Numeira: Excavations at the Town Site (1977-1983)
Volume 3 of the Final Publications of the
Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan
Meredith S. Chesson and R. Thomas Schaub

The EDSP was undertaken as a regional investigation devoted to the single period of the Early Bronze Age. The overall objective has been to explain the lifeways of the peoples of the third millennium BCE in the Dead Sea Valley, based on data from settlements and tombs and from intensive environmental and natural resource research in the entire valley. From 1975 onward the EDSP conducted excavations and surveys: at Bab edh-Dhra’ in 1975, Numeira and Bab edh-Dhra’ in 1977, 1979, and 1981, at Numeira in 1983, and at Khanazir and Feifa in 1990. These sites are situated on alluvial fans extending into the southeastern Dead Sea littoral. Bab edh-Dhra’ is the northernmost, located east of the Lisan peninsula. Numeria is 12 km. south of Bab edh-Dhra’, while Feifa is approximately 27 km. and Khanazir 34 km. south of Bab edh-Dhra’.

With the publication of volume 2 on the town site of Bab edh-Dhra’ (Rast and Schaub 2003; the first volume on the excavations of Paul W. Lapp in the Bab edh-Dhra’ cemetery, was published in 1989) the publication staff of the EDSP has focused on volume 3 on the town site of Numeira. Great progress has been made in the preparation of this volume during 2004 and 2005. All of the basic data has been processed and recorded in computer files, including master and primary loci lists, final top plans, stratigraphical phasing of the site, drawing and digitizing of all of the pottery and objects, digitizing of all of the photos and illustrations, and 10 Carbon dates of short-lived samples. Five chapters for the final report have been submitted in draft form. The basic tasks remaining are the analysis of ceramic patterns, selection of the forms for the final plates and the write-up and editing of the remaining chapters. Five chapters will be the responsibility of specialist staff members. Seven chapters on the excavations and interpretation of the site along with the final editing are the main responsibility of Chesson and Schaub. The sabbatical grant supplement for Chesson for 2006-2007 requested here will allow us to complete the writing and editing of all of the remaining chapters and submit volume 3 to our publisher Eisenbrauns by March 2008.