From the Editors

Abstract

With this issue we are entering our tenth year of publication. At the outset, the editors of JEMAHS have sought to publish articles from varied archaeological practitioners and diverse scholars, as well as span the eastern Mediterranean for subject matter. With contributions from archaeologists who have worked at American, Syrian, Jordanian, Turkish, French, Danish, and British institutions, the articles that follow will, indeed, offer an international perspective on the sites of the region. They also, each in its way, address the vanishing of archaeological heritage and suggest methods of record keeping that will benefit future generations: be it through the creation of special archaeological field methods, the documentation of the views of local stakeholders, or, for the purpose of historical reconstruction, the use of archives that earlier generations of scholars established.In “The Archaeology of Hittite Landscapes: A View from the Southwestern Borderlands,” Ömür Harmanşah, Peri Johnson, Müge Durusu-Tanrıöver, and Ben Marsh undertake a multilayered examination of an important region in Near Eastern antiquity. Using data from the nearly decade-long Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project, they analyze Hittite occupation of three different landscapes—the Ilgın Plain, the Bulasan River valley near the Hittite fortress of Kale Tepesi, and the pastoral uplands of Yalburt Yaylası. For each of these, they articulate the many different kinds of cultural relationships and dynamics during the Late Bronze Age, a period of immense interest to archaeologists.“The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Syria: The Case of Shash Hamdan Tomb 1 in the Upper Euphrates” combines an intense literature review with new survey data and interviews with the local population to reconstruct a history of the site and detail the reasons for its deterioration. The subject of this article, Shash Hamdan, is located on the Syrian Euphrates and includes impressive Roman-era rock-cut tombs. Adnan Almohamad documents the extent of the damage to one of these tombs and compares its current state with the published evidence from an Australian archaeological expedition in 1998. His consultations with people who live near the tombs provide a rare insight into their attitudes about the presence of archaeological sites in their region.As the authors of “Harald Ingholt's Twentieth-Century Archive of Palmyrene Sculptures” maintain, archival material for sites in conflict zones is an underutilized resource for information on such places. Using the example of the Tomb of Maqqai at Palmyra, the authors, Olympia Bobou, Amy Miranda, and Rubina Raja, demonstrate how valuable archives are for accessing knowledge about places that are in danger of disappearing. Harald Ingholt's archive of Palmyrene sculpture, dating back to the 1920s is, as they demonstrate, a vital resource for scholars who may never get to conduct a first-hand examination of the site of Palmyra themselves.This issue also includes book reviews from Thomas Davis on the Empires of Antiquities: Modernity and the Rediscovery of the Ancient Near East, 1914–1950; from Sabine Fourrier on The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture; from Ann E. Killebrew on The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant: From Urban Origins to the Demise of City-States, 3700–1000 BCE; and from Benjamin Saidel on Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T. E. Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt.