Arabia Petraea/Babatha
Babatha's Orchard
Babatha's orchard is known only from its documentation in a collection of papyrus scrolls known as the "Babatha Archive" that was discovered in 1961 in the Cave of Letters near ...
Babatha's orchard was located in a village by the name of Maḥoz 'Eglatain (Aramaic for "harbor of 'Eglatain"). Alternative names on record are Mahoza and Maoza (Greek Μαωζα). While the exact location of the site is not known, descriptions in the ancient sources place it on the southeastern coast of the Dead Sea, near the mouth of Wadi Hasa (Biblical Zered). Maoza functioned as the harbor for nearby Ẓo'ar/Zoara (Greek Ζοαρα; modern Ghor el-Safi) (Esler 2017:pp. 66-67), which was the administrative center of the Zoara district of Arabia Petraea (Fig. 1).