Wadi Shueib (), Arabic for the Valley of Jethro and properly Wadi Shuʿeib but with many variant romanisations, is a

wadi Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

. The

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...

of the wadi where it enters the southern part of the eastern Jordan Valley is known as Wadi Nimrin, which leads into the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

. The site of Tell Nimrin is located at the southern end of Wadi Nimrin.Alexander Ahrens
"From the Southern Jordan Valley Plains to the Transjordanian Plateau: Current Archaeological Fieldwork in the Wadi Shuʿaib, Jordan"
''The Ancient Near East Today'', October 2019 Vol. VII, No. 10Gafny, S. ''et al.'' (2010)
Map of the Lower Jordan River
retrieved 14 April 2020

Etymology

Wadi Shueib is named for the

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

figure Jethro, Shuʿeib in Arabic.

Geography and ecology

Wadi Shueib lies west of Sweileh at elevations from to

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

. It drains an area of approximately . Towns and villages along the wadi include

Salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

Fuheis Fuheis () is a Christian majority town in the central Jordanian governorate of Balqa. It lies in between Salt and Amman, at a distance of 6 and 13 kilometers respectively. . The population of Fuheis was estimated to be 21,908 in 2021, 87% are ...

, and

Mahis Mahis (, alternatively spelled Mahas) is a town in the Balqa Governorate northwest from the governorate's capital Salt, and west of Amman. Its population was 17,754 in 2015. Most of the population of Mahis descends from the Abbadi tribe. (). The ...

, which discharge treated and untreated sewage into it.

Modern dam

An earth-filled dam was constructed across it in 1968.

Archaeology

Excavations have confirmed that the area was a major site during

Neolithic period The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wid ...

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links

Photos of Wadi Shu'eib
at the

American Center of Research The American Center of Research (ACOR) is a private, not-for-profit scholarly and educational organization. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, with a facility in Amman, Jordan, ACOR promotes knowledge of Jordan and the interconnected region, past an ...

Rivers of Jordan Tributaries of the Jordan River {{Jordan-river-stub