Talk:Tell el-Hammam

Tell/tall, el/al
The sign for Tall al-Hammam in Jordan (Arabic) can be found here https://www.facebook.com/DigSodom/photos/10159569637979778. The site is sometimes spelled as Tell el-Hammam (Hebrew). Both are used variously in publications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deg777 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 22 January 2022 (UTC)


 * "Tell" no contexto de temas arqueológicos é um substantivo e não um verbo. Logo, "Diga el-Hammem" está errado, sendo que "Alto el-Hammam" ou "Colina el Hammam" serão opções correctas. VTrindade (talk) 14:28, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

It should be either both with a, or both with e. Traditionally it's tell, el-. The Jordanian Department of Antiquities has started around 2002 to send directives with lists of names with a general tendency towards tall, al-, etc. (see Jarash instead of Jerash), and some PC-obsessed Anglos are hurrying to conform, although the lists were constantly a-changin' for years, and the typical mess. "Normal ppl" stick to how they always wrote the names, but that's their problem, Jordan is emancipating on the spelling front, no matter the losses. Jordan being a traditional democracy, people who have went through school lately are marching to the tune of al-tall. Poor Lawrence of Arabiyah, he once explained (was it in his introduction to the Seven Pillars?) that he purposely spelled even the same, frequently occurring names in different ways, being inconsistent for a reason, because academic squabbles about how to reproduce in Latin alphabet the sounds of spoken Arabic, with its regional differences (I don't remember if he added: and disregard for vowels, which seems to be the lot of Semitic languages), is just one thing: ridiculous. Old school British humour, lost among today's PC soldiers. Here we have Tell el-Hammam (Nelson Glueck, 1930s; David Kennedy and APAAME, probably since the 70s), Tell al-Hammam (Kay Prag, 1990s), now Tall el-Hammam (Collins, 2000s). That's what I call progress. Long live anticolonialism! Down with Lawrence! Oh, sorry, he's OK... Or mostly. Whatever. The Levant is alive and kicking - probably itself in the hard-to-spell parts. Arminden (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Periods of settlement
You claim that the dates for "the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods (165 BC[dubious – discuss]–AD 750)." I am the field supervisor of the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic excavation at Tall el-Hammam from 2005-2017 and can say based on published parallels of the pottery that they date from 1st cent. BC-10th cent. AD). Our finds have been published both in Graves, David E., and D. Scott Stripling. ‘Examination of the Location for the Ancient City of Livias’. Levant 43, no. 2 (August 2011): 178–200 and in Graves, David E., A Preliminary Report on the Tall al-Hammam Excavation Project: Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic Remains: Field LR (2005–2014). Edited by Steven Collins, Gary Byers and D. Scott Stripling. 2021. Both are peer reviewed. My PhD is from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland under I. Howard Marshall not Dr. Collins. [unsigned, by all appearance posted by . Hi, would you please confirm? Thanks.]

The quoted book (Steven Collins & al., An Introduction..., Eisenbrauns 2015) is not accessible online. The quote seems very fishy to me: My conclusion: not a trustworthy quote. Prove me wrong. EAMENA source more concise, to the point - and accessible online! The old quote has some additional, potentially useful info, that's my main reason for leaving it as is, but now it's confusing for the user who has to choose betw. 2 partially contradictory quotations. Arminden (talk) 08:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The very important Intermediate Bronze Age is fully missing
 * The years set in brackets next to the periods are substantially diverging from those indicated in 2009 dig report. The periodisation list in the 2009 report is presented there as Collins's very personal choice, it seems unlikely that he changed it so much; it seems to me more likely that a WP editor added the figures from elsewhere, and they don't fit.
 * I don't know if it was a WP editor, I only know that I do not trust Creationists. I've made his affiliations clear in the lead, let's see how long that sticks. Doug Weller  talk 10:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Also those of Veritas, which is accredited but by a Creationist organisation. Why the US government allows that is a puzzle.  Doug Weller  talk 10:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Here's one review. - note "a statement like the following: “Tall el-Hammam’s [sic] first occupation in seven hundred years begins at the beginning of IA2A, and was, no doubt, related in some way to the kingdoms of David and Solomon” is hard to swallow without some kind of evidence. What does the quoted statement mean? How is it related? Is there any textual or archaeological evidence for this? Perhaps this statement is an inefficiency of the format"
 * Also which I'll try to get as I can only see part, although what I can see isn't encouraging. Doug Weller  talk 10:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * lol watching you struggle to make sure this Eisenbrauns publication doesn't get cited/mentioned is arguably more hilarious than the Creationists (completely unrelated to Sodom in case you didn't realize that) who claim this is Sodom. Cornelius (talk) 01:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Great. Still, mine were two concrete, maybe narrow issues: are there any LBA sherds at the site? No architectural remains, OK, but what about other findings? Ms Banks mentions LBA too, but she's writing on a website about a far larger topic and might have been slightly careless. Or not. Second, the years for each period. That's my beef for now. Apart from that, of course, Christian Bible apoligists have a strong agenda and need to be taken with great caution. But they got the digging license, so... we're stuck with them, and the site is indeed fascinating and not properly researched. Maybe you can find some opinion by Finkelstein, Ussishkin and the other usual suspects of the minimalist camp. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 11:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)


 * "You claim that the dates for "the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods (165 BC[dubious – discuss]–AD 750)." I am the field supervisor of the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic excavation at Tall el-Hammam from 2005-2017 and can say based on published parallels of the pottery that they date from 1st cent. BC-10th cent. AD)."
 * , hi. To again make my point: 1st cent. BCE is NOT the same as 165 BCE, which is of course a) 2nd cent. BCE, b) probably picked up arbitrarily from a Hasmonean-related context, which is largely irrelevant here, and c) it seems to me that you are confusing two distinct periods, the Hellenistic (332-63 BCE) and the Roman (63 BCE-4th c. CE). Elsewhere I'm getting the impression that editors of the article further confuse "Early Roman" with Roman altogether, considering the Byzantine period to be = Late Roman period. There is of course no sharp delimitation between (Late) Roman and Byzantine, but it's an universally accepted periodisation, with the start of the Byzantine period being set in 313 (Edict of Milan), 324 (Constantine I sole emperor), or at the latest 380 (Theodosius I installs Christianity as the sole, official state religion of the empire). Also, the Romans inherited and continued the Hellenistic civilisation in the region, but again, they're not being lumped together with the Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Hasmoneans. If such absolutely basic knowledge seems to be missing among those editing here, you musn't be surprised that everything written comes under justifiably skeptical scrutiny, especially the more outlandish theories, but not only. Arminden (talk) 15:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Relevant article
Experts Say ‘Pseudoarchaelogists’ Are Threatening the Field With Pet Theories About the Ancient World Engineered to Go Viral The "viral" bit is about the alleged discovery of Sodom and the alleged airburst over Tell el-Hammam. Doug Weller talk 16:06, 13 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Looks like they’re a reliable source Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 348 — rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)


 * How could this article be of much use in any way? Most of the article, first of all, isn't realy about the topic(s) in question but is a collection of more or less unrelated statements about topics with some(?) degree of connection to the Tell el-Hammam archaeological project or with no kind of connection to this topic at all. Secondly the article provided some links that should(?) provide additional criticism on how these excavations and studies were conducted, but most/all of these links went to Twitter!!! Well, I didn't bother to read twittermessages. Please enlighten me, if I have missed something out, but it's hard for me to see, how helpfull this article could be in any way? Oleryhlolsson (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

young earth creationist?
In the chapter "Research history" the initiator of the archaeological investigations Steven Collins is labled as a young earth creationist, but no source is provided for this claim. I've spent some hours trying to see if I could find a reliable source (or even an unreliable source) for such a statement, but nothing of that kind turned up for me (besides Wikipedia itself) (on the other hand neither did I find any sources in my search that dwelled upon Collins' keen interest in evolution and Darwin in his youth). Since Steven Collins is very much alive such personal claim can only be presented in an article here on Wikipedia if it is supported by a reliable source to the claim. Oleryhlolsson (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I haven't gone digging too far for references, but a quick way of resolving this would be to change "young earth creationist Steven Collins" to "Steven Collins, executive dean of the aforementioned Trinity Southwest University". I think his preexisting opinions on the accuracy of the bible is important to this article, and this would give that information without any hint of original research. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 03:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, that could be a possible way to handle the matter. Oleryhlolsson (talk) 03:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * When this was originally added it linked to Steven Collins (now merged with Trinity Southwest University), which has/had ample sources supporting the fact that TSU, which Collins' runs, is committed to biblical inerrancy. Making a distinction between that and YEC seems like splitting hairs to me. Nevertheless, I've reworked the section to stick more closely to the source. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 05:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This is where he got his PhD [ https://trinitysem.edu/prominent-graduates/ ]. Doug Weller  talk 10:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Author Correction: ATunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el‑Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea
Paper dated May 2023. Doug Weller  talk 14:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Is there any reason why this Author correction has not been taken under consideration? Even almost a year after it's publication. 77.60.121.89 (talk) 14:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The journal continues to investigate the paper: "15 February 2023 Editor’s Note: Readers are alerted that concerns raised about the data presented and the conclusions of this article are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues." — rsjaffe 🗣️ 18:05, 3 April 2024 (UTC)