Overview of Numeira, looking west
Early Bronze III destruction level at Numeira, inside the east gate.

Numeira (also an-Numayra) is an archaeological site in Jordan near the southern Dead Sea.[1] The site has substantial Early Bronze Age remains.[2]

The site is 280m below sea level, on the shore of the Dead Sea.[3]

Numeira is also the name given to the river and valley (wadi) adjacent to the archaeological site. The river is significantly eroding the archaeological site, destroying perhaps as much as ½ the original settlement due to changes in the water course.[4]

Identification

It has been argued that Numeira approximates the alleged biblical city of Gomorrah,[5] although other archaeologists argue that it is in the wrong geographical area, was a village as opposed to a major city, and is not within the designated timeframe. Another possibility is that it could be Nimrim, the river valley referred to by the prophet Isaiah in 15:5 whose waters become desolate, or dry up.

Archaeology

Numeira was occupied during the EB III, and several indications that it was a colony of Bab edh-Dhra including a lack of tombs in the vicinity of Numeira, and ceramic evidence the inhabitants buried their dead outside Bab edh-Dhra, approximately 13 km south of Bab edh-Dhra’.[6] If not a direct colony the pottery remains indicate the two towns certainly traded with each other.[7]

Calibrated radiocarbon dates place the settlement in the EB III. Habitation spanning approximately 250 years or 10-12 generations. Numeira was violently destroyed at the end of the EB III, (2300 BC.) never to be re-occupied.[8][9] This is 200 years earlier than the current assumed date for the destruction of Sodom.[10]

Excavations indicate Numeira was a 0.5-hectare (1.2-acre) walled settlement, though it may have been twice the size we see today.[11] Though only 30% of the site was excavated (c. 1500 m2) between 1979 and 1983.[12] The settlement was located on the southern bank of the Wadi Numeira.[13]

Phase 1a saw the construction of several banks of lined pits around unused square areas. It is conjectured that this represented storage pits around a family tent.[14] In stage 1b saw the addition of more pits and walls, hearths, and evidence of a more sedentary lifestyle. Phase 2 saw construction of fortification walls and residential and non-residential stone and mudbrick architecture. A non domestic area was located at the western gate.[15] The Phase 2 occupation saw the addition of more walls and storage pits. The final stage of occupation seems to have been a much smaller town which ended when the town was burned.[16] and one of the fortification towers collapsed.[17] An interesting note is that many of the doors in the town at this time appear to have been blocked up.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Numeira: Jordan at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Bethesda, MD, USA].
  2. ↑ Numeira at Bible Places.com.
  3. ↑ James W. Flanagan, David M. Gunn, Paula McNutt, 'Imagining' Biblical Worlds(A&C Black, 2003)p252.
  4. ↑ James W. Flanagan, David M. Gunn, Paula McNutt, 'Imagining' Biblical Worlds(A&C Black, 2003)p252.
  5. ↑ Wood first identified it with Admanh. Bryant G. Wood, “Have Sodom And Gomorrah Been Found?,” Bible and Spade 3, no. 3 (1974): 67; Bryant G. Wood, “The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,” Bible and Spade 12, no. 3 (1999): 67–80
  6. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  7. ↑ Ianir Milevski, Early Bronze Age Goods Exchange in the Southern Levant: A Marxist Perspective (Routledge, 17 Sep. 2016).
  8. ↑ Numeira at Bible Places.com.
  9. ↑ James W. Flanagan, David M. Gunn, Paula McNutt, 'Imagining' Biblical Worlds(A&C Black, 2003)p252.
  10. ↑ Udd, Kris J., "Bab edh-Dhra', Numeira, and the Biblical Patriarchs: a Chronological Study" (2011). Dissertations. 157.
  11. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  12. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  13. ↑ Numeira at Bible Places.com.
  14. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  15. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  16. ↑ Numeira at Bible Places.com.
  17. ↑ NUMAYRA | Expedition Dead Sea Plain.
  18. ↑ James W. Flanagan, David M. Gunn, Paula McNutt, 'Imagining' Biblical Worlds(A&C Black, 2003)p252.

31°07′54″N 35°31′46″E / 31.131588°N 35.529399°E / 31.131588; 35.529399

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