By Alexander Ahrens

 

With a length of 18 kilometers and rising roughly one kilometer in altitude, the Wadi Shuʿaib connects the southern Jordan Valley with the Transjordanian highlands near the modern city of as-Salt. Located to the northwest of Jordan’s ever-growing capital Amman, the wadi was a passage since the Neolithic through the Ottoman Period, when it was used as a pilgrims’ route from as-Salt to Jerusalem. The wadi is a cross-section through both time and space.

The Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project (WSAS) was initiated in 2016. During the fall of 2016, a preliminary survey campaign was conducted in the region of the Wadi Shuʿaib , from the town of as-Salt in the northwest to the Jordan Valley.

Map of the Wadi Shuʿaib with sites surveyed in 2016−2018.

 

The Wadi Shuʿaib is one of the major routes connecting the southern part of the Jordan Valley (coming from Jerusalem and the oasis of Jericho on the western side of the Jordan Valley) with the central Jordanian highland. While the upper reaches of the Wadi Shuʿaib and adjacent tributary wadis feature fertile soils watered by the perennial waters of the wadi and abundant annual rainfalls, the southern part of the wadi’s course consists of dry lands until it finally merges with the Jordan River. In general, the area receives about 200 mm of rain annually, which is minimally sufficient for sheep and goat herding but insufficient for extensive agriculture. However, since the wadi carries large amounts of water, fed by several natural springs in the vicinity of as-Salt in the north as well as the rich amount of annual rainfall from the Transjordanian highlands, the wadi itself provides enough water throughout the year.

The upper reaches of the wadi feature a number of natural aquifers that provide water for agricultural use.

 

The wadi encompasses three natural environmental zones: the Mediterranean woodlands in the north, the foothill steppe, and the riparian forest associated with the wadi bed and springs. Based on current evidence, agricultural practices in these areas did not include large-scale terracing, but were rather focused on the exploitation of moderate topographic niches as well as soil pockets.

The central part of the wadi.

 

The alluvial fan of the Wadi Shuʿaib, where the wadi enters the southern part of the eastern Jordan Valley is referred to as “Wadi Nimrin.”

The wadi’s southern part, also referred to as “Wadi Nimrin,” with the southern Jordan Valley seen in the background.

 

Early descriptions of the landscape and archaeological sites of the southern Jordan Valley, mostly in relation to narratives and the identification of sites mentioned in the Old Testament, are given by Henry B. Tristram (1874), Selah Merrill (1881), and William Thomson (1882), while Claude R. Conder mapped the region for the first time in his “Survey of Eastern Palestine” for the Palestine Exploration Society in 1889.

The region also attracted attention from 20th century archaeologists. William F. Albright collected material from archaeological sites on visits to the Jordan Valley in the 1920s, and Nelson Glueck examined several sites during his extensive surveys from 1939 to 1947. In 1975, the eastern Jordan Valley was again surveyed thoroughly by Muawiyah Ibrahim, James Sauer, and Khair Yassine (1976, 1988). But it was only in 1988 that the region of Wadi Shuʿaib itself was the focus of a preliminary archaeological survey by Katherine Wright and her colleagues.

A few sites in the region have also been excavated. The site of Tell Nimrin, located at the southern end of the wadi’s alluvial fan, within the limits of the modern town of Shuna South, was excavated by a team led by James W. Flanagan in the years 1989–1995. Excavations were also conducted in 1988–1989 at the Neolithic site of “Wadi Shuʿaib,” about halfway between as-Salt and Shuna South, by Alan H. Simmons and his colleagues.

The earliest occupation attested in the wadi, found at a newly discovered site in 2016, dates to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, c. 10,000 BCE.

The site of Khirbet al-Jisr al-Khashab, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site dating to c. 10,000 BCE.

 

While the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and later Neolithic is amply attested at the site of “Wadi Shuʿaib,” evidence for an occupation of the wadi during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods (c. 6000−1550 BCE) is still very limited and elusive. This is likely due to climatic factors, which led to a drastic decline in settlements at the end of the Middle Bronze Age until the beginning of the Iron Age in the southern Jordan Valley, c. 1700−1000 BCE.

Following this apparent gap of occupation, one noticeable site in the central part of the wadi features Iron Age remains, dating to c. 700 BCE, and may have served as a stronghold to monitor and direct traffic of goods and people coming through the wadi.

The site of Khirbat Shuʿaib, located next to the mosque and mausoleum of the Prophet Shuʿaib (Biblical Jethro), photo courtesy of the APAAME Project (photo by Mat Dalton).

 

The settlement activity clearly reaches its highest point during the Roman-Byzantine periods, c. 100 BCE−614 CE, with rural farmsteads exploiting small agricultural niches within the wadi.

A rural farmstead located in the northern part of the wadi, dating to the Byzantine and Mamluk periods.

 

These continue to be used during the Islamic periods from 614 CE until the end of the Ottoman period in the early 20th century.

To complement the survey results, archaeological investigations at the site of Tell Bleibil (also known as Tall Bulaybil), located at the alluvial fan of the wadi before it enters the Jordan Valley, were begun in 2017.

Tell Bleibil (Tall Buylabil), located on a rock outcrop where the wadi enters the Jordan Valley, seen from the south.

 

The site is sometimes identified with Biblical Beth-Nimrah, although proof of this is still lacking. The excavations have revealed an Iron Age occupation of the site, c. 1000−600 BCE, below massive Roman-Byzantine occupational levels, and with older Bronze Age remains present as well.

A stone wall dating to the Iron Age with collapsed material at Tell Bleibil, perhaps part of the settlement’s fortification.

 

Small finds recovered so far include pottery, an arrowhead made of Iron, and even fragments of painted wall plaster.

Future campaigns aim to clarify the settlement patterns and chronological distribution of archaeological sites within the Wadi Shuʿaib. One of the main goals for further research is also to check the material culture data through soundings on selected sites. With the data from the next few years in hand, we hope to return both to the historical questions about the regional and transregional communication network and to the definition of the Wadi Shuʿaib as an archeological landscape in its own right.

 

Alexander Ahrens, a Senior Researcher at the Damascus Branch of the German Archaeological Institute’s Orient Department, leads this on-going archaeological survey project and the excavations at Tell Bleibil in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Archaeological Museum of as-Salt (Balqa Governorate). The work is funded by the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute. All images are copyright of the Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project unless otherwise noted.

For Further Reading:

Ahrens, A. 2016. From the Jordan Valley Lowlands to the Transjordanian Highlands: Preliminary Report of the Wadi Shuʿayb Archaeological Survey Project 2016. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 59: 631-648.

Ahrens, A. 2018. Revisiting Ḫirbet Ğazzīr and Ḫirbet aṣ-Ṣūq on the Transjordanian Plateau: Archaeological and Chronological Remarks on the Search for Biblical Jazer. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 134.2: 177-189.

Glueck, N. 1943. Some Ancient Towns in the Plains of Moab, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 91: 7-26.

de Vaux, R. 1937. Exploration de région de Salṭ, Revue Biblique 47: 398-425.