Adullam (Hebrew: עֲדֻלָּם) is an ancient ruin, formerly known by the Arabic appellation ʿAīd el Mâ (or `Eîd el Mieh), built upon a hilltop overlooking the Elah Valley, south of Bet Shemesh in Israel. In the late 19th century, the town was still in ruins.^[1] The hilltop ruin is also known by the name Khurbet esh-Sheikh Madkour, named after Madkour, one of the sons of the Sultan Beder, for whom is built a shrine (wely) and formerly called by its inhabitants Wely Madkour.^[2] The hilltop is mostly flat, with cisterns carved into the rock. The remains of stone structures which once stood there can still be seen. Sedimentary layers of ruins from the old Canaanite and Israelite eras, mostly potsherds, are noticeable everywhere, although olive groves now grow atop of this hill, enclosed within stone hedges. The villages of Aderet, Neve Michael/Roglit, and Aviezer are located nearby. Access to the site may be obtained by passing through the cooperative small holders' agricultural villages (Moshavim) of Aderet or Neve Michael (known also as Roglit). The ruin lies about 3 kilometers south of Moshav Neve Michael.

The "Adullam" mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is usually thought to be identical with Tell Sheikh Madkhur, that is, the archaeological ruin referred to in this article as "Adullam."^[3][4]

Adullam was one of the royal cities of the Canaanites^[5] referred to in the Hebrew Bible. Although listed in Joshua as being a city in the plain, it is actually partly in the hill country, partly in the plain. It stood near the highway which later became the Roman road in the Valley of Elah, the scene of David's victory over Goliath.^[6] It was here that Judah, the son of Jacob (Israel), came when he left his father and brothers in Migdal Eder, where he befriended a certain Hirah, an Adullamite,^[7] and where he met his first wife (unnamed in Genesis), the daughter of Shua. It was one of the towns which Rehoboam fortified against Egypt.^[8] Micah calls it "the glory of Israel."^[9]

King David sought refuge in Adullam after being expelled from the city of Gath by King Achish. I Samuel refers to the Cave of Adullam where he found protection while living as a refugee from King Saul. It was there that "every one that was in distress gathered together, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented."^[10] Certain caves, grottos and sepulchres are still to be seen on the hilltop, as well as on its northern and eastern slopes.

It was in Adullam that Judas Maccabaeus retired with his fighting men, after returning from war against the Idumaeans.^[11] As late as the early 4th century CE, Adullam was described by Eusebius as being "a very large village about ten [Roman] miles east of Eleutheropolis."^[12]

Adullam was an inhabited village in the late 16th-century. An Ottoman tax ledger of 1596 lists `Ayn al-Mayyā (Arabic: عين الميا‎) in the nahiya Ḫalīl (Hebron subdistrict), and where it is noted that it had in 1596 thirty-six Muslim heads of households.^[13] The copyist of the same tax ledger had erroneously mistaken the Arabic dal in the document for a nun, and which name has since been corrected by historical geographers Yoel Elitzur and Toledano to read A'ïd el-Miah (Arabic: عيد الميا‎), based on the entry's number of fiscal unit in the daftar and its corresponding place on Hütteroth's map.^[14][15] The Arabic name, being a corruption of Adullam, is a product of popular etymology.

In the late 19th century, the hilltop ruin and its adjacent ruins were explored by French explorer, Victor Guérin, who wrote:

According to Conder, an ancient road, leading from Beit Sur to Ashdod, once passed through ʿAīd el Mâ (Adullam).^[17]

French orientalist and archaeologist, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, visited the site in 1874 and wrote: "The place is absolutely uninhabited, except during the rainy season, when the herdsmen take shelter there for the night."^[18]

Early drawings depicting the so-called "Adullam cave" have tentatively been identified with the cavern of Umm el Tuweimin, and the cave at Khureitun (named after Chariton the ascetic),^[19] because of their immense size. Modern-day archaeologists have rejected these early hypotheses.^[20]

The Adullam Grove Nature Reserve is a nature reserve managed by the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority. It was established in 1994.^[21]

The Adullam Caves park is a JNF park of 50,000 dunams (12,355 acres (50.00 km2)) of mostly pine forests, which were planted by Jewish immigrants who settled in the Lachish region in the early years of the state. The park was prepared for public use by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Jewish National Fund.^[22]

Today the park sits in an area that is threatened by shale oil extraction through the CCR ground-heating process, with the Green Zionist Alliance and the grassroots group Save Adullam, among others, working to stop shale oil extraction in the region.^[23][24][25]