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Estate of Ämr

Jeffrey A. Blakely Above: An 1880 map of the area around Khirbet Ajlan, including Tell el-Hesi and Khirbet Khisas. From C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener, Map of Western Palestine in 26 Sheets: From Surveys Conducted for the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. London: Palestine Exploration Fund. Scale 1:63,360.

1890a, 161; 1890b, 220; 1891,10, 53). Almost immediately biblical scholars' interest in the site waned.

Ajlan first claimed notice in the scholarly At this same time, scholars in other disciplities were attracted world when pioneering biblical geographer Edward to Khirbet Ajlan. If not biblical Eglon, what was it? In 1890, Robinson visited the site on 22 May 1838. Robinson Guy LeStrange cited a text from the thirteenth-century scholar confidently identified the site with biblical Eglon (Robinson Yaqut stating that the seventh-century military and political and Smith 1841, 2:391-92), with the result that the site leader Amr b. al-As named his estate Ajlan after his mawla and its identification became known immediately, and it (former slave; 1866-1873, 2:413). In 1899, Charles Clermontbegan to receive a steady stream of visitors and scholars Ganneau connected Amr b. al-As's estate Ajlan with Khirbet throughout the rest of the nineteenth century (e.g., van de Ajlan, making it a notable mid-seventh-century site (1896Velde 1858, 115, 248, 308; Thomson 1874, 2:356-57; Por- 1899, 2:439 n.*). The estate acquired by Amr b. al-As, one of ter 1858, 1:260; 1866, 209; Guèrin 1869, 296-99; Conder the leaders of the Islamic conquests of Palestine and Eg-ypt, and Kitchener 1883, 278; see fig. 1). In the spring of 1890, would be a significant site for that reason alone. however, archaeologist William Matthew Flinders Pétrie Almost simultaneously. Crusader scholars were working to identify thirteenth-century villages in this area based on a discovered no pre-Roman remains at Khirbet Ajlan and concluded correctly that it could not be biblical Eglon (Pétrie deed dated 1256/1257 between John d'lbelin and the Hospi-

tal of Saint John (Paoli 1733-1737, 1:150-53; see figs, 2A-D), This deed lists fourteen villages sold by d'lbelin to the Hospital, atid atnong those villages were Agelen el Hayet and Agelen el Ahsses, Hatis Prutz (1881, 172) and Emtnatutel Rey (1883, 404, 412) worked on this deed in the 1870s and the early 1880s, and each equated Khirbet Ajlan with Agelen el Hayet. The publication of the Map and Survey of Western Palestine (Conder and Kitchener 1880, 1883; see opening photo) reinvigorated this scholarship by "discovering" the names of many Palestinian villages and ruins in the region. Reinhold Röhricht (1887, 240-41) and Claude Conder (1889) each sought to identify all the villages tunned in this deed, and each itnmediately accepted the identification of Agelen el Hayet as Khirbet

Fig. 1. This map shows tbe location of the larger sites and features described in this study set within a larger map of the Israel/Palestine/Jordan region. Map produced by William Isenberger in consultation with the author.

Ajlan, in part because Khirbet Ajlan was high upon a ridge. Although each scholar made other new identifications, neither could identify Agelen el Ahsses. It was only in the 1940s that Cjustav Beyer suggested that Agelen el Ahsses was Khirbet Khisas, a small site in the Ooodplain of W^adi el-Hesi (19461951, 256-58; see figs. 3A-B). This identification attracted little, if any, note or comtnent.

In July 2008, the Hesi Regional Survey visited Khirbet Khisas, a small site of a bit less than 1.4 ha (3.5 acres), and found no pottery from the Crusader period. If this date is accurate and representative for the site, this observation obviates Beyer's identification, and Agelen el Ahsses remains unidentified (see figs. 4A-C).

Fig. 2A. Khirbet Ajlan is a small site sitting on a ridge overlooking Wadi el-Hesi. In 1945 the Royal Air Force (RAF) photographed all of Palestine. This close-up of Kbirbet Ajlan is taken from tbose images. It sbows a small unremarkable site, but here tbe weti Rujm Abu Ajlan is visible before it and other structural remains at Kbirbet Ajlan were bulldozed. At present, no structures are to be found on the site beyond a few fragmentary wall lines flattened to ground level. Pbotograpb PS15-5058 was obtained from the Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for use in tbe study of tbe Hesi region. Tbis is a very small portion of tbe larger image.

Fig. 2B (left). Today Khirbet Ajlan is atop a ridge surrounded by i r r i g a t e d f i e l d s and overlooking a citrus grove. The site itself is not farmed, although the structures visible on the site in 1945 have now been flattened. This ¡mage is a rectified photomosaic of air photographs taken by a kite by members of the Hesi survey in July 2010.

Fig. 2C (right). The air photographs taken by the Hesi survey in July 2010 were rectified using the precise locations of many of the white dots seen here witbin the image, the white dots being carefully mapped in three dimensions. Overlap of the rectified images along with the survey data allowed this highly accurate orthophotograph to be created for which all distortions have been removed. The site is no more than about 100 m x 100 m, although modern agricultural activities may have removed the extreme edges of the site.

Fig. 2D (left). Khirbet Ajlan was also visited by the author in 1979. Here Khirbet Ajlan is atop a gentle slope overlooking a then modern but unirrigated field. The site is neither large nor impressive.

With only Khirbet Ajlan preserving the Ajlan or Agelen name, it is not surprising that the equation Khirbet Ajlan = Agelen el Hayet = the village Ajlan named after Atnr b. al-As's mawla has been unquestioned in the field. In addition, Ajlan was etiumerated in the 1596/1597 daftar-i mufassal (a village-by-village tax register) as having ten heads of hou.sehold who were taxed for production of wheat and barley, on other occasional revenues, and on their ownership of goats and bee hives (Hütteroth and Abdultattah 1977,143). It was also identified as the location of the center of Amr b. al-As's manor/estate. Not only was the site named alter Atnr b. al-As's mawla, but the site was the central place in a major estate that was created in the mid-seventh century and continued to be held by the al-As clan for generations (Lecker 1989). Finally, al-Tabari's accounts of Amr b. al-As's estate at Ajlan (al-Tabari 1990, 171-72; 1997, 191-92) suggest a site altogether larger than what is preserved at Khirbet Ajlan today. In July 2004, the Hesi Regional Survey visited Khirbet Ajlan and found a pottery sequence running from the Byzantine period to, probably, the Ayyubid/Mamluk period. The survey also found the site to be relatively small (about 0.9 ha, or 2.2 acres). To be sure, some of the site was impacted by agricultural activities over the past fifty years, but only a very limited sherd scatter could be detected in the fields beyond the site, covering at most an additional 0.95 ha (2.3 acres). Moreover, the lack of a good well at this high location casts doubt on the possibility that a significantly larger site could ever have been supported here. Both the daftar-i mufassal of 1596/1597 and Lecker's work on Amr b. al-As's estate suggest that Ajlan was a far larger site than that of Khirbet Ajlan. The connection between Crusader Agelen el I layet and Khirbet Ajlan seems reasonable, but why are they linked with the location of Amr b. al-A.s's estate Ajlan? By the logic used in making such an identification, it is just as likely that the location of Agelen el Ahsses should be linked with Amr b. al-As's Ajlan. The reason Agelen el Ahsses has been ignored and not equated with Atnr b. al-As's estate Ajlan is that its location has been lost. Conder and Kitebener (1880, sheet XX; 1883, 281, 286, 288) atid Pétrie (1890b, 221; 1891, 53) tioted two ruins of little consequence just about a kilometer downstream from Tell el-Hesi: Khirbet Tannar and Khirbet Hazzarah.' The descriptions provided by Conder and Kitchener, Pétrie, and subsequent archaeological inspectors during the Rritish Mandate (British Mandate Record Files;

Amr b. al-As

I

f you know your streets in Jerusalem, you may be aware that the entratice to the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research is located at the corner of Saladin Street and Amr b. al-As Street. But who was Atnr b. al-As? He was one of the most astute politicians, diplomats, and military leaders of the immediate followers of the Prophet Muhammad. Atnr b. al-As was born in the vicinity of Mecca at some point in the 580s. He came from a wealthy and infiuential family that was based in an estate located near Wadi Wajj in the vicinity of Ta'if, Saudi Arabia. About the year 629 he and his son Abdallah converted and became followers of the Prophet. Soon he was governor of Oman. With the death of the Prophet, he was recalled by Abu Bakr and by 633 led an army through Ayla to Palestitie, thereby commanding a protninent role in the conquest of Palestine atid Syria. He played major roles in the battles at Adjnadayn, Yarniuk, and Damascus. Subsequently he became governor of Filastin, and it is likely that it was at this titne he acquited his estate Ajlan. From 640-642, he was at the head of the Muslim armies that conquered Egypt. He became governor of Egypt, founded the new city of Fustat, and erected the first mosque in Africa. This mosque, now in downtown Cairo (see photo below), remains protninetit to this day, even though it has been tnodified, destroyed, and rebuilt a nutnber of times. With the rise of Uthman in the tnid-640s, Amr b. al-As was replaced as govertior of Egypt, and he seems to have retired in disgust to Ajlan. For more than a decade he remained in retirement, although he likely worked behind the scenes agaitist Uthman. It is at the end of this period of retirement that al-Tabari describes Amr b. al-As and his sons at Ajlan, undoubtedly sitting astride a major postal route, when a series of riders pass on their way to Gaza and Egypt bringing news of the insurrection against and then tbe death of Uthman. At this point Atnr b. al-As, now a relatively old man, openly allied himself with Muawiya and helped him secure the caliphate through both tnilitary and diplotnatic means. As a result, in about 658 Amr b. al-As was reappointed governor of Egypt, a position he held until his death in 664. Various traditions indicate that Amr b. al-As was buried at Ajlan, while his soti Abdallah was buried at Mulakis.

The Mosque of Amr b. al-As in modern-day Cairo.

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