MADMANNAH dunghill,' from PI = Arab. ; Maxapli. ; Alex. BESEflnyd; but in Chron. MaSAnnt ; Afedemena ; Madmen), one of a group of cities described as belonging to Judah, and lying toward the coast of Edom south wards' (Josh. xv. 21, 31). The group has twenty nine cities altogether, and among them are Kedesh and Beer-sheba, so that they probably extended along the whole southern border of the tribe. It would appear from r Chron. ii. 49, that the city of Madmannah was captured and occupied by the descendants of Shaaph, a son of Caleb. The name is not again mentioned in Scripture, and it must not be confounded with the Madmenah of Is. x. 31.
From the arrangement of the names in Joshua it appears that Madmannah lay to the west of Beer sheba. Eusebius and Jerome identify it with a little town near Gaza called Menai: (Onomast., s.v. Medemana). On the direct route from Gaza to Sinai a place called Minydy is mentioned, a few miles south of Gaza ; this is probably the site of the Menais of Eusebius and the Madmannah of the Bible (Robinson, B. R., i. 602). On comparing
the list of cities allotted to Simeon out of the tribe of Judah, given in Josh. xix. 2-7, with the list of cities in Judah (xv. 28-32), it would seem that Mad mannah and Beth-Markaboth were identical, as is suggested by Keil (on Josh. xix. 5, and xv. 31), the latter name being an appellative arising from its being used as a station for chariots' [see BETH-MARKABOTH]. Van de Velde has attempted to identify a ruin called el-Mirkib (about ten miles from the south-west corner of the Dead Sea towards Beer-sheba), with Beth-Markaboth; but the posi tion does not agree with the indications of Scrip ture (see, however, Van de Velde, Travels, ii. 13o, and Map).—J. L. P.