Navigating the Wilderness: Early Bronze Age rectangular platforms in the central Negev Highlands

Abstract

For well over a century, researchers exploring the Negev Highlands have noted the remains of large, impressive rectangular monuments dotting the landscape between the western border of Israel and the central Arava Valley. Archaeological surveys carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the western border between 2010 and 2012 revealed a narrow corridor of these platforms, situated on the main road between Quseima (ancient Kadesh Barnea) in northern Sinai and the site of Be'erotayim / Mizpe Ezuz. A number of these were excavated as well as platforms in the site of Rosh Maʽale Zadok (the head of the Zadok Ascent) in Mizpe Ramon in 2007. The results of these excavations point to their construction in the Early Bronze Age, possibly the Early Bronze Age IB or II/III period and we interpret their function as navigation platforms on trails connecting the Nile Delta in Egypt and the copper mines of Faynan in the central Arava as suggested by M. Haiman in 2006.