THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BORDER COMMUNITIES RENEWED EXCAVATIONS AT TEL BETH-SHEMESH, PART 1: THE IRON AGE Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman
Beih'Shemesh has attracted the interest of scholars and students ofthe ancient Near East since the he^nning ofmoden-i exploration ofthe Holy Land. First, the name Beth-Shemesh, "the House ofthe Sun," implied a temple dedicated to the sun deity. Second, the biblical aspects of the place are appealing. Beth-Shemesh and its environs are related to Samson's name and his erxcounters with the Philistines in the Sorek Valley. In addition, and most intrigiungly, the miraculous return of the Ark of Coveimnt from captivity in Philistia reached its climax in the fields of ihe hraelite border town of Beth-Shemesh. No uionder. then, Ümt Rumeillah (or 'Ain Shems), the mound ofancieiit Belli-Sheinesh, was one ofthe mrliest sites to be excavated in Palestine. In fact, Tel Beth-Shemesh was excavated in the last century by three different expeditions, one British (1911-1912),
one American (1928-1933),
and
currently (since 1990) an Israeli initiative that quickly exparuied into an ongoing intemational collaboration.
In rhe spirit ot their days, the early excavators at BethShemesh sought archaeological endorsement of the biblical narratives. The conceptual framework ofthe current expedition is quite different. The fact that Tel Beth-Shemesh is located at the geographic meeting point of three ethnic and cultural entities—-the Canaanites, Philistines, and Israelites—^renders it an ideal site for investigating geopolitical, social, and cultural dynamics at a border zone. Indeed, by implementing insights gained through anthropokigica! and archaeological research of horder regions, we have shed new Iightonaseriesof major topics in the Iron Age archaeology ofthe Land of Israel. In this article, whicb reviews theory and practice in the renewed excavations of the Iron Age strata at Tel Beth-Shemesh, we demonstrate how 'A View from the Border" lias led to innovative insights in three major areas: (a) ethnogenesis in Iron Age I; (h) state formation and core-periphery relations in Iron Age IIA; and {c} dynamics iif border landscapes in the aftermath of Sennacherib's campaign in 701 B.C.E. (Iron Age IIB-C).
A Tale of Three Expeditions lel Beth-Shemesh is a seven-acre mound strategically situated on the southern bank ofthe Sorek Valley at tbe topographical line tbat separates tbe Sbephelah from tbe inner coastal plain. Overlooking tbe Sorek Valley, tbe site wouid bave guarded tbe passageway to the Judean hills. Historical sources tell us that during the Bronze and Iron Ages tbe valley was an arena in which dramatic political and cultural transformations took, place. Indeed, all biblical references to Beth-Shemesb are related to its location as a border site (see sidebar). The excavations at Tel Beth-Sbemesb constitute an intriguing story within a story. On the one hand, it is tbe Rumeillah, the mound of ancient Beth-Shemesh, seen here facing south, was one of the earliest sites to be excavated in Palestine. The modern city of Beth-Shemesh is visible in the upper left and in the lower right, the Sorek Valley. At tbe center of the northern slope [foreground), the current excavation Areas A, B, C, and D can be seen; Area E ¡s at the rear part of the tell. The craters covering the western half of the tell (on the center right) are remnants from Eiihu Grant's excavations (1928-1933). The structure identified by Duncan Mackenzie as a "Byzantine convent" can be seen in the southeast quarter of the site, Photo courtesy of Albatross Aerial Photography Ltd.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
115
BETH-SHEMESH IN HISTORICAL SOURCES In spite of its Stratege location and its lon^ and rick occupational history, Beth-Shemesh is not mentioned in any ancient document other than the Hebrew Bible, in that source, however, it apptiars quite frequently, ¡n Israel's tribal lisvi, Beth-Shemesk is listed in the tribal allotment of Dan (josh 19:41), on the northern buuniiiïr;y of Judah (Josh 15:10-11), and a Levitical city in Judah (Josh 21:16; 1 Chr 6:44)- Following the battle of Ebenezer and the capture of the Ark of Covenant f7\ tiie Phííistmes, Beth-Shemesh is [mentioned as the place to which the Ark was returned (1 Sam 6:9-18). The town is later listed in Solomon's second administrative \district (I Kgs 4:9) and was subsequently the scene ofthe battle between hash, king of Israel, andAmaziah, kingofhdah (2 Kgs ¡4:11-13). During the reign of Ahaz, ßeth-Shemesh passed hands as the Philistines seized it from Judah (2 Chr 28:18). finally, potential affinity to Berh-Shemesh may he inferred from the story of Samson, a söpet ("warrior-deliverer") from the tribe of Dan, who was horn "between Zora and Eshta'oi" Oudg 13:25)-the geographical vicinity of Beth-Shemesh. Both the toponym and personal name were derived from the same Semitic root, sms ("sun").
Stratigraphicai Chart Level
Period
Level I
lion Age lie
650-655
Level 2
Iron Age IIB
790-701
Level 3
Iron Age IIA
Date
(B.C.E.)
950-790
Grant and Wright
(1939)
Description Short-iived, small small-scale settlement near the underground water reservoir: reservoir's last use and its \'iolent blockage.
Stratum lie
Last Iron Age settlement: private dwellings, olive oil and textile cottage industries, Imlk and "private" seal impressions, t^ttï-inscribed bowl.
Stratum Ila-Ilb
Governmental administrative center: fortifications, underground water reservoir, open "commercial area," iron smithy, store house in Area E and a large public building in Area B.
Level 4
Iron Age I
1050-950
Stratum Ill-IIa
Large village: peasant community, domestic dwellings characterized by thick plaster floors, use of monolithic standing stone pillars; olive oil extraction installations.
Level 5
Iron Age I
1100-1050
Stratum III
Large village: contiguous buildings, olive oi! extraction installations, signs of settlement planning. Large village: pi^;ih;i[it community, cutUigLinus luuists
Level 6
Iron Age I
1150-1100
Stratum III
Level 7
Iron Age I
1200-1150
Stratum III
116
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
found arranged on the periphery of the mound, long rooms, sparse use of flat stone pillar bases, gold jewelry board. Village: tine architecture; impressive olive oil installation, no Cypriot and Mycenaean imported potter>', no monochrome Philistine pottery.
f
0 Be^l
Beth-Horon Givon
Aijalon
A
o Ashdod
O
Ashkelon
Jemsaiem o
Ekron©
Bethlehem
Gath Zayil
Socoh
SHEPHELAH
JUDAH
PHILISTIA O Luth i«h
Gaza O
Eiiii'i
O Hebron
Beit-Mirsim
Beth-Shemesh ¡s located in the Sorek Valley between the coastal plain and the nnountain ridge. During the Iron Age, the valley was the meeting point of three ethnic and cultural entities, namely, the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the Israelites. As such it was the scene of important geopolitical changes and profound cultural transformations—an ideal region for studying the anthropology and archaeology of borders.
narrative of archaeology in the Land of Israel in a nutshell, from the pioneering days of the Palestine Exploration Fund, through the Golden Age of American biblical archaeology, to current modern archaeology. On the other hand, it is the fascinating story of a dynamic, ever-changing border site. Tel Beth-Shemesh was first excavated in 1911-1912 by Duncan Mackenzie on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund (see sidebar). Mackenzie exposed the Middle Bronze wall and its gate and discerned a sequence of three "cities": Canaanite (Middle and Late Bronze Age), Philistine (Iron Age I), and Israelite (Iron Age II). He also investigated the Iron Age II chamber-tomb cemetery at the foot oí the mound and a so-called Byzantine convent (Mackenzie 1912-1913). As he was an expert in Aegean archaeology rather than a biblical scholar, his work at Beth-Shemesh was almost free of Bihle-oriented interpretation. This was cause for great disappointment to his employers in London, who initiated the excavations at BethShemesh because of the biblical connotations of the site, especially in relation to the Philistines. If Mackenzie can be characterized as a professional, secular archaeologist divorced from the biblical agenda, his successors in the second cycle of excavations at BethShemesh were quite the opposite. From 1928 to 1933, Elihu Grant, a Methodist minister and Professor of Biblical Literature at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, conducted five seasons of large-scale excavations at the site. The results were analyzed and published by G. Ernest Wright, a young theologian who later became a towering figure in biblical archaeology {Grant and Wright 1938, 1939). Wright's great achievement was in bringing order to chaos, yet whenever the archaeological record did not concur with relevant biblical passages, he tried to reconcile the two, occasionally at the cost of coherency.
The footprints of three expeditions to Tel Beth-Shemesh can be seen in this site plan. Since previous excavations already spanned over three quarters of the site, the current expedition, shaded in gray, concentrated first on the relatively undisturbed northeast quarter (Areas A-D} and has subsequently expanded into new tracts at the center and southern part of the tell (Areas E-F; R2D2).
Wright identified six main strata. The three early ones (VI-IV) span the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, indicating that Beth-Shemesh was a prosperous city in these periods. Stratum III, the Iron Age I settlement, was considered in accord with the biblical sources as representing the Israelite town from the Ark narrative. Stratum II was divided into three phases: Ua (tenth century B.C.E.) comprised a fortified, planned city with public buildings, identified as the Solomonic administrative center; lib (ninth-eighth
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 7 2 : 3 ( 2 0 0 9 )
117
DUNCAN MACKENZIE: FROM KNOSSOS TO BETH-SHEMESH
I I
I
Duncan Mackenzie is primarily known for his contribution Mackenzie's contribution to the scientific development to Aegean archaeology in his work at Phyiakopi on the island of archaeology in Palestine during its early days has been ofMelos at the end of the nineteenth century, and especially underestimated until recently. Long methodological clauses, in tfie excavations at the Palace of Minos in Knossos, Crete amazingly innovative for the time, are included in his reports ( 1900-1934), where he served as Sir Arthur Evans' right hand. and day-books of the excavations at Beth-Shemesh. This is For a short time (Î91O~Ï912}, however, he was also involved especially true of an unpublished manuscript concerning in the archaeology of Palestine, directing the excavations of thethe last excavation campaign at the site in 1912, ichich Palestine Exploration Fund at 'Ain Shems, the site of biblical U'as unexpectedly discovered bj Nicoietta Momigliano BethrShemesh (Momigliano 1996, 1999: 85-115). among various papers left b)' Mackenzie in the safekeeping Mackenzie's most acknowledged contribution to the of his nepheU' in Scotland for over seventy years.^ In his archaeology o/Palestine is the establishment of a stratigraphie introduction of careful stratigraphical observations to the and chronological context for Philistine pottery. His expertise archaeology of Palestine, it is fair to profess that Mackenzie in Aegean archaeology and innate proficiency as a careful at Beth'Shemesh was no less a pioneer than George Andrew and o b s e r v a n t excavator significantly promoted our knowledge about the Philistines and their settíement in Canaan. Mackenzie's special knack in the ceramic field, widely recognized by his colleagues in Aegean archaeology, led him to another
„. .—.
Palestine iry KatKíeen íCen^yon.
imfjortant yet unrecognized
achievement at Beth-Shemesh. Relyingon his ingenious reasoning of the site's stratigraphy and on finds from other excavations, he defined, for the first time, the Iron Age il pottery horizon in ]udah that was contemporar^r u'ith Sennacherib's campaign in 701 B.C.E. (later dubbed "Lachish Level UI assemblage").
I
While his archaeological work at Beth-Shemesh was quite outstanding for the period.
Duncan Mackenzie (left) and the architect Francis G. Newton outside the weli (sheikh tomb) at Ain Shems, Better known as Sir Arthur Evans' right hand in the excavation of the Palace of Minos in Crete, Mackenzie was appointed by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) in 1909 as an "explorer" and commissioned to excavate ancient Beth-Shemesh. Photo courtesy of the PEF archive.
centuries B.C.E.) reflected the city that existed in the days of the Judean monarchy; and lie (seventh-sixth centuries B.C.E.) represented the last judean occupation on site, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. Well aware ofthe shaky foundations upon which his synthesis rested, Wright emphasized time and again the need for further excavations at the site with new digging methods. The latest renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh were initiated by the authors in 1990 and are currently conducted
118
Reisner at Samaria. Both were true harbingers of the so-called WKeeier-Ken>'on (or balk-debris layer) method that was reinlroduced to
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
Furthermore, in combining stratigraphie observations with typological study of pottery per layer, Mackenzie antedated Albright's ingenious methodology at Tell Beit Mirsim. Mackenzie also pioneered in terminoíogji. ¡n the scientific chaos that reigned in the archaeology of Palestine at the turn of the twentieth century, he was the first scholar to use the "threeage" system consistently and with its modern meaning (Chapman 1989).
under the auspices ofthe Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.^ Studying archaeology in the early 1970s, at a time when major intellectual transformations reshaped the discipline, archaeologists of our generation are the children of three archaeological paradigms: the traditional (culture history), the modern (scientific, processual), and the post-modern (interpretative, reflexive). Undoubtedly, these disciplinary "revolutions" had a profound impact on our research agenda at Tel Beth-Shemesh.
Culture history is the foundation course of any archaeological enterprise since it concerns the integration of material culture remains within the cultural sequence of the research region. At Beth'Shemesh we acknowledged the need for a refined up-to-date stratigraphical, chronological, and cultural sequence of the site before any attempts could be made to depict processual and cognitive patterns within the data. The processual and interpretive layers of our intellectual background are manifested at Tel Beth-Shemesh in some of the new research trends we explore. A major topic, rooted in processual thinking, is the longterm relationship between the site's geopolitical position and its material culture. The border site theme is the backhone of our research as we try to monitor changes in material culture and behavioral patterns at BethShemesh in tandem with Iron Age social and political transformations that occurred in the Shephelah of Judah (see sidebar). However, such an inquiry goes beyond the processual program into the domain of the post-processual paradigm as it involves ideological and symbolic aspects related, for example, to Israelite ethnogenesis. Under this research framework we will review in the following discussion some of the major topics related to the Iron Age levels investigated by us at Tel Beth-Shemesh (for a detailed report encompassing additional issues, see Bunimovitz and Lederman in press). Bronze Age remains unearthed by our expedition at the site are reserved tor a separate survey in a future issue of this journal. Level 3
Ethnogenesis on the Philistine Border (Iron Age I) Archaeology in the central hill country of the Land of Israel reveals that a wave of settlements swept the area during Iron Age I. This trend was part of the emergence of ancient Israel, rendering the region between Hebron and Shechem the focal point for archaeological investigation of the so-called proto-Israélites. Nevertheless, tbe idea that Israelite identity formation took place in the central bills is problematic. First, contemporary anthropology tells us that ethnicity is the result of a process of inclusion and exclusion that differentiates "us" from "them." As such, it would have emerged at a group's boundaries rather than in its heartland. Second, assuming identity formation is a process, a time perspective is required to trace behavioral changes. Archaeologically speaking, a long stratigraphie sequence would he needed for this purpose. It is thus apparent that the single-time-period "proto-Israelite" sites found in tbe bill country cannot
Iron Age IIA
vei6 } Iron Age I
Late Bronze Age II
City Wan
This stratigraphical section through Area A shows the continuous settlement sequence from the Middle Bronze Age IIB to Iron Age IIA. The importance of Tel Beth-Shemesh to the understanding of the transition from a rural to a monarchical society in Judah lies not only in its continuous settlement sequence but also in the extent of archaeological exposure. Photo by Z. Lederman.
120 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
This olive oil production installation in Iron Age I Level 7 attests to a flourishing Canaanite settlement at BethShemesh. The elongated stones packed within it are lying on the stone floor that was made from one piece of rock. Oil was presumably extracted by crushing and pressing the olives with the heavy smooth stones. The precious liquid was then collected into a stone receptacle attached to the slanting stone floor. Similar installations were found in Levels 4 and 5 and are known from other Iron Age I sites throughout the country. Photo by Z. Lederman.
tell a complex story. In light of these difficulties and the fact that no new archaeological data have entered the discourse ahout the emergence of Israel in the last three decades, the contribution of out new Iron Age I finds at Tel Beth-Shemesh to the longlasting debate about Israelite ethnogenesis cannot be exaggerated (Bunimovitz and Lederman 2008). Both our predecessors in the investigation of Tel BethShemesh presented the Iron Age I settlement at the site as a single-phase fortified town dominated politically and economically by the Philistines. While Mackenzie envisioned a Canaanite town captured by the Israelites of the monarchic
This painted pyxis found in Level 7 and similarly painted vessels from this level attest to the continuation of Canaanite pottery decoration traditions at Beth-Shemesh well into the Iron Age I. Photo by A. Fogel.
TEL BETH-SHEMBH t99S-2OO8
period, Wright relied on biblical narratives to portray an Israelite city suffering under the heavy yoke ofthe Philistines. Our investigation reveals that the cultural disposition of BethSbemesh during Iron Age I was much more complex. Canaanite Cultural Traditions Our excavations in Areas A and D, at the northern slope of tbe tell, exposed substantial Iron Age I remains. In these areas we discerned four phases of occupation belonging to the Iron Age I—Levels 7, 6. 5, and 4—spanning the time between the beginning of the twelfth century B.C.E. and the first half of the tenth century B.C.E. Level 7, similar to Level VI at Lachish, clearly reveals Canaanite traditions continuing beyond the 1200 B.C.E. divide between the Bronze and Iron Ages. Wbile much of its architecture was disturbed by the builders of Level 6, some wellbuilt walls and an impressive olive-oil-extraction installation attest to a flourishing settlement. Significantly, no imported Cypriot, Mycenaean, or Philistine pottery was found in Level 7. That local Canaanite tradition of pottery and bronze making continued without interference is clear from painted pottery and a bronze hoe found in the level. In Level 6, two spacious contiguous buildings were exposed. Presumably, these were part of a defensive belt of houses built along the edge of the mound similar to other Canaanite settlements of this period. The western building, dubbed by us a "Patrician House," is the more impressive. It comprises two elongated halls—one of them beautifully paved with large river pebbles—on both sides of an inner court or a large room. A built installation in the eastern hall must have been used for metallurgical activity as it was full of ashy sediments mixed with slags of copper or bronze. The massive .stone walls hint at tbe existence of an upper story and the mass of fallen mudbricks that sealed the ground floor seem to confirm this idea. Some gold jewelry, found within tbe debris, had apparently fallen from above. The building east of the "Patrician House" is similarly planned, albeit of poorer quality. In one of the rooms we found a large flat stone that probably served as a base for a wooden column and a row of four similar column bases was discovered nearby. The use of
Room RÛ11
»Pitrician House'
"Pillxr-basc House*
3m.
Plan of two Level 6 (Iron Age I) dwellings in Areas A and D. The contiguous houses seem to comprise a defensive belt along the periphery of the nnound. The nnain feature of the spacious structures is their long rooms, partially stone-paved, which seem to support the idea that Canaanite houses in the Shephelah were the progenitors ofthe "four-room house."
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
121
This painted red-sÜpped globular jug from Level 4 shows clear Phoenician affinities and seems to have arrived in BethShemesh either from the coast or from one of the neighboring Phiíistine centers. Photo by P. Shrago.
A Aerial view of Iron Age I architectural remains in adjacent Areas A and D. The "Patrician House" of Level 6 (left half of the photo) and the contiguous building to its right are marked with black numbers (features with blue numbers belong to Level 7). Note especially the elongated rooms of the structures, the stone-paved room (F053), and the installation {F792) presumably involved in metallurgical activities. Also note the large flat stone base (F807) surrounded by sharing stones, right above the olive oil installation of Level 7 (F831}. The foundations of the Middle Bronze Age wall that encircles the mound can be seen in the deep section in Square A/20 (F789). Photo by Sky View Ltd. ^ - The pottery of Level 6 reflects strong Canaanite traditions prevalent in the Shephelah and coastal plain in contemporaneous sites. Photo by P. Shrago.
This gold earring and other scraps were found within the debris of the "Patrician House" of Level 6 (Iron Age I) and may have fallen from the second floor of the house. Photo by P. Shrago.
122
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
wooden columns in the early Iron Age I buildings of Beth-Shemesh represents a Canaanite architectural tradition popular in the Shephelah during both the Late Bronze and Iron I periods. In this respect we should emphasize that our Level 6 buildings show a general affinity to the typical Iron Age I "four-room house" plan, a plan thnt ^nes bnck to rhc !,nre Brnnrc 11 (rhirTcenrh
These pie charts compare the relative proportions of two significant Iron Age I pottery types, bowls and collared-rim jars. As may be expected, the assemblage at Beth-Shemesh reflects the Canaanite, lowland mode of living of Tell Qasile rather than that of the highlands, represented by Giloh.
This bull-shaped spout found in the debris of Area A in Level 6 was probably a part of a libation or zoomorphic vessel. It is one of two libation (?) spouts found by the current expedition (in two different contexts) shaped like a bull's head, a symbol whose roots are deeply ingrained within the Late Bronze, Canaanite ornamentation. Generally, Iron Age I material remains reflect a very poor artistic era. Paintings and plastic attachments are rare (in contrast to the rich painting tradition of the neighboring Philistine pottery). Photo by P. Shrago.
century B.C.E.) and which was detected in the architecture of our Level 8 buildings from this period. Levels 5 and 4 are also characterized by domestic architecture. Level 4, the latest Iron Age I occupation at Beth-Shemesh exhibits the first extensive use of roof-supporting monolithic stone pillars. This phase was severely disturbed by large-scale building operations that took place in the subsequent Iron Age IIA, Level 3, when the unfortified Iron Age I settlement was transformed into a royal administrative center. As with the architecture, the character and composition of the pottery assemblages from Levels 4-6 also show clear affinities with other lowland sites such as Tel Batasb, Gezer, and Tell Qasile. Moreover, these assemblages differ from contemporary assemblages at the "proto-Israelite" sites in the hill country. A comparative quantitative analysis shows, for example, that bowls are far more numerous at Beth-Shemesh and Tell Qasile than at highland sites such as Giloh, Khirbet Raddana, and others, while the collaredrim jar is conspicuously rare at Beth-Shemesh (only a handful were iound). This stands in sharp contrast with the abundance of coliaredrim jars in the highlands. Notably, monochrome Philistine pottery is missing altogether from Beth-Shemesh as are other cultural traits typical of the first phases of Philistine settlement. Furthermore, Philistine biclirome pottery comprises only 5 percent of the pottery assemblages in the Iron Age 1 levels. A Border Bom Relying on architecture and pottery, the material culture of BethShemesh during the Iron Age I certainly reflects the continuation of Late Bronze Canaanite cultural traditions well into the middle of the tenth century B.C.E. The remarkable contrast between the meager amount of Philistine pottery at Beth-Shemesh and its high percentage—about 30 percent—at the neighboring Philistineaffiliated sites of Timnah-Tel Batash and Ekron-Tel Miqne hint at the rise ofa cultural border between Beth-Shemesh and its Philistine neighbors. This idea is further delineated by the foodrelated finds, which seem to set an identity boundary in the midst of the Sorek Valley. Zooarchaeological research has shown that during the Late Bronze Age, a relatively small amount ot pork (2 to 8 percent) was consumed at Canaanite sites in the Shephelah and the Coastal Plain. This trend changed dramatically with the arrival of the Philistines. While in neighboring Philistine centers, pork consumption in Iron Age I reached unprecedented levels of ahout 20 percent, analysis of over thirteen thousand animal bones from contemporaneous BethShemesh proves that pork was completely avoided at this site. These results are quite consistent with the minimal proportion of pig bones at the "proto-Israelite" sites in the hill country. The absence of pig bones from Beth-Shemesh vis-à-vis the diet in the neighboring Philistine and "proto-Israelite" sites raises intriguing questions about the ethnic identification of its inhabitants. Zooarchaeologists warn against a straightforward use of bones as an index for ethnic identity. Indeed, the presence or absence of pig bones may be related to a variety of causes not necessarily linked with ideological motivation or social identity. Nevertheless, pig bones can be used in ethnic diagnosis although their presence or absence must
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
123
be examined contextually in order to understand why in certain cases the animal had symbolic meaning and was incorporated in social strategy (Hesse and Wapnish 1997, 1998). In his classic essay about ethnicity and boundaries, the Norwegian anthropologist Fredric Barth (1969) argued that ethnic groups cannot be understood in terms of long lists of "objectively" identified cultural attributes. While people may stress some cultural traits in their dealings with other groups and ignore others, we cannot predict such behavior. Ethnic groups are not merely an involuntary by-product of pre-existing cultural differences. They are the consequences of organizational work undertaken by their members who, for whatever reason, are marked out and mark themselves out from other collectivities in a process of inclusion and exclusion that differentiates "us" from "them." Additional anthropological and ethnoarchaeological studies show that distinction, and cultural boundaries are especially stressed in circumstances of inter-group competition over land and resources (Hodder 1979, 1982: 31; Emberling 1997). These insights about the instrumental role of ethnicity and the conditions for the emergence and maintenance of social and cultural boundaries are used in interpreting the new archaeological data from Beth-Shemesh within its cultural and historical context.
decision, namely, to distinguish themselves from their new aggressive neighbors or to join them. One way of defining their "non-Philistine" identity—evident at Beth-Shemesh—would have been through the dietary preclusion of pork in contrast to Philistine foodways. Additional cultural distinction^—marking their separate identity—could be achieved by avoiding Philistine pottery, especially the monochrome pottery that carried Philistine cultural and social connotations related to social habits of feasting and banqueting. Canaanites from both sides of the "identity border" emerging at the contact zone between Canaanites and Philistines thus seemed to have changed some components of their old lifestyle. At the non-Philistine side of the border, this seemingly conscious change signals the emergence of a new identity. Such a chain of events has far-reaching implications for our understanding of Israelite ethnogenesis. Instead of conceiving the process as originating in the central hill country and spreading towards the peripheries of that region, we would reverse the direction of at least part ofthe process: from the western Philistine frontier inland and into the mountain area. Following this interpretation, Israelite identity seems to have been forged, at least to some extent, under a Philistine hammer.
The Monarchy at Tel Beth-Shemesh (Iron Age IIA)
The historicity ot the United Monarchy has been fiercely debated in recent years. At the extreme end ofthe controversy stands a group of biblical historians that completely negate the authenticity of such a polity. In their view, the Hebrew Bible cannot be used to reconstruct the political and cultural history of Iron Age Judah since it is an ideological novel composed in the Persian or the Hellenistic era. A more moderate stance is taken by other biblical scholars and archaeologists, who acknowledge the historicity of the "House of David," yet conceive David and Solomon's golden Pig Bones in Iron Age I age to be mythical. According to these scholars, a combination of tendentious biblical historiography Philistia vs. Highlands of the late monarchy and uncritical biblical archaeology is responsible for the exaggerated picture of a glorious tenth-century B.C.E. united Israelite empire. As part of their deconstruction of conventional wisdom, state formation in Judah was dated to the late-eighth century B.C.E. A series uf revisions, however, set the date of this major organizational change hack to ca. 900 B.C.E.
The arrival of the Philistines to southern Canaan and their further expansion out of their heartland must have instigated competition over land and other resources, and reshaped social and cultural boundaries in the region. Canaanites living in the territories occupied by the Philistines became part of the Philistine cultural sphere. Others, settled at the periphery of Philistia, for example, in the Sorek Valley, fnced a dramatic
Ashkelon
Mlqnt
Timnih
BXhShemesh
bebet Sarta
^loh
Ebat
Raddana
As this chart illustrates, avoidance of pork consumption at Beth-Shemesh contrasts with foodways at the Philistine sites of Ashkelon, Ekron-Tel Miqne, and TimnahTel Batash and conforms to the diet of the central hill sites, including ' Izbet Sarta, Shiloh, Mt. Ebal, and Khirbet Raddana.
124
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
One of the main arguments propounded for a late establishment of the state in Judah is the ambiguity concerning the status of Jerusalem—the ííovernmental heart of the kingdom—during the tenth-ninth centuries B.C.E. Since the debate about state formation in Judah vis-à-vis the archaeology of Jerusalem has reached a point of diminishing returns, we have resorted to a different research tactic. In light of our Iron Age IIA finds at Tel BethShemesh, which attest to the activity of a polity beyond the local community, we suggest a new
The stone foundations of one of the Iron Age MA fortification walls, which are preserved to their original height, were built of large fieldstones resting on huge boulders, to which three casemates were attached. The fortifications represent an impressive corner of a large fortress or a stretch of a city wail. Photo by Z. Lederman.
The pottery assemblage in Area E is non-domestic in character, containing mainly small holemouth jars and a large number of scoops. Presumably, the scoops were used to fill the holemouth jars, as well as other containers, with agricultural produce. A clay scale-pan hints at currency weighing, likely to have been related to some economic transactions, Photo fay R Shrago.
perspective for the problem, namely, a view from the border {Bunimovitz and Lederman 2001). Borders are sites and symbols of power. Guard towers and barbed wire in the present, forts and administered iortified towns in the past, are markers of sovereignty' that inscribe the territorial limits of states. Yet border regions bear some ambivalence as they are both pushed away from national centers by tbe centrifugal torces of their position as the state's frontier, and pulled in by the centripetal forces of foreign state centers across their borderline. As such, they are often treated suspiciously by the state and its agents. The tension between states and their borderland communities may bring about the interference of the state in daily life at tbe border zones (Donnan and Wilson 1999). Archaeology can gauge tbe coming and going of the state at these regions through changes in their material culture and its configuration. Thus, a view from the border shifts the focus from the problematic core of the Judean polity to its better-documented periphery—the border zone with Philistia. It is with great satisfaction that we see now other scholars adopting a similar approach (e.g., Finkelstein 2003; Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004; Tappy 2008). Footprints of a State The most impressive Iron Age occupation layer we exposed at Tel Beth-Shemesh is Level 3. It is in this layer that we first encounter the "footprints" of state organization, represented by a variety of public buildings spread throughout the site. To start with, a complex system of monumental fortifications was exposed in Area C, at the northeastern quarter of the tell {Bunimovitz and Lederman 2001). The main feature of this system is an impressive corner of two massive walls, over two meters high in places, built of large fieldstones and resting on huge boulders, to which three casemates were attached. A massive tower in front of these fortifications served as their revetment. The leveled tops of the walls indicate that they bore a brick superstructure. It is difficult to determine whether these are remains of a large fortress or of a stretch of a city wall that turned sharply in this location and climbed up the tell. To our great delight, the excavations in this section also revealed one of Mackenzie's tunnels by which he traced the fortifications of Beth-Shemesh. Probes conducted under the fortifications down to the bedrock and within the revetment tower showed that they were constructed in the second half of the tenth centLiry B.C.E. To the west o{ the fortifications in Area B, we unearthed a spacious public building spanning
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
127
more than 250 square meters. The building comprises two broad main halls, one plastered and one stone-paved, each divided into two elongated spaces by a row of reused broken monoliths from Level 4. The building was destroyed in an intense fire, and the lack of finds on its floors implies that it was probably evacuated or completely looted before burning down.
The violent nature ofthe destruction of Level 3 (Iron Age IIA) leaves no doubt concerning Its human agency. The finds, including the pottery assemblage seen in this photo seem to correspond with the idea that ca. 790 B.C.E. Beth-Shemesh suffered massive destruction at the hands of Jeohash, king of Israel, during his clash with Amaziah, king of Judah. Photo by P. Shrago.
128
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
Excavations under the building revealed that it was established directly over the remains of Level 4, the last Iron Age I level. Area E, in the southern part of the site, turned out to be another center of public activity. Here, massive foundations of a large structure and a wide chalk-paved open area were found under a mass of fallen bricks, hard-fired by heavy conflagration. The function of this area could be inferred from the large quantity of pottery vessels found smashed and scattered throughout. Typological and quantitative analyses showed that the pottery assemblage is non-domestic in character, containing mainly small holemouth jars and a striking number of scoops. Presumably, the scoops were used to fill the holemouth jars, as well as other containers, with agricultural produce (Gitin 1993: 102, 109 suggests that scoops were used for food distribution). A clay scale-pan bints at currency weighing, likely to have been related to economic transactions. These finds led us to conclude that this sector ofthe city served as a "commercial area." A tripartite storehouse and a large silo exposed by the Haverford expedition near Area E support the idea by providing storing and redistributive functions to this quarter during Iron Age IIA. Adjacent to this "commercial area," a building of multiple rooms may have also had a public function. Destroyed in the same violent destruction of Level 3, it contained rich pottery assemblages found sealed in situ. Of special interest are two sets of pottery vessels: eleven "/mlic-like" storage jars and a large pithos found embedded in the earthen floor, and a "wine set" comprising a jug, a strainer, and two deep bowls. Could wine drinking have served as a lubricant in the economic transactions conducted at the "commercial area"? Going under the solid plaster floor of the "commercial area" into an earlier phase of Level 3, we uncovered another public enterprise but of a very different nature. Quite unexpectedly, we ran into the remains of an iron workshop containing a variety of finds related to iron manufacture (see sidebar). Dated by '''C to the ninth century B.C.E.', this is' the earliest blacksmith workshop excavated thus far in thé eastern Mediterranean. It seems to have been erected during the critical years after the technological and cultural transition from bronze to iron was completed and the latter became commonly urilized. Tlie location of this workshop amidst some public buildings and the arrow heads manufactured within it suggest that social and political centralization in Judah during che tenth and ninth centuries B.C.E. was accompanied hy appropriation and control of the iron technology due to its growing economic and military importance. The apex of public works in Level 3 is, undoubtedly, the underground rock-cut water reservoir in Area C. The cruciform reservoir comprises four lateral halls branching out of a large central chamber. At full capacity it could have contained some 800 cubic meters of rainwater collected by a network of plastered channels that spread over the adjacent sectors ofthe settlement. We were able to locate and excavate a couple of these channels. The reservoir's hewn halls and floor were coated with a thick layer of plaster that was twice renewed. Water was drawn mainly
through a narrow round shaft (named by us "the cistern shaft") descending vertically from the surface to the center ofthe reservoir (see sidebar). Leading into the reservoir is a complex entrance, built within a square rock-cut shaft and fortified by supporting walls, some of which are imposingly built of large, dressed stones laid in the header-and-stretcher technique. Stairs, some constructed and others rock-cut, lead down into the underground halls to allow for periodic maintenance. A gallery constructed over the lower flight of stairs was roofed with three huge cigar-shaped stones weighing at least a 0.5 ton each. Presumably, these were reused roof supports robbed from Level 4, as the entrance to the reservoir was set directly over the buildings of Level 4 and its supporting walls actually cut into this level. This restored "banqueting set" from Level 3 (Iron Age IIA) includes a "wine set" comprising a jug, strainer, and two deep small drinking bowls as well as a small cooking pot, two flat bowls, and two oil lamps, Photo by P. Shrago.
A group ot Iron Age IIA Imlk-Wke jars and a large pithos found standing in a Level 3 storeroom adjacent to the large open space of the "commercial area" of Area E. Photo by P Shrago.
The spacious underground halls ofthe Level 3 water reservoir in Area C were quarried into the soft rock and plastered several times. Photo by I. Sztulman and E. Kessel.
132
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
Shiomo Bunimovitz stands under the roofed passage above the lower flight of the hewn stairs leading into the lower entrance to the water reservoir. Some of the supporting walls are built of imposingly large, dressed stones laid in the header-and-stretcher technique. Photo by I. Sztulman and E. Kessel.
The importance of Tel Beth-Shemesh to the understanding of the transition from a rural to a monarchial society in Judah lies not only in its continuous settlement sequence but also in the extent of archaeological exposure of the site. In three excavation cycles large tracts of the tell were exposed, affording an almost complete view of an Iron Age town with its residential quarters and all of its functional details. To achieve this goal we collated our results with the partial maps published by our predecessors at Tel Beth-Shemesh into one coherent map. The new integrated map brings into relief the governmental presence, which suddenly appeared at Beth-Shemesh in the beginning of Iron Age II.The public buildings shown on the plan were established in the course of the life span of Level 3, mainly during its earlier phase, when Beth-Shemesh was reorganized by the emerging monarchy. The distribution of public buildings with diverse functions throughout the site leaves no doubt as to the involvement ofa central government in the town's daily life.
Some 150 tons of debris were removed from the entrance to the underground water reservoir, most of which was deliberately placed there to block the reservoir and prevent the people of Beth-Shemesh from using it. Photo by /. Sztu/man and E, Kessel.
WATER DRAWING AT TEL BETH-SHEMESH AND EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY it is a u'cll-knou-n truism that a gulf exists between the represent the reservoir's final phase of use since vessels and silt mute and static data exposed by archaeologists in tht present deposited eariier must have been cleared away when the resen'oir and th.e dynamic cultural system that produced them in the was plastered for the last time in the mid-seventh century B.C.E. past. This raises a probiem long recognized both h}' processual The pottery assemblage consi.'îts maín¡> of pinched-mouth and post-processual archaeology, namely, how do we transíatejugs and a much lesser amount 0/ holemouth jars and globular con temporär 51 archacoiogical observations into meaningful cooking pots. 0/special importance is the large number 0/ ioit'er parts of jugs found within the silt deposit and the statements about past behavior? The solution suggesteti iong ago b^i Leu'is Binford is unique breakage pattern they exhibit: the handle with the iííustratii't;: if you suspect thar a footprint in the forest is upper part of the jug, including its mouth, broken off as if that of a bear, go watch a bear impre.ssmg his footprint and forcefully torn away. This obserx'ation proi'ides a major clue compare the two. This notion of employing present observations as to the way in which water was drawn from the reservoir to explain past occurrences underlies a host o/interpretife and the fate of some vessels employed in the process. During méthodologies that aim to link statics to d;iíníimícs, including, its last phase of use, pinched-mouth jugs seem to have been the micííííe-range theory, behavioral archaeology, ethnoarchaeoigji, most popular t'esseis u'tth u'hich u'ater u'as drawn from the and expérimentai archaeology (Binford 1983: 19-26). underground reseri'oir. Presumabl)!, such jugs were tied to a Indeed, quantitative analysis of finds from tvithin the rope and dropped down into the reservoir through the so^íiííed underground water resert^oir of Beth-Shemesh coupled with "cistern shaft." When lifted up water-filled, some of the vessels an experiment of making and breaking potter^i allou' for a must have hit the u-alís 0/ the narrow shaft, hence expíaíníng reliable reconstruction of the way water was tírau'n from the the oi-'errepresentation of bottom jug parts in u-'hat would have reseriioir. While underground Iron Age water s^^stems are been soft silt at the bottom of the reservoir. Icnou'n from a number 0/sites in Israel, this has been the first time that the mode of operation for such a s^istem was closely investigated bji applying the theor;y and method of experimental archaeology.
Among the many pieces of broken potter)" retrieved from the northeast hail of the reservoir, an intact pinched-mouth jug was a welcome find. In order to ini'estigate the practicality of reservoir u^ater-drawing by use of this particular t^pe of Excavation in the northeast hall of the reservoir unearthed vessel, we first asked Shiomit Fiexer, a potter from Kibbutz twelî^e whole or broken vessels and 1,495 indicative sherds Revadtm, to produce a few replicas of the jug. FoiiouJing a embedded in the nineteen tons of silt cleared. These finds preliminary study of the original vessel by Yuval Goren at the
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 Í2009) 133
Beth-Shemesh was turned into a significant border town in the Sorek Valley, complete with all symbols oí centralized political power. The foundation of monumental buildings served as propaganda as well as practical functions. The image of the site was completely transformed and the political loyalty of its inhabitants was assured. The End of Level 3 : A Geological or Historical Event? The floutishing administrative city of Level 3 came to an end by a violent destruction that left the public buildings burned to the ground. Grant and Wright already observed this destruction as terminating their Stratum lib sometime in the late-ninth or early-eighth centuries B.C.E. Yet, they were hesitant about its agent. Their list of candidates includes the campaigns ofthe Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser IV, Sargon II, and even Sennacherib, the clash between Jeohash and Amaziah (2 Kgs 14), and the Philistine attack in the Shephelah in the days of Ahaz (2 Chr 28:18).
This map integrates the public buildings of Iron Age IIA revealed by all three expeditions, including the "residency" and attached silo (1928-1930); the storehouse (1930); the public building (Area B); the underground water reservoir and fortifications (Area C); and a "commercial area" and earlier ¡ron-smithing workshop (Area E).
From Village to Administrative Center Reviewing the evidence for early statehimd presence at Beth'Shemesh, one should wonder what the circumstances were that allowed for the profound organizational change which transformed Beth-Shemesh from an unfenced village into a fortified urban center on Judah's border with Philistia. The seemingly obvious answer to this question would he that the events at Beth-Shemesh reflect the supposed Israelite expansion into the Shephelah at the time of David and Solomon. This explanation, if at all plausible in the face ofthe complex historiography ofthe United Monarchy, is too simplistic. Moreover, it hegs the question, why did puhlic projects appear at Beth-Shemesh earlier than at other sites in the Shephelah of Judah (e.g., Lachish)? We have argued earlier that growing Philistine pressure and competition over resources in the Sorek Valley during Iron Age I forced Canaanite Beth-Shemesh to redefine its identity, raising a cultural boundary within the valley. The decline of Philistine Ekron-Tel Miqne and Timnah-Tel Batash in the beginning of Iron Age II must have diminished the tension between the different groups living along the valley. New opportunities had opened for intercultural contact as well as for renewed crosshorder ethnic ambiguity. Paradoxically, it was at this very hour when a direct Philistine threat in the valley nearly disappeared, that the young monarchy emerging in the mountain region had to keep a close eye on its western periphery. Now was the time to delineate its territory, to consolidate its hold on border communities that might slip away, and to politicize the ethnic entity that would become a nation. Thus, the village of
136
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
Our meticulous analysis of pottery found in the destruction layer of Level 3 shows that these finds are transitional, their character laying between the Judean pottery horizons of Iron Age IIA and that of Iron Age IIB. Much ink has been recently spilled on the issue of this transition. Of special interest is the idea that its date can be ascribed to ca. 760 B.C.E. with the "help" ofthe earthquake that occurred during the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah {Amos 1:1). However, this factoid seems to have been constructed by current archaeological research rather than past reality. Criteria conceived by geophysicists make it clear that neither at Beth-Shemesh nor at other sites in Judah are there any unequivocal traces of seismic damage. Rather, our Level 3 shows obvious signs of human-instigated destruction (evacuation or looting ofthe public building in Area B; smashed and scattered vessels all over the burned "commercial area," and so on). Other scholars have suggested that Uzziah's earthquake affected mainly the kingdom of Israel and in any event has no relevance to material-culture changes in Judah that took place between the Iron Age IIA and IIB. Freed from Uzziah's alleged earthquake as marking the transition from Iron Age IIA to IIB In Judah we would date the destruction of Level 3 on archaeological grounds to the early-eighth century B.C.E. At this time, Beth-Shemesh is also reported to have been the scene of a fierce hattle where Jehoash, king of Israel, defeated and captured Amaziah, king of Judah (2 Kgs 14). We believe that this battle, traditionally dated ca. 790 B.C.E., ended with the destruction of Level 3 at Beth-Shemesh.
Olive Oil Producers (Iron Age IIB) Following the massive destruction of Level 3, Beth-Shemesh changed its face yet again, this time from an administrative center on the Judean border with Philistia to an oil-producing town removed from the kingdom's border. Our main finds in Level 2 comprise domestic dwellings and olive oil production installations, uncovered in all excavated areas. No city wall could be ascribed to this level—the uppermost Iron Age II level at the site—and the main public structures of
Level 3 were found to be lying in ruins. In addition to the five lever and weight oil installations we exposed, at least one other installation of this type was found by Mackenzie. The subsequent Haverford expedition uncovered about twelve similar installations and numerous simple installations comprising a stone slab {for crushing) and a small collecting vat or stone basin {mistakenly identified as wineries). As evident from other sites in the Shephelah, such as Tell Beit-Mirsim, oil production in the eighth century B.C.E. was economically important to the kingdom of judah. Notably, however, the oil installations at these sites were not located in a separate industrial zone, but rather erected within residential quarters. It seems, then, that the Iron Age IIB Judean oil industry was incorporated within the social framework of the peasant communities in the Shephelah rather than being a large-scale industry. Judging from the finds, the scope of Judean olive oil production was nowhere near that of the highly specialized, tremendous Philistine oil industry that flourished during the seventh century B.C.E. For example, excavation of only 3.5 percent of Philistine Ekron-Tel Miqne uncovered 115 olive oil installations concentrated in an industrial zone along the city wall. It is estimated that these installations alone could have produced 1,000 tons of oil annually that would have been packed in 48,000 storage jars {Gitin 1997). This conspicuous difference in organization and scale between the two industries lends support to the idea that Philistine oil production was motivated by Assyrian imperial initiative and support.
The absence of a city wall at Level 2 at Beth-Shemesh, if not the result of post-depositional processes, may reflect expansionist trends of the kings of Judah in the eighth century B.C.E. Reconstitution of a fortified Judean-oriented town at the longabandoned neighboring site of Timnah-Tel Batash {Stratum III) renders it conceivable that Judah's border with Philistia shifted
Loom weights were found in almost all dwellings of Level 2. The introduction of beam-operated olive presses and perforated loom weights marks meaningful agro-technica! advancements in the extraction of olive oil and the intensification of the textile industry in the latter part of the eighth century B.C.E. Photo by P. Shrago.
Post-depositional processes heavily disturbed the ofive oil press installation from Level 2 yet left a large stone-crushing basin and a couple of holemouth jars. The latter were originally embedded in the paved floor in order to collect every drop of oil that spilled on it. A large perforated stone weight, probably part of the lever and weight press, was found near the building. Seventeen additional installations like this one were discovered at Beth-Shemesh, all dated to the latter part of the eighth century B.C.E. Photo by M. Weinberg.
This head of a pillar-figurine from Iron Age IIB Level 2 is one of many such typical Judean figurines found at Tel Beth-Shemesh by the three expeditions investigating the site. Photo by P Shrago.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
137
west, leaving Beth-Shemesh well within Judean territory. Notwithstanding, the ongoing importance of Beth-Sbemesh in its new guise as olive oil producer can be gauged from the relatively high number of/ml/c (= Ibelongingl to the king^) and "private" seal impressions of royal officials found on site—more than sixty and fifteen, respectively (twenty-two of them found in our excavations). This ranks Beth-Shemesh sixth among Judean sites with Imlk impressions and fourth among those with official impressions.
following Sennacherib's campaign in 701 B.C.E. Reflecting Assyrian political economy west of the border and the withdrawal of the state of Judah from its borderland in the Shephelah, these changes had far-reaching implications beyond that region (Bunimovitz and Lederman 2003).
Enigma within the Water Reservoir Excavation of the silt layer covering the floor of the northeastern hall of the underground water reservoir revealed a few intact jugs and holemouth jars Previous excavations at Beth-Shemesh in addition to many broken jugs that left open the date of its final destruction had been used to draw water. These and abandonment. Wbile Mackenzie containers, representing the reservoir's maintained that the Israelite city was last phase of use, are characteristic of destroyed during Sennacherib's campaign the seventh century B.C.E.—the latest in Judah in 701 B.C.E., Grant and Wright Iron Age assemblage found so far on the argued—in line with W. F. Albright's tell. Since the mound's surface bore no chronology of the destruction of Tell clues of residence after Sennacherib's Beit-Mirsim—that the city was destroyed destruction of the site in 701 B.C.E., hy the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. The the presence of late Iron Age pottery latter argument rests on the erroneous This jar handle from the destroyed Iron Age within the reservoir seemed enigmatic. identification of the name Yokan, IIB Level 2, bears a royal seal impression Adding to our puzzlement was the fact ¡mik/hbrn, one of over sixty Imlk and fifteen appearing on identical seal impressions that the entrance complex into the "private" seal impressions that have been found at Tell Beit-Mirsim and Tel Bethfound by the current and past excavations reservoir was found completely blocked Shemesh {Vlyqm n'rywkn "belonging at Beth-Shemesh and that attest to the by earthen fill, requiring us to clear out to Eliakim steward of Yokan"), with importance of the city in the days of King over 10,000 buckets of debris weighing Jehoiachin, king of Judah. Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century about 150 tons! The fill was comprised In our excavations, the uppermost B.C.E. Photo by P. Shrago. entirely of building remains (stones, layer in all areas exposed. Level 2, earth, and disintegrated bricks) mixed contained portery assemblages from with domestic remains (broken pottery, bones, loom weights, the typological-chronological horizon of Level III at Lachish, figurines, and so on). Its character clearly indicated that it which was annihilated by Sennacherib. Some jar handles in was not some natural accumulation but rather a deliberate the assemblage hear Imlk and official impressions. No evidence blockage of the entrance to the main water supply and source of an Iron Age settlement later than the eighth century B.C.E. of life for Beth-Shemesh. Quantitative analysis of the typology was uncovered above this stratum (with the exception of some and density (amount of sherds per debris bucket) of pottery surprising finds from the underground water reservoir, discussed finds originating in the fill allowed for the reconstruction of below). It thus appears that Beth-Shemesh was indeed descroyed the process by which this passage was blocked. Vessels directly during Sennacherib's campaign to Judah in 701 B.C.E., never to associated with the reactivation ofthe reservoir were the first to be recovered. be swept into the mouth of the reservoir when it was blocked. The rest of the blockage comprised mainly debris originating The Last Days of Beth-Shemesh (Iron Age IIC) from the abandoned Level 2 settlement that was destroyed in Border landscapes, those areas contiguous to the state Sennacherib's campaign. boundary, pose special interest to political geographers. One main research theme concerns the extent to which variations What were the circumstances of this previously unknown in landscape and land use on either side of the border can be dramatic chapter in the history of Beth-Shemesh? explained by the proximity to two different political systems and the regulations which they have developed. In this respect, Changes in the Judean-Philistine Borderland variations in the population and economic structures ofthe According to biblical narratives, Assyrian documents, and borderland are revealing (Donnan and Wilson 1999: 49—53). the archaeological data, Sennacherib's campaign in 701 B.C.E. We suggest that the archaeological finds related to the very wrought a heavy destruction upon the Shepbelah of Judah. The last days of Beth-Shemesh epitomize the dramatic changes that archaeological survey of this region shows that the number of occurred in the border landscape between Judah and Philistia settlements dramatically dropped in the seventh centur>^ B.C.E.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
139
Jerusalem. The Assyrian king also claims to have taken a great number of farm animals as booty. Moreover, he reduced Hezekiah's kingdom by delivering its conquered territories in the Shephelah to the Philistine city-states of Ekron, Ashdod, and Gaza. Thus, the border zone between Judah and Philistia radically changed in the early-seventh century B.C.E. as it was devastated and emptied of its population and their means of production. Across the border, in Philistia, the circumstances in the wake of Sennacherib's campaign were clearly very different. As archaeological research shows, the renewed Assyrian domination and rule generated a burst of immense economic growth following a lengthy period of stagnation and deterioration. Throughout most ofthe seventh century B.C.E., the Neo-Assyrian Empire maintained a policy of pax Assyriaca throughout the Fertile Crescent. Assyria ruled the periphery under its control with the aim of promoting economic interests ofthe empire that transcended the eastern Mediterranean basin. Assyria's aggressive economic policy affected different areas ofthe Levant in diverse ways, contributing to their growth or exacerbating deterioration. The economy of Pbilistia and its city-states flourished, partly at the expense These pottery vessels were retrieved from the silt layer at the bottom of the water of tbe Judean kingdom. Ekron-Tel Miqne, the reservoir. The great majority of the pottery finds are (un-restorable) lower parts Philistine city-state at the western outskirts n{ of jugs, broken while used to draw water in the last phase of use of the reservoir during the second half of the seventh century B.C.E. Photo by P. Shrago. the Sorek Valley, was targeted by the Assyrians to become a huge olive oil industrial center. In order to produce hundreds of tons of olive oil and to feed the army oí workers, the Assyrians and their Philistine vassals needed the nearby olive trees and the fertile fields of the Shephelah in Judah. Apparently, during most of the seventh century B.C.E., until the withdrawal of the Assyrians from the region, the people of Judah were not allowed to return to their fields and groves. As the prophet Isaiah (1:7) so vividly described the bitter reality of the day, "Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens are eating your land." Interestingly, Philistines did not settle the deserted region, and it is apparent that the Assyrians considered the former Judean borderland as a buffer zone, opting to keep it empty of inhabitants.
in comparison with their proliferation prior to Sennacherib's campaign. Sennacherib himself boasts in his annals that he conquered many fortified cities in Judah and countless rural villages, deporting over 200,000 people. Many other inhabitants must have fled into the inner parts of the country, mainly to
Two jars and a cooking pot were found on a hewn plastered bench at the lower entrance to the water reservoir, serving, probably, as water containers. The vessels represent the very last use of the reservoir (ca. 635 B.C.E.) and were left there by their owner prior to its brutal blockage. Photo by P. Shrago.
140
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
Water Drawers and Vicious Neighbors The pathetic attempt to revive the settlement at Beth-Shemesh underlines the determination of both the Assyrians and their Philistine vassals to prevent any Judean endeavor to reoccupy the Shephelah. In the third quarter of the
seventh century B.C.E., a small group of people, possibly former residents of Beth-Shemesh, tried to return to the city. As our investigations revealed, they cleaned and partially plastered the water reservoir and might have even built a few huts near the source of water. Ht>wever, they had certainly underestimated the opposition o{ Philistine neighbors and their Assyrian masters to any Judahite attempt to resettle the Shephelah. The poor huts were destroyed and shoved into the entrance of the water reservoir together with older debris from Sennacherib's ruinous actions. The life source of the site was blocked by tons of debris and the people of Judah never returned to Beth-Shemesh. The events at Judah's western borderland, so vividly expressed by the material remains from Beth-Shemesh, had important repercussions in all fields of life in the kingdom. In light of our finds, we can now endorse the idea that the loss of Judah's livelihood in the Shephelah and the inability' to resettle there is what forced King Manasseh to develop a new agricultural hinterland in the arid zones of the Judean desert (the Buqeah) and the Negeb (the Beer-sheba Valley). The accelerated demographic growth of Jerusalem and its transformation into a prime city can also be related to the fact that the Shephelah refugees were unable to return to their towns and villages for at least three generations. Finally, the trauma at the western borderland of the kingdom may have carried with it the seeds of far-reaching transmutations in the social structure and ideology of Judah (e.g., the emergence ofa landless class of sojourners and Lévites, moral and legal individuation, and so on; see Halpern 1991; Na'aman 2008).
Notes 1. We are indebted to R. Chapman, J. Tubb, S. Gibson, N. Momigliano, and E Cobbing for allowing us to examine Mackenzie's day-books and original reports, which are kept at the PEF archive in London, and for their generous help at the PEF office. 2. The I990-1996excavations were condticted on behalf of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies at Bar-IIan University and the Department of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (1994-1996). Since 1996, tbe expedition has collaborated with Steven E Weitzman (then at Indiana University, Bloomington). Participating consortium institutional members include E Downing, (Louisiana College), Dale Manor (Harding University), Shawn Bubel (Lethbridge University), and H. Arthur Bankoff (Brooklyn College). The authors are indebted to Marilyn and Norman Tayler from Bethesda, MD, for their continuous support. We would also like to extend our thanks to the Goidhirsh Foundation for their important support in recent years. The research was also supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 898/99 and 980/03). 3. The Imlk impressions, which typically include the royal designation Imlk and one of four geographic names (Hebron, Ziph, Sokoh, and nimit, which is as yet unidentified) as weil as an emblem ofa four-winged beetle or a twowinged solar disc, are traditionally related to King Hesekiah's economic or military exploits at the end of the eighth century B.C.E.
Barth, E 1969
Introduction. Pp. 9-38 in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Süciai Organizäiion »/Culture Difference, ed. E Barth. Boston; Little, Brown. Binford, L R. 1983
Blakelock, E.; Martinen-Torres, M,; Veldhuijzen, H. A.; and Young. T 2009 Slag Inclusions in Iron Objects and the Quest for Provenance: An Experiment and a Case Study. Jowrnai of Archaeoiogical Science 16: 1745-57. Bunimovitz, S., atid Lederman, Z. 2000
The Archaeology of a Border Community in Judah; Tel BethShemesh Renewed Excavations (1990-2000). Paper presented at the American School ot Oriental Research Annual Meeting, Nashville, TN.
2001
The Iron Age Fortifications of Tel Beth-ShemesK: A 19902000 Perspective. Israel Exploration journal 51: 121-47.
2003
The Final Destruction of Beth-Shemesh and the Pax Assyriaca in the Judean Shephelah. Tel Avw 30: 3-26.
2008
A Border Case; Beth-Shemesh and the Rise of Israel. Pp. 21-31 in Tile Archaeology. Vol. 1 of Israe! ¡n Transition: Prom Late Bronze 11 to Iron Ua (c. 1250-850 B.C.E.). ed. L. L. Grabe. Library of Hebrew Bible, Old Testament Studies 491 ; European Seminar In Historical Methodology 7; T & T Clark Library of Biblical Studies. New York: T&.T Clark.
in press Tei Beth-Shemesh: A Border Community in Judah. Renemed Excavations 1990-2000: The Iron Age. Institute of Archaeology, Monograph Series. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Chapman, R. L. 1989
The Three Ages Revisited: A Critical Study of Levantine Usage. Part 1; The Critique. Palesiine Exploration Quarterly 121; 89-111. Donnan, H., and Wilson. T M. 1999
1990
A Bow! with the Hebrew Inscription IZJlp. Israël Exploration Journal 40; 124-29.
Borders: Frontiers of Identivy, Nation and State. Oxford: Berg,
Donnan, H., and Wilson, T M., eds. 1994
BoTiJeT Approaches: Anthropological Perspectives on Frontiers. Ireland; Anthropological Association of Ireland; Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Emberiing, G. 1997
Ethnicity in Complex Societies: Archaeological Perspectives. Joumal of Archaeological Research 5: 295-344.
Finkelstein, 1. 2003 The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah; The Missing Link. Pp. 81-101 in Jerusaiem ¿n the Bible and Archaeology, The First Temple Period, eds. A. G. Vaughn and A. E, Killebrew. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 18. Atlanta; Society of Biblical Literature. Gitin, S, 1993
Scoops; Corpus, Function, and Typology. Pp. 99-126 in StiiJits in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel: In Honour of Moshe Dolhan, eds, M. Heltzer, A. Segal and D. Kaufman. Haifa; Haifa University Press.
1997
The Neo-Assyrian Empire and its Western Periphery: The Levant, with Focus on Philistine Ekron. Pp. 77-103 in Assyria 1995; ProceediTigs of the lOih Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-
References Barkay, G.
in PursMit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. New York: Thames &. Hudson.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
141
A.is>ritín Text Corpus Projecl. Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995, eds, S, Parpóla and R. M. Whiting. Helsinki; Department of Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki. Grant, E,, and G. E. Wright. 1938 19.39
Pottery. Part 4 of Aiii Siiems Excuvatiojis fPaJestiiie). Biblical and Kindred Studies 7- Haverford. Penn.: Haverford College, Text. Part 5 of Ain Sfiems Excavations (Palestine). Biblical and Kindred Studies 8. Haverfnrd, Penn.: Haverford College.
Mackenzie, D. 1912-
Excavations at Ain Shems (Beth-Shemesh). Palestine Exploration
1913
Fund Annual 2. London: Palestine Exploration Fund
Momigliano, N. 1996 1999
Halpern, B. 1991
Jerusalem and the Lineages in tbe Seventb Century B.C.E.: Kinsbip and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability. Pp. 11-107 in Luu' and ideólo^ in Monarchic Israel, eds. B. Halpern and D. W. Hobson. Journal for tbe Study of tbe Old Testament Supplement Series 124. Sheffield: Sbeffield University Press.
Herzog, 2., and Sínger-Aviti, L.
Duncan Mackenzie and tbe Palestine Exploration FundPüJestine Expkyration Quarterly 128: 139-70. DuTician Mackenzie: A Cautious Canny Highkinder & The Palace of Minos at Knossos. Bulletin of tbe Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 72. London: Institute ot Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Na'aman, N, 2008
Sojoumets and Lévites in the Kingdom of Judab in the Seventb Century B.C.E. Zeilschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 14: 237-79.
Rappaport, R, A.
2004
Redefining the Centre: The Emergence of State in Judah, Tel Aiw 31:209-44Hesse, B., anij Wapnisb, P
1979
Ecology, Meaning, and Religan. Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Semeeis, V, and Perret, S.
Can Pig Remains Be Used for Ethnic Diagnosis in tbe Ancient 2003 Quantification of Smithing Activities Based on the Investigation Near East? Pp. 238-70 in The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing of Slag and Otber Material Remains. Pp, 469-79 in Proceedings the Pusl, Interpreting the Present, eds. N. A. Silberman and D, B. of the international Conference Archaeometailurgy in Europe, Small. Journal for the Study ofthe Old Testament Supplement 24-25-26 September 2003, Milan, Italy. Milan: Associazione Series 237, Sheffield: Sbeffield Academic Press. italiana di metallurgia. Pig Use and Abuse in tbe Ancient Levant: Etbnoreligious 1998 Tappy, R, E. Boundary-Building with Swine. Pp, 123-35 in Ancestor-s/or the Pigs: Pigi in Prehistory, ed. S. M. Nelson. MASCA Research 2008 Tel Zayit and tbe Tel Zayit Abecedary in Tbeir Regional Context. Pp. 1-44 in Literate Culture and Teniíi-Ceníurj lepers in Science and Archaeology 15. Philadelphia: University Canaan; The Tel Zayit Abecedary in Context, eds. R. E. Tappy of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. and P K. McCarter, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Hndder, 1. Tomiinson, R. 1979 Economic and Social Stress and Material Culture Patterning. 1998 The Canadian Geographic Information System. Pp. 21-32 American Antiquity 44: 446-54. in The History of Ceographic Information Systems: Perspectives 1982 ^ymboh in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material from the Pioneers, ed. T. W. Foresman. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Culture. New Studies in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge 1997
Prentice Hall.
University Press. Lev7, T E., and Smitb, N. G.
Wilson, T M., and Donnan, H, eds.
2007
On-Site Digital Arcbaeology: GIS-Based Excavation Recording in Soutbern Jordan. Pp. 4 7 - 5 8 in Crossing Jordan—North American Contrihuiions to the Archaeology of Jordan, eds. T. E. Levy, M. Daviau, R, Younker, and M. M. Sbaer. London: Equinox. Ligbtfixit, K. G., and Martinez, A. 1995 Frontiers and Boundaries in Arcbaeologicai Perspective. Annwa! Review nf Amhrtipalogy 24: 471-92.
1998
Border identities; Nation and State at Incemarionai Frontiers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Veldbuijzen, H. A., and Rebren, T. 2007
Slags and the City: Early Iron Production at Tell Hammeb, Jordan, and Tel Betb-Sbemesh, Israel. Pp. 189-201 in Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeametallurgy, eds. S. La Niece, D. R. Hook, and P T. Craddock, London: Arcbetype in association with The British Museum.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Zi'i Lederman (right) and Shlomo Bunimwit? (left) graduated from Tel Aviv University and participated in the excavations at Aphek, Sinai, and a variety of Early Bronze Age sites. They were senior staff members at the excavations of Shiioh and the Southern Samaria Survey. As a Ph.D. candidate at Han>ard, Lederman also excavated at Ashkelon. Currently, he commits his time to research, publication, and devclopmenl of field techniclues and methods. Bunimovitz is currently the chair of the Department of Archaeolü^ and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. Since 1990 Bunimot'it? and Ledt'Tman Have been directing the project of renewed excavations at Tel ßeth-Sfiemesh. A field report summarising the first ten seasons of excavations at Beth-Shemesh is now in press.
142 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 Í2009)
TOWARD AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF BORDERS Anthropologists have recently become aware of a serious inquiry. Similarly, archaeologists anxious to break away from lacuna in the study of political borders: with few exceptions, restrictive models of human behavior suggested a "frontier and the lives of the people who live and work at borders have boundary" approach aimed at the study of cultural interaction not, in themselves, been the focus of research. Yet, processes at the periphery of societies and the social, political, and taking place at horders involve people and institutions who economic factors guiding such interactions. Important work are in dialectical relationship with peoples and institutions concerning interaction, acculturation, and assimilation at of other groups and polities, both within and outside of their frontiers has also been conducted in relation to the Greek and own polities. Local border communities should, therefore, Roman civilizations. be viewed as major agents of change in socio-political Aware of the innovative approach to borders in anthropology, processes, affecting people beyond their own locality. Some recent archaeological research began to reformulate an anthropologists expressed the idea that bji the virtues of their archaeological attitude to frontiers. Criticizing the notion craft only ethnographers can provide concrete views of social,of borders and frontiers as inhibiting and constraining cultural, and political identities at borderlands, which are intercuiturai relationships, boundaries are now delineated as the most tangible interface of polities. Participating in daily active cultural ^ones, where encounters take place between life of local-level border communities, ethnographers may people from diverse homelands (Lightfoot and Martine? make a most valuable contribution in understanding the 1995). They seem, therefore to represent ideal places for the ways that border people adapt to the necessities (e.g., social study of inter-ethnic relations and the development of new and political) of living with, or in spite of, their cross-border cultural innovations. At the same time, the iiminai and neighbors, who may be friends, enemies, or neutral. Moreover,frequently contested nature of borderlands makes them an ethnographers can report the ways that nations, states, and exemplary arena for analyzing the construction, negotiation, national sovereignty are experienced in the lives of border and manipulation of group identities, or ethnogenesis. people (Donnan and Wilson 1994, 1999; Wilson and Viewing archaeology, among other things, as the Donnan 1998). anthropology of past societies, we envisage ourselves as While borders have long been of interest to archaeology, ethnographers of the ancient, "mute" communities of Tel they have commonly been examined from "within" and Beth-Shemesh. After aii, what is the goal of our elaborate not from "without. " Since the days of Gustav Kossina and analyses (e.g., typological and functional) if not revealing Gordon Chiide, the culture-history paradigm has been based ancient people's daily life through the archaeological record? on the delineation of spatially discrete clusters of materiai Since historical sources make it clear that the people of culture assemblages, often interpreted as representing peoples.Beth-Shemesh were situated within a borderland, we deem Gritical of this intuitive concept of archaeological culture anthropology of borders as a highly relevant and stimulating and its social correlates of "people" and "ethnos," British theoretical framework for our work at the site (Bunimovitz New Archaeoiog^i, heavily influenced bji geography, put much and Lederman 2000). At the same time, however, much effort in the quantification of spatial data. However, it of our intellectual efforts are invested in developing an was more interested in techniques of boundary delineation archaeology of borders—a body of theory and practice that than in the human sense of the borders themselves, it is only will facilitate the interpretation of material culture remains with post-processual archaeology that borders began to be at ancient border zones. Paraphrasing Anthony Giddens, considered not as mere lines dividing archaeological entities, the theme of our research and of the present article is border but as places pregnant with cultural meaning. Ian Hodder's structuration, that is, the processes by which the border near ethnoarchaeological work in Africa marked an important Beth-Shemesh was structured and in turn structured the fate step in introducing the material culture of borders as a and life of the communities living around it as well as the legitimate and highly intriguing subject of archaeological larger polities beyond them.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
119
GIS ANALYSIS AT TEL BETH-SHEMESH Geographic Information S^istem ÍGíS) software was then linked with attribute in/ormation, such as typological first developed hy the Canadian government in the 1960s features, raw material, and chronological period and compiled (Tomlinson Ï998) as a means to store, retrieve, and display into a database. To record features, overview photographs were geographically linked data. In recent years, archaeologists taken with at least three measured reference points visibie have used the expediency of GIS to create topographic maps in each photograph. The photographs were geo-re/erenced Í of sites and regions, plot artifacts and structuTes, and generate ArcGlS using these reference points, and the rocks or bricks predictive site-location modeis. Few, however, have taken that made up the feature, or boundary lines in the case of pits, advantage of the three-dimensional mapping capab¡!ities of were digitized as polygons. Each feature was stored as a shape the software. Two-dimensional GIS applications focus on file that can he added as a layer within ArcGlS. The artifacts the horizontal location of archaeological remains, ivhile vjere recorded as point data, able to be represented as such. The three-dimensionai anai^ises incorporate height variables and spatial locations 0/ the excavated stratigraphie layers were also stratigraphie data. Since archaeological interpretation im'oives recorded (i.e., their horizontal locations and thicknesses), along both contextual and temporal analyses, the ability to i;isuaiiî:e with in/ormation relating to the sediment, the numbers and and interpret the archaeological remains in a three-dimensionai t^pes 0/remains recoi'ered u'ithin, and the temporal context. environment is clearly advantageous. The meticulous field excavation and recording efforts employed GIS was used to reconstruct and analyze the site of Tel al Tel Beth-SKemesh provided the rich dataset used for spatial ßeth-Shemesh. Provenience data u'ere collected in the field anal;ysis of the site, in Area F, for example, several occupation using Sokkia Total Station and a datalogger. As artifacts were layers dating to the Iron Age I period, which ivere capped by unearthed, their three-dimensional coordinates were measured, recorded, and imported into ArcGlS. These spatial data was The introduction of a laser-based optical surveying instrument (Total Station [TS]) attached to a powerful field-computer marks a new and revolutionary phase of accurate 3-D on-site digital data recording at Tel Beth-Shemesh in 2001. Digitally recorded data serve as an accessible on-site platform for all members of the team for primary data analyses and manipulation. Reading the TS is Prof. Shawn Bubel, University of Lethbridge. Photo byZ. Lederman.
Every millimeter counts: taking an early morning reading with a Total Station, using a prism. Photo by E. Atias.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
125
hon Age U levels, «Jere difficult to make out while excavating, ln the GIS environnient, six successive Iron Age suhphases could be íiistingiíished and better understood. The detection of subtle changes in the functional use of this part of the site over a relatively short time period was especially interesting. While the Iron Age I inhabitants continued to use some of tlie earlier walls, they added new structures and raised the floor levels to overcome cultural sedimentation. TTiis sequence would be very difficult to depict using traditional plan views of the site. These hon Age I occupation phases (blue, green, and yellow), the Iron Age IIA level (orange), and the final Iron Age UB occupation level (red) in this area ofthe tell are easily portrayed using ArcGJS. The analytical power of GIS is evident when examining the context of a site's assemblage. Using GIS, cultural activities can be studied through subsets of artifacts. Exploring the context of the sickle blades and groundstones together, for example, may signal areas and phases of increased agricultural activity. Studying single remains, such as the number and location (horiiontaii;y and stratigraphically) of pig bones, may reveal changes in cultural preferences. SimíÍarí;y, the context of certain ceramic attributes, such as cooking pot forms, can be related to temporal periods. Wliile tliese issues can be investigated without GIS software, th£ ability to query and statísticaíÍ> analyze the data makes the analysis much easier. Moreover, spatial correlations may reveal relationships that were
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 'lSS.'~-~.rjr^--.vii.^ ^ . _ . _F„—-;-.-::-gBi.,,a- -
not apparent using conventional methods. As long as the data are entered into the G/S database and spatially referenced, any number o/interpretive queries can be carried out. The key to using G/S for site anai>si.s is the commitment to data collection in all stages of an archaeologicai project. The more comprehensive the dataset acquired through site excavation and laboratory work, the more robust the GIS analysis results will be. That being said, it is better to use G/S to analyze smaiier datasets, or sites with few spatial references, than not at all. GÎS is a tool that aids in the interpretation of our past and, therefore, should be embraced b^i archaeologists ivho are committed to continual!}! advancing and refining their field and analysis techniques, as was noted by Lei'y and Smith (2007)GIS is a significant component in the Tel Beth-Shemesh project, h is used to create daily top plans of each unit and to build a comprehensife model of
Example of the digitization process using ArcGIS. The aerial photograph of Areas A and D of Tel BethShemesh was geo-referenced using the measured unit corners. The architecture was then digitized into shape files using the aerial photograph as a background image. Photo courtesy of Sky View Ltd.
the entire site. The ability to view and spatially analyze the site in a G/S environment provides a better eans to interpret
the
activities that took place
cultural within
it. G/S aiso provides a means to visua!i;y present the results of the archaeological excavation to fellow scholars and the general public alike. Finaii;y, and perhaps most importanti^, b^i creating a model of an excavated
site, which
is
essentiallji a destroyed site, in GIS, it is preserved in virtual space for Vkttnm
future research and discovery. Shawn Bubel University of Lethbridge, Canada
Phased architecture in Area F at Tel Beth-Shemesh. The features are drawn as polygons and colored according to their temporal phase: Iron Age IIB (red), Iron Age IIA {orange}, and successive sub-phases within Iron Age I {yellow, green, and blue}. The pottery bucket level elevations are shown as points.
126 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
RED HOT: THE SMITHY AT TEL BETH-SHEMESH In 2001, an iron metallurgical workshop was discovered in Area E at Tel Beth-Shemesh. Only a handful of ironproduction and ironworking locations are known in the Near East and the Beth-Shemesh iron workshop is the earliest excavated m the region. This discovery therefore allows us a rare glimpse into the nature and organization of such a workshop. A comprehensive assemblage of metallurgical debris was found, consisting of technical ceramics (i.e., hearth wall and tuyères-blow'pipes), metal artifacts, charcoal, a single type of morphologically homogeneous slag, and t'er;y fine magnetic materiat (hammerscale). The nature of this material, especially tKe fact that only one type of slag was present, indicates that the workshop represented a secondary smithing operation, as opposed to iron ímeíting or primary {bloom-) smithing. To confirm this, dedicated excavation techniques were developed and applied in 2003 and 2006, expanding the normal archaeological stratigraphica! approach. The material was subsequently subjected to extemii^e iaborator^i analyses. Stratigraphicaii)!, the smith}' seems to have been established in the eart^ days of Level 3. Radiocarbon analyses of three burned olive pits date the activities in the smith;^ to 905810 B.C.E. {AMS analysis dendrocorrected). The finds were further compared to ones from the contemporaneous ironsmelting site of Tell Hammeh in Jordan, with respect to material assemblage, slag composition, choice of location, and organisation of production (see Veldhuij^en and Rehren 2007). Throughdedicatedmetallurgicalexcavation techniques, we recovered and recorded th< minute magnetic material associated wit¡\ an iron-related metallurgical workshop. This magnetic material consists primarily of hammerscale, the re-oxidized crust formed on the surface of an iron object subsequently hammered off as flakes during forging
CP
A
B
C
D
E
0 25 50 75 cm
F
G
H
Htah Concentrations of Asn and Charcoal Possible Health Structure Stone Stonewall
I
J
K L M N
Tet Beth'Shemesh - Squafe E/T48
Top plan of the iron workshop showing the grid system and various potential hearth structures. Map by H.A. Veldhuijen.
.i
The excavation of the iron workshop required dedicated techniques for recovering and recording the minute magnetic material associated with the iron-related metaliurgica) activity at the workshop. A grid system of 25 by 25 centimeters was laid over the smithy in order to control the spatial analysis of the finds. Photo by H. A. Veldhuijzen.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 7 2 ; 3 ( 2 0 0 9 )
129
activities, h is an important indicator ofthe type of metallurgy present or difficult to identify, patterns within hammerscaíe practiced. BN plotting its distribution u^ítíim the workshop, distribution may help the reconstruction ofthe use of space. it furthermore assists in determining otherwise invisible use At Beth'Shemesh, the observed correlation betumeen high of space and location 0/activities within the metallurgical concentrations of hammerscale with those of ash suggests that workshop. Whereas hammerscale can also occur in the context this concentration reflects the (final) hearth structure rather of primary smithing, [arger quantities of scale are usually than the location of an anvil. associated with the more prolonged and extensively oxicliï:ing Chemistry, morphology, size, and uniformity ofthe Bethcircumstances of secondary smithing, «ntl high quantities are Shemesh siag all point towards secondary smithing. All slag indicative ofthe presence of a smithing hearth, m anvil samples belong to a single type: mostiy round, concave-convex At Beth-SKemesh, a grid system 0/ 25 (731 25 centimeters u;as shapes tuith a diameter of up to 10 centimeters u'ith rust adhered laid out over Square E/T48, the location of the workshop. Theto the top and soil to the bottom. TTiese morphological features soil from each unit (arbitrary uerticai spits of 5 centimeters) form a classic example of a "smithing hearth bottom" (SHB), within each grid (horizontal location, e.g.., H15) was kept where each specimen probably represents a single smithing separate and subsequentíji spread out on a píastic sheet. A operatio7i or workday iSemeeis and Perret 2003: 473). magnet was then dragged over or iightí^i touched the soil for The tuyères found at Beth-Shemesh are all square, measuring 90 seconds. The soil was subsequently jumbied up b^ hand, approximately 5 by 5 centimeters in section, with a bore of and a second round of dragging, again for 90 seconds, was approximately 10 miilimeters in diameter. All tuyères are performed. fractured a few centimeters behind their no^^Ie, and no rear ends A spatial pattern could be discerned in the hammerscaíe scattering when plotting the «'eights of scales per excavated unit on the grid plan. The highest concentration 0/ hammerscaie coincides with the large ashy area archaeologically ohseri-ed in ai! unit.s excai'atec!. WTien a hearth or anvil are no longer
are preserved. Pétrographie anaí;ysis of the tuyères conducted by Nadin Reshef under the guidance of Yuval Goren at the Laboratory for Comparative Microarchaeology at the institute 0/ Archaeology, Tel Aviv Universit;v, indicates that they were íocaíly produced either at the site or in its close vicinity.
The little hands of Meitar Lederman ( 11 years old at the time) drag a magnet through the soil of the smithy to recover hammerscale, the re-oxidized crust forming on the surface of an iron object which is subsequently hammered off as flakes during forging activities. Photo by H. A. Veldhuijzen.
130
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
¡ntriguingly, the Beth-Shemesh tuyères are virtually identical in ali macroscopic aspects-size, color, feel, temper, and shape-to those found at the contemporary smelting site 0/Tell Hammeh in Jordan. A square section is quite rare for tuyères, and it seems to suggest socio-cultural infiuences rather than technological ones (see Veldhuij^en and Rehren 2007). A large number of iron artifacts were excavated in the Beth-Shemesh smithy, including billets, arrotijheads, knives, and various indeterminable strips. This material ujas also analyzed to determine the nature and possible provenance of the metal. This revealed that the metal i tsel/ranged from soft bloomery iron fvirtually no carbon) to steel (ca. 0.8% of carbon). Analysis 0/(smelting) slag inclusions trapped in the metal indicate that the Beth-Shemesh objects may have
originated from up to four different |)roduction locations, and it is significant that none of them originated at Tell Hammeh (Blakelock et al. 2009). A picture emerges of a smithing workshop that was operated regularly and at consicierable (local) scale within the confines of an /ron Age urban administrative center, catering to theneeds and wants of that settlement. Plotting of the magnetic remains has assisted in recreating the spatial la;>out of the liíorícshop and the likely position of the last hearth in use. The quantity of SHBs, where each specimen represents a separate smithing operation, indicates that the smithing work must hai'e been a regular operation, as opposed to an experimental or merei;y occasional one. Whereas the iron smelting site of Tell Hammeh is located near required natural resources, the iron smithing at Beth-Shemesh was situated within the confines of a large city, located near the consumer, which corresponds with finds identified as smithing in other sites in the Let'ant.
I
Tel Beth Shemesh Smithing Hearth Bottom E/T48 SF A cross-section of a Smith Hearth Bottom (SHB) slag from the iron workshop. The depression at the center indicates where the airflow from the tuyère [blow-pipe) hit the forming slag. The SHB clearly shows a porous slag core of concave-convex shape with rust adhering to the top and soil embedded at the bottom.
N
Surface scan
Unit 1
1
Unit 2
•M
n Q B UnH laMu«
Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW2t
of hammerscale distribution in square E/T48, Tel Beth-Sfiemesh
Inverse Distance Weighting [ÍDW2) of hammerscale distribution in the smithy, created in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst.
The identical design characteristics of the Beth-Shemesh and Hammeh tupieres are probably indicative of cross-cultural contacts, shared technologicijl characteristics, or even a socio-ethnic link. This shape may therefore represent a technological choice, that is, a choice not guided b^i technological constraints, but one made by the person performing the technological activity based on, for example, social or cultural considerations, perceived requirements, or local traditions. It is tempting to speculate about smelters (seasonail)i) smelting at Hammeh, and then travelling around the surrounding area, smithing their product near the consumers, that is, in settlement contexts such as Beth-Shemesh, uihere this trafel is reflected in identical tuyère design. However, the (ongoing) analysis of slag inclusions in the Beth-Shemesh metal seems to indicate that, notu'ithstanding other ii/ïp£ireiit ¡inks betu'een the sites, the metal worked ai Beth-Shemesh was not produced at Hammeh.
I
Harald Alexander Veldhuijzen VCL Institute of Archaeology, London
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009]
I 131
The importance of Tel Beth-Shemesh to the understanding of the transition from a rural to a monarchial society in Judah lies not only in its continuous settlement sequence but also in the extent of archaeological exposure of the site. In three excavation cycles large tracts of the tell were exposed, affording an almost complete view of an Iron Age town with its residential quarters and all of its functional details. To achieve this goal we collated our results with the partial maps published by our predecessors at Tel Beth-Shemesh into one coherent map. The new integrated map brings into relief the governmental presence, which suddenly appeared at Beth-Shemesh in the beginning of Iron Age II.The public buildings shown on the plan were established in the course of the life span of Level 3, mainly during its earlier phase, when Beth-Shemesh was reorganized by the emerging monarchy. The distribution of public buildings with diverse functions throughout the site leaves no doubt as to the involvement ofa central government in the town's daily life.
Some 150 tons of debris were removed from the entrance to the underground water reservoir, most of which was deliberately placed there to block the reservoir and prevent the people of Beth-Shemesh from using it. Photo by /. Sztu/man and E, Kessel.
WATER DRAWING AT TEL BETH-SHEMESH AND EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY it is a u'cll-knou-n truism that a gulf exists between the represent the reservoir's final phase of use since vessels and silt mute and static data exposed by archaeologists in tht present deposited eariier must have been cleared away when the resen'oir and th.e dynamic cultural system that produced them in the was plastered for the last time in the mid-seventh century B.C.E. past. This raises a probiem long recognized both h}' processual The pottery assemblage consi.'îts maín¡> of pinched-mouth and post-processual archaeology, namely, how do we transíatejugs and a much lesser amount 0/ holemouth jars and globular con temporär 51 archacoiogical observations into meaningful cooking pots. 0/special importance is the large number 0/ ioit'er parts of jugs found within the silt deposit and the statements about past behavior? The solution suggesteti iong ago b^i Leu'is Binford is unique breakage pattern they exhibit: the handle with the iííustratii't;: if you suspect thar a footprint in the forest is upper part of the jug, including its mouth, broken off as if that of a bear, go watch a bear impre.ssmg his footprint and forcefully torn away. This obserx'ation proi'ides a major clue compare the two. This notion of employing present observations as to the way in which water was drawn from the reservoir to explain past occurrences underlies a host o/interpretife and the fate of some vessels employed in the process. During méthodologies that aim to link statics to d;iíníimícs, including, its last phase of use, pinched-mouth jugs seem to have been the micííííe-range theory, behavioral archaeology, ethnoarchaeoigji, most popular t'esseis u'tth u'hich u'ater u'as drawn from the and expérimentai archaeology (Binford 1983: 19-26). underground reseri'oir. Presumabl)!, such jugs were tied to a Indeed, quantitative analysis of finds from tvithin the rope and dropped down into the reservoir through the so^íiííed underground water resert^oir of Beth-Shemesh coupled with "cistern shaft." When lifted up water-filled, some of the vessels an experiment of making and breaking potter^i allou' for a must have hit the u-alís 0/ the narrow shaft, hence expíaíníng reliable reconstruction of the way water was tírau'n from the the oi-'errepresentation of bottom jug parts in u-'hat would have reseriioir. While underground Iron Age water s^^stems are been soft silt at the bottom of the reservoir. Icnou'n from a number 0/sites in Israel, this has been the first time that the mode of operation for such a s^istem was closely investigated bji applying the theor;y and method of experimental archaeology.
Among the many pieces of broken potter)" retrieved from the northeast hail of the reservoir, an intact pinched-mouth jug was a welcome find. In order to ini'estigate the practicality of reservoir u^ater-drawing by use of this particular t^pe of Excavation in the northeast hall of the reservoir unearthed vessel, we first asked Shiomit Fiexer, a potter from Kibbutz twelî^e whole or broken vessels and 1,495 indicative sherds Revadtm, to produce a few replicas of the jug. FoiiouJing a embedded in the nineteen tons of silt cleared. These finds preliminary study of the original vessel by Yuval Goren at the
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 Í2009) 133
"loratory for Comparative Microarchíieoío^ in the institute protruding ridge at the bottom of its necíí. This ridge, set of Archaeology at Tel Aviv Unii'ersit^, we supplied Flexer withabout midway from the handle, thus seems to us to have local clay similar to the ori^jinal one as well as in/ormation been functionally conceived rather than a mere ornamental concerning the firing temperature. Hat'ing studied the jug for component or the reflection of a potter's caprice. Tying the a few days for its potting techniques, Flexer finally created rope around this ridge alioit's for the distrihution of pressure ifithin less than an hour four jugs identical in size, weight, and around the vessel rather than focusing it on the weak hûndle. I'olwme (ahout 2.2 liters) to the original one. h thus became Moreover, as we soon rei'ealed, once wet b}! the water from ciear that when mass-produced b> a skilled potter, such vessels the reservoir, the rope tightened soundly around the ridge, take no more than a few moments to he manufactured. The preventing the vesse! from tilting or the rope from sliding off reííítii'el}! cheap material and quicli production may explain the vessel when filled with water. the liberal usage of such vessels for u'ater-drau'in^' in spite 0/ itheir relative!}! high potential for breaking. P We then set the stage for replicating U'ater drawing with the reproduced jugs. The experiment took place at one 0/ the ancient bottie-shaped cistenis at Shilat, an archaeological park featuring a reconstructed Hasmonean I'iiiage. The first prohlem we encountered was how to fasten a rope to the jugs so that they could he manipulated in and out of the cistern, and most !mportanti;y, efficiently draw water ifithout spilling it on the way up. Experimentation showed that tying the rope in a straightforward manner to the handle of the jug produced undesired results. The pressure applied to the handle, the most sensitive part ofthe vessel, threatened to tear it apart as soon as the jug became heai7 u^ith u'ater. Moreover, tchen the rope was tied to the handie alone, the jug tilted, spilling water along its way up the cistern. Ei'entuaíl:y, u'e found that the best way to tie a rope to a pinched-mouth jug is around and under the
Potter Shlomit Flexer prepares an exact replica of the pinchedmouth jug found embedded in the silt layer covering the floor of the underground water reservoir. Photo by Z. Lederman,
134 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009}
Pinching the mouth of the newly prepared replica jug. The pinched mouth allows for convenient pouring of liquid, in our case water, into other containers. Photo by Z. Lederman.
The original, whole, pinched-mouth jug, found within the underground water reservoir and four replica jugs made by Shlomit Flexer. When mass-produced by a skilled potter, each vessel would take no more than a few moments to be manufactured. The relatively cheap material and quick production may explain the liberal use of such vessels in water drawing despite their risk of breaking. Photo by A. FogeL
The next step was actualí;y to draiv water with the jugs. Trial and error shou'ed that the vessel had to be dropped quickly and forcefully, at least in the last meter before it hit water. Only this way u'ouid the jug sink immediately and be filled with water. The jug's journey back up is where we could start our experiment investigating the circumstances under which the jtigs excavated at the reservoir of Beth-Shemesh might have been broken. Moreover, we were anxious to see if their unique breakage pattern could be replicated. 'Now was the sad monxent when we had to sacrifice, for the sake of science, the lovely replica jugs so meticulously created. With much regret we lifted them time and again full of water from the depths of the cistern tr^iing to breaíc them as u^e drew them upwards. These trials, resulting in the loss of three replica jugs, taught us that the crucial point in draining the jugs was when the full and su'in,çing vessel arrived at the íou.'er mouth of the cistern shaft. Here, a careless pull may knock the vessel against the narrowing rock, breaking it in a way that would leave only the handle, uiith or u'ithout the upper part of the vessel, tied to the rope. The main part of the vessel would then drop back into the water, quickly disappearing as it sdnlc to the bottom of the cistern, indeed, this is exactly what happened to our poor jugs. Our water-dratfing experiment attests to the viability of our reconstruction of the process at the reservoir of Tel BethShemesK. Finched-mouth jugs were cheap and efficient tools for drawing water from the reservoir. Occasionaiiji, even experienced water-drawers, not to mention children or careless drau'ers, would have knocked their jugs against the drau^ing shaft. In such cases they would have been left only with the handle or the upper part of the jug while the lower parts of
Zvi Lederman experiments in drawing water from a Hasmonean bell-shaped cistern with a (replicated) pinched-mouth Jug. The rope is tied around and under the protruding ridge at the bottom of the jug's neck in order to keep it balanced.
the broken jugs (and sometimes a broken handle or a whole jug that slipped off the rope) would be embedded in the silt at the bottom ofthe reservoir. The pottery from the reservoir and the broken jugs from the experiment at Shilat show the same breakage pattern, indicative of the unfortunate of the vessels while serving their ou^ners in water
fate
drawing.
Experimental archaeology facilitated closing the gap between present and past at Tel Beth-Shemesh b)' reproducing artifacts and actions from the past in the present. Careless lifting of a water-filled jug may knock the vessel against the cistern's narrow neck, breaking it in a v^fay that would leave only the handle, with or without the upper part of the vessel, tied to the rope. The main part of the vessel would drop back to the water reservoir, sinking to the bottom of the cistern.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
135
A HOLY BOWL FROM A PRIEST'S HOUSE? The project of renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh the contexts in which some of the vessels ifere found, they were had gone ten years with only two inscriptions, so the discovery probably associated with a priestly caste. in 2000 of a bowl with incised letters generated great Since priests mediated between the divine and the common excitement. Tfie inscription paralleling the rim was carefully people, priests needed to separate themselves ^om the common chiseled inside the bowl. It distinctly reads qds, meaning people to facilitate their roles with the divine. Hence it was 'holy" or "holiness." necessary "to distinguish betumeen the holy and the profane" TKe qds bowl was found in a Level 2 pillared house (Lev 10; 10). Ezekiel (22:26) decried the priests who violated (dubbed "Fred's House," after Fred Downing who supervised that distinction. its excavation) in Area E. ¡t originated from a normal domestic context, which also included the usual variety of household pottery vessels, clay loom weights, grinding stones, and so on. This type of bowl is very common in the pottery assemblage of Judah in tiie late-eighth century B.C.E.: medium size (22 centimeters in iiiameter), ring-based, carinated with an externally folded rim, and orange-burnished. Can the bowl inform us about the function of "Fred's House" or the occupation of its owner?
Not surprisingly, in the Hebrew Bible, the word qds applies to priestly components that had been set apart for special uses. The Hébreu; Bibíe maíces explicit that components of the sacrificial offerings belonged to the overseeing priest and his family. Numbers (18:8-20) prescribes that priestK shares from the people's offerings included portions of oil, wine, grain, and produce as well as the first issue of live creatures. Given this variety of offerings, the array of vessels preserving qds inscriptions-lcraters, bowls, plates, jugs, and jars—is not surprising. Likely, the vessels were inscribed to reserve them for Various vessels on which qds was inscribed have been found at a variety of sites in both strcuiar and ritual contexts (e.g., at priestly use (Barkay Î990).
Hazor, Ekron-Tel Mitine, Beer-sheba, and Arad). Considering The use of special vessels might reflect food sharing as the skill required for producing a chiseled inscriptioii on a a sign of solidarity (see, e.g., Rappaport 1979: 115, who fragile pottery vessel the demand for such a luxurious techniqueobseri'es that food-sharing rituals of the Maring indicate may hint at the relatively high socio-economic status of its friendship). While /ood-sharing contexts may not always ouners. Given the meaning of the inscriptions f'hol^f") and imply friendship, to participate in a meal or share food that others have contributed nonetheless implies a degree of trust and temporary solidarity. Contributions to the priestly personnel serve as elements of solidarity between the priests and the people—the priests trust the people to contribute to their sustenance, and the people trust the priests to fulfill their designated /unctions to teach and maintain ritual equilibrium. The find of a rare qds bou'l in "Fred's House" may hint that its oifner was a priest, h may even raise a possible connection between archaeologically tangible finds and the enumeration of Beth-Shemesh in the two bibíicaí lists of Lei'itical and priestly towns (see sidebar on p. IÏ8). Bowl bearing a chiseled Hebrew inscription qds ("holy" or "holiness") found in a Level 2 (eighth century B.C.E.) house in Area E. This find raises a possible archaeological connection with the enumeration of Beth-Shemesh in the two biblical lists of Levitical and Priestly towns (Josh 21:16; 1 Chr 6:44). Photo by P. Shrago.
138
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:1 (2009)
Dale W. Manor Harding University, Searcy, Arkansas
líieMe
úoddess at tíie Brooklyn Huseum of Art:
Excavating the Western feminist Art Hovement and Recontextualiziny New
S
eated between the Primordial Goddess and Ishtar, in the company of Kali, the Snake Goddess, Amazon, and Hatshepsut (to name just a few), the Fertile Goddess has the second place setting in pioneering feminist artist Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party (1974-1979), an installation as monument dedicated to great women
through the ages. An early embodiment of an archaeological form in the history of the feminist art movement, the
Fertile Goddess represents early domestication and technology with flax, gold thread, and shell beads used to decorate her place setting. Uiid flat, in the top left comer of the runner, is a small figurine, a miniature version of Chicago's Ceramic Goddess # 3 (1977), which is on display in the adjacent gallery, surrounded by the tapestries and heritage panels—which present a visual timeline ofthe hundreds of women named in the installation—that complete The Dinner Partrf. The special exhéition "The Fertile Goddess" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art augments this permanent installation with nine ancient female figurines and a wall map displaying the geographic distribution of nineteen bcations where female figurines have heen archaeologically documented. These entwined contexts of visual display, materiality, and geographic locales create a new lens through which shows like The Fertile Goddess might be viewed. Understanding the show in the larger context ofthe gallery name. The Ehzabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Herstory Gallery, highlights the archaeological and herstorical past ofthe Westem feminist art movement. The figurines on display reveal interlocking contexts that accentuate the tensions between the various Western disciplines that might claim them, providing an interesting case study for archaeologists concerned with Issues of multivocality and shared heritage. Contextualizing the Historicity of the Display For feminist artists in the United States, the 1970s were undoubtedly a unique time, a period categorized by the reclaiming and reframing of ideals of form and concept. Feminist artists in the early part ofthe decade mined history for ancient powerful female forms that could counter and supplant the oppressive representations commonly found in Western art's historical tradition. Female figurines from Old World Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic contexts served as metaphysical rearticulations and novel forms of female power tbat extended beyond patriarchal Judeo-Christian models of ideal women and exerted a powerful influence on tbe growing legions of feminist artists.
Particularly influential for tbe emerging Goddess movement among these early feminist artists were sculptor Merlin Stone's When God Was A Woman (1976) and the archaeological work of Marija Gimhutas, particularly ber The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe: 7000 to 3500 B.C.: Myths, Legends, and Cult Images (1974; Orenstein 1994: 174-76). Scouring art history for images of female power, Stone encountered the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf, which began a quest for identifying other
View of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party (1974-1979). Around the triangular table are place settings dedicated to great women through the ages, many of whom were reclaimed as sources of inspiration by early feminist artists. Brooklyn Museum. Gift •' of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. Photo by AisUnn We'idele for Polshek Partnership Architects.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
143
ancient Goddess images. Gimbutas's archaeological studies provided a scientific stamp of approval, validating historical knowledge of an ancient matriarchal Goddess worshipping civilization as both anterior and superitar to subsequent patriarchal culture; this provided a mythic origin for women's power, suppressed under patriarchy but ready tt) be reclaimed and restored. Linked to fertility and cycles of birth and death. the concept of the Goddess that emerged was one intimately linked to earth and nature, and the matriarchal culture that venerated her was thought to be peaceful and in harmony with nature, an ecological utopia very much in tune with the countercuitural Zeitgeist of the period. In addition, these books provided a ready lexicon of icons, symbols, and rituals associated with Goddesses from across time and cultures that were appropriated and reused by artists like Ana Mendieta and Mary Beth Edelson, among numerous others. While some work evoked specific Goddesses and their associated myths and traditions, artists were increasingly drawn towards developing an essential female iconography that transcended temporal and cultural difference, and championed increasingly abstract and stylized representations of female bodies and, specifically, female genitalia. Vaginal forms and "central core" imagery, a term Chicago developed, were presented as feminist alternatives to the phallic symbols that dominated Western art history, celebrating the specificity of women's bodies and challenging the traditional suppression of images of female genitalia. Owing to its ambitious, monumental scale, The Dinner Party emerged as the most visible icon of this trend in early feminist art and is filled with such imagery, notably the vulvar forms Chicago used for the plates that symbolize each of the women at the table. While this trend had acquired enough currency in feminist art production by the late 1970s to merit a special issue of the art journal Heresies; A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics (Spring 1978) it was soundly critiqued as indicative of naïve essentialism by the generation of poststructuralist feminist artists and theorists that followed in the 1980s. While the matriculture celebrated in such works legitimized the claims of feminism through archaeology and history, this methodology was critiqued as simply repeating, by flipping traditional hierarchies, the epistemological framework of polar opposites, and rigid gender roles that defined patriarchy.
Displaying Essentialized Forms: An Archaeological Critique In contemporary archaeological theory, the Western archaeological gaze, with
144
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
its significant effects on shaping museum display, has been deconstructed and its colonial pasts acknowledged (Bennett 2004: 36-84). Within this framework the nine figurines in the display occupy a very tenuous space for archaeologists. Linked to various distinct geographic locales, spanning over 3,500 years and made from a variety of materials, including terracotta, clay, and marble, what links these figurines is their identification as sexed female, based on what the curators have called "highly stylized female forms that either emphasize or reduce to abstraction the breasts, bellies, and thighs." In this context, these figurines are read as (sexed) female over and beyond anything else, thus reducing the histories of the contexts within which they were found, the complexity of gender and politics of representation, and the continued development of contemporary theory in archaeology, to nothing more than a footnote. It is this essentialization that has created many of the tensions between contemporary archaeologists and followers of neo-pagan and Wiccan religious groups.' As archaeologists struggle to bring more nuance and complexity to their studies of ancient female figurines, discourses from the Goddess movement continue to flatten those very same meanings. This essentialization appears to be a result of the acceptance of earlier interpretations by archaeologists such as James Mellaart at Catalhoyük, and more generally and famously by Gimbutas, that labeled some figurines as goácíesses, effectively creating a public and a discourse that have, since, emerged as religious groups and spiritual beliefs. The effects of labeling a flgurine as mother goddess or goddess go beyond the problematic interpretation of form collapsing space and time. The subtext ofthat linkage is the homogenization of social and political organization of these archaeological cultures. Thus, in some measure, the entire society is reduced to being represented by a (interpreted) divine female figure, creating static notions of gender roles, political hierarchies and social categories within the ancient landscape. Through the 1970s the ability of the media and the public (feminist artists and others) to label Gimbutas as an archaeological authority became increasingly problematic as it lent validity to her claims and took the operations of scholarship outside the realm of academic peer review.
Resembling the famous Venus of Willendorf, Judy Chicago's Ceramic Goddess #3 (1977) is one of numerous studies the artist did for the figurines that decorate the runner for the Fertile Goddess place setting. Courtesy of ACA Galleries, NYC, and the artist.
Dealing with the Goddess movement is awkward for archaeologists who are committed to multivocality and notions of shared heritages. Promoters of equal access to the past, pluralism in the past, and those committed to providing alternative readings of the past, should embrace such Goddess groups and their interpretations—however,
this is not the case.^ In fact, particularly feminist archaeologists have emerged as some of the most vocal opponents of the Goddess movement. The key issue of dissent is how each group deals with the essentialization of form, history, and gender. Whereas archaeological theory has moved through various interpretations to acknowledge the problems with such essentializations, the Goddess movement, which itself arose from that specific archaeological interpretative moment, has and arguably cannot.
(both feminist scholars and others) have remarked upon the tenuous nature of Gimbutas' scholarship, they have been unable to combat the public nature and influence of these visual and sculptural representations of ancient female power. The result is an unintentional fossilization of this 1970s archaeological interpretation of specific artifacts in the history of art and art movements. By shifting the gaze and positionality from a global archaeological past to a more specific heritage, that of the Western feminist art movement, the choice of these nine images is premised upon the value of their antiquity (dates ranging from 4900 to 1400 B.C.E.), iconic female imagery (large hips, triangular incised genitalia, fleshy breasts, and so on), and, as the curators importantly note, their donation by female patrons to history. In reconstructing the social life and cultural biography of these material objects, it would seem that such an exhibitit>n can only be understood within a specific herstory leading to a particular heritage, that of the early feminist art movement.
The Fertile Goddess: Recontexulizing New Heritages
The nine figurines are, from an archaeologicalperspective,out-of-context material objects. The show harkens back to an older period of exhibition when such tenuous curation was not considered irresponsible. Although the curators of this exhibit acknowledge the paradigmatic shifts within archaeological This Late Halaf period (ca. 4000 B.C.E.) theory in their wall text, they do little figurine is one of the nine ancient figurines on display as part of The to deal with the complications in the Fertile Goddess exhibition at the display. Given that the room housing The Brooklyn Museum of Art. Fertile Goddess lay adjacent to The Dinner Party and proximal to an exhibition Uzma Z. Rizvi and Murtaza Vali . •. of contemporary art. Burning Down the House: Building a Stanford Unifersit^ and Brooklyn, h¡Y • ^ . Feminist Collection, the space could have been used as a forum in which to attempt a recontexualization that accounted for Notes third-wave feminist, queer, and third-world feminist theories. 1. One of the key archaeological texts dealing with the popular goddess If the larger museum public experiences these nine figurines movement and the complications of essentialized forms is Goodison and as representations of ancient goddesses, which flattens and Morris (1998). collapses the very complex nature of ancient views on gender 2. For example, see discussion between archaeologists Ian Hodder and member of Goddess community, Anita Louise online at http://www, and sexuality at the very least, then this display does little catalhoviik.com/iibrary/goddess.html, last accessed 4/13/2009. else than reiterate an older notion of the archaeological past as static. Even piore problematically, from a postcolonial References perspective, the use of geographical and temporally disparate Bennett, T figurines illustrated together on the exhibition map collapses 2004 Piists Be^rcmii Mt'Tnory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism. culturally distinct and locally specific histories, reducing London: Routledge. archaeological pasts to a single moment significant only to Gimbutas, M. . • -*• • . the history of a white Western feminist past. 1974
From an art-historical point of view, htiwever, this display adequately acknowledges the specific historic context of the 1970s feminist art movement's embrace of the Goddess as form, and the nine figurines displayed materially index this transformative moment. By incorporating archaeological imagery into 1970s icons of feminist power, artists such as Ghicago moved the power of interpretive archaeological text into the realm of art thus moving it outside the inscriptive universes of academic literature into the broader public sphere. Since that shift, although archaeologists
The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe: 7000 to 3500 B.C.: Myths, Legends, and Gult images. Berkeley: University of California Press. Goodison, L., and Morris, C, eds. 1998
Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence. London: The Trustees of the British Museum.
Orenstein, G. F. 1994
Recovering Her Story: Feminist Artists Reclaim the Great Goddess. Pp. 174-89 in The Power of Feminist Art; The American MovemenC of the ¡970s, History and Impact, eds. N. Broude and M. D. Garrard. New York: Abrams.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
145
cartonnage through sheer screens that demarcate the exhibition space. This gleaming case with its vividly colored religious imagery occupies the front of the room. It is flanked by two wall-text panels, which provide background information on Thebes around 800 B.C.E., and Meresamun and her activities in the temple and home. From this point on, the viewer could choose to turn either right, towards the vitrines displaying objects of the temple realm, or left, where the home life of Meresamun is highlighted. Turning right from the cartonnage, one is confronted with a large stone falcon with a gold beak. This was an oracle 5 It possible for modem museum visitors to gain insights statue that would have been carried by priests to answer questions posed by the populace. Thus begins the temple into an hidividual of the ancient past? "T/ie Ufe of Mere- sphere of Meresamun's life. Her temple life is documented samun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt,"currently by vitrines presenting artifacts of oracles, temple rituals, on view at the Oriental Institute Museum until December animal cults, and temple music. The temple music vitrine is especially interesting as it features objects depicted on two6th, 2009, is an intimate look at a stratum of society that dimensional images seen on the stelae and reliefs that are also is rarely the focus of Egyptological fascination, namely, eliteon display. Since music is one of the main foci of the exhibit, women. The exhibit sets out to give this segment of ancient this redundancy provides a nice coherency of theme. From this point on, the viewer moves into the domestic life Egyptian society a face by focusing on a woman known as of Meresamun. The home sphere includes objects of economy, Meresamun. Throughout the exhibit the viewer is presented food production, personal adornments, and the legal standing with some interesting information on u\e life this woman pos- of women, which is represented by large papyrus documents mounted on the wall and in the vitrine at the back corner. sibly led, and although not an articulated goal, the exhibit's These documents, including annuity contracts and wills, attempt to put a face on the past implicitly raises issues of emphasize the many legal and economic rights held by ancient Egyptian women. Jtow one gains access to the ancient person. Progressing beyond the legal contracts, the display shifts to the materializations of the daily activities performed by Although she is the focus of the exhibit, biographically, women. These include food production, illustrated by figurines very little is known ahout Meresamun. Her titles indicate that of women grinding grain, and textile production, evidenced by she was a Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amen, and the variety of spindles and spinning bowls. One ends this tour therefore a member of a specialized rank of priestesses. This of Meresamun's proposed life at the front of the exhibition scant information comes from her cartonnage coffin, which is space, where vitrines display objects of birth rituals and simply a coffin made from linen and plaster and molded into oracles. At this point, one realizes the success of this exhibit. an anthropoid shape. It is also the exhibit's centerpiece. This The viewer has come full circle and arrived at the realization beautifully decorated coffin of polychrome motifs on white that in ancient Egypt there was no separation between religion hackground is a typical "white coffin" of the Libyan Period and the day-to-day, especially in the case of a temple singer. (ca. 945-715 B.C.E.) in the Third Intermediate Period. Furthermore, like contemporary women, Meresamun had to Situated in space and time, Meresamun's cartonnage case deal with the continual overlap of her work and home. was the perfect object with which Dr. Emily Teeter, the curator Other points of success include the display and labeling. All of this exhibit, could put a personal face on the past and the labels are attractively made and easy to read. Pertinent draw connections between the ancient and the modern. The information, including provenance and museum accession Meresamun exhibit, Dr. Teeter emphasizes, is not a mummy numbers, is given. The explanatory details are understandable exhibit; the objects were chosen to highlight the daily activities and informative. For example, the relevant points of the legal in which an elite woman such as Meresamun would have documents are summed up in a succinct and comprehensible engaged. Thus, the exhibit has two major goals: to highlight fot manner. While it may be argued that full translations of texts the audience the legal and social positions of ancient Egyptian are desirable, the repetitive and formulaic language in such women and the ways in which women participated in professional documents would have detracted from an appreciation of the and religious life through the use of music in rituals. many legal privileges enjoyed by ancient Egyptian women. The overall impression is that much planning and care went The twin goals of this exhibit are clearly delineated in into the execution of this exhihit. Together, the elements its spatial layout. As one approaches the gallery, one gets make this small exhibit greatly enjoyable. tantalizing glimpses of the jewel-like colors of Meresamun's
íheÜfeofHeresamun, Â Temple linger ioAodent Egypt
An Exhibition at the Oriental Institute Huseym, University of [tiicaqo
Í
146
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
There are, however, some weaknesses. Objects are attractively displayed, but the organization of objects in the "Personal Care and Adornment" vitrine is somewhat jumbled. While objects are given sufficient space, the number of objects in each group is such that it would have heen helpful to have a number beside each object for easy identification. For example, a razor and a hair-styling tool are displayed together as part of a group, hoth described as "hronze with curved ends." For the average viewer who may not he familiar with an Egyptian razor, the two objects are not readily distinguishable. Other items in this vitrine could also benefit trtjm clearer labeling, hut this is a minor point given the other merits of the labels in this exhibit. The real shortcoming of this exhibit is the musical instruments vitrine, which seems somewhat lost amidst the other ohjects. This is a shame, especially since one of the main exhibition goals is to highlight the role of music and musical instruments in Egyptian society. Additionally, the rarity of a preserved wooden harp, and the large size of the sistrum, a rattle-like instrument, should have been an attractive draw. The reason for this obscurity of the musical objects may lie in the presence of the computer screen mounted to the hack wall immediately beside the vitrine. Although deliberately placed away from view at the front of the exhibition space, once viewers arrive at the musical instruments, their eyes are drawn to the interactive screen, which is the gateway to information obtained from the 2008 CT scanning of Meresamun's cartonnage and physical remains. The abundance of information that is given distracts one from the musical instruments. My advice is to leave this to the end. Once at the screen, however, the viewer may use it to access perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this exhibit.
namely, the forensic information obtained from Meresamun's physical remains. In the Oriental Institute Museum's attempt at presenting a graspable idea of the "life" and person of Meresamun, her cartonnage was scanned using computed tomography, or simply, CT scans. The CT scanning resulted in an abundance of fascinating information. Meresamun was a woman in good health when she passed away in her late 20s or early 30s. The mineralization of her bones demonstrates that she had excellent nutrition throughout her life. This information concurs with her status as a Singer in the Interior of the Temple of Amen whose members generally came from the highest echelons of society. But it is the little details that truly bring Meresamun to life. She was tall for an ancient Eg^'ptian woman, about 5 feet 6 inches, and had very good posture. She also had bunions. Additionally, in order to put a face on the past, the museum did in fact give Meresamun a face, or, more accurately, two faces. Tlie Oriental Institute commissioned digital and forensic artists' images of Meresamun. It is quite interesting that, unlike the three divergently different images produced in the recent reconstructions of King Tutankhamun's skull, there are many points of similarities between the digital reconstruction and the artist's reconstruction of Meresamun's face. This effort to present the modern audience with Meresamunthe-person extends into Cyberspace. Did you know that Meresamun has a Facehook page? This was the brainchild oí Mr. Bill Harms, the Associate News Director at the University of Chicago. The Facebook project was an experiment in new ways of advertising. The advantages are that it costs no money, it has a global reach, and it enables the Oriental Institute to reach a younger demographic. To date, Meresamun has nearly one thousand friends. When queried, both Dr. Teeter
2
The cartonnage coffin of Meresamun, a temple Singer of the Temple of Amen, is shown partially veiled by sheer panels of fabric. This gleaming linen and plaster coffin with its polychrome religious vignettes make it an appropriate centerpiece for this exhibit, highlighting the social and religious lives of ancient Egyptian women. Twenty-Second Dynasty (ca. 945-715 B.C.E.). Photo by Anna Ressman, courtesy of the Oriental institute. University of Chicago.
This detail gives the opening lines of the annuity contract from the Thirtieth Dynasty (365-364 B.C.E.) which is displayed on the wall of the exhibit. Annuity contracts were made by husbands to ensure support of their wives and their children. This and other documents such as property transfers demonstrate that ancient Egyptian women enjoyed many legal and economic privileges. Photo by Anna Ressman, courtesy of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
147
and Mr. Harms agreed that the Facebook project has been a success; not the least of which because it has changed the general perspective oí the Oriental Institute to a more "hip," cutting-edge institution. The Oriental Institute is the vanguard of a new trend, as many museums have since followed suit and now one may be friends with numerous mummies on Facebook. But is Facebook really drawing people in to see Meresamun? The exhibit guest book has a section that surveys visitors regarding from where they had heard about the exhibit, Facebook being among the selections. Looking through the entries, however, no one indicated Facebook. In fact, the traditional media of radio and print, in addition to word of mouth, seem to have been the most effective. Additionally, when a few guests at the exhibit were asked about it, they were very surprised to hear about Meresamun's Facebook page. They thought it was a good idea, but they had been unaware of its existence. The extensive and innovative use of technology in this exhibit also leads one to ponder one's own modern engagements with technology in understanding ancient persons. For example, do we credit technology with more powers and abilities than we should? Certainly, CT scanning has resulted in "cool" new observations about Meresamun. She had great posture, yet suffered from bunions, but what insights do these observations give about Meresamun's life and personality.' Technology has also enabled artists to give Meresamun a face. But what does this face indicate about Meresamun's life.' Is any more known about Meresamun-the-person than before glossy and colored images were made of what she might have looked like? Is it hopelessly optimistic to maintain the positivist idea that throuf^h ever more advanced technology one can arrive at a thorough understanding of a person who lived almost three thousand years ago? As one concludes the Meresamun exhibit, it becomes obvious that it has successfully accomplished most of the goals of its concept. The legal standing enjoyed by Egyptian women is evident, but the importance of music in temple rituals seems upstaged by the other displays. Nonetheless, the exhibit itself, as a beautifully executed installation with clearly articulated themes and goals, is effective. Ultimately, this is a worthwhile and successful endeavor at making the non-royal strata of Egyptian society, especially tbe social and professional lives of elite women, accessible to the public. On a deeper, intellectual level, this exhibit also raises some thought-provoking issues regarding the different ways one may access the ancient individual. Be sure to go see Meresamun. Jean Li University of California, Berkeley
.
. '
._ '^- •
i-
The Oriental Institute's efforts at making Meresamun accessible and far-reaching extend to her physical remains. For the viewing audience, the Oriental Institute commissioned artistic recreations of Meresamun's face based on the results of CT scans of her skull. The results are these two remarkable recreations of Meresamun's possible face. The first is a digital image and the second a painting. The digital recreation is the work of Joshua Harker, a Chicago artist and sculptor who specializes in historical and forensic reconstructions. Although Harker utilized the Gatliff-Snow American Tissue Depth Marker Method, a traditional forensic art technique that usually requires the creation of a threedimensional model, his advanced digital method bypassed the need for a physical model of Meresamun's skull. Instead, Harker credits the groundbreaking detail obtained by the CT scans of her skull in his visualization of her face. Beginning with the three-dimensional scans, Harker then digitally superimposed layers of muscle and fat to build up Meresamun's features. The painted image is the product of Michael Brasseli, a forensic artist on the staff of the Baltimore Police Department who works in conjunction with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. His painting of Meresamun has many similarities with Harker's recreation, including the narrow chin, small mouth and prominent nose.
148 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
In 1997, Eck attended a Munich symposium organized hy Aharon Oppenheimer on Jewish history in the first two centuries of the Gommon Era as seen twenty years after the publication of Schürer Ayermes. "I was invited to talk about the importance of epigraphy for the understanding of this time period," Eck recalls. "When I started to collect the material, I quickly realised that our major epigraphic corpora, the Carpus /nscriptionum Graecarum [CIG] and the Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum [CIL], hardly provided any relevant material. There were perhaps seventy Latin inscriptions t is not that the Roman Provincia Germania Inferior cataloged from the whole area of the modern state of would not yield big enough a playground for any hisIsrael, and the situation was not much better for the Greek torian interested in Roman provincial history. Indeed, material" (Eck's contribution is published as Eck 1999). He shared his concerns with other conference participants, Werner Eck, historian of classical antiquity and a renou^ned Hannah Cotton and Benjamin Isaac in particular, who specialist in Latin epigraphy from the University of Cologne, agreed that this part of the region's epigraphic heritage had Germany, has made prolific contributions to the history of so far not been satisfactorily published. The problem had been noted before and some work to remedy the situation Rome's northern holdings. The city of Cologne in particular had already started in Israel prior to the Munich conference. owes to Eck the pubiicatton 0/ its Roman past, most recently These efforts received a major boost in the years following in his thousand-page opus Köln in römischer Zeit (Cologne the conference when CUP was conceived. Two things were clear from the outset. For one, Eck's initial investigations in Roman Times). This vivid interest 0/ his has, it seems, left had already made him doubt that the traditional collection him with some time on his hands, which, among other things, of inscriptions along linguistic lines, as professed in CIG and he dedicates to a major publication project, the Corpus Insaip- CIL, was adequate for the region: "Scouting the publications of epigraphic material, I noticed what I hadn't really realized tionum ludaeae/Palaestinae (CUP). The project is of great before, namely, that there were many bilingual inscriptions, importance to historians and arc/iaeoiogists working in the Uîtin-Greek, but also Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic." Clearly, Levant and it certainly deserves more public co^jerage. Werner the historical picture that is so characteristic of HellenisticRoman Palestine, rhe variety of cultures and, as a corollary, Eck agreed to meet with me last December to talk about the languages was at stake here. The actual diversity had to be relevance of the project. In what follows I summarize much of reflected in the new corpus. Accordingly, CUP was designed our com'ersation. to include inscriptions in an astounding array of languages,
 Honumental M Dedicated to Ancient Hooumeots ïhe íorpus Insaiptionm ¡oéim/M
i
Group photo of participants in a 2003 Jerusalem congress on cultural and linguistic change in the Roman Near East, including some of the CMP editors. Back row, fifth from the left: Jonathan Price, to the right: Hannah Cotton; front row, first from the right: Werner Eck; behind Eck: Leah Di Segni (holding printed materials). Photo courtesy of W. Eck.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
149
ranging from Thamudic and Nabataean inscriptions of the Negev to Latin-inscribed milestones, and Greek dedicatory inscriptions in synagogue and church mosaics. Secondly, this was no one-person job. A team of scholars was assembled incltiding Eck, specializing on Latin inscriptions; and, at the Hebrew University, Hannah Cotton, Leah Di Segni, Haggai Misgav, Michael Stone, and Ada Yardeni; at Tel Aviv, Benjamin Isaac, Alia Kushnir-Stein, Jonathan Price, and Israel Roll were enlisted; and, more recently, Walter Ameling from the University of Cologne, each with specific assignments. The project receives strong backing from the Israel Antiquities Authority and has been supported by three major grants; Eck initially donated the award associated with the Max Plank prize, which he received in 2000, to the project; a four-year grant from the German-Israeli Foundation followed; and, from 2005, a multi-year grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Full publication of all volumes with Walter de Gruyter is scheduled for the year 2018.
of Roman milestones, those with extant inscriptions and those without. Since milestones are usually found in their original places, CliP's documentation will add valuable information to our knowledge of the Roman road network. Lastly and following Theodor Mommsen's lead in CÍL, who reckoned that scholarly assessment of purported forgeries might change, CÍIP will include contentious material, along with other inscriptiones originis incertae, that is, inscriptions from Israel whose exact provenance is unknown. At heart, any epigrapher has to be an avid hunter and gatherer and, even in times of rapid electronic development, charmingly old-fashioned. From 1999, archives were assembled, first at the University of Cologne and then, under the direction of Hannah Cotton, in Jerusalem, information about all known inscriptions was collated. "The researchers have permanent electronic access to the various databases in which we store the information," Eck points out, "but we also archive everything in paper format because we want to be sure that an archive like this will permanently survive and not disappear in a dramatic technological failure." Each inscription (ostraca included, but not coins or papyri) is transcribed, translated, and, where available, documented by photographs. The archives, which are
With the Levant being that ever fluctuant and somewhat illusive territorial entity that it is, a principal question was to which geographical boundaries CIÍP should adhere. "There is a de facto scholarly division of work in place already, material from Lebanon, Syria, and everything east of the Jordan River is included in the inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie," Eck points out, although he admits that cooperation between scholars in the region often faces political obstacles. The project, like so many others in this region, has to navigate the political pitfalls, and in the end there is no solution that fully respects the ancient cultural spheres or modem political sensitivities. "Taking the modern 'green line' as our geographical orientation would have made no historical sense whatsoever," Eck states. "So for practical reasons we now stick with the borders of the modern state of Israel. We will include some material from the Roman province of Syria and with the Negev, a part of what obviously was for a while Provincia Arabia." CUP will ultimately present the material divided into these eight geographical regions: Galilee and the northern coastal strip; Caesarea and the middle coastal strip; the southern coastal strip; the Golan, Samaria, Jerusalem and surroundings; Judaea- The inscription for the freedman Hetereius Graptus, now in the museum of the Church Idumaea; and the Negev. A special volume of the Flagellation, Jerusalem. It is set in a tabula ansata and can be translated (Eck): "For [.| Hetereius Graptus, freedman of [,] {Hetereius [--JRufus), his patronus [.] by Benjamin Isaac and Israel Roll will be Hetereius HRufus (has erected this tomb)." The stone is cut on the left side, evidence dedicated to a comprehensive collection of its secondary use in some unknown context. Photo by W. Eck.
150
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
coordinated by Marfa Heimbach in Cologne and Naomi Schneider in Jerusalem, also hold copies (not excerpts) of relevant secondary literature. Very importantly—and Eck becomes quite passionate h e r e — d i P will document the physical appearance of the inscriptions and, if known, their original location: "We envisioned from the beginning that the corpus could not just catalog inscriptions as text. That was actually Mommsen's approach: an inscription is a text, much like Cicero or the Nibelungenlied. But an inscription is always more than that. It is not to be had without the material upon which it is inscribed. And often, this material is more important than the text itself." This observation certainly has a familiar ring to archaeologists. Just as any ancient artifact, stripped of its find context, yields only limited information about its original purpose, so too does an inscription when the inscribed text alone is considered. Was the inscription part of an honorary statue.' Or perhaps part ot a triumphal arch? Where was it located? In a building? And what did it signal there to those who frequented that building? Even if the original context is obscure, an inscription's physical appearance can yield important clues. To illustrate his point. Eck recalls a recent research visit to Jerusalem's Church of the Flagellation, where he examined
Werner Eck cataloging the DOMINE IVIMUS inscription in Jerusalem for the CUP. Photo courtesy of W. Eck.
an inscription whose original find context is unknown. It is a funerary dedication to a freedman, provided by his Roman patron: "The inscription had been published long ago, but its physical appearance bad never really been described. When I saw it, I realized that this was not a simple tomb inscription; it must have been part of a grave monument or even a large tomb structure. That is something completely different than a simple tomb inscription! The patron must have erected a sizable tomb structure for his freedman. This makes you realize some interesting things about social relations. Perhaps the freedman provided the money, but in any case the patron must have felt obliged to follow up on his duty. So, a comparatively simple inscription can yield much more information than its text in and of itself."
As CUP is leading the way into a new era of documentation, this approach implies a much closer cooperation between epigraphers and archaeologists than has customarily been the case. Archaeologists like Joseph Patrich and Yoram Tsafrir, both of Hebrew University, fully participate in the documentation of inscriptions included in CUP. In an area so traditionally culturally diverse as the southern Levant, it is only natural that historians would be interested in evaluating the distribution of epigraphic m a t e r i a l . T h e languages represented are of interest, as are regional and social factors. CUP will become the standard r e f e r e n c e t o o l for s u c h research questions. While any analyses have to deal with the typical problems oí evaluating the vagaries of survival in the archaeological record. Eck alerts scholars to an additional, very characteristic problem: "You always have to ask: Which inscriptions stood the best chance to survive at all? Of course those which were carved in durable materials. I am not yet quite sure how the situation was for Israel in antiquity, but for Rome and the western provinces we can ci.'rtainly say that the bulk of inscriptions were not fashioned in stone or bronze but rather in wood or on plaster. Pompeii is a very instructive example accessible today, as we know from graffiti-covered house walls. A n c i e n t l i t e r a t u r e underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre confirms innumerable times
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
151
that certain things were simply executed in wood. When the text was no longer relevant, it was plastered over and the next, important message was applied. We have to assume that thousands and thousands of such inscriptions existed of which not one snippet has survived. This way we lost the bulk of the legal texts. Roman governors published legal rulings in this fashion, every year anew. For example, we know from Spain that every city had to make known the governor's rulings in albo, on white tablets. We also lost all kinds of other proclamations. In essence, we lost much of ancient everyday life" {see also Eck 1998). Inscriptions that survived on ostraca or amphorae make up only a tiny fraction of this substantial loss. Eck estimates that, of the surviving epigraphic material in Israel, approximately 60 percent is preserved in Greek (mostly dating from Late Antiquity), by far the dominant language. The inscriptions confirm what scholars know from other sources: while Greek started out as the language of the conquerors, it made inroads into the life of the autochthonous populations in ways Latin never succeeded in doing. Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions are strong in number before 70 C.E. and are particularly common in funerary contexts. Both,
Greek and Hebrew inscriptions are found throughout the land. Nabataean inscriptions are only present in the Negev and do not seem to have survived past the first century C.E. Overall, Latin is not very prominent; it remained tied to the Roman overlords and those civilians that followed in the footsteps of the Roman legions. Accounting for less than 10 percent of the inscriptional material documented so far, the Latin inscriptions originate mainly from the Roman colonies, that is, Jerusalem and Caesarea. Inscriptions in the Golan hardly start to appear before the second century C.E. CÍIP will ultimately comprise no fewer than ten thousand inscriptions, the bulk of it funerary inscriptions, followed by inscriptions from synagogues and churches (mostly incorporated in mosaics), Roman milestones, and inscriptions (especially from Gaesarea), which belonged to honorary sculptures. "The main type of inscriptions that have been preserved is what I call 'memorial epigraphy,'" states Eck. "The extant inscriptions are mainly those that were designed to keep the memory alive, either that of an action or that of a person. Tomb inscriptions are of course the examples par excellence for this type, even though they also fulfill other functions. But what goes for these goes for building inscriptions in equal manner.
Probably originating in Ashkelon and now housed in the museum there, this bilingual inscription commemorates the ship owner Gaius Comisius Memor and can be translated ¡Eck): "In memory of Gaius Comisius Memor, ship owner in the association of those who transport goods commissioned by the state." While the Latin part of the inscription is mostly preserved, only the upper part of the Greek text's first line, which follows the Latin, remains. Photo by W. Eck.
152 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
We mostly leam about donors, the euergetai, and as we all know, these people were not exactly shy to puhlish their good deeds. Think of inscriptions in Late Antique church mosaics that advertise donors' names for example. This is the very same thing. There are only very few inscriptions that end more modestly on a note like 'whose names God alone knows.' ... Of course one could argue that there is a certain twist even to this purported modesty." The frequency with which donors' inscriptions are encountered in the epigraphic material highlights the fact that inscriptions, not unlike antiquity's literar>' heritage, tend to showcase the upper social strata, another imbalance historians have to take into account. But Eck asserts that one should not disregard this certainly truncated picture of antiquity, which the inscriptions preserve: "What we learn here is important, because after all these inscriptions reveal prominent aspects of ancient life." Funerary inscriptions, which form a special genre, are mostly rather tight-lipped, seldom revealing more than the deceased's name and sometimes those of close relatives. If they say more, they still restrict themselves. Eck explains: "Latin funerary inscriptions typically spell out only those functions of public relevance, where the individual contributed to the res publica. Private things are of no concern. As far as I can see at this point, this seems to be the case also for the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic inscriptions in this region." One interesting, perhaps borderline, case, a bilingual (Greek and Latin) funerary inscription, comes from (probably) Ashkelon. "It documents somehody who came from the Roman west. He was a ship owner and belonged to an association of ship owners who served a regular route between Judea and probably Rome, maybe also other places. But such an inscription is an exception. One can of course argue," Eck contemplates, "that what is mentioned here also concerns a public service, since such shipping activities were commissioned by the state." The great advantage of inscriptions, aside from their invaluable role in resolving dating problems, Eck emphasizes, is the way in which they bestow an individual face upon history. As they pinpoint individuals and specific groups, inscriptions render much more precise information about social and ethnic interaction than other archaeological finds can. They present an unparalleled tool for historical scholarship's ever-persisting quest to map social nuances. As the work on CUP progresses (the publication of the first volume on inscriptions from Jerusalem is currently scheduled for 2010, with a second one, covering the middle coast region including Caesarea following soon), excavators or museums who have information on inscriptional material as yet unknown that would qualify for inclusion in the corpus are encouraged to contact either Werner Eck (alaUCó'Uni-koeln. de) or Hannah Cotton (
[email protected]) directly.
References
>.
1998
Inschriften auf Holz: Ein unterschätztes Phänomen der epigraphischen Kultur Roms. Pp. 203-17 in Imperium Rnmanum: Sludien zu G,:schklue und Rezeption: Festschrifl für Karl Chrisi zum 75. Geburtstag, eds. E Kneissi and V., Losemann. Stuttgart; Steiner.
1999
Rom und die Provinz Iudaea/Syria Palaestina: Der Beitrag der Epigraphik. Pp. 2 3 7 - 6 3 in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Wege der Forschung: Vom alten zum neuen Schürer, ed. A. Oppenheimer. Schriften des Historischen Kolleys, Kolloquien 44. Munich: Oldenbourg.
2004
Köin iiï rimischer Zeit: Geschichte einer Stadt im Rahmen des Imperium Romanum. Geschichte der Stadt Köln J, ed. Hugo Stehkämper. Cologne: Greven.
CIIP-Related Publications Cotton, H. M-, and Geiger, J. 1989
Masada II. The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-Í965: Final Reports: The Latin and Greek Documents. Masada Reports. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Cotton, H. M.; Di Segni. L.; Eck, W; and Isaac, B. 1999
Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae. Zeitschrift für Papyrolo^e und Epigraphik 127: 307-8.
Cotton, H., and Price, J. 2007 Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae: A Multilingual Corpus of Inscriptions. Pp. 327-32 in XII Congressus internationalis Epi^raphiae Graecae et iMtinae: Pruvinciae Imperii Romani inscriptionihus descriptae. Barcelona, 3-8 Septembris 2002, eds. M. Mayer i Olivé. G, Baratta, A. Guzman Almagro. Monografies de la Secció HistôricoArqueolf)gica 10. Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans. Di Segni, L. 2004
The Beersheba Tax Edict Reconsidered in the Light of a Newly Discovered Fragment. Scripta Ciassica hraeiica 23: 131-58. Eck, W, and Cotton, H. 2001
Governors and Their rer5<mnel on Latin Inscriptions from Caesarea Maritima. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities VII.7. Jerusalem: Academia Scientiarum lsraelittca.
Isaac, B., and Roll, I. 1982
RoiniiTi Roads injudiiea I: The Le^'Scytliopolis Road. Oxford; B.A.R.
Kushnir-Stein, A. , 2002 New Hellenistic Lead Weights from Palestine and Phoenicia. Israel Exploration journal 51: 225-30. Magen. Y.; Misgav, H.; and Tsfania, L. 2004
MoMiil Geri^jTTi Excavations i: The Aramaic, Hebrew and Síimíintíin Inscriptions. Judea & Samaria Publications 2. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Porten, B., and Yardeni, A. 2007
Gabriele Fassheck Clûremont School of Theology
' *
Eck, W
Why the Unprovenanccd Idumean Ostraca Should he Published. Pp. 74-147 in New Seals and Imcriptions. Hebrew, Idumean, and Cuneiform, ed. M. Lubetski. Hebrew Bible Monographs 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
153
REVIEW; Judah. Next, the eminent mid-twentieth-century German Old Testament scholar Martin Noth is invoked for his observation that the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stories are each set in different regions of Canaan and reflect separate oral traditions that were later combined. Because Abraham Directed by Thierry Ragobert. takes precedence, whoever combined them must have come Brooklyn, NY: First Run/Icarus from Abraham's region, Judah. Why it must have happened Films, 2005. 1 DVD, $490.00. in seventh-century B.C.E. Judah is not made entirely clear. The Exodus story is covered during the second hour. Neil Silberman's journey to Cairo and the Eastern Delta leads to the he Bible Unearthed: The Making of a discovery that there is no historical or archaeological evidence L Religion is a four-part documentary for the Exodus. At the site of Mendes, Donald Redford reveals series distributed by First Run/Icarus that the place names mentioned in the book of Exodus fit Films, directed by Thierry Ragobert, better in the Saite (seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E.) than and co-written by Isy Morgensztern the Ramesside period (thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C.E.). and Thierry Ragobert. It originally aired in 2005 on Arte, This piece of evidence dovetails nicely with the authors' main the premier arts and culture broadcast station in France and contention that much of the Pentateuch was written in the Germany, and was dubbed into English for distribution in the seventh century B.C.E., but contradicts the impression left by a United States. The film is based on the 2001 best-selling book previous scene at the site of Qantir, which most scholars agree The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel corresponds to biblical Ramesses (Exod 1:11). and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts written by archaeologist Israel To set up the main point, much of the second hour is Finkelstein and historian Neil Asher Silberman. The main devoted to demonstrating that Judah became a viable argument of the film and book is that a majority of the first city-state only toward the end of the eighth century five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Pentateuch, B.C.E. Visits to the Broad Wall and Hezekiah's Tunnel in was written during the seventh century B.C.E. According to Jerusalem (with Ronny Reich), along with examinations Finkelstein and Silberman, these biblical narratives make the of the Siloam Inscription and lamelekh handles, are utilized most sense when viewed against the backdrop of King Josiah's to this effect. The climax of this hour—and arguably of ill-fated cultic reforms and territorial expansion. As such, most the entire series—comes with King Josiah. The discovery of the stories are closer to legend than history. It is impossible of a lost law code during his reign (probably the book of to do justice to this argument and its many counter-arguments Deuteronomy) and the centralization of cult in Jerusalem in the context of this short review. Instead the focus will be on that followed were key components in his failed attempt the overall structure and presentation of the authors' views. to create a "pan-Israelite kingdom." The main obstacle was a resurgent Egypt, which had designs on the Levant, The first hour is devoted to the patriarchal period, including tiny Judah. Against this geopolitical backdrop, especially the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The story a story about a small group of people (the Hebrews led by begins in the Land of Canaan and, more specifically, the Moses) overcoming a mighty empire (Egypt) was written to site of Megiddo, where Finkelstein co-directs excavations. inspire the Judahites. Conspicuously absent in this hour is Megiddo is featured throughout the series and is meant to any mention of the archaic poetry (Exod 15) and eighthact as a prism through which many of the biblical narratives century B.C.E. prophecies (e.g., Isa 10:26, 11:15) that and archaeological periods are viewed. The scene then describe and refer to events in the Exodus story. shifts to a brief overview of biblical archaeology, and its The title of the third hour, "The Kings," is somewhat much-maligned methodology, which sets the stage for the misleading in that the first 20 minutes is taken up by the iconoclastic views of Finkelstein and Silberman. Next, the Conquest of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua. viewer is taken to the book-lined study of Thomas Römer in The excavations at Hazor, directed first by Yigael Yadin Lausanne, Switzerland. Römer is the textual counterpart of and now by Amnon Ben-Tor, are held up as corroborating Finkelstein, who works in parallel to "unearth" the Bible. evidence (and as an example of how archaeology can Now that the stage is fully set, the quest begins in earnest. be politicized). Jericho, on the other hand, is the parade The first clue that the book of Genesis may not be historical example of how archaeology and the Bible are at odds is the oft-cited and anachronistic presence of Philistines with each other. Further evidence seriously undermines (featuring archaeologist Ayelet Gilboa) and domesticated the Conquest paradigm. The film next provides a quick camels (with Lidar Sapir) in the stories of Abraham. summary of Judges before turning to the United Monarchy. Finkelstein presses camels into further service, arguing that Finkelstein and Silberman cast an especially critical eye on they were in greatest use during the seventh century B.C.E., the biblical portrait of David and Solomon. The Bible ascribes when caravans from spice-rich Arabia passed through
The Bible Unearthed: The Making of a Religion
154
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
to them a glorious kingdom, yet archaeology apparently knows it not. Visits to the City of David with Ronny Reich confirm that Jerusalem was little more than a village at the time. (Eilat Mazar's discovery of the "Palace of David" in Area G was announced after the documentary was filmed. In any event, Finkelstein dates this monumental structure to the ninth century B.C.E., if not considerably later; see Finkelstein et al. 2007). Closer inspection of the "Solomonic" gates at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer shows that they date to the ninth, and not the tenth, century B.C.E. Radiocarbon dating (described by physicist Elisabetta Boaretto) and mason's marks (featuring archaeologist Norma Franklin) support Finkelstein's Low Chronology and suggest that monumental architecture in the Northern Kingdom of Israel belongs to the Omride Dynasty. In these attempts to date the Solomonic gates, no appeal is made to the historically attested destructions of Israelite sites by Pharaoh Shishak ca. 925 B.C.E. The title of the fourth and final hour, "The Book," is also somewhat misleading. In fact, biblical authorship is not given serious consideration until well past the midpoint. Most of the time is spent recapitulating and amplifying the previous hour. Finkelstein revisits the question of Israelite origins through a reenactment of the critical archaeological surveys of the central hill country in the 1970s and early 1980s. Ethnographic research (and a visit to a Bedouin's tent in the Wadi Rum of Jordan) suggests that the population explosion resulted from pastoral nomads settling down after the collapse of Late Bronze Age power structures. This is followed by a series of disjointed sequences on Israelite Monarchy (where the Mesha Stela and Tel Dan Inscription are featured), Canaanite religion and Yahweh (with archaeologist Amihai Mazar describing the bull figurine found in the northern Samarian hills), and Josiah's cultic reform (using the Arad temple as a backdrop) follow. Surprisingly, the Babylonian Exile and Return, periods many scholars regard as crucial for the final editing and writing of the Pentateuch, are given short shrift. The series ends with the two main scholars, Finkelstein and Römer, meeting in snowy Switzerland to share their thoughts on the Bible and archaeology. Rather than delve into the scholarly debates provoked by Finkelstein's theories, the producers chose to use the format of scholar(s) on a quest. It is for this reason that we hear mainly from experts who lend support, whereas dissenting views are not aired. Non-specialists might come away, then, with the mistaken impression that they have received the consensus opinion. Keeping the focus on only a few scholars (Finkelstein, Silberman, and Römer) and on a single site (Megiddo) helps maintain continuity across the four hours. In addition, Finkelstein is an engaging presence on camera. The structure is by and large chronological except that the last two hours jump back and forth between the Israelite settlement and monarchy. Devoting all of the third hour to the settlement and the fourth to the period of the monarchy would have eliminated a lot of repetition and added
clarity. The pacing throughout is very slow. By eliminating unnecessary footage and tightening up the narrative, the series would have been shorter and more engaging. Overall the series is reasonably well filmed and the list of countries visited—Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Switzerland, France, and England—is impressive. The archival stills and footage of early archaeologists are excellent and the aerial photography is also quite good. Animation is used sparingly but effectively. Rather than go the common route of using famous European paintings to depict biblical figures, the producers used specially commissioned art. It has the advantage of giving the series a consistent style, but unfortunately all the tableaus end up looking the same. There are no dramatic reenactments, which will come as a relief to many readers of this journal. The interviews with the Francophone text scholars (e.g., Thomas Römer, Jacques Briend, and Jean-Pierre Cortegianni) have been dubbed into English, but greater care should have been given to the proper pronunciation of site names and technical terms. One visual problem is that the soundman didn't always manage to keep the boom mike out of the camera frame. In the fast-paced format of mass media it takes great skill to convey complex ideas in an exciting way. When it comes to the Hebrew Bible, most documentaries go for the cheap thrill—Noah's Ark, Ten Plagues, Ark of the Covenant— putting sensationalism ahead of sound scholarship. The Bible Unearthed does not fit this description. Its producers take an honest look at how archaeological evidence is used to replace old theories with new ones about when and why the Bible was written. It will take a patient viewer, though, to follow the quest to the end. Given that the historicity of almost the entire biblical narrative is thrown into doubt, it will also take an open-minded viewer. Because it presents a specific perspective on the Bible and archaeology, but not the opposing views, the series is not well-suited to introductory classes on these subjects. Individual episodes or sequences, on the other hand, might serve well to illustrate certain points in the course of a lecture. To help defray costs, though, you might want to charge students admission: the list price for the DVD set is $490 USl *In the interest of fuii disclosure: Providence Pictures produced a twohour NOVA/PBS special entitled "The Bible's Buried Secrets," which aired in the fall of 2008.
References Finkelstein, I.; Herzog, Z.; Singer-Avitz, L.; and Ussishkin, D. 2007 Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found? Tel Aviv 34: 142-64. Finkelstein, !., and Silberman, N. A. 2001
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press.
Tristan J. Barako Senior Writer and Researcher, Providence Pictures
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
155
Mosaics as History: the Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam By G. W. Bowersock. Revealing Antiquity 16. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Vi + 146 pages, color illustrations. Cloth $22.95, ISBN 0-674-02292-0.
A
MOSAICS H HISTORY C. W,
s the title promises, Bowersock takes us on a fascinating journey to discover the society, patrons, and viewers of mosaics in the Near East from the third to the eighth centuries, in a beautifully illustrated book. While this book had its origins in a series of lectures that Bowersock gave in 1997, the result is no compilation of his lecture notes. Instead, Bowersock
has discussed his ideas with colleagues, taken advantage ot new material published since 1997, and presented his essays with the full weight of his long study of the area behind them. It is a book that will intrigue scholars and is written in a manner that makes it accessible to educated laypersons. Readers should not expect an introduction to the entire world of mosaics (as can be found in K. Dunbabin's Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World,
1999); instead, Bowersock explores some themes of interest to archaeologists and social historians. Bowersock begins witb a short introduction to tbe history of the study of mosaics in the Near East, focusing on tbe study of maps and representations of cities. He concentrates on the Madaba Mosaic, placing it within the context of other representations of geographical areas, and especially the depictions of cities, on the Peutinger Table (a document we know from tbe twelfth or tbirteentb century, but which surely copies a Late Antique source) and other mosaics in tbe Near East. He fleshes out tbe ideas be introduces here in the subsequent chapters. In ch. 2, "Myth," Bowersock illustrates a topic that is no longer controversial in Late Antique art, the continuity of classical themes and representations into Late Antiquity; he brings in parallels from textiles and silver, focusing on the representations of Dionysus, Heracles, and Apollo. Here be finds strong stylistic parallels for bis mosaics in tbe style of tbe figurai representation, but also in the particular subjects that are depicted. His argument that the theater —especially mime and pantomime—conveys to tbe patron tbe classical iconography is convincing; this association with the widespread impact of ephemeral arts serves to remind us
156
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
that if we limit ourselves to surviving pictorial sources, we may be missing much of the story. In ch.3, he returns to the depictions of cities as he tries to show tbat the representation of tbe city is often meant to evoke certain "real" features that can be attested archaeologically in the cities sbown in tbe mosaics, witb an extended discussion on the identity of "Gregoria" pictured as a Tyche on a mosaic from the Cburch of tbe Virgin in Madaba. In order to argue that we are looking at "Antioch," he carefully notes the iconography of the figure on the mosaic, a graffito in Aphrodisias, and the careful reading of a tenth-century text. Tbe destruction of images—who did it and wben—is tbe focus of the tigbtly reasoned ch. 4, "Iconoclasms." To Bowersock, tbe evidence of iconoclasm shows the interconnection of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures in tbe eighth century. The concluding chapter places the mosaics within their broader cultural contextThis is a delightful book, beautiful enougb to simply enjoy the pictures, well written, and thought provoking. The arguments wear their robe of learning ligbtly; Bowersock is generous in crediting other scbolars' work, even if be disagrees with specific conclusions. We are fortunate that Bowersock was able to share with a broad audience some of the fruits of his long scholarly life by converting his lectures into tbis book.
Jane DeRose Evans Temple University
The Petra Siq: Nabataean Hydrology Uncovered Edited by Isabelle Ruben. Text by Ueli Bellwald, Ma'an al-Huneidi, Adnan Salihi, Daniel Keller, Rajah Naser, and Dawud al-Eisawi. Amman: Petra National Trust, 2003. Xxii + 140 pages; figures, maps. Paper, 15 Jordanian Dinars, ISBN 9957-8555-0-6.
T
he site of Petra, cultural capital of the Nabataean kingdom, is justifiably famous for the hundreds of tomb facades that were cut in the colourful sandstone bedrock between the first century B.C.E. and the second century C.E. In terms of technological sophistication, however, the associated systems for water supply and flood control are even more impressive, although much less well known. No urban center can exist in
Mosaics as History: the Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam By G. W. Bowersock. Revealing Antiquity 16. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Vi + 146 pages, color illustrations. Cloth $22.95, ISBN 0-674-02292-0.
A
MOSAICS H HISTORY C. W,
s the title promises, Bowersock takes us on a fascinating journey to discover the society, patrons, and viewers of mosaics in the Near East from the third to the eighth centuries, in a beautifully illustrated book. While this book had its origins in a series of lectures that Bowersock gave in 1997, the result is no compilation of his lecture notes. Instead, Bowersock
has discussed his ideas with colleagues, taken advantage ot new material published since 1997, and presented his essays with the full weight of his long study of the area behind them. It is a book that will intrigue scholars and is written in a manner that makes it accessible to educated laypersons. Readers should not expect an introduction to the entire world of mosaics (as can be found in K. Dunbabin's Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World,
1999); instead, Bowersock explores some themes of interest to archaeologists and social historians. Bowersock begins witb a short introduction to tbe history of the study of mosaics in the Near East, focusing on tbe study of maps and representations of cities. He concentrates on the Madaba Mosaic, placing it within the context of other representations of geographical areas, and especially the depictions of cities, on the Peutinger Table (a document we know from tbe twelfth or tbirteentb century, but which surely copies a Late Antique source) and other mosaics in tbe Near East. He fleshes out tbe ideas be introduces here in the subsequent chapters. In ch. 2, "Myth," Bowersock illustrates a topic that is no longer controversial in Late Antique art, the continuity of classical themes and representations into Late Antiquity; he brings in parallels from textiles and silver, focusing on the representations of Dionysus, Heracles, and Apollo. Here be finds strong stylistic parallels for bis mosaics in tbe style of tbe figurai representation, but also in the particular subjects that are depicted. His argument that the theater —especially mime and pantomime—conveys to tbe patron tbe classical iconography is convincing; this association with the widespread impact of ephemeral arts serves to remind us
156
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
that if we limit ourselves to surviving pictorial sources, we may be missing much of the story. In ch.3, he returns to the depictions of cities as he tries to show tbat the representation of tbe city is often meant to evoke certain "real" features that can be attested archaeologically in the cities sbown in tbe mosaics, witb an extended discussion on the identity of "Gregoria" pictured as a Tyche on a mosaic from the Cburch of tbe Virgin in Madaba. In order to argue that we are looking at "Antioch," he carefully notes the iconography of the figure on the mosaic, a graffito in Aphrodisias, and the careful reading of a tenth-century text. Tbe destruction of images—who did it and wben—is tbe focus of the tigbtly reasoned ch. 4, "Iconoclasms." To Bowersock, tbe evidence of iconoclasm shows the interconnection of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures in tbe eighth century. The concluding chapter places the mosaics within their broader cultural contextThis is a delightful book, beautiful enougb to simply enjoy the pictures, well written, and thought provoking. The arguments wear their robe of learning ligbtly; Bowersock is generous in crediting other scbolars' work, even if be disagrees with specific conclusions. We are fortunate that Bowersock was able to share with a broad audience some of the fruits of his long scholarly life by converting his lectures into tbis book.
Jane DeRose Evans Temple University
The Petra Siq: Nabataean Hydrology Uncovered Edited by Isabelle Ruben. Text by Ueli Bellwald, Ma'an al-Huneidi, Adnan Salihi, Daniel Keller, Rajah Naser, and Dawud al-Eisawi. Amman: Petra National Trust, 2003. Xxii + 140 pages; figures, maps. Paper, 15 Jordanian Dinars, ISBN 9957-8555-0-6.
T
he site of Petra, cultural capital of the Nabataean kingdom, is justifiably famous for the hundreds of tomb facades that were cut in the colourful sandstone bedrock between the first century B.C.E. and the second century C.E. In terms of technological sophistication, however, the associated systems for water supply and flood control are even more impressive, although much less well known. No urban center can exist in
the arid climate of Arabia Petraea without careful arrangements for the collection and storage of runoif water from the winter rains. At Petra, the control of dangerousrtoodwatersin the Siq, the narrow, winding canyon that provided a dramatic entrance to the city, was a paradoxical further challenge. Although not designed for the general audience, this book provides an accessible and weli-illustrated analysis of the methods and accomplishments of the Nabataean hydraulic engineers. It can also serve as a very detailed guide to the natural history and antiquities of the Siq. Since 1993, the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism and Department of Antiquities have focussed enormous energy and significant resources on the responsible development of the site of Petra for tourism and long-term protection o( the ancient structures. During this period, the Petra National Trust, a non-governmental agency has funnelled human talent and financial resources into a variety of projects related to these goals. Possibly the most ambitious and successful undertaking was the multi-disciplinary "Siq Project" begun in 1996 and completed in 2001, designed to facilitate pedestrian access to the site by clearing the stones and gravel that had accumulated in this natural run-off channel since the destruction of a Nabataean diversion dam at its entrance sometime in the post-classical period. At its conclusion, 30,000 cubic meters of fill had been removed, revealing the ancient pavement, which was consolidated or restored. Excavation of this debris down to the Roman and Nabataean road levels also provided a surprising amount of unexpected archaeological data concerning the history of the cit>' and its water-supply system. Simultaneously, a careful survey was completed of the patterns and amount of run-off water that discharged into the Siq, culminating in the reconstruction of the sophisticated Nahataean system for retention and slow discharge of the potentially dangerous floodwater. Prior to this project, flood levels in the Siq quickly reached dangerous levels during the occasional heavy winter rainstorm, occasionally drowning the unwary. At present, the enormous stream of water that runs off the slopes north and east of the Siq is diverted once again through a Nabataean tunnel cut in the bedrock, by a reconstructed dam at the entrance to the Siq, while water that runs into the Siq from the sandstone plateau on either side is slowed by a system of detention dams, slow-emptying pools, and artificial reed beds. The book, a collaborative publication involving dozens of engineers and archaeologists, deals with all aspects of the Siq Project, from the engineering challenges to conservation problems to archaeological data. The numerous illustrations, all in color, are well chosen to elucidate the text, and a series of 28 maps at the end keys the discussion to the various sections of the long, narrow canyon. While the archaeological results are given
some prominence, the volume is an excellent case study of the economic and social complexity of any large-scale renovation of a busy, vulnerable, and highly symbolic archaeological site. The text sets out first the genesis of the project, the initial goals and preliminary studies, the geology of the Petra basin, and the process of work in the Siq, including archaeological results and the process of consolidation and reconstruction. Subsequent chapters discuss the design and chronology of the pavements and associated rock-cut and constructed monuments, the system of pipelines and open channels that brought water from'Ain Musa to the urban center, the system of detention dams that slowed the inflow of water to the Siq, religious structures related to the water system, and the later history of the entire infrastructure system. Five appendices provide additional archaeological information, particularly concerning inscriptions, design, and materials specifications for the reconstructed dams, a remarkably long and diverse list of plant species identifled in the Siq and surrounding area, and the participants in the project. There is a glossary of terms and a short bibliography. Only a summary account of the archaeological remains can be given here. The first paved road was laid down in the first half of the first century B.C.E. to facilitate trade and the movement of construction materials into the developing urban center. A terracotta pipeline with a discharge of 56 liters per second was built along the north wall of the Siq in mid-flrst century B.C.E., carrying the waters of 'Ain Musa into the settlement center. The dams, stepped cascades, and stilling basins for the water-detention system were built in the second half of the first century B.C.E. A second, larger water channel was cut into the south wall of the Siq between 20 and 70 C.E., providing an additional 160 liters per second. Various renovations were carried out on all the systems in the course of the second century. The significant damage from a major earthquake in 363 was only repaired in part, reflecting the economic decline of Byzantine Petra. Perhaps the most surprising archaeokigical find was a lifesize relief of four pack camels and their drovers, carved into one wall of the Siq and depicted carrying bundles of trade goods into the city. This delightful, illusionist work of art reminds us that the basis for Nabataean prosperity and power in the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E. was long-distance trade. The carved tomb facades and elaborate water-supply systems of Petra that impress us today were made possible by a system of economic interchange that flourished under favorable historical circumstances but has long since withered away. Tourism is now the basis for local prosperity. John Peter Oleson University of Victoria
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72;3 (2009)
157
Bible, Map, and Spade: The American Palestine Exploration Society, Frederick Jones Bliss, and the Forgotten Story of Farly American Bihlical Archaeology By Rachel Hallóte. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006. Xiv + 220 pages. Cioth $75.00, ISBN 1-59333-347-1.
T
are many individtials with whom one could begin a history of biblical archaeology. H e l e n a , C a r s t e n Niebuhr, Napoleon, Edward D. Clarke, or Ulrich Seetzen could all be proclaimed a starting point, but the first major role is usually assigned to the rather anomalous American Edward Robinson who explored the Holy Land in 1838 and 1852. Subsequent nineteenth-century American travelers and explorers, such as William F. Lynch, William McClure Thomson, Miner Kellogg, Herman Melville, Samuel L. Clemens, and a myriad of pious pilgrims, recede to the background as research in the nineteenth century was dominated by such Europeans as Charles Warren, Charles Wilson, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, Victor Guèrin, Titus Tobler, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, and Claude Régnier Conder to name a few. The first scientific archaeologist, William Matthew Flinders Pétrie, is known to all, but his successor American Frederick Jones Bliss is rarely mentioned. George Andrew Reisner, the American excavator of Samaria between 1908 and 1910, can be dismissed as an Egyptologist on a singular foray, and it is not until William Foxwell Albright and Clarence Stanley Fisher arrived on the scene in Jerusalem after the Great War that an American role again appears in history books. Why is the nineteenth-century American impact viewed in such a limited fashion.' In Bible, Map, and Spade, Rachel Hallóte suggests that the impact of American researchers was far greater than is generally portrayed and that the major reason for this was Bliss, who downplayed the American role in his important study The Developmeni of Palestine Exploration (1906). Ironically Hallóte then suggests that Bliss himself is probably the most important figure in the development of biblical archaeology and it was Bliss's humble character
158
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72;3 (2009)
coupled with the fact he worked for the British Palestine Exploration Fund that leads modem scholars to overlook this master archaeologist. Clearly Bliss is dismissed by modern commentators such as R R. S. Moorey (1991), Neil A. Silberman (1982), John James Moscrop (2000), and Thomas W. Davis (2004), and only Albright and this reviewer have previously promoted Bliss's importance. Not surprisingly, therefore, I whole-heartedly agree with Hallote's portrayal of Bliss and find much to commend with this book. Bliss is Hallote's lead character, but she does an admirable job in presenting the remainder of the nineteenth-century American cast, especially in bringing the activities and impact of the American Palestine Exploration Society into focus. She fumbles Robinson a hit in not understanding that Biblical Researches was a travel account which was to serve as primary research for his envisioned scholarly Physical Geography of the Holy Land. Robinson's death in 1863 prevented this latter book from being completed, but the partial draft was published after Robinson's death by Roswell D. Hitchcock in 1865, not 1856 as stated on pp. 13 and 207. Eventually, in 1894, George Adam Smith fulfilled Rohinson's goal of a synthetic geographical synthesis of the region with The Historical Geography of the Holy Land.
Bliss is the major player and Hallóte presents a thorough and enlightening account of this very interesting archaeologist and scholar. There are a few small points to raise. On p. 111 Hallóte confuses aspects of the excavation of the "Pilaster Building" and a similar structurefi-omHesy City IV with that of what has come to be called stables or "tripartite pillared buildings" of Hesy City V. Such distinctions are laid out by John M. Matthers (1989). On p. 138 Hallóte seems unaware of Tell ej-Judeideh's modem Hebrew name, Tel Goded, and of Shimon Gibson's study of Bliss's work at that site (1994). On p. 139 Hallóte very accurately discusses aspects of the Tell es-Safi "High Place" that Bliss described. This is not criticism of Hallóte, but every time I look at Bliss's plans and descriptions I see a misunderstood four-room house. Hallóte takes pains to note that this book is not a biography oí Bliss, but at the same time she goes into great detail about Bliss, his life, and his character. Hallóte appropriately paints the picture of a quiet, soher man, an underappreciated scholar who suffered from marginal health most of his life. In this Bliss seems almost one dimensional. To round out this picture it is important to note, for example, that he read trashy novels, especially those written by Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée), Victorian pot-boilers, as he excavated his Palestinian tells. While digging, anyway, he did not read Dickinson, and, in his later years, he returned to playing the piano with gusto.
often regaling his nephews (and anyone in the vicinity) with the bawdy Amherst College songs of his youth. Beside the sober scholar. Bliss had a fun-loving and carefree side which should not be overlooked. By Samuel Mark. College Station, This is a wonderful addition to the study of the history TX: Texas A&M University Press, of biblical, or Palestinian, archaeology. It both fills a gap 2005. Ed Rachal Foundation and corrects previous scholarship, and it should function Nautical Archaeology Series. 257 as a basic resource for many years. Errors and typos are few pages, figures, maps. Cloth, $60.00, in this well-written and well-produced account. 1, for one, ISBN 1-58544-391-3. would have preferred to see at least some illustrations, but that is quibbling. is book is an attempt to Hallóte did miss one important point in her study of analyze ships and seafaring in Bliss, a point which bolsters her argument. She went to the Homeric epics, in their cultural, great pains to describe the sour relationship between Bliss social, ;md economic contexts, and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Exploration indeed an ambitious undertaking. The volume comprises ten Fund, and how they tended to minimize and overlook his chapters. The introduction summarizes previous research on accomplishments. If one reads the Palestine Exploration Fund the interpretation of the texts and their iconography. Here Quarterly Statement and its successor the Palestine Exploration Mark states his view that Homer's Odyssey dates not to the Quarterly, one finds a compulsion among its editors to Bronze Age or to the Geometric period, but to Homer's own include obituaries at the passing of the Fund's explorers, literary world. In this Mark is not alone. excavators, and Committee members. No mention was ever In ch. 2, "The Cultural Context of the ÍÍÍÜÍÍ and the made of the death of Frederick Jones Bliss; it was as if he OtJ^'sse^'," the author attempts to date Homer's works, had never existed. Even in death the Fund was content to summarizing other interpretations and finally settling on excise him from their history. 750-713 B.C.E. Mark uses several different labels for the archaeological periods, e.g., Mycenaean, Bronze Age, and Jeffrey A. Blakely Late Helladic; but the terminólo^ should be consistent or Madison, Wisconsin better explained, as the terms are not interchangeable. Chapter 3, "Society, Economics, and Trade," gives References Davis, T. W. background related to economy and society as described by Homer. It explains economic life in regards to the basic 2004 Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeotogy. social unit—the oikos—and the attitude of society to raids, Oxford: Oxford University Press. commerce, needs, barter, and profits. Gibson, S. Chapter 4, "Hull Construction," is the longest and serves 1994 The Tel! ej'Judeideh {Tel Goded) Excavations; A as the book's archaeological heart. Mark introduces the Re-Appraisa[ Based on Archival Records in the Palestine major technological change in hull plank jointing from Exploration Fund. Te! Aviv 21: I94-2Î4. Matthers, J. M. sewing to mortise-and-tenon joints and suggests that the Homeric ship was sewn. Pomey, Casson, and numerous 1989 Excavations by the Palestine Exploration Fund at Tell others have long discussed this possibility. He refers to an d-Hesi. 1890-1892. Pp. 37-67 in Tell ei-Hesi: The old publication by Pomey (p. 43 n. 102), but neglects his Site and the Expedition, ed. B. T. Dahlberg and K. G. many more recent publications on construction methods O'Connell. Excavation Reports of the American Schools based solidly on archaeological evidence from excavated of Oriental Research: Tell el-Hesi 4- Winona Lake, IN: ships. The recent evidence of ancient ship construction Eisenbrauns. Moorey, E R. S. (from wrecks such as Gela 2, César 1, Cala Sant Vicenç, 1991 A CemuTy af BihUcal Archaeolngy. Louisville, KYr Grand Ribaud F, Pabuç Burnu, and Mazarrón 2) has not Westimnscer John Knox. been incorporated, although the author introduces himself Moscrop, J. J. later as a nautical archaeologist (p. 175). Mark explains this transition in construction was due to the need to carry more 2000 Measuring Jenimlem: The Palestine Explaratinn Fund and amphorae. However, there are mistakes in his assumptions British Interem in ihe Holy Land. New York: Leicester and calculations (pp. 63-64). Cargo was probably not University Press. loaded directly onto the planking; an instance of this is Süberman, N. A. the ca. 400 B.C.E. Ma'agan Mikhael ship, where a large 1982 Digging/or God and Country. New Yurk: Knopf.
Homeric Seafaring
T
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
159
often regaling his nephews (and anyone in the vicinity) with the bawdy Amherst College songs of his youth. Beside the sober scholar. Bliss had a fun-loving and carefree side which should not be overlooked. By Samuel Mark. College Station, This is a wonderful addition to the study of the history TX: Texas A&M University Press, of biblical, or Palestinian, archaeology. It both fills a gap 2005. Ed Rachal Foundation and corrects previous scholarship, and it should function Nautical Archaeology Series. 257 as a basic resource for many years. Errors and typos are few pages, figures, maps. Cloth, $60.00, in this well-written and well-produced account. 1, for one, ISBN 1-58544-391-3. would have preferred to see at least some illustrations, but that is quibbling. is book is an attempt to Hallóte did miss one important point in her study of analyze ships and seafaring in Bliss, a point which bolsters her argument. She went to the Homeric epics, in their cultural, great pains to describe the sour relationship between Bliss social, ;md economic contexts, and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Exploration indeed an ambitious undertaking. The volume comprises ten Fund, and how they tended to minimize and overlook his chapters. The introduction summarizes previous research on accomplishments. If one reads the Palestine Exploration Fund the interpretation of the texts and their iconography. Here Quarterly Statement and its successor the Palestine Exploration Mark states his view that Homer's Odyssey dates not to the Quarterly, one finds a compulsion among its editors to Bronze Age or to the Geometric period, but to Homer's own include obituaries at the passing of the Fund's explorers, literary world. In this Mark is not alone. excavators, and Committee members. No mention was ever In ch. 2, "The Cultural Context of the ÍÍÍÜÍÍ and the made of the death of Frederick Jones Bliss; it was as if he OtJ^'sse^'," the author attempts to date Homer's works, had never existed. Even in death the Fund was content to summarizing other interpretations and finally settling on excise him from their history. 750-713 B.C.E. Mark uses several different labels for the archaeological periods, e.g., Mycenaean, Bronze Age, and Jeffrey A. Blakely Late Helladic; but the terminólo^ should be consistent or Madison, Wisconsin better explained, as the terms are not interchangeable. Chapter 3, "Society, Economics, and Trade," gives References Davis, T. W. background related to economy and society as described by Homer. It explains economic life in regards to the basic 2004 Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeotogy. social unit—the oikos—and the attitude of society to raids, Oxford: Oxford University Press. commerce, needs, barter, and profits. Gibson, S. Chapter 4, "Hull Construction," is the longest and serves 1994 The Tel! ej'Judeideh {Tel Goded) Excavations; A as the book's archaeological heart. Mark introduces the Re-Appraisa[ Based on Archival Records in the Palestine major technological change in hull plank jointing from Exploration Fund. Te! Aviv 21: I94-2Î4. Matthers, J. M. sewing to mortise-and-tenon joints and suggests that the Homeric ship was sewn. Pomey, Casson, and numerous 1989 Excavations by the Palestine Exploration Fund at Tell others have long discussed this possibility. He refers to an d-Hesi. 1890-1892. Pp. 37-67 in Tell ei-Hesi: The old publication by Pomey (p. 43 n. 102), but neglects his Site and the Expedition, ed. B. T. Dahlberg and K. G. many more recent publications on construction methods O'Connell. Excavation Reports of the American Schools based solidly on archaeological evidence from excavated of Oriental Research: Tell el-Hesi 4- Winona Lake, IN: ships. The recent evidence of ancient ship construction Eisenbrauns. Moorey, E R. S. (from wrecks such as Gela 2, César 1, Cala Sant Vicenç, 1991 A CemuTy af BihUcal Archaeolngy. Louisville, KYr Grand Ribaud F, Pabuç Burnu, and Mazarrón 2) has not Westimnscer John Knox. been incorporated, although the author introduces himself Moscrop, J. J. later as a nautical archaeologist (p. 175). Mark explains this transition in construction was due to the need to carry more 2000 Measuring Jenimlem: The Palestine Explaratinn Fund and amphorae. However, there are mistakes in his assumptions British Interem in ihe Holy Land. New York: Leicester and calculations (pp. 63-64). Cargo was probably not University Press. loaded directly onto the planking; an instance of this is Süberman, N. A. the ca. 400 B.C.E. Ma'agan Mikhael ship, where a large 1982 Digging/or God and Country. New Yurk: Knopf.
Homeric Seafaring
T
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72:3 (2009)
159
amount of dunnage was found, thus spreading the load. The species of trees used in building the Kyrenia ship have been reidentified and the ship's dating has been reevaluated, but this information has not been updated. One of Mark's diagrams (fig. 15) is used as an example of a frame set on the keel, hut this is not what is shown. His description of the strength and integrity of a shell-first, mortise-and-tenon hull with a wine-glass cross-section (p. 66) is unclear. A better explanation is given in the next chapter (p. 93), although it is not completely correct. Regarding sewing, the holes have to be aligned (p. 30), and the tetrabedral recesses have to be cut before drilling, not after (p. 64)- Mark states that sewn hulls were more flexible and easier to repair than mortiseand-tenon jointed hulls. However, Viking ships were also flexible, even though they were clinker-huiit and ironnailed. In this chapter the explanations are not convincing, and new discoveries and scientific proofs are not presented. Chapter 5, "Odysseus Builds a Seagoing Vessel," assesses the construction of Odysseus' craft. The comparison of times needed to build a ship and a raft with mast step and mast (pp. 73-74) is not persuasive. Mark outlines two characteristics of timbers required for shipbuilding: the use of joints of different species and dryness (pp. 79-81). These requirements should have been better explained, referring also to Theophrastus (Ciius. plant. 5.7.4). The author explains how the frames determined the shape of the hull (p. 88), but he should have mentioned Hasslöf (1972), who has suggested that shell-first construction does this hetter. (By the way, Hasslöf preferred the raft theory.) Mark's idea that the Ma'agan Mikhael ship had a master frame is interesting, but no evidence for this is presented. The practical execution of lacing according to the methods suggested by Mark (pp. 89-90) needs further examination. The shipbuilding tool kit is dealt with at length (pp. 81-86). These tools have been widely discussed during the last few years, including the possihility that the plane was used earlier than is currently accepted. Chapter 6, "Homeric Ships," is mainly a reinterpretation of the work of earlier scholars. If all the iconography shown (figs. 40, 41, 42, 49, 50, 51 and 53^the latter is from Casson 1995, fig. 65 n. 64) as well as the reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib are not ot rams, how is a ram to be depicted.' If the projections are cutwaters (for better performance and other uses) and not for ramming, why would these not have been installed on the Phoenician merchant ships in the reliefs? The advantage of the forefoot in reducing drag and wave resistance is valid in certain conditions, but it is not certain that this applies to any of the vessels described by Mark (pp. 119-23). He does not adequately explain sailing with two quarter rudders close to the wind (p. 122). The information about the length of Bronze Age, Canaanite, and archaic Greek merchant ships (p. 136) should be revised— of the twelve known Greek shipwrecks, six are shorter, two are longer, and only four are 15-20 meters long.
160
NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 72;3 ¡2009)
Chapter 7, "Seafaring on the Wine Dark Sea," emphasizes Greek Homeric society as a maritime civilization. Night sailing is accepted as a certainty and the problematic aspect t)f sailing along coastlines is well explained. However, Odysseus' sailing due east for seventeen days (p. 143) calls for a detailed analysis, and Hesiod's short crossing to Euboea (p. 145) can hardly be considered a voyage. Chapter 8, "Anchoring and Anchorages," describes the use of natural anchorages or beaches. Stern-first mooring is well known in the Mediterranean even today, and Mark explains its advantages in allowing for a quick escape in an emergency. He appropriately concludes the first paragraph on p. 158 by writing "Unfortunately, this is all speculation," which in this reviewer's view implies that this chapter could as well have been deleted, or else partially incorporated in ch. 7. Chapter 9, "Geography," attempts the difficult analysis of the geography described in Homer's works. His sagas were incorporated into Greek culture and spread through the Mediterranean with Greek colonization. Greek sailors, regardless of their geographical home, had their own Scylla, Charybdis, and Fair Haven, and attempts to identify real geographical locations based on legends finally lead to deadends. In referring to geographical identification aids, Mark should have mentioned the cave in Polis Bay and the tripods {Odyssey 1 3.217) now in the Stavros Museum, Ithaca. Chapter 10, "Summary," repeats the main points of the hook, whether proven or not, and could bave been omitted. Arguing with Casson, Pomey, Meiggs, Morrison and Williams, and others must be based on a deep study of evidence (preferably new), analyses and proofs, and a solid foundation of up-to-date archaeological and literary knowledge. The book requires corrections, additions, and improvements. Essential references are missing, a few sections are not in their proper contextual place, some text is repeated, and several figures (such as 6, 8, and 67) need improvement. As in every book there are a few typographical mistakes. Dr. Mark's final sentence summarizes the hook: "The least is that this study will serve someone else as a starting point from which to undertake a voyage that is rewarding, regardless of its destination." Yaacov Kaharwv Leon Rccanati Institute for Maritime Studies University of Haifa, hrael
Reference Hasslui, O 1972 Main Principles in the Technology of Ship-building. Pp. 27-72 in Ships and Shipyards. Sailors and Fishermen.
ed. O. Hasslöf, H. Hennlngsen, and E. Christensen Jr. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University Press.
