The Edomites

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Speaker 1 The Edomites. They're mentioned in the Old Testament.
A people who lived in what is today southern Jordan and rivaled the kingdom of Judah.

Speaker 1 Perhaps most most infamously, the Edomites are remembered for supporting the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and rejoicing when he sacked Jerusalem in the 6th century BC and burnt the first temple to the ground.

Speaker 1 Safe to say, we don't have the most positive portrayal of the Edomites surviving in the Bible. But the Bible is not the only source we have for these people.

Speaker 1 Archaeology, inscriptions and other written sources have revealed so much about them and how they lived.

Speaker 25 It's the Ancients on History Hit.

Speaker 1 I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode we are covering this story, the story of the Edomites.

Speaker 1 Joining me to talk through what is known about the Edomites, including the massive copper industry that they controlled, I was delighted to interview Dr.

Speaker 1 Matthew Vincent, an archaeologist at the American Center of Research in Jordan.

Speaker 1 Now I met Matthew quite recently out in Petra when we were filming our Petra and the Nabataeans documentary, which you can now watch on History Hit.

Speaker 1 Matthew, he starred in that, as well as our special ancients episode all about Petra, that we released a few weeks ago. And since then, Matthew, he has visited London on a very special mission.

Speaker 1 We took full advantage of this opportunity to record this ancients episode in person.

Speaker 1 The Edomites seemed a fitting topic, not only because Matthew, he knows a lot about them, but also because these were the people who lived in the area around Petra before Petra was created.

Speaker 1 They preceded this great ancient city and its builders, the Nabataeans. And archaeology has started to reveal some really interesting information about them, as you're about to hear.

Speaker 1 So sit back and relax as we explore the story of the Edomites.

Speaker 1 Matt, it is great to have you on the podcast.

Speaker 25 Great to be doing it in person. It's so awesome to be seeing you again.

Speaker 1 Last time, we met in Petra, of all places, for the documentary and for our special podcast episode. Today, slightly less arid, desert-like atmosphere.

Speaker 1 We're in the Spotify studio in London, but still rather beautiful setting in its own right.

Speaker 25 Severe lack of camels, fewer donkeys, but a fantastic setting for sure.

Speaker 1 And we have talked about Petra, of course, you and I, on the podcast last time and for the documentary.

Speaker 1 Today we're not talking about Petra, but we're keeping on that area of the world because Petra, it actually does have a link to the subject of our story today, the so-called Edomites.

Speaker 25 Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that we got to talk into there is kind of like, well, who was here beforehand? Where do these Nebateans come from? What's all going there?

Speaker 25 And certainly part of that story and part of the story of Petra has to do with the Edomites as well.

Speaker 1 And we're going to focus on Petra and the Edomites, but also the larger story of the Edomites. So no such thing as a silly question.

Speaker 25 Matt, first off, who were the Edomites?

Speaker 25 Absolutely not a silly question.

Speaker 25 So they're probably most famous when we think about the sort of Sunday school stories, the biblical stories, and people know about the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, you know, the kind of these, all these other kingdoms that don't necessarily form part of the biblical world that we know.

Speaker 1 There was on the periphery kind of

Speaker 25 Edomites. Exactly.
So if we think in geographical terms, the Edomites occupy the southernmost part of Jordan.

Speaker 25 So we're talking in essentially modern-day Petra, where we find Aqaba, Wadi Rum, so kind of that expanse there, but also leading into the Negev on the other side of the river there.

Speaker 25 And so it's this kind of territory. But the earliest mention of the Edomites is actually coming from Egypt.
So we have a 13th century inscription that mentions the Shasu, the people of Edom.

Speaker 25 So it's the first time we kind of get this idea of a collective people known as Edomites.

Speaker 1 And do we have reference to particular figures like kings and queens and well-known ancient figures who have a link to the Edomites?

Speaker 25 I mean, for me, the one that's kind of the most interesting of all is, of course, King Herod. King King Herod.
Big bad King Herod, you know, slaying a bunch of children. He was an Edomite.

Speaker 25 And of course, the Edomites are more mentioned by other kings. You know, again, if we go back to the sort of Hebrew Bible, it has a whole series of different figures that are mentioned.

Speaker 25 But we're not finding those as much in other inscriptions. You know, it's more like what we find in the biblical texts today.

Speaker 1 It's funny with Herod, isn't it? It's got links to the Edomaeans, got links to the Nabataeans and Petra, and of course, descendancy from the Edomites as well.

Speaker 1 So that man, you could do a whole, not just one podcast episode on, you could do a whole podcast series on King Herod, I feel, because there is so much material to talk about.

Speaker 25 Absolutely. And of course, archaeologically, the things that, you know, you and I were talking earlier about some of the stuff connected with him, his son, everything else.

Speaker 25 I mean, fascinating characters. Yes, but we're going on a tangent already, aren't we?

Speaker 1 So come on, let's go back to it. So you've mentioned how the Edomites, they live in the area of what is now southern Jordan, Petra, Wadiram, Akaba, just north of the Red Sea.

Speaker 1 But when are we talking with when they're living?

Speaker 25 So again, that earliest mention is sometime in the 13th century. So, you know, you can see it, you see it on the hieroglyphs on a wall.
Like, it's set in stone.

Speaker 1 That's late Bronze Age time, isn't it?

Speaker 25 Exactly. So, this is kind of before the whole idea of these biblical kingdoms that we're aware of later on from the historical accounts.

Speaker 25 However, if we start looking at the sort of archaeological record and we start talking about, of course, one of the things you and I have mentioned is the copper mining that happens in Wadi Araba.

Speaker 25 That really begins as early as the Chalcolithic period. So where Wadi Adaba? Wadi Araba.

Speaker 25 So actually, so if you imagine again, Petra's up on that mountaintop, right?

Speaker 25 And actually, if you remember where we were stood in the great temple, and if you would have looked towards the west, there's that one big rounded mountain. That's called Umalbiara.

Speaker 25 And Umalbiyara was one of the Edomite cities. This is this kind of big Edomite center right there in Petra.
But if you would have kept going to the west, it suddenly drops off.

Speaker 25 So you imagine that, you know, in Petra, we're somewhere around 900 meters, 950 meters of elevation.

Speaker 25 And then then all of a sudden you go down into the valley and you're dropping basically down to sea level and that's where you come to this copper mining territory of wadi arba or wadi fainon Does that also give a hint as like the archaeology as a key source of information for learning more about the Edomites?

Speaker 1 It is not just hearing about them in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and mentions of them by other great powers like Egypt. It is also an unveiling story.

Speaker 1 More information is coming to light through excavations like the ones that you've been involved in in Jordan, which is starting to reveal even more about the Edomites and how they lived, where they lived, their cities, and so on.

Speaker 25 Absolutely. Yeah, this is always, you know, there's more to be learning.

Speaker 25 And of course, it's recent excavations within the last two decades have revealed so much about our understanding of the Edomites.

Speaker 25 And so again, I mean, we think about their ability to organize as a, you know, cohesive group of people. It's phenomenal, the kind of amount of trade that they do.

Speaker 25 And again, we start thinking about all of these links then. So, you know, I just mentioned the word trade now.
Now, who are the Nabataeans known? You know, who are they as a people?

Speaker 25 Well, they're traders. They're merchants.

Speaker 1 And just to clarify, the Nabataeans, they are the rulers of Petra.

Speaker 25 They are the people who create Petra after the Edomites. Correct, correct.
And it's again, you know, this is always the thing that we struggle with. Okay, so who's an Edomite versus who's a Nabataean?

Speaker 25 Where does one end and the other begin? And these are those lines that we just lose. Now, in a perfect world, we would have all of the human remains of the entire population.

Speaker 25 We could do the DNA studies. We could see exactly who is who.
We don't have that. So oftentimes there's an idea of a displaced population.

Speaker 25 So, you know, people talk about, oh, well, the Edomites are displaced, they're pushed out, and then we get a new people coming in. But we don't really know how much that is really happening.

Speaker 25 If maybe there's an elite population that gets pushed out, but you're sort of normal plebes, shall we say, are still staying around and just become, you know, vassals of the next kingdom.

Speaker 1 And do we know, I mean, you mentioned the word kingdom. When we say the Edomites, or we say the kingdom of Edom, is archaeology revealing more about how they lived?

Speaker 1 You've talked about cities already, but do we know much about the whole structure of the kingdom of Edom?

Speaker 1 Let's say at the beginning of the Iron Age or in the early first millennium BC, do we know much about that?

Speaker 25 Well, I think it's worth stepping back for just a moment and start bringing up a big picture of everything that's happening. So, of course, Late Bronze Age, which in the Near East ends around 1200 BC.

Speaker 25 Again, there's debates about the exact chronology. We're not going to get into into the exact numbers right now, but let's just refer to Late Bronze Age, Iron Age.
These are two different periods.

Speaker 25 Things happen.

Speaker 25 Now, there's this kind of massive collapse of societies at the end of Late Bronze Age. And for example, Cyprus used to be the major producer of copper.
They made these oxide ingots.

Speaker 25 These things are massive, right? I mean, they're called an oxide ingot because you can imagine the size of this thing. You can still find them in shipwrecks nowadays.

Speaker 1 So the Odeburg and shipwreck and stuff.

Speaker 25 Exactly. These sorts of things.
So these massive pieces. We never see that again.
So obviously, there's some sort of copper industry that's happening at that level.

Speaker 25 Now, in the Iron Age, Wadi Fenan becomes the center of copper production, right? Now, in order for it to become such a massive industry, we have to have an organized society.

Speaker 25 This is where anthropologists start getting into, like, you know, well, you've got your egalitarian societies, and then you've got your chiefdom, and then you've got a kingdom.

Speaker 25 It's talking about our ability to organize groups of people to do large tasks tasks such as this. And the kind of work that's been done.

Speaker 25 So my former advisor at UC San Diego, Thomas Levy, led the excavations in Wadi Fainon and specifically at a site called Gherit Nahas.

Speaker 25 And he was just absolutely convinced. I mean, after seeing the level of work done there, 100%, you have a kingdom.

Speaker 1 Well, let's examine these archaeological excavations and what was being excavated. So what was found? Let's start with the mines themselves.

Speaker 1 Did they find huge mines that were evidently worked by people some 3,000 years ago?

Speaker 25 Yeah, there's absolutely still mines that are even visible today, some of the mines that you can visit.

Speaker 25 I don't think it's quite the mines that you think about when you're imagining going down deep and, you know, you've got the helmets and your torch and everything.

Speaker 25 But these are sort of, you know, pit mines. So people are just digging straight into the ground, extracting the minerals.

Speaker 25 The geology of that area makes it very visible what's there and what's happening. It's being brought in.
But archaeology, probably the most interesting thing that you see is slag everywhere.

Speaker 25 That may sound like a bad word, but actually slag is the byproduct of copper smelting or any metallurgical smelting.

Speaker 25 And so basically you're firing the minerals and then you basically get something that ends up looking like rock.

Speaker 25 but it's not. It's everything that's left over after you melted it and extracted the raw ore out of there.
And that area is so full of it.

Speaker 25 So it's not that they're just extracting the ore and taking it elsewhere, but they're smelting it all there. And they're producing the copper ingots.
And in this case, they're not oxide ones.

Speaker 25 They're much smaller. You know, they're probably a few inches long or 10 centimeters long, depending on which measurement you want to use.
Easily transportable that way as well.

Speaker 25 But they're all being smelted there and then moved on to other areas.

Speaker 25 So whether it went to the Mediterranean or went north up towards Damascus or out east, you know, all of the directions, easily accessible from that area of the world as well.

Speaker 25 So the Edomites, they are also alongside extracting the resource and then smelting the resource, they are also overseeing the export of it too the transport of it far and wide well this is what's interesting is it seems like the Edomites are also very good traders interesting they're controlling some of the principal trade routes again when we think of this part of the world there's always been these kind of ideas of three principal north-south trade routes so we basically have what's called the seaway we have the desert way and then we have the king's highway the king's highway is the one that goes straight up the middle so that one would have gone straight through petra the seaway is the westernmost and follows the coastline.

Speaker 25 And then the desert route is the one that, of course, is the farthest to the east, but still kind of hugging those plateaus.

Speaker 1 Is that like the incense route and so on that kind of goes from northern Arabia all the way to southern Arabia?

Speaker 25 Similar to that. Of course, that one's going east-west.
And each of these are going north-south.

Speaker 25 But, you know, they were the ones that then kind of connect to other areas. So people have spent so much time looking at the north-south ones that they don't always focus on the east-west ones.

Speaker 25 And that is part of the problem. But of course, we're talking from from Edom.
They could have gone to Egypt. They could have been moving products over into the Mediterranean.

Speaker 25 And of course, they could have been moving it east towards Arabia and even further on.

Speaker 1 And were the Edomites, because when we were talking about the Nabataeans and Petra, one of the things that we talk about again and again was how they seem to be these kind of lords of the desert and were they able to control water in these harsh environments.

Speaker 1 Do we see anything similar with the Edomites, do we think? Were they also able to traverse deserts and and move trade across inhospitable terrain too?

Speaker 25 It certainly seems like it. I mean, one of the things that does stand out is that, you know, the Edomites seem to be fairly good hydrological engineers as well.

Speaker 25 Maybe not to the levels of the Nabataeans, but their settlements certainly reflect an ability to master the control and the security of water.

Speaker 25 When you look at Edom, oftentimes people are thinking, oh, it's this, you know, very inhospitable desert landscape.

Speaker 25 Yeah, when you're down in the valleys to a certain degree, you know, if you're out in the far eastern part of it to a certain degree, but there's still a lot of water there.

Speaker 25 There's still, you know, roughly a 400 millimeter rainfall in most of the area that would have been Edom. So they're not in the worst of it.
It's still a semi-arid sort of territory.

Speaker 25 But, you know, what we don't really see or what we don't really know is the kind of evidence of them being like really big long-distance traders. But they are known as managing the trade.

Speaker 25 So it's certainly a huge part of their economy.

Speaker 1 Also, another question which we've talked about in the past. I know it's not very easy to answer.
Could we say that they're also semi-nomadic at times?

Speaker 25 Absolutely. I mean, this is the thing that we see always going through this time period, right? So during the Iron Age, you see this kind of ebbs and flows.

Speaker 25 And so a city might grow and then it kind of decreases, grows, decreases. People might become a bit more nomadic.

Speaker 25 And even at the same time, like our idea of what a settled population might look like, sure, maybe they're just bouncing back and forth between a few different sites.

Speaker 25 Even when we were working down in Wali Fenan, a lot of the Bedouin who live there, they'll spend their winters down in the valley and their summers up on the plateau.

Speaker 25 They just live between two different places. They would consider themselves Bedouin still, still fairly nomadic, but it's not like they're doing these long stretches.

Speaker 25 They're just going back and forth between two different areas.

Speaker 1 So you mentioned earlier the Edomite settlement of Umal Biyara, overlooking Petra. And it is a stunning site, given how high it is.
It almost feels like a citadel.

Speaker 1 So do you think that a settlement like that occupied by the Edomites is a prime example of one that was likely not occupied all year round?

Speaker 1 I mean, what does the archaeology suggest with that particular settlement?

Speaker 25 Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar with the archaeology of that one. I wish I could answer a lot more of the questions.
Now, what I do remember from it is it's a site full of cisterns.

Speaker 25 So it certainly would have been easy to occupy it all year round if you needed to. And it's actually not that difficult to get up there.

Speaker 25 I mean, it maybe takes you an hour, two hours to go up, and you imagine you can have donkeys taking supplies up, everything else.

Speaker 25 It's entirely plausible that that could have been occupied all year round. Now, it would have been very cold in winter.
Petra already itself is quite cold in winter. I know that's hard to imagine.

Speaker 25 A lot of people think of Petra and they remember, oh yeah, I visited there in one summer and they were sweating and it was hot, it was dusty. But in the winter, Petra is really quite cold.

Speaker 25 It can be wet. It can be rainy.
You always have the problem of flash flooding and things like that.

Speaker 25 But again, when you go up to the top of Umalbiara, it's literally just cistern after cistern after cistern.

Speaker 25 So it really seems like, you know, they were managing water, water, they're storing water there, and their own focus as a people on being masters of water.

Speaker 1 Do we have much archaeological evidence for a number of different Edomite sites across Jordan? Do we know much about their urban layouts?

Speaker 1 What types, let's say, of ceramics that they would have had in their settlements? Do we know much about that?

Speaker 25 Yeah, quite a bit of work has been done. So if you go to the site of Busseira, which was kind of known as the Edomite capital.

Speaker 25 So this is not too far away from Petra, and it shows a very advanced sort of urban infrastructure, urban planning. You know, you've got public buildings, you've got private dwellings.

Speaker 25 Again, the sort of infrastructure to maintain the water and everything else that they would need as a population, it's there. So they're showing to be very an advanced civilization.

Speaker 25 And then, of course, you've got the site of Sela, which is this fortified site kind of up in the mountains. It's, you know, one might even say it's rather romantic because it's so difficult to reach.

Speaker 25 And, you know, it's this kind of very big stronghold. Of course, later on, the Babylonians come through and occupy it.
So I guess it wasn't strong enough of a stronghold.

Speaker 25 But again, you know, one of these really incredible Edomite sites.

Speaker 1 We mentioned Babylonians there. We'll get to the Babylonians in a bit because I know they have a bit of a role to play in this story.

Speaker 1 I must also ask then, do we know how the Edomites, how they sustained themselves? What types of agriculture they were using as their main source of food?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I mean, I'm not entirely sure of, you know, what different crops they're growing.

Speaker 25 And again, this is one of those things that without this kind of significant paleobotany work to be done, it's it's difficult to say, but it's likely the same thing that we see up and down the country.

Speaker 25 So there would have been essentially, we could say, lentils, grains, pulses, things like this, fairly basic crops that are easy to grow, hardy, the same stuff that in a lot of senses we still see grown today.

Speaker 25 And of course, animal husbandry would have been a big part of it.

Speaker 25 Again, sheep, goat, these sort of things.

Speaker 25 But probably as well, to a certain degree, cows and potentially even pigs, depending on the sites that you're going to and where you're at and finding evidence for that as well.

Speaker 1 Do you think camels fit into the Edomite way of life too, like with the Nabataeans a bit later?

Speaker 25 I'm sure they do. I, you know, again, like I'm not familiar if there's been evidence of camel in Edomite sites.

Speaker 25 If I recall correctly, and certainly, again, leaning back on my advisor's work in Wadi Fenan, it seems like donkeys were being used primarily to transport the copper ingots.

Speaker 25 Again, camel may not have been the most appropriate to go up and down from, say, Petra down into Wadi Araba and then through the Negev, at which point, you know, donkeys may have been the best animal to use.

Speaker 25 And then, you know, really like the camel becomes a lot more prominent when you're getting the far distance trade against the deserts in Arabia.

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Speaker 1 Now I remember once again harkening back to Petra that during our brief visit there and seeing you there, we did also go to the Petra Museum and amongst the artifacts there was a lot of Nabataean inscriptions.

Speaker 1 So revealing how in Petra you learn a lot about the Nabataean language that comes of course after the Edomites at this site i want to almost use that as a way to come into the next question which is about the edomite language and also their religion as well i mean do we know much about the gods they worshipped the language they used so if we start with with language so the edomite language would have been yet another one of the semitic languages and certainly it may have had even influence over the nabataean language from what we can see of the the few inscriptions that are left from from

Speaker 25 the edomite world that they're also borrowing from these earliest of the Aramaic alphabets.

Speaker 25 And so the sort of script is not too different from what we would see with the Nabataeans and fits with the kind of earliest alphabets that we see across that whole region.

Speaker 25 And again, probably, you know, if you look north and south throughout the country, you know, the language is virtually the same, but you're looking at dialectical differences, the same that even today in England, you know, the sort of different things that people might say, how they pronounce it, how they do it, you would see that preserved still in language here today, and you're looking at something similar from there.

Speaker 25 So, you know, could an Edomite understand a Moabite or an Ammonite or an Israelite? Most likely, yes. You know, could a Nabataean understand a sort of Edomite language? Probably.

Speaker 1 And what about regarding their religion?

Speaker 25 It seems that their religion also shares some characteristics of what we see later on in the Nabataean religion.

Speaker 25 So again, this idea of, you know, natural beings, you know, so Dushar, as we know, the sort of head of the Nabataean pantheon was, you know, the god of the mountains.

Speaker 25 And it seems that the Edomites had similar sort of concepts within their religious pantheon, which again kind of makes me wonder, like, do we have more of a transition between the Edomites and Nabataeans than we really realize?

Speaker 1 And this desire to get up high, I'm guessing, maybe having their religious sites as high as possible to get as close to their gods, the celestial gods as possible, that could very much be a continuation.

Speaker 25 Certainly, yeah. And I mean, again, you go to a site like Umal Biara, your size exists.

Speaker 1 I must also ask, I mean, Talking, you mentioned Israelites there, so I like to talk now about external civilizations, peoples who interacted with the Edomites.

Speaker 1 I mean, from the literary sources that we have, do we have many stories of the Edomites coming into conflict with neighboring powers?

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm thinking initially, of course, of the Old Testament, if there are any stories, but of course, we can then explore even further to Mesopotamia.

Speaker 25 Absolutely. I mean, if we start with the Old Testament, we can just sum it up very easily and very quickly with, they weren't loved.

Speaker 25 So, you know, it seems that kind of the major strife that shows up in the biblical narrative is really one where the Edomites seem to be supporting the Babylonians in their conquest of the Israelite lands.

Speaker 1 It's like Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple, isn't it?

Speaker 25 Exactly. But of course, ironically, it seems like the Edomites get caught up in the same thing.

Speaker 25 So, you know, it's not exactly clear what's happening, but it seems that when Nebuchadnezzar overthrows Judea. essentially, which is the neighboring land next to Edom.

Speaker 25 At that point, it also seems that the Edomites are then more or less pushed out and make their way to this. So now let's start talking about and thinking about some dates.

Speaker 25 So traditionally we say 586, 587 BCE. That's the date of the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar and overthrows Judea.
And all of a sudden, there's got to be some sort of power gap in that area.

Speaker 25 And it seems that the Edomites start slowly moving up north. Now, we can also, not too much later, of course, we've got Nabonidus who shows up and we've got his inscription.

Speaker 1 And he is the next Babylonian ruler after Nebuchadnezzar.

Speaker 25 Exactly. And so he has his campaigns into the area as well, takes over Sela, leaves a massive inscription there.
So it's this really incredible inscription to see.

Speaker 25 But of course, at the same time, this is why I say, like, some people say, oh, yeah, Nebuchadnezzar just displaced the Edomites. Well, no, he couldn't have displaced them.

Speaker 25 If Nebo Nidas then comes later on and conquers their castle, like, or is he just like walking and says, I'll have that.

Speaker 25 But, you know, what seems to be clear is that there is this transition and people are slowly moving up further north.

Speaker 25 Because Because when we do think about by the time we get to King Herod, he's known as an Edomite, but he's really coming from Judea. He's not coming that far south anymore.

Speaker 25 And at the same time, so if the Edomites are now moving out of this area, that now is opening up space for the Nabataeans to be starting to establish themselves.

Speaker 25 Because, of course, we know by 300s BCE, the Nabataeans are there. They're in Petra.
We've got tales of the conquests from the Macedonians coming in and attacking.

Speaker 25 Exactly in 313, if I recall correctly, something like that. But anyway, 300s BC.
So, you know, not that much longer.

Speaker 25 And Petra is now established to the point that it's a kingdom, you know, that could be attacked by another kingdom.

Speaker 25 So what's happening there must have to do with this transition of power as the Edomites are slowly leaving that area.

Speaker 1 Can you talk a bit more about the whole Nabonides inscription? Because you said it's an amazing thing to see.

Speaker 1 So can you describe it a bit more and what it says about this Babylonian king who also, I believe he has a great sojourn into Arabia and Tamar too.

Speaker 1 So he's an interesting figure, Nabonidus, and this is right at the end of that Babylonian imperial period almost too.

Speaker 25 So Nabonidus, if we just start with him straight away, like he's a controversial character in the Babylonian world because he goes off script.

Speaker 25 You know, everyone else is worshiping Marduk, the main god of the Babylonian pantheon, and he switches it up and he decides, no, no, no, I'm going to worship the moon god because, you know, he's his own man.

Speaker 25 Like, you know,

Speaker 25 Nabonidus wants to do Nabonidus, and he's going to roll with it.

Speaker 25 But this inscription, again, like, so you can, you, the only way to access this inscription today is basically rappelling down and getting to it.

Speaker 25 So this inscription has been fairly inaccessible for a very long time.

Speaker 1 So is it at the bottom of a canyon or something? How should we put it in the middle of the middle?

Speaker 25 It's on top of a mountain. Oh, top of a mountain.
Yeah, but so you have to kind of get up.

Speaker 25 And again, so you think about in his day, he put that thing up so high and so far out of reach that no one could go and deface it, you know, without risk of personal death.

Speaker 25 Yeah, so unfortunately, the inscription itself, it's not that it's entirely intact, it's not perfectly preserved, so we can't get everything out of it, but it primarily is talking about Nabonidus's conquest of the region of Edom, his capture of the city of Sela.

Speaker 25 So again, this is my whole thing, like Nebuchadnezzar couldn't have displaced them all. Otherwise, Nabonidus, what is he going to be even talking about, right?

Speaker 25 But it talks about how he took control of a strategically important location. So he already recognizes for what it's worth.

Speaker 25 And of course, that it's this difficult terrain and it's a fortified nature around there. But then it's also reflecting his religious devotion.

Speaker 25 And it's offering, again, his prayers and offerings to this moon god, the god Sin.

Speaker 25 And he believed, of course, that this God is the one who's giving him all the victories in these military campaigns. So yeah, it's a fascinating inscription, beautifully decorated.

Speaker 25 And, you know, hopefully in coming years, we'll continue to be able to get more and more information from that piece.

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Speaker 1 So, Nabonidus, that's the 6th century BC. And as you've already mentioned, by the 4th century BC, it seems like the Nabataeans are dominant in this area of the world.

Speaker 1 Is it really now archaeology that is starting to piece together, albeit I'm guessing pretty slowly, get more of a sense as to how this transition occurs in this area of the world from the kingdom of Edom and the Edomites, mentioned and not loved in the Old Testament, into the flourishing Nabataeans who build one of these great wonders of the world in Petra.

Speaker 25 Absolutely. And this is where we have to start looking to archaeology to be able to answer these questions.

Speaker 25 And I know people are working diligently to try and figure this out because we still don't really know the origins of the Nabataeans.

Speaker 25 I mean, they're often referred to as these Arabian tribes who come into the area, but do we really know that yet? Again, we don't have DNA that can say where are these people really coming from.

Speaker 25 So hopefully, you know, through DNA studies or isotope analyses, we can really begin to nail down the origins of the people.

Speaker 25 But certainly it's enough for us to know that, yeah, by the fourth century, we now have a kingdom established.

Speaker 25 And again, like I said, a kingdom established enough to then be attacked and, you know, to be seen as at least a threat or whatever. And they're attacking.
Petra.

Speaker 25 So now it's, it's finding the evidence for what does that transition look like? You know, when do we really see the end of some of these Edomite cities?

Speaker 25 But, you know, it's going to be years of work still till we can really clarify all of those kind of more minute details.

Speaker 1 Is there any other sorts of Edomite archaeology that is right at the forefront? So we talked about, of course, the copper mines, the copper archaeology, the cities.

Speaker 1 I mean, but do they have distinct style of pottery? Or are there other key artifacts that you usually associate with the Edomites if you're excavating a settlement?

Speaker 1 You notice something on a particular layer and you say, ah, that is likely Edomite.

Speaker 25 Yeah, I mean, for me, again, it's anything associated with copper mining. These are the masters of it, right?

Speaker 25 And so in some recent excavations that I was involved with, I found this pile of copper slag.

Speaker 25 And I'm still trying to figure out what in the world is this doing here?

Speaker 25 You know, my immediate thing is like the Edomites were here, you know, but we're talking about, you know, an area in a context that's much later.

Speaker 25 So again, it's the sort of question is, you know, they're certainly not smelting it there, you know, and there's no technological material that relates to it there.

Speaker 25 So are they literally going down into Wadi Attawa and saying, well, this slag looks cool and bringing it back up and setting it in front of a tomb? Like, I don't know yet.

Speaker 25 But you know, that certainly is one of the iconic things. And yeah, there are distinct Edomite styles of pottery, things like that that we could certainly help identify.

Speaker 25 And there's enough of a difference, of course, between sort of Edomite script, Nabataean script, we would be able to tell that.

Speaker 25 And of course, by the time you get to the Nabataean pottery, it's very fineware. You know, it looks a lot more like the sort of Roman pottery that we would see.

Speaker 25 So we should be able to find find it in the archaeological record.

Speaker 1 So although the kingdom of Edom seems to fade, does it seem like, as you mentioned earlier, that Herod the Great, ancestry Edomite, linked to the Edomites, does the whole name of the Edomite, does that endure for a long time?

Speaker 25 It certainly seems to. I mean, again, you know, if we've got this sort of royal family who appears, establishes a kingdom, I mean, it's Herod's dad who really kind of sets this thing in motion.

Speaker 25 They're not at that point in time in disfavor anymore, which again makes us wonder, you know, were they really hated or are these just simply part of these historical texts and narratives that we get, you know, enough so to the point that if you can have a man ruling that area of the world at that point in time when King Herod is ruling, and yet he is an Edomite.

Speaker 25 And of course, his mother is Nabataean. So let's start putting all those pieces together.

Speaker 1 I remember when we were in Jordan, especially when Amman, in that area of the world, we're talking about the Ammonites.

Speaker 1 And I immediately think of a dinosaur with the Ammonites or the sea creature of the Ammonites. And then, of course, the Moabites.
And I think of the stellar of King Mesher and the Moabites.

Speaker 1 So those are two names of other peoples in the area who are also known from the Hebrew Bible, from the Old Testament. It's almost as if they come in a three.

Speaker 1 You think Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. Is that too simplistic for getting a sense of this area of the world in, let's say, the, in the early first millennium BC?

Speaker 25 It's not too simplistic, but of course, there's a lot more nuance to it.

Speaker 25 Now, I've had the privilege now of excavating in all three of those kingdoms, and I'm a huge fan of the Moabites, not going to lie. There's some incredible things to see out there.

Speaker 25 I've had the privilege of working at a site called Khirbat al-Balua, right on the Wadi Mujib. So it's on a wadi that feeds into the Mujib.
This massive site entirely made out of basalt.

Speaker 25 So you get out there and it's just black rock everywhere. And, you know, there are still Iron Age houses intact up through the first story.
But it's still, there's another story to tell there.

Speaker 25 And, you know, unfortunately, we have yet to really understand the Moabites.

Speaker 25 You know, we, of course, have Mesha, who, as you mentioned in the Steeley, but he comes from the other side of the Wadi and his site is really quite small compared to Balua.

Speaker 25 And so it's like for me to, for Mesha to be bragging about all of his prowess, and yet I'm looking at this massive city to the south of the Wadi there. I'm like, how do these things all mesh up?

Speaker 25 I don't know yet. And the same thing, the Ammonites, I mean, what an incredible place that they live.
I mean, the north of Jordan is so much more lush compared to the south.

Speaker 25 And the sites there are these, you know, very interesting sites. A lot more work has been done there.
But again, like we have yet to really clarify, you know, who are the Ammonites?

Speaker 25 What was their relation with the Moabites? What was their relation with the Edomites? You know, and unfortunately, I lost the keys to my time machine, so I can't quite tell you about that yet.

Speaker 25 But I mean, does it seem at least from the outset, so from the archaeology there, that they're very distinct cultures, that you can see differences between these different peoples who lived in different parts of jordan but at the same time absolutely and again like you as you mentioned before this differences in pottery style you know so there's at least enough of a difference in material culture um and we can see that evidenced there so yeah there are distinct things but at the same time we're probably looking at a blending of these cultures in in many ways you know as we often talk talk about in in anthropology and archaeology is there's there's this idea of center and periphery you know so what you have at the center is probably the most conservative of a cultural style.

Speaker 25 So you know your center of the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites, probably very distinct. But then when you get to that periphery, that's where things start blending.

Speaker 25 And you probably have people who could easily be intermingling from these different societies and kind of meshing into one.

Speaker 1 Another thought came into my mind is you talked earlier about Aqaba and of course on the coast of the Red Sea.

Speaker 1 And something we remember about the Nabataeans is that yes, we think of them for land trade, but also sea trade is important as well.

Speaker 1 I remember doing an interview very recently about later Roman trade with India and the importance of maritime trade there.

Speaker 1 With the Edomites in that area of southern Jordan, do we think they were also shipbuilders, that they had maritime trade there as well as the overland trade?

Speaker 25 Certainly it seems to be that case. And again, if we look at the Old Testament record, there's mentions of King Solomon building fleets out there.

Speaker 25 And we can imagine at the same time that the Edomites were probably also seafaring people, just as much as they were landfaring people.

Speaker 25 You know, which also then we go back to the Nabataeans, and there's great, great pieces of information there actually going back to the Greek text.

Speaker 25 You know, the Nabataeans are essentially accused of being pirates and then just like looting ships and taking ships and killing all the shipwrecked people.

Speaker 25 So there's a long history of seafaring people in that part of the Red Sea coming from Aqaba. That was a long, long-standing and really very important port.

Speaker 1 God love if it was like Akaba was a Bronze Age tortuga or something like that.

Speaker 25 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Kind of cool, isn't it? Matt, this has been absolutely brilliant. We've covered so many different aspects of the Edomites.
They're still very much shrouded in mystery, aren't they?

Speaker 1 But is there anything else that you want to highlight about the Edomites and what we should be thinking about when someone next mentions the Edomites?

Speaker 1 Of course, you know, naturally in your chats down the pub, that topic will come up.

Speaker 25 As it does. You know, I think we've covered a lot of the really important things.

Speaker 25 But again, you know, I think what's really interesting for us to think about as we look at these ancient cultures is this was an organized society.

Speaker 25 And if we were there as a visitor, imagine we could understand the language and everything else, I think we'd probably see a lot of things that are very familiar to us.

Speaker 25 The way that people live, the way that they conduct themselves on a day-to-day basis. It would be absolutely incredible.

Speaker 25 There would be a lot that seems very familiar and a lot that would seem very, very foreign to us.

Speaker 1 And may I also ask, you know, in the most polite way possible, what were you doing over here in the UK?

Speaker 25 What are you doing over here in the UK?

Speaker 25 So, I mean, there's two things.

Speaker 25 I do have to admit, I came over for a wedding, but at the same time, part of that was taking advantage of the trip to personally deliver samples from our recent excavations.

Speaker 25 So these samples are light-sensitive samples. So they're for optically stimulated luminescence, which we can use to date soil layers.
And it's the safest way to get them up there.

Speaker 25 And you think about the money that goes into an excavation, excavation, we can't risk just sending it by post. So, you know, it was personally making sure it got delivered to the people at St.

Speaker 25 Andrews who are now working through these samples. Wow.

Speaker 1 Archaeology. Very cool indeed.
Very cool stuff. Matt, this has been brilliant.
Lastly, you work with the American Center of Research out in Jordan. Tell us a bit about what you do out there.

Speaker 25 So my job is I'm actually the director of the National Inventory Project.

Speaker 25 So we're working on putting together a catalog of all of the movable cultural heritage, which is cultural heritage speak for objects and artifacts.

Speaker 25 So everything you might see in a museum, we're putting into a database. We're doing this in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities.

Speaker 25 And it's from a very generous grant that we've got from the U.S. State Department that lets us work on this.
And it'll be a first in the region. So a national database.

Speaker 25 And we hope that this helps in preventing illicit trafficking, but also really helps us move forward our understanding of Edomites, Nabataeans, Ammonites, Moabites and many other cultures.

Speaker 1 Well Matt we're very grateful for your time and it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

Speaker 25 Tristan always a pleasure.

Speaker 1 Well there you go. There was Dr.
Matthew Vincent talking all about the Edomites.

Speaker 25 It was great to interview Matthew whilst he was over here in Britain and I really do hope you enjoyed today's episode.

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Speaker 25 That's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.

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