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Highlightsof the next BA In "The EblaTablets-An InterimPerspective,"Robert Biggs, a scholar with considerable experience with ancient scripts addresses claims which have been made about the relevance of the Ebla documents to biblical narrativesand urges cautious estimation of the significance of the Ebla finds. Eric Meyers, a specialist in Judaic civilization,shows how recent study of the earliest synagogues elucidates cultural and religiouscurrents of the Talmudic period. J. Kenneth Eakins,a licensed pediatricianand professor of archeology, tells how skeletal remains help archeologists understandhuman development and diseases as well as the historyof specific populations.

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BIBLICAL( ARCHEOLOGIST .,

Editor

David Noel Freedman Associate Editor

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William H. Stiebing is Associate Professor of History at the University of New Orleans, where he has taught ancient history and archeology since 1967. He has served as a staff member on excavations at Tell es-Saidiyeh, Jordan and Sarafand, Lebanon. Joseph Naveh is a foremost Israeli authority in the area of Iron Age Canaanite inscriptions. He teaches West Semitic Epigraphy and Paleography in the Department of Ancient Semitic Languages and in the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. James H. Charlesworth is Professor of Religion and the Director of the International Center on Christian Origins at Duke University. A specialist in pseudepigrapha, he has published several important studies on early Christian writings.

Moshe Dothan is Professor of Archeology and Chairman of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. Having had extensive archeological experience, he began in 1973 to excavate Akko, where he is the Director of the Akko Excavations Project, an interdisciplinary exploration of the ancient tell and harbor.

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Printed by Printing Services, The University of Michigan.

2

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

William G. Dever is Professor of Near Eastern Archeology and Chairman of the Department of Oriental Studies, University of Arizona. A leader in the field of Syro-Palestinian archeology, he has authored or edited several books and has published over 40 articles. He is the editor of the Bulletinof the AmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch. Burton MacDonald is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He has excavated extensively in the Middle East throughout the past decade and is currently the Annual Professor at the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan.

Biblical Archeologistis published with the financial

assistance of Zion Research Foundation, a non-

sectarian foundation for the study of the Bible and the history of the Christian Church.

Cover:Pioneersin Palestinian archeology:PNreRolandde Vaux, Sir W. M. FlindersPetrie, BenjaminMazar,G. Ernest Wright,AlbrechtAlt, Dame KathleenKenyon,and William Foxwell Albright.

BIBLICAL(, ARCHEOLOGIST

Winter 1980

William H. Stiebing

Volume 43 Number 1

7 The End of the MyceneanAge A closelookat thebreakdownof AegeanandMediterranean civilizations in the last centuries of the 2nd millennium B.C.

Joseph Naveh

The Greek Alphabet: New Evidence

22

The adoption of the Canaanite alphabet by the Greeks: new evidence suggests the need to revise traditional theories and traditional dates. James H. Charlesworth

The Manuscripts of St. Catherine's Monastery

26

A recently discovered hoard of ancient manuscripts provides scholars with new evidence to answer old questions. Moshe Dothan & Avner Raban William G. Dever

The Sea Gate of Ancient Akko

35

An examination of an important structure at an ancient city and the conclusions that we can draw from its remains.

ArcheologicalMethod in Israel:A Continuing Revolution

40

Excavations at Tell el-Maskhuta

49

The evolution and development of Syro-Palestinian or "biblical" archeology: an examination of the excavations and the excavators. Burton MacDonald

The first season of excavation at a site east of the Nile delta brings to light artifacts from several different periods of history. Biblical Archeologist (ISSN: 0006-0895) is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) by the American Schools of OrientalResearch.Its purposeis to providethe generalreaderwith an accurate, scholarly, yet easily understandableaccount of archeologicaldiscoveriesand theirbearingon the biblicalheritage. Unsolicited mss. are welcome but should be accompaniedby a stamped, self-addressedenvelope. The American Schools of Oriental Research is no longer affiliated with the Center for ScholarlyPublishingand Servicesat Missoula,Montana.Address all editorial correspondence and advertising to Biblical Archeologist, 1053 LS&A Building,Universityof Michigan,Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Addressall businesscorrespondenceto ASOR, 126 InmanStreet, Cambridge,MA 02139. Copyright 0 1980 American Schools of Oriental Research. Annual subscription rate: $12.00. Foreign subscription rate: $14.00 (Americancurrency).Currentsingle issues:$4.00. Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, MI 48106 POSTMASTER:Send addresschangesto Biblical Archeologist, 1053 LS&A Building, Universityof Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

Letter to the Readers Polemics and Irenics Notes and News Book Reviews

5 60 63

Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (Pritchard). Colophon

64

4

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/WINTER1980 3

Letter to

the

Readers

David Noel Freedman

For this number of BA academic and professional skills and the democratization we have a rich and varied of knowledge and intellectual skills, and the extension of menu, articles ranging all culture to a much larger population than had been true over the Near East, from in the past makes this a subject of perennial interest, Egypt to the islands of the especially since the process has never come to an end. At the other end of the chronological chain is the Mediterranean,from Akko in northern Israel to the third report by James Charlesworth on the manuscript mountains of Sinai. Some hoard at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. Along with deal with the minutiae of the first published photos of sample documents comes handwriting or the arti- an explanation of their potential importance for biblical facts of archeological ex- studies and the history of manuscript transmission in the cavation, others with the Ist millennium C.E. basic issues of historical In addition to these period pieces we have an causation or the guiding principles of archeological important contribution to the ongoing debate of the role research. of Near Eastern archeology (in particular, the way it is Burton MacDonald takes us back along an old trail practiced in Israel) and its relationship to the study of to the place from which the Exodus began according to the Bible by an acknowledged master in the field, the the biblical account. While the report of archeological current editor of our sister journal, the Bulletin of the activity at Tell el-Maskhuta is mainly negative regarding American Schools of Oriental Research, William G. the Late Bronze Age (latter half of the 2nd millennium), Dever. His observations and conclusions, based on the generally accepted period of the Israelite movement years of fieldwork, archeological research, and publicaout of Egypt, many useful data have turned up, and a tion, advance the discussion significantly and will evoke general picture of the site is becoming clear. thoughtful reflection in many quarters. We hope there William Stiebing deals with the same general period will be equally thoughtful response and invite our but far to the north, where the great Mycenean readers to join in the exchange of opinions and insights. civilization was coming to an abrupt end. His original hypothesis about this dramatic transition is a subject of discussion and controversy in classical circles, but it also has important bearing on the upheaval farther south involving the countries on the Mediterranean littoral. The alphabet which is very much with us today has its own remarkable history and can be traced back in recognizable form to the Middle Bronze Age. The emergence of the direct ancestor of the alphabet which is in familiar use all over the world can be dated to the same period, when the great cultural change took place, along with corresponding shifts both seismic and political throughout the eastern Mediterranean area. However, the question of the date when the alphabet was borrowed from the Phoenicians by the Greeks has been the subject of much controversy; now Joseph Naveh has come up with a new theory and a new date. We may be sure that this provocative thesis will provoke responses from scholars on both sides-the Phoenician and the Greek-based upon newly discovered inscriptions as well as those formerly known. In view of all the known contacts on this frontier between Semitic and Indo-European-speaking peoples, it looks as though this particular borrowing took place earlier rather than later in the Early Iron Age. The incalculable effect of the spread of the alphabet on literacy, communications, commerce, the development of new areas of learning, of

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Mycenean or Canaanite? I was struck upon reading Ephraim Stern's article (BA 40 [1977] 89-91) at the striking resemblance between the LB temple found at Tell Mevorakh and the LB temple found at Mycene and cleared in 1968-69 by Lord William Taylour. Though smaller (5.1 x 4.2 m), the Mycenean temple has the following features in common with the Mevorakh temple: (1) a rectangular plan, to be sure, with a forecourt; (2) three column bases (instead of one); (3) a staircase in one corner; and (4) 17 clay snake figurines; cf. the bronze snake figurine of Mevorakh. Royal Buscombe Northwestern University I wonder if the presence of Mycenean and Cypriot pottery, in view of the striking parallels with the temple from Mycene, may mean that this was a structure built The Parahyba Inscription not by Canaanites but by settlers from abroad. Reports Concerning the "Phoenician text" mentioned by by Taylour have appeared in Antiquity 43 (1969): 91N. Rosenstein in the September 1978 BA (41.3, p. 85), 97; and 44 (1970): 270-79. please let me make the following observations. A. Harif, in "Coastal Buildings of Foreign Origin in Ladislau Netto first made this so-called "Parahyba Second Millennium B.C. Palestine," Palestine ExploraInscription" public in April 1873, but as early as 1875, tion Quarterly 110 (1978): 100-6, also calls attention to and then again in a letter to Ernest Renan in 1885, he the affinities between a number of MB buildings on the himself admitted that this inscription was actually a Palestine coast and Aegean structures. blatant forgery. Unfortunately, he never admitted that he was the forger himself (understandably); in fact, he Edwin Yamauchi went so far as to suggest that the then emperor of Brazil, Miami University, OH Dom Pedro II, Netto's great benefactor, was the forger. In a recent study by G. I. Joffily (Zeitschrift der Prof. Yamauchi is absolutely right in his comment, and Deutschen Morgenliindischen Gesellschqft 122: 22-36), evidently there is a striking resemblance between the the final verdict of the author reads: plans of the LB sanctuary at Tell Mevorakh and that of the resemblance was brought to my Mycene. In Whoeverhas the opportunityto readthe unusualpamphlet attention long ago-at the time of the excavation-by .fact, of LadislauNetto entitled Lettreai M. Renan will easily A. Mazar, and I do intend to deal with it in the detailed perceivethat the Phoenicianinscriptionof Parahybawas a ,final report. But it also should be pointed out that this trick of internationalprojection,perpetratedby Ladislau resemblance is limited to the temple'splan alone. All the Netto himself. . . cult objects, pottery vases, and other small finds are different. Almost all the pottery vases found at entirely It is, therefore, wasted effort to attempt to uphold Tell Mevorakh are local, excluding a small number qf the genuineness of the so-called Parahyba Inscription or imports and a few sherds qf Mycenean vases. to draw from it any kind of philological or historical Cypriot (The last were examined by V. Hankey, who dated them conclusions. to the 14th century, that is, the second phase of our Gabriela Martin has attempted to defend the good sanctuary.) The same is true of the small finds, all of faith of Ladislau Netto, claiming that he was the victim which have many and close analogies in the LB of a fraud. But even she does not deny that this Canaanite in Israel. temples inscription is actually a fake (Revista de Hist6ria 51, It is true that the snake appears in both places, but no. 102: 511-16). the one from Mycene is entirely different, while our snake [at Tell Mevorakh] is a common 'find in many P. J. Balduino Kipper, S.J. local (Hazor, Beth-shan, Timnah, and others). temples Rei Cristo Colegio It seems, therefore, that the snake as a cult symbol had S. Leopoldo, Brazil an important but independent role in both cultures. Commendation I had decided to discontinue my subscription to Biblical A rcheologist, but articles in two of the more recent issues have changed my mind, notably, "The Essenes" and Carol Meyers' "Women in Early Israel." I have been a subscriber since the first issue but have not been happy with the emphasis on site excavation reports. On reviewing my recent issues I have concluded that I was being unfair, that there are many excellent recent articles on more general topics.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

5

To sum up, we may say that although there may be a certain amount of Mycenean influence on the Tell Mevorakh sanctuary (which should be studied carefully), this influence is not traced among the finds which should be regarded as purely Canaanite. For this reason, it seems to me that our designation of the Tell Mevorakh sanctuary as "Canaanite" is still valid. Ephraim Stern Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University Conquest in the Middle Bronze Age? I read with great interest the article on the Negeb in the May 1976 BA (39, pp. 54-76). Dr. Aharoni put forth a theory that the Conquest may be represented in the Negeb by the end of the Middle Bronze Age. He wrote (p. 73): We thereforearriveat a most startlingconclusion:the biblical tradition associated with the Negeb battles cannot representhistorical sources from the days of Mosesand Joshua,sincenowherein the Negebarethere any remainsof theLateBronzeAge.However,thereality described in the Bible corresponds exactly to the situationduringthe MiddleBronzeAge, whentwo tels, and two tels only,defendedthe easternNegebagainstthe desert marauders,and the evidencepointstowardsthe identificationof thesetels withthe ancientcitiesof Arad and Hormah. Thus the biblical tradition preservesa faithfuldescriptionof the geographical-historical situation as it was some threehundredyearsor morepriorto the Israeliteconquest. It occurred to me to see if this would be true in other areas of the Holy Land. My attention turned immediately to Jericho, because it is the first city that one thinks of when recalling the Conquest. Dr. Kathleen Kenyon, who worked at Jericho, could not find the LB city of Conquest times. I looked to see if the MB city might have been destroyed by a cataclysm as described in the Bible. Dr. Kenyon, describing the destruction of the MB city of Jericho in her book Archaeology in the Holy Land, wrote (p. 117): At Jericho,the evidencefor the destructionis evenmore dramatic.All the Middle Bronze Age buildingswere violentlydestroyedby fire. The stumpsof the wallsare buiedin the debriscollapsedfromthe upperstories,and the faces of thesestumpsand the floorsof the roomsare stronglyscorchedby fire. It seems possible that the central part of the Holy Land could also fit Aharoni's pattern. But what about the North? It has been said that although the Conquest cannot be found in any other parts of the Holy Land, it can be demonstrated at Hazor. Indeed, there is a level from the Bronze Age that might be forced to fit the situation, but is there also a MB level?

6

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

Dr. Yadin writes in his book Hazor, the Rediscovery Citadel of the Bible, "Considering that the city a Great of was founded on a thick layer of ash (evidence that a fire had destroyed its predecessor at the end of the Middle Bronze period) . . ." (p. 37). The destruction of the thick ash layer showed that the MB city was destroyed by a great conflagration. I do not understand, but it is possible that the story of the Conquest may be archeologically represented by the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Marvin Arnold Luckerman Docent Skirball Museum Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles

William H. Stiebing The Dorian invasion has been accepted commonly as the cause of the collapse of Mycenean civilization. But recently this hypothesis has come under strong attack. Among other alternatives proposed is the possibility that this collapse was part of a general breakdown of society which took place not only in the Aegean but throughout the ancient Near East as well. The cause of this decline was not an invasion of outsiders but a series of catastrophic droughts, followed by economic collapse and social chaos.

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The 13th century B.C. witnessed the zenith of Mycenean civilization, but within a century, most major cities were destroyed. The 13th century B.C. witnessed the zenith of the Mycenean civilization in Greece. Elaborate palaces, often within citadels protected by massive Cyclopean walls, flourished at Pylos, Mycene, Tiryns, Iolkos, Gla, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens. Then, within the span of the succeeding century, all but Athens were destroyed. Many Mycenean sites were abandoned, and some areas of the Peloponnese were seriously depopulated. At those sites which escaped destruction or which were reoccupied in the 12th century, there was a marked decline in material civilization. The cultural unity which had existed in southern and central Greece during the Mycenean Age was succeeded by many localized developments (Vermeule 1964: 269-71; Desborough 1975: 658-60). What caused this devastation of the Mycenean culture? The traditional answer has been "the Dorian invasion." The concept of an invasion of the Mycenean realm by less-civilized groups of Doricspeaking Greeks seemed to account best for the distribution of Greek dialects in historical times. It was in keeping with Greek traditions about their own past. And, of course, it provided an explanation for the widespread destruction of Mycenean centers. In classical times the Greeks were aware that they were divided

Still undeciphered after 75 years of examination by scholars, the Phaistos Disk (preceding page) is a witness to the craftsmanship and artistry of the Bronze Age Greek writing systems.

8

into several distinct groups, each speaking a different dialect (Hainsworth 1967). According to modern philologists the main division was between the East Greek dialects (Attic-Ionic, Aeolic, and ArcadoCypriot) spoken in Attica, Boeotia, Thessaly, most of the Aegean islands, the coast of Asia Minor, Arcadia, and Cyprus, and the West Greek dialects (Doric and Northwest Greek) spoken in all of the Peloponnese except Arcadia, as well as in Crete, Aetolia, and Epirus. Most interesting is the existence of an Arcadian dialectal "island" in the West Greek-speaking Peloponnese. This East Greek dialect is very closely related to the dialect of faraway Cyprus. When scholars deciphered the Mycenean Linear B tablets and proved that they were written in an East Greek dialect similar to Arcado-Cypriot, the explanation of the dialect distribution in classical times seemed plain. A fairly uniform Mycenean dialect (sometimes called "Achean'")must have been spoken all over southern Greece. Then West Greek speakers (Dorians) invaded the Peloponnese and settled the coastal regions, leaving untouched a pocket of Mycenean survivors in the mountains of Arcadia and driving others to settle in Cyprus. Subsequently, other East Greek dialects developed out of the once-common Mycenean tongue (Chadwick 1975: 810-19). It is also possible that a threefold division of East Greek existed already in Mycenean times. If so, Arcado-Cypriot would have descended from the dialect spoken in the Peloponnese in Mycenean times (Desborough 1964: 245).

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

The Return of the Heraclids This explanation of the dialect distribution of classical Greece also seemed consistent with ancient Greek traditions concerning the Dorian invasion or, as the Greeks preferred to call it, the Return of the Heraclids. (The relevant sources are conveniently gathered together in Hooker 1976: 213-22.) There are some differences and contradictions in detail between various ancient accounts, but the outline of the story seems clear. Sometime before the Trojan War the sons of Heracles were driven from the Peloponnese by Eurystheus, king of Mycene. These Heraclids and their descendants wandered from place to place, sojourning for a time at Doris in central Greece. Thus, they came to be called Dorians. After one or more abortive attempts to invade the Peloponnese by way of the Isthmus of Corinth, the Heraclids finally mounted a successful naval attack across the Corinthian Gulf some two generations after the fall of Troy. They then seized control of much of the Peloponnese, replacing the old dynasties in Messenia, Sparta, and Argos. Some of the refugees from these areas fled to Achea, while others made their way to Athens whence they later continued on to Ionia in Asia Minor. The area of the Peloponnese, which tradition claims was conquered by the Heraclids, is the same area where the Doric dialect was spoken in classical times. It was also the heartland of the Mycenean civilization and the area most devastated by the wave of destructions at the end of the 13th century. The traditions of the Dorian

Some scholars believe that the Sea Peoples overran Greecedestroying Mycenean civilization-and then departed without establishing permament settlements. invasion, then, seemed to be supported by both linguistics and archeology-so much so that some scholars have used these traditions to supply "historical" details to the archeological picture of Late Bronze Age Greece (e.g., Hammond 1975: 678-96; Nichols 1975: 312-15; Stubbings 1975: 350-58). The Evidence of Archeology In recent years, however, the idea that the Dorian invasion brought about the end of Mycenean civilization has come under increasing attack. Study of archeological remains from the end of the Mycenean Age and the following Sub-Mycenean period have failed to turn up any features which can be attributed to the Dorians. The introduction of a new type of sword and of the fibula (an early form of the safety-pin) has been credited to the Dorians, but both are found in Mycenean contexts before the onset of the great disasters (Vermeule 1964: 279; Desborough 1975: 661-62; Hooker 1976: 144-46). Changes which did occur after ca. 1200 B.c.-the use of iron in place of bronze, cremation rather than inhumation of the dead, and single or double burials in rectangular, stone-lined graves ("cists") instead of multiple burials in chamber tombstook place gradually and do not seem to be related to one another (Hooker 1976: 147 and the table on p. 239). Iron was probably introduced into the Aegean from the eastern Mediterranean area rather than from the north (Desborough 1964: 25-26, 70-71). The origin of the new burial practices has not yet been settled, but it is unlikely that

both cist burials and cremation were introduced by one group of newcomers (Desborough 1964: 3740). Since cist burials were common in Greece during the Middle Helladic period (ca. 1900-1550 B.c.) and appeared sporadically even in the Late Helladic period (the Mycenean Age, ca. 1550-1100 B.C.), they may not have been due to outsiders at all. Finally, these new features appeared in Attica, which was not conquered, and in Boetia and Thessaly, where Dorians did not settle, and in the Dorian region of the Peloponnese. This fact is difficult to understand if these new cultural elements are used as indicators of the Dorian presence in Greece. A further problem is the fact that some areas of the Peloponnese occupied by Dorians in classical times seem to have been seriously depopulated for some time after the destruction of their Mycenean palaces. Did the Dorians destroy these sites, move on to points unknown, and then return at a later date and settle down? Tradition knows nothing of this. According to the Greek stories, the Dorian settlement immediately followed the overthrow of the old dynasties of the Peloponnese. This is one instance where the ancient traditions about the return of the Heraclids definitely do not fit the archeological evidence. The Evidence of Language Linguistic evidence supporting the Dorian invasion hypothesis is also not as strong as it initially appears to be. It once was widely believed that the Mycenean Greeks (East

Greek speakers) entered Greece from the north about 1900 B.C. while the Dorians remained in the northern homeland. Then, about 1200 B.c. the Dorians moved southward, destroying the Mycenean civilization and occupying the Peloponnese and Crete. However, as J. T. Hooker. has pointed out (1976: 171), "The differences between West Greek and East Greek were never so great as to inhibit easy communication between the two areas: a remarkable circumstance, if the Dorians had really lived in isolation from the Mycenean world for the best part of a millennium." In fact, linguistic evidence indicates that the various Greek dialects developed only after protoGreek speakers arrived in Greece. One of the many vocabulary items which Greek borrowed from the language of the aboriginal inhabitants of Greece was the word for the cypress tree. Cypress trees do not grow north of the Aegean basin except in a few specially sheltered areas. Thus, these trees were probably unknown to the protoGreeks before they arrived in Greece. They had no word for "cypress" and therefore borrowed the native name. But the Greek word for "cypress" differs in a characteristic way from dialect to dialect, indicating that the dialectal divergence occurred within Greece after the word was appropriated into proto-Greek (Chadwick 1976: 3). Study has also shown that the Doric dialect had some features in common with various East Greek dialects. For example, the form of Poseidon's name found in Laconia (a Doric area) was closely related to

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980 9

the form used in Arcadia (an East Greek area). And, in Doric-speaking Crete certain forms of the article were of East Greek type (Chadwick 1975: 814). Such shared features probably indicate a fairly long period of close contact between Doric and East Greek dialectsalmost certainly a longer period than the chaotic century or so during which the Dorians were supposed to be entering Greece and destroying the Mycenean civilization. East Greek elements in Doric possibly were due to the survival of the Mycenean tongue among peasants who were conquered, but not destroyed, by the Dorians. The speech of the lower classes gradually might have influenced that of the Dorian ruling class (Chadwick 1975: 813). But the opposite of this theory is also equally possible. That is, in the Peloponnese during the Mycenean Age, the East Greek dialect of the Linear B tablets might have been spoken only by a ruling aristocracy who dominated a Doricspeaking population. When Mycenean power collapsed, the Doric dialect of the majority of the population would have become dominant (Hooker 1976: 170-73). Proponents of the latter theory also argue that their reconstruction fits the Greek traditions better than the Dorian-invasion hypothesis (Hooker 1976: 172). Tradition emphasized that the Heraclids were driven from the Peloponnese but returned to resume their rightful role as rulers there. The Heraclids (or Dorians), then, were considered a part of the Mycenean world. Even Plato, whose version of the "return" (Laws, 682e-683e) was somewhat

10

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different from that of other sources, regarded the Dorians as Myceneans dispossessed of their kingdoms. Only Herodotus speaks of a Dorian movement from as far north as Thessaly (which was still part of the Mycenean culture area). The source and accuracy of his account of the stages in the migration (Histories, 1.56.3) cannot now be determined. In the same passage, however, Herodotus claims that the Athenians were Pelasgians (pre-Greeks) who became Greek only by adopting the Greek language and that the Dorians were "true" Greeks. This statement does not inspire much confidence in the accuracy of the rest of his account of the Dorian

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

Above: Map of the Greek dialects of the 8th century B.C.Opposite: The Citadel of

Mycene,excavatedby HeinrichSchliemann,was constructedprimarilyof huge blocks of limestone,roughlyshapedand packedtogetherwith smallstones and yellow clay. The monumentalstructures discoveredwithinits 6-m-thickwalls attest to Mycene'spositionas the centerof a majorpoliticaland commercialempire; the ruinedconditionin whichit lay for centuriesatteststo the thoroughnessof its decline. migration. If Herodotus is following some ancient tradition here, the context would seem to indicate that it is as likely to be a reference to the entrance of the earliest Greeks into Greece long before the Trojan War as it is to be an account of the

Could internal conflict have been responsible for the end of Mycenean culture? Some modern scholars think so. "Return of the Heraclids" at the end of the Mycenean era. Greek tradition, then, seems to have known nothing of a Dorian invasion from some area north of Greece. On the other hand, suppose that a subject Dorian population, whose native rulers had been displaced by East Greek-speaking dynasts, rose up, overthrew their masters, and placed Dorians on the throne once more. Would it not be natural for their traditions (the source of the later Greek accounts) to view the situation as a "return" of the rightful rulers (Hooker 1976: 172)? Unfortunately, this theory also has its problems. Many sites in Thessaly and Boetia were destroyed at the end of the Mycenean period, but these areas were never occupied by Dorians. A Dorian revolt might have been responsible for the collapse of Mycenean rule in the

Peloponnese, but what caused the destructions in other parts of Greece? And how could a peasant uprising succeed against the wellarmed Mycenean aristocracy and their almost impregnable citadels? Furthermore, the supposed East Greek ruling class would have comprised only a small minority of the Peloponnese's inhabitants; most of the population would have been Dorians. Yet the 12th-century devastation was not confined to palaces. Many ordinary habitation sites also were abandoned. The archeological evidence indicates that there was a drastic decline in the total population of the area (Desborough 1972: 19-20; McDonald and Hope Simpson 1972: 142-43; Tegyey 1974; Betancourt 1976: 4041). Neither the Dorian-revolt hypothesis nor the Dorian-invasion theory adequately explains this fact.

The Sea Peoples These various difficulties have led many Aegean archeologists to abandon attempts to blame the Dorians for the destruction of Mycenean civilization. But if the Dorians were not responsible, who was? Desborough, a leading scholar in this field, argues for a land invasion by unknown northern groups who "did not settle in any of the areas which they overran, but departed" to other lands or returned to the place whence they had come (1964: 224, 251-52; 1972: 22-23). Other writers, unwilling to believe in such ghostlike invaders, have linked the Mycenean catastrophes with contemporary upheavals in the Near East. The guilty parties in both instances, they claim, were groups of marauders called "the Sea Peoples" (McDonald 1967: 413-14; Finley 1970: 58-68).

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

11

Archeological evidence shows a massive devastation at the end of the Bronze Age in western Asia: most of the cities of Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine were destroyed

about 1200 B.C.

As early as the fifth year of Merneptah's reign (ca. 1232 B.c.) a Libyan invasion of Egypt was supported by five groups of outsiders-Sherden, Shekelesh, Akawasha, Lukka, and Tursha-described in the Egyptian account as "peoples of the sea" (Breasted 1906: sections 569 ff; Gardiner 1947: 196). Merneptah turned back this assault, but the Libyans renewed their onslaught in the fifth year of Ramesses III (ca. 1194 B.C.) and were joined by tribes called the Peleset and Tjeker (Edgerton and Wilson 1936: 30). However, an even greater danger appeared three years later when Egypt was attacked by a coalition of land and sea raiders who had already caused havoc in Anatolia and Syria: The foreign countriesmade a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the landswereremovedandscattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti [= the Hittite empire], Kode [= Cilicia], Carchemish[= an importantcity in Syria], Arzawa [= a country in western Anatolia], and Alashiya [= probablyCyprus]on, beingcut off at (one time). A camp (was set up) in one place in Amor [= PalestineSyria].Theydesolatedits people,and its landwas like that whichhas never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederationwas the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denye(n), and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting:"Our plans will succeed!"(Edgertonand Wilson 1936:53; Wilson 1955:262).

12

Ramesses led his army into northern Palestine where he met and defeated the invaders who were traveling overland accompanied by oxcarts loaded with women, children, and baggage. The enemy fleet seems to have pushed on to the mouth of the Nile, where it too was destroyed by Egyptian forces: Those who cameforwardtogetheron the sea, the full flamewas in frontof them at the river-mouths,while a stockade of lances surroundedthem on the shore. They weredraggedin, enclosed, and prostrated on the beach, killed, and made into heaps from tail to head (Edgerton and Wilson 1936:54; Wilson 1955:26263). Archeological evidence appears to confirm the Egyptian accounts of the devastation caused by the Sea Peoples. The Hittite empire collapsed about 1200 B.C. Troy, Miletus, Tarsus, and other Anatolian cities (including Hattushash, the Hittite capital) went up in flames. In Syria, Carchemish, Qatna, Qadesh, Alalakh, and Ugarit were destroyed. Many Palestinian cities were also burned about this time, but since this is also the approximate period of the Hebrew exodus and settlement, the destruction of these sites usually has been credited to the Israelites. Where did these mysterious Sea Peoples come from? Of the various groups named in Egyptian inscriptions, only the Peleset can be identified conclusively. They are almost certainly the Philistines mentioned so frequently in the Old Testament. Akawasha has often been equated with Achaiwoi (Acheans),

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

the common Homeric appellation for the Mycenean Greeks, while the name Denyen may represent Danaoi (Danaans), a synonym for "Achaeans" in the Iliad. The Tjeker may be Teukroi (Teucrians) who, according to Greek tradition, settled in Cyprus after the Trojan War. Hittite and

Ugaritic texts mention a Lukka land which was somewhere on the western or southwestern coast of Asia Minor. The Lukka of the Egyptian documents were probably from this area-they may be the Lycians of later Greek accounts. The Tursha and Shekelesh have also

TroyVI, an exampleof technologicaladvancementand materialprosperityin the easternAegeanduringthe Myceneanage. Thiscitywas destroyedby an earthquake around1300B.c.Thecitythat was created fromits debrison the site, TroyVII, is probablythe citythat was destroyedin the fabled TrojanWarof Homer'sIliad.

been identified as Anatolians: Tyrsenoi (Tyrrhenians, the Greek name for the Etruscans, who Herodotus says journeyed from Asia Minor to Italy) and Sikeloi (Sicilians before they settled in Sicily and gave it their name). The Sherden or Shardana may have been Sardinians. The Weshesh, however, cannot easily be related to any other people known at present. Except for the Peleset, though, all of these identifications are questionable. While specific identifications of the various groups of Sea Peoples have been challenged (and rightly so), most scholars have agreed that the tribes in question came from western Anatolia and the Aegean. The Lukka are listed as one of the Anatolian allies of the Hittites at the

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

13

The Sea People's migrations appear to have been a result of the political, social, and economic collapse. battle of Qadesh, ca. 1300 B.C. (Barnett 1975: 359-60). And the -sha ending of some of the Sea Peoples' names has been regarded as an Indo-European nominative which was common as an ethnic ending in Asia Minor (Barnett 1975: 367). Biblical tradition claimed that the Philistines came from Caphtor, which is probably the Hebrew name for Crete (Deut 2:23; Jer 47:4; Amos 9:7). Some groups of Philistines were called "Cretans" ("Cherethites," 2 Sam 8:18; 20:23; Ezek 25:16; Zeph 2:5), and part of the Philistine coast was called "the Cretan Negev" (1 Sam 30:14). Egyptian texts refer to a place called Keftiu (their form of the name "Caphtor"), which is described as an island "in the midst of the Great Green" (the Mediterranean Sea). The people of Keftiu are depicted wearing MinoanMycenean costumes and bringing gifts of an Aegean type. Thus, Keftiu/Caphtor is generally accepted as the name for Crete, though it may have been used more broadly to refer to the entire Aegean region. Alessandra Nibbi has recently attacked the view that the Sea Peoples came from Anatolia and the Aegean, but her attempt to demonstrate that they were native Semitic inhabitants of Palestine-Syria is not very convincing. Nibbi argues that the Sea Peoples are called "Asiatics" in some of the Egyptian inscriptions, and that they are shown praising Ramesses III "like Bacal" (1974: 204; 1975: 79-80). Since Bacal was a Canaanite god, the Sea Peoples must have been Canaanites. The tribes which joined the Libyan attack during the reign of Merneptah are described as being circum-

14

cised (Nibbi 1975: 104). Furthermore, Ramesses III claims to have destroyed the Tjeker, Peleset, Denyen, and other Sea Peoples "in their own land" (Nibbi 1974: 204; 1975: 81, 100). It must be admitted that the Egyptian claim that some of the Sea Peoples were circumcised is puzzling. There is no evidence of the existence of this custom among the Minoans, Myceneans, or inhabitants of western Anatolia. However, this point by itself cannot sustain Nibbi's case that the Sea Peoples were Semites from Palestine-Syria. As Margaret Drower has pointed out (1974: 206), the Canaanite stormand war-god Bacal had been adopted into the Egyptian pantheon by the 19th Dynasty. Not only do Asiatics and Sea Peoples compare Pharaoh to Bacal in 19th- and 20thDynasty texts, but Egyptians and Libyans also do. In Egyptian inscriptions of this period the use of phrases referring to Bacal does not indicate the ethnic identity of the speaker. As for the description of the Sea Peoples as "Asiatics," virtually any group that lived to the northeast or north of Egypt could be placed under that label in Egyptian texts. But when Egyptian artists illustrated various groups of "Asiatics" they had no difficulty distinguishing between the Sea Peoples from "northern lands" and the enemies Egypt had known for centuries. The Sea Peoples are shown with characteristic ships, costumes, and equipment which differ from those of Nubians, Libyans, or the traditional "Asiatics": Amu, Retjennu, Canaanites, Hittites, and Hurrians (Drower 1974: 206).

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

Finally, Ramesses III's references to defeating his various enemies in their own land and adding their frontiers to those of Egypt are probably propagandistic bombast which should not be taken literally. However, it is likely that there were some Sea Peoples settled as Egyptian mercenaries at a few sites in Palestine from the 19th Dynasty onward (G. E. Wright 1966; Albright 1975: 50911). Perhaps the existence of these colonies served as justification for Egyptian claims that the Sea Peoples' land was conquered. But even if the traditional view of a migration of Sea Peoples from Anatolia and the Aegean is correct (as it seems to be), their role in the destruction of Mycenean Greece is not established. Could tribes which had sacked the mighty citadels of Mycene, Tiryns, and Gla and which had crushed the powerful Hittite empire be defeated so easily by the weakened Egypt of Ramesses III? No evidence of the Sea Peoples has been found at Boghazkoy the site of the Hittite capital, Hattushash), and it is doubtful whether they could have penetrated into the center of the Hittite empire (Schaeffer 1968: 754-68). Moreover, some of the Sea Peoples were mentioned in Egyptian texts as early as the reign of Amenhotep III, and others were Hittite vassals and allies for a century before the disastrous invasions (Albright 1975: 508; Barnett 1975: 359, 368). Since they had been a part of the Mycenean and Hittite world long before ca. 1200 B.c., these groups cannot be Desborough's mysterious invaders from the north. It is very unlikely that invasion by Sea Peoples caused

the destruction of Mycenean civilization or the fall of the Hittite empire. Rather, the Sea Peoples' migrations appear to have been a result of the political, social, and economic collapse which occurred in Anatolia and the Aegean at the end of the 13th century B.C. Internal Conflict To blame the Sea Peoples for the destruction of Mycenean civilization

Left: The Treasury of Atreus, ca. 1300 B.c. Actually not a treasury at all

but a tomb of the tholos or "beehive" type, this structureis consideredby many to be the greatestexampleof Mycenean architecture.Right:One of the most magnificent monuments in Greece, the Lion Gate was a major entrance into the

Citadelof Mycene.Its reliefdepictsa sacredpillarflankedby two lions, who servethe dual purposeof defendingthe pillarand the gate. The lions' heads, which probablyfaced towardthose who approachedthe gate, are now missing.

is really to put forward a variation of the internal-revolt or internecinestrife hypothesis. Greek tradition recalled the 13th century B.C. as a period of almost constant warfare between Mycenean states-the Seven against Thebes, the Athenian attack on Eleusis, the Heraclids against Mycene, to mention just a few. Then, after the Trojan War, kings returned to find usurpers in their

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER1980 15

The primary causes of the Mycenean collapse were probably an overly centralized, highly specialized economy and a period of climatic change. palaces and discord within their kingdoms and families. Could this internal conflict have been responsible for the end of Mycenean culture? Some modern scholars think so (Vermeule 1964: 278; Nichols 1975: 200-5), agreeing with the assessment of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides: Afterthe TrojanWarGreecewasin a state of ferment;therewereconstant resettlements,and so no opportunity for peacefuldevelopment.It waslong beforethe armyreturnedfrom Troy, and this fact in itself led to many changes. There was party strife in nearly all the cities, and those who were driven into exile founded new cities. .... Thus many years passed by

and many difficultieswere encountered before Greece could enjoy peace or stability, and before the period of shiftingpopulationsended (The Peloponnesian War I.12; War-

ner 1954: 19-20). But the Mycenean kingdoms must have fought previously with one another, and thrones must have been usurped previously. Why did this war or series of conflicts destroy the basic fabric of Mycenean society? Why did parts of Greece become depopulated? Why did the Philistines and other groups decide to move from the Aegean? Why did the Lukka and other Hittite vassals in western Anatolia not only revolt, but also migrate southeastward? Warfare-whether due to internal strife or to invasions by Dorians, unknown northerners, or Sea Peoples-does not provide a sufficient answer to such questions. Strife there must have been, but it was probably not the major cause of the Mycenean demise. 16

Economic and Natural Forces European civilization suffered similar upheaval and cultural change during the fall of the Roman empire in the West and at the end of the Middle Ages. In both instances invasion, civil war, or internecine strife contributed to cultural collapse but

were not the primarycauses of it.

Rome had economic problems whose origins stretched back to the creation of the empire. An inadequate tax system aggravated by. deficiences in the imperial governmental structure did more to cause the end of the Roman empire than did German invaders. At the end of the Middle ages, Europe was stricken with plague which caused a severe labor shortage. This in turn produced spiraling inflation. There were basic economic changes due to the growth of trade and cities. New military weapons such as cannons and muskets were developed, resulting in changes in military tactics. These developments operating together caused the collapse of the feudal and manorial systems, the basic components of medieval civilization. These examples of cultural collapse teach us not only to expect multiple causes of decline, but also to beware of overlooking the possible involvement of economic and/or natural forces. Rhys Carpenter (1966) has put forward the interesting suggestion that climatic change produced famine which destroyed both Mycenean Greece and the Hittite empire. He argues that a shift in the trade winds would have caused drought in Anatolia, Crete, and much of southern Greece, while a few areas such as Attica, Thessaly,

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

Achea, Kephallenia, and the western coast of the Peloponnese would have received normal or above normal amounts of rainfall (Carpenter 1966: 59-66). Carpenter's theory would account for archeological evidence of Mycenean movements into Achea, Attica, Kephallenia, and Cyprus, as well as the depopulation of the eastern and southern portions of the Peloponnese. There is also textual evidence of famine in the Hittite empire shortly before its fall. The Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (ca. 1236-1223 B.C.) sent a huge gift of grain to alleviate a famine in Hittite lands (Barnett 1975: 360). And among the last letters to be received at Ugarit before its destruction around 1200 B.C., three suggest famine in Anatolia. One missive from the Hittite king demands that the king of Ugarit send 2000 measures of grain to Cilicia at once, for it is a matter of life or death (Astour 1965: 255; Barnett 1975: 369). There have not been enough scientific studies of the ancient environment of Greece to prove the validity of Carpenter's hypothesis, but recent research has demonstrated that the weather pattern he postulates is a possible one (Lamb 1967; Bryson, Lamb, and Donley 1974). A pattern of precipitation almost identical with the one suggested by Carpenter occurred in 1954-55, and climatologists see no reason why this pattern could not have been the dominant one for a century or more at some time in the past (Bryson, Lamb, and Donley 1974: 46-47). There is also some evidence from other areas that a

When the famine was at its peak, virtually all of the Mycenean centers in Greece were sacked, either by neighboring Myceneans or by their own starving subjects. precipitation pattern like that of 1954-55 did prevail around 1200 B.C. (Bryson, Lamb, and Donley 1974: 47-50, refuting H. E. Wright 1968). However, the data is not yet sufficient enough to be conclusive. The economy of a Mycenean state was managed centrally with the royal bureaucracy supervising all aspects of production and distribution. It also appears to have been excessively specialized (Betancourt 1976: 42-45), relying on the production of wheat and barley as well as the raising of sheep and some cattle, as the Linear B texts demonstrate. There was little emphasis on exploitation of natural resources such as minerals, lumber, fish, or other marine life. Agriculture and animal husbandry not only fed and clothed the local population, but they also provided the primary products (perfumed oils, wine, and woolen cloth) which Myceneans traded abroad for metals and other raw materials. It would have been difficult for such an economy to withstand even a limited period of crop failures (Betancourt 1976: 44). The factors which led to the end of Mycenean civilization were undoubtedly as complex and as interrelated as those which produced the fall of Rome and the end of the Middle Ages. But the primary causes of the Mycenean collapse were probably an overly centralized, highly specialized economy and a period of climatic change. While the validity of this theory has not yet been proven, it seems to fit the evidence best. The onset of drier weather in a few regions of Greece probably led the rulers of those areas to supplement their kingdoms'

caused by famine. Some groups left the area to join the Libyans (whose lands also would have been afflicted by drought) in an attack on Egypt. That this was no mere raid in search of booty is indicated by the fact that the raiders were accompanied by wagons carrying women, children, and baggage. At about the same time, the Hittite king appealed to Egypt for grain to relieve a famine in Anatolia-a request honored by Merneptah. The famine seems to have reached its peak around 1200-

food supply by raids into neighboring kingdoms whose crops had not been affected. The internal unrest remembered by Greek tradition and testified to by the 13th-century construction and strengthening of Cyclopean fortifications at many Mycenean sites would thus be explained. Even in areas affected by the drought, such fortifications would have been necessary to protect whatever food supplies still existed (or had been obtained by raids), for the palace was the center of the distribution system. The Linear B tablets from Pylos give no indication of crop failures or drought (Pylos was in an area which would have had normal precipitation), but it is clear that preparations had been made to guard against attack by land or sea. Such watchfulness must have been a fact of life in 13th-century Greece. As the agricultural crisis in the Aegean worsened, outbreaks of disease probably added to the misery +6we W

Wet

+20 +40

1190 B.C. Virtually all of the

Mycenean palace-centers in Greece were sacked, either by neighboring Myceneans or by their own starving subjects. (See the accounts of recent drought and famine in Brazil in Carpenter 1966: 68-69. In 1953 people from the drought-stricken countryside there descended en masse to pillage towns where food had been stored.) Normally an attack by enemies or a revolt of the 0

,&20

.so

0o Dry

-60 0 S-40 Wet-2

Map showing the departure of precipitation from normal in January 1955 (in per cent). This month represents a precipitation mode which fits Carpenter's pattern of population change around 1200 B.C.

Dry

-

o0

-20 3C

0

p-P

0

4b

\

o6

Dry -20

Used with permission.

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER1980 17

local population would have failed to take any of the highly fortified Mycenean citadels. Their fall must have been due to lack of water or failure to defend them (the defense forces may have joined the looters in taking whatever supplies were available). Only Athens (which was in an area which would have had normal precipitation) managed to hold out. Refugees streamed into Achea, Kephallenia, and Attica while parts of the Peloponnese became almost totally unoccupied.

18

A wave of Peloponnesian emigrants sailed to Cyprus where they defeated earlier Mycenean settlers and established themselves in power. Even in Messenia, which had not experienced drought, the population decline was considerable. Without the distribution system and direction of the palace bureaucracy at Pylos (which had been destroyed), the large population of former times could not be sustained. In Anatolia also the situation must have been desperate. Revolts

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/WINTER1980

Among the richest archeological discoveries of all time, the Mycenean

grave circleyieldedmanygoldentreasures to its discoverers.The royalshaft graves found withinthe 26-m-diametercircle containedthe remainsof rulersand aristocratsof the ancientcitadel.The men were buriedwith goldenmasksand golden breastplates.At theirsides were swords,daggers,and goldenand silver drinkingcups. Womenwere buried wearinglargeamountsof goldenjewelry. Childrenwerewrappedin sheet gold.

The catastrophes had produced a breakdown of the entire structure of Mycenean Greece. The old centralized bureaucracies were gone and no one remembered how they functioned. broke out against the Hittite king who could no longer provide for his subjects. Torn apart by the effects of famine, the empire disintegrated. Ugarit sent its fleet to the western coast of Asia Minor to aid the Hittite king in suppressing revolt and was thus virtually powerless to defend itself against marauding tribes. Along with Hattushash, Carchemish, and other major sites, Ugarit went up in flames. As was the case in Greece, some of these destructions were probably due to attack by migrating peoples; others were probably brought about by their own subjects. Troy was also destroyed about this time, and its fall must have been connected with the general crisis taking place in the eastern Mediterranean. Greek tradition remembered the attack, but it romanticized the motivation for it and exaggerated the number of people involved. Groups of western Anatolians and a few Mycenean tribes accompanied by carts full of women and children migrated into Syria where Ramesses III met and defeated them. Some were allowed to settle in Palestine as Egyptian vassals. A century later an Egyptian text records that the Tjeker inhabited the coastal city of Dor, while the Philistines became prominent enough to give their name to the entire land of Canaan. Other migrants from western Anatolia became the founders of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms which would flourish in Syria during the early part of the Iron Age. Some parts of Palestine also would have experienced drought, and possibly this situation contributed to the creation of stateless

brigands and groups of seminomads who joined with a band of escaped slaves from Egypt to form the Israelite tribes. After two or three generations, the weather patterns probably returned to normal. Dorians moved (back?) into the depopulated areas of the Peloponnese. People became settled once more and the population began to increase. But the Mycenean culture could not be restored. The catastrophes had produced a breakdown of the entire political, social, and economic

structure of Mycenean Greece. Even in Athens the crisis had taken its toll. The old centralized bureaucracies were gone, and no one remembered how they had functioned. The art of writing and keeping records had been lost. It was a new Greece which recovered from the period of drought and famine. The Mycenean civilization had vanished, and in its place there was a new social order and a very different economic system ready to develop into the civilization of classical Greece.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

19

CHRONOLOGICAL CHART

DATE

GREECE

1550 Late Helladic I & II Periods

Shaft graves at Mycene

EGYPT

18th Dynasty (1570-1320)Late Bronze I Period The New Kingdomor Empire ThutmoseIII(1504-1450)

1400

Late Helladic IIIAPeriod

Knossos destroyed(?) 1300 Late Helladic IIIB Period-

"TheMyceneanAge" Palace builtat Pylos

AmenhotepIII(1417-1379) Akhenaton(1379-1362) Tutankhamun (1361-1352) 19th Dynasty (1320-1200) Ramesses 11(1304-1237)

Wallsstrengthenedand/or citadels enlarged at Mycene Tiryns,Gla,&Athens Gla,lolkos,Tiryns,Pylos,and part of Mycene burned 1200 Late Helladic IIICPeriod

Manysites in Thessaly, Boeotia, and Peleponnese abandoned

Mycene destroyed 1100

20

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

THENEAREAST

Palestine-SyriaunderEgyptian control LateBronzeIIAPeriod Hittitesconquermuchof Syria Hittiteempireat its height LateBronze1iBPeriod

HebrewExodusfromEgypt(?) Merneptah(1236-1223) 1st attackby Sea Peoples

Faminein Hittiteempire Hittiteempiretroubledby revolts; Hattushashdestroyed

20th Dynasty (1200-1085) Ramesses III(1198-1166) 2nd attackby Sea Peoples Invasionof Sea Peoples

iron I Period Beginningof Israelitesettlement in Palestine(?) Philistines& otherSea Peoples settle Palestiniancoast

Bibliography Albright, W. F. 1975 Syria, the Philistines, and Phoenicia: I. The Sea Peoples in Palestine. Pp. 507-16 in vol. 1, part 2 of Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Astour, M. 1965 New Evidence on the Last Days of Ugarit. American Journal of Archaeology 69: 253-58. Barnett, R. D. 1975 The Sea Peoples. Pp. 359-78 in vol.1, part 2 of CambridgeAncient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Betancourt, P. P. 1976 The End of the Greek Bronze Age. Antiquity 50: 40-47. Breasted, J. H., ed. 1906 Ancient Records ofEgypt, 3. Chicago: University of Chicago. Bryson, R. A.; Lamb, H. H.; and Donley, D. L. 1974 Drought and the Decline of Mycenae. Antiquity 48: 46-50. Carpenter, R. 1966 Discontinuity in Greek Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Chadwick, J. 1975 The Prehistory of the Greek Language. Pp. 805-19 in vol. 1, part 2 of Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et aL Cambridge: Cambridge University. 1976 The Mycenean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Desborough, V. R. d'A. 1964 The Last Mycenaeans and Their Successors. Oxford: Clarendon. 1972 The Greek Dark Ages. London: Benn. 1975 The End of the Mycenaean Civilization and the Dark Age: (a) The Archaeological Background. Pp. 65877 in vol. 1, part 2 of Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Drower, M. S. 1974 Discussion of Alessandra Nibbi's of the 'Sea "The Identification People.'" P. 206 in Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, eds. R. A. Crossland and A. Birchall. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes. W. F., and Wilson, J. A. Edgerton, 1936 Historical Records of Ramesses III. Chicago: University of Chicago. Finley, M. I. 1970 Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic Ages. New York: Norton. Gardiner, A. H., ed. 1947 Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, 1. Oxford: Oxford University. 1961 Egypt of the Pharaohs. Oxford: Clarendon. Hainsworth, J. B. 1967 Greek Views of Greek Dialectology. Transactions of the Philological Society: 62-76. Hammond, N. G. L. 1975 The End of Mycenaean Civilization and the Dark Age: (b) The Literary Tradition for the Migrations. Pp. 678-712 in vol. 1, part 2 of Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Hooker, J. T. 1977 Mycenaean Greece. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Lamb, H. H. 1967 Review of R. Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civilization (1966). Antiquity 41: 233-34. McDonald, W. A. 1967 Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. New York/ London: MacMillan. McDonald, W. A., and Hope Simpson, R. 1972 Archaeological Exploration. Pp. 11747 in The Minnesota Messenia Expedition, eds. W. A. McDonald and G. R. Rapp, Jr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Nibbi, A. 1974 The Identification of the "Sea Peoples." Pp. 203-5 in Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, eds. R. A. Crossland and A. Birchall. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes.

1975 The Sea Peoples and Egypt. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes. Nichols, M. 1975 Man, Myth, and Monument. New York: Morrow. Schaeffer, C. F.-A. 1968 Commentaires sur les lettres et documents trouv6s dans les bibliotheques privies d'Ugarit. Pp. 607-768 in Ugaritica 5, eds. C. F.-A. Schaeffer, et al. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale/ P. Geuthner. Stubbings, F. H. 1975 The Recession of Mycenaean Civilization. Pp. 338-58 in vol. 1, part 2 of Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd edition, eds. I. E. S. Edwards, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Tegyey, I. 1974 Messenia and the Catastrophe at the End of Late Helladic IIIB. Pp. 227-31 in Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean, eds. R. A. Crossland and A. Birchall. Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes. Vermeule, E. 1964 Greece in the Bronze Age. Chicago: University of Chicago. Warner, R. 1954 Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. Baltimore: Penguin. Wilson, J. A. 1955 Egyptian Historical Texts. Pp. 227-64 in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd edition, ed. J. B. Pritchard. Princeton: Princeton University. Wright, G. E. 1966 Fresh Evidence for the Philistine Story. Biblical Archaeologist 29: 70-86. Wright, H. E., Jr. 1968 Climatic Change in Mycenaean Greece. Antiquity 42: 123-27.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

21

The

NEW

Joseph Naveh

GREEK

For years, scholars of Greek and Canaanite epigraphy have tried to determine the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Canaanite alphabet by the Greeks. Now a recent reevaluation of the evidence has led one prominent epigrapher to push back the traditional date of this occurrence by 350 years.

EVIDENCE

?VA

"1

AOO

1

P

9

q

yII

?v Y I

EarlyGreekletterforms.

22

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

4

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The Greek alphabet developed from West Semitic writing, but when this occured is disputable. A date of ca. 750 B.C. has been widely accepted since Rhys Carpenter's study (1933) "The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet." Recent progress in the research into the early evolution of the West Semitic alphabet (Cross 1967), however, has to affect our dating of the Greek alphabet. I published (1973) a short paper suggesting that the adoption of the alphabet by the Greeks must have taken place ca. 1100 B.C. The Semitic alphabet was born in Canaan in the 17th or 16th century B.C. Now called Proto-Canaanite, it was a pictographic-acrophonic writing consisting of 27 signs. Each was a pictograph representing the first consonant of the picture's name, e.g., the picture of a house, bet in Canaanite, stood for b. Later, the pictographs developed into linear letter-forms. Already in the 13th century B.C. the 27 consonantal signs had been reduced to 22, but the pictographic conception continued into the mid-Ilth century B.c. This means that until ca. 1050 B.c. the letter stances were not stabilized and the direction of writing was not yet fixed. Although writing in vertical columns disappeared in the late 12th century, both the horizontal left-toright or right-to-left directions and horizontal boustrophedon (writing alternate lines in opposite directions) still existed until the mid-Ilith century.

In the second half of the 1lth century B.C.the changes became so marked that this alphabet is conventionally distinguished from the Proto-Canaanite by the name "Phoenician." In the Phoenician alphabet from that time on, there were 22 linear letters with stabilized stances which were written only in right-to-left lines. From the beginning of the first millennium B.C.,cursive letter-forms evolved, which began to affect their lapidary counterparts. By the mid-8th century the Phoenician alphabet had developed a uniform script with cursive and lapidary styles. Although the earliest Greek inscriptions known today belong to the 8th century B.C., the characteristics of the archaic Greek script recall the late Proto-Canaanite rather than the 8th-century Phoenician script. Like Proto-Canaanite, the archaic Greek alphabet was a lapidary script; the direction of writing was in horizontal lines either from right to left, or from left to right, or in horizontal boustrophedon, and the letter stances were not stabilized. All these traits indicate a pictographic conception. Moreover, some letters still preserved the Proto-Canaanite pictographic forms: e.g., the omicron with a central dot equals the ProtoCanaanite cayin, i.e., the pictograph of an eye with the pupil; the mu of five strokes of the same length resembles the pictographic mem designating water. The archaic Greek alphabet used the 22 West Semitic letters-some of them for designation of vowels-and invented 5 supplementary letters. The form of the first supplementary letter, Y, seems to be borrowed from the 10th-century Phoenician waw. Most of the archaic Greek letters, however, resemble the Proto-Canaanite letters of ca. 1100 B.c. Therefore, it is difficult to believe that the Greeks adopted the developed Phoenician script in the 8th century and turned it into a less-developed writing system, just as it was used by the ancestors of the Phoenicians 300 or 400 years before. It is more reasonable to assume that the Greeks borrowed the ProtoCanaanite alphabet ca. 1100 B.C.

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980 23

The only epigraphic difficulty with this theory is the form of the archaic Greek kappa. It does not resemble the Proto-Canaanite kap, but the 9th-century Phoenician kap. I have suggested that the Greek kappa was a later adoption because the original Proto-Canaanite kap was used for khi. This interpretation is supported by the double adoption of the waw. The original ProtoCanaanite waw was used in Greek for the consonant vau (later developed into the digamma). During the 10th century, when the Greeks invented the vowel signs and needed a letter for u, they turned to the Phoenician script and reused the waw as an upsilon (Naveh 1973: 7-8). Even if this explanation of the origin of the kappa is wrong, it hardly refutes the whole theory of an early adoption of the alphabet by the Greeks. True, this theory is based solely on epigraphic comparisofis and ignores such issues as the "argument from silence"-the Homeric question and the first attested date of the Olympic games-and the presence of a bilingual environment where the actual transmission could have taken place. Nevertheless, the epigraphic issue is paramount. I have suggested (1973: 8) that during quite a long period only a few Greeks used the new writing (perhaps in Crete and possibly Thera, where the most archaic letter-forms were preserved), while later it spread to the Greek mainland and other islands. Today we have two finds which may be helpful in determining the place where the Greeks adopted the alphabet. F. M. Cross (1974) drew attention to the oldest West Semitic inscription found in the Western Mediterranean. This is a fragmentary stele from Nora in Sardinia.

The ostraconfrom Izbet Sarta.

Nora . . . has produced two archaic

A fragmentarystele

from Sardinia (CIS I, 145).

24

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

inscriptions,the famous Nora Stone of the ninthcenturyB.C.anda fragmentary stele which has receivedlittle attention. Thelatterwasfirstpublishedin 1890arid laterin the CorpusInscriptionum Semiticarum[I, No. 145]upsidedown leading to confusionwhichhas preventedrecognition of its antiquity and its proper

decipherment.The inscriptionis written in boustrophedon,the first line from rightto left, the secondfromleft to right, a practicewhichdied out in Phoenician scribalcirclestowardsthe middleof the eleventhcenturyB.C. It reads sinistrograde: ]'n . pC/[, and dextrograde: ]It . ht[. In the first sinistrograde line, one can read 'in p5ccl or '~n pocal which means "there is no one to do" or "there is no deed." Cross dates this fragment to the I Ith century. The boustrophedal writing and the letter forms, mainly the cayin with a point in its center and the box-shaped het (which are well known also in the archaic Greek alphabet), corroborate the assumption that this fragment bears late ProtoCanaanite letters. At any rate, we must now reckon with a Canaanite or Phoenician settlement in Sardinia from the I Ith century B.C. The second item is more intriguing but, for the present, should be regarded with considerable reservation. This is an ostracon (9 x 11 cm) which was found recently in Israel at a small site named Izbet Sarta, ca. 18 km northeast of TelAviv and 3 km east of Tell Aphek (Antipatris in the Roman period). The excavator, M. Kochavi, discovered an ancient unfortified settlement from ca. 1200 to 1000 B.C., roughly covering the period of the Judges. Kochavi believes that Izbet Sarta was an Israelite settlement near biblical Eben-ezer, which is described in I Samuel 4 as the gathering point of the Israelites before their battle against the Philistines who were assembled at Aphek. The ostracon contains more than 80 late Proto-Canaanite letters shallowly incised. The main line is an abecedary, but the decipherment of the other four lines is very difficult. Although most of the letters can be identified with certainty, it is difficult to tell in what direction they were written. The letters of the abecedary are larger than the others. All are by the same hand, though apparently the scribe used different instruments. It seems clear that the abecedary was the first line of writing. Therefore, we may reckon that the abecedary was written from right to left, or

downwards in a vertical column. As no text has been discerned so far in the other lines, their direction could not be fixed. Kochavi (1977) and Demsky (1977) wrote separate articles on this ostracon. Both believe the sherd was inscribed by an Israelite in the period of the Judges, and more precisely in the 12th century B.c. Demsky suggests further that the pe-cayin order occurring in the abecedary might have been an early Israelite innovation which survived into later biblical times in the alphabetic acrostic of Lamentations 2, 3, and 4. This suggestion, however, cannot be substantiated because the pe-cayin order at Izbet Sarta simply may indicate confusion, since zayin and het also are reversed. There are further mistakes in the abecedary: the writer confused the forms of bet and lamed, as well as qop and re'. The shapes of some other letters (e.g., the waw) do not follow what we know of the Proto-Canaanite tradition. Moreover, the remaining four lines apparently do not comprise any meaningful Semitic text. Now, if we consider this ostracon as a late Proto-Canaanite inscription, we must regard it as the scratching of some semiliterate person who, after unsuccessfully writing the abecedary, merely practiced writing various letters. The abecedary may indicate that the writer was a Canaanite student learning how to write. If so, he was surely a bad pupil. In this case, in lines 2-5 there is no text, merely an agglomeration of letters. Both Kochavi and Demsky" pointed out that some letters occurring in this ostracon are very similar to the archaic Greek alphabet. Demsky even tried to remove the obstacle of the kap in my thesis for an early adoption of the alphabet by the Greeks because the kap in the Izbet Sarta ostracon has a long leg which, in his opinion, might be the prototype of the Greek kappa. I do not share this view and even question whether the writer of this ostracon was a speaker of a Semitic language (Naveh 1978). There is a faint possibility that the ostracon from Izbet Sarta was

written by a Philistine. The origin of the Philistines is still obscure, but there is a scholarly consensus that they came to Egypt and Canaan in the late 13th century with the migration of some other peoples, the collective name of which is the Sea Peoples. According to the OT (Amos 9:7; Jer 47:4), the Philistines came from Caphtor, which is generally identified with Crete. In Canaan they lived mainly in five cities, three of which were on the Mediterranean coast. Philistine pottery produced in Canaan is decorated in a style similar to the Mycenean decorated ware. The hypothesis that the Izbet Sarta ostracon was written by a Philistine can be tested by an attempt to decipher the so-far unread four lines. If these lines form a text in some dialect used in the Aegean area, there would be some basis for the assumption that the Proto-Canaanite alphabet was transmitted to the Greeks through the Philistines who had settled in the Canaanite coastal area. As yet, this is only a hypothesis, but further progress with the decipherment of the Izbet Sarta inscription and future discoveries of alphabetic inscriptions in the general area should help to resolve the outstanding issues. Bibliography Carpenter, R. 1933 The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet. American Journal of Archaeology 37: 8-29. Cross, F. M. 1967 The Origin and the Early Evolution of the Alphabet. Eretz-Israel 8: 8*-27*. 1974 Leaves from an Epigraphic Notebook. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36: 490-93. Demsky, A. 1977 A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from the Period of the Judges and its Implications for the History of the Alphabet. Tel-Aviv 4: 14-27. Kochavi, M. 1977 An Ostracon of the Period of the Judges from Izbet Sartah. Tel-Aviv 4: 1-13. Naveh, J. 1973 Some Semitic Epigraphical Considerations on the Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet. American Journal of Archaeology 77: 1-8. 1978 Some Considerations on the Ostracon from Izbet Sartah. Israel Exploration Journal 28: 31-35.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

25

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James H. Charlesworth The cache of manuscripts discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai continues to present scholars with new information, new insights, and new questions. In this article, the 26

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third in a series about the discovery, a noted specialist in early Christian documents discusses the manuscripts themselves and their significance for paleography, textual studies, history, and religion.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

A few years ago a hoard of manuscripts and art treasures was discovered accidentally in the northern wall of one of the oldest fortress-monasteries in the world, St. Catherine's Monastery, which is situated deep in the Sinai Peninsula. Long before monks came to the site

Fragmentsfroma liturgicalbook in uncial script.The rightand leftfragmentsarenot necessarilyfromthe samepage. of St. Catherine's, Sinai-that vast and rocky wilderness-held traces of the religious life of its prehistoric inhabitants. Egyptian worship on the peninsula goes back at least to the 19th century B.C., as is shown by the monuments of Amenemhat III (ca. 1840-1792) at Serabit el-Khadem and the extraordinary temple which the kings of the 12th Dynasty built there. Sometime after 1490 B.C., Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III used Asiatic slaves to reopen the copper and turquoise mines at Serabit el-Khadem and to expand and enhance the temple to Hathor, "Lady of Turquoise."' After the 20th Dynasty (ca. 1185-1069 B.C.) no royal Egyptian inscriptions are found in Sinai. The central religious significance of Sinai lies in the over 3000-year-old recital of God's action in the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses. Contemporary Jewish and Christian celebrations, especially at Passover, relive the biblical Sinai traditions which are focused in the events that immediately preceded and followed the Exodus. While pasturing the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, Moses comes to Mount Sinai (=Horeb), sees a burning bush, and hears God's voice: "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground" (Exod 3:5, RSV). After the Exodus, Moses leaves the people of Israel encamped in the wilderness of Sinai, ascends the mountain upon which the Lord had descended (Exod 19:11, 18, 20; cf. 24:16), and receives the gift of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19-24). Centuries later, Elijah made a pilgrimage to "the mountain of God" (1 Kgs 19:8), but that site cannot be identified with any certainty. Indeed, Sinai fades from history until the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.,when monks and anchorites settled at various mountains identified by local traditions as the place where Moses stood before God. In the 4th century, Ammonius, an Egyptian monk, took 18 days to travel from Jerusalem to Jebel Musa, which he identified with Mount Sinai. In that same century, Helena, mother of Constantine the

Great (A.D. 288-337), built a small church at Jebel Musa, one of the tallest (2,285 m above sea level), tooth-shaped mountains in southern Sinai.2 This mountain was identified as Mount Sinai, but many monks continued to venerate other sites in the 4th and 5th centuries in spite of Helena's prestige and in the face of violent attacks by hostile marauders. But when Justinian (A.D. 527-65) dedicated a church to the Virgin Mary at Jebel Musa and built a fortress to protect it, the monks gradually deserted other sites and

The author of this prayer obviously revered Mount Sinai, and in contrast to the tradition that celebrated God's abode above the Temple in Jerusalem (cf. viz. Pss 68:28-29 and 78:67-69), he geographically localized God's presence at Sinai.4

"... an incomparablegem for scholarshipand the Church." sought safety behind Justinian's walls. These walls are still preserved in part at St. Catherine's. In the 8th or 9th century, the bones of St. Catherine, a victim of Roman persecution against Christians, are said by local tradition to have been found buried on a nearby mountain and were taken to the monastery which ever since has been known by her name. To a certain extent this famous monastery had been protected because of its recognized sacred history, monastic purity, and desert location; but it also has received the legal protection of many rulers (notably Muhammad and Napoleon),3 and the monks once found it prudent to erect a mosque within their walls to discourage hostile natives. Although many holy mountains in Sinai were woven deep into the fabric of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions, God is seldom depicted as dwelling on Mount Sinai. The Prayer of Jacob, however, preserved in a 4thcentury Greek papyrus fragment in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, praises the "Lord God of the Hebrews" as follows: The God o[f the p]owers; The G[od of ang]elsa[nd a]r[cha]ngels; Ki[ng... He who s[i]t[s]upon h[oly] Mount Sinai...

Monumental Discoveries In two recent issues of BA,5 attention was drawn to the manuscripts and works of art that were discovered in this monastery on 26 May 1975. In the present article I will discuss briefly some of the important features of these manuscripts and their significance for scholarship. An attempt to select the most important aspects of this discovery causes uneasiness-not only because of the many significant factors but also because of the emotions evoked by my own visit to the monastery. There are, on the one hand, the vivid and profound impressions made upon me as I was ushered into the apse of the basilica of the monastery and looked up at the late 6th-century (preiconoclastic) mosaic of the transfiguration, and subsequently led, after removing my shoes, through the Chapel of St. James the Less to the traditional site of the burning bush. There are, on the other hand, the memorable feelings of arising at 3:15 A.M.in order to ascend Jebel Musa, and of awaiting the rise of the sun over the mountains of Saudi Arabia far to the east. Nearby in the cold morning were others: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Of the significant-even sensational-aspects of this discovery, four seem at present to be monumental: (1) the recovery of additional pages of Codex Sinaiticus, (2) the almost unbelievable clarification of the history of the Greek script, (3) the valuable content of ancient biblical texts, and (4) the discovery of formerly "lost" documents. First is the recovery of at least 8-perhaps even 14-folios from Codex Sinaiticus, the major portion of which is preserved in the British Library (formerly subsumed under the British Museum). Fewer than 400 of the approximately 730 original folios of this Greek manuscript were discovered in St. Catherine's Monastery in 1844 and 1859 by Constantin

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

27

By permissionof the Librarianand the Archbishopof St. Catherine'sMonastery.

The transfigurationof Jesus,depictedin mosaicfrom the late 6th centuryA.D. in the basilicaof St. Catherine'sMonastery. At Jesus'rightstandsElijah,at his left, Moses. Beloware John, Peter,and James.

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*-Z f.-= ? M-,--? f von Tischendorf, who in a letter to his in a closet in his cell.8The folios are now in the BritishLibrary(Museum wife, Angelika, in 1859, called it an MS 43725).Third,at least 8 folios of "incomparable gem for scholarship and the Church."6 These recently this 4th-centurymanuscriptwere still recovered folios are therefore in the monastery,hiddenin the cache to in the northernwall, wherethey were biblical extremely important discoveredin 1975.These folios are scholars; they fill some of the gaps in still unavailableto scholars,but it is one of the two most ancient, clearthey preserveportionsof the invaluable volumes of the Bible (the other is, of course, Codex Vaticanus). Old Testament,as is readilyobvious by the presentdescriptionin the Unfortunately photographs of them BritishMuseum:"TheOld Testament are not included herein; apparently the Archbishop of the monastery is seriouslymutilated,most of the conceals them, and, to my knowledge, earlierbooks being almost wholly lost, but the New Testamentis they have not been photographed. It is clear that long before the perfectlypreserved,and is followed 19th century the binding of Codex by two non-canonicalworks, the Sinaiticus was broken and the folios Epistleof Barnabasand the dispersed into at least three separate 'Shepherd'of Hermas." places in St. Catherine's Monastery. A Treasure Trove of Greek Scripts First, ca. 130 folios were found somewhere in the monastery by The oldest script employed by scribes Tischendorf in 1844; 43 of these are to copy the Bible is the uncial, that now in Leipzig. Second, 346 folios is, large capital letters in script. (and a fragment) were obtained by Although Codex Sinaiticus is written in uncials, the script is exceedingly Tischendorf, who in 1859 (according rare. Added to the world's treasure of to his account)7 was shown the rare manuscripts (thanks to the new in a red cloth, manuscript, wrapped by a steward who had been keeping it discoveries) are 10 almost complete

28

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

and over 50 incomplete codices. Our knowledge of this script is so vastly increased that its history will need to be rewritten. This cache contains the largest collection of uncials in the world. Greek writing on papyri, ostraca, leather, and vellum is a continuum that stretches from the present into the remote centuries prior to the appearance of Judaism and Christianity. There is a lacuna in this series; the period from the mid-7th to the mid-9th centuries (ca. 650-850) is so poorly represented that it is known as the "period of great silence." The cache preserves a large quantity of manuscripts from this period. When these pieces are made available for study by Greek philologists, a massive jigsaw puzzle will be put together for the first time. The continuum of Greek calligraphy will be recovered. Ancient Copies of the Bible Biblical students will be eager to hear more about the abundance of manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments and about the biblical passages preserved in fragments of liturgical texts. Two examples have been chosen in order to illustrate the significance of the find for biblical studies. The first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, is preserved in a very early uncial script, which probably dates from the late 4th century.9 The script is, therefore, almost as old as Codex Sinaiticus. Both manuscripts date from approximately the same time and possibly were produced in the same monastery. The left column of the text pictured on p. 29 contains Gen 27:42b-45, the right preserves Gen 28:3b-6a. It is exciting to discover that this text shares with Codex Alexandrinus a variant reading in Gen 28:6; both omit ekeithen (Codex Vaticanus does not contain this chapter). Portions of the earliest gospel, Mark, have also been discovered among the recently recovered manuscripts. The script is early uncial; it perhaps dates from the 6th century,

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a palpable record of the liturgical Two columnsof Genesisin early uncial script.The left columncontains27:42b-45; use of the Bible in Christianized the rightcolumncontains28:3b-6a.This Semitic cultures. They should be fragmentis close in date to Codex in light of the traditions examined Sinaiticus, ca. 4th century A.D. preserved in the Christianized Testaments of Isaac and Jacob. or approximately to the time of Justinian and the construction of the Extraordinarily significant are the palimpsests, manuscripts with an fortress and monastery of St. Catherine. A cursory comparison early script written above an earlier of the fragment on p. 30 with writing. It will be interesting to discover what is written, for example, Aland's (et al.) The Greek New Testament reveals that the text of in Estrangela" beneath the Greek of a Mark in the fragment contains in 7:4 Menaion. 2 a variant, kai klinin, found in The Discovery of Formerly "Lost" Alexandrinus, Bezae Cantabrigiensis, and other uncials and minuscules; and Treasured Documents The initial probes into the cache have it witnesses to a transposition in 7:5: not yet produced a document now hoi mathrjltai sou is placed immedidia after "lost" but known through citations in ti. ately the Fathers. Nevertheless, there have Among the Greek manuscripts are been similarly exciting discoveries. bilingual texts. Some codices have one column in Greek and another in For example, a 7th-century text of Arabic, or one in Greek and the other St. John Climacus' "Ladder of in Karshuni.'o These treasures are Paradise" has been recovered. This

Abbot of St. Catherine's Monastery lived from around 570 to 649; hence the text is contemporaneous with the author himself. It could have been written by St. John Climacus himself or perhaps even be the autograph of the klimax tou paradeisou. It is obvious that this text will enable specialists to prepare the first critical edition of this document. Of considerable significance also is the recovery of an 8th- or 9thcentury copy of Homer's Iliad. The interlinear translation in Greek prose is heretofore unknown. Professor Ihor Sevienko of the Department of the Classics at Harvard University will publish a critical study of these folios and their content in the near future. The above comments have been limited to the manuscripts in Greek; yet most of the three or four thousand recovered treasures are not

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

29

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in Greek. Some are in Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Latin, or Slavonic. But no one has been permitted yet to examine these fragments, papyri, and partially preserved codices.

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Intriguing Possibilities A most intriguing question concerns the content of these non-Greek manuscripts. One example of the potential riches yet undisclosed will suffice for the present, and that has to do with the history of the transmission of the writings. The Bodleian Library in Oxford, the University Library in Cambridge, the Monastery of Koutloumous on Athos, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Monastery of John the Theologian on Patmos, the Biblioteca Nazionale de S. Marco in Venice, the Library of the Laura on Athos, the Library of the Turkish Society of History in Ankara, and the Monastery of Vatopedi on Athos each preserve only one Greek manuscript of the supremely important pseudepigraphon, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome has two Greek manuscripts of this document. Thereby are listed the known extant Greek manuscripts of this pseudepigraphon;that is, except for those in the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. It preserves three. 13 Two are of the 17th, the other of the 18th century. Each of these three contains a memorable preface, rendered literally as follows: "Information by John, a

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six other leaves of the Iliad were found in St. Catherine's. Below: A palimpsest, with a Greek minuscule text written over a text in Syria Estrangela. The Greek text is from a Menaion, the left page containing part of a Canon and the right page containing the beginning of the vesper service for 27 January-one of the several feast days in the Orthodox ecclesiastical

calendar which commemorate St. John Chrysostom. Of the Estrangela text underneath, several words are visible. Closer examination with the use of infrared photography or ultraviolet light should yield clearer readings. The text seems to continue from the right page to the left page; the script can be dated approximately to the 9th century A.D.

former Hebrew, concerning the Testaments of the Twelve Sons of the Patriarch Jacob, translated from the Jewish dialect into Greek." Comments about the history of the transmission of a text are exceedingly rare. I have found something similar only in a Syriac manuscript now preserved in the British Library. In B.M. Add. 12174 the pseudepigraphon title "The History of the Blessed Ones, the Sons of Rechab" is introduced by the apparently reliable report, "It was translated from Hebrew into Greek, and from Greek into Syriac by the hand of the Reverend Mar Jacob of Edessa."14 Is it possible that a few centuries ago a monk in St. Catherine's Monastery translated one of these Greek manuscripts from a Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) exemplar? Two factors need to be confirmed before this suggestion can be taken seriously. First, was the copy made by a monk of St. Catherine's?;second, did he or a predecessor work from a Semitic base? The first question is partly supported in the affirmative by the colophons in the 18th-centurycopy; they state that the manuscript was made by Parthenios, a monk of Sinai. The second factor would also be present if the preface means that John, a former Hebrew, introduces his own translation with the words "The Testament of the Twelve Sons of the Patriarch, Jacob, (which has been) translated from the Jewish dialect into Greek." The reconstructed history could then be that a monk in the 18th century at Sinai copied a Greek manuscript that had been translated a century earlier from Hebrew or Aramaic by a former Jew, who lived perhaps at Sinai. The Semitic exemplar would have been relegated to the archives by the Greek-speaking monks of Sinai;'5 and the time of this consignment coincides precisely with the time when the final, and latest, document was added to the cache of manuscripts "stored"in the northern wall of the monastery. 6 This possible reconstruction obviously has several weak links. A monk at Sinai, perhaps Parthenios, could have been working from a copy made somewhere else; or he could have made the copy during a visit to

Jerusalem, Cairo, or some other place. Moreover, there is no proof of the place in which "John"worked. Likewise, caution is demanded by another possible interpretation of the preface: "Information by John, a former Hebrew, concerning the Testaments of the Twelve Sons of the Patriarch Jacob, (which had been) translated from the Jewish dialect into Greek."According to that rendering it is not known who worked from the Semitic copy. Today the path on the way to reconstruction of this history is difficult to travel with assurance. In 1908 the British textual critic and father of the modern study of the Pseudepigrapha, R. H. Charles, offered his judgment on the preface: "The statement is true, but where the scribe got it we cannot determine."

Notes The presentarticleis dedicatedto KennethW. Clark,my seniorcolleagueat Duke, who passed awaywhileI wasworkingon it. Whenhereceived his D.D. at GlasgowUniversity,he waspraisedas "TheTischendorfof thetwentiethcentury."These honorific words saluted one of his accomplishments:for a period of months he lived in St. Catherine's Monasteryas theDirectorof the UnitedStates Libraryof CongressExpeditionin 1950,whichsuccessfullymicrofilmedmost of the manuscriptsin the library of St. Catherine's Monastery. 'OraLipschitzhas begunan extensivestudyof "the story of Sinai" (p. 63). Her first volume containsan abundanceof data on Sinai and a helpful bibliography;see her Sinai, Part I (Tel Aviv, 1978).The book can be purchasedfrom Simar Ltd., P. 0. Box 39039,Tel Aviv, Israel. 2Sinai may have derived its name from the Semitic QMn, which means "tooth."This vivid impressionwasforcedon meduringmyvisitto St. Catherine's.Sinai could haveobtainedits name, however,from other associationsor names;for example, it may have receivedits name from "Sin," the moon goddess veneratedby Sinai's prehistoricinhabitants.W. F. Albrightconnected

Ten almost complete and over fifty incomplete uncialcodices are important new additions to the world'scollection of rare manuscripts.

Aramaic.

Yahweh." From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process, 2d. ed.

(GardenCity, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957),p. 263. 'Muhammad'sand Napoleon'sproclamations of protectionare exhibitedin the libraryof St. Catherine'sMonastery;photographsandsuccinct discussionsare also found in E. Papaioannou, The Monastery of St. Catherine Sinai, ed. by St.

Catherine's Monastery (St. Catherine's Monastery,1976)pp. 8-11. 4Theauthorof the Prayerof Jacob also says

Charles is apparently professing his certainty that the original language of the Testaments is Hebrew17and confessing his dubiety about the origin of the Semitic exemplar. Many contemporary specialists concur with Charles that the Testaments were originally written in Hebrew or "

Sinai either with the place-name Sin or with

seneh,"thenameof a kindof bushwhereMosesis said to have first witnessedthe theophanyof

that God sits on the sea, the serpent gods, the sun

lad, anduponthe stars.MyEnglishtranslationof this prayer, with introductionand notes, will appear in The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Garden City,

N.Y.: Doubleday,forthcoming). 5SeeBA 41.1 (1978):29-31and BA42.3(1979): 174-79.

At the end of the last

century, Aramaic fragments of the Testament of Levi were found in a geniza of old Cairo, and around the middle of this century, leather portions of the Testaments of Levi in Aramaic and Naphtali in Hebrew were found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls. All of the above scintillating possibilities and frustrated probes into a certain reconstruction of the history of the Sinai Greek manuscripts of the Testaments may be resolved in a stunning fashion. The thousands of portions of non-Greek manuscripts may preserve parts of the Hebrew or Aramaic manuscript or scroll that was translated by "John, a former Hebrew." Even greater treasures may yet be found.

6As cited by I. evienko in "New Documents on Constantine Tischendorfand the

Codex Sinaiticus," Scriptorium 18 (1964): 55-80;

citationis fromp. 55. 7Tischendorfs veracityand integrityhavebeen defendedrepeatedly,most recentlyby E. Lauch, "Nichts gegen Tischendorf,"Bekenntnis zur Kirche: Festgabe fir Ernst Sommerlath zum 70.

Geburtstag,ed. E. -H. Ambergand U. Kilhn (Berlin, 1960),pp. 15-24.Sevienko (see the preceding note) has published some recently recovereddocumentsthat vitiatea fulldefenseof Tischendorf, who (according tot evenko) "appearsas a brilliant,erudite,quick-minded, devoted, resourcefulperson,but also as a vain, cantankerous,and, on occasion, unfair man" (p. 80). The monks in the monasteryare again protesting

that they were robbed by an

unscrupulousman. It is clearthat (as Sevdenko states, p. 75) a "full and fair account of the Sinaiticus story is yet to be written."

8SeetheconvenientsummariesofTischendorfs account either in B. M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption,

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

33

and Restoration, 2d. ed. (New York, Oxford, 1968), pp. 42-45 or in T. S. Pattie, "The Codex Sinaiticus," Manuscripts of the Bible: Greek Bibles in the British Library (London, 1979), pp. 14-23. I9ndating the fragments of Genesis and Mark, I am dependent upon Politis; cf. HE KathemerinE (21-22 May 1978), pp. 4f. 'OKarshuniis a script used during the early phases of Arabic literature, in which Arabic is written in quasi-Syriac characters. "Estrangela is the oldest form of writing in Syriac; it is beautifully formed with square characters. 12A Menaion is one of a set of 12 liturgical books-one for each month of the year-which contain the services commemorating the saints. Included in the Menaia are canons, hymns, and lives of individual saints. 13See V. Gardthausen, Catalogus Codicum Graecorum Sinaiticorum (Oxford, 1886), p. 132; V. Benegevik, Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Graecorum qui in Monasterio Sanctae Catharinae in Monte Sina Asservantur (St. ~in no Petersburg, 1911),p. 80; "T• 'w:," ,v t '2' ,n•mrnp.to ntu n"'n (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 3, 48; M. Kamil, Catalogue ofAll Manuscripts in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (Wiesbaden, 1970), pp. 86, 92. '4The translation is mine; it is based upon a personal examination of the manuscript. My translation, with notes, and introduction of the HistRech will be published in ThePseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, forthcoming. 'SSt. Catherine's Monastery has been inhabited by Greek-speaking monks from the date of its founding by Justinian. The 12th-centuryaccount by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela is suspect; he reports that this monastery, which he calls "a large village," contains "inhabitants, who speak the Chaldean language" (•3r "Ini mHa1p '1~r ? In 1 rzr1 ). The report is inaccurate wrtin tiv ivnnn and should be read in light of T. Wright's claim in 1848 that Rabbi Benjamin wrote this portion of his account from "what he heard" (p. xxiv). See his Early Travels in Palestine (repr. New York: KTAV, 1968). This book contains Rabbi Benjamin's observations; for another translation and the Hebrew (cited above) see A. Asher (trans. and ed.), The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela (New York, n.d.), vol. 1, pp. 159 and qz. '6Politis judges that the most recent document in the cache dates from about 1750. It is quite possible, as I would wish to argue, that the cache had been concealed for a considerably long period before then. Politis' advice is published in He Kathamerin, (21-22 May 1978). "'Charles, Greek Versions, p. xii. See also his "The Greek Version a Translation from the Hebrew," The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford, 1913), vol. 2, pp. 287-88. '8See the summary of contemporary researchin Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research (SCS 7; Missoula, Montana, 1976), pp. 211-20. Also see my"Reflections on the SNTS Pseudepigrapha Seminar at Duke on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," NTS 23 (1977): 296-304.

34

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER1980

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Moshe Dothan & Avner Raban The ramparts which surrounded and defended ancient cities, and their gates which allowed both friend and foe to enter therein, sometimes stand, mute and provocative, into modern times. Long ago, when their cities throbbed with life, they both invited entry and guarded against it; today they arouse archeologists' curiosity and desire to understand while all too often confounding their investigation with apparently contradictory evidence. Ramparts and their attached gates, however, ultimately may provide essential information about the long-dead cities within. At Tell Akko, on the Israeli coast at the north end of Haifa bay, a new discovery in the ancient fortification system brings with it important new information for the dating and understanding of the ancient city of Akko and, perhaps, of other fortified cities of Canaan. A city gate, discovered in the fifth season of excavation at Tell Akko, apparently holds some answers to old questions. Solving problems posed by the rampart to which it belongs, the Sea Gate of Akko may be the long-sought gate to understanding the ancient city. The discovery of the gate itself came in 1978 after four seasons of excavation at Tell Akko. The attempt to trace the structure of the MB rampart of terrepisee, the original fortification system of the town, had focused during those four seasons on the central part of the northern slope of the tell, where the rampart, which rests on a solid base of sandstone (locally called kurkar), rises to a height of ca. 20 m. At one time this wall must have encircled the whole site, an area then of about 200 dunams, or 50 acres. A trial sounding made close to the highest point of the rampart

reached a depth of 12 m and showed the rampart to be a solid structure consisting mainly of layers of red sandy soil, sand, crushed kurkar, bricks, and settlement debris. The steep incline of the layers, and the fact that some of them had been beaten solid and smoothed over, had limited significantly the penetration of water into the ramparts; any moisture seeping in had necessarily drained off down the sloping surface of the layers. But for the depredations of men through the centuries, the rampart for the most part would have remained intact up to the present day. Many of the finds within the rampart, especially in the upper layers, date from MB IIA. According to the principle that the rampart must be later than the sherds and objects found in its layers, excavators at first dated it to MB IIB. In fact, the uppermost layers also contained some MB IIB sherds, although these probably result from repairs done during this period. However, during the first season of excavation two facts emerged which cast some uncertainty on the MB IIB dating. First, the lower strata of the rampart, consisting solely of compressed chunks of clay and sand, differ from the diversified layers which constitute the upper strata. The lower strata also contain fewer finds since no settlement debris was used in their construction. Second, in 1975 a child burial was found in a pithos which also contained MB IIA pottery. Unfortunately, because the digging took place in a narrow trial pit, excavators were unable to determine whether the burial was located inside the settlement or in the inner slope of the rampart. If the latter, the rampart, or at least the section of it containing the burial, should almost certainly be dated to MB IIA, and the burial

the

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Ancient

Akko

Ancient ramparts and their gates provide important information about the civilizations which once flourished within their fortifications. The discovery of the "Sea Gate" of ancient Akko discloses some sign ficant solutions to archeologists' questions concerning city life in Canaan.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

35

dug into it to a late stage of this period or to MB IIB. Despite the doubt created by these two discoveries, the data available remained too insubstantial to permit a definite dating of the rampart or of even a part of it to MB IIA. With chronological questions unresolved, a salvage dig was begun in 1977 in a previously unexplored area (F) in the northwestern part of the tell. Bulldozer damage to this area, which lies next to a football field, necessitated the excavation and ultimately led to the discovery of the city gate. At first, a short trial dig exposed the upper part of a stone wall and sherds dating to MB IIA. Then, in 1978 we came upon the gate. Standing on the northwestern slope of the mound, the gate faces the sea, hence, the "Sea Gate." Perhaps at one time a lagoon lay here; such a lagoon could have been responsible for the construction of the town on high kurkar rock overlooking its surroundings. Although the gate has not yet been exposed fully, available data suggest that it was part of a fortification Above:The remainsof the Sea Gate at Akko. Below: Aerialphotographof the excavations.Opposite:Tel Akko and the Old City, on the coast of the Mediterranean.

line along the northwest boundary of the town, a line consisting of a rampart and towers, and probably encompassing the city. The gate is oriented northwestsoutheast, with the terre piske rampart rising toward the east and southeast. On the eastern side the mound recedes, forming a deep and wide depression. Here part of the original rampart is apparently missing. The gate itself consists of two units. The outer part, oriented northwest, comprises two virtually parallel stone walls; the part oriented southeast is constructed of bricks. The stone wall is built of large undressed boulders, some 2 m wide, and rises to a height of one course 36

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

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above the top of the glacis. At the northernmost end of the wall a pilaster, just under 2 m wide, projects about 1.5 m inward from the inner face. From this pilaster the wall, now only about 0.4 m wide and built of bricks laid on a fieldstone base, continues in a northwesterly direction, rising to just over 1 m high. The top of this thinner wall has been sliced off diagonally toward the northwest. The whole inner face of the walls, both stone and brick portions, is plastered with a smooth, reddish clay from top to bottom. The western stone wall stands 4.2 m from its counterpart, narrowing to a distance of 3.6 m toward its supporting pilaster. Its 1.6-m width broadens to 2 m next to the pilaster. A beaten clay floor lies between the two stone walls, laid on a sand fill in the northwest and directly on the rampart elsewhere. A threshold found under this floor probably belonged to an earlier, more steeply inclined floor. The foundation

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courses of the western wall lie 1.5 m below the clay floor of the entrance, and the plaster covering the inner face of the wall continues down to the lowest courses. The inner portion of the gate, oriented southeast, consists of two wings built of sun-dried mudbrick and was apparently a guard room. The excavation has not yet reached the point where the gate opens onto the town, and it is not yet clear whether the two pairs of pilasters and the outer stone portion with its walls and pilasters make up the entire length of the gate or whether another pair of pilasters awaits discovery toward its inner end. A trial sounding under the floor of the guard room showed that it was laid on top of a thin layer of pebbles, which, in turn, rested on material similar to that used to build the rampart. The sherds found beneath the floor date to MB IIA. A massive brick structure is attached to the western end of the guard room. Its upper part slopes slightly in a southeasterly direction.

This part of the structure has been preserved to a height of ca. 2.5 m and rests on the same clay floor as the sloping wall which leans against the western stone wall. This brick structure was probably a thick city wall, or tower, protecting the rear of the western part of the gate. The eastern of the two brick wings was severely damaged by pits dug in the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age and again in the Hellenistic and Mamluk periods, apparently to recover the bricks of the gate for use as raw material for new bricks or for pottery. These pits have damaged the structures at the back of the eastern part of the gate. Although an adjacent brick structure, which has survived to a height of ca. 3 m, is discernible there, its original shape can no longer be ascertained. In the floor near the entrance a hollow, 40 cm wide and 15 cm deep, spans the distance between the two inner pilasters. A wooden threshold for the door apparently was fixed here. Next to the entrance on the inner face of the western pilaster, a plastered projection has been preserved. This vertical projection, reaching from the top of the pilaster to its base, served to attach the wooden door jamb. The northwestern half of the two outer pilasters is plastered over; the plaster continues on the stone walls, thus forming one unit. On the western side a low, plastered bench extends as far as the pair of pilasters. A small quantity of sherds dating to MB IIA was found on the floor between the two parts of the guard room. Clean sand, which held a few sherds similar to those found on and under the floor of the room, filled the entire interior of the gateway to the top of the brick and stone walls. It is to this sand that we owe the survival of the brick structure and of the plaster on it. A 0.2-1.2-m-thick layer of beaten brick material and clay sealed the sand fill, and more MB IIA sherds were found on top of this layer. Over this, rainwater had deposited further layers of mud and sand. These top layers contained LB sherds, including such typical imported wares from Cyprus as White Slip and Base Ring Ware.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

37

Excavators have uncovered only ca. 18 m of the gate structure. Stages of the gate's construction, however, can be traced with some confidence. First, builders apparently constructed a rampart of beaten clay. Later, the top of this rampart was leveled, and a fill was poured on the outer slope to produce a very slightly inclined surface upon which a floor could be laid. During the erection of the gate itself on top of the first rampart and its outer slope, builders constructed a higher rampart against the stone walls and across the outer slope. In the third building stage the gateway was filled to the top of the walls with sand, which in turn was covered with beaten clay. The filled gateway then formed an integral part of the new rampart. All three stages of construction must be dated to MB IIA, a conclusion which is reinforced by the absence of MB IIB pottery in the gateway. What are the implications of this gate for understanding the high rampart on the northern slope of the tell? Similarity of structural design in the two areas may provide some answers. The lower mass of the northern rampart consists mainly of beaten, red sandy soil and sand. The portion of the rampart next to the gate is similarly composed. One can reasonably suggest that the lower slope of the northern rampart from a level corresponding to that of the rampart at the gate also should be dated to MB IIA. Where does the Sea Gate of Akko fit among the gates of fortified Canaanite cities? Does it in any way help to clarify the controversy which surrounds MB gateways? The Akko gate's contribution to the question is difficult to define before its excavation is completed, but its unique typology and its clear MB IIA date give it certain significance in an area in which very little certainty exists. The very existence of other gates from this period is disputed, although some scholars maintain against opposition that MB IIA gates stand at Tell Beit Mirsim (Strata F-G), at Tell Poleg, and at Megiddo. Outside of Israel too little evidence exists regarding contemporary gateways to

38

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

GATE CITY Isometric View

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allow any comparative study. Independent of questions of relative chronology and dating, it is clear that the only gate to which that at Akko can be compared is that of Megiddo XIII. The other two gates must be ruled out even if the dating is correct, because their plans as published are largely restorations. The structural resemblance of the Megiddo gate to that at Akko allows comparisons to be drawn, but they, too, are quickly found wanting. In both cases the gates are attached to ramparts, although at Megiddo XIII to the rampart of a citadel rather than to that of a city. Again, the Megiddo gate contains a single chamber between one pair of pilasters, somewhat like the oblong room of the Akko gate. However, the most important feature of the Megiddo gate is its indirect entrance. Only the discovery of a similar entrance at Akko would provide real grounds for comparison. Any attempt to draw meaningful comparisons between the gate at Akko and other gates, specifically that of Megiddo XIII, must await the results of the next season's excavations, by which time the plan of the gate entry and of its outer end will have been classified. Such results may allow the establishment of links with some contemporary Syrian gates, for example, the gate of Tell Mardikh (ancient Ebla);of The eventual contributions the Akko gate to understanding Canaanite cities are uncertain. Already, however, it may have provided assistance in solving some of the crucial questions asked of the archeology of Canaan in recent years; the problems of the rebuilding of destroyed or abandoned cities of Canaan and the founding of new cities in this period rank high among these. Against those scholars who argue that rampart fortifications (or, for that matter, any other fortifications) in Canaan were not built in the MB IIA period, the Sea Gate of Akko casts its weight in the affirmative.

Standing

Orders

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Method Archeolotical

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Israel: A

William G. Dever

CONTINUING REVOLUTION

I

i

From one man riding on a donkey identifying ancient sites to today's application of computer technology, statistical methods, paleoethnobotany, and anthropologyarcheological method has changed demonstrably in the past 150 years. This change has been brought about by three "revolutions," each one revealing more of the potential of archeological research. Thefourth "revolution" is yet to come.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980 41

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

"Methodology" in archeology, as in any field of human inquiry, grows directly out of theory: how you look at the evidence depends on what you want to know and why you think it may be important. But archeology is unique in one respect: unlike natural science, which deals with a "real" and knowable world, archeology deals with bits and pieces of the human past-never fully reconstructable, always unpredictable. Thus, excavation may begin with one hypothesis, but the accidents of discovery can lead to an entirely different set of questions. In archeology, for that reason, fieldwork ("how to dig") is inseparable from interpretation ("what it all means"). Yet, a quick glance at the history of Syro-Palestinian or "biblical" archeology reveals that what little discussion of "method" there is in the literature is limited to digging and recording techniques. Of course, there are many reasons for this rather simplistic approach. The material cultures of the region are generally poor. The objectives of archeology pursued as a branch of biblical study have been relatively limited. Much excavation in the Middle East has been "salvage" and has not enjoyed adequate leisure, support, or resources. Finally, archeology as a discipline is so young that it has scarcely begun to realize its full potential. Against this background, let us examine four "revolutions" in archeological methodology-three in the past and one still very much in the future. We shall focus on the "Archeology of Palestine" as it developed in the formative period, as well as on archeology in Israel today, both Israeli and American. (The history and prospects of "biblical archeology" or the growth of archeology elsewhere in the Middle East is also fascinating, but that is another story.) The First Revolution, 1838-1914: Encountering the Mounds The modern exploration of Palestine began in 1838 with the journeys of Edward Robinson, an American biblical scholar. During succeeding decades, the mapping of the "Holy 42

Petrie'srevelationof whatarcheology could do ushered in a "GoldenAge" of excavation ...

Land" and the identification of biblical sites progressed rapidly, promoted especially by the establishment of international learned and amateur societies: the Palestine Exploration Fund (British)--1865; the American Palestine Society-1870; the Deutscher PalistinaVerein-1878; and the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Frangaise -1890. Meanwhile, the first discoveries of monuments and texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt were astonishing the Western world. But in Palestine, fieldwork did not commence until that eccentric genius Sir William Flinders Petrie appeared on the scene in 1890 at a mound in southern Palestine. Though the true nature of tells had only been recognized recently by Schliemann at Troy, in six weeks at Tell el-Hesi, Petrie developed intuitively what were to become the principal tools of all later excavators: "stratigraphy,"or the art of untangling the debris layers in a mound, and "ceramic typology," the study of changes in pottery styles as a clue to chronology. Petrie's revelation of what archeology could do ushered in a "Golden Age" of excavation which lasted until the outbreak of the Great War. A mere listing of places and names suggests the excitement of that first heyday of fieldwork. The British sponsored F. W. Bliss, continuing at Tell el-Hesi (1890-93), Bliss and R. A. S. Macalister in the Judean Shephelah (1898-1900), and Macalister at Gezer (1902-9). The Germans worked under E. Sellin and C. Watzinger at Jericho (1907-9), under Kohl and Watzinger in the Galilean synagogues (1905), under G. Schumacher at Megiddo (1903-5), and under Sellin at Tacanach (1901-4)

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

and Shechem (1912-14). And the Americans, having lent Bliss to the Palestine Exploration Fund for Tell el-Hesi, finally supported and directed their own project at Samaria under D. G. Lyon and G. A. Reisner (1908-10). These early decades constituted a formative period in archeology in our field. The foundations of the discipline were laid in the first appreciation of the true nature of the tell and how it was formed. Archeologists began to learn how to disentangle the successive strata and to date each by its contents, particularly the pottery. The task was more complex than first thought, but international cooperation and widespread public support were organized. The result was that by 1914 a rough outline of the history and culture of ancient Palestine had been produced. Yet it is clear in retrospect that simplistic evolutionary notions and primitive excavation techniques obscured much evidence-some of it destroyed forever. Macalister's herculean efforts at Gezer, one of the most advanced digs of the period, are a case in point. He dug over three-fifths of the mound but discerned no more than 8 of the 26 strata we now know to be present. City defenses and domestic architecture were uncovered and described in detail, but dates for a single structure such as the "Maccabean Castle" (actually an unrecognized Solomonic gate) were as much as 800 years off. Pottery and objects were found in abundance, but scarcely a single piece is published in relation to a context. The result is that Macalister's volumes, like all pre-War publications, are vast treasure houses of intriguing, but often useless, information. There was no true stratigraphic excavation (Samaria being a notable exception), so detailed reconstructions were impossible. In this first generation, archeologists had begun to familiarize themselves with the characteristic materials of the mounds of Palestine, but they could not begin to write history-much less describe the economic, social, and religious life of past cultures.

All photographscourtesyof the Joint Expeditionto Tell el-Hesi.

The Second Revolution, 1918-40: Shaping a Scholarly Discipline Between the two World Wars the international "schools" flourished even more brilliantly. The replacement of the corrupt Turkish regime by the British was a boon to archeologists, for the Mandatory Government quickly established a Department of Antiquities and promulgated an enlightened antiquities law. The older foreign schools continued and were now joined by newer institutions in Jerusalem: the Ecole Biblique (French, 1890-) under Pere A. Lagrange and Pere L. H. Vincent; the German Evangelical School (1902-) under A. Alt; the British School of Archaeology (1919-); and particularly the American School of Oriental Research (1900-), directed by the legendary W. F. Albright and later by his proteg6 Nelson Glueck. Again, digs were too numerous to list more than a few, but the monumental American excavations at Megiddo (1925-39) and Beth-shan

(1921-23) were landmarks, as were the British-sponsored excavations at Jericho (1929-36) and Samaria (1931-35). Yet it was at a series of much smaller mounds that Albright and his students really transformed archeology from a largely intuitive affair into a systematic (if not scientific) discipline. Beginning in 1926 at Tell Beit Mirsim, an obscure mound in southern Judah, Albright mastered the pottery and the stratigraphy so brilliantly that his chronological and terminological framework worked out in the 1930s still remains basic today for the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500-600 B.C.E.).Other Americans, influenced strongly by his methods, dug at Bethel (1934), at Tell en-Nasbeh (1926-35), and at Beth-shemesh (1928-33). During this period the first Jewish archeologists in Palestine became active in the field, some of them under the tutelage of Albright. The foundations of the later "Israeli School" were laid in the work of

such men as L. A. Mayer, E. Sukenik, A. Bergman (Biran), B. Maisler (Mazar), N. Avigad, M. Avi-Yonah, I. Ben-Dor, and others. The second revolution in Palestinian archeology saw the development of real sophistication: as methods advanced, the field moved from enlightened "treasure hunting" to scholarly competence. Thanks to improved methods in fieldwork and interpretation, pottery and architecture could now be dated within a century or less. An outline of the political history of Palestine emerged, complementing the literary accounts in the Bible and integrating the country into a larger framework of events elsewhere in the ancient Near East. The world's appreciation of the uniqueness of ancient Palestine had been forever altered! Still, however, archeology was better at answering such questions as what?, when?, and how? than why? This second stage of advancement beyond the formative phase had not yet conceived of archeology's

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980 43

goal as that of reconstructing human thought and behavior; in short, of elucidating the cultural process. The Third Revolution, 1948-70: Learning the Potential of Archeology Changing political conditions in the post-War years helped bring the foreign schools to their peak (after which they would decline) and at the same time fostered the birth of the first "national schools" in the Middle East. Here we shall consider developments in both "Eastern"and "Western Palestine," i.e., modern Jordan and Israel. The greatest impetus to methodology came from the late Dame Kathleen Kenyon's introduction of stratigraphic methods perfected by Wheeler and others on Roman-British sites, applied to the complex problems of Palestinian mounds in her excavations at Jericho in 1952-58 and in Jerusalem in 196167. Here she dug in smaller squares (usually 5 x 5 m) within a grid, leaving intervening catwalks, or "balks," which were then used to see 44

the debris in section and to guide careful probing and stripping of the debris. Digging proceeded not by architectural strata, much less by artificial levels, but rather by following the natural stratification, separating soil layers or "loci" by color, texture, depositional character, history, etc. The balks were then drawn to scale, and the sectiondrawings became the basis of the publication, with all objects and architecture related to them. This system introduced both the third dimension and the element of control which made it possible to separate debris layers and the objects they contained with greater accuracy. While the narrow exposure, slower pace, and mass of accumulated detail characterizing Kenyon's methods have provoked controversy, the results have proven superior-especially in reexcavating sites where there is little material left and great care is essential. Indeed, the system worked so well that various adaptations of the so-called "Wheeler-Kenyon"

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

method were employed on nearly all British and American excavations in Jordan in the 1960s. At Shechem in 1956-68 Ernest Wright coupled these newer stratigraphic methods with the close attention to pottery typical of the American tradition. Other American excavators, influenced by British method either directly or via Shechem, also excavated in Jordan in this period: P. W. Lapp at Tacanach (1963-68) and elsewhere and J. A. Callaway at cAi (1964-69). Finally, this writer and others of Wright's students introduced the system in Israel at Gezer in 196473, followed by ASOR-sponsored excavations at other sites in Israel in the 1970s (below). The French were less influenced advances in British-American by stratigraphic methods, but in Jordan the excavations of Pere R. de Vaux were noteworthy for their historical significance, particularly at Tell elFarcah N. (biblical Tirzah, 1946-60) and at Qumran and CAin Feshkha (1949-56). Across the border in

Israel the French prehistorian J. Perrot was carrying out meticulous excavations at a series of Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites of great importance. Meanwhile, after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the first task was to conserve the sites and to lay the groundwork for a national archeological program. Although Mazar and others were already in the field before 1950 (Tel Qasile, 1948-50), the "Israeli School"

first came to international prominence with the large and superbly organized excavations of Y. Yadin and others at Hazor (1955-58). This was followed in the 1960s by numerous Israeli excavations, including that of Y. Aharoni at Ramat Rahel, of M. Dothan at Ashdod, of Aharoni and Ruth Amiran at Arad, of Yadin at Masada, and of A. Biran at Dan-just to name a few of the larger projects. By the end of the decade a huge archeological

salvage project was undertaken in Old Jerusalem under B. Mazar, N. Avigad, M. Broshi, and many others (1967-). The distinctive features of the "Israeli School" during these early years were: (1) the concentrated effort to recover a national history, particularly of the Canaanite and Israelite eras; (2) excellent organization, resources, and technical facilities, such as only a local school can provide; (3) a preference for largescale exposure of architecture at virgin sites, rather than more meticulously done soundings at reexcavated sites; and (4) an emphasis on building up a corpus of whole pottery found in situ, rather than detailed analysis of sherds. These objectives were admirable, but the inevitable isolation from developments in archeology elsewhere meant that the "Israeli School" did not take full advantage of the stratigraphic revolution until the 1970s. As a consequence, some of the architectural phasing was imprecise, and interpretations have remained needlessly controversial. Furthermore, as with the British and American experiments in method, publication fell so far behind fieldwork that it was difficult to judge the merits of the various methods employed in the only way that counts-the results obtained. The heated arguments over method in the 1960s sometimes overlooked the fact that there are no theoretical definitions: archeology is what it does. And it can do much more than we thought! If the 1960s in Palestinian archeology brought controversy, it was partly due to "growing pains" in a discipline coming of age. Two factors on the scene in Israel were especially significant: (1) the enormously expanded data being gathered as a result of the increased pace of fieldwork in Israel itself-a literal "explosion of knowledge"; and (2) the opportunity after 1967 for Israeli archeologists to become familiar with the rest of the "Holy Land" in the West Bank and to appreciate (and criticize) the work that French, British, and American archeologists had been doing there since 1948. Also, surface explorations and

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

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salvage work on the Golan and in the Sinai revealed an astonishingly rich archeological area which had previously been terra incognita. The Fourth Revolution, 1970--: Expanding the Horizons By the early 1970s (the year 1970 noted above is rather arbitrary), archeology as practiced in Palestine had reached a climax-even a crisis-of sorts. The sheer proliferation of digs and salvage work, along with ferment in thinking about method, pointed toward a confident future. But the latter also coincided with economic and political difficulties which by the late 1960s brought the work of all the foreign schools except the American to a halt west of the Jordan. And in Israel within the 1967 borders, the older excavations mentioned above were winding down, to be replaced after a brief lull with new and differently planned projects which also had to face restrictions. In a period of retrenchment archeology was becoming more deliberate and therefore more sophisticated. Let us examine how this affected both American and Israeli methods in the 1970s. The first factor was student volunteerism. While Yadin had used volunteers to replace hired laborers at Masada in 1963-65, it was not until the long-range Gezer project began in 1964 under Wright, Dever, and Lance that an excavation was deliberately planned around a "field school" where students (mostly American) did all the physical labor and work-up of materials. They also paid fees and maintenance for participating in lectures, seminars, and field trips, in return for academic credit. At first, high labor costs in Israel made the use of students an economic necessity, but it soon became apparent that treating the field as an "outdoor classroom" in archeology made it a learning experience for everyone. Having to explain to enthusiastic but irreverent students what we were trying to do literally forced us to think through and articulate our methods! The advantages of the Gezer system were so obvious that by the 1970s all American and most

46

In a series of smallmounds Albrightand his students transformedarcheologyfrom a largelyintuitiveaffairinto a systematic-and scientificdiscipline.

Israeli digs were using volunteers, usually exclusive of other labor. The shortage of skilled labor and the astronomically high costs of excavation in the 1970s brought about another beneficial development: the first widespread cooperation in joint American-Israeli projects. Both the Americans and the Israelis were forming "consortiums" of several schools and other institutions in order to secure labor, staff, technical facilities, and funds for fieldwork. Again, teamwork was born partly of necessity but nevertheless proved so successful that it has permanently altered our approach to archeology in Palestine. The days of the "one-man excavation"-with the Great Archeologist surrounded by hordes of native laborers-are over! At the same time, the teamwork philosophy developing in the early 1970s brought into field archeology specialists who soon demonstrated that they could contribute much to the study of aspects of the material culture which had been neglected. We had saved and studied pottery, all small artifacts of obvious value, and building remains. But what of industrial wastes, occupational refuse, natural sediments, animal bones, seeds-all "debris," but full of information about how people lived in the past, if only we knew how to extract and use it! Again, Gezer pioneered in the new approach. Beginning in 1968, such unfamiliar specialists as geologists, physical and cultural anthropologists, paleoethnobotanists and zoologists, and others worked alongside traditional biblical scholars, historians, linguists, stratigraphers, and ceramic typologists at Gezer. Later, on other excavations, potters, historians of technology, hydrologists, soil scien-

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

tists, climatologists, ethnographers, computer programmers, and even more "exotic" specialists would participate. The new approach was crystallized after 1970 when Gezertrained staffs excavated at Tell elHesi (Rose, Stager, Toombs, Worrell, 1970-), at synagogue sites at Khirbet Shema/ Meiron/Gush Halav in Galilee (E. Meyers, C. Meyers, Strange, 1970-), as well as at Lahav (Seger, Cole, 1976-). Similar multidisciplinary approaches were also seen in the American excavations of S. Weinberg at Anafa (1968-73, 1979-), of G. Van Beek at Tell Jemmeh (1970-78), and of R. Bull and others at Caesarea (1971-). Meanwhile newer Israeli projects were coming to the same approach, partly independently. Along with improved digging and recording methods, both international cooperation and the multidisciplinary method were seen, for instance, in the projects of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University in this period: Beer-sheba (Y. Aharoni and others, 1969-75), Aphek (M. Kochavi, P. Beck and others, 1972-), and Lachish (D. Ussishkin, 1972-). A bit later, Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Israeli universities at Haifa and Beer-sheba would take a similar approach (see projects discussed below). The fact is that archeology everywhere was being revolutionized by natural science, social science, ethnography, and environmental studies in the 1970s (a movement which in America brought forth the "New Archeology," with its hypothesis-testing and its claims to be "explicitly scientific"). By the middle of the decade, despite its enormous complexity and the difficulty of integrating so many kinds of research, the newer "multidisciplinary" approach to archeology was here to stay. 1980 and Beyond: Where is Archeology Taking Us? We are at a crossroads in archeology in Palestine today. Now that we have taken a long look backward to see how we arrived where we are today, let us try to look ahead (however risky, in a rapidly developing field) in order to describe

some prospects in theory and method. Here we might as well be bold and suggest what we think is an "ideal" program for the future.

First, it is time to take stock, specifically to consolidate our gains in stratigraphic digging and recording. The controversy of the early 1970s about "whether to draw sections" can now be laid to rest. The difference of opinion was never really about sections in themselves, but rather about the importance of digging stratigraphically as well as architecturally-in any case, nearly all archeologists working in Israel now do cut and draw sections. Second, the unparalleled expansion of the field of archeology (particularly in complexity and costs of fieldwork) will force us to determine priorities even more severely. Thus in the future we shall probably see fewer of the enormous, ten-year excavations at tell sites, such as characterized the 1960s and 1970s. There may be more smaller projects, deliberately designed to answer specific problems, i.e., excavations at one-period sites, surface surveys, and regional studies. While tells will still attract attention,

they may no longer be chosen for excavation just because, like Mt. Everest, "they are there"; only those in neglected areas or providing clues to regional studies, or those which show promise of shedding light on little-known periods, will justify major investment. The newest Israeli projects already fit this mold: excavations by the Ben-Gurion University at Tel Shariya (E. Oren, 1972-), by the Haifa University at Akko (M. Dothan, 1973-), and recently by the Hebrew University at Yoqneam (A. Ben-Tor, 1976-) and at the City of David (Y. Shiloh, 1978-). Third, in a related development, there will be less digging and more analysis-from the original research design on paper through the final work-up and publication of the excavated material. This trend"learning more from less"-has been evident for some time, but the growing sophistication of archeology will surely accelerate it. In the analysis, we probably shall see the

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continuation of the "multidisciplinary" approach discussed above, with natural scientists, ecologists, and anthropologists taking an even greater role. In addition, newer analytical tools, such as the computer and the use of statistical methods in general, will come increasingly into use. These will make it possible to manipulate more complex data, thereby enabling us to discern hitherto unsuspected patterns in both archeological material and in extinct human societies. Fourth, and again related to the above, there should be more efforts to gather and synthesize archeological information into a general, comprehensive picture of Palestine's entire cultural history. This will mean incorporating data not only from current excavations but also from the vast backlog of older, unpublished digs and surveys. Here the goal must not be simply a compendium of isolated archeological "facts." For the first time in our branch of archeology, the sorts of attempts at "explanation" that have been made elsewhere will become common--i.e., statements which go

beyond a description of what was found to the story of what it means in terms of universal human thought, behavior, and experience. Fifth, today there are signs both in America and in Israel that Palestinian archeology (or the "archeology of Eretz-Israel") is "coming of age" as an independent, professional discipline, freed from the domination of biblical studies that has characterized it in the past (above). As it does so, it no longer can appeal to exclusively religious circles; it must find secular support, both moral and monetary, in a public climate of informed opinion and enlightened concern. Archeological sites and materials must come to be understood as one aspect of our "cultural resources"--in the same way that the environment is now seen as a precious natural resource-and thus the responsibility of all to preserve. "Amateur" archeologists can help, but the task will be to transform curiosity into commitment, "romantic" fascination into funding! In conclusion, we should note there will be a specific challenge to archeology in Palestine in the future.

The pioneer generation is almost gone. A new generation coming to the fore must face many tasks, among them the transition from a monolithic national "school" to a more subtle, many-sided approach to archeological problems. It must salvage what it can of sites rapidly being destroyed by the bulldozer, the military, the amateur collector, and the tomb robber. At the same time the new generation must envision a master-plan for the future archeological development of this region--a vast "outdoor museum" of archeological remains--when peace and prosperity will allow adequate leisure and support for systematic excavation. The role of the devoted amateur, and also the special place of the Bible in all this, will have to be considered in a country where so many love the Land and the Book! But the archeological history of ancient Israel is also a universal heritage of unique and priceless value. And that is all the more reason why the excavation of the sites must be done with the most advanced and meticulous methods available.

Select Bibliography

tures. Evanston, IL: Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. Palestinian Archaeology, 1945-1979: in press Portrait of an Emerging Discipline. In the Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters, eds. D. A. Knight and G. Tucker. Dever, W. G., and Lance, H. D., eds. 1978 A Manual of Field Excavation: Handbook for Field Archaeologists. New York: Hebrew Union College. Kenyon, K. M. 1972 Beginning in Archaeology, 3rd revised ed. New York: F. A. Praeger. Lapp, P. W. 1969 Biblical Archaeology and History. Cleveland: World. 1970 The Tell Deir cAlla Challenge to Palestinian Archaeology. Vetus Testamentum 20: 243-56. Wheeler, R. E. M. 1954 Archaeology From the Earth. Oxford: Clarendon. Wright, G. E. 1969a Archaeological Method in PalestineAn American Interpretation. EretzIsrael 9 (Albright festschrift): 125*-29*.

1969b Biblical Archaeology Today. Pp. 14965 in New Directions in Biblical Archaeology, eds. D. N. Freedman and J. Greenfield. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1970 The Phenomenon of American Archaeology in the Near East. Pp. 3-40 in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Nelson Glueck, ed. J. A. Sanders. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Wright, G. R. H. 1966 A Method of Excavation Common in Palestine. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Paldstina-Vereins 82: 113-24.

On Palestinian Archeology Aharoni, Y. 1973 Remarks on the "Israeli" Method of Excavation. Eretz-lsrael 11 (Dunayevsky festschrift): 48-53 (Hebrew; English summary, p. 23*). Albright, W. F. 1969 The Impact of Archaeology on Biblical Research-1966. Pp. 1-14 in New Directions in Biblical Archaeology, eds. D. N. Freedmanand J. Greenfield. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Dever, W. G. 1973a The Gezer Fortifications and the "High Place": An Illustration of Stratigraphic Methods and Problems. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 105: 61-70. 1973b Two Approaches to Archaeological Method-the Architectural and the Stratigraphic. Eretz-Israel 11 (Dunayevsky festschrift): 1*-8*. 1974 Archaeology and Biblical Studies: Retrospects and Prospects. Winslow Lec-

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On American "New World"Archeology Watson, P. J.; LeBlanc, S. A.; and Redman, C. 1971 Explanation in Archeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach. New York: Columbia University. Willey, G. R., and Sabloff, J. A. 1974 A History of American Archaeology. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.

It was not a particularly auspicious beginning. Having endured the shock of moving from a cool North American spring to the hot Egyptian summer, a not-too-hardy band of 12 Canadian, American, and German adventurers (7 more were detained for ten days due to delays in the security clearance procedures) fought their way through sand, fleas, and the swarm of problems attendant upon setting up a new camp in unfamiliar territory to witness the groundbreaking ceremonies at Fields A and B. Artfully located in single file astraddle the northeastern wall of Naville's massive "enclosure wall" (at the time we thought it was the western wall), these four trenches, 10.0 x 1.5 m each, were considered likely to give us vital information about both the nature of the wall itself and the attendant stratification inside and outside the enclosure. It was quite a sight. Balk stakes and lines neatly in place, workers moving energetically, supervisors with notebooks at the ready and photographers hard at work on all sides, we began to move sand. Neatly layered sand tipped up sharply against the massive 8.75-m-wide wall, and yet beneath was more layered sand. Within a day, the sand began to move by itself, and the carefully cut balk faces of Field B quickly changed

help make up for our still-absent field EXCAVATIONS personnel and wound up with a

AT

TELL

EL-

to 45* sloping banks. The workers,

practically "treading sand," struggled in vain to press down toward the founding levels of the great wall. Things in Field A went slightly better until, nearly 2 m down, we discovered that the one late-Roman occupation layer we had managed to reach was trenched to within a couple of meters of the enclosure wall itself, and, to complete our lack of success, the eastern balk of the trench began to cave in-directly on the only stratified material in sight. After two days we cut our losses by transferring Field Supervisor Lisa Kuchman and Area Supervisor Ronald Nash to Field C, at the far eastern end of the tell, where we confidently hoped to find nothing but sterile soil. After one more day we gave up entirely and Field Supervisor Burton McDonald and Area Supervisors Edward Bleiberg and Elizabeth McVey moved to Field D, immediately south-

three-week assignment, being replaced by Mary Joan Winn Leith only a little before the mid-season break. Field C conformed to the general excavation strategy of the expedition (Fields E and H were exceptions): two 1.5- x 10.0-m stratigraphic trenches were dug rapidly to a convenient depth (generally under 2 m); then, the major balk face having been drawn, the field was extended laterally through the successive stripping off of observed stratified layers, one stratum at a time. The major architectural features were portions of six mudbrick tombs, of which only one was completely excavated. Of the four principal tombs, three were constructed of porous black brick containing many small snail shells (we were to encounter the same sort of brick in the "Black Palace" of Field E), while the fourth was of whitish brown brick, similar to some of the bricks in Fields D and H. Although it is too early to be sure, present indications are that these changes in brick color and fabric are important local indicators of time; differing periods apparently quarried their mudbrick materials from differing soil deposits. The implication could be that brickmaking was a craft specialization in ancient Maskhuta, suggesting a thriving urban environment with its attendant craft and social stratification. The scanty materials left by the earlier plunderers of these tombs support a "Roman II" (tentatively 2nd-century-A.D.)dating. Earlier stratification-domestic debris with only scraps of walls-suggests that this was within the area settled during the Hellenistic era, roughly the 4th-

MASKHIUTA Burton MacDonald southwest of Field B, hopeful that the Egyptian army bulldozers had not preceded us. We were again wrong on Field C. Naville had searched in vain for the cemetery area of ancient' Heroipolis (the Roman name of the city, according to Naville). We wanted nothing to do with tombs, but scratching the virtually sherdless surface, we found a major necropolis. Having little to do in camp, since nothing had been found yet, conservator Julia Fenn volunteered to A delightfullittle figurineof hollow-cast terracottafrom the Hellenisticperiod.Its exact date and significanceare still undetermined.A surfacefind, the piece is shown here slightlyover life size.

2nd centuries B.C.

Besides the tomb burials in this field, two other types of burials were uncovered: simple extended burials without extant grave goods and jarburials of infants placed in amphoras. The tombs built of brick are, marginally, the earliest of the three burial types. All were robbed repeatedly in antiquity, with two or three scraps of gold foil and one fine Greco-Roman gold earring testifying to the robbers' motivation. The pit burials, 13 of which fell wholly or

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

49

Alan Hallett

Alexandria

Qantir * Tell el Retabq zaazi * IIIt, % '' aqazig \ .,\,"

elMaskhuta Tell e el Tel el Sahaba Sahaba Sinai

ell el Gebel

Peninsula

wa~\ T•

CAIRO Rea

sea

EGYPT

MODERN CANAL

CAMP 'K

0JBAM

H

io

D

D

.F

.

'-. S1 ,3 VILLAGE

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200

meters

,

Peter Drotleff

Plan of the 1978 excavations at Tell el-

Maskhuta.Naville's1873plansare superimposed (dotted lines), the "Enclosure"

beingcompressedsomewhatin the eastwest dimensionto conformto present indicationson the tell. Naville's "Storehouses,"whichhe thoughtwere built by the Israelites,appearin the northwesternportionof the "Enclosure." The dotted squaresmarkthe locationof modernhigh-tensionpylons.

partlywithinthe excavationarea, were orientedalong the outsideof the tombs and are, therefore,likely 50

secondary. Three of these simple burials were of adults, the rest infants and children. No pottery accompanied these burials, but what sherdage was present in the pits and their shafts was of the "Roman II" horizon. The infants buried in the Roman amphoras have a similar date. They were, for the most part, placed feet first into elongated top-shaped amphoras, the necks of which had been broken off. The necks were then placed on or above the amphoras.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

There were eleven of these amphora burials. Field D consisted of three closely related areas, linked by a series of heavy, black mudbrick walls dated to our "Roman I" period (tentatively Ist century A.D.). These Roman walls have their foundation trenches cutting through previously existing light brown mudbrick walls, also apparently of the same general period. Hellenistic pottery was found in the fill material and foundation trenches of these walls, indicating the occupational horizon destroyed by the "Roman I" builders. Judging by the results of a deep probe in D.2, this Hellenistic occupation was the earliest in the immediate area. There is a very close relationship, architecturally and chronologically, between Fields D and E. Field E, also supervised by B. MacDonald, was designed to investigate the extent and nature of a very large black mudbrick structure standing exposed to the weather. This "open-ended" field grew enormously during the course of the campaign. The full extent of the structure, which we dubbed "The Black Palace," was not completely revealed, but enough was exposed to enable a most interesting, if incomplete, plan to be drawn. Sixteen rooms were entirely or partially excavated, revealing a wellordered structure. The eastern and western extremities were clearly delineated, but it is obvious that more of the structure extends to the north and south. The massive walls, averaging 2 m in width, were deeply founded, cutting through earlier Hellenistic and Persian occupational phases. Hellenistic pottery was predominant in the fill as well as in the foundation trenches, which penetrated 4 m from the present ground level (at or below floor levels) reaching sterile soil at about the level of the present water table. There is no clear evidence as to what use the structure had in antiquity. In large measure this is because most rooms already had been "cleared"to floor level or below by previous excavators, including Naville (who supposed these to be the storehouses of Pithom built by the captive Israelites), and local farmers engaged in the reclamation of

Raamses as the identification of Tell elRetaba, 15 km farther west (Naville 1887: 4ff.; Petrie 1906: 28ff.). Well known as the route for the east-west section of the Egypto-Persian precursor to the Suez Canal, Excavations at Tell el-Maskhuta, 15 km west a canal begun by Necho around 610 B.C. and of Ismailia, inaugurated the first ASORsuccessfully completed by Darius the Great, in ever undertaken field wadi has recently been credited with a the project sponsored the was earlier accomplishment in the ancient In-field much funding provided by Egypt. first described by Sneh, Weissbrod, and canal Smithsonian Institution's Surplus Foreign Perath (1975) on the basis of evidence in Currency Program, then administered under the Office of International Programs, but western Sinai. Recently, this canal has been now reorganized under the Office of the subject of a major BASOR article Dollar Grants and Fellowships. requirements seeking to date its completion to the early were funded by a University of Toronto Egyptian Middle Kingdom, ca. 1991-1962 B.C. Research Grant, which also funded the (Shea 1977: 38). John Van Seters, Associate of of the Wadi Tumilat project and Director initial surface summer's survey previous elof Tell Tell author Tell el-Maskhuta, The Hyksos, A New Investigation, el-Sahaba, believed the wadi may have played a major Retaba, and Tell el-Gebel by J. S. Holladay role in the immigration of Asiatic and Michael D. Coogan, with the assistance of Edward F. Campbell. pastoralists, forerunners of the Hyksos. as a Alessandra Nibbi, however, conceived the area multidisciplinary, longDesigned to be the invasion route of the Sea People, range investigation of the role of the Wadi Tumilat in international commerce, the Wadi who, according to Nibbi's view were neither Tumilat Project's first major field season-Aegean survivors of the Homeric wars nor real "newcomers"to the Levant (Van other even 15 May-11 July 1978-sought, among Seters 1966: 92; Nibbi 1975: 19, et passim, goals, to develop base-line data leading to an esp. pp. 63ff.). understanding of occupational phases in the For modern-day archeologists, the lure Wadi Tumilat, patterning of settlement sites of stratified of the more and Egyptian "tell" formations functionality through time, the challenge of unscrambling combined with than two dozen known occupation sites in such a mare's nest of conflicting theory and the wadi in terms of an overall "systems" interpretation make the Wadi Tumilat a theory. of the as one prime target for concentrated study. If one major Long regarded communication corridors between both applies the techniques of modern stratiEgypt and the Levant and Egypt and Arabia graphic excavation, mixes well with careful study of the stratified pottery, blends with (witnessed in part by the Tell el-Maskhuta the Tumilat cf. Dumbrell Wadi broad-scale surface survey, adds the new Bowls, 1971), an of area uncerremained until recently ingredients of paleozoological, paleobotanical, paleo-soils and geological/ geographical tainty and speculation to Egyptologists as well as Palestinologists and West Asian studies, order should emerge out of the present chaos. Perhaps not all at once, specialists. Both Edouard Naville and Sir Flinders Petrie located the famed Pithom of perhaps only in part, but even a partial order the Exodus account in this long, well-watered is preferable to obscurity. depression extending through the harsh desert between Lake Timsah and the Nile Valley. John S. Holladay, Jr. While accepting Naville's equation that Tell University of Toronto el-Maskhuta = Pithom, Petrie added Director, Wadi Tumilat Project

The Wadi Tumilat Project, a New ASOR Research Project in Egypt: Excavations at Tell el-Maskhuta, 1978

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

51

All photographsby Mary McKercher.

The modern sweet water canal, built by

Frenchengineersto providewaterfor the Suez Canal project.This canal, running along the northernedge of Tell elMaskhuta,providesirrigationwaterfor the intensiveagriculturein the region.To preventsalinizationof the land, excess wateris drainedoff by waste-watercanals on the southernmarginof the wadi floor. These secondarycanalsthen loop back into the sweet watercanal further downstream.The ancientcanal built by Necho II and DariusI was a far more impressiveachievement,roughlyhalf as wide as the presentSuez Canal.Since it ran along the southernside of the wadi, it seemsunlikelyto have functionedin any majoragriculturalcapacity.The prize sought by its builderswas controlof the fabulouslywealthyRed Sea and Indian Oceantrade.For nearly800 years,Tell elMaskhutaplayeda key role in the defense and operationof this triumphof ancient engineering.Evidencefound at the site pointsto the massiveinvolvementof the proudseafaringPhoeniciansin this enterprise,probablyfrom its very inception. agricultural lands during the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s. Three rooms still have lime-plastered floors, devoid of any small finds, while two have mudbrick floors, one of which proved to be a solid block of mudbrick packing starting at founding levels and continuing up to very nearly present surface level. There was a predominance of domestic pottery (including cooking pots and casseroles) found in the excavated material in the rooms but no evidence whatsoever of fire pits, ovens, or hearths; this perhaps suggests that 52

domestic occupation was restricted to the upper stories. The initial pottery and stratigraphic analyses suggest that this important but enigmatic structure initially was built in the "Roman I" period, while evidence from Field D.3 indicates that it was destroyed in "Roman II." Field F, jointly supervised by Carol Redmount and Associate Director John Van Seters with the assistance of Rosalyn Rubenstein, was essentially an occupational area, probably lying between major houses on the eastern extremity of the Roman occupational area. It was disturbed badly by pitting. In this field the only undisturbed feature was a circular installation, possibly a grain silo, which barely intruded into the eastern limits of the field. The importance of this field comes from the many pottery forms, some intact, which were uncovered. While the bulk of the materials encountered were of the "Roman I" and "Roman II" periods, the stratigraphic sequence indicated that this area had been within the settled area of the tell from late Persian or early Hellenistic times. Field H, also supervised by Van Seters and Redmount, was a large block of mudbrick walls and stratified surfaces that rose, apparently intact, some 4 m above the present ruined surface of the central portion of the site. The purpose in opening up this field was to get a stratigraphic sequence from walls and associated

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/WINTER1980

surfaces of materials otherwise removed by the Sebakhin (diggers for agricultural soil). Unfortunately, the stratigraphic value of this apparently intact unit proved to be less than anticipated. Work concentrated on one large room and two smaller ones on the north side of the block. Each of these rooms underwent a complex sequence of destruction and rebuilding, but the serious pittingprobably modern-which was immediately encountered continued downward for 2 and 3 m inside the larger room (less in the smaller), leaving only fragments of the original surfaces where these ran up against or under successive wall phases. The latest pottery, from pit fills and disturbed materials, is datable to the "Roman II" period, although there were some signs of 19th-century-A.D. occupation. Earlier structures excavated to date range between the Persian (5th4th century B.C.) and the later Hellenistic (3rd-2nd century B.C.)

periods, with most of the stratification falling in the early portion of the range. The complex, of which only half was excavated, seems to be a series of fairly humble domestic dwellings, since an abundance of cooking pots, hearths, fire pits, and storage areas were found in the rooms. The earliest Persian phase yet reached is represented by two whole Greek amphoras, dated by a fine lead counterfeit of an Athenian silver coin

Ruthlessly plundered remains of early

burialsin the Roman II tombs of Field C. Althoughthe evidenceis inconclusive,it presentlyappearsthat the tombs were systematicallyplunderedduringtheir actualperiodsof use. Note the layeringof wind-blownsand in the standingbalk to the right,evidenceof a late robber'spit. minted some time after ca. 450 B.C. These wine jars were found in situ in perfect condition with the mud jar stoppers still in place. Unfortunately, the wine had evaporated long since. Further work is needed to clarify several earlier phases visible in the

side balk of this fragment of the city's ravaged central core. Associated with some of these earlier phases is a fine well, made of large, beautifully cut limestone blocks. We were able to excavate this only to a depth of 4 m, 1 m below the present water table. The mass of intact and/or restorable materials retrieved from the well was deposited early in the Persian period. One fine piece of imported Greek Black Figured ware served to fix the date of the well's blockage to the 5th century B.C. That the intention had

been to stop up the well as some sort

of retributive measure was evident from the accompanying earth, mostly manure from a stable or barnyard. Field L, immediately to the east of Field H, was opened up midway through the season as a lay-off area for surplus Field H labor under the supervision of John Van Seters, and later under Lisa Kuchman, with the assistance of Edward Bleiberg. Paleobotanist Patricia Crawford worked overtime in both Fields H and L, drawing balks and substituting for victims of heat exhaustion. Two 10.0- x 1.5-m trenches were opened up initially, but we quickly concentrated our attention on the second because of extensive pitting in the former. After the disturbed surface levels were removed, a few fragmentary walls belonging to the late Persian period were uncovered. Further down, major walls belonging to an earlier Persian phase-the earliest yet encountered on the tell-appeared, with evidence for a massive destruction. In the apparently sterile yellow sand at still deeper levels we came across evidence of two burials. One had a skeleton of a donkey in the dromos (actually the grave-pit to the east of the tomb proper), reminiscent of "Asiatic" burial practices at nearby Tell elDabca. Grave goods included a bronze dagger and a shallow platterbowl with its accompanying jar stand. All indications pointed to a Hyksos or pre-Hyksos burial dating to the MB IIA period. With this encouraging start, we expanded 3.5 m to the east, revealing a large portion of a late Saite (26th Dynasty) house with several rooms containing in situ a great deal of domestic pottery in a sealed destruction layer. Tentatively, we have dated this destruction to the first campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Egypt, ca. 601 B.c. In the northern one-third of the area, almost immediately under the Saite surface, a small mudbrick tomb with a rounded roof was uncovered. The tomb almost certainly had been broken into and plundered by late Egyptian construction crews, since fragments of 7th/6th-century pottery appeared in the back-fill of the robber pit. Here again MB IIA goods were found in the grave: two typical redburnished piriform juglets and a small bronze dagger or knife. The

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

53

skeleton itself was badly disturbed. Again, some donkey (?) bones were found outside at the head of the tomb, although most of the skeleton lay outside the excavation area. One of the house walls in the middle of the area was dismantled, and beneath it we encountered yet another MB IIA (?) grave, this time a simple mudbrick enclosure, apparently only one brick high. Here a dog and portions of a sheep were buried along with their mistress. Only one handmade jug, of nondescript character, accompanied the burial. Given such a range of data for such fascinating and little-known periods, it is obvious that Field L will become one of the main excavation areas for future seasons. Specialist Concerns Patricia Crawford was in charge of the ecological and paleobotanical aspects of the excavation. The preliminary analysis of plant material and shells recovered from the excavated material is now well under way. Some of the evidence collected during this season from flotation samples included domesticated cereals such as wheat and barley. There was also evidence of grapes, dates, olives, and pistachio nuts. A study of the shells and fish bones from the heavy fraction of the flotation samples should provide key information on ancient commerce and on local climate and environment. Some questions being asked are: Were shells and sea fish brought in from both the Red and Mediterranean Seas in all Successivejar-burialsof infantsin close proximityto one of the tombs of the RomanII period.The earlierburial (right)was carefullyfitted into a niche runningunderthe tomb wall. The later burial,in a similar"top-shaped"Egyptian amphora,was coveredby fragmentsof two quite differentamphoraeof a type widelyattestedthroughoutthe southeasternMediterranean, although extremelyrareat Tell el-Maskhuta.Two Copticinscriptionswerepaintedin red ink on one of these coveringjars. The one shown,the first to be decipheredby ProfessorRonaldJ. Williams(University of Toronto),bearsmutetestimonyto the parents'griefand faith:"Restingin the Christ."If presentdates are sustained,this may be one of the earliestChristian epitaphsyet discoveredin Egypt.

54

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

periods represented at the site? What can we infer from the numerous clam and oyster shells found at the site? Top: One of the two 4th-century-B.C. Greek amphorae found intact in the

in Field H. Theseearlyjars "wine-cellar" lackedthe stampedhandlescharacteristic of e.g., Rhodianwinejars of the late 3rd throughIst centuriesB.C.found elsewhere on the site. Bottom:Balk section in Field H, illustratingthe natureof the stratigraphyin this essentiallydomestic sector.The lowerfloor levelsare from approximatelythe 4th centuryB.C.Note the lower portionof a Phoenician amphoraset into one of the latest of the floors. The pit bulginginto the lower left centersection is probablymodern,part of the land-reclamation programof the late 1930sto early 1950s.

The bones from the excavation, both human and animal, were cleaned, packaged, and coded for computer analysis by soil scientist Larry Lacelle and anthropologist Ronald Nash. They will be studied further in the coming season. An important aspect of the project's overall analytic strategy was inaugurated by Lacelle's pioneering, "once over lightly" survey of the soils present in the Wadi Tumilat in the vicinity of Tell el-Maskhuta. One of the bonuses of having a North American anthropologist on the staff became apparent when Ronald Nash began picking up pieces of flint from the surface of the tell, proclaiming them to be evidence of a worked-stone industry predating the Neolithic. Soon everyone was bringing pieces of chert for expertise. Although this industry had been noted already for the site, these flints should provide an update of earlier

studies and stretch the history of human occupation in the eastern Delta back farther than the project's original schema envisaged. Initial exploratory magnetometer work at the site was undertaken by Edward B. Banning (who also proved himself invaluable in numismatics and as a pinch-hit architect of no mean ability). The goal of this particular aspect of the expedition was to learn whether a magnetometer could be useful for locating mudbrick walls. We knew of no previous use of a magnetometer for this purpose, although there is a growing tendency to use this new tool for locating stone walls, kilns, large masses of metal, and the like. The results were encouraging: local mudbrick walls yielded reasonably large magnetic anomalies, more or less on the order of anomalies coming from large granite (plus) and limestone (minus) blocks. Unfortunately, high tension cables were strung down the

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST / WINTER 1980

55

length of the site by season's end, thus effectively ruling out further magnetometric work on the tell itself. Pottery and General Stratigraphic Concerns Pottery analysis was carried out by the Director. Preliminary results indicate both modern and early Arabic sherds. No Byzantine sherds were found. There was also very little (if any) late Roman pottery; the earliest consistent corpus of pottery was dated to the Roman II period, perhaps 2nd century A.D. Although the early Roman period in Egypt is curiously deficient in coinage, the general paucity of Roman coins across the site makes it unlikely that much of this material is late Roman. Roman II pottery is characterized by

56

lightly ribbed cooking pots, elongated top-shaped amphoras with smallish loop handles attached completely to the neck, and brown fishplate-like bowls. Roman I (approximately Ist century A.D.) pottery at the site has much in common with the Roman II materials. The Roman I amphoras are similar to Roman II but differ in that the upper part of the somewhat larger handle is attached below the rim. Casseroles, which do not seem to be found in the succeeding period, have slanting horizontal handles often pasted onto the slanting rims. Cooking pots from the Roman I period do not have the external ribbing. No Roman molded lamps were found from either of these periods, their place being taken by small, shallow, folded-rim bowls

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

astonishingly like late Iron II halfmoon rimmed bowls, familiar from sites throughout the Levant. Before Roman I there is evidence from Field C for two or three phases of Ptolemaic ware, the earliest of which is characterized by Attic 4th-century-B.c. black glazed imports. There is a small corpus of Hellenistic wheel-made lamps, some in Attic ware, casserole forms from earliest to latest, unguentaria, wine jars representing both the late degenerate forms of the Phoenician sausage jar and Aegean imports, and a continuation of the mortarium series which begins in or before the Persian period. From the pottery analysis and architectural remains it currently appears that the Persian-period occu-

pation (6th-4th centuries B.c.) was one of great wealth and the greatest city size before the Roman period. The pottery of this period is characterized by a mortarium series, both Phoenician sausage-jar amphoras and well-made

Greek-styleamphoras,and largeloophandledPersianwinejars.The Persian formsappearto havea definite similarityto thoseof Syria-Palestine, witnessingthe culturaluniformity imposedduringthe Persianimperium. At first we misunderstoodthe evidencefor the Saite period occupation, probably to be dated to the reign of Pharaoh Necho II (609594 B.c.) and to be connected with his

early effortsat cuttingthe canal throughto the Red Sea. Greekforms, Phoenicianforms, and native

Egyptian materials jumble together in the mix one has learned to expect of the "Persian Period." And so we called it until postseason research

revealedsimilarmixturesin Egyptianmercenaryencampments farthernorth. Presentindicationsare that, despitethe canal'sincomplete status,Tell el-Maskhutaservedas a functioningport channellinggoods to the Red Sea and back again. Phoeniciansand Greeksoldiers rubbedshoulderswith Egyptian merchantsand officers,and it is not at all impossiblethat the merchant forerunnersof the looming Persian Empirewere alreadyon the scene. Beneaththe foundingphasesof Necho's city we found no certain tracesof occupation.Only the (pre-)

Hyksosgravesand the much earlier flints give evidencefor some yet undefinedearlieruse of the site, MeanwhileBackat the Camp PhyllisHolladaywas instrumentalto the unity of our group. She not only

servedas CampManager,but as Chief CommissaryOfficer,makingregular provisioningrunsinto Ismailiain the ARCE (American Center for Research

in Egypt)Toyota"LandCruiser" pickup(the only ladytruck-driverever seen in thatcosmopolitancenter),She also actedas PotteryRegistrar.In yet anothercapacity,she frequentlycould be foundministeringto the festering woundsand crustedeyes of members not only of our workforcebut of the villageat large.It is a tributeto her Opposite:The MB IlA

ass burial discovered in the "gas-pipe trench"

phaseof excavationsin Field L. At work on it

areConservator Julia

Fennand Area Supervisor EdwardBleiberg,

Similar finds at nearby Tell el-Dabca witness the large-scale incursions of these "preHyksos" Asiaticsinhabitants of SyriaPalestine-into the attractive underpopulated eastern frontier regions of the Egyptian delta during the Middle

Left:Oneof Kingdom.

the extratombinhumations in Field C. Contrary to the routine pillaging of the grave goods of the richer owners of tombs, these simple burials of poorer folk were undisturbed. Right: Atypical "Asiatic" burial. Sex is not yet determined, but may well be female. Note the contorted position of the sheep or goat before the loosely flexed figure, the small whippetlike dog below the legs, and the handmade jar near the head. The contents of this grave strongly suggest a transhumant pastoral people,

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/WINTER1980 57

care and concern that not only was the food excellent (even for two dozen unexpected guests) and the pottery processed in good order (neither a small task), but also that the expedition camp passed a thorough United Nations medical and sanitation check with flying colors-probably something of an archeological first. R. Theodore Lutz was Administrative Director, handling all financial aspects of the excavation and still finding time to do most of the field surveying. All told, the expedition employed 90 local laborers: 80 in the field, and 10 in camp. Assisting Phyllis Holladay, Ted Lutz, and the Director was Hannah Bulos Tadros, a graduate Egyptologist from Cairo University, whose ability as a liaison officer and knowledgeable associate regularly made the "impossible"relatively easy. Peter Drotleff, a unique combination of experienced tour-guide (24 tours to Egypt to date), welder, plumber, mechanic/craftsman (with his own VW van filled with tools), and a student of Egyptology (Ludwig-Maximillians Universitait,Munich), almost singlehandedly bore the burden of "plumbing"the camp, purchasing scarce lumber, making shelving, worktables, ice chests, and similar conveniences for the work areas, and maintaining the expedition's vehicles and generator. In addition, his knowledge of Cairo-and where and how to get things done in this very complex city-proved invaluable to the expedition time and again. Near the end of the season, with the camp and all its equipment ticking like the proverbial watch, Drotleff found time to assist with the surveying and, by dig's end, had the base-map of the site completed and checked. Susan Spencer quietly and effectively served as Object Registrar, drawing and recording more than 500 small finds and working closely with Inspector Mohammed Salim in processing items for the official Department of Antiquities registry book. Mary McKercher served as liaison officer with the Canadian and Australian U.N. contingents. She also shouldered the difficult and demanding responsibility of expedition photographer, doing most of the on-site photography-often under extremely difficult conditions-as well as

58

developing the black and white materials in the Canadian UNEF base darkroom. Julia Fenn, a graduate of the London Institute of Archaeology, served as dig conservator, pinch-hit area supervisor during the lean first two weeks, and helped with the pottery processing during the final hectic weeks prior to closedown. Rosalyn Rubenstein, the only undergraduate on the dig, ably assisted with ceramic registration. With some assistance from Mary Joan Winn Leith and the Director, she drew most of the pottery profiles produced in the field and filled in when various members were taken out of action by heat exhaustion, the most serious health problem the dig encountered. Visitors We had more visitors than we had expected. Canadian and Australian members of the United Nations Expeditionary Force based in Ismailia were constant visitors to the site. Besides visiting and offering pleasant company, they provided the expedition with a number of needed goods and services, such as a loaned watertank (and the chlorinated water to go in it), flea and mosquito control, hygiene checks, and medical assistance. The President of ASOR, Philip J. King, and William G. Dever of ASOR's Committee on Archaeological Policy visited to review the expedition's objectives and operation. Thomas Jacobsen and Daniel Bates of the Smithsonian Institution's Surplus Foreign Currency Program Advisory Committee each made inspection tours. Paul Walker, Director of ARCE, visited on several occasions and brought a large groupof ARCE Fellows and members for a study tour. Fellow-excavators including Manfred Bietak and other members of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (Tell el-Debca) paid a visit as did Bernard Bothmer and Karen Briggs of the Mendes Expedition. Acknowledgments The villagers of Maskhuta deserve commendation for their friendliness, honesty, cooperation, and hard work. The Ismailia Directorate of Education gave us their fullest cooperation. Permissionto use the two-unit school at Maskhuta as our base camp

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ WINTER 1980

was granted with no strings attached. The Zagazig office of the Department of Antiquities represented by Inspector Mohammed Salim and Chief Inspector Mohammed el-Moussellamy was most helpful and the Governor of the Ismailia region of Egypt gave his full support. On the national level the expedition had the wholehearted cooperation of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Despite their heavy schedule, both Dr. Abdel Khader el-Selim, General Director of the Department of Antiquities, and Dr. Mahmud Abdel Razziq, Director of Excavations, advanced the work of the expedition in every way, and their friendship and interested concern were invaluable in helping us to surmount the many problems of starting up a major project in this hithertoneglected sector of the eastern Delta. The assistance received from ASOR was invaluable. Special thanks are due to Edward F. Campell, who did much in getting the project into the field. Despite our "stepchild" status, Paul Walker and James Allan, together with the entire A RCE staff, provided an institutional "homeaway from home" for 19 dig members. Without their understanding help and concern it is difficult to see how the expedition could have made it through its first field season. Three Smithsonian officials, Kennedy Schmertz, Francine Berkowitz, and Betty Wingfield, are to be singled out for their continued help.

Bibliography Dumbrell, W. J. 1971 The Tell el-Maskhuta Bowls and the "Kingdom" of Qedar in the Persian Period. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 203: 3344. Naville, E. 1887 The Store City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus. 3rd ed. London: Egypt Exploration Fund, Publications: I. Nibbi, A. 1975 The Sea Peoples and Egy.pt. Park Ridge, NJ: 'Noyes. Petrie, W. M. F. 1906 Hi'ksos and Israelite Cities. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian Research Account, Publications: 12. Shea, W. 1977 A Date for the Recently Discovered Eastern Canal of Egypt. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 226: 31-38. Sneh, A.; Weissbrod, T.; and Perath, I. 1975 Evidence for an Ancient Egyptian Frontier Canal. Scientific American 63: 542-48. Van Seters, J. 1966 The Hvksos, a New Investigation. New Haven: Yale University.

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ANNUALS

6: Variousarticles 12:TellBeitMirsim1: Pottery,Albright 29-30: New TestamentJerichoand Khirbeten Nitia,Kelso 36-37: Dibon in Moab,Winnetand Reed 38: BethZur,Sellers 39: Bethel,Albrightand Kelso 40: Dibon in Moab,Tushingham 41: WadiEd-Daliyah,Lappand Lapp 43: Bab edh-Dhra,Freedman 44: Tabqa Dam,Freedman

$15.00 $ 14.00 $ 10.00

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$10.00

$ 4.00

$13.00 $ 13.00 $13.00 $ 10.50 $17.50 $ 20.00

$ 5.20 $ 5.20 $ 5.20 $ 4.20 $10.50 $ 12.00

7-9: AinJawan, Bowen, et al. $ 3.50 13-14: QumranScrolls and $ 2.50 Paleography,Birnbaum 15-16: Roman-ByzantineBurialCave $ 2.50 in NorthernPalestine,Sellers and Baramki 18: AmericanExpeditionto Idalion, $ 6.00 Cyprus,Stager, Walker,Wright 19: Caesarea Maritima1, Fritsch $ 6.00 20: ReconstructingComplex $ 6.00 Societies, Moore 21: Suwwaneteth-Thaniya,Landes $ 6.00 22: CylinderSeals of the Third$ 12.50 MillenniumPalestine,Ben-Tor

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EXCAVATION REPORTS

LIST

SALE

$ 4.00

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$ 4.00 39.3 39.4 40.1 40.2

$ 1.60

33.2 33.3 33.4 34.1

Taanach 1, Rast BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST 1.2 11.2 16.3 22.4 28.1 1.4 11.3 16.4, 23.1 28.2 2.1 11.4 1T1 23.2 28.3 3.1 12.1 17.2 23.3 28.4

3.2 3.4

12.2 12.3

17.3 17.4

23.4 24.1

29.1 34.3 29.2 34.4

40.3 40.4

4.1 4.3 6.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1 8.2 8.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4

12.4 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 14.1 14.2 14.4 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 16.1 16.2

18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 19.2 20.1 20.2 20.3 21.2 21.3 21.4 22.1 22.2 22.3

24.2 24.3 24.4 25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 26.1 26.3 26.4 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4

29.3 29.4 30.1 30.2 30.3 30.4 31.1 31.3 31.4 32.1 32.2 32.3 32.4 33.1

41.1 41.2 41.3 41.4 42.1 42.2 42.3 42.4 Index 1-30

35.1 35.2 35.3 35.4 36.1 36.2 36.3 36.4 37.1 38.2 38.3 38.4 39.1 39.2

BASOR SUPPLEMENT SERIES

$ 1.00 $ 1.00 $ 2.40 $ 2.40 $ 1.50 $ 7.50

BASOR 100 9 104 11 107 75 108 76 109 81 111 83 112 84 114 85 117 86 123 89 124 125 99 91 131 99 132

134 135 137 138 140 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 153

154 155 157 158 160 163 165 166 167 171 174 175 176 177

178 179 180 181 183 184 186 187 188 192 194 195 196 197

199 202 203 204 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216

$ 2.40 $ 6.00 217 219 220 221 222 223 224 226 228 229 230 231 232 Index1-184

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1: Role of HumanSacrifice in the AncientNear East, Green 2: The TabernacleMenorah,Meyers 3: PastoralNomadismin the Mari Kingdom,Matthews

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24.4 25.2 25.3 25.4 26.1 26.2 26.3

26.4 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 28.1 28.2

28.3 28.4 29.1 29.2 29.3 29.4 30.1 30.2

$ 2.40

Notes

&

iews surrounded by a wall of stone foundation and mudbrick investito devoted The third season of the expedition superstructure, measuring about 7 m in width. A tower such as that found on the northeast was Sea Dead the southeastern settlements EB system along gating Numerous domestic buildings of mudbrick and between field the in was in Jordan incorporated. early May plain the interior, and a sanctuary provided across were spaced July of 1979. Twenty-four participants from various of the city's meaning. dimension the basic the constituted States institutions in the United religious Coterminous with the flourishing EB III period were staff for the archeological work and the environmental the mudbrick funerary houses in the cemetery. During and regional studies. In addition, 15 students participated the and as assistants, along with 8 technical men from Jordan planning for the 1979 season, the decision was made excavate to from laborers 90 and West scientifically a charnel house which has been the Bank, approximately towns nearby. The work was supported by a matching pitted by treasure seekers over the last few years. The buildings turned out to be the largest of all charnel houses grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, for Research and uncovered at Bab edh-Dhra-. This fact, as well as the a grant from the Committee the National of Geographic Society, and many well-preserved cultural items, including several Exploration numerous private contributions. pieces which have been analyzed provisionally as made of The 1979 season concentrated once more on the two gold, suggests that this building may have housed the burials of the ruling families at the site. The tomb These Numeira. and Bab of sites and regions edh-Dhrawas also burned throughout, and it contained an are the northernmost of a series of EB settlements unusually well-made collection of EB III pottery forms. adjacent to the southeastern shore. The 1979 objective The human skeletal material is being analyzed for the had which was to intensify examination of problems become evident during the previous season in 1977. In the light it may shed on ancient demography and paleotown of Bab edh-Dhra' this involved following up on pathology. This analysis is one part of the expedition's discoveries of areas where erosion had not swept away goals. The importance of the EB III period was further the remnants of settlement. The 1979 season succeeded in town. EB this of of the enhanced through the expansion of the excavations at layout defining important aspects Numeira, 13 km south of Bab edh-Dhrac. Several phases Six fields were targeted for exploration, and each contributed significant data for understanding the were isolated, but it seems that the Numeira site was manner in which town life was arranged during this occupied for a relatively short period of time during EB III, no doubt being related to the larger site of Bab period. edh-Dhrac during this period. The major discoveries of The major discoveries at the town site of Bab edh1979 included rooms of houses and courtyards with Dhrac during 1979 included full exposure of the "Northeast Tower," now known to have had three building storage facilities in the form of pits and clay-lined silos: a of excavation finished the street running approximately east-west, which turns in EB nearly phases during Ill structures on the the direction of what seems to be a gate on the north two superimposed broad-roomed of two the sanctuaries are most side, visible in part on the surface; and a tower with a southwest, which likely of the and EB and of extensive, III; stairway on the east end of the site. The wall around the presence phases II1 small city was also investigated and seems to have had well-made, mudbrick houses and buildings within the an more than one building phase. The thick burn which town, belonging mostly to EB III. On the north side, covers this site served as a natural preservative for several area begun during the 1977 season also was expanded, and it appears that the impressive mudbrick wall on stone startling cultural finds, such as a ball of woven yarn foundation on this north side is the continuation of the wrapped around a stick apparently used in knitting or weaving activity. city wall known on other sides of the site. Most In addition to the above projects, a number of EB IA interesting was the EB IV occupation, which was cut shaft tombs in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra' were into and superimposed over the earlier town wall. cleared for the continued study of population types in the As a result of this season's work, it seems that the was Bab at edh-Dhrac southern Ghor. The regional and geologic explorations urban most impressive period EB Ill. The delineation of the EB II period at this site is were also continued, in some cases following up on discoveries made by David McCreery and other members not nearly so clear, and this may be due partly to the fact that in only one or two of the fields have we reached a of the expedition's staff, who conducted a survey of the sufficient depth to ascertain the nature of the EB II southern Ghor during early spring of 1979 with the support of the USAID program. The swift developments occupation. During EB Ill, however, the city was clearly

The Southeastern Dead Sea Valley Expedition, 1979

60

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST WINTER 1980

of industry in the southeastern valley have accentuated the importance of the expedition's plans to continue the work on schedule. Walter E. Rast R. Thomas Schaub Southeastern Dead Sea Valley Expedition

prevent inadvertent destruction of its ancient treasures, Jordan's Department of Antiquities has been alerting workers at construction sites throughout the land to "watch out" while they dig. A case in point occurred just a few months ago near Salt, a small town about 30 km northwest of Amman, Jordan's capital. While leveling ground for a new sewage purification plant, workmen suddenly struck a stone wall. It turned out to be a 3rd-century-A.D. Roman family vault containing three sarcophagi and six burial chambers. Skeletal remains found at the site (one burial chamber contained 45 skulls) indicate that about 80 people were buried in the vault. Archeologists were able to establish the date of the tomb from the objects it glassware, jewelry, and coins--contained---pottery, which are almost identical to those found in a similar tomb in Amman three decades ago. An unusual feature of the recent find is the stone bust of a man carved in relief in a niche over the main sarcophagus. He is believed to be the pater familias, the head of the family. The vault, excellently preserved by the sands of time, is entered through a low doorway above which is carved a circular, fan-shaped ventilation grill. Along three sides of the central chamber lie barrel-vaulted recesses containing the sarcophagi, cut of limestone with sculpted lids and decorated fronts. Beneath the stone-flagged floor are the six stone-lined burial chambers arranged in two layers of three each. The tomb, an important find, will be preserved and retained at its present site. The sewage plant, of course, will have to submit to a slight adjustment in its location. Akram Z. Barakat Jordan Information Bureau Washington, D.C.

A stone-carved portrait of a man, believed to be the pater familias, or family head. His manner of dress and the fact that he is holding a scroll indicate that he may have been a professional man, possibly a teacher or lawyer. Jordan's "Underground" Museum It is hard to sink a spade anywhere in Jordan without striking the precious remains of an earlier, long-lost civilization. Lying beneath the soil are more than 400 sites that hold relics of every period in man's history, dating from the Neolithic to the Ottoman period, a time span of almost 10,000 years. Until recently, most discoveries of these relics have been made by archeologists working at various sites. Now, as Jordan constructs the cement and steel monuments of its modern age, bulldozers and power shovels are beginning to make sudden chance finds. To

Excavations at Pella of the Decapolis, Jordan After an interval of 12 years since the excavations of the College of Wooster at Pella were disrupted by the ArabIsraeli War of 1967, Pella has once again begun to yield major archeological information to excavators. During the winter and spring of 1979, the first of a number of projected seasons of excavation and related scientific investigations was carried out at the site by a new joint expedition sponsored by Wooster and the University of Sydney. Australia. Drs. J. Basil Hennessy and Robert H. Smith are codirectors of the program, which has received ASOR affiliation and has been underwritten by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society, the Australian Grants Committee, and other sources. Fieldwork is assured for the first three seasons, and it is anticipated that it will be continued for a number of seasons beyond that time. In anticipation of its long-range needs, the Expedition constructed a field headquarters at the site, which can be converted into a local museum when the

BIBLIICALARCHEOLOGIST WINTER 1980

61

Expedition completes its work. In this undertaking, as well as in many other aspects of field operations, the Expedition has received generous financial and technical assistance from the Department of Antiquities of Jordan through its director, Dr. Adnan Hadidi. Because of differing academic calendars, the Sydney and Wooster teams were in the field at different times-the Sydney team in January and February and the Wooster excavators from mid-March through midMay. The combined staffs totaled approximately 45 persons. Each group had several areas of responsibility at the site. The Sydney team began two adjoining excavations on the eastern side of the mound, one intended to expose Byzantine-Umayyad structures that lie near the surface, and the other, on the steep southern slope above the spring, to probe deeply into the mound. They also commenced mapping and excavating a promising Roman-Byzantine ruin far up the eastern slope that flanks the ancient city and excavated tombs of Byzantine date in the vicinity of the towering Tell elHusn, south of the city-mound. The Wooster contingent began a stratigraphicprobe on the western side of the mound, to parallel the work of the Sydney team on the eastern side of the mound. The group also continued work in the West Church, where Wooster had undertaken excavations in 1967, while also beginning excavations at the cluster of Roman-Byzantine ruins known as the Temple Complex near the spring and excavating some tombs of roughly 2nd-century date. Excavations in these areas, although in some cases scarcely begun, have already illuminated some aspects of

The

Pella's history. A sounding in the atrium of the West Church produced Neolithic artifacts which pushed Pella's known occupation back to around 5000 B.c. Atop the mound, both the East Cut and the West Cut yielded a well-defined Late Hellenistic stratum dating from the time of the destruction of the city by Alexander Jannaeus in 82 B.C.Several areas provided small but useful groups of Roman pottery of varying dates, and some of the Byzantine-Umayyad structures contained assorted household vessels sealed by the earthquake of ca. A.D.

Utilizing manpower and heavy equipment provided by the Deparment of Antiquities, the Expedition reset several columns in the atrium of the West Church and in the Temple Complex. Further modest restoration will continue in the future. The Sydney and Wooster teams will return to the field in the winter and spring of 1980. Many periods of Pella's history are still inadequately documented, and more excavation will be necessary for the history of the Roman-Byzantine structures to become clear. Pella's ruins give promise also of new knowledge of civic planning at several periods in the city's history, as well as of significant new material for ceramic typology and for the history of Transjordan. Robert H. Smith The College of Wooster

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Book. Reviews The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms, by Othmar Keel. 422 pp., 524 drawings, 28 p/s. New York: Seabury, 1978; $24.50. Students of the Bible have long been accustomed to making use of ancient Near Eastern monuments as a source for a better understanding of biblical language and history. Yet the resources that are to be found in the iconography of the ancient Near East have not been so widely sought out for the light they can shed on the conceptual thought of biblical times. To this muchneglected area of symbols and thought patterns of the world to which ancient Israel belonged, Othmar Keel has directed his attention. He has chosen six major categories for documentation: conceptions of the cosmos, destructive forces, the temple, conceptions of God, the king, and man before God. From a great variety of sources he has selected relevant material, given full bibliography, both primary and secondary, and sought to define these concepts as they are to be found in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. Students of both the Bible and the ancient Near East will be grateful for an original and useful compilation of pictures, many of which are little known. The author has also sought to make his study of ancient iconography relevant by citing parallels to the Psalms. He is careful to point out that the dependenceof a psalmverseon ancientNearEasternart, though possible (historicallyconceivable)in itself, is very rarelyconsidered.The objectis ratherto exhibitidentical, similar,or evendiametricallyopposedapprehensionsof the

scholar with a rich documentation for the symbols found in monuments of diverse cultures and spread over many hundreds of years. This work is especially valuable to scholars in the field of biblical studies. Keel has searched widely and provided a more extensive documentation for ideas and concepts than that usually given in the standard volumes of pictures that related to the Old Testament. The work appeared in 1972 under the title of Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament:Am Beispiel der Psalmen. The English translation is by Timothy J. Hallett. There is an index of biblical references. James B. Pritchard Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ

same phenomenon . . . in ancient Israel and its environs

(pp. 12-13). The general reader will do well to keep this disclaimer in mind when confronted with captions of quotations from the Psalms printed under ancient monuments. The author of Ps 115:15, who may well never have seen an Egyptian representation of the sky-goddess Nut arched over the earth-god Geb as a representation of "heaven and earth," would probably have found the familiar Egyptian icon (fig. 25) as strange as it appears to modern man. The writer of Ps 110:5, who wrote that Yahweh "doth crush kings in the day of his wrath," did so without ever having seen the palette of Narmer (fig. 397), who lived in another land and some 2000 years earlier. Despite the danger that the unwary reader may see in these implied correlations with the Psalms more than is warranted, Professor Keel's work provides the serious BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/WINTER1980 63

And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, "Willyou not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?"And one of his servants said, "None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber."And he said, "Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him." It was told him, "Behold, he is in Dothan." So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army; and they came by night, and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" He said, "Fearnot, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elishaprayed, and said, "O LORD,I pray thee, open his eyes that he

A

horse

and

Artifactssubmittedby B, Cobbey Crisler

a

rider...

may see." So the LORDopened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kgs 6:11-17, RSV).

A ceramic soldier's head and a ceramic horse's head, both from Dothan, bring to mind the account of Elisha and his servant in Dothan surrounded by the riders and chariotry of Syria. The statue of the rider, which dates from the Iron II period, is a rare representation of either a Syrian or an Israelite soldier. The bridled horse's head dates from the Iron II period or possibly later.

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