The Site of Khirbet ‘Aujah el-Foqa: Identifying Its Iron Age Architecture

The site of Khirbet ‘Aujah el-Foqa is an Iron II fortified town in the southern Jordan Valley, just north of Jericho. It was identified and surveyed by the Menasseh Hills Survey Project headed by the late Adam Zertal and is currently in the third season of excavation. The site is characterized by a casemate wall and other components, including large structures with massive straight walls that indicate fortification. Nevertheless, the more conspicuous surface remains are dozens of rounded one-room houses that stand up to 2 m high, built of stones robbed from the site’s Iron Age walls, probably during the Mamluk-Ottoman period. What is left of the walls can be seen under these structures. The paper discusses the preliminary identification and reconstruction of the Iron Age structures and the nature of the Iron Age site according to the evidence from the survey, the results of the recent 2019–2021 excavations at two of the site’s areas, and analysis of high-quality aerial photographs. One of the important questions arising considered is whether the internal structures are integrated into the casemate wall or are free-standing. The date, political affinity and function of the site are also discussed.