Moabite

Two sagas which shook the world of archaeology during the second half of the nineteenth century were connected with the name Moses Wilhelm Shapira, an antiquities dealer from Jerusalem who was a Jewish apostate, having converted to Christianity. The better known saga was the one relating to the scroll of the Book of Deuteronomy which was publicized in 1883 and was followed by Shapira’s suicide. However, another saga preceded it, a very strange saga which became known as the Saga of the Moabite Clays. Shapira sold a tremendous collection of figurines and clay vessels to the Berlin Museum in 1872, a collection which turned out to be a complete forgery to its very last artifact. It is difficult to understand what led the Germans to purchase the collection of artifacts which today appear to be clearly ridiculous, for such a large sum of money. Through a precise recreation of the saga based on previously unknown documents and segments from the press, Yoram Sabo attempts to shed light on the story, which consisted of more than forgery of antiquities alone.

My endeavour is to critique the glorification of sacred violence as detrimental to stories of love, life and wellbeing. In some ways, contrary to the popular versioning of sacred violence, my macro approach (Girardian Scapegoat Theory) will be somewhat lens-reversed, framing and exposing the error of scapegoating. My hope is to do justice: not only to a particularly ambiguous text, but to the couple in love , a stranger in the land, to life and humanity as the onlooker, to a people group overcome by plague and fear of a wrathful and tribal God.

Part I of this paper seeks to address much of the poor scholastic academic research in regards to Noble Drew Ali, founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America, the very first Islamic organization in the United States of America. Was Noble Drew Ali a mere mystic that worked in a circus and then decided to start an organization? Was he really some illiterate man named Thomas Drew that hid his identity as Timothy Drew, then to become a PROPHET? Did Noble Drew Ali have the requisite information to raise up the so-called "blacks" in the United States of America? All of these questions are answered in this tract.

With the support of the Moabite god Kemosh, King Mesha of Moab recounts in KAI 181:14–18 his successful imposition of ḥērem on Nebo, an Israelite town east of the Jordan River that maintained a cult to Israel’s god YHWH during the Omride period. Historically, the ninth-century BCE Mesha Stele, now located in the Louvre, provides one of the most important sources for understanding the ancient institution of ḥērem-warfare, a religiously inflected political act in which an invading people targeted an enemy town, annihilated (some significant portion of) its population, and consecrated the slaughter to the attacking group’s deity. Drawing on theoretical tools from postcolonial and feminist critics on the role of gender in the discursive construction of political communities, this study offers a fresh historical interpretation of the religious politics of Mesha’s literary portrayal of ḥērem-warfare by analyzing the gendered dimensions of the Mesha Stele’s ḥērem-list (ll. 16–17), which specifies five gendered subgroups within Nebo’s slaughtered population. In particular, I argue on contextual, etymological, literary, and conceptual grounds that the ḥērem-inventory’s final, emphasized term, rḥmt (l. 17)—commonly translated by scholars as “female slaves,” “maidservants,” “concubines,” or the like—most likely refers to “pregnant women.” In its culmination with pregnant women, the Mesha Stele’s ḥērem-list rhetorically demonstrates the king’s complete fulfillment of his religious obligations to the Moabite god Kemosh, as well as Moab and Kemosh’s political dominance over Israel and its god YHWH. Pregnant women (and their fetuses) were highly vulnerable members of ancient society whose continued existence harbored the potentiality for the social and political rebirth of the Israelite “Other.” Religiously sanctioning violence against the bodies of “foreign” pregnant women thus serves as a special point of emphasis in the construction of the boundaries of an independent Moabite political identity ideologically centered on the institution of divine kingship.

A man's descendant can never be superior to the one whose seed gave him life. Just as an acorn can never claim to be greater than the Oak tree from which it fell. This paper refutes that Yahoshua is from the family of David, Tribe of Judah, based on bloodlines and birthrights and ungodly behavior.

The collection of the Karak Archaeological Museum contains two carved basalt slabs, both of which show the rear parts and hindquarters of a leonine figure. Although the two slabs differ vastly in their state of preservation, a comparison of their physical properties and iconographic features suggests that the two reliefs originally formed a matching pair and were part of a single architectural feature. Comparing the slabs to the well-known corpus of northern Levantine monumental sculpture, it is argued that the reliefs constitute the remains of two gateway figures, most plausibly dated to the Iron Age. The Karak slabs thus provide the first likely evidence for the use of architectural stone sculpture by Moabite elites, a practice most commonly associated with the Iron Age kingdoms of the northern Levant. Lion sculptures were often employed as gateways figures in public buildings, especially in the northern Levant and northern Mesopotamia, attesting to the close relationship between these images and the royal ideology they helped to project. Through their existence, the Karak slabs not only provide further evidence for cross-cultural artistic interaction in the Iron Age Levant but also suggest that ancient Karak played an important role in these exchanges.

The ancient Israelites who produced the Hebrew Bible lived within a rich context of geography, language, politics, religion, and culture. This context profoundly shaped Israel, and indeed it was through the influence of the neighboring people of West Asia along the Mediterranean Sea that Israel defined its own identity. Thus, these neighbors helped forge the very shape of Biblical religion. Though larger nations like Egypt and various Mesopotamian empires loom large in the narratives, Israel’s close neighbors in the Levant appear more frequently in the Bible and prove decisive at crucial moments. The Bible casts the Edomites to the southeast as the “brother” of Israel in the form of the Jacob and Esau narrative. The Philistines are presented as Israel’s first true national political enemy, stealing the ark and battling kings Saul and David. The Moabites violently confront the escaped Hebrew slaves on their way out of Egypt, yet also provide the great-grandmother of King David in the person of Ruth, a Moabite refugee. Though the Bible’s presentation of these neighbors has profoundly shaped our imagination of them, the Bible’s story is but one perspective.

To complicate matters further, though the Bible casts many of these neighbors as villains, its story about them is actually more intricate. Even the Edomites, reviled in the Bible as participators in the sacking of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, have familial ties with Israel in the book of Genesis, and the Aramaeans, political enemies of Israel in the book of Kings, occupy a mysterious place near the heart of Israel’s own journey in Deuteronomy 26:5: “A wandering Aramaean was my ancestor…”

Moreover, the biblical story never presents the identity of these groups as pure “history,” but rather as a complex mix of legend, storytelling, political invective, and memory. We are left wondering how the biblical portrayal might have distorted our thinking about these people as historical groups, and who they actually were.

In this book, I will explore both the biblical portrayal of the smaller groups surrounding Israel—the Philistines, Phoenicians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Arameans—and what we can know about these groups through their own literature, archaeology, and other sources. Learning what we can about who these various peoples were in their own right can deepen our awareness of Israel’s close neighbors. By uncovering the identity of the Philistines as settlers along the coast at the same time that early Israel carved out their place in the land, for example, we can better understand the social turmoil and political maneuvering that lies just beneath the surface of the biblical narrative, and we can see more clearly just how the authors of the Bible saw themselves in the face of others. Through its overview of these surrounding groups, this book will demonstrate in a direct and accessible manner the extent to which ancient Israelite identity was fluid and forged both within and against the identities of its close neighbors. Animated by the latest and best research, yet written for students, this book will invite readers to embark on a journey of scholarly discovery to reveal the unfamiliar world of Israel’s place among its neighbors.

The Moabite Stele text is a line by line philosophical/religious debate. It was written in Alphabetic Akkadian which was the common trading language of the ancient Mediterranean as evidenced by a growing corpus of texts. The Moabite text is also the earliest archaeological linguistic evidence of Jewish (Judahite) culture yet discovered. This is evidenced by its use of the word "Yahweh," its description of Ba'al as an opponent, and its developing legalistic framework evidenced by using the word "sin." Additionally, it supports in a general way the exodus tradition out of Egypt through Moab. The stele's letter style is a direct descendent of Minoan Linear A in a lineage separate from the Phoenician and Philistine letter styles. This sort of cultural contact could only have occurred earlier in Egypt where the Minoans were trading. The Stele's Jewish / Phoenician debate foreshadows the conflict between Elijah and Phoenician born Queen Jezebel during the next drought of 840 BCE. Yahu (short form of Yahweh) is mentioned in all its linguistic variants by both sides of the debate as YH, IH, EH, I', and EA. Yahu is not unique to the Jewish tradition as it is also found in most other Alphabetic Akkadian texts throughout the Mediterranean. Also mentioned in the Moabite Stele are the deities Hu, Su, Ayu, Atu, Ba'al, and Alu.

Until about three decades ago, the historical evidence from the southern
administrative unit in the land of Israel, ‘Idumea’, was relatively limited.
The discovery of about 2,000 ostraca from this administrative unit in
the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century
has significantly altered our historical understanding of daily life in this
area during the Persian period (538–332 bce). The first-hand evidence of
these ostraca has taught us for example about the movement of goods,
the status of employees, and issues of land ownership. Moreover, as these
administrative texts document both private and social life as they are
reflected in verbal usage, they allow us to glimpse the complex linguistic
strata in this geographical expanse and historical period. For example,
these texts contain a variety of proper names belonging to people who
lived in Idumea during the Persian period, indicating a multinational and
multilingual situation that stands in a sharp contrast to the administrative
language employed throughout the ostraca in which these names are
mentioned, namely official Aramaic. The paper conducts a linguistic
inquiry into the different languages that are threaded together by these
proper names as evidence of the melting pot of spoken tongues in this
area. We further integrate these findings with historical evidence from
the Bible, allowing us to re-interpret Nehemiah’s famous words (Neh
13:24) in a theoretical and historical framework with implications for our
understanding of the forces that shaped Late Biblical Hebrew.

Il territorio dell'antico paese di Moab (termine che appare designare perfettamente sia un territorio che un popolo) sembra corrispondere, approssimativamente, alla regione centro meridionale dell'attuale Regno Hascemita di Giordania, più precisamente alle terre immediatamente ad est del Mar Morto, la più profonda depressione della superficie terrestre. La popolazione doveva trovarsi stanziata nella stretta fascia di terra coltivata compresa tra la sponda orientale del Mar Morto stesso e la fascia stepposa che delimita il deserto siro-arabico, più o meno dove oggi corre l'autostrada Amman -Aqaba, un'area di circa 100 km. di lunghezza Nord -Sud per 30 di larghezza Est -Ovest. Nonostante la depressione del Mar Morto, la cui superficie si trova a -405 m. dal livello del Mar Mediterraneo, il territorio in questione si presenta come un altopiano di altezza compresa tra i 700 ed i 1000 m. sul livello del mare, tagliato in due regioni, settentrionale e meridionale, dal profondo canyon del Wadi Mujib, il fiume chiamato Arnon nei testi biblici, la cui sorgente si trova nei pressi dell'antico campo fortificato, di epoca romana, di Lejjun. Non si tratta dell'unico corso d'acqua di una certa rilevanza, potendo ricordare almeno il Wadi Hesa, che delimita a Sud la regione, e che nel Vecchio Testamento viene più volte citato come Zered (Nm 21:12 e Dt 2, 13-14) ma anche il Wadi Wala, affluente di destra del Mujib, il Wadi Zerqa Ma'in (nella regione settentrionale), il Wadi Kerak ed il Wadi Numeira (questi ultimi nella regione meridionale); tutti questi corsi d'acqua, in massima parte stagionali, scavano delle profonde vallate avvicinandosi progressivamente al Mar Morto.

History and ethnicity have been the preferred frameworks for explaining how Levantine societies organized themselves during the early Iron Age. Consequently, opportunities are missed to understand how local economic and environmental factors structured social life. In this study, a collection of early Iron Age settlements from southwest central Jordan, the Dhiban and Karak Plateaus, is examined using a community perspective. Emphasis is placed on the production and consumption of food, the raw materials for household and communal wealth. The value of food in the communities was heightened due to the difficult semi-arid environmental conditions in which is was produced. The sharing of food between households and communities was one way to create social bonds, or to gain power over others. Food circulation through practices such as storage, everyday meals and feasts therefore offers an ideal window through which to observe social life. Evidence for the communities' food-systems is considered (faunal and palaeobotanical data, storage and food production). The presence and uneven distribution of this evidence within individual communities indicates that households possessed different amounts of food, signalling a degree of inequality between households. A collection of decorated ceramic food-serving vessels is also discussed along with information about its production, its semiotic qualities and the possible roles it played in commensal events. One broader implication of this study is that materials were entangled in the networks of relationships that constituted early Iron Age social life. This recognition of the material world's participation challenges normative ways that early Iron Age societies have been analyzed and represented.

This project applies Talstra’s text grammatical search for clause hierarchies to the Mesha Inscription (MI) by manually mimicking his computer-based approach. The method offers an explanation for why certain clause patterns function differently than others by arguing that the hierarchies constrain the default discourse functions. Using the SHEBANQ database, the project compares the syntactic structure in the MI with similar structures in the Hebrew Bible. The thesis is that the MI’s syntax is hierarchically ordered in a way that resembles Biblical Hebrew biographical lists such as genealogies or king lists with embedded portions of narrative proper.

When barring Ammonites and Moabites from marrying Israelites, the Torah says: An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the assembly of the Lord for ever; because they met you not with bread and with water on the way, when you came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Aram-naharaim (Deut. 23:4-5). This passage explicitly states that the Ammonites and Moabites are to be ostracized because they met you not with bread and with water on the way, when you came forth out of Egypt. However, another passage in Deuteronomy seems to contradict this. When Moses requested permission from Sihon king of Heshbon to pass through his land and buy food and water, he supported his request by noting that the Edomites (the children of Esau) and the Moabites had already allowed the Israelites to do so. Moses said: 'Thou shalt sell me food for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on my feet; as the children of Esau that dwell in Seir, and the Moabites that dwell in Ar, did unto me; until I shall pass over the Jordan into the land which the Lord our God giveth us' (Deut. 2:28-29). This contradicts the assertion above that the Moabites met you not with bread and with water. In fact, there is another problem with the second passage: it seems to contradict the Torah's account of the encounter with the Edomites in the Book of Numbers. There, the Torah mentions that after the Israelites requested permission to pass through Edomite territory, Edom said unto him: 'Thou shalt not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against thee' (Num. 20:18). Yet Moses told Sihon king of Heshbon that the Israelites had been granted permission to pass through Edomite territory. Rashi, in his commentary to Deuteronomy 2:29, resolves this question by explaining that when Moses said, as the children of Esau. .. did unto me, he did not mean that the Edomites had allowed the Israelites to pass through their lands, but was only

Khirbet al-Mudayna is a small, walled settlement, existing from the end of the ninth century till the end of the seventh or in the sixth century B.C.E. Mudayna may have functioned as a fortress guarding the eastern border of ancient Moab or as a centre for textile production, or both. To investigate whether textile production was one of the main reasons for the existence of Khirbet al-Mudayna I have studied the excavated material associated with textile production, particularly the loom weights and the actual textile remains from the settlement (Boertien 2014). Production of textiles for public use may indicate a religious connotation, because weaving for a temple and especially weaving clothes for a deity is a well-known phenomenon in the ancient Near East. In this article I will investigate whether traces of such activities can be found at Khirbet al-Mudayna.

This paper traces various interpretations for the reason of the Biblical shunning of the nations Ammon and Moab. The Torah in the Book of Deuteronomy seems to condemn them for not offering the Israelites food and water in their desert sojourns, but more analysis reveals more.

Der Text der Mešaʿ-Stele (KAI 181) verfügt über ein zweifaches Trennzeichen-System. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass die Paragraphos-Marker absichtsvoll gesetzte Gliederungsmerkmale darstellen, wurde eine syntaktische und strukturelle Analyse des Textes der Stele anhand dieser Gliederungsmerkmale vorgenommen. Das Ergebnis ist eine bemerkenswert symmetrische und kunstvolle Struktur, bestehend aus Einleitung, Überleitung und Kontrastierung, deren Ende (Zeile 4) mit dem Beginn von Zeile 33 zugleich eine Klammer um den inhaltlichen Hauptteil der Stele bildet. In diesem Hauptteil ist ein alternierendes Schema zwischen der militärischen Aktivität Mešaʿ und seiner Bautätigkeit festzustellen, wobei die einzelnen Blöcke, was ihre Länge betrifft, ausgewogen sind: die beiden mittleren sind etwa gleich lang, die beiden äußeren wesentlich kürzer. Über den Schluss kann aufgrund des fragmentarischen Zustands der Stele nur mehr gemutmaßt werden. Ein wie für den Hauptteil herausgearbeitetes alternierendes Schema findet sich zudem in der Kontrastierung zu Beginn der Stele, sowie in den Aussagen über die militärischen Aktionen Mešaʿs.

The text of the Mešaʿ-stela (KAI 181) has a twofold system of graphic division-marks. Based on the supposition that the paragraph-signs are intentionally used structural indicators, a syntactical and structural analysis of the text of the stela was made following these indicators. The result is a remarkably symmetrical elaborate structure, consisting of introduction, transition, and a contrasting part. The end of this part (line 4) and the beginning of line 33 build a frame around the main part of the stela. In this main part an alternating pattern is identifiable consisting of Mešaʿ's military actions and his building activities; the length of the individual parts is well-balanced. The two middle-parts are more or less of equal length, the two outer parts much shorter. Concerning the end of the stela one can only conjecture, due to its fragmentary condition. An alternating pattern as developed for the main part is furthermore identifiable for the contrasting part in the beginning of the stela and for the statements about Mešaʿ's military actions.

Leading Experts Introduce the People and Contexts of the Old Testament What people groups interacted with ancient Israel? Who were the Hurrians and why do they matter? What do we know about the Philistines, the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and others? In this up-to-date volume, leading experts introduce the peoples and places of the world around the Old Testament, providing students with a fresh exploration of the ancient Near East. The contributors offer comprehensive orientations to the main cultures and people groups that surrounded ancient Israel in the wider ancient Near East, including not only Mesopotamia and the northern Levant but also Egypt, Arabia, and Greece. They also explore the contributions of each people group or culture to our understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. This supplementary text is organized by geographic region, making it especially suitable for the classroom and useful in a variety of Old Testament courses. Approximately eighty-five illustrative items are included throughout the book. Contents Introduction Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn 1. The Amorites Daniel E. Fleming 2. Assyria and the Assyrians Christopher B. Hays with Peter Machinist 3. Babylonia and the Babylonians David S. Vanderhooft 4. Ugarit and the Ugaritians Mark S. Smith 5. Egypt and the Egyptians Joel M. LeMon 6. The Hittites and the Hurrians Billie Jean Collins 7. Aram and the Arameans K. Lawson Younger Jr. 8. Phoenicia and the Phoenicians Christopher A. Rollston 9. Transjordan: The Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites Joel S. Burnett 10. Philistia and the Philistines Carl S. Ehrlich 11. Persia and the Persians Pierre Briant 12. Arabia and the Arabians David F. Graf 13. Greece and the Greeks Walter Burkert† Indexes

Complex Communities explores how sedentary settlements developed and flourished in the Middle East during the Early Iron Age nearly four thousand years ago. Using archaeological evidence, Benjamin Porter reconstructs how residents maintained their communities despite environmental uncertainties. Living in a semi-arid area in the present-day country of Jordan, villagers faced a harsh and unpredictable ecosystem. Communities fostered resilience by creating flexible production routines and leadership strategies.  Settlements developed what archaeologists call “communal complexity,” a condition through which small-scale societies shift between egalitarian and hierarchical arrangements.  Complex Communities provides detailed, scientifically grounded reconstructions of how this communal complexity functioned in the region.

These settlements emerged during a period of recovery following the political and economic collapse of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies.  Scholars have characterized west-central Jordan’s political organization during this time as an incipient Moabite state. Complex Communities argues instead that the settlements were a collection of independent, self-organizing entities. Each community constructed substantial villages with fortifications, practiced both agriculture and pastoralism, and built and stocked storage facilities. From these efforts to produce and store resources, especially food, wealth was generated and wealthier households gained power over their neighbors. However, power was limited by the fact that residents could—and did—leave communities and establish new ones.

Complex Communities reveals that these settlements moved through adaptive cycles as they adjusted to a changing socio-natural system. These sustainability-seeking communities have lessons to offer not only archaeologists studying similar struggles in other locales, but also to contemporary communities facing negative climate change. Readers interested in resilience studies, Near Eastern archaeology, historical ecology, and the archaeology of communities will welcome this volume.

of the archaeological activities at Tell al-Mashhad during the 2011 season The archaeological activities of the 2011 season were concentrated inside the large squared building, in the sector close to the north-western corner, called "Area A" (Plates A and B). Plate A. Plan of the Building A. Plate B. Plan of the Area A.

In analyzing the Bible's account of the Israelites' early encounters with the Amorites (under the leadership of Sihon, king of Heshbon), one will notice that there is seemingly a contradiction between the account in Numbers and the account in the book of Judges. From Numbers, it seems that the area between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok was originally Moabite territory, and was subsequently conquered by Sihon, who in turn lost the land to the Israelites. However, when the book of Judges recounts this incident in a dialog between Jephthah and the king of Ammon, it seems that the territory had originally belonged to the Ammonites, not the Moabites. In Numbers, the Bible states: From thence they journeyed, and pitched on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness, that cometh out of the border of the Amorites. For Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. .. And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying: 'Let me pass through thy land; we will not turn aside into field, or into vineyard; we will not drink of the water of the wells; we will go by the king's highway, until we have passed thy border.' And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz; and he fought against Israel. And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from the Arnon unto the Jabbok, unto the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. And Israel took all these cities; and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the towns thereof. For Heshbon was the the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought

Textile production is usually found in domestic circumstances. But at Kirbeth al-Mudayna in Moab weaving was undertaken in and on two pillared buildings. Indicating weaving in public space, pointing to the possibility of weaving as a communal activity. Loom weights, textile fragments and indications for dyeing were found within the tempel complex together with different kinds of altars and basins with inscriptions. Raising the question what the relationship was between textile production and cult.

The Mesha Inscription (MI) or Moabite Stone is an inscribed black basalt stone (a stela) dating to the ninth century BCE and now exhibited in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. It was found in 1868 in Dhiban (the ancient Dibon), a village located in central Transjordan east of the Dead Sea, an area known in biblical times as the land of Moab. The surviving fragments of the stela, some original and others reconstructed from a squeeze made at the time of the discovery, contain at least thirty-four lines written in Moabite, a language very close to Biblical Hebrew, using the Phoenician alphabetic script. According to the inscription, the stela was made by Moabite king Mesha (ca. 850 BCE) for the purpose of recording his reign´s accomplishments, such as the erecting of a temple and the rebuilding of cities and, most particularly, the defeat of the Israelites occupying part of Moab. As an external witness to the Hebrew Bible, the MI constitutes one of the most important textual sources for studying the history of the ancient Israelite kingdoms and their relationships with their Transjordanian neighbors. It provides the earliest extra-biblical attestation of Yahweh as Israel´s god, mentions for the first time the kingdom of Israel´s house of Omri and probably Judah´s house of David. Also, twelve of the seventeen place names present in the MI are also mentioned in the biblical text, which makes it a good source for biblical geography.

of the archaeological activities at Tell al-Mashhad during the 2011 season The archaeological activities of the 2011 season were concentrated inside the large squared building, in the sector close to the north-western corner, called "Area A" (Plates A and B). Plate A. Plan of the Building A. Plate B. Plan of the Area A.

A cylindrical stone incense altar inscribed with seven lines of text in two separate inscriptions was discovered in a cultic context during 2010 excavations at Khirbat Ataruz in Jordan. The two short inscriptions are written in Moabite language, using an Early Moabite script datable to the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. Both inscriptions also employ Hieratic numerals. Inscription A appears to tabulate small quantities of metal, possibly for some purpose relating to the cultic context of the inscription. The longer Inscription B appears to be potentially dedicatory and/or commemorative in focus, but remains largely enigmatic. These inscriptions provide a new important historical witness to the period after the Moabite conquest and occupation of Khirbat Ataruz/Atarot described in the Mesha Inscription.

The Problem

Components of the water system of Tall Jalul have been discovered since 2009 in Fields G and W. Although articles and reports have been written, no comprehensive study has been conducted. Therefore, this thesis will present and discuss the water system of Jalul from 2009 to 2016 and look for comparisons with similar Iron Age structures in the Ancient Near East.

The Method
For this project, the ruins from Fields G and W were analyzed. First, selected water systems in Palestine were introduced, followed by a review of preliminary reports and personal observations on the site of Tall Jalul. Second, a literature review was done to find similar structures in the Ancient Near East. Finally, a comparison between these structures was made.

The Results
Parallels to the water system of Jalul were found in the literature review, and a comparison between them was done, helping to understand their function as well as the function of the structures at Jalul with the evidence so far available.

Conclusions
It was possible to conclude that the Tall Jalul water system was unique in its size and function; however, not so developed in storage and water protection, as was the case with similar Iron Age water systems in the Ancient Near East.

The site of Tell al-Mashhad lies at the foot of mount Nebo, just 9 km NW of the modern city of Madaba and 40 km SW of the Jordanian capital town Amman. In the antiquity, the site should be not far from the border between the ancient kingdoms of Ammon and Moab. The site of al-Mashhad-Khirbet 'Ayun Musa was visited for the first time by Nelson Glueck on May 3rd, 1932. He described the very important archaeological features of the old settlement, an important site near the 'Ayun Musa spring, at the foot of mount Nebo, collected a number of potsherds and a small clay figurine, and prepared a draft of the first rough map of the site, dating its main human occupation to the Iron Age.