As discussed here and elsewhere (Hauptmann 2007; Higham et al. 2005; Levy et al. 2004; Levy et al. 2005b), archaeological and radiocarbon data show that the Iron Age of the Edom lowlands begins as early as the eleventh century B. C. and has a floret of metal production during the tenth and ninth centuries B. C. There is also limited evidence of Iron Age activity in this region during the eighth and seventh centuries B. C. While some scholars have taken issue with the early dating of the Iron Age occupation in the lowland region (finkelstein 2005; Levy and Najjar 2006b; Levy, Najjar, and Higham 2007b; van der Steen and Bienkowski 2006) these critics have been countered with hard archaeological and radiometric data demonstrating the long Iron Age occupation of Edom (Levy, Higham, and Najjar 2006; Levy and Najjar 2006b; Levy, Najjar, and Higham 2007a; Levy et al. 2008a). While eighth-seventh-century B. C. settlement data are limited in the lowlands, at this time the highlands experienced an expansion of settlement with a central site located at Busayra (Balla and Bienkowski 2002), numerous villages and defensive sites such as Umm al-Biyara (Bennett 1966a; Bennett 1966b), Sela (Dalley and Goguel 1997), and other locales. Thus, in light of the new archaeological data from the lowlands of Edom, the search for historical sources linked to Edom can confidently span the eleventh through seventh centuries B. C. and probably several centuries on both sides of this block of time.
While there are local Edomite signet seals, seal impressions, inked ostraca, and graffiti dating from the eighth through seventh centuries B. C. found in late Iron Age levels at the port site of Tell el-Kheleifeh, highland sites in Edom (Crowell 2004; DiVito 1993; Naveh 1982;
Porter 2004), and some locales in Israel, textual data from the formative period of Iron Age Edom comes mostly from Egypt, with some glimmers of history in various “layers” of the Hebrew Bible (Levy 2008a, 2008b). To date, no evidence of Late Bronze age mining, metallurgy, or occupation has been found in the faynan district, however, 106 km to the south at Timna, in the other main copper-ore district of the Wadi arabah, there is evidence of egyptian activities in the region during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties as evidenced by several cartouches of pharaohs from Seti I through Ramesses IV, ca. 1300-1150 B. C. (Rothenberg 1972), and an Egyptian Late Bronze Age shrine or temple (Rothenberg 1988). The presence of “Midianite” or “Quwayra ware” pottery has led Rothenberg (Rothenberg 1999) and Bartlett (Bartlett 1989: 74-75) to suggest that the population at Timna was composed of Egyptians, local inhabitants (Edomites?), and others (Midianites?) — including prisoners and slaves who were forced to work the mines for the Egyptians. As noted above, the Iron Age archaeological settlement pattern data for the lowlands of Edom indicate a non-sedentary nomadic population that we may assume relied on herding as one important component of their economy. K. Kitchen’s 1992 summary of Late Bronze Age to early Iron Age textual data from Egypt support this interpretation where Edom is referred to as Seir and inhabited by “clans” (whSywt) ruled by “chiefs” (wrw). This is portrayed in the Papyrus Anastasi VI that uses the term “Edom” and states, “we have finished with allowing the Shasu clansfolk of Edom to pass the fort of Merneptah that is in Succoth, to the pools of Pi-Atum of Merneptah that are in Succoth, to keep them alive and to keep alive their livestocks” (Gardiner 1937: 76-77; translations in Pritchard 1969: 259', with notes in Caminos 1954: 293). The later text from the reign of Ramesses III (ca. 1184-1153 B. C.), known as the Papyrus Harris I, also portrays a pastoral nomadic population in Edom and the shifting nature of relations between the Egyptian state and these northeastern nomads: “I destroyed the Seirites, the clans of the Shasu, I pillaged their tents, with their people, their property and their livestock with limits” (Erichsen 1933: 93; translations in Pritchard 1969: 262:I). While it is clear that the Late Bronze-early Iron Age Egyptian state referred to the pastoral nomadic population of Seir/Edom as “Shasu,” we do not yet know what these people actually referred to themselves as. It is against this historical background that the Wadi fidan 40 cemetery has been linked to the Shasu population mentioned in these Egyptian texts (Levy, Adams, and Muniz 2004; Levy, Adams, and Shafiq 1999). Based on the radiocarbon dates from this cemetery (Levy et al. 2005a), its peak use was during the tenth century B. C. Taken together, these data indicate the presence of a very large nomadic population during the tenth century B. C. in the lowlands of Edom. Based on the scholarly consensus on the centrality of nomadism as an important “deep-time” adaptive mechanism for populations residing in the region of Edom (Bienkowski and van der Steen 2001; LaBianca and Younker 1995; Levy 2004), an important variable for understanding the rise of the “nomadic state” in Iron Age Edom is the structural underpinnings of the Middle East tribal system from a processual perspective. for some discussion of issues concerning Iron Age Edom, metal production, and the Hebrew Bible, see Bartlett 1989; Bienkowski 1995; Edelman 1995; finkelstein 2005; Knauf-Belleri 1995; Knauf and Lenzen 1987; Levy 2002; Levy 2004; Levy 2008; Levy and Najjar 2006a; Levy and Najjar 2007; Na’aman 2004; and Whiting 2007.
World History
