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- [00:01]
Tristan Hughes
Thanks for listening to the Ancients. You can get all history hit podcasts, ad free early access and bonus episodes along with hundreds of original history documentaries by subscribing. Head over to historyhit.com subscribe hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds.
- [00:16]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [00:39]
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- [01:25]
Tristan Hughes
The Edomites. They're mentioned in the Old Testament, a people who lived in what is today southern Jordan and rivalled the kingdom of Judah. Perhaps most infamously, the Edomites are remembered for supporting the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and rejoicing when he sacked Jerusalem in the 6th century BC and burnt the First Temple to the ground. Safe to say we don't have the most positive portrayal of the Edomites surviving in the Bible. But the Bible is not the only source we have for these people. Archaeology, inscriptions and other written sources have revealed so much about them and how they lived. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode we are covering this story, the story of the Edomites. Joining me to talk through what is known about the Edomites, including the massive copper industry that they controlled. I was delighted to interview Dr. Matthew Vincent, an archaeologist at the American center of Research in Jordan. I met Matthew quite recently out in Petra when we were filming our Petra and the Nabataeans documentary, which you can now watch on History Hit. Matthew. He starred in that as well as our special Ancients episode All About Petra that we released a few weeks ago. And since then, Matthew has visited London on a very special mission. We took full advantage of this opportunity to record this ancient episode in person. The Edomites seemed a fitting topic, not only because Matthew, he knows a lot about them, but also because these were the people who lived in the area around Petra before Petra was created. They preceded this great ancient city and its builders, the Nabataeans. And archaeology has started to reveal some really interesting information about them as you're about to hear. So sit back and relax as we explore the story of the Edomites. Matt, it is great to have you on the podcast, great to be doing it in person.
- [03:28]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It's so awesome to be seeing you again.
- [03:30]
Tristan Hughes
Last time we met in Petra, of all places, for the documentary and for our special podcast episode today. Slightly less arid, desert like atmosphere. We're in the Spotify studio in London, but still rather beautiful setting in its own right.
- [03:45]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Severe lack of camels, fewer donkeys, but a fantastic setting for sure.
- [03:50]
Tristan Hughes
And we have talked about Petra, of course, you and I on the podcast last time and for the documentary today, we're not talking about Petra, but we're keeping on that area of the world because Petra, it actually does have a link to the subject of our story today, the so called Edomites.
- [04:07]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that we got to talk into there is kind of like, well, who was here beforehand? Where did these Nabateans come from? What's all going there? And certainly part of that story and part of the story of Petra has to do with the Edomites as well.
- [04:19]
Tristan Hughes
And we're going to focus on Petra and the Edomites, but also the larger story of the Edomites. So no such thing as a silly question, Matt. First off, who were the Edomites?
- [04:29]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely not a silly question. So they're probably most famous when we think about the sort of Sunday school stories, the biblical stories and people know about the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, you know, the kind of these, all these other kingdoms that don't necessarily form part of the biblical world that we know, they're always on the periphery kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So if we think in geographical terms, the Edomites occupy the southernmost part of Jordan. So we're talking in essentially modern day Petra, where we find Aqaba, Wadi Rum, so kind of that expands there, but also leading into the Negev on the other side of the river there. And so it's this kind of territory. But the earliest mention of the Edomites is Actually coming from Egypt. So we have a 13th century inscription that mentions the Shasu, the people of Edom. So it's the first time we kind of get this idea of a collective people known as Edomites.
- [05:22]
Tristan Hughes
And do we have reference to particular figures like kings and queens and well known ancient figures who have a link to the Edomites?
- [05:29]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
I mean, for me, the one that's kind of the most interesting of all is of course, King Herod.
- [05:33]
Tristan Hughes
Big bad King Herod.
- [05:34]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Big bad King Herod slaying a bunch of children. He was an Edom. And of course, the Edomites are more mentioned by other kings. You know, again, if we go back to the sort of Hebrew Bible, it has a whole series of different figures that are mentioned, but we're not finding those as much in other inscriptions. You know, it's more like what we find in the biblical texts today.
- [05:54]
Tristan Hughes
It's funny with Herod, isn't it? It's got links to the Idumeans, got links to the Nabataeans and Petra and of course descendancy from the Edomites as well. So that, man, you could do a whole, not just one podcast episode on, you could do a whole podcast series on King Herod, I feel, because there is so much material to talk about.
- [06:09]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. And of course, archeologically, the things that, you know, you and I were talking earlier about, some of the stuff connected with him, his son, everything else, I mean, fascinating characters.
- [06:18]
Tristan Hughes
Yes, but we're going on a tangent already, aren't we? So, come on, let's get back to it. So you've mentioned how the Edomites, they live in the area of what is now southern Jordan, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, just north of the Red Sea. But when are we talking with when they're living?
- [06:31]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
So again, that earliest mention is sometime in the 13th century. So, you know, you can see it, you see it on the hieroglyphs on a wall, like it's set in stone.
- [06:40]
Tristan Hughes
That's late Bronze Age.
- [06:41]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Exactly. So this is kind of before the whole idea of these biblical kingdoms that we're aware of later on from the historical accounts. However, if we start looking at the sort of archaeological record and we start talking about, of course, one of the things you and I have mentioned is the copper mining that happens in Wadi Araba that really begins as early as the Chalcolithic period. So Wadi Adaba, Wadi Araba. So actually, so if you imagine again, Petra's up on that mountaintop, Right. And actually, if you remember where we were stood in the great temple and if you would have looked towards the west, there's that one big rounded mountain that's called Umalbiata. And Umalbiata was one of the Edomite cities. This is this kind of big Edomite center right there in Petra. But if you would have kept going to the west, it suddenly drops off. So you imagine that, you know, in Petra, we're somewhere around 900 meters, 950 meters of elevation. Then all of a sudden you go down into the valley and you're dropping basically down to Se. And that's where you come to this copper mining territory of Wadi Araba or Wadi Faynan.
- [07:46]
Tristan Hughes
Does that also give a hint as, like the archeology as a key source of information for learning more about the Edomites? It is not just hearing about them in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and mentions of them by other great powers like Egypt. It is also an unveiling story. More information is coming to light through excavations like the ones that you've been involved in in Jordan, which is starting to reveal even more about the Edomites and how they lived, where they lived, their cities and so on.
- [08:13]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely, yeah. This is always, you know, there's more to be learning. And of course, it's recent excavations within the last two decades have revealed so much about our understanding of the Edomites. And so again, I mean, we think about their ability to organize as a cohesive group of people. It's phenomenal, the kind of amount of trade that they do. And again, we start thinking about all of these links then. So I just mentioned the word trade now. Now, who are the Nabataeans known? Who are they as a people? Well, they're traders, they're merchants.
- [08:44]
Tristan Hughes
And just to clarify, the Nabataeans, they are the rulers of Petra. They are the people who create Petra after the Edomites.
- [08:49]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Correct, correct. And it's again, this is always the thing that we struggle with. Okay, so who's an Edomite versus who's a Nabataean? Where does one end and the other begin? And these are those lines that we just lose. Now, in a perfect world, we would have all of the human remains of the entire population. We could do the DNA studies, we could see exactly who is who. We don't have that. So oftentimes there's an idea of a displaced population. So, you know, people talk about, oh, well, the Edomites are displaced, they're pushed out, and then we get a new people coming in. But we don't really know how much that is really happening. If maybe there's an elite population that gets pushed out, but your sort of normal plebes, shall we say, are still staying around and just become, you know, vassals of the next kingdom.
- [09:33]
Tristan Hughes
And do we know. I mean, you mentioned the word kingdom. When we say the Edomites, when we say the kingdom of Edom, is archeology revealing more about how they lived? You've talked about cities already. But do we know much about the whole structure of the kingdom of Edom, let's say at the beginning of the Iron Age or in the early first millennium BC do we know much about that?
- [09:52]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Well, I think it's worth stepping back for just a moment and start bringing up a big picture of everything that's happening. So, of course, Late Bronze Age, which in the Near east ends around 1200 B.C. again, there's debates about the exact chronology. We're not going to get into the exact numbers right now, but let's just refer to late Bronze Age, Iron Age. These are two different periods. Things happen now. There's this kind of massive collapse of societies at the end of late Bronze Age. And for example, Cyprus used to be the major producer of copper. They made these oxide ingots. These things are massive, right? I mean, they're called an oxide ingot because you can imagine the size of this thing. You can still find them in shipwrecks nowadays.
- [10:30]
Tristan Hughes
It's like the ode burn, shipwreck and stuff.
- [10:32]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Exactly, these sorts of things. So these massive pieces, we never see that again. So obviously there's some sort of copper industry that's happening at that level now in the Iron Age, Wadi Fan becomes the center of copper production right now. In order for it to become such a massive industry, we have to have an organized society. This is where anthropologists start getting into, like, you know. Well, you've got your egalitarian societies and then you've got your chiefdom, and then you've got a kingdom. It's talking about our ability to organize groups of people to do large tasks such as this and the kind of work that's been done. So my former advisor at UC San Diego, Thomas Levy, led the excavations in Wadi Faynan and specifically at a site called Khirit in the has. And he was just absolutely convinced. I mean, after seeing the level of work done there, 100% you have a kingdom.
- [11:26]
Tristan Hughes
Well, let's examine these archaeological excavations and what was being excavated. So what was found. Let's start with the mines themselves. Did they find huge mines that were evidently worked by people some 3,000 years ago?
- [11:38]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah, there's absolutely still mines that are even visible today. Some of the mines that you can visit, I don't think it's quite the mines that you think about when you're imagining going down deep and, you know, you've got the helmets and your torch and everything, but these are sort of pit mines, so people are just digging straight into the ground, extracting the minerals. The geology of that area makes it very visible what's there and what's happening. It's being brought in. But archaeology. Probably the most interesting thing that you see is slag everywhere. That may sound like a bad word, but actually slag is the byproduct of copper smelting or any metallurgical smelting. And so basically you're firing the minerals and then you basically get something that ends up looking like rock, but it's not. It's everything that's left over after you melted it and extracted the raw ore out of there. And that area is so full of it. So it's not that they're just extracting the ore and taking it elsewhere, but they're smelting it all there and they're producing the copper ingo. And in this case, they're not oxide ones, they're much smaller. You know, they're probably a few inches long or, you know, 10 centimeters long, depending on which measurement you want to use. Easily transportable that way as well. But they're all being smelted there and then moved on to other areas. So whether it went to the Mediterranean or went north up towards Damascus or out east, you know, all of the directions easily accessible from that area of the world as well.
- [12:59]
Tristan Hughes
So the Edomites, they are also alongside, extracting the resource and then smelting the resource. They are also overseeing the export of it too, the transport of it far and wide.
- [13:08]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Well, this is what's interesting, is it seems like the Edomites are also very good traders.
- [13:13]
Tristan Hughes
Interesting.
- [13:14]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
They're controlling some of the principal trade routes. Again, when we think of this part of the world, there's always been these kind of ideas of three principal north, south trade routes. So we basically have what's called the seaway. We have the Desert Way and then we have the King's Highway. The King's highway is the one that goes straight up the middle, so that one would have gone straight through Petra. The seaway is the westernmost and follows the coastline. And then the desert route is the one that, of course, is the farthest. Farthest to the east, but still kind of hugging those Plateaus.
- [13:43]
Tristan Hughes
So is that the one? Is that like the incense route and so on, that kind of goes from northern Arabia all the way to southern Arabia.
- [13:49]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Similar to that, of course, that one's going east, west, and each of these are going north, south. But you know, they were the ones that then kind of connect to other areas. So people have spent so much time looking at the north, south ones that they don't always focus on the east, west ones. And that is part of the problem. But of course, we're talking from Edom. They could have gone to Egypt, they could have been moving products over into the Mediterranean. And of course they could have been moving it east towards Arabia and even further on.
- [14:16]
Tristan Hughes
And were the Edomites, because when we were talking about the Nabataeans and Petra, one of the things that we talk about again and again was how they seem to be these kind of lords of the desert and were they able to control water in these harsh environments? Do we see anything similar with the Edomites, do we think, were they also able to traverse deserts and move trade across inhospitable terrain too?
- [14:39]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It certainly seems like it. I mean, one of the things that does stand out is that, you know, the Edomites seem to be fairly good hydrological engineers as well. Maybe not to the levels of the Nabataeans, but their settlements certainly reflect an ability to master the control and the security of water. When you look at Edom, oftentimes people are thinking, oh, it's this, you know, very inhospitable desert landscape. Yeah. When you're down in the valleys to a certain degree, you know, if you're out in the far eastern part of it to a certain degree, but there's still a lot of water there. There's still, you know, rough a 400 millimeter rainfall in most of the area that would have been Edom. So they're not in the worst of it. It's still a semi arid sort of territory. But what we don't really see or we don't really know is the kind of evidence of them being really big long distance traders. But they are known as managing the trade. So it's certainly a huge part of their economy.
- [15:33]
Tristan Hughes
Also, another question which we've talked about in the past, I know it's not very easy to answer. Could we say that they're also semi nomadic at times?
- [15:41]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. I mean, this is the thing that we see always going through this time period. Right. So during the Iron Age, you see this kind of these ebbs and flows. And so a city Might grow and then it kind of decreases, grows, decreases. People might become a bit more nomadic and even at the same time, like our idea of what a settled population might look like. Sure. Maybe they're just bouncing back and forth between a few different sites. Even when we were working down in Wali Fanon, a lot of the Bedouin who lived there, they'll spend their winters down in the valley and their summers up on the plateau. They just live between two different places. They would consider themselves Bedouins still, still fairly nomadic. But it's not like they're doing these long stretches. They're just going back and forth between two different areas.
- [16:23]
Tristan Hughes
So you mentioned earlier the Edomite assessment of Umalbayara overlooking Petra, and it is a stunning site, given how high it is. It almost feels like a citadel. So do you think that a settlement like that occupied by the Edomites is a prime example of one that was likely not occupied all year round? I mean, what does the archaeology suggest with that particular settlement?
- [16:44]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar with the archaeology of that one. I wish I could answer a lot more of the questions. Now, what I do remember from it is it's a site full of cisterns. So it certainly would have been easy to occupy it all year round if you needed to. And it's actually not that difficult to get up there. I mean, it maybe takes you an hour, two hours to go up and you imagine you can have donkeys taking supplies up, everything else. It's entirely plausible that that could have been occupied all year round.
- [17:07]
Tristan Hughes
Now.
- [17:08]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It would have been very cold in winter. Petra already itself is quite cold in winter. I know that's hard to imagine. A lot of people think of Petra and they remember, oh, yeah, I visited there in one summer and they were sweating and it was hot and it was dusty. But in the winter, Petra's really quite cold. It can be wet, it can be rainy. You always have the problem of flash flooding and things like that. But again, when you go up to the top of Umalbiara, it's literally just cistern after cistern after cistern. So it really seems like they were managing water, they're storing water there and their own focus as a people on being masters of water.
- [17:41]
Tristan Hughes
Do we have much archaeological evidence for a number of different Edomite sites across Jordan? Do we know much about their urban layouts there, what types of ceramics that they would have had in their settlements? Do we know much about that?
- [17:53]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah, quite a bit of work has been done. So if you go to the Site of Busera, which was kind of known as the Edomite capital. So this is not too far away from Petra. And it shows a very advanced sort of urban infrastructure, urban planning. You've got public buildings, you've got private dwellings. Again, the sort of infrastructure to maintain the water and everything else that they would need as a population. It's there. So they're showing to be very. An advanced civilization. And then, of course, you've got the site of Sela, which is this fortified site kind of up in the mountains. It's, you know, one might even say it's rather romantic because it's so difficult to reach. And, you know, it's this kind of very big stronghold. Of course, later on, the Babylonians come through and occupy it. So I guess it wasn't strong enough of a stronghold. But again, you know, one of these really incredible Edomite sites, we mentioned Babylonians there.
- [18:42]
Tristan Hughes
We'll get to the Babylonians in a bit because I know they have a bit of a role to play in this story. I must also ask, then, do we know how the Edomites, how they sustained themselves, what types of agriculture they were using as their main source of food?
- [18:56]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah, I mean, I'm not entirely sure of what different crops they're growing. And again, this is one of those things that without this kind of significant paleobotany work to be done, it's difficult to say, but it's likely the same thing that we see up and down the country. So there would have been essentially, we could say, lentils, grains, pulses, things like this, fairly basic crops that are easy to grow, hardy, the same stuff that, in a lot of senses, we still see grown today. And of course, animal husbandry would have been a big part of it. Again, cheap sheep, goat, these sort of things, but probably as well, to a certain degree, cows and potentially even pigs, depending on the sites that you're going to and where you're at and finding evidence for that as well.
- [19:35]
Tristan Hughes
Do you think camels fit into the Edomite way of life too, like with the Nabataeans a bit later?
- [19:40]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
I'm sure they do. I, you know, again, like, I'm not familiar if there's been evidence of camel in Edomite sites, if I recall correctly, and certainly, again, leaning back on my advisor's work in Wadi Faynan, it seems like donkeys were being used primarily to transport the copper ingots. Again, camel may not have been the most appropriate to go up and down from, say, Petra, down into Wadi Otaba and then through the Negev at which point, you know, donkeys may have been the best animal to use and then you know, really like the camel becomes a lot more prominent when you're getting the far distance trade against the deserts in Arabia.
- [20:26]
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- [22:34]
Tristan Hughes
Now I remember once again harking back to Petra that during our brief visit there and seeing you there we did also go to the Petra museum and amongst the artifacts there was a lot of Nabataean inscriptions. So revealing how in Petra you learn a lot about the Nabataean language. That comes of course after the Edomites at this site. I want to almost use that as a way to come into the next question, which is about the Edomite language and also their religion as well. Do we know much about the gods they worshiped, the language they used?
- [23:04]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
So if we start with language. So the Edomite language would have been yet another one of the Semitic languages, and certainly it may have had even influence over the Nabataean language. From what we can see of the few inscriptions that are left from the Edomite world, that they're also borrowing from these earliest of the Aramaic alphabets. And so the sort of script is not too different from what we would see with the Nabataeans and fits with the kind of earliest alphabets that we see across that whole region. And again, probably if you look north and south throughout the country, the language is virtually the same, but you're looking at dialectical differences, the same that even today in England, the sort of different things that people might say, how they pronounce it, how they do it, you would see that preserved still in language here today. And you're looking at something similar from there. So could an Edomite understand a Moabite or an Ammonite or an Israelite? Most likely, yes. Could a Nabataean understand a sort of Edomite language? Probably.
- [24:02]
Tristan Hughes
And what about regarding their religion?
- [24:04]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It seems that their religion also shares some characteristics of what we see later on in the Nabataean religion. So, again, this idea of, you know, natural beings, you know, so Dushar, as we know, the sort of head of the Nabataean pantheon was, you know, the God of the mountains. And it seems that the Edomites had similar sort of concepts within their religious pantheon, which, again, kind of makes me wonder, like, do we have more of a transition between the Edomites and Nabataeans than we really realize?
- [24:31]
Tristan Hughes
And this desire to get up high, I'm guessing maybe having their religious sites as high as possible to get as close to their gods, the celestial gods as possible, that could very much be a continuation, certainly.
- [24:40]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah. And I mean, again, you go to a site like Umal Biyara, you're as.
- [24:43]
Tristan Hughes
High as it gets. I must also ask, I mean, talking. You mentioned Israelites there, so I'd like to talk now about external civilizations, peoples who interacted with the Edomites. I mean, from the literary sources that we have, do we have many stories of the Edomites coming into conflict with neighboring powers? I mean, I'm thinking initially, of course, of the Old Testament, if there are any stories. But of course, we can then explore even further to Mesopotamia.
- [25:08]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. I mean, if we Start with the Old Testament. We can just sum it up very easily and very quickly with they weren't loved. So, you know, it seems that kind of the major strife that shows up in the biblical narrative is really one where the Edomites seem to be supporting the Babylonians in their conquest of the Israelite lands.
- [25:28]
Tristan Hughes
This is like Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple, isn't it?
- [25:32]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah, exactly. But, of course, ironically, it seems like the Edomites get caught up in the same thing. So, you know, it's not exactly clear what's happening, but it seems that when Nebuchadnezzar overthrows Judea, essentially, which is the neighboring land next to Edom at that point, it also seems that the Edomites are then more or less pushed out and make their way to this. So now let's start talking about and thinking about some dates. So traditionally we say 586, 587 BCE that's the date of the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar and overthrows Jud. And all of a sudden, there's gotta be some sort of power gap in that area. And it seems that the Edomites start slowly moving up north. Now we can also not too much later. Of course, we've got Nabonidus who shows up and we've got his inscription.
- [26:20]
Tristan Hughes
And he is the next Babylonian ruler after Nebuchadnezzar.
- [26:23]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Exactly. And so he has his campaigns into the area as well, takes over Sela, leaves a massive inscription there. So it's this really incredible inscription to see. But of course, at the same time, this is why I say, like some people say, oh, yeah, Nebuchadnezzar just displaced the Edomites. Well, no, he couldn't have displaced them if Nabonidus then comes later on and conquers their castle. Or is he just, like, walking and says, I'll have that? But what seems to be clear is that there is this transition and people are slowly moving up further north. Because when we do think about, by the time we get to King Herod, he's known as Enidomite, but he's really coming from Judea. He's not coming that far south anymore. And at the same time. So if the Edomites are now moving out of this area, that now is opening up space for the Nabateans to be starting to establish themselves. Because, of course, we know by 3002 BCE the Nabataeans are there. They're in Petra. We've got tales of the conquests from The Macedonians coming in and attacking us.
- [27:22]
Tristan Hughes
The one eye too.
- [27:23]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Exactly. In 313, if I recall correctly. Something like. But anyway, 3002 B.C. so, you know, not that much longer. And Petra is now established to the point that it's a kingdom, you know, that could be attacked by another kingdom. So what's happening there must have to do with this transition of power as the Edomites are slowly leaving that area.
- [27:46]
Tristan Hughes
Can you talk a bit more about the whole Nabonidus inscription? Because you said it's an amazing thing to see. So can you describe it a bit more and what it says about this Babylonian king, who also, I believe he has a great sojourn into Arabia and Tamar too. So he's an interesting figure, Nabonidus. And this is right at the end of that Babylonian imperial period almost too.
- [28:07]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
So Nabonidus, if we just start with him straight away, like, he's a controversial character in the Babylonian world because he goes off script. You know, everyone else is worshiping Marduk, the main God of the Babylonian pantheon, and he switches it up and he decides, no, no, no, I'm going to worship the moon God. Because, you know, he's his own man. Like, you know, Nabonidus wants to do Nabonidus, and he's gonna roll with it. But this inscription, again, like, so you. Can you. The only way to access this inscription today is basically rappelling down and getting to it. So this inscription has been fairly inaccessible for a very long time.
- [28:42]
Tristan Hughes
So is it the bottom of a canyon or something? How should we put that down?
- [28:44]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It's on the top of a mountain.
- [28:45]
Tristan Hughes
Oh, top of a mountain.
- [28:46]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah. But so you have to kind of get up. And again, so you think about in his day, he put that thing up so high and so far out of reach that no one could go and deface it, you know, without risk of personal death. Yeah. So unfortunately, the inscription itself, it's not that it's entirely intact. It's not perfectly preserved. So we can't get everything out of it. But it primarily is talking about Nabonizus conquest of the region of Edom, his capture of the city of Sela. So, again, this is my whole thing. Like, Nebuchadnezzar couldn't have displaced them all. Otherwise, Nabonidus, what is he going to be even talking about? Right. But it talks about how he took control of a strategically important location. So he already recognizes for what it's worth and of course, that it's this difficult terrain and it's a fortified nature around there. But then it's also reflecting his religious devotion and it's offering again his prayers and offerings to this moon God, the God sin. And he believed, of course, that this God is the one who's giving him all the victories in these military campaigns. So yeah, it's a fascinating inscription, beautifully decorated and, you know, hopefully in coming years we'll continue to be able to get more and more information from that piece.
- [30:07]
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Dr. Matthew Vincent
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- [31:17]
Tristan Hughes
Tsunidis. That's the 6th century B.C. and as you've already mentioned, by the 4th century B.C. it seems like the Nabataeans are dominant in this area of the world. Is it really now archaeology that is starting to piece together, albeit I'm guessing pretty slowly, get more of a sense as to how this transition occurs in this area of the world? From the kingdom of Edom and the Edomites mentioned and not loved in the Old Testament, into the flourishing Nabateans who build one of these great wonders of the world in Petra.
- [31:53]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. And this is where we have to start looking to archaeology to be able to answer these questions. And I know people are working diligently to try and figure this out because we still don't really know the origins of the Nabataeans. I mean, they're often referred to as these Arabian tribes who come into the area. But do we really know that yet again, we don't have DNA that can say where are these people really coming from? So hopefully through DNA studies or isotope analyses we can really begin to nail down the Origins of the people. But certainly it's enough for us to know that, yeah, by the 4th century, we now have a kingdom established. And again, like I said, a kingdom established enough to then be attacked and to be seen as at least a threat or whatever, and they are attacking Petra. So now it's finding the evidence for what does that transition look like. When do we really see the end of some of these Edomite cities? But, you know, it's gonna be years of work still till we can really clarify all of those kind of more minute details.
- [32:51]
Tristan Hughes
Is there any other sorts of Edomite archeology that is right at the forefront? So we talked about, of course, the copper mines, the copper archaeology, the cities, but do they have distinct style of pottery, or are there other key artifacts that you usually associate with the Edomites? If you're excavating a settlement, you notice something on a particular layer, and you say, ah, that is likely Edomite.
- [33:10]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Yeah, I mean, for me, again, it's anything associated with copper mining. These are the masters of it. Right. And so in some recent excavations that I was involved with, I found this pile of copper slag. And I'm still trying to figure out what in the world is this doing here. You know, my immediate thing is, like, the Edomites were here, you know, but we're talking about, you know, an area in a context that's much later. So, again, it's the sort of question is, you know, they're certainly not smelting it there, and there's no technological material that relates to it there. So are they literally going down into Wadi Otaba and saying, well, this slag looks cool, and bringing it back up and setting it in front of a tomb? I don't know yet. But that certainly is one of the iconic things. And, yeah, there are distinct Edomite styles of pottery, things like that, that we could certainly help identify. And there's enough of a difference, of course, between sort of Edomite script, Nabataean script, we would be able to tell that. And, of course, by the time you get to the Nabataean pottery, it's very fine ware, you know, looks a lot more like the sort of Roman pottery that we would see. So we should be able to find it in the archaeological record.
- [34:16]
Tristan Hughes
So although the kingdom of Edom seems to fade, does it seem like, as you mentioned earlier, that Herod, the great ancestry, Edomite, linked to the Edomites? Does the whole name of the Edomites, does that endure for a long time?
- [34:30]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
It certainly seems to. I mean, again, you Know, if we've got this sort of royal family who appears, establishes a kingdom, I mean, it's. It's Herod's dad who really kind of sets this thing in motion. They're not, at that point in time in disfavor anymore. Which, again, makes us wonder, you know, were they really hated, or are these just simply part of these historical texts and narratives that we get? You know, enough so to the point that if you can have a man ruling that area of the world at that point in time, when King Herod is ruling, and yet he is an Edomite, and of course, his mother is Nate. So let's start putting all those pieces together.
- [35:07]
Tristan Hughes
I remember when we were in Jordan, especially when Amman, in that area where we're talking about the Ammonites, and I immediately think of a dinosaur with the Ammonites or the sea creature, the Ammonites. And then, of course, the Moabites. And I think of the Stella of King Mesha and the Moabites. So those are two names of other peoples in the area who are also known from the Hebrew Bible, from the Old Testament. Well, it's almost as if they come in a three. You think Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. Is that too simplistic for getting a sense of this area of the world in, let's say, the. In the early first millennium BC it's.
- [35:41]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Not too simplistic, but, of course, there's a lot more nuance to it. Now. I've had the privilege now of excavating in all three of those kingdoms, and I'm a huge fan of the Moabites. Not gonna lie. There's some incredible things to see out there. I've had the privilege of working at a site called Khirbet al Bulua, right on the Wadi Mujib. So it's on a wadi that feeds into the mujib, this massive site entirely made out of basalt. So you get out there and it's just black rock everywhere. And, you know, there are still Iron Age houses intact up through the first story, but it's still. There's another story to tell there. And, you know, unfortunately, we have yet to really understand the Moabites. You know, we of course, have Mesha, who, as you mentioned in the stele, but he comes from the other side of the wadi, and his site is really quite small compared to Belua. And so it's like for me, for Mesha to be bragging about all of his prowess, and yet I'm looking at this massive city to the south of the wadi there. I'm like, how do these things all mesh up? I don't know yet. And the same thing, the Ammonites, I mean, what an incredible place that they live. I mean, the north of Jordan is so much more lush compared to the south. And the sites there are these very interesting sites. A lot more work has been done there. But again, we have yet to really clarify who are the Ammonites, their relation with the Moabites, what was their relation with the Edomites, you know, and unfortunately I lost the keys to my time machine, so I can't quite tell you about that yet.
- [37:07]
Tristan Hughes
But I mean, does it seem, at least from the outset, say from the archeology there, that they are very distinct cultures, that you can see differences between these different peoples who lived in different parts of Jordan, but at the same time?
- [37:18]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely. And again, like as you mentioned before, differences in pottery style, you know, so there's at least enough of a difference in material culture and we can see that evidenced there. So, yeah, there are distinct, but at the same time, we're probably looking at a blending of these cultures in many ways. You know, as we often talk about in anthropology and archaeology, is there's this idea of center and periphery, you know, so what you have at the center is probably the most conservative of a cultural style. So, you know, your center of the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites probably are very distinct. But then when you get to that periphery, that's where things start blending and you probably have people who could easily be intermingling from these different societies and kind of meshing into one another.
- [38:03]
Tristan Hughes
Thought came into my mind is you talked earlier about Aqaba and of course on the coast of the Red Sea. And something we remember about the Nabataeans is that, yes, we think of them for land trade, but also sea trade is important as well. I remember doing an interview very recently about later Roman trade with India and the importance of maritime trade there with the Edomites in that area of southern Jordan. Do we think they were also shipbuilders, that they had maritime trade there as well as the overland trade?
- [38:32]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Certainly, it seems to be that case. And again, if we look at the Old Testament record, there's mentions of King Solomon building fleets out there. And we can imagine at the same time that the Edomites were probably also seafaring people just as much as they were land faring people, you know, which also then we go back to the Nabataeans and there's great, great pieces of information there, actually, going back to the Greek text. You know, the Nabataeans are essentially accused of being pirates and just looting ships and taking ships and killing all the shipwrecked people. So there's a long history of seafaring people in that part of the Red Sea. Coming from Aqaba, that was a long, longstanding and really very important port.
- [39:13]
Tristan Hughes
God love it. It was like Aqaba was a Bronze Age Tortuga or something like that.
- [39:18]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Absolutely.
- [39:18]
Tristan Hughes
Quite cool, isn't it? Matt, this has been absolutely brilliant. We've covered so many different aspects of the Edomites. They're still very much shrouded in mystery, aren't they? But is there anything else that you want to highlight about the Edomites and what we should be thinking about when someone next mentions the Edomites? Of course, you know, naturally in your chats down the pub, that topic will.
- [39:38]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Come up as it does. You know, I think we've covered a lot of the really important things. But again, you know, I think what's really interesting for us to think about as we look at these ancient cultures is this was an organized society and if we were there as a visitor, imagine we could understand the language and everything else. I think we'd probably see a lot of things that are very familiar to us. The way that people live, the way that they conduct themselves on a day to day basis. It would be absolutely incredible. There would be a lot that seems very familiar and a lot that would seem very, very foreign to us.
- [40:10]
Tristan Hughes
And may I also ask, in the most polite way possible, what were you doing over here in the uk? What are you doing over here in the uk?
- [40:20]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
So, I mean, there's two things I do have to admit. I came over for a wedding, but at the same time, part of that was taking advantage of the trip to personally deliver samples from our recent excav. So these samples are light sensitive samples, so they're for optically stimulated luminescence, which we can use to date soil layers. And it's the safest way to get them up there. And you think about the money that goes into an excavation, we can't risk just sending it by post. So, you know, it was personally making sure it got delivered to the people at St Andrews who are now working through these samples. Wow.
- [40:55]
Tristan Hughes
Archeology. Very cool indeed. Very cool stuff. Matt, this has been brilliant. Lastly, you work with the American center of Research out in Georg Jordan. Tell us a bit about what you do out there.
- [41:05]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
So my job is, I'm actually the director of the National Inventory Project. So we're working on putting together a catalog of all of the movable cultural heritage, which is cultural heritage speak for objects and artifacts. So everything you might see in a museum we're putting into a database. We're doing this in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities and it's from a very generous grant that we've got from the US State Department that lets us work on this and it'll be a first in the region. So a national database. And we hope that this helps in preventing illicit trafficking, but also really helps us move forward our understanding of Edomites, Nabataeans, Ammonites, Moabites and many other cultures.
- [41:47]
Tristan Hughes
Well, Matt, we're very grateful for your time and it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
- [41:52]
Dr. Matthew Vincent
Tristan, always a pleasure.
- [41:57]
Tristan Hughes
Well, there you go. There was Dr. Matthew Vincent talking all about the Edomites. It was great to interview Matthew whilst he was over here in Britain and I really do hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for listening to it. Please follow the Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor. Don't forget you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe as a special gift. You can also get 50% off your first three months when you use code Ancients at checkout. That's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.
- [42:50]
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