Endnote 14 – “This is the Taste of Death”

Even the recent evidence of a humble farming community in Emek Rephaim, outside of Jerusalem (See G. Edelstein and E. Eisenberg, “Emek Refaim,” Excavations and Surveys in Israel 4 [1985]; G. Edelstein and I. Milevski, “The Rural Settlement of Jerusalem Re-evaluated: Surveys and Excavations in the Repha’im Valley and Mevasseret Yerushalayim,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 126 [1994], pp. 2–23.) alongside the many granary pits at Iktanu on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley (K. Prag, “Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Tell Iktanu, Jordan 1989,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 34 [1990], pp. 119–130.) and the fortifications at Khirbet Iskander (S. Richard, “The Early Bronze IV Fortified Site of Khirbet Iskander, Jordan: Third Preliminary Report, 1984 Season,” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research Supplement 25 [1988], pp. 107–130.) do not radically alter the picture. Incidentally, it has now been discovered that the fortified EB IV/MB I site at Khirbet Iskander in fact had its beginnings in the true EB period. (S. Richard and C. Long, “Report on the 1997 Excavations of Khirbet Iskander, Jordan,” paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Napa, CA, Nov. 1997.) Therefore, it is probably an EB III fortification taken over by the EB IV/MB I population, not a fortress from the EB IV/MB I.