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Early Islamic Settlement in the Southern Negev
Abstract and Figures
During the early Islamic period, the port of Ayla, at the northeastern end of the Gulf of ʿAqaba, served as an important commercial center. This article surveys the archaeological evidence for early Islamic occupation in the southern Negev and the Arabah, a region that D. Whitcomb has referred to as Ayla's "hinterland." This evidence indicates that new settlements were established and flourished throughout the region during the 8th to 10th or 11th centuries. Their economic base included large-scale agriculture using sophisticated irrigation systems and the introduction of new crops, copper and gold mining and production, stone quarrying, and the development of a road network used by merchants and pilgrims.
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... In Rothenberg's survey of the Arabah and the Elat Mountains (1963, 1967b, 1971), 44 sites out of a total of 226 were identified as Byzantine, based on surface collection of pottery. Today, however, based on a reexamination of the pottery, excavations and 14 C dates, all of these 44 sites are dated to the Early Islamic period (Avner and Magness 1998;R. Avner 1998Rapuano 2013, except the Late Roman fortress of Yotvata. ...
... The Early Islamic (7th to 11th centuries CE) was a major mining period at Nahal >Amram, when the mines reached their maximum dimensions. This intensive mining fits well with what we know of the period in the southern Arabah Valley and the vast development in the region: the construction of a series of villages, large farms based on qanat (underground water tunnels), gold production, and more (Gilat et al. 1993;Avner and Magness 1998;Avner 2016). All these created a lively hinterland for the town of Ayla, 19 an important administrative and commercial center, pilgrim station and even a focal point of Islamic scholarship (Cobb 1995;Whitcomb 1988Whitcomb , 1994Whitcomb , 1998Damgaard 2011). ...
Ancient copper mines at Nahal >Amram were first discovered by IDF soldiers in 1949, then visited by N. Glueck in 1950, surveyed by B. Rothenberg during the 1960s and by L. Willies in 1988. In 2010, the authors began a new, multidisciplinary study supported by the Israel Ministry of Science. The archaeological survey recorded in detail the previously discovered mines but uncovered many others, as well as related sites. The main periods of mining were the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (15th to 10th centuries BCE), the Nabataean-Byzantine (1st to 5th centuries CE) and the Early Islamic (7th to 11th centuries CE). The survey and limited excavations yielded ample finds, while additional scientific studies (geological-geomorphological survey, ground penetrating radar, 3D scanning and a variety of chemical analyses) revealed much new information as to the history and technology of the ancient copper industries in the Arabah Valley.
... A similar situation is found further south in System C3 (as numbered by Porath) where the qanat silt heaps overrun the rampart of an open pool. These cases clearly indicate that the depressions are earlier than the qanat, which are safely dated to the Early Islamic period (Porat 1986, Avner & Magness 1998, Avner 2016a. In short, the depressions were not "mother wells" but open pools or large shallow wells, which penetrated the high aquifer and reached a thick dark layer of clay that served as an 25 The oasis' present name follows the biblical one (Num. ...
... Be'er Orah, 17 km north of Eilat, is a water source, surrounded by ancient sites of various periods. One is a large copper smelting site (Fig. 31), mainly dated to the Early Islamic Period by pottery and radiocarbon dates (Avner & Magness 1998, Table 1), but small amounts of Nabataean pottery indicates its earlier origin. The estimated amount of copper slag is 3000 tons, based on a Lidar 3D imaging . ...
Nabataean archaeology is well known in southern Jordan, but in the neighboring southern Negev, Nabataean remains attracted less attention. This paper attempts to draw a general, but new view of the Nabataean presence in the region and their activities, including farming, herding, copper industry, trade and others. Their settlement in the region began before the establishment of the city of Aila and continued long after the annexation of their kingdom to the Roman Empire in 106 AD. Studying the remains in the region, the hinterland of Aila, also sheds new light on the position of the city.
... In a series of studies, Gideon Avni (1994;2014:260-287) presented the archaeological data concerning the development of small, mostly open (unroofed) mosques in the Negev Highlands that developed out of a pagan stele cult. 2 Furthermore, additional simple open-air mosques and related structures arranged around the stele cult have been located in the southern 'Araba, north of Ayla (Avner and Magness 1998;Avner 1999). Like the mosque at Naḥal Peḥar, most of the mosques presented by Avni are open structures with a prominent miḥrāb protruding from the southern wall (Fig. 9). ...
During an excavation of a fairly standard farm structure at Rahat in the Northern Negev, a modest mosque was uncovered. It measures only 6×5 m and includes a mihrab that protrudes from its southern wall facing Mecca. Dating to the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, the structure constitutes the first rural mosque of the Northern Negev. While mosques were a familiar feature in the cities at the time, they were much slower to appear in the countryside, where Islam spread in a gradual and drawn-out manner. The discovery of the mosque in question indicates that Islam reached this part of the countryside rather early. The question that remains is who the inhabitants were: a Muslim population that came from elsewhere or local Christians or pagans who chose to adopt Islam?
... The next two closest copper ores are from Timna (see Arabah in Fig. 15) (Hauptmann, 2007). Timna should be considered a candidate source of the copper used, as there is evidence for copper exploitation during the early Islamic period (7th and 8th centuries CE) such as the smelting sites of Be'er Ora and Khirbat al-Mana'iyya (Avner and Magness, 1998;Ben-Yosef, 2012;Jones et al., 2017;Rothenberg, 1988;Willies, 1991) (Fig. 1), as well as at other sites in the Wadi Arabah (Weisgerber, 2006) and Wadi Faynan (Hauptmann, 2007). Use of Arabah copper during the Islamic period in Jordan has been suggested previously by lead isotope analyses of a small group of everyday objects (Al-Saa'd, 2000). ...
Metallographic, chemical and lead isotopic analyses of copper-based artefacts recovered from the Northwest Quarter in Jerash (ancient Gerasa) in Jordan provide new information on the civic life and material culture from a key urban site in the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces. The samples span the city’s occupation from its flourishing under Roman rule into the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. We examined 49 copper-based artefacts were examined using reflected light microscopy and micro-X-ray fluorescence. A subset of these artefacts was analysed by electron microprobe spectroscopy for major and minor elements at higher spatial resolution, and by multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for lead isotopes. Results imply that binary bronze dominated the Roman period, (leaded) brass characterised the Byzantine period, while tin-containing alloys were prevalent during the Islamic period. Lead isotopes suggest that during the Roman and Byzantine periods some of the metal in Jerash came from European and/or Mediterranean sources, while copper used during the Islamic period may have been sourced more locally from Timna. The changes in alloy types and lead isotopes suggest that recycling of metals took place in Jerash possibly as early as the Roman period and more frequent from the Byzantine period onwards.
... Both farms produced a wide variety of crops while herding was practiced all along the Arabah in all seasons. These farms supplied food for the population of Aila, the nearby villages, the copper industry, trade caravans and pilgrims (Avner and Magness 1998;Horwitz 1998;Avner 2016;Kishon et al. in press). ...
Here we describe an assemblage of faunal remains retrieved from two copper mines in Nahal
>Amram in the Arabah Valley, dating to the Early Islamic and/or Roman periods. The animal
remains comprise bones of domestic caprines, camel as well as fish bones representing
six different Families, four of which only inhabit the Red Sea. The mammal bones were
disarticulated, such that it is highly unlikely that they represent natural mortalities. Moreover,
the bones show characteristic butchery damage resulting from carcass dismemberment and
filleting, long bone breakage resulting from marrow extraction as well as human gnawing.
Most of the mammal bones represent meat-rich limb bones. Consequently, they have been
interpreted as food remains discarded by miners. This is corroborated by their association in
the excavated area with cooking-pots, firewood, charcoal and remains of fruit. Clearly, miners
in Nahal >Amram enjoyed a rich and varied diet, atypical of slaves or poor people.
We compare the Nahal >Amram findings with published data on food remains from mines
and mining camps elsewhere in the world, including the copper mines of Faynan (Jordan) and
the neighboring mines in Timna. We conclude that the mines were probably provisioned by
settlements in the surrounding area.
Runoff harvesting agriculture was prevalent in ancient times across the southern Levant. In modern Israel, remnants of this agricultural adaptation strategy are widespread mostly in the semi-arid and arid Negev. Extensive literature has thoroughly described the farming systems of this region. However, runoff agriculture in the dryer, hyper-arid regions of the Arava Valley and southern Negev (excluding the Uvda Valley), has scarcely been researched. A recent study revealed remnants of simple stone terraces in several wadis (ephemeral stream channels) throughout the central Arava Valley that have not yet been dated. The objective of this study was to use the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) method to date sediments trapped in the stone terraces. The results revealed dominance of terraces dated to the Ottoman period (1516–1917 CE). Few samples were dated to the earlier Late Islamic period (1099–1516 CE) or Byzantine period (324–638 CE), and to the later, modern period of the mid-20th century. Generally, these periods coincide with relatively moister regional climatic conditions, which prevailed in the 4th, 11th–12th, and late 19th centuries CE. Yet, our findings also concur with periods of effective governance by central administrations. Therefore, results of this study fit the concept that runoff agriculture practiced in peripheral areas in ancient to recent-past times was co-determined by climatic settings and geo-political conditions, which enabled human inhabitation in these regions.
Twelve species of marine shell were transported in significant quantities from the Red Sea to the trade centre of Harlaa in eastern Ethiopia between the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries AD . Initially, it was thought that species such as the cowries were imported from the Indian Ocean. Subsequent research has found that all were available from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, c. 120 km east of Harlaa. This suggests that a hitherto largely unrecognised source of marine shells was available, and the Red Sea might have supplied not only the Horn of Africa, but other markets, potentially including Egypt, and from there, elsewhere in North Africa and ultimately West Africa via trans-Saharan routes, as well as Nubia and further south on the Nile in the Sudan, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Arabian/Persian Gulf. This is explored with reference to the shell assemblage from Harlaa, and selected shell assemblages from elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, and trading centres on the Red Sea.
n archaeological survey in the southern Negev, Israel, uncovered hundreds of Neolithic cult sites built on the mountains, with
specific characteristics: ‘regular’ and perforated standing stones, anthropomorphic stone images and other intriguing stone
features. Although no such sites reported in other surveys in the Negev, Sinai and southern Jordan, these cult sites are not
unique to the southern Negev. The sites and their content add new dimensions to our understanding of the Early and Late
Neolithic periods in the Levantine deserts. The paper describes the sites and offers some interpretation of their features.
An archaeological site in southern Israel contains the remains of industrial settlements and implements. The comminuted product of millstones is a powdery material consisting mainly of quartz, and containing up to 20 ppm gold. It appears that the gold was mined within proximity of the site, and that the ore contained microscopic gold. This is the first indication of gold operations in the ancient or modern Levant and it sheds new light on the importance of the Elat area during the Early Islamic period.
The Age Calibration Program, CALIB, published in 1986 and amended in 1987 is here amended anew. The program is available on a floppy disk in this publication. The new calibration data set covers nearly 22 000 Cal yr (approx 18 400 14C yr) and represents a 6 yr timescale calibration effort by several laboratories. The data are described and the program outlined. -K.Clayton
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