Saidiyeh Overview

Rupert Chapman
This grant will be for publication of the final report entitled Tell es-Sa'idiyeh Volume IV: Excavations on the Upper Tell 1986-1996 by Jonathan Tubb and Rupert L. Chapman III

Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, thought to be ancient Zarethan, is located 35 degrees 35 minutes East, 32 degrees 16 minutes 15 seconds North in Jordan, on the south side of the Wady Kufrinjeh, two kilometres East of the River Jordan. It is surrounded by fertile alluvial soil, ideal for agriculture with irrigation, and has abundant water, both from the permanently flowing Kufrinjeh and from a spring located on the North side of the upper tell. A major centre for the manufacture and distribution of olive oil in the Early Bronze Age (2800-2400 BC), and an Egyptian border fortress during the XXth Dynasty (13th century BC), it shrank to village status in Iron Age I (1200-1000 BC), and the early part of Iron II (1000-700 BC), before being rebuilt as a centre for cloth production. Destroyed by the Assyrians, it was occupied by a single building, thought to be a district governor's residence, through the Assyrian and Babylonian Imperial periods. In the Hellenistic period there was a villa on the upper tell, and in the Roman period a small watchtower. Several small isolated buildings were built on the upper tell in the Islamic period, and the foundations of a large building, apparently never completed, on the lower tell in either the Byzantine or early Islamic period.

Tell es-Sa'idiyeh is the largest site in the Jordan Valley, and a meeting place for the different cultural spheres of Cis-Jordan, and Trans-Jordan within the Levant, Egypt and the Aegean to west and south. The substantial corpus of material from the excavations since 1986, taken together with that from the previous excavations, is extremely important for studies of chronology and culture throughout the Levant and beyond over the whole span of its occupation.

The changing nature of the occupation on the Upper Tell is important in reconstructing the economy, social structure, and political history of the region. The shifting political control, which is visible in the changing material culture, both the portable finds (e.g., pottery and metalwork) and the fixed finds (architecture), forms part of the larger regional picture. The two phases of Egyptian control in the Late Bronze Age followed by the carefully planned industrial new-town of Stratum VII in the Iron Age, followed by the impoverishment and marginalization of the site following the Assyrian conquest are a major contribution to our understanding of the history and archaeology of both the Jordan Valley itself and its wider setting.

The detailed preliminary reports already published will form the basis for the detailed analysis of the stratigraphy. As this is completed, the phase plans will be drawn up, and the lists of objects from each locus within the strata will be compiled. Specialist reports on the different classes of finds are already in preparation, and the synthetic description of each of the strata will be written in light of these reports. The work will be carried out in the British Museum, and will be published by British Museum Press. Appended are the excavation permit in the name of the director, Jonathan Tubb, a letter confirming the applicant's authority to carry out the proposed work on the material, and an academic resume.