FROM
JORDAN:
RESULTS OF THE 1976 SEASON AT SODOM AND GOMORRAH
The third season of the Expedition to the Southeastern Dead Sea Plain was completed between May 25 and July 11, 1979. (For reports on the first two seasons, see the Winter 1977 and Summer 1978 issues of Bible and Spade.) Work was again concentrated at Bab edh-Dhra, thought to be biblical Sodom, and Numeira, thought to be the site of Gomorrah.
Findings at the Bab edh-Dhra Town Site
At Bab edh-Dhra, the excavators are exposing vertical sections in order to determine the history of the site, and horizontal areas to reveal city life in a particular period. The first settlers to begin permanent occupation appeared at Bab edh-Dhra around 3100 B.C. (the Early Bronze IB period). At about 2700 B.C. an enormous wall some 23 feet in thickness was built around the town (the Early Bronze III period). One of the problems yet to be solved by the expedition is whether or not there was a town wall earlier than 2700 B.C. Within the walled city, the archaeologists found an entire subdivision of mudbrick dwellings along the northwest side. Although erosion is severe in this part of the site, two well-preserved rooms were cleared. In the southwest part of the town, what is believed to be a sacred area is emerging. Two rectangular buildings were found, one superimposed above the other. This suggests a sacred building, because people often reused and rebuilt a holy area in ancient times. To the west of the building, a stone base of a hemispherical structure about nine feet in diameter was discovered. Flint scrapers used for butchering animals were found nearby, suggesting that the structure may be an altar. A
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A disturbed tomb group at Bab edh-Dhra. The blocking stone may be seen on the right. This tomb, found on the west end of the site, dates to the earliest use of the site in the EBIA period. It was later covered by EB II and EB III occupation.
An idea of the heavy erosion that has occurred at Bab edh-Dhra over the centuries may be gained from this photo of a deep erosional valley in the center of the site.
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broken piece of jar with a seal impression was also found close to the structure. The impression is a scene which appears to be a cultic dance. From this evidence, the excavators have concluded that the building is an early Canaanite temple. These findings date to near the end of the life of the walled town, or about the time when Lot lived in Sodom (Genesis 13:10–12, 19:1–3).
Findings at the bab edh-Dhra Cemetery
A short distance southwest of the town is the great Bab edh-Dhra cemetery. The cemetery contains a great many burials, starting around 3200 B.C. and extending at least a thousand years beyond that. A large rectangular brick mausoleum, called a charnel house, was cleared during the season. Charnel houses were used during the time of the walled town, ca. 2600-2300 B.C. This particular one, officially labeled “Tomb A22,” turned out to be the largest of its type excavated to date, with about 250 individuals being buried inside. The grave goods indicate that they were from the wealthier class of the town. Such items as exquisite pottery, textiles, wooden combs, metal weapons, and gold jewelery were found within the tomb. Gold was very scarce in Palestine during this period, though it has been found in roughly contemporary tombs at Ur in Mesopotamia.
Findings at the Numeira Town Site
Eight miles south of Bab edh-Dhra is the site of Numeira, thought to be Gomorrah, the second of the infamous twin cities of sin. Numeira is much smaller than Bab edh-Dhra, and appears to have been occupied toward the end of the Early Bronze III period, ca. 2450 to 2350 B.C. It suffered the same violent destruction as Bab edh-Dhra.
Excavations exposed four rooms or court areas and a street running east and west. Since ashy debris had sealed the contents of most of the rooms, many artifacts remained just as the people had left them when the town met its end. One room contained many broken but restorable pottery vessels. Food-stuffs were often miraculously preserved in the dry ashy and sandy soil. In 1977, a large bunch of grapes with the skins still on them were found at Numeira (Deuteronomy 32:32). During 1979, over 5,000 barley seeds were recovered from one small area of one room. Barley was used to make bread and beer in
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The courtyard area at Numeira, looking northwest. The pits are from the earliest occupation at the site.
antiquity. It is interesting to note that Ezekiel lists “fulness of bread” as one of the sins of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:49). Textile fragments, and even the remains of thread and yarn, appeared in several places. As with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the arid climate of the Dead Sea region has resulted in the extraordinary preservation of these items.
At the east end of the site is a large heap of stones which are believed to be a tower. This season, stones were removed in an effort to determine the nature of the structure. As the stones were taken away, one side of the tower came to light, as well as a flight of plaster-lined stairs leading to its upper part.
Other Field Work
In addition to the excavation work, regional investigations are being carried out by the expedition team. Geologic studies are being conducted as well as an intensive study of the agriculture of the area. It has been determined that the ancient economy was based on irrigation. This is exactly how the region is described in Genesis 13:10: “well watered every where” (in Hebrew, “completely irrigated”). As a result, an extensive study of irrigation technology is under way. This is being complemented
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The south wall of the Numeira town site emerges during excavations of the 1979 season. To the west of the site in the background are seen the Dead Sea-to-Aqaba road (left center) and the remaining thin ribbon of the southern basin of the Dead Sea (above the head of the figure).
The east tower at Numeira.
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by the study of seeds and grains recovered from the occupation areas by means of flotation.
Identification of the Sites
In 1974, in our first report on the five Early Bronze Age sites southeast of the Dead Sea, we strongly supported the identification of the sites as the “Cities of the Plain” mentioned in Genesis 13:12, 19:29 and named in Genesis 14:2, 8. The scholars associated with the expedition, however, have been reluctant to support publicly such an identification until they had more data in hand. It now appears that they are ready to defend the identification of these five sites as the Cities of the Plain. In their latest report (cited at the end of this article), they state: “we are in the process of proposing that these Early Bronze Age sites may indeed represent the remains of the ancient cities (of the plain). The argumentation for this will be set out in several articles…” (p. 17).
One new argument which has apparently convinced the excavators that their sites are the Cities of the Plain resulted from the fact that the level of the Dead Sea has been going down in recent years. After his survey of the region southwest of the Dead Sea and his discovery of Bab edh-Dhra in 1924, W. F. Albright put forward the theory that Bab edh-Dhra was a religious center and burial ground for the Cities of the Plain. Since he found no other Early Bronze Age sites nearby, he theorized that the Cities of the Plain must be beneath the shallow waters of the southern end of the Dead Sea. In our original article, we discussed a number of reasons why this proposal was unsound (Bible and Spade, Summer 1974, pp. 68-69, 76–77). Because water is being taken from the Jordan River for irrigation, the level of the Dead Sea has dropped considerably over the past few years. This has resulted in the southern basin of the Dead Sea becoming, for the most part, a mud flat. There are no ruins visible in this vast expanse of muck and mire. The archaeologists conclude:
It is now possible to see that the south end of the Dead Sea could not have contained cities at any time during the historical period, at least from around 3000 B.C. onward. With a large part of the southern end exposed during the past summer, it seemed to us that this area would have been not only an unfavorable but also an impossible area in which
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NASA satellite (LANDSAT) photo of the Dead Sea region taken on December 19, 1978. Except for a narrow strip of water on the west side, the southern basin of the Dead Sea has dried up.
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A “Gemco” pulls a drilling rig which is supported by a “hover pontoon” over the mud flats of the southern Dead Sea basin. This is part of the modern technology coming to the area to establish a potash industry which will recover potash from the water of the Dead Sea by means of solar energy.
to establish a city. Thus the Early Bronze Age ruins at Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira, and perhaps at the other sites, would appear to be more viable candidates (for the Cities of the Plain) (p. 16-17).
We welcome these statements by the leaders of the expedition and look forward to the publication of additional information on the celebrated cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Cities of the Plain, and the early chapters of Genesis.
(“Expedition to the Southeastern Dead Sea Plain, Jordan, 1979” by Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Shaub, Co-directors, in the American Schools of Oriental Research Newsletter, No. 8, June 1980, pp. 12-17).
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