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Recently, a travel account and 700 photographs came to light by the hand of Leo Boer, a former student of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem who, at the age of 26 in 1953–4 visited many archaeological sites in the area of present-day Israel and the Palestinian Territories. These documents inspired 20 internationally-renowned scholars – many of whom excavated at the sites they describe – to report on what we know today of nine particular sites chosen from the many that Leo Boer visited 60 years ago: Jerusalem, Khirbet et-Tell (?i?), Samaria & Sebaste, Tell Balata (Shechem), Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Khirbet Qumran, Caesarea, Megiddo, and Bet She’an. Rather than focusing on the history of these sites, the contributors describe the history of the archaeological expeditions. Who excavated these sites over the years? What were the specific aims of their campaigns? What techniques and methods did they use? How did they interpret these excavations? What finds were most noteworthy? And finally, what are the major misconceptions held by the former excavators? Several themes are interwoven amongst the contributions and variously discussed, such as ‘identification of biblical sites’, ‘regional surveys’, ‘underwater archaeology’, ‘archaeothanatology’, ‘archaeology and politics’, ‘archaeology and science’, and ‘heritage management’. This unique collection of images and essays offers to scholars working in the region previously unpublished materials and interpretations as well as new photographs. For students of archaeology, ancient or Biblical history and theology it contains both a detailed archaeological historiography and explores some highly relevant, specific themes. Finally, the superb quality of Boer’s photography provides an unprecedented insight into the archaeological landscape of post-war Palestine for anyone interested in Biblical history and archaeology.
It is a place both mythic and all too real, a place thought to be the site of one of our oldest human settlements and known to be a center of ancient cultures and annihilating conflicts. It sits at the bottom of a malarial valley, the lowest place on the surfact of the earth--"the overheated, earthen basement of the world," as Robert Ruby describes it. And yet, long before the world's modern religions began scrapping over its bones, Jericho was home to waves of colonization and floods of destruction. Fought over by the succeeding epochs of ancestors, the place we call Jericho is as old as the first remnants dated at 9,000 B.C.--and as current as the daily headlines. In this unorthodox biography of the first eleven thousand years in the life of a legend, Robert Ruby takes us back through time to those early settlements, then forward to the often crude but ultimately successful latter-day attempts to locate Jericho, to unearth and map and catalog its history. Beginning with the geography of place, he weaves together his own intimate knowledge of modern-day Jericho with stories of the lives and work of those explorers and archaeologists of the past whose courage often bordered on madness and whose dedication sometimes seemed the purest kind of human folly. Soldiers, scholars, engineers, adventurers--dilettantes and professionals alike, they were all dreamers drawn to this parched and dusty spot where so much of human history took place. Matching biblical accounts to araeological evidence, sifting myth from science, phantoms from reality, Robert Ruby teases out the complex strata of the past, helping us to make sense of what exists today. With the flair of a novelist and the enthusiasm of an amateur archaeologist, he offers a tale that is part detection, part epic adventure. Above all, he gives us a work of great literary panache: witty, fact-filled, and uterly, subversively compelling.
This volume brings together all the successful peer-reviewed papers submitted for the proceedings of the 43rd conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology that took place in Siena (Italy) from March 31st to April 2nd 2015.
The important Early Bronze Age site of Bâb edh-Dhrâ’, on the lisan near the Dead Sea in Jordan, was first excavated by Paul W. Lapp in the 1960s. The first volume of the Reports of the Expedition described the burial practices and artifacts revealed in the 1965–67 Bab edh-Dhra’ excavations directed by Lapp. This second volume reports on the four seasons of excavation, from 1975–81, at the town site, directed by Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub. It focuses on the lifeways of the Early Bronze Age peoples who inhabited the site during the Early Bronze Age. The stratigraphy and changing architectural practices of five major phases are fully documented and interpreted, with extensive plans and sections. Alternating chapters trace the development of the ceramic sequences, accompanied by innovative statistical analyses of the wares, forms, types, and function of the town assemblage. The results of the ceramic studies are compared to the contemporary cemetery ceramic sequences and other important excavated Early Bronze Age sites such as Arad, Jericho, Ai, Megiddo, and Tel Yarmuth. A series of integrated studies based on the town site sequences focuses on the adaptive agricultural practices of the Early Bronze Age people, revealed through the paleobotanical evidence, pollen analysis, and the ground stone industry. Specialized studies on the chert tools, metals, jewelry, and glyptic art offer new insights into the cultural patterns that distinguish this period. A new series of C14 dates helps to situate the Jordanian material within the contemporary cultural sequences of the fourth and third millennia in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
This two-volume book presents cutting-edge archaeological research, primarily as practiced in the Eastern Mediterranean region. These volumes’ key foci are inspired by the work of Thomas E. Levy. Volume 1 provides an in-depth look at new archaeological research in the southern Levant (primarily in modern Israel and Jordan) inspired by Levy’s commitment to understanding social, political, and economic processes in a long-term or “deep time” perspective. Volume 2 focuses on new research in several key areas of 21st century anthropological archaeology and archaeological science. Volume 1 is organized around two major themes: 1) the later prehistory of the southern Levant, or the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age, and 2) new research in biblical archaeology, or the historical archaeology of the Iron Age. Each section contains a combination of new perspectives on key debates and studies introducing new research questions and directions. Volume 2 is organized around five major themes: 1) the archaeology of the Faynan copper ore district of southern Jordan, a key region for archaeometallurgical research in West Asia where Levy conducted field research for over a decade, 2) new research in archaeometallurgy beyond the Faynan region, 3) marine and maritime archaeology, focusing on issues of trade and environmental change, 4) cyber-archaeology, an important 21st century field Levy conceived as “the marriage of archaeology, engineering, computer science, and the natural sciences,” and 5) key issues in anthropological archaeological theory. In addition to presenting the reader with an up-to-date view of research in each of these areas, the volume also has chapters exploring the connections between these themes, e.g. the maritime trade of metals and cyber-/digital archaeological approaches to metallurgy. The work contains contributions from both up-and-coming early career researchers and key established figures in their fields. This book is an essential reference for archaeologists and scholars in related disciplines working in the southern Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Monographs of the Sydney University Teleilat Ghassul Project 2 This work addresses a number of issues emerging from evidence from Teleilat Ghassul in the south Jordan Valley, incorporating unpublished material from Professor J.B. Hennessy's excavations in 1967, 1975-1977, and new material from Bourke's 1994- present campaigns at the site. These include: A report of the excavated material and architecture from Area E, the 'Sanctuary' precinct; Justification for the 'cultic' attribution of the precinct, and some proposals about the nature of the cult activities and their purpose; The evidence for emerging internal competitive diversity in cult and religious activities at the site, its cause and consequences; Observations on the spatial and temporal place of Teleilat Ghassul, and specifically the Sanctuary, in the broader Chalcolithic and pre-state spectrum; The extent to which cult expression reflects a social response to managing crisis, rather than success; The extent to which the evidence supports conventional paradigms about increasing social, economic and technological complexity in pre-state societies, and the value added by the Ghassul evidence to our understanding of Chalcolithic culture and social systems; Analysis of the extent to which the Sanctuary and the broader site can inform the extension of archaeological analysis, to identify the conscious behaviour and evidence of individuals manipulating social and economic circumstances to alter the power relationships in a community; and the degree to which we can extend recent conceptual frameworks in articulating an 'Archaeology of Politics' from pre-literate evidence in cult contexts. Part I presents a full report on the architecture, ceramics and small finds from Area E. The stratigraphy, architecture and phasing of the Sanctuary precinct, including the Sanctuary Courtyard, and the adjacent Industrial Area, reports previously unpublished detail of the excavated remains. This is followed by the ceramics from the Sanctuary precinct, with reference to the Pontifical Biblical Institute material where appropriate and with a broad indication of parallels in the region. The distribution of ceramic forms and wares is presented as the basis of evidence for the unique and specialised nature of the Sanctuary. Objects from the Sanctuary precinct are also presented in a comparable descriptive and statistical format to the ceramics. The architecture of other Chalcolithic sites, cultic and domestic, is discussed in Part II with the aim of drawing conclusions about the function of the Sanctuary, and its relationship with identified comparators at En Gedi and Gilat. Possible links with Mesopotamian, southern Anatolian, Syrian, Egyptian and desert sites are also explored. Part III takes a deliberate context-based approach to cult analysis, drawing together the objects from the Sanctuary Courtyard, Sanctuary Temenos, Industrial Area and Painters Workshop to demonstrate the significance of the components of each assemblage and their relationship to the cult activities. Part III also examines the Ghassul Area E Sanctuary against existing and respected models of cultic criteria and recommends additional criteria to be added to this model. A catalogue of objects from the Sanctuary precinct is presented in the Appendix to emphasise the significance of each assemblage and promote the benefits of context-based publication of objects. Part III draws together current debates and evidence on chronology, environment and economy in the Chalcolithic with specific reference to Ghassul and the Sanctuary, and presents some conclusions about the evidence for risk and crisis, which may have generated the social and political responses by groups and individuals inherent in the Sanctuary evidence. Conclusions in Part IV respond to the aims set out above.
Peoples of the distant past lived comfortably in cities that boasted well-conceived urban planning, monumental architecture, running water, artistic expression, knowledge of mathematics and medicine, and more. Without the benefits of modern technology, they enjoyed all the accoutrements of modern civilization. Technology of the Ancient Near East brings together in a single volume what is known about the technology behind these acheivements, based on the archaeological, textual, historic, and scientific data drawn from a wide range of sources, focusing on subjects such as warfare, construction, metallurgy, ceramics and glass, water management, and time keeping. These technologies are discussed within the cultural, historic, and socio-economic contexts within which they were invented and the book emphasises these as the foundation upon which modern technology is based. In so doing, this study elucidates the ingenuity of ancient minds, offering an invaluable introduction for students of ancient technology and science.