Discoveries

THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE

Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project

A JOINT SCIENTIFIC ENDEAVOR OF THE

College of Archaeology, Trinity Southwest University

AND THE
Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

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CHRONOLOGICAL KEY
OVERVIEW

CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD
Chalcolithic House, lower tall
Hammam Dolmen Field
Hammam Dolmen 73 Excavation
Stratigraphic Sequence of Bronze Age Defenses, lower tall

EARLY BRONZE AGE
EB2/3 City Wall and Roadway, lower tall
Hammam Dolmen Field
EB2/3 Gateway, lower tall
Hammam Dolmen 73 Excavation
EB Houses, lower tall
Stratigraphic Sequence of Bronze Age Defenses, lower tall

INTERMEDIATE BRONZE AGE
Hammam Dolmen Field
IB/MB1 Gate Blockage, lower tall
Hammam Dolmen 73 Excavation
IB Houses, lower tall
Stratigraphic Sequence of Bronze Age Defenses, lower tall

MIDDLE BRONZE AGE
MB2 Defensive Rampart System, upper tall
MB2 House, upper tall
MB2 City Wall and Defensive System, lower tall
MB1/2 Monumental Complex, lower tall
MB Houses, lower tall
MB2 Inner Ring Road, lower tall
MB2 Palace, upper tall
Stratigraphic Sequence of Bronze Age Defenses, lower tall

IRON AGE
IA2 Monumental Gateway, upper tall
IA2 City Wall, upper tall
IA2 House, upper tall
IA2 Monumental Building, upper tall

ROMAN/BYZANTINE PERIOD
Monumental Roman Structure, lower tall

Keeping up with the many exciting discoveries at and around Tall el-Hammam is a big task due to the large-scale nature of the Project. The site's Bronze Age city-state territory spreads into the hills to the east and south, northeast up the Wadi Kafrein (Kufrayn) for several kilometers, north to it's 'border' with the neighboring kingdom centered at Tall Nimrin, west to the Jordan River, and southwest to the Dead Sea. From the western acropolis of the upper/inner city, where the Bronze Age palace complex was located, the kings who ruled from Tall el-Hammam had direct line-of-sight contact with virtually all of the nearly 200 square kilometers (125 sq. miles) of their domain.

With massive Hammam-proper as its geographical and socio-political center, this Bronze Age kingdom dominated the southern Jordan Valley (the Jordan Disk, or Kikkar), indeed, the entire region, continuously for nearly 1,500 years, beginning about 3000 BCE. At that time (Early Bronze 2), the first fortification system was constructed around the perimeter of the city. The site had begun (at least) during the 4th millennium BCE, thriving for at least a thousand years as an open agricultural community (Chalcolithic through Early Bronze 1). But at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE, dramatic disruptions in the relative peace of the region occurred, causing the inhabitants of Tall el-Hammam to construct a formidible defensive system that included a stone-and-mudbrick city wall 5.2m (17 ft.) thick and up to 15m (50 ft.) high, for a linear distance of over 2.5km, encircling the city. A wide, packed-earth/clay roadway followed the outer perimeter of the wall. Replete with towers, multiple gates, and (likely) crenellations, these defenses were impressive, to say the least. Possibly due to a severe earthquake around 2700 BCE, the original EBA city wall was 'deconstructed' down to its most stable mudbrick courses (in places, down to its single-course stone foundation), then strengthened with a solid stone foundation (through its entire 5.2m thickness) 5 courses high, and topped with a mudbrick superstructure to its full width. This EB3 city wall rebuild served the Hammamites well for the next 900 years; of course, with periodic patching and refurbishing.

Recently-excavated balk sections intersecting the outer face of the EB2/3 city wall and exterior roadway reveal that this wall and street continued in use until a new, even more massive fortification system was commissioned toward the beginning of Middle Bronze 2 (ca. 1800 BCE). This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that from the surface of the EBA/IBA/MB1 roadway upward to the preserved height of the associated city wall, the area is covered by multiple layers (indeed, piles) of engineered fill of varying composition, comprising a base (substrate) for enormous MB2 city wall and earthen/mudbrick rampart defenses with a horizontal thickness of up to 33m (over 100 ft.). (The MB2 fill materials covering the roadway contain Early Bronze Age, Intermediate Bronze Age, and Middle Bronze 1 pottery fragments, with no evidence of erosional deposition, signaling continuous use of the wall and roadway from the time of its construction until buried by the later MB2 defensive system.) The MB2 builders preserved a good portion of the previous 5.2m city wall as a 'foundation' for the thickest portion of their sloping, outer rampart/glacis (abutting their new 4m-thick city wall), then added three more 'embedded' stabilizer walls into the mostly-mudbrick structure of their stepped, multi-sloped rampart. As large and impressive as the 'original' city wall had been during its nine-century lifespan, the MB2 defensive system swallowed up its predecessor within its colossal dimensions.

Within these sprawling defenses, the kings of the Tall el-Hammam city-state built their palaces, temples, and administrative complexes. Beginning literally at the flanks of Hammam-proper and radiating out to a distance of up to 5km, numerous Bronze Age towns, villages, and hamlets dotted a fertile and well-watered agriscape. Tall el-Hammam itself hugged the southern edge of the perennial flow of the Wadi Kafrein at the eastern edge of the Jordan Disk (Kikkar), with the Wadi Hisban/Ar-Rawda a few hundred meters to the south. The core population of the city-state, at Tall el-Hammam, also enjoyed at least two springs located inside the city walls (one warm, one sweet), with several others in the immediate vicinity. It's quite evident that the utilization of water resources was a principal consideration in the placement and development of the city.

Each of Hammam's satellites (Tall Iktanu, Tall Azeimah N., Tall Azeimah S., Tall Mwais, Tall Rama, Tall Kafrein, Tall Barakat, Tall Tahouna, and myriad un-named villaged and hamlets strewn between them) was similarly situated at a major water source (generally Wadi Kafrein or Wadi Ar-Rawda and their tributaries). In antiquity, during each spring flood season, the Jordan River overflowed its banks north of its mouth (at the Dead Sea's northern end), providing a wide-spreading inundation not unlike what occured in the Nile Delta during its annual inundation (of course, on a smaller scale, but hydrologically identical). Local farmers from the Hammam city-state no doubt took advantage of the annual Jordan flood cycle, planting crops behind the receeding waters in the fresh alluvial silt deposits. With so many reliable sources of water, not to mention localized winter rains, the kingdom flourished with up to three harvests each year in its below-sea-level, sub-tropical environment. Thus, it isn't at all surprising that the flourishing Bronze Age civilization on the eastern Jordan Disk, dominated by Tall el-Hammam, served as the foundation of the "Cities of the well-watered Disk (kikkar) of the Jordan" tradition in the book of Genesis (10-19).

Given its apparently long and stable history as the region's dominant city-state (even flourishing through the catastrophic climatological changes that brought an end to the Levantine Early Bronze Age, ca. 2350 BCE), it's remarkable that Tall el-Hammam and its neighbors (noteably Tall Nimrin, likely center of the city-state to Hammam's immediate north) suffered a civilization-ending calamity, uniquely their own, toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age. While cities to the west (Jericho, Jerusalem, Bethel, Hebron), north (Deir 'Alla, Pella, Beth Shan), and east (Rabbath-Ammon, Tall al-Umayri, Nebo) continued in the Late Bronze Age, the cities, towns, and villages of the eastern Jordan Disk did not. In fact, from the time of their destruction toward the end of MB2, the eastern Jordan Disk sites remained unoccupied for the next five-to-seven hundred years. Why the "well watered plain (= kikkar, disk) of the Jordan" repelled re-occupation for so many centuries remains a mystery. That the most productive agricultural land in the region, which had supported flourishing civilizations continuously for at least 3,000 years, should suddenly relinquish, then resist, human habitation for such long period of time begs investigation.

After that long occpuational gap, about 1000 BCE (Iron Age 2), a few, much smaller towns began to be built over parts of some of the long-buried and overgrown Bronze Age ruins. One such Iron Age town was built on the top of the upper tall at Tall el-Hammam. Although diminutive in comparison to its predecessor of the distant past, IA2 Tall el-Hammam was fortified, and sports a monumental, four-chambered gateway. No doubt, the readily-available water resources and the commanding views from its heights both played major roles in the selection of Tall el-Hammam as an Iron Age town-site. That occupation ended in late IA2, possibly due to the Babylonian invasion of the region (ca.600 BCE).

During the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Periods, a few structures were built on and around Tall el-Hammam, including what appear to be military garrisons, a water-rentention system and/or bath complex and/or palatial residence, and an aqueduct system. It is possible that Hammam marked the eastern entry-point of the city known in Roman and Byzantine times as Livias.

All in all, Tall el-Hamman is a magnificent archaeological site that's shedding a great deal of light on the archaeology and history of the southern Jordan Valley and the region. Following is a selection of significant discoveries from the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project thus far. If you'd like greater detail, you can read published accounts from the REPORTS page and RELATED PUBLICATIONS page.

CHRONOLOGICAL ABBREVIATIONS KEY:
Chalcolithic Period = CP (4300-3300 BCE)
Early Bronze 1 = EB1 (3300-3000 BCE)
Early Bronze 2 = EB2 (3000-2700 BCE)
Early Bronze 3 = EB3 (2700-2350)
Intermediate Bronze 1 = IB1 (2350-2200 BCE)
Intermediate Bronze 2 = IB2 (2200-2000 BCE)
Middle Bronze Age 1 = MB1 (2000-1800 BCE)
Middle Bronze 2 = MB2 (1800-1550 BCE)
Late Bronze 1 = LB1 (1550-1400 BCE)
Late Bronze 2 = LB2 (1400-1200 BCE)
Iron Age 1 = IA1 (1200-1000 BCE)
Iron Age 2 = IA2 (1000-586 BCE)
Iron Age 3 = IA3 (556-332 BCE)
Hellenistic Period = HP (332-63 BCE)
Early Roman Period = ERP (63 BCE-135 CE)
NOTE: sub-periods can be designated by an additional 'a', 'b', or 'c'; most generally, a = the first half/third of a period; b = the second half/third of a period; c = the last third of a period.

MB2 Defensive Rampart System, upper tall
Toward the beginning of Midde Bronze 2, ca. 1800 BCE, the 'city fathers' at Tall el-Hammam decided to fortify their inner/upper city with a rampart system constructed primarily of mudbricks. It was a huge undertaking, requiring millions of bricks and, obviously, large numbers of laborers. The flat top of the rampart was about 7m (22 ft.) wide, and probably served as a ring-road around the upper city (the outer edge of the rampart has a footprint of approximately 250m x 400m). The 36-degree outer slope was covered with hard-packed clay, and rose over 30m (100 ft.) above the lower city. The inside of the rampart had a similar slope, and stood about 3-5m (10-16 ft.) above the street level inside. It's likely that the inner face of the mudbrick rampart was stepped, or had stairs at frequent intervals, allowing inhabitants to mount to the top of the rampart with relative ease. From just about any point on the top of the upper-city rampart, one has a commanding view of the lower city and a 360-degree view of the valley beyond. It was an impressive and formidable defensive system protecting the residences of the wealthier citizens of the city, including the king's palace and related temples and administrative buildings.

IA2 Monumental Gateway, upper tall
The Iron Age 2 monumental gateway is a four-chambered affair, located on the north side of the upper tall (Field UB). The gate passage is flanked by two large towers with 2m-thick walls and multiple rooms in addition to the fairly-typical chambers on each side of the entry. The main approach road leads through what appear to be two smaller flanking towers lower on the slope, then widens into a plaza just outside the main gate towers. One enters through the main gateway by making a right turn up two steps, then a left turn into a straight entry and plaza. The gateway presently visible from excavation dates to IA2 (ca. 8th century BCE), but is built over an earlier gate system dating to ca. 1000 BCE.

IA2 City Wall, upper tall
The Iron Age city wall is 3m thick and surrounds Hammam's upper tall, which was the extent of the IA city. The IA builders dug the foundation trenches for their city wall into the top of the Middle Bronze Age mudbrick rampart that surrounds and forms the shape and height of the upper tall. Although the MB2 rampart hadn't been used since the much-more-ancient city had been destroyed at least five centuries earlier, the IA defensive engineers found the MB2 structure extremely solid, and generally built their defensive structures squarely on top of it. The crest of Hammam's upper tall has the best views of the southern Jordan Valley imaginable, and this wasn't lost on the designers of the IA defenses. And in most locations around the upper tall, the old MB2 rampart provided a ready-made sloping glacis with little additional construction required.

MB2 House, upper tall
In Field UB, underneath the multiple phases of the IA2 gateway, the TeHEP team excavated into a Middle Bronze 2 house covered in a thick, meter-deep layer of ash and destruction debris. One room had a clay-lined silo installed in the floor, and two broken storage jars were present. In another room, a grey, burnished piriform juglet was discovered, typical of the period.

IA2 House, upper tall
Description

EB2/3 City Wall and Roadway, lower tall
Description

Monumental Roman Structure, lower tall
Description

IA2 Monumental Building, upper tall
Description

MB2 City Wall and Defensive System, lower tall
Description

Hammam Dolmen Field
Description

MB1/2 Monumental Complex, lower tall
Description

EB2/3 Gateway, lower tall
Description

IB/MB1 Gate Blockage, lower tall
Description

Hammam Dolmen 73 Excavation
Description

EB/IB/MB Houses, lower tall
Description

MB2 Inner Ring Road, lower tall
Description

MB2 Palace, upper tall
Description

Stratigraphic Sequence of Bronze Age Defenses, lower tall
Description

Chalcolithic House, lower tall
Description