An international team of researchers show how high-precision radiocarbon dating is liberating us from chronological assumptions based on Biblical research. Surface and topographic mapping at the large copper-working site of Khirbat en-Nahas was followed by stratigraphic excavations at an ancient fortress and two metal processing facilities located on the site surface. The results were spectacular. Occupation begins here in the eleventh century BC and the monumental fortress is built in the tenth. If this site can be equated with the rise of the Biblical kingdom of Edom it can now be seen to: have its roots in local Iron Age societies; is considerably earlier than previous scholars assumed; and proves that complex societies existed in Edom long before the influence of Assyrian imperialism was felt in the region from the eighth – sixth centuries BC.
It is now more than 140 years since archaeologists began dealing with the engraved Tridacna shells, whose distribution extended from Vulci in the west to Susa in the east, and from Memphis in the south to Gordion and Vulci in the north. Their number is growing constantly and is now approaching 100. This increase is the result not only of the publication of new finds or old museum material, which until now escaped the scholar's eyes, but also of the reclassification of four items, in the past said to be imitations made of various stones, as authentic Tridacna shells.In this article I want to show that this is true not only with the complete Tridacna shells, but also of a sub-group of Tridacna shells cut into the shape of discs. I will try to prove that the items in this sub-group are indeed Tridacna shells by describing them and discussing their motives and distribution. I will not deal with questions such as the centre of manufacture, distributors, style etc. important as they are. These aspects will be discussed by me in detail in a separate publication which will treat the Tridacna shell group as a whole.
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