KHIRBET EN-NAHAS, EDOM AND BIBLICAL HISTORY

Israel Finkelstein
Abstract This paper deals with a recent publication of the nds from the copper production centre of Khirbet en-Nahas (Levy et al. 2004). It argues that the site should be associated with the late Iron I and early Iron II sites of the Beersheba Valley and the Negev Highlands and thus has no bearing on the history of early Edom. It also casts doubt on the dating of the Khirbet en-Nahas fort to the 10th century BCE. Levy et al. (2004) recently reported the results of their excavation in the copper production centre of Khirbet en-Nahas in southern Jordan. They date the industrial activity at the site to the 12th9th centuries and the construction of a great fort visible on the surface there to the 10th century BCE. In their view the nds at Khirbet enNahas indicate that Edom emerged as a state in the 10th century, while under Assyrian domination, earlier than the broadly accepted date of the 8th century BCE. The nds at Khirbet en-Nahas are important for understanding the history of the southern steppe regions of the Levant in the Iron I and Iron IIA, but as far as I can judge they do not shed new light on the question of state formation in Edom.1 In fact, they seem to support the commonly held notion that Edom became a developed state not earlier than the late 8th century BCE. Two issues are central for evaluating the historical role of the site: the period of activity and its location vis--vis neighbouring regions. Khirbet en-Nahas was active in the Iron I and the Iron IIA. The pottery found at the site is apparently limited in quantity and in any event has not been presented yet. Levy et al. have dated the site according to 14C measurements of charcoal samples. Three comments are in place regarding their dates: 1. In measuring charcoal, especially in an arid zone where wood is not easily come by, the old wood effect must usually be taken into consideration. This is the reason why measurements of charcoal samples have not been included in most recent studies on the chronology of the Levant in the Iron Age. Yet, the quantity of fresh wood needed in an industrial site such as Khirbet en-Nahas must have called for an on-going supply. Therefore, in the case of Khirbet en-Nahas, where short-life samples are not available and the pottery is limited in quantity, charcoal is an important tool for the purpose of dating.
1

The author is grateful to Alexander Fantalkin, Eli Piasetzky and Lily Singer-Avitz for their valuable comments on the manuscript of this article.

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2. Almost all the readingsof both Levy et al. and their predecessors at the site (see summary table in Levy et al. 2004: 870)fall between the 11th and 9th centuries BCE. I see no reason in the data for dating the beginning of activity at the site to the 12th century BCE. It seems that in the late Iron IIthe 8th and 7th centuries BCEproduction shifted to other sites in the area (Knauf and Lenzen 1987). 3. Most of the samples were obtained from industrial wastes and lls (below), rather than from oors. This observation is supported by the wide range of dates. Regarding location, it is possible that the biblical authors viewed the Negev south of the Beersheba Valley as being part of Edom (Bartlett 1989: 4144), but both the biblical sources and the archaeological nds leave no doubt that the heartland of Edomand the only area that was inhabited by a signicant number of peoplelies in the highlands of southern Jordan, around the Edomite capital of Bozrah (op. cit.). The rift valley south of the Dead Sea was not part of the settled lands; it was sparsely inhabited and shows evidence of human activity mainly in the copper production area of Wadi Feinan. Indeed, Khirbet en-Nahas and other sites in this area are rst and foremost industrial centres. This situation stems from environmental conditions: annual precipitation in the Edomite highlands enables marginal agricultural activity, mainly in the northern sector, while the Arabah Valley and most of the Negev to its west can support no more than a minimal number of pastoral nomads. The only other area in the southern steppe thatif well organizedcould support signicant sedentary activity is the Beersheba Valley to the northwest of Khirbet en-Nahas. In order to understand the regional impact of Khirbet en-Nahas, one needs to compare its history of activity to the two above-mentioned neighbouring, marginallysettled lands: the Edomite highlands and the Beersheba Valley. It is true that Khirbet en-Nahas is much closer to the heartland of Edom, but the direction in which its copper was shipped is no less important. There can be no doubt that the copper of Khirbet en-Nahas was in demand and used mainly in the major urban centres of the north, west of the Jordan (Knauf 1995: 111112; 2000: 232233; see list of sites in Ilan 1999: 220230), not in the few small, poor villages of the Edomite highlands. Most of this copper was transported along the trade route which led to the Beersheba Valley and the southern Coastal Plain of the Levant. From there it was transported to the urban centres further north. Finds at several sites in the Edomite highlands, mainly in the northern sector, attest to settlement activity in the Iron I (Finkelstein 1992). The nds do not enable us to reach a more precise date, but it is logical to assume that expansion of Iron I settlement activity to the more arid southern part of the Transjordanian highlands did not take place in the early phase of the period. In other words, it is reasonable to date the sites to the (late?) 11th and early 10th century BCE. So far no evidence has
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been found for activity in the Iron IIA (late 10th and 9th centuries BCE; for the date of the Iron I/IIA transition according to recent 14C dates see Boaretto et al. 2005), when Khirbet en-Nahas reached its peak activity. The Edomite highlands come to life againand on a much larger scalein the late 8th and 7th century BCE (e.g., Hart 1986; Bienkowski 1995).2 The Beersheba Valley was inhabited in the Iron I (e.g., Stratum III at Tel Masos and Strata IXVIII at Beersheba) with activity booming in the early Iron IIA. The latter phase is best attested at the large (six hectares in area) and prosperous settlement of Stratum II at Tel Masos in the heart of the valley, as well as at smaller sites such as Tel Esdar, Stratum XII at Arad and Stratum VII at Beersheba (Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004). A wave of sedentarization of pastoral nomads took place at that time in the improved ecological niche of the Negev Highlands to the south and in the Besor region to the west of Beersheba. All these sites seem to represent the rise of a late Iron I and early Iron IIA desert chiefdom, the centre of which was located at Tel Masos (Finkelstein 1995: 103126). This desert entity was important enough to attract the attention of Pharaoh Shoshenq I, who campaigned in Canaan in the second half of the 10th century BCE. The southern sites are the only realistic possibility on the ground for the group of southern toponyms mentioned in Shoshenqs list of places captured in the course of the campaigna list which was engraved on a wall in the temple of Amun in Karnak, Upper Egypt (Naaman 1992; Finkelstein 2002). The Shoshenq I campaign brought about the gradual decline of the Tel Masos desert chiefdom in the late 10th or early 9th century. It was then replaced by the rst Judahite administrative centres of the 9th centurythe Stratum V fortied town at Beersheba and the Stratum XI fort at Tel Arad (Herzog 2002: 9496). To sum up this issue, the few (late?) Iron I sites of the Edomite highlands represent only half of the Khirbet en-Nahas sequence (the Iron I), while the much stronger, and longer late Iron IIron IIA activity in the Beersheba Valley, mainly at Tel Masos, ts perfectly the period of occupation at Khirbet en-Nahas. The nds at the sites discussed above support this conclusion. First and foremost, there is no evidence for copper production in the Iron I sites of the Edomite highlands. In contrast, Tel Masos provided evidence for a copper industry (Kempinski et al. 1983: 21) and yielded an exceptionally large number of copper/bronze items (Crsemann 1983; Lupu 1983: 202203). Other nds connect Khirbet en-Nahas to
2

Levy et al.s assertion that the dating of pottery sequences from the Edomite plateau are tied to the seventh and sixth centuries BC largely by a single bulla (2004: 867) is confusing. Edom is not located a world apart from the rest of the southern Levant and the pottery assemblages from sites such as Umm el-Biyara are dated according to comparison to the assemblages from more central sites to the west of the Jordan. Therefore, with or without the Qsgabr, King of Edom bulla, the main phase of settlement activity there is safely placed in the late Iron II.

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the Beersheba Valley sites, especially to Tel Masos: Negebite potterytypical of the early Iron IIA Negev Highlands siteswas found at both sites; Midianite pottery was also found at both. To the best of my knowledge these forms have not been uncovered in the Iron I sites of the Edomite highlands.3 More supportive evidence for the Khirbet en-NahasTel Masos connection can be found in the nature of the sites. The Iron I villages of the Edomite highlands are sparse and small, and feature basic material culture, with no evidence of inter-regional trade. Not a single one of them can be described as an urban centre. In contrast, Tel Masos features relatively rich nds, and the Midianite, Philistine and Phoenician pottery found there attest to strong connections, through the southern trade routes, with the Arabah Valley in the east and the coastal cities of the Mediterranean in the west. To sum up this point, the Tel Masos chiefdom prospered as an intermediary of southern goods to the Philistine coast. A major component of this southern trade was probably copper from Khirbet en-Nahas (Knauf 1995: 112113).4 The importance of the Arabah copper in the late Iron I and early Iron IIA is attested in many sites in the southern Levant, including northern sites such as Tel Dan and Megiddo (Ilan 1999: 220230; Knauf 2000: 232233). Tel Masos served as the gateway of the desert trade to the settled lands. Though one cannot brush aside the possibility of trade in northern Arabah copper as early as the 12th century BCE, it seems that Khirbet en-Nahas and neighbouring sites (e.g., Fritz 1994) emerged as important copper production centres after the breakdown of the maritime trade connections with the great copper mines of Cyprus in the 12th century BCE (Knauf 1995: 112113). This leaves me with the Khirbet en-Nahas fort, which Levy et al. dated to the 10th century BCE according to 14C samples taken from their limited excavation in the gatehouse (2004: 871872). Dating the construction of the fort is difcult, as no oors with in situ nds have been found. It is clear that the fort was built on top of industrial wastes (Stratum A4a). Very little from the original construction of the fort remained. The 14C sample representing this phase came from the reddish-brown surface between metallurgical industrial waste and an ashy deposit (ibid.). The next layer up (A2b) represents the main layer associated with copper production in this area and also coincides with the
3

Another clue for the orientation of Khirbet en-Nahas comes from the botanical remains. The site yielded a large quantity of charcoal. Most of it was identied as wood collected from its immediate vicinity. No remains of Jeniperus phoenicea or Quercus calliprinos, trees typical of the Edomite highlands were found (Engel 1993). Other periods of copper production in Wadi Feinan are also represented by gateway communities in the Beersheba Valley or the southern coast, Early Bronze III Arad being the best example.

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period when the gate went out of use (ibid.). The radiocarbon sample came from a locus which represents a thick and dense layer containing a very large volume of copper industrial waste (ibid.). It seems that the entire description relates to the industrial waste under the fort and to a ll laid as a podium below the oors of the fort, which have not been preserved. This is apparently the case at the large, similarin-layout fort of Ein Hazeva, located ca. 20 km. to the northwest, on the western margin of the Arabah Valley (Naaman 1997), where only the constructional podium was preserved, while the oors disappeared long ago. This means that the fort was constructed later than the copper production activity at the site, that is, after the 9th century BCEthe date of the latest 14C dates from the ll and the industrial wastes. This should not come as a surprise. First, a close look at the aerial photo and plan of Khirbet en-Nahas (Levy et al. 2004: 868869) seems to show that the fort was built on top of the site, cutting into the piles of copper industry waste.5 Second and more important, the Khirbet en-Nahas fort is almost identical in layout and plan of the gate to two other forts in the southEin Hazeva, which has already been mentioned, and Tell el-Kheleifeh. But these forts date to the late 8th and 7th century BCE (Naaman 1997; Pratico 1993 respectively); they seem to have been built by the Assyrians to protect their interests along the main Arabian trade routes in the desert. Moreover, there is no evidence for a similar fort in the Negev, in Transjordan or west of the Jordanin fact, in the entire Levantprior to the Assyrian takeover. The fort of Tell el-Kheleifeh was built at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, controlling both the land and maritime routes; the fort of Ein Hazeva dominated the main Arabian trade route whichsimilar to the later, Roman Via Novapassed along the Edomite plateau, crossed the Arabah Valley near Ein Hazeva, and ascended into the Beersheba Valley in the northwest. The fort of Khirbet en-Nahas was controlled, or was planned to control the approach to the important copper production area (see map in Fritz 1994: 126). It seems that at the time that the fort was constructed Khirbet en-Nahas was no longer active and the main production effort shifted to neighbouring sites. To conclude, the excavations at Khirbet en-Nahas supply important information on the history of copper production in the northeastern Arabah. They also contribute to a better understanding of the Tel Masos chiefdom of the late Iron I and early Iron IIA. They do not provide evidence for early, 10th century BCE state formation in Edom. The main phase of activity in the Edomite highlands dates from the late 8th
5

The walls of the fort seem to cut sort of foundation trenches into the industrial waste (picture in Levy et al. 2004: 868). The fact that the inside of the structure is packed with heaps of industrial waste may provide a clue that the fort was never completed. It is possible that only the contour of the walls and a ll for a gate were laid; this may be hinted at in Levy et al. 2004: 872: very little remained from that stage apart from the actual architectural frame and some associated surfaces.

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and the rst half of the 7th centuries BCE, after the Assyrian conquest of the southern Coastal Plain (for the former date see Singer-Avitz 1999). At that time Edom proted from both the Arabian trade and copper productiontwo ventures that were closely controlled by the Assyrian empire (Bienkowski and van der Steen 2001: 2324). The late Iron II forts of Tell el-Khuleifeh and Khirbet en-Nahas, the contemporary Assyrian palace compound at Buseirah and the wave of settlement in the Edomite highlands represent the rst tight connection between the Edomite heartland and the rift valley. In that sense, Khirbet en-Nahas supports the commonly-held view on the emergence of Edom under Assyrian domination in the 8th century BCE. Indeed, an Edomite political entity is rst mentioned in extra-biblical historical records by Adad-nirari III, king of Assyria (810783 BCE). Earlier biblical references to Edom, such as the description of Davids campaign there (2 Samuel 8: 1314), should be seen as anachronisms, reecting the realities and goals of the time of the compilation of the relevant texts (e.g., Naaman 2002: 214).

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