The Arabah, Araba or Aravah (Arabic: وادي عربة, Wādī ʻAraba; Hebrew: עֲרָבָה, Aravah) is a loosely defined geographic area south of the Dead Sea basin, which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east.
The old meaning, which was in use up to the early 20th century, covered almost the entire length of what today is called the Jordan Rift Valley, running in a north-south orientation between the southern end of the Sea of Galilee and the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea at Aqaba–Eilat. This included the Jordan River Valley between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, the Dead Sea itself, and what today is commonly called the Arava Valley. The contemporary use of the term is restricted to this southern section alone.
Meanwhile, Wadi Araba is an arid valley that stretches from Za’farana on the Red Sea coast to the Nile valley north of Beni Souef in the Egyptian territory. Visited by geologists and scholars since the 19th century – Brunton, Schweinfurth, Figari, Fourtau, Ball – the region has not yet been systematically explored and remains an almost unknown territory. The documents that can be gathered on this communication route – the only one that links Middle Egypt to the Gulf of Suez –show the unique archaeological and historical potential of the Wadi Araba. In the Eastern Desert, a circulation area used since prehistoric times for its stone, copper and gold ore resources, this region’s survey and archaeological study offers new insights into studying the desert tracks between the Nile Valley and the Sinai.
Wadi Araba Location
Wadi Araba is an arid valley that stretches from Za’farana on the Red Sea coast to the Nile valley north of Beni Souef.
Geography
The Arabah is 166 km (103 mi) in length, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the southern shore of the Dead Sea.
Topographically, the region is divided into three sections. From the Gulf of Aqaba northward, the land gradually rises over a distance of 77 km (48 mi) and reaches a height of 230 m (750 ft) above sea level, representing the watershed divide between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. From this crest, the land slopes gently northward over 74 km (46 mi) to 15 km (9.3 mi) south of the Dead Sea. In the last section, the Arabah drops steeply to the Dead Sea, which is 417 m (1,368 ft) below sea level.
The Arabah is scenic, with colourful cliffs and sharp-topped mountains. The southern Arabah is hot and dry and virtually without rain.
Flora and fauna
There are numerous species of flora and fauna in the Aravah Valley. The caracal (Caracal caracal) is found in the valley’s savanna areas.
Important Bird Areas
A 15,000-ha tract of the northern Arava Valley, from the Ne’ot Hakikar Nature Reserve in the north to the Hazeva and Shezaf Nature Reserve in the south, has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of both residents and migrating bird species, including sand partridges, garganeys, common cranes, black and white storks, Eurasian spoonbills and bitterns, black-winged stilts, tawny desert owls, lappet-faced vultures, Levant sparrowhawks, sooty falcons, Arabian warblers and babblers, Tristram’s starlings, hooded wheatears and Dead Sea sparrows.
Furthermore, a 60,000-ha tract of the southern Arava Valley, from Yotvata in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, including the western (Israeli) half of the valley floor and the ridge of the Eilat Mountains, has also been recognised as an IBA, with additional significant species being Lichtenstein’s sandgrouse, grey herons, great white pelicans, slender-billed curlews, marsh sandpipers, black-winged pratincoles, white-eyed gulls, white-winged terns, pallid scops owls, European honey buzzards, Egyptian vultures, eastern imperial eagles, lesser kestrels, lanner falcons, Arabian larks, Sinai rosefinches and cinereous buntings. On the southern Arava Valley’s eastern (Jordanian) side is the corresponding 17,200 ha, Wadi Araba IBA, about 160 km long by up to 25 km wide. In very small numbers, an additional species recorded is the vulnerable MacQueen’s bustard.
History
In Biblical times, the Arava was a centre of copper production; King Solomon is believed to have had mines based on copper mines dating to his reign. Copper mining at the Ashalim site even predates his power. The Arabah, especially in its eastern part, was part of the realm of the Edomites (called “Idumeans” during Roman times). Later, the east Arabah became the domain of the Nabateans, the builders of the city of Petra.
The governments of Jordan and Israel are promoting the development of the region. The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty was signed in the Arava on October 26, 1994. A plan is to bring sea water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea through a canal (Red–Dead Seas Canal), which follows along the Arabah. This (long envisioned) project was once an issue of dispute between Jordan and Israel, but it was recently agreed that the project should be constructed on and by the Jordanian side.
Archaeology: Kingdom of Edom
The existence of the biblical Kingdom of Edom was proved by archaeologists led by Ezra Ben-Yosef and Tom Levy, using a methodology called the punctuated equilibrium model 2019. Archaeologists mainly took copper samples from the Timna Valley and Faynan in Jordan’s Arava Valley dated 1300–800 BCE. According to the results of the analyses, the researchers thought that Pharaoh Shoshenk I of Egypt (the Biblical “Shishak”), who attacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BC, encouraged trade and production of copper instead of destroying the region. Tel Aviv University professor Ben-Yosef reported, “Our new findings contradict the view of many archaeologists that a loose alliance of tribes populated the Arava, and they’re consistent with the biblical story that there was an Edomite kingdom here”.
Demography
In 2004, the Jordanian administrative district of Wadi Araba had a population of 6,775. Five significant tribes comprise eight settlements on the Jordanian side: Al-S’eediyeen (السعيديين), Al-Ihewat (الإحيوات), Al-Ammareen (العمارين), Al-Rashaideh (الرشايدة), and Al-Azazmeh (العزازمة), as well as smaller tribes of the Al-Oseifat (العصيفات), Al-Rawajfeh (الرواجفة), Al-Manaja’h (المناجعة), and Al-Marzaqa (المرزقة), among others. The main economic activities for these Arabah residents revolve around herding sheep, agriculture, handicrafts, and the Jordanian Army.
Landmarks
The Jordanian copper mining area of Wadi Feynan, including the site of Khirbat en-Nahas, corresponds to the one from Timna Valley in the west. Timna Valley Park is notable for its prehistoric rock carvings, some of the oldest copper mines in the world, and a convoluted cliff called King Solomon’s Pillars. On the Jordanian side is Wadi Rum, famous among rock climbers, hikers, campers, and outdoors lovers.
Feynan Ecolodge was opened in Wadi Feynan by the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in 2005.
Jordanian localities
Below is a list of Jordanian population clusters in Wadi Araba:
- Aqaba
- Feifa
- Safi
- Al Mazraa
The total Jordanian population in the region is 103,000, of whom 96,000 live in Aqaba.
Israeli localities
Below is a list of Israeli localities in the Arava, from north to south.
- Ein Tamar
- Neot HaKikar
- Ir Ovot
- Idan
- Ein Hatzeva
- Hatzeva
- Ein Yahav
- Sapir
- Tzofar
- Tzukim
- Paran
- Yahel
- Neot Smadar
- Neve Harif
- Kibbutz Lotan
- Ketura
- Grofit
- Kibbutz Yotvata
- Samar
- Elifaz
- Be’er Ora
- Eilot
- Eilat
The Israeli population of the region is 52,000, of whom 47,500 live in Eilat, and just over 5,000 live in 20 small towns north of Eilat, the largest of which is Yotvata, with a population (as of 2019) of 717.
Wadi Araba Project in Egypt
This project aims to systematically explore the Wadi Araba by following the foothills of the central axis and the secondary wadis, which draw transversal paths to move around the Galala plateaus. The objective is to inventory wells, occupation sites (camps, dwellings, cemeteries, mining sites), rock inscriptions and all the archaeological, historical and geographical documents relating to this area. The project’s main interest lies in its diachronic aspect, from Prehistory to modern times. More than 200 archaeological sites or facts have been identified: several are prehistoric and predynastic sites, mining camps from the Old and Middle Kingdom with a track linking them, rock engravings, Roman/Byzantine settlements and cemeteries, as well as Coptic hermitages.
One of the significant results of the survey is the discovery of a series of small sites in the Levant’s Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN), particularly in the PPNB phase (8500-7000 BCE). The most important of these, located near the village of Bir Buerat, discovered in the 1950s by French amateur archaeologists, was land mined in the 1960s and 1970s and cannot be excavated. A survey around the site led to the discovery of new PPN sites 3 km southwest of Bir Buerat, where several concentrations of flint implements can be seen on the edge of a large eroded and silted sandstone terrace over a length of more than 50 m. They include characteristic arrowheads well known in the PPN flint industries in the Levant.
