Driving south from the bustling town of Madaba, the sun rises over the rolling plains of the plateau. As we descend into the Wadi al-Wala canyon, the Khirbat Iskandar (KI) mound comes into view. Its position provides visual access east and west along the wadi and south to the slopes that lead into Dhiban. It is easy to see the importance of its position in the landscape. As we climb the gravely path to the site, the sun crests the hill to the east and the light slowly begins to illuminate the EB III and IV contexts in which we have been meticulously working this season.

Excavations at KI have been ongoing since the 1980s, each season further revealing the site’s significance as an urban settlement during a time often marked by trends of ruralization in the southern Levant. The 2022 field season at KI shed new light on the pivotal Early Bronze III/IV nexus and provided new contexts that help expose the continuation of habitation at the site. We began the season with a clear set of goals divided between three excavation units. With a team of only 10, we were limited in what we could achieve in a set period of time. But with the experience at hand we were able to efficiently and effectively answer questions lingering from seasons before and build upon existing theories about KI’s role during the later EBA. The main objective was to continue to define the phasing for Area C, an excavation field in the southeastern corner of the tell. We aimed to do this by linking loci between trenches with known and new architectural and material phasing. In doing so, we could gain a more well-rounded picture of the associated phasing of the EB IV within Area C and in turn, the EB III/IV horizon.

We were successful in all our excavation goals, but archaeology is about more than just digging. My dissertation research focuses on micro and macro scales of the KI landscape and this field season provided the opportunity to not only develop my understanding of the EB III/IV at the site, but it also allowed me to garner a better appreciation of KI’s position in the greater region. KI’s setting along a possible route of travel is what initially inspired me to explore the connections between EBA sites in the Central Moab area. One of my personal goals this season was to take time to visit other regional sites and the spaces in between to better understand KI’s physical connections to neighboring locales. I was able to do so, moving at my own pace and experiencing these distances between sites, which caused me to think more about other aspects that impact movement and connections between spaces. A visit to the Chalcolithic and EB IA site of Murayghat was particularly impactful. Its position on a plateau surrounded on three sides with slopes covered in dolmens and the fourth side, a sweeping view into the valley below and hilltops beyond, provided a unique context by which to think about the relationships of spaces dedicated to both mortuary and domestic settings and how they could be perceived by visitors. A stop at Bab adh-Dhra’ was likewise a highlight and furthered my interest in the topic of the intersection of the living and dead spaces and how the various uses and perceptions of these spaces may have been communicated throughout the EBA. While I have studied these sites individually and tried to assess their spatial and social proximities digitally, I still lacked the ability to grasp what travel across some of these landforms and distances meant in reality. As I continue to develop my research on landscape-based approaches to the spatial and social connections in the southern Levant, field seasons like this greatly improve my ability to accurately contextualize and represent movement at the time.

Tucker Deady is currently a PhD student at the University of Toronto in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations. Tucker’s areas of interest include landscape archaeology, GIS, and the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant.

Read more about the Khirbat Iskandar project here.

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