456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



Aila, several kilometers to the east of Tell el-Kheleifeh, and almost 

 directly on the shore of the gulf. To judge from careful and re- 

 peated examinations of the surface pottery finds there, however, Aila 

 was occupied from the Nabataean to the medieval Arabic period, 

 but not before thenJ The possibility remains, nevertheless, that if 

 excavations were to be undertaken at Aila, sherds might be found 

 indicating occupation of the site during and preceding the times of 

 the Biblical Ezion-geber and Elath. I consider that possibility, how- 

 ever, to be a remote one, because the depth of ancient debris on the 

 site of Aila is not considerable, and could not go below the Nabataean 

 ruins without striking the water level. If there ever were any ancient 

 sites at Aila, which could be related to the Biblical Ezion-geber or 

 Elath, then in all probability their ruins were completely cleared 

 away by the heavy and deep and extensive building operations which 

 took place there particularly in the Nabataean, Roman, and Byzan- 

 tine periods.^ 



The Biblical evidence, which we have gone into in detail elsewhere,^ 

 seems to indicate that Ezion-geber did not become a really important 

 site until the time of Solomon, and figured as such in the biblical 

 annals from the tenth to the middle of the ninth century B. C, 

 after which time its name is no longer mentioned. It was replaced 

 by Elath in the biblical accounts, becoming important in the eighth 

 century B. C, near the end of which it passed from Judaean into 

 Edomite control, and out of the Biblical record. There is reason to 

 believe from the evidence in the Bible, that the Elath which succeeded 

 Ezion-geber as an important site on the north shore of the Gulf of 

 'Aqabah, was built on the ruins of Ezion-geber, after that site had 

 been abandoned for some time. It is not an uncommon happening 

 for different names to be applied to the same ancient Biblical site 

 during various stages of its history. Thus Qiryath-sefer and Debir 

 are one and the same place, as are Hebron and Kiryath-'arba.^° In 

 view of the fact, therefore, that Tell el-Kheleifeh is on the shore of the 

 eastern arm of the Yam Suf , the Red Sea, and that there is no other 

 site on that shore which shows the proper early occupational history 

 necessary for either Ezion-geber or Elath or both, and that the exca- 

 vations of Tell el-Kheleifeh revealed that it was occupied from the 

 tenth to the late fifth centuries B. C, including thus the main periods 



■^ Glueck, Nelson, Explorations in Eastern Palestine. Bull. Amer. Schools Oriental Res., 

 No. 65, p. 12, February 1937; The first campaign at Tell El-Kheleifeh (Ezion-Geber), 

 Ibid., No. 71, p. 4, October 1938 ; Explorations in Eastern Palestine. Ann. Amer. Schools 

 Oriental Kes., vol. 15, p. 47, 1934-1935 ; vols. 18-19, pp. 6-7, 1937-1939. 



* Glueck, Nelson, Explorations in Eastern Palestine. Ann. Amer. Schools Oriental Res., 

 vols. 18-19, p. 3, 1937-1939. 



» Glueck, Nelson, The topography and history of Ezion-Geber and Elath. Bull. Amer. 

 Schools Oriental Res., No. 72, pp. 9-10, December 1938. 



'0 Idem. 



