Iron Age Mountain-top Sites in Edom

This book reassesses the mountain-top sites in Edom, the Iron Age polity in what is now southern Jordan, based on fieldwork carried out between 2022 and 2025.These sites, characteristic of the Greater Petra area, have usually been interpreted as inaccessible temporary refuges or strongholds for pastoralist populations rather than permanent settlements. The book, based on new evidence, interprets them instead as self-sufficient agricultural sites close to springs, linked by a network of accessible tracks. The fieldwork involved mapping, planning and photographing by drone, on-the-ground reassessment of all the sites, and detailed identification and documentation of routes, water and agricultural resources. There are chapters on geology, climate and routes, a history of research on these sites, and detailed documentation of 11 mountain-top sites, including stunning drone photographs of this amazing mountainous landscape.The concluding chapter considers the wider implications of the self-sufficiency hypothesis, demonstrating that, while these sites were not ‘inaccessible’, nevertheless they were not dependent on or integrated into the trade and communications routes with the rest of Edom and had a different economic basis.