and apricots. A few kilometers to the west the old fields begin. These are leased, tilled, and cultivated by the people of Maʻân.
The settlement of Maʻân is situated at the junction of important transport routes. On its eastern side runs the best natural transport route uniting southwestern Arabia with Damascus and the Phoenician harbors. From it there branches off in a southwesterly direction the most convenient road to the former harbor of Elath, now comprising the settlement of al-ʻAḳaba on the Red Sea gulf of the same name. To the west there runs an important caravan route to Gaza and northern Egypt; and on the east there is a route through the oasis of Dûmat al-Ǧandal, known to the ancients as Adumu, to the Persian Gulf and Babylonia. To the northeast there is a road which divides into two branches at the spring of Neǧel. One passes by way of the ruins of ʻÎs—which is identical with ʻÛs, the residence of Job—northward to western Moab. The second, branching off to the north-northeast, leads through the ruins of at-Twâne—which, in my opinion, mark the former settlement of the Têmân tribe—to central Moab.
These crossroads and the abundance of water, which is not found farther eastward, explain why the settlement of Maʻan has been preserved till the present day, instead of being destroyed by the innumerable attacks of the nomads to which all the surrounding settlements to the southwest and northwest have already succumbed. It would have been surprising had the settlement of Maʻân not been of considerable importance during the period when the greater part of international trade was directed along the above-mentioned routes.
