Dead Sea 1998 Overview

Early Bronze Age settlement at Bâb edh-Dhra‘
Rast, Walter E. and R.T. Schaub

For a site that has been well known for its tombs, this volume on Early Bronze Age settlement at Bâb edh-Dhra‘ brings a new perspective by turning attention from the cemetery to the living community and its activities, insofar as these can be reconstructed from the archaeological finds. The burial evidence and accompanying artifacts are naturally always important in themselves as well as for comparison, and reference to them will be found at many places in this volume. But the focus here is on a large body of data relating to the people who settled this Early Bronze site from the latter quarter of the fourth to the end of the third millennium B.C.

Lapp's excavations in 1965 were the first to show that Bâb edh-Dhra‘ was an Early Bronze Age settlement rather than a specialized ceremonial site, as many had speculated prior to his work (P. Lapp 1966: 560-61; for references to the prevalent interpretation of the site as a distinctive one accompanied by cultic activities see Schaub and Rast 1989: 17-18). Following upon Lapp's discoveries, the several seasons of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain (EDSP) have uncovered a great deal more evidence for the history of Early Bronze settlement here. Therefore, it now has to be recognized that if a special significance is to be ascribed to Bâb edh-Dhra‘ it is not because it was an unusual site in antiquity but rather because it provides a unique case of Early Bronze Age urbanism in an exceptional part of the country, the isolated environment along the southeastern Dead Sea Plain. Bâb edh-Dhra‘ takes its place within the discussion of the social and political events occurring on both sides of the Jordan Rift during the late fourth and third millennia s.c,. Its remains open a window to the lifeways of the people who constructed its numerous tombs throughout the entire Early Bronze Age.

The EDSP was begun in 1975 to expand what had been learned from the late Paul Lapp's excavations at Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ between 1965 and 1967. The discovery of previously unknown evidence for the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3300-2000 B.C.E.) made by Schaub and Rast in a 1973 survey was a spur for the new work. These new data showed that not only Bab edh-Dhra' but also other areas of the southeastern Dead Sea valley contained rich material for the beginning age of urbanization in ancient Palestine. From 1975 onward the EDSP conducted excavation and surveys: at Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ in 1975, Numeira and Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ in 1977, 1979, and 1981, at Numeira in 1983, and at Khanâzir and Feifa in 1990. These sites are situated on alluvial fans extending into the southeastern Dead Sea littoral. Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ is the northernmost (long. 35 l'E; lat. 31 8 N), located east of the Lisan peninsula almost directly opposite Masada. Numeira is 12 km. south of Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘, while Feifa is approximately 271an.and Khanâzir 34 km. south Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘.

The EDSP was undertaken as a regional investigation devoted to the single period of the Early Bronze Age. The interdisciplinary staff (still intact), includes in addition to stratigraphers and field supervisors a geologist, a palynologist, three physical anthropologists, a zoologist, a lithics specialist, a cartographer, a professional photographer, a paleobotanist, a ceramic technologist, and associated specialists in jewelry, textiles, basketry, shells, ground stonework, and metallurgy. The expedition practiced flotation in all of its seasons, and has done pollen as well as phytolith research. The overall objective has been to explain the lifeways of the peoples of the third millennium B.C.E. in the Dead Sea valley, based on data from settlements and tombs, and from intensive environmental and natural resource research in the entire valley. The data from the Dead Sea are unique in that they are frequently complementary (such as tombs and settlements belonging to the same people, as well as comparative data from the same period within a circumscribed region), making possible an integrated explanation of social and cultural elements shared by the ancient occupants.

With the publication of all of Lapp's tomb material from Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ in 1989 by Schaub, Rast, and others (Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘: Excavations in the Cemetery directed by Paul W. Lapp [1965-67], Eisenbrauns 1989), the staff turned to working on the final volumes of the EDSP.