Midian, Moab, and Edom

Book excerpt: Specialists from different fields converge on one relatively circumscribed and, until recently, largely neglected area of biblical archaeology. The eleven papers comprise archaeological reports from Buseira (Biblical Bozrah) and Wadi el Hasa in Moab, technical studies of Midianite and Edomite pottery, Iron Age burial practices and copper smelting in the Arabah, a semantic study of barzel ('iron') in Biblical Hebrew, and three essays of more general interest, on the history of the Ishmaelites and the Midianites.