Copyright Date: 2024Published by: Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL)https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.22940400Iktanu is a large double site in the southeast Jordan Valley occupied, with long periods of abadonment, during the late fourth/early third, the late third, and the first millennia BC. Excavation focussed on archaeological assemblages and chronology, and the complex evidence for the establishment, nature, scale, wider relationships and abandonment of settlement in each period, from small agro-pastoral village, to a larger scale, possibly transhumant population, to a Persian period fort, in a hinterland impacted by the convergence of diverse geological and geographical zones.
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Table of Contents
Section 1. Introduction to Iktanu
Iktanu lies at the south-eastern end of the Jordan Valley (Fig. 1.9). At close to the 170 metre below Mediterranean-sea level, the Dead Sea Highway cuts between what are, at this point, the two westernmost foothills of the Transjordan plateau, standing on what was once the shore line above the limits of the Lisan Lake, ancient forerunner of the Dead Sea. The prominent higher hill on the north side of the highway is called Tell Iktanu (long. 31 49’ north, lat. 35 40’ east; Jordan 1:25,000 series 1977, revised 1991; Jordan 1/50,000, el Karama Sheet 3153 IV, grid: YA 52...
One priority for the project was the investigation of burial practices for the IBA site, about which little was known. The extensive cemeteries to the south and south-west of Iktanu appeared to be generally of an earlier date, and the dolmen fields in the foothills to originate in the Early Bronze I, though with some evidence for reuse in the IBA (Prag 1995b).
In 1966 four small cemeteries (designated A, B, C and D from north to south) were noted c. 0.5–1 km south-east of Iktanu on rising, stony ground adjacent to the foothills (Fig. 1.28; Prag 2009, fig....
Section 2. Reports on Areas D.1 and C. The Early Bronze Age I occupation at Iktanu and the Intermediate
Early Bronze I occupation was investigated in Areas D.1 and C at Iktanu. As Area C also had important IBA remains, Section 2, Part 2 includes the full report on Area C in order to preserve the stratigraphic sequence, but the conclusions on the IBA occupation of all relevant sites, including Area C, will be found at the end of Section 4. The concluding remarks on the EB I period will be found in Section 2, Part 3.
Area D.I was located low on the south-eastern shoulder of the north tell (Fig. 2.1), within the presumed Iron Age/Persian period outer...
Area C is located in the north-east end of the southern hill (Figs 1.1, 2.1). This area of the south hill appeared to be an unattractive excavation prospect, with an uncleared, fenced minefield directly to the east. There appeared to be little archaeology, with only rare traces of stone walls on the lower ground, and few surface sherds (Fig. 2.51 view). The higher ground was cut about by a series of army trenches and parapets, and on the south-east side there was an ‘official’ modern rubbish dump where truckloads of waste were regularly dumped and set on fire.
The area...
The settlement at this time certainly covered almost the full length of the lower south slopes of the north hill (c. 180 m. east/west), and unstratified sherds recovered in Area D.3 suggest it extended to the top of the hill, where there may have been a strong, but undated, stone wall. However, the area excavated in Area D.I was small. The intervening area, between Areas D.1 and C, was not investigated, but, where disturbed by the bulldozer work undertaken when widening the Dead Sea Highway, lacked any sherds or other evidence for occupation. Whether there was a stream (or canal?)...
In 1966 the results of the excavation in Sites A and B at Iktanu (Fig. 3.1), which was entirely focused on the IBA occupation, set the pattern for the three later seasons (Prag 1971; 1974), and although we learnt more, and refined the conclusions, the story for the IBA site recovered from that season remains basically unchanged. The stratigraphy, the architecture and the pottery showed two phases of occupation, Phase 1 had a longer duration than Phase 2, with an interval of uncertain duration between the two phases. The site was abandoned at the end of both phases of IBA...
Section 4. Report on other Intermediate Bronze Age areas and conclusions
Work on Area B was begun on 7 May 1966 (see Fig. 3.1). It was a very small sounding undertaken to check the stratigraphy in a second area on the south hill, and to confirm the extent of the town on the steep south slope (Fig. 4.1). Walls were visible on the surface, and the trench was laid out over very short sections of three long walls. Since then, the 1990 air photos have shown that the buildings extended further than shown on the main plan, over much of the south slope to both east and west, but it was...
In 1966 the results of the excavations in Areas A and B at Iktanu (Prag 1971; 1974), which were entirely focused on the IBA occupation, set the pattern for the three later seasons, and although we learnt more, and refined the conclusions, the story of the IBA site recovered that season remains basically unchanged. The stratigraphy, the architecture and the pottery showed two phases of occupation, the earlier Phase 1 had a longer duration than Phase 2, with an interval of uncertain duration between the two phases.
The sudden establishment of the large settlement at Iktanu c. 2350 BC needs...
Over a number of years a number of people have contributed to various aspects of the study of the Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA) pottery. The first, and in many respects the seminal study of the clays, temper and technology of the Iktanu ceramic assemblage was made by H.J. Franken. This was not written up for publication (see Homes-Fredericq and Franken 1985, 108–109) but Franken’s contribution and impact is summarised below. In particular his identification of ‘volcanic ash(?)’ in the thin sections led to questions over the use of volcanic material and basalt in the pottery.
Further contributions to this...
It is the prominent north hill at Iktanu which was the principal focus of the first archaeological visitors, many of whom did not notice that the lower south hill had also been occupied in ancient times. The high north hill is a landmark, a short distance south of the Wadi Hisban, and occupies a strategic location, with a controlling view over the irrigated land to the north-west. It rises 40 to 47 metres above the plain, and has a ridge of rock outcropping along its northern crest running from north-east to south-west. The most accessible approach is from the east;...
Section 7. Reports
The first known record of the name of the site among western visitors was made by Selah Merrill in 1876 and published in 1881, as (Tell) Ektanu (اكتانو).¹ This form was verified, with a variant vocalisation Iktanū, on the visit of the expedition of Claude Conder in 1881. Through the careful inquiry of the ‘scribe of the party’ Mikhail Kassatly, Conder explicitly affirmed the local pronunciation as the above, stressing the presence of /kt/and not /qṭ/, as he was concerned to disprove an etymology proposed by Merrill (see below).² This form, تل اكتنو /Tell Iktanū, has long been standard in...
A slightly damaged steatite seal was brought to the site at Iktanu in November 1987, by a schoolboy who claimed it had been found near a house in al-Rawdah. Though his statement was regarded as unreliable it could have originated somewhere in the vicinity of the south Jordan Valley and adjacent foothills¹. The seal was temporarily confiscated by the Departmental Representative, recorded by us, and returned to its owner a few days later. Its present whereabouts are unknown.
Description: an irregular and worn rectangular plaque c. 26 mm. x 16.5 mm., with a lengthwise perforation, made of a whitish substance,...
Macro carbon samples were collected without handling during excavation in 1987, 1989 and 1990 from both Iktanu and Hammam, and stored in aluminium foil, at first kept with the study archive in Manchester Museum and later with Dr C. Cartwright in the Scientific Department at the British Museum.
The samples consisted mainly of charred twiggy (short-lived) material from fruit trees in Bronze Age domestic contexts and of Ziziphus spina-christi, Tamarix and Acacia from the Persian fortress contexts (see Cartwright, Section 7.8).
By 1993 analysis of the finds from Iktanu was well advanced when work was diverted to the publication of...
The remains were ivory coloured with very little staining. They were very brittle and had to be hardened with Paraloid B-72 before they could be repaired.
Right and left frontal bones with unfused metopic suture. Fragments of orbital margins. No parietal, occipital, temporal of basal bones.
Skull thickness over the frontal bones at bregma: 4.7 mm.
Maxilla not recovered. See below for a discussion of the loose maxillary teeth. Fragments of left zygomatic bone.
Fragments of right ramus, including the condyle and coronoid process, recovered; left ramus complete, with distal portion of body. The right body was too damaged to...
Environmental reports
Tell Iktanu Tell Iktanu produced a total of 24 marine shells, 48 fresh-water shells and 6 fossil shell fragments from the 1987, 1989 and 1990 seasons. The site is located 12 km north-east of the Dead Sea and about 90 km from the Mediterranean Sea.
There are 8 EB I–IBA (c. 3300–2200 BC) marine shells (Table 7.5.1A):
3 Glycymeris (3 water-worn, 3 holed at umbo [1 ground-down by man]) and 3 Cerastoderma (2 water-worn, 1 fresh; 3 holed at umbo [1 grounddown, Fig. 7.5.1b, 1 large and burnt).
There are 10 IBA (c. 2350–2200 BC) marine shells:...
In 1990 Dr G. Clark completed the identification and analysis of all the animal bones recovered from Iktanu and Hammam, but the final report could not be written at that stage because no final phasing was available. The lists of her identifications, with metric and dentition data exist in the archive. For Iktanu, this involved a total of more than 7693 bone fragments, of which 503 were recovered from the flotation and 426 by sieving (Table 7.6.1). There is a slight discrepancy between the total numbers in the lists and in Tables 7.6.2 and 7.6.3 (number=7626). Table 7.6.1 lists the...
During the excavations from 1987 to 1990, 62 soil samples with a total volume of 1597 litres were taken for archaeobotanical analysis and processed by the field team according to international standards (e.g., Jacomet and Kreuz 1999; Pearsall 2001; White and Shelton 2014); mesh size was 0.5 mm. Subsequently the processed samples were transferred to VIAS (Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science) and the plant macro remains were identified there with 1 the aid of modern reference collections. For taxa where our reference material was insufficient, we were supported by Mordechai Kislev and his team at Ramat Gan University, Israel, and...
Charcoal samples from excavations directed by Dr Kay Prag at Tell Iktanu and Tell al-Hammam in the Jordan Valley were submitted to the author for taxon identification. Table 7.8.1 has the details of the contexts from which these charcoal samples were extracted; Kay Prag has provided the context descriptions and chronology for this Table.
The anatomical examination of all charcoal fragments (archaeological and reference specimens) was carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For charcoal, the application of SEM rather than light microscopy allows imaging of a better depth of field in the preserved cell structures (Cartwright 2013). Due to...
Iktanu and also al-Hammam, the latter located just 2.5 km north of Iktanu, lie in the Rift Valley, a geologically and tectonically active region marked by frequent earthquakes. The Dead Sea basin is an archive of Holocene settlements and an important place for cultural evolution (Neumann and Zwickel 2019). Such earthquakes had been the reason for several disastrous destructions in prehistoric and ancient periods.
Iktanu (31°49’8.76”N, 35°40’16.84”E) is located 11 km north-east of the north-east coast of the Dead Sea, Jordan, about 25 km south-west of Amman centre, and lies south of the township of Rawda. It is a double...
Ceramic studies
The clay samples were collected by Newton and Prag between 1987 and June 1995. The clays were taken from four places round the site of Iktanu. Also included in the analyses are experimental clay mixtures, using crushed up sherds, found on the site, as grog in the clay mixture. One of the mixed clays was made into a pot. Also analysed were two pottery sherds, a bowl (EB I) and a lamp (IBA).
The surface of the samples was removed using a diamond tipped drill head, and then the core of the sample was crushed using an agate pestle and...
A fragment of Greek pottery found in Site D.3 (from IK.660.39, see Figs 6.36:1; 6.40) at Iktanu, Jordan, was analysed as sample IK6, by Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), as part of a PhD thesis in the Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester, on the provenance of Greek Black Glaze pottery in southern mainland Greece by Scott (1994, now Wood). The foundation of this study was the re-analysis of Black Glaze sherds from six Greek sites (Burton 1986; Foy 1990; Tomlinson 1988). This database was expanded to include additional sites in the Argolid, Boetia and Euboea, and additional pottery styles such...
The approximate bulk composition of the samples has been determined as given in Table 7.12.1. It is clear that the composition of the 4 samples is quite diverse. Even within the two wares (jars + cooking pots), the data show no uniformity.
All the samples show a high CaO concentration, which is common for Near Eastern clays. The CaO concentration for sample k1 is extremely high: 35.88%. This is not only due to the large amount and size of the lime inclusions, the clay matrix itself (without lime inclusions) contains about 34% CaO.
A large amount of calcite inclusions is...
The petrographic results presented in this chapter are far from an exhaustive examination of the abundant Early Bronze IV (Intermediate Bronze Age) pottery excavated at the site of Iktanu. These 13 sherds do, however, reflect various vessel types that appear at the site in Phases 1 and 2 during this period, as well as examples of the fabrics identified. Although a preliminary assessment of these thin sections was presented as part of a larger regional study (Klassen 2008)¹, what follows is a more thorough re-evaluation of these samples from Iktanu alone.
The 13 sherds from which the thin sections analysed...
Analysis of the Iktanu ceramic specimens was completed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS), this type of analytical system is collectively termed a SEM-EDS. In this study a JEOL JSM-IT300 SEM was used, together with a Bruker XFlash6-30 EDS system.
The SEM allows for high-resolution imaging and examination of the ceramic surface, and the EDS system allows for precisely targeted elemental analysis. The EDS is capable of detecting all elements from boron (atomic number 5) to Uranium (atomic number 92) simultaneously; for the minimally prepared ceramic specimens examined in this study we...
A number of analyses were carried out on samples identified as basalt and bitumen from Iktanu. G. Rutter analysed six EB I basalt objects as part of a doctoral dissertation at the University of Durham. J. Esson (in the Department of Earth Sciences at Manchester University) analysed a further three basalt samples. J. Seath Burrows was given eight samples thought to be bitumen and appears to have analysed four as part of a doctoral dissertation at the University of Manchester.
It is assumed that the bitumen samples were from the area of the Dead Sea, but Rutter found that mostly...
The survey of archaeological sites conducted in the south Jordan Valley since 1965 and the excavation seasons at Iktanu and Hammam led to some understanding of the modern population, and of the history, layout, architecture, and growth of their settlements. Many points of similarity of the modern built environment to the Intermediate Bronze Age remains being excavated at Iktanu between 1966 and 1990 were striking, and a preliminary note on the outcomes of a short study of the two modern townships was published (Prag 1997b). What follows is an augmented summary of the recording of the modern settlements at al-Rawda...
The village of Rawda sprawls along the north bank of the Wadi Hisban where it opens into the Jordan Valley (Figs 7.17.1, 7.17.2). The development of the settlement is as much related to the history and politics of the Jordan Valley as to its environment. This report briefly discusses those influences and then concentrates on the recording of 22 mudbrick and stone units surveyed over two days in spring 1992, as part of the Tell Iktanu Project directed by Dr Kay Prag. The background information stems not just from the personal observations and research of Dr Prag and the villagers...
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