The Formation of Idumean Identity

aram trade routes & seafaring in the ancient near east the idumeans and the nabateans volume 27, 1 & 2 2015 ARAM 27:1&2 (2015), 187-202 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY YIGAL LEVIN (Bar-Ilan University) Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the connection between the identity of the Iron-Age Edomites, who lived in a kingdom that was centered east of the Arabah, and the Persian and Hellenistic Period Idumeans, who lived in what used to be southern Judah. From what we now know, the Iron Age kingdom of Edom was terminated by Nabonidus in 553/552 BCE, but ‘Edomites’ had begun migrating into the Negev of Judah as early as the 8th century. The collapse of the kingdom of Edom seems to have been total – unlike Moab and Ammon, even the name Edom disappeared from the area. Old Edom became part of ‘Arabia’, controlled by the Qedarites in the Persian Period and by the Nabateans in the Hellenistic Period. The Edomites west of the ‘Arabah now became the preservers of Edomite culture, particularly due to the worship of QWS, as seen in personal names from Beer-sheba, Arad, Khirbet el-Kôm/Makkedah, Mareshah and other sites. From the inscriptions and other sources, it would seem that the ‘Edomites’ were not a majority of the population. Rather, there was a mix of ‘Edomites’, Arabs, Judeans, Phoenicians and others. There is no evidence of a ‘province’ of Idumea during the Persian Period – such a unit is not mentioned in contemporary sources and no coins or stamps of such a province have been found. Rather, we propose that the area was transferred from Judah to the Arab Qedarites by Cambyses in the summer of 525. According to Herodotus, Cambyses employed the aid of ‘the king of the Arabs’ who supplied water for the Persian troops and guided them through the desert to the borders of Egypt. Herodotus then tells us that the coast from Kadytis (Gaza) southward ‘belonged’ to the Arabs – it would seem that the entire area south of Beth-zur, including the port of Gaza and the roads leading to it, were transferred to the Qedarites in exchange for their aid. Within the Qedarite-controlled area, the ‘Idumean’ element seems to have grown, and worship of QWS became a main sign of identity. The inscriptions show that the ethnic and cultural boundaries between the various groups were not well-defined – we find Judean, Idumean, Arab and Phoenician names within the same family groups. Circumcision was practiced, as well as other ‘Jewish’ rituals. After the destruction of Gaza by Alexander in 333 and the defeat of the Qedarites by Antigonus in 312, the area was reorganized and a ‘hyparchy’ of Idumea was established, named for what was now the region’s majority group. This unit is first mentioned in the Zenon papyri from 259 BCE. It continued to exist until it was taken over by John Hyrcanus sometime after the death of Antiochus VII in 129 B.C.E. Despite Josephus’ claim that the Idumeans were forcibly converted to Judaism, it would seem that their transition was actually not difficult – which matches the ethnic flexibility of the previous period. When Pompey and Gabinius detached the ‘non-Jewish’ areas from the Hasmonean state, Idumea remained part of Judea and, according to Josephus, a contingent of ‘Idumeans’ were active inside Jerusalem during the war of 66-73 CE. INTRODUCTION: FROM EDOM TO IDUMEA The purpose of this paper is to examine the connection between the identity of the Iron-Age Edomites, living in a kingdom that was centered east of the Arabah, and the Persian and Hellenistic Period Idumeans, living in what had been southern Judah. The first comment that we would like to make, however, is that the distinction in terminology is a modern one, existing in neither ancient Hebrew nor Greek. Hebrew uses ‘Edom’ for both groups, while in Greek, the Septuagint, followed by Josephus, uses Idoumaia to refer to the Iron-Age kingdom.1 The very first attestations of ‘Edom’ as a specific 1 As in the case of ‘Jew’, ‘Judean’ and ‘Judahite’ or ‘Samarian’ and ‘Samaritan’, modern English has more forms to choose from. In this paper, we shall also use the form ‘Edomite’ to refer to ethnic Edomites residing in Persian-Period Idumea. 188 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY group go back to Egyptian sources of the late thirteenth century BCE.2 Based on the few Iron-Age inscriptions found on both sides of the Arabah, Vanderhooft has concluded that the Edomite dialect was Northwest Semitic, ‘in the Canaanite linguistic group’.3 This undoubtedly matches the biblical view of the Edomites as Israel’s ‘brothers’.4 There is a debate on the precise date and process by which a full-fledged Edomite kingdom arose,5 but the existence of such a kingdom by the seventh century BCE is clearly attested in contemporary Assyrian inscriptions, in a small number of seal impressions mentioning kings of Edom, in a few of the Arad ostraca and by what seems to be a distinctive Edomite material culture, on both sides of the Arabah valley.6 Like its northwestern neighbor Judah, Edom managed to survive the Neo-Assyrian Period as a vassal kingdom, and several kings of Edom are mentioned in Neo-Assyrian sources.7 Edom actually out-lived Judah within the Neo-Babylonian realm, becoming the last Levantine kingdom to fall. But fall it finally did, apparently as part of Nabonidus’ 553/552 campaign to Tema in Arabia. This is affirmed by mention of [U]dummu in the Neo-Babylonian chronicle, by the cliff-side relief discovered at Sela in southern Jordan in 1994,8 and especially by the fact that no such state as Edom is known to exist in later periods.9 Bienkowski shows that there is almost no evidence of direct continuity of an Edomite settlement east of the ʿArabah through the sixth century and into the Persian Period.10 The area that had been Iron-Age Edom was now a part of ‘Arabia’. In fact, although we have no specific evidence of wide-scale deportations from For surveys see J.R. Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites (JSOTSup. 77; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 67-82; T.E. Levy, ‘Ethnic Identity in Biblical Edom, Israel, and Midian: Some insights from Mortuary Contexts in the Lowlands of Edom’ in Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (ed. J.D. Schloen; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 252; A. Lemaire, ‘Edom and the Edomites’, in The Books of Kings; Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception (VTsup 129; ed. A. Lemaire and B. Halpern; Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2010), 226. 3 D.S. Vanderhooft, ‘The Edomite Dialect and Script: A Review of the Evidence’, in You Shall Not Abhor an Edomite for he is your Brother: Edom and Seir in History and Tradition (ed. D. Edelman; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 137. This is contrary to the claim by M. Avi-Yonah, The Holy Land from the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C. to A.D.640) – A Historical Geography (revised ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1977), 26, that they were ‘of Arabian stock’. For a rather forced recent return to this view of Edomites as Arabs see I. Shahîd, ‘The Ethnic Origin of the Edomites’, Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 10 (2009), 133-136. 4 On which see J.R. Bartlett, ‘The Brotherhood of Edom’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 4 (1977), 2-27. 5 For which see Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 115-128; I. Finkelstein, ‘Khirbet en-Nahas, Edom and Biblical History’, Tel Aviv 32 (2005), 119-125; T.E. Levy, ‘Lowland Edom and the High and Low Chronologies: Edomite State Formation, the Bible and Recent Archaeological Research in Southern Jordan’, in The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating; Archaeology, Text and Science (ed. T.E. Levy and T. Higham; London: Equinox, 2005), 129-163 and references therein. 6 For which see Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 67-145; P. Bienkowski, ‘The Edomites: The Archaeological Evidence from Transjordan’, in You Shall Not Abhor an Edomite for he is your Brother: Edom and Seir in History and Tradition (ed. D. Edelman; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 41-92; I. Beit Arieh, ‘The Edomites in Cisjordan’, in You Shall Not Abhor an Edomite for he is your Brother: Edom and Seir in History and Tradition (ed. D. Edelman; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 3340. For a more recent short history of the Edomite kingdom see Lemaire, ‘Edom and the Edomites’. For a recent analysis of the distinctive ‘Edomite pottery’ see Y. Thareani, ‘The Spirit of Clay: "Edomite Pottery" and Social Awareness in the Late Iron Age’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 359 (2010), 35-55. 7 Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 128-145. 8 S. Dalley and A. Goguel, ‘The Sela Sculpture: A Neo-Babylonian Rock Relief in Southern Jordan’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities in Jordan 41 (1997), 169-176; Lemaire, ‘Edom and the Edomites’, 240-242. 9 Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (2nd ed.; trans. A.F. Rainey; London: Burns & Oates, 1979), 408, thought that Edom had ‘collapsed under pressure from the Nabataeans who had penetrated the southern regions of Transjordan’, while J.R. Bartlett, ‘Edomites and Idumaeans’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 131 (1999), 105, attributed the ‘collapse and subsequent decay’ of Edom to the disruption of trade following the destruction of Judah, rather than to a purposeful move by the Neo-Babyloneans. The Sela carving seems to prove that the Edomite kingdom was purposely disbanded by Nabonidus, perhaps even after an armed struggle. See also B.L. Crowell, ‘Nabonidus, as-Sila , and the Beginning of the End of Edom’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 348 (2007), 75-88. 10 Bienkowski, ‘The Edomites: The Archaeological Evidence from Transjordan’, 60-61, although in a later article (Idem, ‘New Evidence on Edom in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods’, in The Land That I Will Show You; Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honour of J. Maxwell Miller (JSOTsup 343; ed. J.A. Dearman and M.P. Graham; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 198-213), he cites some evidence of both Neo-Babylonian and PersianPeriod re-building and occupation at Busayra (biblical Bozrah, the apparent capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Edom) at Tawilan and at Tell el-Kheleifah near Eilat. He then speculates that there could have been ‘some sort of political entity called Edom’ throughout the Persian Period, while at the same time admitting that ‘at present there is no evidence’ of this. In light of the data collected here, we consider this to be very unlikely. 2 YIGAL LEVIN 189 Edom, the collapse of Edomite society was so complete, that unlike the persistence of the names Moabitis and Ammonitis into the Hellenistic Period and later, the name Edom totally disappeared from the area east of the Wadi ʿArabah. In the Persian Period, this area was controlled by the Arab tribes known as Qedar (see below), later to be replaced by the Nabateans.11 Iron-Age Edom had deceased. However, by the early Hellenistic Period, an administrative unit (an eparchia or hyparchia – different sources use different terms) called ‘Idumea’, which included the Arad and Beer-sheba valleys, the southern Shephelah and the southern Judean Hills, did exist. This unit is first mentioned in Diodorus Siculus’ description of the events that occurred in the area in the year 312 BCE (Bibliotheca Historica xix 94-95, 98),12 but this reference is geographical, meant to elucidate the position of the ‘Asphaltic Lake’ (the Dead Sea), and cannot be taken as proof that Idumea was already organized as a political unit by this time. The earliest reference to Idumea as an administrative unit can be found in the Zenon papyri from Cairo. They record the journey of a Ptolemaic tax-collector named Zenon; he traveled from the port of Gaza through Marisa (Mareshah) to Adoreon (Adora, southwest of Hebron) in 259 BCE.13 From further references in 1 Maccabees and in various quotes by Josephus, it is clear that in the second century BCE, the region south of Beth-zur was known as Idumea and was considered to be separate from Judea, at least until it was taken over by John Hyrcanus sometime after the death of Antiochus VII in 129 BCE (Antiquities 13.256-257; War 1.63). THE EDOMITES MIGRATE WEST So what, if any, is the connection between the Iron-Age kingdom of Edom east of the Arabah, and the Hellenistic-Period hyparchy of Idumea, west of the Dead Sea? There is ample evidence of Edomite settlement in the Negev as early as the seventh century.14 It would seem that a sizable Edomite population lived within southern Judah by this time, perhaps worshipping at the shrine at Qiṭmit southwest of Arad as well as that at En a eva.15 An ostracon which Naveh classified as ‘Edomite’, and a seal with the personal name qws , (which includes the name of the Edomote deity Qaus), both apparently from the seventh century BCE, were found at Aroer in the Negev.16 According to the Thareani, Aroer, frequented by Edomites and Arabians, was a caravan center on the southern frontier of Judah.17 In time, the Judahites came to view these Edomites as ‘invaders’ and their country of origin as ‘the enemy’. The most widely held, is that during the later stages of the Iron Age, the Edomites ‘invaded’ the territory of southern Judah, establishing a presence in the eastern Negev. As the kingdom of Judah fell, the Edomites took over its southern regions. This explains the extreme anger towards Edom as recorded in biblical texts (such as Psalm 137:7; Obadiah;18 Malachi 1:2-4 and others) as well as the famous Arad ostraca nos. 24 (‘lest Edom should come there’) and 40 (‘the evil which Edo[m has For a survey of relevant sources see Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 168-172. Actually quoting the third century Hieronymus of Cardia. 13 See Bartlett, ‘Edomites and Idumaeans’, 106. 14 See I. Beit Arieh, ‘The Edomites in Cisjordan’; Idem, ‘Judah versus Edom in the Eastern Negev’, Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 10 (2009), 597-602. 15 For a brief overview see I. Eph‘al, ‘The Origins of Idumaea’, Qadmoniot 36 (126) (2003) 77-79 (Hebrew). For the shrine at Qiṭmit see I. Beit-Arieh, Horvat Qitmit: An Edomite Shrine in the Biblical Negev (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1995). For En a eva see R. Cohen and Y. Yisrael, ‘The Iron Age Fortresses at ‘En Haseva’, Biblical Archaeologist 58 (1995), 223-135. 16 J. Naveh, ‘An Edomite Inscription’, in Tel Aroer: The Iron Age II Caravan Town and the Hellenistic-Early Roman Settlement (vol. 1: Text; ed. Y. Thareani; Jerusalem: Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, 2011), 227; N. Avigad and B. Sass, ‘An Edomite Seal’, loc. cit., allowing however that the seal may be even earlier than the seventh century. 17 Y. Thareani, Tel Aroer: The Iron Age II Caravan Town and the Hellenistic-Early Roman Settlement (vol. 1: Text; Jerusalem: Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology, Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, 2011), 304. 18 For which see recently E.B. Farisani, ‘The Ethnic Tensions between the Edomites and the Israelites in Obadiah’, Journal for Semitics 19 (2010), 566-583. 11 12 190 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY done]’).19 This is also the explanation given by Beit Arieh and Cresson of their find of an Edomite ostracon among 34 Hebrew inscriptions in the Judahite fortress at orvat Uza: ‘the fort was captured by the Edomites shortly before the Babylonian conquest… the eastern part of the Judean Negev was occupied by the Edomites…’20 To what extent the Edomite kingdom, as a vassal of Babylon, took an active part in the destruction of the towns and fortresses of southern Judah has been debated, as has the extent of actual political and military control that Edom achieved in the area.21 The evidence suggests that by the time Judah fell in 586 BCE, a substantial Edomite population in southern Judah had been established, and when the Edomite kingdom eventually fell, it was these people who continued to carry on the Edomite language, cult and identity.22 It is to these ‘western’ Edomites to which we now turn. WHEN DID IDUMEA BECOME A PROVINCE? In his book published in the 1960’s, Avi-Yonah summarized what was then the general view: ‘south of Judah was the province of Idumaea, inhabited by Edomite Arabs who moved there after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. It included all southern Judah, from Beth-zur to Beersheba, except for the coastal plain. Its capital may have been Lachish, Mareshah, or even Hebron, the ancient capital of Judah’.23 We have already stated that the Edomites were not ‘Arabs’. Arguably, Eph‘al was the first to challenge the old paradigm, by realizing that the province of Idumea was only formed after the Macedonian conquest, officially recognizing what had by then become the main population of the area.24 In a paper published in 2007, we also challenged the view that there was, in fact, a province of Idumea during the Persian Period.25 Such a province is not mentioned in any of our sources for the period, literary or epigraphic. Within the Bible, Nehemiah’s southern neighbor and enemy is ‘Geshem the Arab’ (Nehemiah 2:6), who, as we now know, was a Qedarite (see below), not an Edomite. We know of no stamps or coins issued by such a province, at a time when they were being issued by Samaria, Yehud, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod and the various Phoenician cities.26 As Eph‘al and Naveh 19 Y. Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (In cooperation with J. Naveh and A.F. Rainey; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 46-49; 70-74, although over the years there have been several other suggestions on the precise reading of no. 40. See most recently N. Na’aman, ‘Textual and Historical Notes on the Eliashib Archive from Arad’, Tel Aviv 38 (2011), 83-93 and references there. 20 I. Beit Arieh and B. Cresson, ‘Horvat Uza, A Fortified Outpost on the Eastern Negev Border’, Biblical Archaeologist 54 (1991), 134. 21 A. Lemaire, ‘Edom and the Edomites’, 240, believes that from 587 or 582 to 552 Edom actually did control ‘the whole Negev, as well as the southern Shephelah and Judean mountains’. He considers this period, just prior to its destruction by Nabonidus, to be ‘the zenith of the Edomite Kingdom’. Na’aman, ‘Textual and Historical Notes on the Eliashib Archive from Arad’, 89-90, believes that they attacked and destroyed the Judahite fortresses in the Negev just prior to the fall of Jerusalem. Thareani, Tel Aroer, 307, suggests that Aroer and other Judahite sites may have been destroyed by ‘local tribal groups, with Edomite cultural connections, people who had co-existed with the Judean settlers for approximately 150 years’. 22 Contrary to the rather innovative idea put forth by Bartlett (‘Edomites and Idumaeans’, 112-113), according to which there was no ethnic or linguistic connection between the Iron Age Edomites and the later Idumeans, except their similar name, which in both cases was derived from the Hebrew ‘adamah’ – meaning red, ‘terra rosa’ soil. 23 M. Avi-Yonah, The Holy Land from the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C. to A.D.640) – A Historical Geography (revised ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1977), 25-26. 24 Eph‘al, ‘The Origins of Idumaea’. 25 Y. Levin, ‘The Southern Frontier of Yehud and the Creation of Idumea’, in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period (Library of Second Temple Studies 65; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 239-252. 26 For the coins of the neighboring provinces see L. Mildenberg, ‘On Fractional Silver Issues in Palestine’, Transeuphratène 20 (2000), 89-100; S.N. Gerson, ‘Fractional Coins of Judea and Samaria in the Fourth Century BCE', Near Eastern Archaeology 64 (2001), 106-121; O. Tal, ‘Coin Denominations and Weight Standards in Fourth-Century BCE Palestine’, Israel Numismatic Research 2 (2007), 17-28; Idem, ‘Negotiating Identity in an International Context under Achaemenid Rule: The Indigenous Coinages of Persian-Period Palestine as an Allegory’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context (ed. O. Lipschits, G.N. Knoppers and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 445-459. This despite the suggestion by H. Gitler, O. Tal and P. van Alfen, ‘Silver Domeshaped Coins from Persian-period Southern Palestine’, Israel Numismatic Research 2 (2007), 47-62, to identify a group of imageless-obverse coins found in the area as ‘Edomite’, precisely because they have no inscriptions or mint-marks. They YIGAL LEVIN 191 have pointed out in their study of the ostraca, said to have been found at Khirbet el el-Kôm situated near the Mareshah-Hebron road and identified as the biblical Makkedah;27 ‘our ostraca do not contain any administrative or professional titles, and indicate nothing about state or regional administration’.28 As most scholars now recognize, the area south of Beth-zur, rather than being ruled by Edomites/Idumeans, was actually ruled by an Arabic-speaking group known as the Qedarites. The eponym of this group (spelled ‘Kedar’ in most English translations) appears in the Bible as Ishmael’s second son, after Nebaioth (Gen. 25:13).29 The Qedarites are well-attested in the Bible and in Assyrian inscriptions from the late eighth century onward.30 It would seem that by the mid-fifth century at the latest, these Qedarite Arabs had established their control over the Negev and Sinai, as well as the old land of Edom. As already stated, ‘Geshem the Arab’ is mentioned as Nehemiah’s southern neighbor and enemy in Nehemiah 2:6. His name and that of his son Qynw, designated ‘king of Qedar’, have been found on inscriptions from Tell el-Maskhutah in the eastern Nile delta and at Dedan.31 Arabic names have been found on ostraca at Tell el-Kheleifeh, Arad, Beer-sheba, Sheikh Zuweid and Tell elFar ah (south), at Lachish,32 at Mareshah,33 as well as in the ‘Makkedah’ ostraca.34 The question arises as to when the area was separated from Judah, and ‘handed over’, either by design or by default, to the Qedarites. There have been various suggestions. Aharoni assumed that the ‘Negev district’ was detached from Judah by the Babylonians in 597 BCE;35 Lemaire believes that the area was detached from Judah during Nabonidus’ conquest of Edom and in turn became part of ‘Arabia’.36 In our view, despite the Edomite presence in southern Judah, the Neo-Babylonians would have had no reason to transfer control of the area to such a vassal kingdom as Edom. But by the midfifth century governorship of Nehemiah, as pointed out by Avi Yonah, the southern Shephelah and the hill country south of Beth-zur seem to have been outside of his jurisdiction.37 Thus, it must have been detached from the province of Judah at some time between 586 and 445. may indeed have been produced by someone in the area, but for them not to bear the mark of their minting authority would indicate that they were not minted by an official government body, Idumean or otherwise. 27 D.A. Dorsey, ‘The Location of Biblical Makkedah’, Tel Aviv 7 (1980), 185-193. 28 I. Eph‘al and J. Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century BC from Idumaea (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996), 15. 29 The connection between Nebaioth and the later Nabateans is often assumed but is problematic; see I. Eph‘al, The Ancient Arabs (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982), 221-223, who rejects it on both historical and linguistic grounds. 30 For which see Eph‘al, The Ancient Arabs, 223-227; Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 168-172. 31 I. Rabinowitz, ‘Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century B.C.E. from a North-Arab Shrine in Egypt’, Journal of Neareastern Studies 15 (1956), 1-9; W.J. Dumbrell, ‘The Tell el-Maskhuta Bowls and the “Kingdom” of Qedar in the Persian Period’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 203 (1971), 33-44. 32 Which A. Lemaire, ‘Un nouveau roi arabe de Qédar dans l’inscription de l’autel à encens de Lakish’, Reviue Biblique 81 (1974), 63-72, has reconstructed as a previously-unknown Iyaš son of Ma alai the king’. 33 E. Eshel, ‘The Onomasticon of Mareshah in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E. (ed. O. Lipschits, G.N. Knoppers and R. Albertz; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 145-156. One of these ostraca might even include the ethnonyms qdryn (“Qedarites”) and ‘rbyn (“Arabs”) although Eshel, ‘Inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician Script’, in Marehsah Excavations Final Report III: Epigraphic Finds from the 1989-2000 Seasons (IAI Reports 45; ed. A. Kloner, E. Eshel, H.B. Korzakova, J Finkielsejn; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010), 62, admits that the readings are problematic. 34 R. Zadok, ‘A Prosopography of Samaria and Edom/Idumea’, Ugarit-Forschungen 30 (1998), 785-822. 35 Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 410. 36 A. Lemaire, ‘Nabunidus in Arabia and Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period’, in Judah and the Judeans in the NeoBabylonian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 290-291. 37 Assuming, as do most scholars, that ‘the list of the wall builders’ in Nehemiah 3 is, in fact, authentic and does indeed reflect the extent of the province during the governorship of Nehemiah (445-433 BCE), the southernmost towns mentioned are Beth-zur, Keilah and Tekoa. This would seem to reflect a Judahite ‘withdrawal’ from the Negev and the southern Shephelah and hill-country, including towns as far north as Hebron and Mareshah. The southern limit of finds of ‘Yehud’ stamp-impressions and later of coins more-or-less corresponds with this limit (for which see E. Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible vol. II: The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 246), although one should exercise caution, since small objects such as coins and small vessels with stamp-impressions may have also ‘wandered’ outside the limits of the province through trade. For a different view on the subject see I. Finkelstein, ‘The Territorial Extent and Demography of Yehud/Judea in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods’, Revue Biblique 117 (2010), 39-54. 192 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY In our view, this occurred in the wake of Cambyses’ campaign to Egypt in the summer of 525. According to Herodotus, Cambyses employed the aid of ‘the king of the Arabs’ who supplied water for the Persian troops and guided them through the desert to the borders of Egypt (Herodotus, Histories III, 1-9).38 In doing so, Cambyses mirrored the deeds of Esarhaddon during his invasion of Egypt in 671 BCE.39 However, Cambyses’ aim was in establishing a permanent relationship with the Arabs. In his description of the ‘fifth satrapy’ as it was during the days of Darius I, Herodotus notes that ‘the part belonging to the Arabians paid no tribute’ (III. 91). According to our analysis, the city of Gaza and its environs, as well as the trade routes from Gaza inland towards Mareshah, Hebron, Eingedi and towards Beer-sheba, Arad and Arabia were actually given by Cambyses to the Arabs, chief among whom were the Qedarites, in return for their aid during his Egyptian campaign.40 Gaza became the terminus port of the Arabian trade. Its mint was probably the most prolific in the area,41 and many of the so-called ‘Philisto-Arabian’ coins were found in the Hebron area as well, showing Gaza’s ties to this area.42 We believe this situation continued through the end of the Persian Period.43 The change came in 333 BCE when Alexander, after a two-month siege, razed Gaza to the ground because its ruler Batis, (presumably an Arab), insisted on remaining loyal to the Persian king.44 Gaza lost its status as the major port of the southern coast and the Qedarites lost their control of the trade routes. This is reflected in the total cessation of use of the ‘Philisto-Arabian’ coins after 332.45 In the following years, the area was contested by Alexander’s heirs, Ptolemy son of Lagos (later Ptolemy I Soter, king of Egypt) and Antigonus Monophthalmos. In 312, Ptolemy, aided by Seleucus, defeated Antigonus at ‘Old Gaza’ and continued up the coast as far as Sidon (Diodorus, xix 80-86). Antigonus, in reaction, mounted an expedition ‘from the eparchia of Idumea’ to the land of the ‘Arabs who are called Nabataeans’. Since the Qedarites had disappeared from the area, the southern hills and the Shephelah were now re-organized as an eparchia or hyparchia. As recognized by Eph‘al, the new district was now named after its main inhabitants and the province of Idumea was created.46 WHO WERE THE IDUMEANS? What of the Idumeans themselves, living for over two centuries in what had been southern Judah, without any known political, cultural or religious organization? Did they identify themselves in their See also E. Cruz-Uribe, The Invasion of Egypt by Cambyses’, Transeuphratène 25 (2003), 9-60 and references there. D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927), 220; see also Eph‘al, The Ancient Arabs, 137-142. 40 Levin, ‘The Southern Frontier of Yehud and the Creation of Idumea’, 247-249. This, too, is not without precedent. From the Eshmunazar inscription, for example, we learn that ‘the Lord of Kings’ (presumably the king of Persia) granted the areas of ‘Dor and Jaffa, great lands of grain that are in the field of Sharon’ to the ruler of Sidon, ‘because of the great deeds which I have done’, apparently in aiding Persian naval operations; see K. Galling, ‘Eschmunazar und der Kerr der Konige’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins 79 (1963), 140-151; Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 415. 41 L. Mildenberg, ‘On Fractional Silver Issues in Palestine’, Transeuphratène 20 (2000), 95-96; C. Augé, ‘Les monnaies antiques de Gaza’, in Gaza Méditerranéenne: Histoire et archéology en Palestine (ed. J.-B. Humbert; Paris: Editions Errance, 2000), 70-72. 42 L. Mildenberg, ‘On the Money Circulation in Palestine from Artaxerxes II till Ptolemy I. Preliminary Studies of the Local Coinage in the Fifth Persian Satrapy. Part 5’, Transeuphratène 7 (1994), 63-71. 43 For other views see A. Lemaire, Nouvelles Inscriptions Arameéennes d’Idumée au Musée d’Israël (supplément n. 3 a Transeuphratène; Paris: Gabalda, 1996), 148; Idem, ‘Épigraphie et religion en Palestine à l’époque achéménide’, Transeuphratène 22 (2001), 111; J. Sapin, ‘La «frontière» Judéo-iduméenne au IVe s. avant J.-C.’, Transeuphratène 27 (2004), 109-154; D. Edelman, The Origins of the ‘Second’ Temple: Persian Imperial Policy and the Rebuilding of Jerusalem (London: Equinox, 2005), 271-275. 44 Diodorus xvii 48; Arrian, Anabasis, ii 25-26; Quintius Curtius iv 6; Strabo, 16.2.30, says that ‘the city was razed to the ground by Alexander and remains uninhabited’; see also A.M. Devine, ‘Diodorus’ Account of the Battle of Gaza’, Acta Classica 27 (1984), 31-40. See also P. Giroud, ‘Gaza à l’époque perse’, in Gaza Méditerranéenne: Histoire et archéology en Palestine (ed. J.-B. Humbert; Paris: Editions Errance, 2000), 40-46. 45 Mildenberg, ‘On Fractional Silver Issues in Palestine’, 96. 46 Eph‘al, ‘The Origins of Idumaea’, 79. 38 39 YIGAL LEVIN 193 own right, or rather consider themselves as ‘refugees’ from old Edom? Did they think of themselves as ‘natives’? Can we even think of them in terms of ‘ethnicity’? The question of just what comprises ‘ethnicity’ as a definition conjures up many facets of discussion, provoking a debate among sociologists and anthropologists. To what extent can ethnicity be defined through archaeological evidence, i.e. material remains? In this sense, it becomes even more problematic to define.47 Hodos has pointed out the problems inherent in any definition of ‘ethnicity’ vs. ‘race’, both of which may differ if discussed through emic (that is ‘inside’) or etic (‘external’) perspectives.48 For our purposes, we will define an ethnic group as one that shares a common culture (including some, but not necessarily all, of the following: religion, language, literature, material culture) and at least an idea of a common origin. They are often identified by others as belonging to a specific group. From the evidence that we have, by the late fourth century BCE, the Idumeans certainly met these criteria, and were thus made the centre of the new province of Idumea. What we wish to address is the process by which they arrived at that point – their ‘ethnogenesis’. Unfortunately, we have little direct knowledge of their society, culture or religion. As previously stated, they go unmentioned in contemporary biblical records.49 Besides continuity of settlement and the reappearance of the name Idumea in the Hellenistic Period, the strongest indication we have of continued Edomite presence and self-identification in southern Judah is in the use of the divine name ‘QWS’ (vocalized by various scholars as either “Qaus” or “Qôs”),50 especially as a theophoric element in personal names. As such, this element has been widely recognized as particularly (although perhaps not exclusively) Edomite. However, Qaus has turned out to be a rather elusive deity. QAUS, GOD OF THE EDOMITES According to Knauf, various names with the theophoric qś appear as early as the thirteenth century BCE in Egyptian renderings of Shasu clans in Seir.51 However, there is then a 500-year gap before the appearance of a Qausmalaka king of Edom in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III and a Qausgabari in those of Esarhadon and Assurbaipal, making the case for continuity rather problematic. However, beginning in the seventh century, we find more and more such names on both sides of the Arabah.52 Of particular significance, is the late seventh or early sixth-century ostracon from orvat Uza, in which the writer wished the addressee whtbrktk lqws – ‘and I bless you by Qaus’.53 This is apparently the earliest known inscription in which Qaus is mentioned independently as a divine name, not as a theophoric element in a person’s name.54 Basing their analysis on Naveh’s reading of previouslypublished ostraca, Beit Arieh and Cresson consider both the script and the use of hiph‘il (rather than 47 See, for example, L. Meskell, ‘Archaeologies of Identity’, in Archeological Theory Today (ed. I. Hodder; Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 187-213, especially 188-190; S. Lucy, ‘Ethnic and Cultural Identities’, in The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and Religion (ed. M. Díaz-Andreu, S. Lucy, S. Babić and D.N. Edwards; London – New York: Routledge, 2005), 86-109 and references there. 48 T. Hodos, ‘Local and Global Perspectives in the Study of Social and Cultural Identities’, in Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient World (ed. S. Hales and T. Hodos; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 10-13. 49 Malachi 1:2-4, which describes the land of Edom as ‘a desolation, and his heritage a desert for jackals’, seems to refer to the old ‘land of Edom’, not the land of the contemporary Idumeans, thus still adding nothing to our knowledge. For a discussion of the historical background of this passage see A.E. Hill, Malachi: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1998), 162-170. For its theological significance see P.L. Redditt, ‘The God who Loves and Hates’, in Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right? Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw (ed. D. Penchansky and P.L. Redditt; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 175-190. 50 See, for example, the spelling in E.A. Knauf, ‘Qaus’, Ugarit-Forschungen 16 (1984), 93-95, contra that in Idem, ‘Qôs’, in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd ed.; ed. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, P.W. van der Horst; Leiden – Boston – Köln: Brill, 1999), 674-677, although this probably has as much to do with editorial policy as it does with Knauf’s own preferences. 51 ‘Qôs’, 674-675. 52 For which see Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 204-205. 53 I. Beit Arieh and B. Cresson, ‘An Edomite Ostracon from orvat Uza’, Tel Aviv 12 (1985), 96-101. 54 For the next such mentions, all from the first century and later, see Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites, 200. 194 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY the expected pi‘el) as being particularly Edomite.55 This is significant, because all of the other 34 ostraca found at the site are specifically Hebrew, showing once again the beginnings of Edomite settlement in the area prior to the Babylonian conquest.56 A relatively contemporary ostracon from Tell el-Kheleifeh near Eilat shows the same type of script, and includes at least four names with the element QWS.57 There is a debate on the origin of the god Qaus and the process by which he was adopted as the chief god of Edom. It has often been pointed out, that unlike its fairly frequent mention by name of the gods of Ammon, Moab, Canaan and others, the Bible makes no mention of the Edomite deity. This, together with the well-attested tradition of Esau/Edom’s fraternity with Jacob/Israel and along with the several poetic references to YHWH’s ‘coming up from’ Edom/Seir/Sinai/Teman/Paran (Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4; Habakkuk 3:3; Psalm 86:8-9, 18) and the mention of ‘YHWH of Teman’ at Kuntillet Ajrud, has led many scholars to conclude that the Edomites were originally worshippers of YHWH, and only ‘adopted’ Qaus after the establishment of their monarchy, perhaps as a counter-balance to the now-rival Israelite and Judahite YHWH.58 It is also widely accepted that Qaus was an originally Arabian deity, whose name is derived from the word for ‘bow’, and that he was originally seen as a god of hunting.59 This idea was developed by Vriezen; although he rejected Wellhausen’s equation of Qaus with the Arabian storm-god Quza , whose bow was called qaus-Quza .60 Erlich, following up on this idea, has tentatively suggested identifying a series of terracotta figurines found at Mareshah, Tel Erani, Tel alif and near Bet-Nir, all within the area we call Idumea, depicting a bearded male holding a bow and what seem to be three arrows, as representations of Qaus.61 Knuaf, for both linguistic and historical reasons, suggested a contrary scheme, according to which Qaus was a ‘Southern Edomite’ manifestation of the Western Semitic storm god Haddu/Hadad, as were Milcom, Chemosh, Baal and YHWH.62 An even more radical approach has been taken by Zalcman, who, addressing the apparent absence of the Edomite deity in the Bible, suggested tying QWS to the Hebrew QW , which he defines as ‘feel a sickening dread’, in his view equivalent to the Hebrew P D, ‘fear’, also an epithet for the deity (as in p d yṣ q, ‘dread of Isaac’ in Genesis 31:42, 53).63 And while this hypothesis has not been widely accepted, it does contribute, along with its predecessors, to our appreciation of just how close Edomite and Israelite religion might have been. Qaus-names all but disappear from southern Transjordan after the fall of the Edomite kingdom.64 A few such names also appear in Babylon, attesting to Edomite exiles there, but by the Persian Period, 55 J. Naveh, ‘The Scripts of Two Ostraca from Elath’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 183 (1966), 27-30. See also H. Misgav, ‘Two Notes on the Ostraca from orvat Uza’, Israel Exploration Journal 40 (1990), 215-217. 56 Although in their recent interpretation of the ostracon, B. Becking and M. Dijkstra, ‘“A Message from the King…” Some Remarks on an Edomite Ostracon from orvat Uza’, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 37 (2011), 109-116, seem to assume that the site was under the authority of the king of Edom at the time. 57 N. Glueck, ‘Ostraca from Elath’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 82 (1941), 3-11; Naveh, ‘The Scripts of Two Ostraca from Elath’, 28-30. 58 See M. Rose, ‘Yahweh in Israel - Qaus in Edom?’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 4 (1977), 28-34; L.E. Axelsson, The Lord Rose up from Seir: Studies in the History and Traditions of the Negev and Southern Judah (Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament series 25; Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987), 48-80; Knuaf, ‘Qôs’, 677. 59 This may be reflected in the biblical tradition of ‘Edom’/Esau’s being a hunter, as in Genesis 25:27; 27:3-4. 60 Th.C. Vriezen, ‘The Edomitic Deity Qaus’, Oudtestamentische Stuiën 14 (1965), 330-353. 61 Erlich dates these figurines typologically to the late Iron Age or the Persian Period and discusses Assyrian, Phoenician and Achaemenid parallels to their iconography. See A. Erlich, ‘The Persian Period Terracotta Figurines from Maresha in Idumea: Local and Regional Aspects’, Transeuphratène 32 (2006), 45-59 and Plates 1-3. 62 Knauf, ‘Qaus’; ‘Qôs’, 676-677. 63 L. Zalcman, ‘Shield of Abraham, Fear of Isaac, Dread of Esau’, Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 117 (2005), 405-410. 64 This despite Knauf’s attempt to establish continuity between Edomite Qaus and the Nabatean deity Dushara – see Knauf, ‘Qôs’, 676. YIGAL LEVIN 195 the vast majority of such names are found in a large number of sites in what had been southern Judah and would become Idumea.65 SOURCES ON IDUMEAN SOCIETY Since we have absolutely no literary descriptions of Idumean society, religion or identity during the Persian Period, and even the archaeological record from the area is rather scanty,66 most of our information comes from epigraphic material. Fortunately, the past several decades have uncovered quite a lot of such material, from Lachish, Arad, Beer-sheba, Mareshah, Khirbet el-Kôm/Makkedah and several other sites in the area. Since approximately 2000 such items of mostly Aramaic-language ostraca exist, some of which have been found in archaeological excavations, most of which are unprovenanced,67 and not nearly all of which have been published, it would be impossible to attempt a systematic survey. However, given the information we have, we are able to make some useful comments on this material. The first comment that we can make is chronological. The vast majority of the ostraca, both those few that were found in dated archaeological contexts, and the vast majority that are unprovenanced, are from the final decades of Persian rule and from the first few decades after Alexander’s conquest of the area. The first group includes, among others, the Beer-sheba and Arad ostraca published by Naveh which he dated on paleographical grounds to the fourth century BCE, and most of those from Mareshah.68 The great majority of the ‘unprovenanced’ group, those attributed to Khirbet elKôm/Makkedah, are commercial and administrative documents, many of which are dated according to the Babylonian calendar, typically giving the date, the month and the regnal year of the reigning king, sometimes specifying the king’s name, other times not. We see this in Eph‘al and Naveh’s no. 13, ‘On the 16th of Tammuz, year 4 of Artaxerxes the king…’, while in no. 11, ‘On the 25th of Second Adar, year 2…’ the king remains unnamed.69 According to their calculations, the dates of the entire corpus However, a word of caution is in order. As pointed out by J. Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Beer-sheba (Seasons 1971-1976)’, Tel Aviv 6 (1979), 195, based on Qaus-theophoric names with Arabic elements found at Beer-sheba, it is possible that some worshippers of Qaus were ethnic Arabs. 66 See E. Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 443-454, and further summaries in A. Fantalkin and O. Tal, ‘Redating Lachish Level I: Identifying Achaemenid Imperial Policy at the Southern Frontier of the Fifth Satrapy’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 181-185; I. Stern, ‘The Population of Persian-period Idumea According to the Ostraca: A Study of Ethnic Boundaries and Ethnogenesis’, in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period (Library of Second Temple Studies 65; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 206-208 and references therein. 67 For a recollection of the original ‘discovery’ and publication of the latter, see B. Porten and A. Yardeni, ‘Social, Economic, and Onomastic Issues in the Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century B.C.E.’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 457-459. The publication of unprovenanced artifacts, including inscriptions, has been seen as problematic by the scholarly community, on both scientific (problems of authenticity and context) and moral (encouraging theft and illegal sale) grounds; see C.A. Rollston, ‘NonProvenanced Epigraphs I: Pillaged Antiquities, Northwest Semitic Forgeries, and Protocols for Laboratory Tests’, Maarav 10 (2003), 135-193; Idem, ‘Navigating the Epigraphic Storm: A Palaeographer Reflects on Inscriptions from the Market’, Near Eastern Archaeology 68 (2005), 69-72; A.G. Vaughn, ‘Fakes, Forgeries and Biblical Scholarship: The Antiquities Market, Sensationalized Textual Data, and Modern Forgeries’, Near Eastern Archaeology 68 (2005), 61-68. However see B. Porten and A. Yardeni, ‘Why the Unprovenanced Idumean Ostraca Should be Published’, in New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean, and Cuneiform (ed. M. Lubetski; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 73-75 for their reasons for treating this as a special case. 68 J. Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Beer-sheba (Seasons 1971-1976)’, Tel Aviv 6 (1979), 182; Idem, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Arad’, in Y. Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (In cooperation with J. Naveh and A.F. Rainey; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 153; E. Eshel, ‘Inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician Script’, in A. Kloner, E. Eshel, H.B. Korzakova, J Finkielsejn, Marehsah Excavations Final Report III: Epigraphic Finds from the 19892000 Seasons (IAI Reports 45; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010), 35-88. 69 Eph‘al and Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century BC from Idumaea, 26. Two of the ostraca in Eph‘al and Naveh’s corpus (nos. 11 and 28) refer to ‘Second Adar’ (͗dr ͗ ry) as does an additional ostracon published by B. Porten and A. Yadeni, ‘On Problems of Identity and Chronology in the Idumean Ostraca’, in Teshûrôt LaAvishur; Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, in Hebrew and Semitic Languages; Festschrift Presented to Prof. Yitzhak Avishur on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (ed. M. Heltzer and M. Malul; Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2004), 172*, while no 65 196 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY range from the 42nd year of Artaxerxes II (362 BCE – the only king of this name whose reign was that long) until the fifth year of Alexander IV (311 BCE).70 A ituv and Yardeni also published one ostracon dated to ‘Talmaios the king’, presumably Ptolemy I, who assumed kingship of Egypt and the southern Levant in 306.71 Unfortunately, the specific year of his reign was not preserved. This seems to indicate an increased amount of administrative activity in the area in this period, therefore leading to an increase in the use of writing. This fits well with Fantalkin and Tal’s reassessment of the archaeological data from the area and especially its chronology. In their view, most of the PersianPeriod finds in the various sites of the Negev and the Shephelah (Arad, Beer-sheba, Tell el-Far ah (south), Lachish and others), should be dated to the fourth century BCE and show heightened imperial involvement in the area. They suggest that such heightened involvement was caused by the Persian Empire’s loss and subsequent reconquest of Egypt.72 While this may be correct, the renewal of administrative activity in the area also meant that there was more to administer: more sedentary population, more agriculture,73 and more trade, which lead to an increase in taxes. Thus the south of Judah, which had been ravaged by war and invasion in the early sixth century BCE, now seemed to be resettled. ONOMASTICA AS A SIGN OF IDENTITY Our next comment is on the identity of the population. We have already made our case for the area’s being administered by the Qedarite Arabs, at least from 526 BCE. From the various analyses of the epigraphic material undertaken by Zadok, Naveh, Porten, Lemaire, Eshel and others, we find a very high percentage (about 30%) of names that could be characterized linguistically as ‘Arabian’, ‘Edomite’ names at about 25%, with the next largest specific groups being Aramaic and Judahite/Hebrew. At the bottom of the list are Egyptians, Phoenicians and ‘possibly Old Iranian’.74 When theophoric elements are listed, we find that Qaus is the most common (sometimes appearing in names that are linguistically Arabic), followed by El, Baal, YHW(H) and a handful of others. Assuming that there is some correspondence (although not one-on-one) between language, worship of ‘national’ deities, and identity,75 we can see that a large segment of the population was of Arabian descent, almost as many were Edomites, a minority consisted of Judahites and others. Since Aramaic was the lingua franca of the time, Aramaic names do not necessarily signify a specific identity. Similarly, while most (but not all!) worshippers of Qaus would probably identify themselves as ‘Edomite/Idumean’, and most worshipers of YHWH would be considered ‘Judahites/Jews’, use of such general divine titles as ‘Baal’, ‘El’ and so on would be meaningless. As such, at least by the fourth century BCE, worshippers of Qaus were almost in the majority, with YHWH-worshippers at under 4%. other intercalated month is mentioned. This of course reflects the late Babylonian custom which survives in the Jewish ritual calendar to this day; see M.E. Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda: CDL Press, 1993), 5-6. 70 A. Lemaire, ‘New Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea and their Historical Interpretation’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 414, argued that the ‘Alexander’ referred to is Alexander III (the Great) and not his short-reigning son, an argument that was refuted by B. Porten and A. Yardeni, ‘The Chronology of the Idumean Ostraca in the Decade or so after the Death of Alexander the Great and its Relevance for Historical Events’, in Treasures on Camels’ Humps; Historical and Literary Studies from the Ancient Near East Presented to Israel Eph‘al (ed. M. Cogan and D. Kahn; Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2008), 237-249. 71 S. A ituv and A. Yardeni, ‘Seventeen Aramaic Texts on Ostraca from Idumea: The Late Persian to the Early Hellenistic Periods’, Maarav 11 (2004), 19. 72 Fantalkin and Tal, ‘Redating Lachish Level I’, 181-190. 73 A nice example of which is the Ostracon found at Tell el-Far ah (south), originally published by Cowley and the reread by J. Naveh, ‘Published and Unpublished Aramaic Ostraca’, Atiqot 17 (1985), 114-116, as referring to sowing barley in a field. 74 This from Zadok, ‘A Prosopography of Samaria and Edom/Idumea’, 814. 75 For a short discussion of the theoretical aspects of this assumption see B. Porten, ‘Theophorous Names in Idumean Ostraca’, in For Uriel; Studies in the History of Israel in Antiquity, Presented to Professor Uriel Rappaport (ed. M. Mor, J. Pastor, I. Ronen and Y. Ashkenazi; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History 2005), 105*-108* and references there. YIGAL LEVIN 197 The distribution of these names, however, is not even. As emphasized by Naveh, at Arad most of the ‘officers’ of the fortress seem to have had Hebrew or Yahwistic names, while most of the people to whom the supplies were given had Arabic names.76 Qaus-names were a minority here. Following this, Eshel and Zissu speculated that Jews made up a significant part of the troops commanded by the Qedarites in the area, perhaps explaining the interest of ‘Geshem the Arab’ in the affairs of the Jerusalem Temple, as recounted in Nehemiah 4 and 6.77 Furthermore, in his reading of one of the ‘Makkedah’ ostraca, Lemaire suggested that the byt yhw mentioned after byt z ( Uzza being a known Arabian goddess) was none other than a temple of YHWH, situated somewhere in Idumea, perhaps at Makkedah.78 The onomasticon of the ostraca found at Beer-sheba, on the other hand, is different. Of the taxpaying farmers listed there, about a third have clearly Arabic names, another third include the element Qaus, and most of the rest are of a general nature. Naveh lists one Iranian name (bgn) and one ‘apparently Jewish’ name (dlwy).79 Naveh, in emphasizing the many names that have Qaus as their theophoric element and Arabic-language verbal or nominal elements, concluded that the inhabitants of at least southern Idumea could be considered ‘Edomite Arabs’.80 On the other hand Porten, in his analysis of the wider corpus of ‘Qaus’ names, concludes that the verbal and nominal elements have basically the same meaning as those of Hebrew names, showing just how much the two traditions had in common. Porten writes of ‘a modest penetration of Arabian’,81 and concludes that ‘given the geographical proximity, we are not unjustified in speaking of a Judeo-Idumean piety’.82 At Mareshah as well, we find that most of the names are Arabic and Edomite,83 some even traceable to Transjordan.84 In her full publication of the ostraca found at Mareshah through the 2000 excavation season, Eshel records 12 ‘Qaus’ names, 7 ‘Baal’ names, 4 with ‘El’ and 3 with Yw or Yh.85 Also present are a large number of ‘Arabian’ and ‘Nabatean’ names, the Egyptian wr and Babylonian Mnky. Nbwr y is seen as including the Babylonian deity Nabu with the Western Semitic r y – ‘Nabu is my shepherd’. Three less clear readings are św – ‘Esau’, which, if correct, could hint at the Idumeans’ self-identification – and the ethnonyms qdryn (‘Qedarites’) and rbyn (‘Arabs’), perhaps listing their ethnic origins.86 In a table summarizing ‘the ethnic breakdown of the Idumean ostraca’, Stern compares the names found at Arad, Beer-sheba, Mareshah and ‘Unknown Provenance’, the vast majority of which are attributed to Khirbet el-Kôm/Makkedah. He notes the ‘striking similarity’ between the Mareshah names and those of ‘unknown provenance’: in both groups, Arab names make up just over 30%, Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Arad’, 167. H. Eshel and B. Zissu, ‘Two Notes on the History and Archaeology of Judea in the Persian Period’, in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday vol. II (ed. A.M. Maeir and P. De Miroschedji; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 828-831. We should note, however, that if one follows the traditional mid-fifth century date for Nehemiah (for which see A. Demsky, ‘Who Came First, Ezra or Nehemiah? The Synchronistic Approach’, Hebrew Union College Annual 65 (1994), 1-19) this would have been about a century earlier than the Arad Aramaic ostraca. 78 A. Lemaire, ‘Another Temple to the Israelite God: Aramaic Hoard Documents Life in Fourth Century B.C.’, Biblical Archaeology Review 30/4 (2004), 38-44, 60; see also Idem, ‘New Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea and their Historical Interpretation’, 416-417. 79 For bgn see Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Beer-sheba’, 194; for dlwy see Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Arad’, 176. 80 Naveh, ‘The Aramaic Ostraca from Tel Beer-sheba’, 195. 81 Porten, ‘Theophorous Names in Idumean Ostraca’, 112*. 82 Ibid. 118*. 83 E. Eshel, ‘The Onomasticon of Mareshah in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods’. 84 Ideam, ‘Two Aramaic Ostraca from Mareshah”, in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period (Library of Second Temple Studies 65; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 171-178. 85 Interestingly enough, only one of the four, Šmryh, has the expected post-exilic YH. The other three, Yw [b] (or Yw [š]), bdyw and Ṭbyw, have the typically pre-exilic Israelean YW, as in the Samaria Ostraca or Kuntillet Ajrud. Eshel, ‘Inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician Script’, 61, takes note of this but does not offer an explanation. 86 Although Eshel, ‘Inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Phoenician Script’, 44, 62, admits that all three of these readings are problematic. 76 77 198 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY Idumeans around 25%, Judahites under 10% (actually, 9.09% and 5.60%), and ‘Western Semitic’ just under 30%. At Arad, on the other hand, 61.22% are Judahites, 14.30% Idumean and 12.24% Arab, while in Beer-sheba 42.62% are Arabs, 24.59% Idumeans and less than 20% Judahites.87 THE CLAN-BASED STRUCTURE OF IDUMEAN SOCIETY Since most of the epigraphic material that we have from the Land of Israel is fragmentary and singular in nature, with the vast majority of the finds listing no more than single names and with no way to connect the different finds over generations,88 the ‘Makkedah’ material gives us a very rare opportunity to understand the internal structure of this particular society. Porten, in many of his studies of the ostraca, has traced several clans’ ‘dossiers’ over several generations: the clans of Qos anan, of Yehokal, of Qo i, of Gur, of ori, of Rawi, of Alba al and of Ba alrim.89 He then used the interconnections within and between the clans to resolve chronological issues, including the identity of several of the rulers mentioned.90 Of the eight ‘clans’ mentioned above, the first would seem to be Idumean, the second Judahite, and the last two ‘Canaanite’ or ‘Phoenician’. However, in his own study of the ostraca, Stern has shown that there was a substantial amount of flexibility and intermixing between the different ‘ethnic groups’. For example, of the members of the ‘Gur’ clan, 31% had Arabic names, while another 31% had Edomite (Qaus) names. Half the members of the ‘Phoenician’ Ba alrim family had Arabic names, almost 25% had Edomite names, one was Egyptian, and only one was ‘Phoenician’. Of the seemingly ‘Judahite’ Yehokal family, over half had Edomite names, almost 30% were Arabic, two were Egyptian and none were Judahite or Yahwistic. While Porten and Yardeni pondered the significance of this phenomenon,91 to Stern the meaning is clear: in the ‘post collapse’ conditions of Persian-Period Idumea, people of various ethnic origins did not maintain ethnic boundaries and intermixed readily. In the case of the Yehokal clan, a family that may have been descended from the pre-exilic Judahites now found itself in the minority and adapted its identity to that of what had become the majority.92 ADMINISTRATION AND ECONOMY Since Persian-Period Idumea was not a ‘province’ per-se, and was apparently not under the direct administration of the Satrapy of ‘Across the River’, we know next to nothing about its internal structure or administration. This is one of the reasons that the ‘Makkedah’ corpus is so important. Assuming that these ostraca do in fact come from Khirbet el el-Kôm/Makkedah, this insufficientlyexplored site near the boundary between the southern Judean hills, the southern Shephelah and the Negev and right on the major route from Gaza via Mareshah to Hebron (and perhaps on to En-Gedi and south towards Arad and southern Transjordan) was apparently a major administrative center for the southern regions of the land. Many of the ostraca mention a mśknt , apparently a ‘storehouse’, Stern, ‘The Population of Persian-period Idumea According to the Ostraca’, 212-213. As an example, the late Iron-Age corpus that Aharoni published from Arad includes over 100 ostraca from over four centuries, with dozens of names. However, because of the military/administrative nature of the site and of its inhabitants, we are not able to establish familial ties between any of them. 89 Each of which has variable spellings; see B. Porten and A. Yardeni ‘In Preparation of a Corpus of Aramaic Ostraca from the Land of Israel: The House of Yehokal’, in Shlomo: Studies in Epigraphy, Iconography, History and Archaeology in Honor of Shlomo Moussaieff (ed. R. Deutsch; Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2003) 207-223; Idem, ‘The House of Baalrim in the Idumean Ostraca’, in New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean, and Cuneiform (ed. M. Lubetski; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007) 99-147 and more. 90 Porten and Yardeni, ‘On Problems of Identity and Chronology in the Idumean Ostraca’; Idem, ‘The Chronology of the Idumean Ostraca’; Idem, ‘Dating by Grouping in the Idumean Ostraca: Six Commodity Dossiers Dating to the Transition Years from Artaxerxes II to Artaxerxes III’, Eretz-Israel 29: 144*-183*. 91 Porten and Yardeni, ‘In Preparation of a Corpus of Aramaic Ostraca from the Land of Israel: The House of Yehokal’, 212. 92 Stern, ‘The Population of Persian-period Idumea According to the Ostraca’, 216-221. 87 88 YIGAL LEVIN 199 perhaps specifically for grain, at mnqdh (the Aramaic spelling of ‘Makkedah’ – although the shortened Hebrew form mqdh also appears).93 The precise function of this ‘storehouse’ is not clear: Lemaire understood it to be a tax collection center, while Porten and Yardeni emphasized that the ostraca totally lack royal or other official terminology, preferring to understand the msknt as a commercial venture.94 They also raised the question of whether the msknt , ‘the storehouse’ mentioned in some of the ostraca is identical to the msknt mnqdh, ‘the storehouse of Makkedah’ mentioned in others, and admit that there is not as of yet enough information to provide a definite answer.95 The ‘Makkedah’ material also supplies information on such daily matters as the boundaries of fields or properties, perhaps as part of deeds of sale. A ituv published one such exemplar, delineating the boundaries of an olive grove: ‘below the wall of Qosdayyana and our white field and the vault of Qoslu at and the hill of the cave… from the boundary of aniel till the upper boundary of azir…’96 A similar piece was published by Lemaire, defining the boundaries or territories of a ‘house of Uzza and a ‘house of YHW’.97 Also mentioned are three places named ‘kpr…’ with the name of a clan: kpr ynqm, kpr glgwl, kpr b lrym. Porten and Yardeni discuss the possibility of these being ‘villages’ named for their resident clans, but point out that kpr seems not to have this meaning in biblical Hebrew, and suggest understanding the term as meaning ‘tomb’, as in later Nabatean.98 What we have, then, perhaps, are three family burial plots. THE HELLENIZATION AND JUDAIZATION OF IDUMEA Unlike the radical changes that occurred in Samaria with the destruction and subsequent Hellenization of the city and the re-grouping of what we now call the ‘Samaritan’ community around Mount Gerizim, the Hellenization of Idumea, which became an eparchia or hyparchia some time after the Macedonian conquest, was more gradual.99 The ‘Makkedah’ ostraca show that the economic system, including the Babylonian dating system, was still in use as late as the reign of Ptolemy I. Aramaic remained the language of internal commerce. The bilingual ostracon found in the 1971 salvage excavation by John S. Holladay at Khirbet el-Kôm/Makkedah in a Hellenistic rebuild of an Iron Age house, is a good example of the transitional period. According to the Aramaic text, on 12 Tammuz of year 6, Qôs-yada ben Hanna the moneylender loaned to Niqeratos 32 zuzin. In the Greek text, in year 6, 12 of the month of Panēmos, Nikēratos son of Sobbathos, received from Kos-idē the moneylender 32 drachmas. The ‘year 6’ in question is most likely the sixth year of Ptolemy II, 279 BCE. Presumably, the lender was an Aramaic-speaking Idumean, while the borrower was Greek, necessitating that the ‘contract’ be in both languages. Of the five additional ostraca found in the same house, four were in Aramaic and one was in Greek.100 93 Actually Eph‘al and Naveh, Aramaic Ostraca of the Fourth Century BC from Idumaea, 15, originally read the word as mnqrh/mqrh, which they understood as ‘cistern, cavity or pit’, but later recognized it as the toponym mnqdh/Makkedah. 94 See A ituv and Yardeni, ‘Seventeen Aramaic Texts on Ostraca from Idumea’; A. Lemaire, ‘Taxes et impôts dans le sud de la Palestine (IVe s. av. J.-C.)’, Transeuphratène 28: 133-142; Porten and Yardeni, ‘The House of Baalrim in the Idumean Ostraca’, 142-143. 95 Porten and Yardeni, ‘Makkedah and the Storehouse in the Idumean Ostraca’, 131-132, 154. 96 S. A ituv, ‘An Edomite Ostracon’, in Michael: Historical, Epigraphical and Biblical Studies in Honor of Prof. Michael Heltzer (ed. Y. Avishur and R. Deutch; Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 1999), 33-37. Stern ‘The Population of Persian-period Idumea According to the Ostraca’, 215-216, then used this ostracon as further evidence of Idumeans (Qosdayyana and Qoslu‘at) and Judahites ( aniel, Kinyo and perhaps azir) living side by side, in what he called ‘a microcosm of inter-ethnic relationships in Idumea’. 97 Lemaire, ‘Another Temple to the Israelite God’; Idem, ‘New Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea and their Historical Interpretation’, 416-617. 98 Porten and Yardeni, ‘The House of Baalrim in the Idumean Ostraca’. 99 To emphasize this point, H. Eshel, ‘Hellenism in the Land of Israel from the Fifth to the Second Centuries in Light of Semitic Epigraphy’, in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period (Library of Second Temple Studies 65; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 116-124, gave the three sections of his article the titles ‘Greek Influence in Samaria’, ‘Aramaic in Judah’ and ‘Bilingual in Idumea’. 100 L.T. Geraty, ‘The Khirbet el-Kôm Bilingual Ostracon’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220 (1975), 55-61. 200 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY This shift is further seen at Mareshah, which was apparently the ‘capital’ of Hellenistic Idumea until its destruction in 112/111 BCE. Of the 300 or so ostraca found there, not all of which have yet been published, about 50 are in Aramaic and the rest in Greek.101 In an Aramaic marriage contract found at Mareshah and dated to 176 BCE, the name of the groom is qwsrm son of qwsyd, while the bride is rsnh (Arsinoe – A Greek name that was common in Ptolemaic Egypt) daughter of qwsyd son of qwsyhb.102 The groom and his father have ‘pure’ Edomite names, but the bride’s name is Greek, her father’s is Edomite, and her grandfather’s is ‘Edomite-Arab’. A similar series of intergenerational relationships and name changes can be found in the famous ‘Sidonian’ burial caves, also at Mareshah. The best-known of the inscriptions found there mentions an Apollophanes son of Sesmaios. Apollophanes, which is Greek in form, was common among Hellenized Phoenicians. The same is true for Sesmaios. Sesmaios’ daughter, also there, is Sabo, apparently an Arabic name, perhaps Nabatean. An additional epitaph is that of ‘Qosnatanos son of Ammoios son of Sesmaios’, and finally there is also ‘Babas, son of Qosnatanos son of Ammoios son of Sesmaios’. So, it would seem that the Phoenician Sesmaios gave one son a Greek name, the second an Idumean name, the third an Egyptian name and his daughter an Arabic one. Nearby, lies Demetrios son of Meerbal (which would be Maherba al in Phoenician), the Greek-named son of a Phoenician father.103 In 112 BCE, the Hasmonean ruler of Judea, John Hyrcanus I, conquered Idumea, subduing its main cities of Adora in the hills and Mareshah in the Shephelah (Antiquities 12.353; 13.396) According to Josephus, John Hyrcanus I forced the inhabitants convert to Judaism (Antiquities 13.257).104 However this episode is to be understood, Idumea indeed became a Jewish region, to the extent that it remained so even after Pompey and Gabinius detached the non-Jewish areas from the Jewish state after the Roman conquest of Judea in 63 BCE. And while Antipater, father of Herod, who was appointed governor of the district is identified as an ‘Idumean’, he seems to have considered himself to be at least partially Jewish, naming one of his sons Joseph and his daughter Salome, both Jewish names. On the other hand, there were those Idumeans who preserved their identity even under Hasmonean rule. In Antiquities 15.253, Josephus notes that Costobarus (presumably a Greek form of qwsgbr), appointed by Herod to be governor of Idumea and Gaza, was descended from the priests of ‘Koze, whom the Idumeans believed to be a god’. Kloner discusses Qaus theophoric names, purification installations similar to Jewish miqva ot, evidence of circumcision, ‘aniconic (nonfigurative) and schematic representations of divinity’ and burial in kokhim with practice of bone collection as signs of Idumean identity.105 This theme is taken even further by Stern, who notes the fact that these very features eventually became clear signs of Jewish identity. This is clear evidence of the integration of at least some of Idumeans into the Jewish nation, bringing some of their customs with them.106 According to Josephus, ‘Idumeans’ were active inside Jerusalem during the war of 66-73 CE.107 Thus, these ‘Idumeans’ were enough a part of Jewish society to fight and die for it, but distinct enough to still be referred to by their old ethnonym. H. Eshel, ‘Hellenism in the Land of Israel’, 123. E. Eshel and A. Kloner, ‘An Aramaic Ostracon of an Edomite Marriage Contract from Maresha, Dated 176 BCE’, Israel Exploration Journal 46 (1996), 1-22. 103 Stern, ‘The Population of Persian-period Idumea According to the Ostraca’, 221-221. 104 The true nature of the Idumeans’ ‘conversion’ has been discussed frequently in the scholarly literature. For a recent summary see U. Rappaport, ‘The Conversion of the Idumaeans under John Hyrcanus’ in Israel’s Land: Papers Presented to israel Shatzman on his Jubilee (ed. J. Geiger, H.M. Cotton and G.D. Stiebel; Raanana: The Open University of Israel and the Israel Exploration Society, 2009), 59-74 (Hebrew with English abstract). 105 Kloner, ‘The Identity of the Idumeans Based on the Archaeological Evidence from Maresha’, in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context (ed. O. Lipschits, G.N. Knoppers and M. Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 563-573. 106 I. Stern, ‘Ethnic Identities and Circumcised Phalli at Hellenistic Maresha’, Strata: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 30 (2012), 9-39. 107 For which see A. Appelbaum, ‘“The Idumaeans” in Josephus’ The Jewish War’, Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009), 1-22. 101 102 YIGAL LEVIN 201 SUMMARY: THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY The area that had been southern Judah was apparently ravaged by the Babylonian conquest, with or without active participation of the Edomites. All of the major cities and fortresses such as Lachish, Beer-sheba and Arad were destroyed and, like their brethren from the more northern parts of Judah, a large percentage of the population was exiled. However, some Judahites, some Arabs and some Edomites remained. It is even possible, that when the Edomite kingdom fell to Nabonidus, groups of refugees migrated into the Negev. In any case, as the Persian Empire organized its southern frontier, the area became part of ‘Arabia’, specifically the kingdom of Qedar. Under the Qedarites, trade increased, as did military activity. By the end of the fifth century BCE, some of the fortresses had been rebuilt, taxes were being collected and commodities were being traded. Soon afterwards, coins minted at Gaza were being used throughout the area. It is possible that Mareshah, on the main route connecting Gaza and the southern hills, became the administrative center of the region, while Makkedah, just a few kilometers to the east along the same road, became its commercial hub. Further excavations at both sites will enable us to understand their precise roles. Although the region that would become Idumea goes almost unmentioned in the literary sources of the period, we are fortunate that a large number of epigraphic documents, mostly ostraca, have been recovered through both controlled excavations at Arad, Beer-sheba, Makkedah, Mareshah, Lachish and other sites, and on the antiquities market, particularly those associated with the site of Khirbet elKôm/Makkedah. From these documents, we learn a lot about the geography and economy of the region, but they also provide us with incomparable information on the ethnic makeup of the area’s population. The picture that emerges is that of a mixed population: approximately half of the names are Arabic in form, the rest are mainly Edomite, Hebrew or Phoenician, with a smattering of Persian, Babylonian and Egyptian. Of the divine names used as theophoric elements, the most popular is the Edomite Qaus, with El, Baal, YHW(H) and others close behind. However, the various ‘clan dossiers’ that have been compiled show that these Arabs, Edomites, Judahites, Phoenicians and others did not just live as neighbors. They intermarried readily, gradually forming what in the modern world would be called ‘a melting pot’.108 Eventually, perhaps as a counter-balance to the Arab identity of the nomads and traders to the south and to the increasingly-exclusive Judahites to the north,109 it was Edomite identity that came to the forefront. This is exemplified by the continued use of the Qaustheophoric (presumably indicating worship of this deity), but also in the continued use of the Edomite ethnonym, to such an extent that when the region was once again reorganized under the Ptolemys, it was officially recognized as a hyparchy of Idumea. The Idumeans of the Persian Period were a people in the process of formation, or ‘ethnogenesis’. The old kingdom of Edom had been annihilated. We have no specific knowledge of the fate of its people, but some may have been exiled, others may have remained. Within a few years, the area that had been Edom was taken over by the Arab Qedarites. However, Edom also had a sort of ‘diaspora’ – the Edomites that had been living in southern Judah, perhaps now joined by refugees from the homeland. In their new land, the Edomites met Judahites, Arabs (who came to control the area), Phoenicians and others, and in the aftermath of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, quickly joined in a process of intermingling and intermarriage. Perhaps, like the Jews, the Edomites’ loyalty to their god Qaus, was a factor in the preservation of their identity.110 The ethnos that emerged had its roots in old Edom, but was well-established in the new Idumea. 108 For use of this term in the context of colonialism and its archaeological imprint see C. Gosden, Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contact from 5000 BC to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 64. 109 For one of many essays that deal with this phenomenon of increasing exclusivity in the Jews’ relationship with their neighbors see L. Fried, ‘From Xeno-Philia to –Phobia – Jewish Encounters with the Other’, in A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period (Library of Second Temple Studies 65; ed. Y. Levin; London: T&T Clark, 2007), 179-204. 110 As Knauf, ‘Qôs’, 677, has commented, ‘loyalty to the national deity probably compensated for the loss of national independence’. 202 THE FORMATION OF IDUMEAN IDENTITY In later Jewish literature, ‘Idumea’ became ‘Daroma’, the south-land, while the old name of ‘Edom’, twin brother and arch-enemy of Israel, was identified allegorically by the rabbis with more contemporary enemies, first as Rome and then eventually Christianity.