Ṣuḡar

Sughar, the ancient Zoara, lay near the southern end of the Dead Sea in a warm, fertile valley watered by streams from the eastern hills. Date palms and other crops grew in the lowlands, and the town stood on routes between the Transjordanian plateau and southern Palestine. In the Islamic period its fields and workshops became known for a valuable crop: sugar cane.

From the eleventh to the late fourteenth century, cane was processed on a substantial scale at nearby Tawahin al-Sukkar. Mills crushed the stalks and workshops produced vessels used in refining the sugar. The Ayyubids and Mamluks invested in irrigation in the Jordan Valley, and by the fourteenth century sugar was an important commercial product under close Mamluk control. Pottery and the remains of presses preserve the traces of this industry around Sughar.