Tall el-Hammam (Sodom) on the Madaba Map?

Fig. 1 Entire image of the Madaba map

Fig. 2 Section of the Madaba Map showing the Jordan river
 flowing into the Dead Sea with two sites at the top
with no Greek names.

For two days now it has been raining in Jordan so we have been confined to our hotel where we did pottery washing and reading. However, one can only do so much of that so we rearranged our tours and drove up to Mt. Nebo (where Moses looked over the promised land) and then drove to Madaba where we viewed the Madaba map of Palestine (see fig 1). In the upper right corner of the map in fig 2, 3 there is a site with the name missing. Since it is across from Jericho (bottom center marked IERIXW) on the other side of the Jordan river, I believe that the upper site is Tall el-Hammam, where we are excavating [A]. While scholars say it is Nimrin, Iktanu, or Kefrein (Kefryn), it is a much larger site than any of these and for other reasons I believe it to be our site of Tall el-Hammam. I hope to publish an article on this find in the Bible and Spade magazine soon (see David E. Graves and D. Scott Stripling, “Identification of Tall El-Hammam on the Madaba Map,” Bible and Spade 20, no. 2 (2007): 35–45).

Update Jan 2020

Further research from my book the Location of Sodom, pp. 50-52.

Fig. 3 close up of the Madaba map

“This Byzantine crusader Madaba map of the Holy Land displays the location of Byzantine holy sites.[1] While the destroyed Cities of the Plain are not depicted on the Madaba Map, possibly due to the loss of part of the map tiles, it does depict the Byzantine location of the traditional site of Zoar (see Fig. 4) often identified at eṣ-Ṣafi, Jordan and the location of the Byzantine church and monastery of St. Lot built over the traditional location of Lot’s cave.
     However, there are two sites which may offer some clues. While most places portrayed on the Madaba Map are provided with names, Sites One and Two (see photo 2) are missing the tesserae (tiny mosaic tiles) depicting their names. Scholars have long speculated, based on the tesserae depiction of the two cities and their general location on the map, about the identification of these sites.
     Site 1 has been variously identified with Abila [2],  Livias-Bethramtha [3],  Bethnambris [4], and Beth-Nimra[5].  Site 2 has equally variously been identified with Livias [6],  Suweimeh [7], Betharam or Bethramphtha [8].
     Most scholars are divided as to which site on the Madaba Map is associated with Roman Livias. Avi-Yonah and Schick prefer Site One, while five scholars prefer Site Two. It is therefore a question open to debate as to what the identification on the Madaba Map of the two towns is?[9] 
    

Fig. 4 Dr. Graves pointing to the location of
Byzantine Zoar on the Madabe map

However, it must be remembered that the Madaba Map was a sacred map used by religious pilgrims for traveling the Holy Land.[10]  Since Byzantine Zoar is mentioned on the map (see fig. 4), while none of the other Cities of the Plain are identified, it may be possible that the two sites in the northern region missing their names are Sodom and Gomorrah.[11]  The early pilgrims were interested in Sodom as is evident from Egeria’s comments.  Livias would not be biblically important to early Christian Pilgrims, but Sodom and Gomorrah would be sites of interest.”

Fig 5. The Location of Sodom cover

David E. Graves, The Location of Sodom: Color Edition. Key Facts for Navigating the Maze of Arguments for the Location of the Cities of the Plain (Toronto: Electronic Christian Media, 2018), 50–52.

Thus the site on the Madaba map directly across from Jericho that has often been identified as Livias is the ancient site of biblical Sodom.

Tall el-Hammam had a long history with various names depending on the period (adapted from Leen Ritmeyer who said "Sodom is Tall el-Hammam but Tall el-Hammam was not always Sodom!"):

• Early Bronze period (C19 Egyptian Execration Text) –Beth-Haram
• Middle Bronze period (Genesis 14)–Sodom (Canaanite)
• Late Bronze period (Num 32:36)–Beth-Haran and the event of Abel-Shittim on the Plains of Moab (Josh 2:1; 3:1).
• Iron Age (Solomon 1 Kgs 4:7-19)–Beth-Haram 
• 1st Cent. BC (Herod the Great; Josephus Antiquities 18.27)–Betharamtha
• 1st Cent AD (Herod Agrippa 4 BC; Josephus A.J. 20.29; B.J. 2.168; 2.252; see also Theodosius Top. 19.1; P. XHev/Se gr 65.3-4)–Livias 
• 1st Cent. AD (Herod Agrippa 14 AD; Josephus Antiquities 18.27; 20.29; Jewish War 2.168; 2.252; 4.438)–Julias
• Byzantine–Sodom (Severus the Bishop of Sodom attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD representing the ecclesiastical province of Arabia [provincia Arabia] Eusebius On. 26).[13] This is the name that would have appeared on the Madaba Map not Livias as the pilgrims were only interested in Holy Site. 

 

Photo of the remains of a mosaic floor of a Byzantine Church at Tall el-Hammam (Livias). Insert of a mosaic chalice.
There was a priest of Livias and a Bishop of Sodom that was undoubtedly associated with this church. This area cannot be excavated because the spot has become a Moslem cemetery. Published in David E. Graves and D. Scott Stripling, “Re-Examination of the Location for the Ancient City of Livias,” Levant 43, no. 2 (2011): 178–200.

Footnotes

[1] Herbert Donner, The Mosaic Map of Madaba. An Introductory Guide, Palaestina Antiqua 7 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 37–94; Eugenio Alliata and Michele Piccirillo, eds., The Madaba Map Centenary: Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7–9 April 1997, Studium Biblicum Franciscannum Collectio Maior 40 (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscannum, 1999), 121–24.

[2] Michael Avi-Yonah, The Madaba Mosaic Map with Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1954), 37; Nelson Glueck, “Some Ancient Towns in the Plains of Moab,” BASOR 91 (1943): 15, 21; Explorations in Eastern Palestine IV. Part 1, AASOR 25-28 (New Haven, Conn.: ASOR, 1945), 377; David E. Graves and D. Scott Stripling, “Locating Tall El-Hammam on the Madaba Map,” BRB 7, no. 6 (2007): 1–11; “Identification of Tall El-Hammam on the Madaba Map,” BS 20, no. 2 (2007): 35–45; Robert Schick, “Northern Jordan: What Might Have Been in the Madaba Mosaic Map,” in The Madaba Map Centenary: Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7–9 April 1997, ed. Michele Piccirillo and Eugenio Alliata, Studium Biblicum Franciscannum 40 (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscannum, 1999), 228.
[3]  Avi-Yonah, Madaba Mosaic Map, 37; Schick, “Northern Jordan,” 228.
[4] Eugenio Alliata and Michele Piccirillo, eds., The Madaba Map Centenary: Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7–9 April 1997, Studium Biblicum Franciscannum Collectio Maior 40 (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscannum, 1999), 54. 
[5] Herbert Donner, The Mosaic Map of Madaba. An Introductory Guide, Palaestina Antiqua 7 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 39.
[6] Ibid.; Glueck, “Some Ancient Towns,” 15, 21; Explorations in Eastern Palestine, 377; Graves and Stripling, “Identification of Tall El-Hammam,” 35–45; “Locating Tall El-Hammam,” 1–11; Kay Prag, “Tall El-Hammam as Livias, 8 Jan 2009,” January 8, 2009, 1.
[7] Michael Avi-Yonah, The Madaba Mosaic Map with Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1954), 37; Robert Schick, “Northern Jordan: What Might Have Been in the Madaba Mosaic Map,” in The Madaba Map Centenary: Travelling Through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Proceedings of the International Conference Held in Amman 7–9 April 1997, ed. Michele Piccirillo and Eugenio Alliata, Studium  Biblicum Franciscannum 40 (Jerusalem: Studium  Biblicum Franciscannum, 1999), 228–29, (see 228). 
[8] Michele Piccirillo, “The Roman Esbus-Livias Road,” in Mount Nebo: New Archaeological Excavations 1967-1997, ed. Michele Piccirillo and Eugenio Alliata, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 27 (Jerusalem: Franciscan, 1998), 133–35.
[9] David E. Graves and D. Scott Stripling, “Re-Examination of the Location for the Ancient City of Livias,” Levant 43, no. 2 (2011): 178–200 (see 182). 

[10] “A comparison of the [Roman] Peutinger Table and the early fourth-century Onomasticon of Eusebius [on which the Madaba map was based] shows that the latter’s interest is in a wide range of biblical and ecclesiastical sites.” Burton MacDonald, “Review of John R. Bartlett, Mapping Jordan through Two Millennia. Palestine Exploration Fund Annual 10. Leeds: Maney, 2008,” BASOR 358 (2010): 83.

[11]  I was the first to make this deduction while doing research for Livias and shared with Dr. Collin who states in his book: “note that no cities are represented in the area south of the Dead Sea. Because this is primarily a map of famous biblical sites, the two city representations (1 and 2) northeast of the Dead Sea are, logically, Sodom and Gomorrah, although the captions are missing.” Collins and Scott, Discovering the City of Sodom, 28.

[12] Egeria, The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1919), 24. 
[13] Mouncy identified the Ecclesiastical province that the Bishop of Sodom represented as Provincia Arabia, while Le Quien identified the Bishop of Sodom in the section under Ecclesia Zoarorum or Segor in the Provincia Palaestinae Tertiae (III). Antoine de Mouchy, Christianae religionis institutionisque Domini Nostri Jesu-Christi et apostolicae traditionis (Paris: Macaeum, 1562), 85; Michel Le Quien, Oriens christianus in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, in quo exhibentur Ecclesiae patriarchae caeterique praesules totius Orientis, 3 vols. (Paris: Typographia Regia, 1740), 3:743; Peter Graham, A Topographical Dictionary of Palestine, or the Holy Land (London, U.K.: J. Davey, 1836), 242. For a proposed solution that 
that the diocese of Sodom was later annexed by Zoar, see Graves, The Location of Sodom 2016, pp. 41-45.