EZION-GEBER GLUECK 477 



The settlement of Period V was the last one to be built on the 

 site. The next one was moved to Aila, near 'Aqabah, and owes its 

 origin to the Nabataeans and its present repute to the Romans, who 

 made it the end of the famous highway of Trajan. 



In one of the houses which may be assigned to Period IV was 

 found a pottery plaque representing the pregnant Mother-Goddess, 

 the goddess of fertility. It was made with conspicuous crudeness, 

 and is startingly ugly. It must have been considered crude and ugly 

 even when it was first fashioned. Why the potters of Ezion-geber: 

 Elath chose to turn out figurines of deities in such ungracious forms, 

 when at the same time some of the pottery they produced was of 

 exquisite shape with beautiful decoration, is beyond comprehension. 

 Was it the desire to reproduce something to which the crudity of the 

 elemental was still attached? A figurine of equal ugliness, repre- 

 senting the same type of fertility goddess, was found in another room. 

 With it was found a tiny cup, in which incense may have been burned. 

 It is reasonable to believe that at Ezion-geber : Elath — a junction of the 

 great incense routes between Arabia and Egypt and Palestine and 

 Syria — this commodity must have been comparatively cheap (pi. 8, 

 fig. 2). The favor of the gods must have been sought in clouds of 

 sweet-smelling smoke. The piety of the people induced them also, 

 when building a new house, to place some sort of a foundation offering 

 under one of the walls. These offerings consisted at Elath of pots 

 filled with fruits of the ground and fowl of the air and fish of the 

 sea. In one instance a number of household utensils were carefully 

 placed in a pot and the wall was then built over this foundation 

 offering. 



All manner of copper and iron objects were discovered in the 

 excavations. They included copper fishhooks, iron gaffheads with 

 barbed points, copper arrowheads and spear points, fibulae, frag- 

 ments of fine copper dishes and tools, iron hoes and knives (pis. 9, 10, 

 and 11, fig. 1). It seems likely that the coppersmiths of Ezion- 

 geber : Elath, like their Egyptian contemporaries, possessed the secret 

 of tempering copper to such a degree of hardness that it could be 

 used for tools and drills. For both fine and coarse work, however, 

 stone hammers and drills were also used, in addition to metal tools. 

 Fine quartz pebbles were found, obviously brought in from elsewhere, 

 which had evidently been used, to judge from their abraded ends, as 

 hammers to shape fine metal jewelry. Other hard stones of varying 

 sizes and coarseness were notched and grooved, so that a forked 

 handle could be tied to them with thongs (pi. 11, fig. 2) Similar 

 stone hammers were commonly used, for instance, by the American 

 Indians. Stone drills were also found in the excavations, almost 

 exactly like those found among the North American Indians. Egyp- 



