EZION-GEBER — GLUECK 465 



as the mines in tlie Wadi el-'Arabah were worked by slaves.^® The 

 fumes and smoke from the smelter-refinery alone, coupled with the 

 severity of the natural conditions, would have made life there in- 

 tolerable to the free-born, and impossible for slaves. The welfare 

 of the latter, however, would hardly have been taken into considera- 

 tion. The permanent population of Ezion-geber : Elath was never 

 large, numbering probably not more than two or three hundred. 

 During the essentially seasonal industrial activity there, the popula- 

 tion figures must have increased considerably with the importation 

 of slave labor. While the officers and merchants may have tented 

 some distance away from the furnaces and foundries, the slaves, 

 however, upon whom the main burden of the work fell, were prob- 

 ably confined inside the walled area. With them must have been a 

 changing guard of a certain number of soldiers to control them and 

 guard the site. 



Not only did the smelter-refinery continue in use throughout the 

 entire history of Ezion-geber : Elath, but the south and east sides of 

 the industrial square were likewise employed throughout the entire 

 history of the site. The north and west sides of the industrial square 

 were destroyed, when, at the beginning of Period II, a new series 

 of fortification walls was put up around Ezion-geber, in part per- 

 haps on the line of former, outermost fortification walls which may 

 have encircled the industrial square, and in part on entirely different 

 lines. As a result of the new alinement of the fortification walls of 

 Period II, the smelter-refinery which still remained the most import- 

 ant building, was no longer in the center of the site, but at its north- 

 west comer. It consisted of two lines of defenses. There was a very 

 strong inner wall, strengthened by regular offsets along its outer 

 side. It was further strengthened by a strong glagis built against it, 

 with corresponding offsets (pi. 4, fig. 1). About 3 meters beyond the 

 base of the glagis was another fortification wall, about 1 meter thick 

 and 3 meters high. It, too, seems to have been further strengthened 

 by a glagis built against it. It is probable that both this wall and 

 the glagis against it had offsets corresponding to those of the parallel 

 inner wall and glagis. Between the two walls ran a dry moat, the 

 bottom of which was marked by a stamped-clay and mud-brick floor. 

 At the corners of the major wall were towers, which in each instance 

 overlooked the slopes of its glagis. The smaller outer wall is much 

 less well preserved than the larger wall, but it seems probable that 

 it too had similar towers, one at each corner. 



" Glueck, Nelson, Explorations In Eastern Palestine. Ann. Amer. Schools Oriental Res., 

 vol. 15, pp. 28^4, 1934-35. 



