Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
FROM METALS TO MASSACRES
(4000-1200 BC)
Invest enough importance in an object and someone else will inevitably want one as well.
There's evidence that Jordan's first farmers swapped desirable items among themselves
well before 4000 BC, perhaps triggering the rivalry to make and trade more accurate tools
and more beautiful adornments. One commodity useful for both tools and adornments was
copper - of which Jordan has plenty. Visit Khirbet Feynan in present-day Dana Nature
Reserve and the vast areas of black copper slag illustrate the importance of copper mining
for the ancient people of the region.
Within a thousand years, experimentation with metalwork led to the mixing of copper
and tin to create bronze, a hardier material that allowed for the rapid development of tools
and, of course, weapons.
During the Bronze Age (3200-1200 BC) the
region's settlements showed greater signs of ac-
cumulated luxury items, growing rich on indigo,
sulphur and sugar (which was introduced into
Europe from the Dead Sea area). It is not by
chance that the greater wealth coincided with a
preoccupation with security, with defensive
walls built around towns such as Pella. Early in-
vaders included the Amorites, whose arrival in the area is often associated with the violent
destruction of the five Cities of the Plain (near the southern end of the Dead Sea), including
the settlements of Sodom and Gomorrah (see the boxed text, Click here ).
Invasion was not confined to the boundaries of modern-day Jordan. By the late Bronze
Age (1500-1200 BC) the whole of the Middle East appeared to be at war. Wealthy city
states in Syria collapsed, Egyptians retreated within their own borders from outposts in the
Jordan Valley, and marauding foreigners ('Peoples of the Sea') reshaped the political land-
scape of the Eastern Mediterranean. The latter also brought the Philistines, who settled on
the west bank of the Jordan and gave the land its current name of Palestine.
According to a German survey, 15,000 to 20,000
tonnes of copper were produced from Feynan's
copper-smelting sites - some of the oldest such
sites in the region. This has left 150,000 to 200,000
tonnes of slag dotting the arid landscape.
 
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