Excavations at Khirbet 'Aujah Foqa shed light on late Iron Age, Mamluk-Ottoman occupations

AMMAN — Khirbet 'Aujah Foqa is a site located some 11 km northwest of Jericho and covers the area of 15-dunnum.

Professor of History and Religion from Averrett University Ralph Hawkins worked in 2020 on the northern side of the site. Below the area on the northern slopes, a series of "support" walls or structures can be seen on the surface. Lower on the northern slope, scholars found a structure that may have been an outer tower guarding this pathway, delimited by a straight wall along the slope.

"On the eastern side, a straight wall can be seen running down the slope, while a transverse support wall was cleaned above the wall in 2020.Here, the area to the southern, inner side of the casemate wall was excavated, and at least one structure was found," the professor said. 

"So far, about 10 excavation squares have been excavated. This excavation will also clarify whether the casemate wall was generally freestanding, as in the case of the section excavated in Area A, or whether additional structures were connected to or combined with it," Hawkins underscored.

This late, roughly rounded structure (probably Mamluk-Ottoman in date) was built using medium-sized stones, mostly robbed from earlier structures. It is 7.5 metres in diameter, with an inner floor area of 4–5 metres wide. Its entrance was on its northern side, while its southern side was attached to another rounded late structure. The finds on the floor level of the structure were mixed with those from modern squatters, Hawkins said.

"Structure 15 was dismantled during the 2021 season, enabling the excavation of Building 1042 to be completed. However, this structure seems to be part of a larger complex. Building 1042 contains six rooms," said Hawkins, adding that the building's entrance may have been in its south-western corner, although this is not yet clear. 

According to the professor, a possible additional entrance was from the north, where an open area was excavated; however, the wall found there was poorly preserved. The building measures about 10×9.5 m. 

The rooms are of different sizes, and their floors, usually on bedrock, slope from south to north, and were usually either on bedrock or a mud plaster layer that levelled the bedrock in some areas, he added. 

"The function and nature of Building 1042 is yet to be determined. It is unclear whether it is a domestic structure, part of a storage-related administrative complex, or some combination of the two. The general outline of the house plan may resemble that of a four-room house, common during the Iron Age in the southern Levant," Hawkins speculated.

Yet, it is not clear whether the central area is an open area or a columned courtyard, as in many houses of this kind, the professor said. 

The finds from the structure thus far may suggest storage (numerous jars) and cooking (several tabun ovens and cooking pots); this combination could fit a large house or some sort of military barracks where food was stored and cooked for groups of people, Hawkins speculated, adding that this may be surmised from the multiplicity of tabuns in this area.

Meanwhile, a large amount of pottery has been recovered, especially from some of the casemate spaces in Area A and Structure 1042 in Area B. Rooms A and C in Structure 1042 contained over 20 complete vessels, some currently still in reconstruction, said Hawkins, noting that these include storage jars of the typical "hippo" type, cooking pots, a chalice, and a jug and juglets. 

"So far, only the pottery from Area A has been fully reconstructed, including kraters, cooking pots, storage jars, a spouted jar/amphora, amphoriskoi, and jugs and juglets. Because the pottery has not yet been fully restored and analysed, a more detailed discussion of the pottery will be published separately," Hawkins underscored.

Representative vessels, mainly from the casemate area, indicate forms that appear mostly during the late Iron Age IIA and early Iron Age IIB (the 9th and early 8th centuries BCE), with most parallels probably coming from northern sites, the professor concluded.