Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1987 - 44

On the east and west, descent has
to be made through steep wadis from
the highlands above. It appears
that in earlier antiquity the easiest
access into the southeast plain, at
least, was from the Arabah to the
south. The construction of a modern
highway on the Jordan side of the
Arabah, from Aqaba on the Red Sea
directly into the southeastern Dead
Sea plain, and from there to Kerak
and Amman, has opened up this
remote plain to travel and industry as
never before in its thousands of
years of history.
Archaeological information from
this little-known area has been
coming to light at an unusual rate
of speed during the last two decades.
This is due principally to the pres-

Archaeologists invesigate the water
source for the satellite settlement of
Numeira.
ence of a vast cemetery dating to the
Early Bronze Age (3300-2050 b.c. )
located at Bab edh-Dhra in Jordan,
just above the coastal plain east of
the Lisan. Bab edh-Dhra- an Arabic
name meaning "gate of the arm"was discovered by an expedition in
1924 led by the late W.F. Albright
of Johns Hopkins University. Later,
in the 1960s, a gifted student of
Albright's, Paul W. Lapp, who lost
his life at a young age in a drowning
accident in Cyprus, directed the
first excavations at Bab edh-Dhra,
uncovering numerous tombs and
clearing several small sections of a
large Early Bronze Age city. Following
his death, the author and R. Thomas
Schaub of Indiana University of
44

Archaeology

Pennsylvania were asked to assume
responsibility for publishing the
results of these excavations, and in
connection with this they undertook
a survey of the entire southeastern
plain in 1973. Several additional Early
Bronze Age sites were discovered,
with either cemeteries or towns or
both. Since 1975 the author and
Schaub, together with an interdisciplinary team, have co-directed a
major expedition devoted to intensive
archaeological and environmental
investigation of Bab edh-Dhra. Work
has also begun at Numeira, one of
the early discovered towns of the
survey, with Michael Coogan as site
supervisor. The Smithsonian Institution, under Donald Ortner, is cooperating in a detailed study of the
great quantity of human remains.
Future plans call for new excavations
at es-Safi and Fe ifeh beginning in
1988- two sites with significant Early
Bronze Age remains discovered in
the survey.
^^ab edh-Dhra is an unusually rich
site with evidence of a development
from village settlement to fortified
city. The cemetery contains burials
dating to all the phases of the Early
Bronze Age. Archaeological teams
can hardly ask for more- the living
areas of the inhabitants together
with their burials- two complementary sets of evidence that can be
compared with each other.
History at Bab edh-Dhra began
with pastoral nomads who did not
settle permanently. The remains left
by these people are almost entirely
tombs. Families who buried their dead
during this period were naturally
inclined to treat the location as a special, possibly even sacred, burial
ground. The time was approximately
3200 b.c., a period which can be
called either Late Chalcolithic or Early
Bronze I. Palestine at this time was
not nearly as advanced as the great
civilizations flanking it on the
southwest and northeast. Egypt, for
instance, was already beginning to
see the evolution of a succession of Old
Kingdom dynasties which would
leave behind some of the most remarkable monuments of the past- the
pyramids. Mesopotamia was witnessing the rise of impressive mudbrick
Sumerian cities. And a structured
method of writing had already made
its appearance in the g-eat civilizations of these two flanking regions.
Not so in ancient Palestine. For

the most part the entire area of modern
Israel and Jordan, during the Late
Chalcolithic, witnessed a simpler
social development between numerous
pastoralist groups and agricultural
villages or centers, such as the impressive ones discovered at Ghassul in
Jordan and near Beersheba in Israel.
Agriculture encouraged a more or
less sedentary existence at such
villages, while pastoralists tended to
dominate in the marginal areas.
The interaction between these two,
the agricultural village and the
pastoralists, is one of the many fascinating problems of prehistory in
this region.
The first people who are known
to be active at the site of Bab edhDhra were such pastoralists. One of
the specific problems on which our
staff is working is an attempt to determine specific reasons why a group
of pastoralists would return to a site
like Bab edh-Dhra repeatedly for
a period of perhaps a little more than
100 years. The excavations have
found Early Bronze IA (3250-3100
B.c. ) camping remains, so the conclusion can be drawn that these
pastoralists stayed at the site from
time to time, perhaps seasonally.
Geologic survey has shown that the
Wadi Kerak had plentiful springs
going back into antiquity, so the area
would have been a good one for
watering flocks. And perhaps some
seasonal agriculture was performed
during the limited stay at the site.
It is evident that these herdsmen
did not remain at the site on a permanent basis, however, since the most
abundant remains they have left
behind are their burials in an extensive cemetery. These burials contain
all the marks of a migrant group.
In the first place, the common pattern
found in the case of 200 excavated
tombs is of detached human bones and
skulls stacked neatly into small underground chambers, rather than fully
articulated burials. The average
chamber of the shaft tombs contains
anywhere between two and ten individuals, usually adults of both sexes,
sometimes children, and occasionally
infants. Our studies have led us to
conclude that the burials were familial,
including both nuclear and extended families.
Items of importance for the deceased were included in the burials.
Hand-crafted pottery was generously
spread around the edges of the
chamber. Female burials contained as-

Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1987

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - January/February 1987