From the Editors

Abstract

This issue of JEMAHS describes a variety of new approaches to the archaeology of the Levant. At the same time, it also examines a fundamental perspective that has fascinated scholars since the beginning of archaeology—cultural connections.This perspective, in particular, has always distinguished the archaeology of the ancient eastern Mediterranean and, in different ways, the articles in this issue emphasize the concept without overstating it. Putting aside antiquated notions of hyper-diffusion, no one working in this region today can deny that trade, diplomacy, conquest, and a host of other factors have linked it to other civilizations in significant ways. The current authors focus on various aspects of these ancient human contacts—the material remains of which circumscribe a world in which goods flowing into, and out of, the Levant from far and wide were commonplace.In “The Origin of Tel Dor Hacksilver and the Westward Expansion of the Phoenicians in the Early Iron Age: The Cypriot Connection,” Jonathan R. Wood, Carol Bell, and Ignacio Montero-Ruiz present compositional and lead isotope data from the early silver hoards of the southern Levant (ca. twelfth–ninth centuries BCE) in a new light, determining that much of the hacksilver from Tel Dor probably came from Kalavasos on Cyprus where, as they conclude, also the technology required to extract the metal originated. They further propose that the people who had the knowledge to exploit such a resource were also the people with “an archaeological footprint in both Cyprus and Iberia in the Early Iron Age.” Not surprisingly, they look to the Phoenicians, the intrepid international commodities brokers of the ancient Near East, as the likely candidates.Scott Bucking and Tali Erickson-Gini's article “The Avdat in Late Antiquity Project: Report on the 2012/2016 Excavations of a Cave and Stone-Built Compound along the Southern Slope” describes the town's monastic community during a time in which the Levant became a focus for religious migration and a period of prolific ecclesiastical construction. They explore the role played by topography in defining patterns of settlement, a factor that is often overlooked in the archaeology of historical periods. Focusing on urban monasticism in late antique Palestine, they conclude that the site exemplifies the “social and economic agency of the town's monks” who took an active role in the region's wine trade and pilgrimage industry.The wine trade was a constant in the economies of the ancient eastern Mediterranean, and this commodity was even more essential for the imperial powers that controlled the Levant, as Norma Franklin, Jennie Ebeling, Philippe Guillaume, and Deborah Appler tell us in “An Ancient Winery in Jezreel, Israel.” They postulate that the military nature of the demand for wine under the Assyrian hegemony was the stimulus for increasing production at Jezreel during that period. With reliably productive soil and a perennial water supply, Jezreel became an important wine production center in the Iron Age and continued to be so for almost one thousand years.The inevitable transition from discussions of wine and its importance in the ancient world to food is made by the article “Heads or Snails? A Rustic Feast at Hellenistic Philoteria (Tel Bet Yeraḥ, Israel), circa 150 BCE.” Miriam Pines, Alol Dor, Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Sarit Paz, Oren Tal, and Raphael Greenberg propose that the consumption of edible molluscs and gazelle and pig cranial parts, the latter evoking images of the traditional “boar's head” feasts of much later times, at a single, perhaps festive, meal suggests a culture that was more Mediterranean than Levantine. The consumption of pork points to a more cosmopolitan outlook on food that would later be superseded by the ethnocentrism of the Hasmonean kingdom.Two book reviews in this issue take us from a prehistorian's ruminations on “space archaeology,” to analyses by Near Eastern archaeologists seeking new insights from some of the earliest transmitters of human communication, ancient seals. Dr. Space Junk vs the Universe: Archaeology and the Future by A. Gorman is reviewed by Mitchell Allen. Siobhan Shinn assesses Seals and Sealings in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia, edited by M. Ameri and others.We hope that you will find much to intrigue and inspire you in this issue.