Where Was Ancient Midian?

Midian was the location of Moses’ 40-year exile from Egypt, circa 1486-1446 BC (based on biblical chronology). During that time, he married the daughter of the priest of Midian (Jethro), and tended his flocks. He also visited the Mountain of God, later called Mount Sinai. (cf. Exod. 2:15-3:1; 4:18-20; 18:1-5).

Various classical and historic sources place Midian east of the Gulf of Aqaba, in what is now the northwest part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These sources include:

• 1^st century AD—the Jewish historian Josephus
• 2^nd century AD–the Greek geographer Ptolemy
• 3^rd century AD—Church historian Origin
• 4^th century AD—Church historian Eusebius and theologian St. Jerome
• Medieval Arab historians/geographers

The greater Midian region is mapped below. The ancient populations would have preferred coastal areas with predictable water and fodder resources. Historically, these locales were at Maqna, Aynunah, Ash-Sharmah, and inland at Al-Bad’. Detailed arguments concerning Midian are given in my books, The Lost Sea of the Exodus, Second Edition (pages 205-207), and in The Exodus Mysteries: of Midian, Sinai & Jabal al-Lawz (Chapters 4 and 5).

Arab News recently published an article about Saudi Arabian archaeology projects that adds slight confusion to the topic of ancient Midian. Here is an excerpt:

Qurayya Oasis, the capital of the Median dynasty, is one of the largest archaeological sites in northwest of Saudi Arabia at which the Saudi-Austrian mission is currently conducting extensive surveys and excavations.

The field works yielded 6.5-kilometer-long enclosure walls surrounding and protecting the city from the four sides. Also, some furnaces for producing the so-called ‘median pottery’ date back from the late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age.

Moreover, there was also a distinctive collection of pottery fragments decorated with drawings and multi-colors, beads, pieces of metal and remnants of war tools that included a complete 90-centimeter sword.

Qurayyah is located in the far right, middle of the map. It is situated in the eastern Hisma desert, 70 km (43 mi.) northwest of the major city of Tabuk (not on this map). In Arabic, Qurayyah simply means “little village.”

There are two problems with the above quote:

1. The reference to “Median” and “median pottery”

2. The statement that Qurayyah was “the capital of the Median dynasty”

First, using “Median dynasty” to refer to Midian is likely a translation error (from Arabic to English), as Media had nothing to do with Midian. It is also a stretch to conclude that the biblical “land of Midian” was a dynasty in the true sense of the word. Media, or the “Medes,” the first of a series of Persian empires, flourished circa 612-549 BC, much later than the 15^th century BC of the biblical land of Midian. Media was also quite distant from Midian, being located 900 air miles to the northeast, in what is now northwest Iran. The Medians were defeated circa 550 BC by Cyrus the Great, whose Achaemenid empire later expanded to three continents.

Secondly, Qurayyah has been mistakenly associated with the domain of Midian due to the injudicious use of the term “Midianite Pottery,” coined by Peter Parr et al. (1970, 240). This term referred to unique, decorated pottery made at Qurayyah that was also found at 14 sites in northwest Saudi Arabia, and at Timna in the southern Negev of Israel. The term was reiterated by Ingraham et al. (1981, 74-75) and further popularized by the 1983 pottery article by Rothenberg and Glass in Midian, Moab and Edom, The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze Age Jordan and North-West Arabia. But, Parr (1988, 74) later cautioned against applying ethnic labels to pottery styles, considering the lack of known ties between Qurayyah and the Midianites. He suggested using the term “Qurayyah Painted Ware” (QPW), which investigators have since generally employed.

Connecting Qurayyah and its pottery industry with ancient Midian poses geographical and chronological problems. First, Qurayyah is relatively distant and isolated from the coastal Midian domain. Qurayyah is 105 km (65 mi.) east-northeast of the town of Al-Bad’ (linked with ancient Madyan by Arabian historical sources), and there is no direct travel path between them due to intervening mountains (see map). Qurayyah is also in an entirely different geographical district, the Lihh lowland on the western fringe of the Tabuk basin. Here, the watershed and travel routes gravitate east to the ancient incense trade route, lying just 25 km (15 mi.) away, which supplied its commercial trade connection.

The second issue is chronological. Was Qurayyah associated with the land of Midian of the Exodus? Not according to the dating of its pottery. Based on the standard Egyptian chronology, the QPW at the Timna copper mines has been dated to 1290-1152 BC (Rosenberg and Glass 1983, 100), well after the biblical 1446 BC Exodus. But, Parr (1988, 73) noted that this dating had been plausibly criticized as being too early. More recently, Bimson (and Tebes 2009) opined that 1290-1152 BC dating created a large artificial gap in the pottery sequence of northwest Arabia. They suggested a much later QPW dating based on a modified Egyptian chronology.

In conclusion, historical sources place Midian east of the Gulf of Aqaba in the coastal areas of northwest Saudi Arabia. Midian is much different from the later Medes of ancient Persia. Pertaining to the archaeology of northwest Arabia, it is premature to conclude that the “Qurayyah Oasis” was the capital of Midian, much less a Midianite community, especially in the timeframe of Moses and the Exodus.

References

Bimson, John J., and Juan Manuel Tebes. 2009. Timna Revisited: Egyptian Chronology and the Copper Mines of the Southern Arabah. Antiguo Oriente 7: 75-118.

Ingraham, Michael Lloyd, Theodore D. Johnson, Baseem Rihani, and Ibrahim Shatla. 1981. Saudi Arabian Comprehensive Survey Program: Preliminary Report on a Reconnaissance Survey of the Northwestern Province. ATLAL: The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology 5: 59-84.

Parr, Peter J. 1988. Pottery of the Late Second Millennium BC from North West Arabia and its Historical Implications. In Araby the Blest. Studies in Arabian Archaeology, ed. D.T. Potts. Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Pub. 7, 73–89. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.

Parr, P. J., G. L. Harding, and J. E. Dayton. 1970. Preliminary Survey in N. W. Arabia, 1968 (Part 1). Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 8-9, 193-242.

Rothenberg, Beno, and Jonathan Glass. 1983. The Midianite Pottery. In Midian, Moab and Edom: The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia, ed. J. F. A. Sawyer, and D. J. A. Clines, JSOT Supplement 24, 65-124. Sheffield: JSOT Press.