Bienkowski, P. & K. Galor. Eds. 2006. Crossing the Rift. Resources, Routes, Settlement Patterns and Interaction in the Wadi Arabah. – Oxford, Oxbow (Levant Supplementary Series Volume 3)

Abstract

The view that the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, and specifically its well known cousin, the ‘Biblical Archaeology’, are completely outside the recent developments of the archaeology, is now (fortunately) mostly outdated. However, new studies on the archaeology of the Near East are not only following the trends of the archaeological studies in other fields, but are also incorporating approximations that have been current for decades in other disciplines, most notably history. Piotr Bienkowski and Katharina Galor’s ‘Crossing the Rift. Resources, Routes, Settlement Patterns and Interaction in the Wadi Arabah’ is a most perfect example of this trend.

The book is the proceedings of the Conference ‘Crossing the Rift’, held in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) on November 19, 2003. The conference was aimed at studying the archaeology and history of the Wadi Arabah, that long, arid area that extends between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba (Gulf of Eilat for the Israeli’s), and that nowadays forms the international boundary between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The main objective of the conference book was twofold: first, to provide a comprehensive review of the archaeological/historical evidence of this area in ancient and modern times; second, to offer a new approximation on the socio–historical development of this area. Concerning this latter point, the editors call attention to the fact that the Wadi Arabah has often been seen as a barrier between two areas, i.e. the Negev and southern Jordan (the biblical Edom). But this view, as the authors convincingly demonstrate, originally arouse out of the geopolitics of the Near East of the early 20th century: the Arabah has been only a political limit since 1922, when the Council of the League of Nations created Transjordan as a separate entity from the British Mandate of Palestine. Before this year, the Arabah was a bridge, rather than a barrier, between the Negev and southern Jordan. Read more...