ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHECK-UP ON JABAL ASH-SHARAH: EDOMITE KHIRBAT AL-KUR Ulrich Hübner and Manfred Lindner Introduction The Petra region in southern Jordan, Edom in antiquity, has already revealed a fair amount of Late Iron (1A/IIC) settlement. Except for Umm al- Biyara e t) and Tawilän (ü54, 5.1..), the following Edomite sites were discovered and identified by Naturhistorische Gesellschaft Nürnberg (NHG) (Germany) during the last 20 years (Lindner and Zangenberg 1999: 281-316): Ba`ja III (it e.,9 ), Umm al-`Ala (as-Sädah) Jabal al-Qßayr Khirbat al-Mu'allaq Jabal al- Khubtha Kutl II (jr,$) and Dräj III ( c t J .1), the latter two situated on Jabal as-Suffaba, were sur- veyed in cooperation with U. Hübner, University of Kiel (Germany) (Lindner et al. 1998: 225-240), Moreover, Khirbat al-`Arja (4 9_.11) and Khirbat al- Minya (t_4.4.11), identified previously by N. Glueck as Edomite sites, were visited and sherded. Lately, U. Hübner reported on the newly examined Edom- ite stranghold of Qurayyät al-Mansür (2002: 263-276). Examination of 1999 Turning from the Huwälah crossing on Wädi Müsä ash-Shübak road toward west, a hitherto seerningly unknown khirba to the north of an im- pressive shaykh's tomb was reached in 1999 (Figs. 1, 2). The khirbah is located on a mound above and to the vvest of a narrow road which is mostly used for fieldwork and for die removal, legal or not, of stone material (Fig. 3). A second dirt road runs to the east, with both roads converging to the main road north of a spring. On first sight, no terraces or foundations were discerned in a tumbled mass of coarsely hewn limestone ashlars. The khirbah as- cends in a northerly direction to an elevation of 1300m asl, a spot where most of the stones have apparently been taken away, and ends toward the west at the rim of a steep slope. Well-hewn ashlars seem to belong to a ranapart in the east, where it was and is easiest to approach. Rainwater could be stored in cisterns intra nutros, one of them def- initely a built-up, robbed cave cistern similar to others detected on Jabal as-Suffakta. Dakhlallah Qublan from Petra — Umm Saybün (5 3 called the place Khirbat an-Eraq. Actually "Khirbat al-lräq" was mentioned by Musil who on his way from ash-Shawbak to Wädi Müsä explored the re- gion a hundred years ago. Musil described Khirbat as situated on a terrace of the steep western slope of the ash-Sharäh ridge possessing ample good water from an old built channel. He reported to have seen "Khirbat Kutl" on the wooded ridge of Jabal as-Saffalia (1907: 329, 343), undoubtedly identical with Edomite Kutl II discovered and de- scribed by NHG and University of Kiel in 1998 (Fig. 4). Confusion of Site Names? Among several Late Iron sites on Jabal ash- Sharä, a "Khirbat al - slräq (No. 008) was identified by S. Hart and R.F. Falkner during their Edom sur- vey (1985: 255-277). The description is sparse, di- vulging not more than the existence there of an "isolated building" or "watchtower". (1907: 329) The other four sites enumerated and identified through IA/IIC surface ceramics by Hart and Fal- kner were Khirbat al-Kür c »..‹.J1219)._:,.)(No. 068) as a "walled settlement", `Ayn al-lräq (Nr. 087), Khir- bat al-`lräq (No. 088) and Khirbat al-Waybida (No. 089). As the description "walled settlement" fits rather "our - site, names and/or numbers may have been confused. According to information received from local people, "our" site is called al-Kür (or "el-Kor" as Musil wrote in 1907), whereas the names `Ayn al-`lräq and Khirbat belang to the area ca. 800m to the north, now comprising the spring, a shaykh's totnb and a cemetery. To the north and right by the shaykh's tomb there are the remnants of a presumed watch tower. lt may have controlled a road and the spring Ayn al-'lräq. Seen from there, Khirbat al-Kür unmistakably crowns the hill to the south. Situated farther north, Khirbat (a1-Gn6ne) Genina, too, beside some bedouin stone -225-