Madmannah

Madmannah ("dung-heap" or "place of dung") was a town in the western Negev that appears in the lists of Simeon's inheritance within the larger territory of Judah (Joshua 15:31, 1 Chronicles 2:49). It lay in the cluster of small Simeonite settlements that included Beth-marcaboth, Hazar-susah, Hormah, and Ziklag — the chain of frontier outposts on Judah's southern border. The Chronicler's genealogy of Caleb traces Madmannah to a clan founder named Shaaph "the father of Madmannah," tying the town's settlement back to the Calebite branch of Judah. The site is generally identified with Khirbet Umm Deimneh about ten miles south of Tell el-Hesi in the western Negev, preserving the original name in slightly altered Arabic form. Some scholars connect Madmannah with the later Beth-marcaboth chariot tradition that gave the region its Hebrew nicknames.