ELUSA
(El-Khalasa) Israel.
A town in the
central Negev, mentioned for the first time by Ptolemy
(
Geog. 5.15) as one of the towns of Idumaea W of the
Jordan, certainly referring to Nabatea. It appears on the
Peutinger Table at a distance of 71 Roman miles from
Jerusalem and 24 from Oboda. In the same period, the
4th c. A.D., the city is mentioned in two of Libanius' letters. Elusa played an important part in the development
of Early Christianity in the Negev, and two of its bishops participated in the councils of Ephesos (431) and
Chalcedon (451). However, pagan deities were still worshiped there in this period. In the 6th c. Elusa formed
part of Palaestina Tertia and was an important station
on the Pilgrims' Road to Sinai.
Save for a trial trench sunk in 1938 there have been
no archaeological investigations at the site. Much of its
building material has been removed to provide for construction at Gaza. Little of the ancient town now remains
above ground. At the beginning of our century a Nabatean inscription of the first half of the 2d c. B.C. was
found, as well as numerous pre-Christian and Christian
inscribed tombstones. The surface pottery indicates settlement in the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Early
Arab periods. For the later phases of the town we have
the evidence of the papyri found at neighboring Nessana.
In these documents Elusa is referred to as the district
capital of the central Negev. It seems to have been
founded in the 3d c. B.C. by the Nabateans as one of their
first caravan halts in the central Negev, on the Petra-Gaza road; and it seems to have shared the same fate
as the other Nabatean towns about which we are better
informed. Possibly in the Late Roman period it became
the capital of the central Negev, which it certainly served
in the Byzantine and Early Arab periods. It was abandoned before A.D. 800. In survey excavations made in
1973 the Nabatean town was located. Remains of a
temple, a theater, and an elaborate water supply system
were found there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Robinson,
Biblical Researches in Palestine (1867) 201-2; F. M. Abel, “Epigraphie Grecque
Palestinienne,”
RBibl. 18 (1909) 89-166; C. L. Woolley
& T. E. Lawrence, “The Wilderness of Zin,”
Palestine
Exploration Fund Annual 3 (1914-1915); T. J. Collin
Baly,
Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 8 (1938) 159; G. E. Kirk, “The Negeb, or the
Southern Desert of Palestine,”
PEQ (1941) 62; A. Negev,
“Elusa,”
RBibl 81 (1974).
A. NEGEV
