Situated south of the Dead Sea, near the famous Nabataean capital of Petra, the Faynan region in Jordan contains the largest deposits of copper ore in the southern Levant. The Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project (ELRAP) takes an anthropological archaeology approach to the deep-time study of culture change in one of the Old World’s most important locales for studying technological development. Using innovative digital tools for data recording, curation, analyses and dissemination, the researchers focused on ancient mining and metallurgy as the subject of surveys and excavations related to the Iron Age (ca. 1200–500 BCE), when the first local, historical state-level societies appeared in this part of the eastern Mediterranean basin.

This comprehensive and important volume challenges the current scholarly consensus concerning the emergence and historicity of the Iron Age polity of biblical Edom and some of its neighbors, such as ancient Israel. Excavations and radiometric dating establish a new chronology for Edom, adding almost 500 more years to the Iron Age, including key periods of biblical history when David, Solomon, and the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I are alleged to have interacted with Edom.

Included is a 7 gigabyte DVD with over 55,000 files of additional data and photographs from the project.

“This two volume report is not only an outstanding benchmark for integrating the wide range of high tech anthropological tools now available to the excavator, it also strongly affirms the important role that ancient texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, fulfill when interpreting artifacts and data from an Levantine site.”
  — Jeffrey P. Hudon, Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin, 2015

“an outstanding benchmark for integrating the wide range of high tech anthropological tools now available to the excavator, it also strongly affirms the important role that ancient texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, fulfill when interpreting artifacts and data from an Levantine site.”

— Jeffrey P. Hudon, Bethel College Mishawaka, Indiana

“Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom is a ground-breaking study of one of the most important areas of the Levant…Insights will become a must-read book for anyone interested in the history and archaeology of the first millennium BCE Levant, northern Arabia and the anicent Near East, and in the archaeology of early mining and metallurgy in general.”

— Juan Manual Tebes, Catholic University of Arentina University of Buenos Aires, National Research Council