ABSTRACT
Nearly 5,000 years ago, on a broad plain overlooking the Lisan peninsula near the southeast end of the Dead Sea, organized work crews were busy inaugurating a major architectural change in town planning. While some crews were hacking mud from nearby alluvial plains, others were gathering white marl clay from hillocks near the proposed town site. Some crews transported the mud and clay by baskets on their backs or on donkeys or sledges to open work areas. There the mud and clay were formed into rectangular bricks by another crew and left to dry in the sun. Skilled workers waited nearby to lay the bricks with lime mortar in courses and rows of interlocking mudbricks to form 1 m wide blocking walls to fill in gaps between the ring of hills and to construct an associated tower with a gateway at the east of the town site. These were the first steps in this region to creating a walled town at the site of Bab adh-Dhra‘, which, with successive modifications, lasted over 800 years as a haven of security, industry, commerce, and pilgrimage for the populations of the Southern Ghawrs.
