In one of the Old Testament’s colder and more brutal episodes, King Amaziah of Judah (c. 801–783 B.C.E.), after having slain nearly 10,000 Edomites in battle near the southern end of the Dead Sea, is said to have thrown another 10,000 captives from the top of nearby Sela, where they were “dashed to pieces” (2 Chronicles 25:12; 2 Kings 14:7). While the Biblical account provides only vague clues as to where this horrible event took place (Sela simply means “rock” in Hebrew), the archaeology of a little-known mountaintop stronghold in southern Jordan may hold the answer.
Located just 3 miles north of the Edomite capital of Bozrah (modern Buseirah) in the rugged highlands of southern Jordan is an imposing natural rock fortress that still carries the name es-Sela. Surrounded on all sides by deep ravines, the towering, steep-sided rock of es-Sela rises more than 600 feet above the surrounding valleys,...
