Overview

Bibliography

Khirbat al-Mudayna, the northern most of six sites with this name (meaning, "ruin of the little city"), is located along the Wadi ath-Thamad in the northern region of Moab. The surface of the site was explored at the turn of the twentieth century. N. Glueck, based on the pottery and figurines collected at the site, identified it as a Moabite site. Its historical name is uncertain, though Jahaz (a levitical city mentioned several times in the Bible and in the Mesha inscription) is the most popular (and likely) suggestion.

Excavations at the site begin in 1996 under the direction of P. M. Michèle Daviau for the Wadi ath-Thamad Project and have continued until the present. Excavation on the oval tell (approximately 80 by 140 meters inside a casemate fortification wall) has revealed an Iron II city with at least two architectural phases and four occupational phases. Most of the excavation has focused on the northern end of the tell where a six chamber gate, a casemate wall, and several pillared buildings have been exposed. A Moabite sanctuary (no longer fully visible) was discovered just inside the gate.

In the valley to the north of the tell, in the bend of the Wadi ath-Thamad, a Nabatean farming settlement was uncovered. A reservoir and a housing complex have been exposed.

The archaeological strata uncovered at the site, as illustrated in the site plan, date to the following periods:

	Roman Period
	Iron II Period