Decoding economic, political landscape of Tell Abu Kharaz

AMMAN – Tell Abu Kharaz is situated in the northern Jordan Valley and it was a small urban centre in the Early Bronze Age. Scholars tried to reconstruct life in that settlement and some written sources from the Southern Levant can help to put those puzzle together and analyse the life and economy of Tell Abu Kharaz.

“The closest we can come to “written” evidence is the increasing collection of pot marks from various sites including Tell Abu Kharaz,” noted the Swedish scholar from the University of Gothenburg Peter Fischer. 

Fischer added that there are basically only two sources that support the speculations on reconstructions of the political and administrative system during the Early Bronze Age. One of the problems in interpretation of written sources is impartiality.

"The greater part of the written evidence which is used by many scholars in connection with society-related studies derives from the Ottoman Empire, which administered Palestine for approximately 400 years," underlined Fischer, noting that the true nature of the administration and politics of the small urban centre is hard to assess. 

Tell Abu Kharaz was most likely centrally administered because the construction work of the defence system and cultic and administrative structures, Fisher outlined. 

The scholar added that the organisation of the water supply, the organisation of the farming activities including the supervision and distribution of the crops for immediate use, the storage of the crops for use during unproductive periods, the handling and trading of the surplus from farming and breeding, the distribution of the grazing land for animals and so on, are all activities that need a centralised system of government in terms of efficiency. 

"The government supervised all land which belonged to the domains of Tell Abu Kharaz. This includes not only the land for crop-growing but also the grazing land. The [relative] authority of this government may also have extended into grazing areas in the hinterland to the east and maybe as far as the area where the Transjordanian plateau begins," the scholar said. 

"These areas were not absolutely necessary in order to feed the town’s animals but they could have been rented to nomadic tribes which had to pay tribute," Fisher said, adding that the heads of the most influential families of Tell Abu Kharaz supervised the various parts of these governmental duties. 

A manager/“king” was necessary in order to coordinate the various obligations and keep the system running smoothly. This administrative head may have been chosen by the other heads of the most influential families. 

Their choice was most probably based on this specific person’s particular knowledge, skills, strength, wealth or kinship connection with an important neighbour, for example, Pella or Tell es-Sacidiyeh. 

"Another possibility is that this person was self-elected and accepted because of some of the listed “superior” qualities," Fisher underlined.

Regarding economic prosperity, the main source was horticulture and cattle- breeding.

The charred plant remains from Tell Abu Kharaz include different types of grain, among which emmer, einkorn and barley predominate. 

"Certain find contexts, especially store rooms in Area 2 in the western part of the town, contained cereals in large jars, wooden containers and circular stone silos of such quantities as to suggest that the area from which they derive was a centrally administered grain storage area during the Early Bronze Age: the excavated amount of grain is far too much to be used by a single household," Fisher elaborated.

The scholar noted that the grain was very likely distributed by a central administration within the town, but was certainly also of economic significance as a medium of exchange for coveted goods.

Other cultivated species are broad bean, lentil, flax, olive, grape, including dried fruit, fig and pistachio. Surplus from horticultural products and from gathering could be traded. Wood from the forests to the east was an additional trading resource. Also trade in incense might have flourished.

"Traded animal products were another source of income. The osteological remains include mainly caprines, i.e. sheep and goats, cattle and pigs, the last of which were of subordinate economic value due to their low abundance." 

"Other animal remains include fallow deer, gazelle, dog, equid, rodent, cat, fox, brown bear, different birds and hippo," Fisher said, adding that a small amount of fish remains, not only from the nearby Jordan River but also very likely from the Nile, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, point to far-reaching contacts with other cultures either directly or more via middlemen.