478 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



tian stone dishes and alabastra, fascinating pottery incense stands 

 and censers, amethyst, agate, carnelian, quartz, and shell beads, and 

 a fragment of a gold earring were among some of the other small 

 finds. 



Much of the material found at Ezion-geber : Elath has a flavor all 

 its own, and some of it is distinctly unique. The horn- and ledge- 

 handled, hand-made pots, many of them built up on straw mats, are 

 without parallel elsewhere. Filled with ore, some of them were 

 probably set inside furnaces or crucibles. They could then be drawn 

 out by tongs fitted underneath their horn handles, turned upside 

 down, and the molten metal in them poured out. A good quantity 

 of the fine, painted and burnished ware which has come to be known 

 as typical of the Early Iron Age pottery of Edom and Moab, was 

 recovered. A peculiar kind of pottery of excellent make was dis- 

 covered, with bands of protruding dentilated ornamentation. In 

 general, the impression obtained from the three seasons of excava- 

 tions is that despite the long control exercised over Ezion-geber: 

 Elath by the Judaeans, its population, pottery, and general cultural 

 patterns fit in more with the picture of Eastern Palestine, North 

 Arabia and Sinai, than with Western Palestine. Edomites, Kenites, 

 Kenizzites, and Arabs formed the bulk of the population, among 

 which, however, were numbered Phoenicians, Egyptians, Judaeans, 

 and in time, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks. 



The archeological exploration of northwestern Arabia will un- 

 doubtedly reveal sites closely related to Ezion-geber : Elath. A new 

 archeological survey of Sinai is also necessary, in the light of the 

 discoveries referred to in this article, showing again the intimate 

 connections between Sinai and greater Palestine. The Wadi el- 

 'Arabah, the Gulf of 'Aqabah, and the peninsula of Arabia and Sinai 

 are bound to become increasingly more important in the future. The 

 copper, iron, gold, and spices of these lands, which were the sources 

 of their wealth in ancient times, have been superseded in modern 

 times in the same lands by oil. There is oil in the Wadi el-'Arabah, 

 and the sands of Arabia are merely a desert top over a very great 

 oil reservoir. Manganese is probably present in the Wadi el-'Arabah, 

 in Sinai, and Midian. The day is not far ojff when great industrial 

 plants, modern versions of that of Ezion-geber : Elath, will dot these 

 lands, as in some places they already do, and tremendous caravans 

 will again course through their wastes. 



And the everlasting Bedouins, content in the enduring strength of 

 their weakness, will pause and wonder at yet another transient phase 

 of civilization, over whose ruins, if the experience of the past repeats 

 itself, their descendants will some day pitch their rude tents. 



