and the tall became the central settlement once again. Its importance stems from three facts: First, its position in an area of fertile soil and surrounded by two freshwater-bearing wadis (Wadi el-'Arab and Wadi az-Zahar). Second, there is an active freshwater artesian spring on top of the tall. It has been a beneficial and wondrous phenomenon, and a very important factor from a strategic point of view. Third, the tall's strategic position along an ancient and highly important trade route. The ascent from 290 metres below sea level in the Jordan Valley to the Irbid-Ramtha-area at c. 560 metres above sea level, can be surmounted via the Wadi el-'Arab without steep or narrow passages. This makes the Wadi el-'Arab an ideal route, connecting the trade routes along the Mediterranean via the Jordan valley with Transjordan and, further to the north-east, with Damascus and Mesopotamia. Just as important is the shortcut via Hauran to the east and the centre of Mesopotamia, used since the 5th millennium B.C. Exploration In 1885, Gottlieb Schumacher surveyed the Wadi el-'Arab and mentioned Tall Zira'a. Nelson Glueck visited the Tall Zira'a in 1942. In March 1978, a two-day archaeological rescue investigation was initiated by the Department of Antiquities into the course of the Wadi el-'Arab dam project. In September 1983, this was followed up by a brief archaeological survey supervised by J. W. Hanbury-Tenison in the Wadi el-'Arab. The 2000s excavations are part of the “Gadara Region Project” – an interdisciplinary study of the regional history of Gadara. The long-term archaeological project (2001–2015) investigates the Wadi el-'Arab region, which extends over . In August 2001, a survey on Tall Zira'a () and in its surroundings was conducted by the Biblical Archaeological Institute Wuppertal, directed by Dieter Vieweger. In September 2003, he started the first excavation campaign. Since 2004, the project has continued with two campaigns a year as a co-operative project of the Biblical Archaeological Institute Wuppertal and the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in Amman (since 2006 also Jerusalem), directed by Vieweger and Jutta Häser. Areas I-III (2003-2008) Area I Natural settings and geophysical investigations showed that the west slope of the tall was a promising site to rapidly expose the stratigraphy of the tall. Accordingly, Area I was opened in 2003 and enlarged in spring 2008 to . In all of the area excavated, a depth of of the proposed of cultural layers is