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Visiting the Past: Finding and Understanding Britain's Archaeology

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<< Text Pages >> Khirbet Ataruz - Ancient Village or Settlement in Jordan

Submitted by davidmorgan on Sunday, 17 October 2010  Page Views: 8567

Multi-periodSite Name: Khirbet Ataruz Alternative Name: Ataroth
Country: Jordan
NOTE: This site is 0.734 km away from the location you searched for.
Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Dhiban
Latitude: 31.497409N  Longitude: 35.782385E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 1
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Ancient Settlement in Jordan.

An important Moabite religious and political centre dating from the late 2nd millennium BCE.

Note: 3,000-year-old Moabite temple unearthed near Dhiban - see comment.
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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 13.1km E 88° Umm Al-Rasas* Ancient Village or Settlement
 13.7km SSW 202° Redjom el A'abed* Ancient Village or Settlement
 15.7km NE 49° Khirbat Al-Mudayna* Ancient Village or Settlement
 16.9km WNW 297° Mukawir* Hillfort
 19.0km NNW 335° el-Mareighat* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 19.0km NNW 335° South of Khajar Mansub Menhirs & Dolmens* Chambered Tomb
 19.0km NNW 336° Khajar Mansub* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 21.2km S 187° Wadi Walla Roman mile stone* Marker Stone
 24.4km N 3° Madaba (Jordan)* Ancient Village or Settlement
 24.5km N 3° Madaba Mosaic Map* Misc. Earthwork
 24.8km N 2° Adeihmeh* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 25.6km S 190° Qasr Ar-Rabba* Ancient Temple
 26.6km NNW 347° Dolmens at Wadi Jadid* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 28.5km S 184° Khirbat Iskandar* Ancient Village or Settlement
 32.9km S 183° Ader.* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 33.8km SW 217° Zahrat adh-Dhra’ 2 Ancient Village or Settlement
 35.8km N 2° Hesbon* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 36.0km SW 221° Bab edh-Dhra Ancient Village or Settlement
 36.0km SSW 192° Al Karak castle * Hillfort
 37.2km W 264° Ein Gedi ancient Synagogue* Ancient Temple
 37.5km W 264° Tel Goren* Ancient Village or Settlement
 37.5km W 265° Ein Gedi Chalcolithic Temple* Ancient Temple
 38.1km NNW 346° Rawdah* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 38.2km NNW 333° Tulaylat al-Ghassul Ancient Village or Settlement
 40.9km NW 312° Qumran* Ancient Village or Settlement
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"Khirbet Ataruz" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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La Sierra researcher leads team to major discovery by davidmorgan on Friday, 22 October 2010
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From coldrum:

Ten years ago, archaeologist Chang-Ho Ji of Riverside's La Sierra University began leading an excavation of a site in Jordan that was mentioned in the Bible and on a famous 3,000-year-old stone slab.

On the basalt stele, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Moabite kingdom's King Mesha boasts of his conquests, including of a city near the Dead Sea named Ataroth. His writing strongly suggests an important temple was in Ataroth. But no one had found it. Ji wanted to be the first.

Ji led a team of researchers and workers to locate the temple and, based upon a 19th-century map and conversations with local residents, they started digging. They found artifacts within two weeks, and the first stones of the temple in 2004.

In August, Ji and the team of about two dozen people -- several of them La Sierra students, most Jordanian -- finally finished the excavation of the temple.

"Finding a temple from the biblical period is very rare," Ji said after returning from Jordan. "The temple was much bigger than I expected."

Yet much is still unknown about the temple and the people who worshipped there. Further analysis may support or refute accounts on the stele and in the Bible.

Mesha bragged on the stele of taking over Ataroth from an Israelite tribe, who King Mesha said had built the city. He also implied on the stele that he had killed the city's inhabitants.

The Bible is consistent with Mesha's account. It mentions Ataroth only briefly, describing it as a city settled by an Israelite tribe.

The stele is from the ninth century B.C. The pottery found in the temple area is from the ninth and 10th centuries B.C., adding further corroboration to Mesha's writing, because more recent pottery has not been found, indicating the temple was not used beyond the ninth century B.C.

Ji will use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of ashes, wood and animal bones found on the site. The results of the testing could further indicate whether King Mesha's account is accurate or braggadocio.

If the temple was Israelite, objects discovered there would offer more evidence that religious practices of some Israelites did not conform to biblical ideals, Ji said.

Idols were found, even though the Bible prohibited the worshipping of idols. Previously discovered archaeological sites contained similar objects. The temple itself would violate a biblical commandment that the only Israelite temple should be in Jerusalem, Ji said.

Benjamin Porter, an assistant professor of Near Eastern archaeology at UC Berkeley who leads a team of archaeologists at a site near Ataroth -- or Ataruz, as it is known today -- called Ji's find a "great discovery" that could do much to help researchers determine how inhabitants of the area lived and worshipped.

Porter said the full impact of the excavations won't be known until the material is analyzed further, the date of construction of the temple determined and the findings published in a scientific journal. It may never be known what really happened at Ataroth 3,000 years ago and whether Israelites ever lived there, he said.

Almost all of the 500 to 600 bowls, figurines, statues, beads and other artifacts found at the site were broken, offering more corroboration that Ataroth met the violent end described on the stele, Ji said.

The number and quantity of artifacts indicates Ataroth was once a political and religious center for either the Moabite or Israelite kingdoms, Ji said. The temple complex is about 3,800 square feet, large for the period in which it was built, he said.

"People built entire buildings with their hands," he said. "There was no technology."

Excavation took a decade because it occurred for only two months every other year. Archaeologists and workers dug five to seven feet to reach the ruins of the temple. Only the foundation and pa

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3,000-year-old Moabite temple unearthed near Dhiban by davidmorgan on Sunday, 17 October 2010
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From coldrum:

Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled what they described as one of the most important Iron Age discoveries in the region, including a 3,000-year-old Moabite temple.

At a press conference yesterday, Department of Antiquities (DoA) Director General Ziad Saad announced the recent discovery of the largest early Iron Age temple in the region, dating back to between 1200 and 600 BC.

The three-storey temple, which includes a 12-by-12-metre courtyard, yielded over 300 Moabite artefacts, leading experts to believe it was once a political and religious base for the Moabite kingdom.

Vessels, jars and statues of deities were among recent Moabite discoveries at Khirbet Ataruz, near Dhiban, some 50 kilometres south of Amman, located on the western slope of Jabal Bani Hamida. With the items, many of which were unearthed last month, experts now have a more complete view of the civilisation and Jordan’s heritage, according to Saad.

“The story of Iron Age Jordan is a story to be told,” he stressed.

More than 1,000 years before the Nabataeans built an empire of trade through the rose-red city of Petra, the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites dominated the region in what is seen as a time of science, expansion and culture.

“This is a very important period of Jordan’s history. The Iron Age was a period of great historical and political importance and strong kingdoms that saw many technological advancements,” he said.

Until the Ataruz discovery, however, most knowledge of the period was gleaned from historical documents and stories of wars and treaties.

Ataruz is mentioned both in the Bible and the Mesha Stele as “Ataroth”, but the true meaning of the name “has yet to be uncovered”, Saad told The Jordan Times.

Although historical documents frequently refer to the Iron Age kingdoms east of the River Jordan, Saad pointed out that the Khirbet Ataruz findings mark the first time experts have archaeological evidence to back up theories of the civilisations’ scientific, cultural and economic sophistication.

The bulk of the historic findings were uncovered last month by a joint DoA-University of La Sierra team that has been excavating Khirbet Ataruz since 2000.

Among the findings are a statue of the bull-faced Moabite god Hadad and nearly 300 vessels, lamps and altars for religious rituals.

The quality, diversity and condition of the pieces, made from clay, stone, basalt and bronze, show an advanced technology and a thriving economy on the east bank of the River Jordan over three millennia ago.

Previously, most Iron Age finds in Jordan were from households and small farmsteads, giving only fragmentary glimpses into the once great civilisation, according to archaeologists.

Despite being in good condition, most of the Ataruz pieces were broken, indicating that the Moabite temple in central Jordan met a violent end, Saad said.

The Moabites are believed to have been Canaanite tribes that settled in the land between the River Jordan and the Eastern Desert near what is now Dhiban in the 14th century BC. Their reign came to an end with the Persian invasion around the 7th century BC.

Much of what is known of the Moabite civilisation has been learned from King Mesha, immortalised in a basalt tablet listing his victories and accomplishments. Known as the Mesha Stele, the tablet was discovered near Dhiban and is now on display in the Louvre in Paris.

According to Saad, experts will now work to catalogue, test and research the Ataruz artefacts in order to get a full picture of the Iron Age kingdoms that once ruled Jordan.

Once “the story is complete”, the DoA will prepare interpretation to share the story of the Moabites with the rest of the world, he said.

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