A Reassessment of the Chronology of the Iron Age site of Khirbet en-Nahas, Southern Jordan

ABSTRACT

The chronology of Khirbet en-Nahas, a large Iron Age archaeological site located in the copper mining region of Faynan, southern Jordan, has been under fierce debate for the last 15 years. Since the site was excavated in 2002–2009, several analyses challenged the excavators’ interpretation of the stratigraphy, the results of the radiocarbon data and its dating. However, so far none of these challenges considered the final report published in 2014, which provided precious information from new areas of excavations and novel series of 14C dates. It is therefore necessary to have an independent reassessment of the archaeological and radiocarbon evidence of each excavated area based on the final report. Reasonable questions raised since the beginning about the 14C dates and the use of Bayesian modelling, the stratigraphic contexts from which they were recovered, and the interpretation of the ceramic assemblage can now be reassessed through a meticulous analysis of the site’s stratigraphy and finds. Considering this re-evaluation of the evidence, it is possible to present a reconstruction of the history of the site somewhat different from the one suggested by the excavators.

KEYWORDS:

• Iron Age
• Levant
• Jordan
• archaeology
• chronology
• radiocarbon
• pottery
• metallurgy

Acknowledgements

I thank Piotr Bienkowski for reading a previous draft of this article. My gratitude also goes to the two anonymous reviewers who read the article and helped to improve it. All of its content is entirely my responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The Bayesian modelling was presented in a different chapter by Higham et al. 2005.

2 For a similar case in Iron production slag mounds of Medieval Cambodia, see Hendrickson et al. 2017, 68.

3 A similar problem of mismatch between radiocarbon and pottery dating has been noted at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in north-eastern Sinai, where the calibrated 14C dates indicate occupation in the late 9th–early 8th centuries bce (Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2008b) but the latest pottery assemblage corresponds mostly to the late 8th century bce or later (Singer Avitz 2006).

4 According to the excavators, a full suite of 108 14C dates are published in the final report (KEN, 89), but only 104 are present in the KEN tables and the Excel table of App. 2.2 14C ELRAP.

5 The difference is noted in the calibrated years of the two 14C dates from Area W, between those presented in the KEN tables and those in the Excel table of App. 2.2 14C ELRAP. They seem to represent the use of different calibration curves or they could be typos.

6 The excavators consistently refer to the stratigraphic units A3, A2, etc. as ‘layers’, and the sub-units A3b, A3a, etc. alternatively as ‘layers’ or ‘sublayers’. For convenience, I will treat them all as ‘layers’. 

7 A comparison with the section drawings of the slag mound in Area M shows what walls cutting into industrial waste really look like: walls sitting over and abutting continuous, thick, and mixed layers of ash and slag (KEN, Figs. 2.84, 85). This does not occur at Area A.

8 The excavators suggest that the gatehouse foundations are similar to those found at the ‘four-room’ house at Area S, in that they were built of only a layer of crushed slag (KEN, 151). However, the gatehouse walls are thicker (1,5–2,0m vs. 0,6–0,4m) and higher than those of the small house, therefore they needed deeper and more solid foundations to avoid collapse.

9 But before the gate was decommissioned, as the ash layer is buried below the blocked entrances and doorways.

10 Equally absent are evidences of the gatehouse’s use as a podium for an upper structure of the kind that has been attributed to the construction projects of the Assyrians in Edom and the Negev, such as earthen fill podiums and wall spaces for fitting wooden beams (Na’aman 2001; Ussishkin 2010).

11 The extent of the influence of the Bayesian modelling in the chronology can be seen in the fact that the only two calibrated 14C dates of layer M4 point to a 9th century dating rather than the 11th century bce occupation suggested by the excavators.

12 Although in the master locus list, l. 631 (the locus where the first two date samples were taken) is catalogued as ‘fill … possible floor levels’ (KEN, App. 2.M.2).

13 Area R building and perimeter walls feature walls 1 m thick (KEN, 209).

14 Smith and Levy (2014, 312–14) disassociated the ‘Assyrian imitation-style’ bowls from the BL22 type by classifying the former into a new BL22a subtype, but both types seem to be identical (see Bienkowski 2011, 77–78).

15 Other finds agree with this dating, such as a button-decorated fenestrated stand found in a F2a fill and with parallels at the ‘En Hazeva shrine (KEN, Fig. 2.56; Smith and Levy 2014, Fig. 4.26.12), a mould fragment with Late Iron ‘Edomite’ iconography found in layer S1 sediments (KEN, Fig. 2.96) and a figurine found in a layer R2b fill and with parallels at Horvat Qitmit (KEN, Figs. 2.208, 210).

16 Although Smith and Levy (2014, 451) state that the pottery assemblage from RHI-B is later because it strongly parallels the plateau sites and has more Late Iron II vessel types, it is clear that it does not feature the complete range of Late Iron types. KEN and RHI-B were very different sites, and their pottery reflects this to a large extent.

17 The only area where they were found associated with floors is Area S, where they were retrieved in surfaces or sediments above surfaces in layers S4, S2a and S2b.

18 Two being the exceptions: a BL21 bowl in layer S4 and a JG3 jug in layer R3a. This is paradigmatic of the extent the local archaeological assemblage is composed of mixed deposits.

19 Contra in cursive Finkelstein and Lipschits (2011, 149), who considered that the end of the production at KEN opened ‘new possibilities’ for the Dibonites. In reality, Mesha’s polity rose in the mid-9th century bce, thus coinciding with the peak of production and complexity of KEN. 

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Juan Manuel Tebes

Juan Manuel Tebes is a Near Eastern historian with areas of specialization in the history and archaeology of the Iron Age in the southern Levant and north-western Arabia. He has done fieldwork in Jordan, Israel and Turkey.