first place. This book is dedicated to them. Leiden, October 2002 Redford (1982) has suggested that the lists were composed from pre-existing itineraries for Western Asia, which were used by Egyptian couriers in the fifteenth century. He has interpreted rings 89-101 of this list as an itinerary describing a route from Damascus to Kerak across the Transjordanian Plateau. The following place names are involved:

The economies of southern Levantine societies are defined primarily as agropastoralist, yet archaeological finds and ancient texts testify to a breadth of interregional and international commerce during the Iron II–Persian periods. Recent publications of bronze bangles from these periods at Tell en-Naṣbeh suggest that one source of their copper was the Feinan mines in Edom, and that this copper was alloyed with tin and lead in Edom before it was traded as bronze rings to Naṣbeh. Is it possible that other goods were exchanged from Transjordan in addition to, or along with, these bangles? In the present research I visually identify several ceramic forms and wares uncovered at Tell en-Naṣbeh as Transjordanian. The pottery imports are primarily painted wares and black wares that are ceramic hallmarks of the region of Ammon, from the Iron II-Persian period. These ceramics will be reviewed in detail in order to better understand interregional interactions between Ammon and northern Judah. The distribution patterns of these Ammonite pottery vessels at Naṣbeh will be presented and interpreted as representative of a local marketing mode of exchange at the site.