Адуммим: Тарихи жол және археологиялық іздер

Adummim is a place name mentioned in the biblical Book of Joshua in connection with the ascent of Adummim.

Adummim was apparently on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho in the Judaean desert, today in the West Bank. It is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (Josh. 15:7 (1000), Josh. 18:17 (1000)) as being "on the south side of the stream", which Matthew Easton (1897) identified with Wadi Kelt, and across from Gilgal or/and Geliloth. Easton claimed that it was nearly halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho, and now bears the name of Tal'at ed Dumm. The "ascent of Adummim" is a very important historical road that leads up from Jericho towards Jerusalem, following the top of a ridge that forms the southern bank of Wadi Qelt and separates it from Wadi Tal'at ad Damm.

The name Adummim is related to adom, the Hebrew word for "red", and can be translated as "red places", which may refer to the reddish streaks found in the stone of the area. The red brown hills of the area on the road descending from Jerusalem to Jericho are made of iron oxide tinged limestone. The Ascent of Adummim was known as the "Ascent of Blood" by the Crusaders. The so called Inn of the Good Samaritan has been named based on this assumption.

A lavra established in the 420s in Wadi Qelt and reorganised as a monastery around the year 500 became known as St George's Monastery. Rebuilt since the 19th century, it hangs spectacularly from the cliffs on the south side of the wadi, across from the ridge rising from the Plain of Jericho towards Jerusalem and known as the "ascent of Adummim".

Another khan built along the Ascent of Adummim, the Good Samaritan Inn, known in Arabic both as Khan al Hatruri, and sometimes, quite confusingly (see the other khan mentioned above), as Khan al Ahmar, stands east of the Highway 1 Route 417 junction. Eusebius mentions the Late Roman fort of Maledomni, whose traces have disappeared under the Templar castle of Maldoim (see below). In the Early Byzantine period, there seems to have been a fortress at the site (4th 5th century), replaced in the 6th century by a square shaped hostel, erected around a central courtyard, providing Christian pilgrims with rooms, water from a central cistern, and a large church for worship.

Across the modern highway from the Inn of the Good Samaritan/Khan al Hatruri, are the archaeological remains of a medieval castle known to the Crusaders as Maldoim, Adumim, or Rouge Cisterne / Cisterna Rubea (Red Cistern), among other names. It stands at the top of the "Ascent of Blood", as the Ascent of Adummim was known to the Crusaders.

The Byzantine Monastery of St. Euthymius, founded at first as a lavra type monastic community by Saint Euthymius the Great in 420 along the Ascent of Adummim, played a major role in the development of desert monasticism in Palestine, and in the spread of Chalcedonian orthodoxy in the country after the 451 Church Council. Fallen into ruin, it was rebuilt in the Crusader period, only to be abandoned again after its destruction at the beginning of the Mamluk period in the 13th century by Sultan Baybars. The structure was repurposed as a caravanserai or hhan for Muslim pilgrims travelling from Jerusalem to Mecca via the nearby shrine of Nabi Musa, and became known as Khan al Ahmar, the "Red Khan".

The Monastery of Martyrius (5th–7th century), excavated in the centre of Ma'ale Adummim at a site known in Arabic as Khirbet el Murassas, was an important Byzantine centre of monastic life in the Judaean desert.