Tall al-Fukhār is a small (around 3ha) but interesting settlement in the Wadi Shallalah, close to the border of Syria and Jordan. The site was excavated over five seasons by a joint Swedish-Danish expedition directed respectively by Magnus Ottosson (1990–1991) and John Strange (1992–1993, 2002). The resulting excavation report arrives some 14 years after the final season of work at the site (2002), itself undertaken 9 years after the main campaign of the early 1990s. It is nonetheless a very important contribution to knowledge of the region between southern Syria and the northern Jordanian plateau up to the Wadi Yarmouk.
The initial reason for the selection of Tall al-Fukhār for investigation was to “throw light upon the wars between the kingdoms of northern Israel and Aram-Damaskus” (p. 9)—a historical problem with a strong Biblical allure. Has this particular motivation negatively influenced the results? I think not. For not only did the expedition implement a rigorous archaeological method, involving skilled scholars from several institutions, but also because the archaeological evidence uncovered concerns multiple periods and relates to a range of wider questions; moreover, the investigators did not discover any evidence for the specific period that they set out to find.
The results of the excavations are thoroughly documented in Volume I, while Volume II collates photographs, plans, pottery and finds drawings, colour plates and charts. The Introduction starts with an explanation of the intricate history of the expedition and then presents the site in the wider context of the Wadi Shallalah and an evaluation of the settlement patterns of this (often neglected) district. It is noteworthy that the occupation of Tall al-Fukhār alternated with activity at neighbouring single-period sites, such as Early Bronze Khirbet ez-Zeraqon or Middle Bronze Tell es-Subba. Tall al-Fukhār was, in fact, the main regional site during the Late Bronze II and Iron I, as originally suggested by S. Mittmann. The volume presents an overall stratigraphy of the site, which, even if a little synthetic, is now an essential tool for the full historical evaluation of Tall al-Fukhār.
The tell summit (areas B, C and D) yielded substantial architectural remains dating to the Late Bronze II and to what the excavators label the ‘Transitional LB IIB–Iron IA’. In the Late Bronze IIB layers, a small part of a major building (or ‘palace’), belonging to the Late Bronze Syro-Palestinian tradition, was uncovered. This building is taken by the excavators as evidence for considering the city to have been an Egyptian vassal, possibly to be identified with the toponym Zarqu in the Amarna Letters. (Khirbet er-Ruseifah, in the Wadi Zarqa, is an alternative candidate.) If, as suggested, Tall al-Fukhār was a vassal, the abandonment of the site at the end of Late Bronze IIB, as attested in area B, can thus be understood to relate to the Egyptian withdrawal from Palestine at the end of the Late Bronze Age.
The ‘palace’ area was reoccupied in the Iron I period by squatters who reused Late Bronze architectural elements. This is clearly illustrated in the section drawings, which are very neatly produced and explained. With well-concealed disappointment, the excavators note the abandonment of the site in the Iron IIA–B period—that is, the period of the wars between the kingdoms of northern Israel and Aram-Damascus. Nonetheless, in relation to later reoccupations, the Hellenistic villa excavated in areas C and D represents another important result of the expedition.
The graphical documentation provided in these volumes is generally of a high standard, although schematic plans and a continuous line delimiting each single wall would have helped the reader to understand the excavators’ interpretations and reconstructions better. The study and illustration of the pottery is excellent and includes the use of neutron activation analysis. Other finds and faunal remains are also very well illustrated. The radiocarbon dates, as is often the case, are not decisive on a site largely occupied during the second and first millennia BC.
The decision of John Strange to go back to Tall al-Fukhār in 2002 in order to deepen the investigation of the Early Bronze Age layers proved to be the right one. In particular, the results illuminate the potential role of the site in relation to the nearby urban centre of Khirbet ez-Zeraqon. The latter was formed as a result of the concentration of public functions onto the fortified hilltop town through a process of synoecism during the Early Bronze II. Tall al-Fukhār was a large Early Bronze I rural village on the bank of the wadi that preceded and fed into this urban formation process. This resembles the situation at Khirbet al-Batrawy in the Upper Wadi az-Zarqa, Jordan, where the population also moved up to a fortified hilltop town at this time.
The resulting report is a commendable contribution to the archaeology of the Levant.
