Ptolemy IX Soter II, Antiochus IX Philopator (“Cyzicenus”), and John Hyrcanus I

The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Southwest: Imperial Domination and Its Consequences

This is a peculiar little book that I like very much. It consists of 56 short essays intended to be answers to questions that archaeologists might be asked about archaeology by the person sitting next to them on an airplane; hence the phrase “5 minute archaeologist.” The questions range widely, from basic ones about the purpose of archaeology (e.g., Chapter 2, “How Does Archaeology Help Us to Understand the Past?”), to archaeological methods (Chapter 15, “Why Sift and How Often?”), to epistemology and ethics (Chapter 56, “Is it Ethical to Excavate in Contested Areas?”). A few of the questions are oddly specific (Chapter 27, “How Do You Identify a Dirt Road?” or Chapter 32, “How Does Bayesian Statistics Help Pinpoint Dating?”), but the vast majority is on topics about which I have been asked at various times by non-archaeologists.The book is divided into four sections: “Basics,” which covers general archaeological methods; “Artifacts, Architecture, and Dating,” which covers aspects of analysis; “Types of Archaeology,” which is focused on theoretical perspectives and topical areas of interest; and “Ethical Issues,” which considers ethics but unfortunately misses some essential topics such as excavating human remains, working with descendant populations, and conducting research on unprovenienced artifacts.As in any collection of essays, the quality varies, but there are no real duds in the book, and some of the essays are outstanding. For example, Aren Maeir's essay “What is Archaeology?” provides an elegant overview of the purpose and practice of archaeology in less than three pages—it is a tour de force. Similarly, Sarah Kielt Costello creates a thorough answer to the question “What is Post-Processual Archaeology?” in three pages. Oren Borowski's essay “Who Pays For All This?” is remarkably clear and comprehensive. Eric Welch in “What is a Phase and a Stratum?” provides an engaging introduction to what could have been an extremely dry topic, as does Tim Frank in his overview of taphonomy in “How Do You Identify an Artifact and How It was Used?” And there are other fine chapters in the book.That covers what The 5 Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant is; now on to what the book is not. Foremost, it is not focused on the Southern Levant. Only two of the chapters (37 and 38) focus on issues that are truly unique to the Southern Levant, and only five others (3, 10, 25, 43, and 44) could be considered somewhat unique to Levantine archaeology. But the vast majority of the chapters focuses on topics, and even uses examples, that any archaeologist might be asked about. I think it was an unfortunate error to add “in the Southern Levant” to the title, as it makes it seem that the book is tightly focused when it is not. This is a book suited to anyone interested in archaeology anywhere in the world.The book is also not a general introduction to archaeology, primarily because it lacks an overarching narrative or organization that would take a reader through the entire archaeological process of data recovery, analysis, and interpretation. Indeed quite a few of the chapters would assume some prior knowledge of archaeology (Chapter 22 “What is Primary vs. Secondary Use?”), and there are some important topics missing such as systematic recordkeeping and mapping. There is also considerable overlap between some of the chapters. In short, the book is a collection of short essays and not a textbook.I recommend The 5 Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant to anyone with a general interest in archaeology. Professionals and graduate students might find some fodder for the classroom, but will learn nothing new from the book. Undergraduates might find the book useful as a companion to a general text in archaeology. But The 5 Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant is really aimed at a general reader, and for that purpose it is an excellent resource.

This paper proposes a new approach to examining the relationship between Egypt and the southern Levant. While the political, economic, and military interests of Egypt in the southern Levant are well established, we ask whether the southern Levant was ever ideologically considered to be part of Egypt proper. In doing so, we examine the evidence, or lack thereof, for the existence of the important political and religious concept of Maat in the Late Bronze Age southern Levant, and how this evidence informs the Egyptian viewpoint toward the southern Levant.

Modeling foraging ranges and spatial organization of Late Pleistocene hunter–gatherers in the southern Levant – A least-cost GIS approach

This paper examines the use of silver as a form of pre-coinage money in the Southern Levant from the Middle Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age (~ 2000–600 BC). Drawing on evidence from unearthed hoards, it also explores how silver gradually emerged as a preferred medium of exchange, beginning with its introduction in Mesopotamia and Syria in the EBA, in Anatolia during the MBA, in the Southern Levant during MB III, in Egypt, Cyprus and the Northern Levant during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) II, and finally in the Aegean during Iron Age II. The Southern Levant saw significant use of silver during the final stages of the Middle Bronze Age, with the first silver-currency hoards appearing at Shiloh and Gezer (~ 1650/1600–1600/1550 BC), predating other regions. Although silver was temporarily replaced by gold in the Late Bronze Age, it re-emerged as the dominant form of money by the Late Bronze Age IIB, ~ 1300 BC, a status it retained until the end of the Iron Age (~ 600 BC), despite occasional shortages. The distribution and context of silver hoards suggest evolving socio-economic patterns, where silver was initially restricted to elite transactions but later became more widely used in both domestic and public spheres. This study emphasizes that while silver became the leading form of money in the Southern Levant, other regions used different metals, such as gold, copper and bronze, at various times. The adoption of silver in the Levant likely reflects broader political and economic ties with Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia.

The societies occupying the Nile Delta in the 4th millennium BC were not cut off from the neighboring regions of Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant. The Nile River, which served as a transport route between southern and northern Egypt, and the geographical proximity of the Southern Levant to the Nile Delta were probably both factors that allowed contact to occur between the regions. Whilst a significant number of Southern Levantine and Upper Egyptian imports have been found at Lower Egyptian cultural sites, the quantity of Lower Egyptian items from the same period found in the Southern Levant and in southern Egypt is more limited. This state of affairs did not occur by chance, which suggests that the scarcity of northern Egyptian finds outside Lower Egypt can probably be attributed to the nature of trade and the position of the Nile Delta in this period.Although our knowledge of the contact of the Delta with Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant is constantly expanding, many issues still remain unclear, including that of trading patterns. Archeological research currently being conducted in northern Egypt (mainly at Tell el-Farkha, Tell el-Iswid, Sais and Buto) has provided us with new material that adds to our understanding of the field. From the most recent excavation results, it would appear that from the very beginnings of its existence, the Tell el-Farkha site in the eastern Delta was as an important exchange center where the influence of the east and the south came together.The aim of this paper is to portray the interaction occurring between the Delta, Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th millennium BC on the basis of material found at the excavation site of Tell el-Farkha in the eastern Nile Delta and to explain the role of the Nile Delta in political and cultural relations between these regions.

During the past century, numerous archaeological surveys and handbooks have been published that include summaries of the Levantine Bronze Age (fourth–second millennia BCE: ca. 3800–1100 BCE). The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant by Raphael Greenberg is the most recent and in-depth of these treatments. The ways in which such archaeological overviews are approached have evolved over time. The first of these summaries, notably by W. F. Albright (1940 and later editions), presents the results of excavations in pre-WWII Palestine. This was followed by K. Kenyon's 1960 (and later editions) publication, which integrates the contributions of post-WWII archaeology in Israel and Jordan, especially her excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem. These two books, as their titles suggest, linked the archaeological evidence to the biblical and historical record, and they had a broad appeal for both the academic community and the general public. Three decades later and following a dramatic increase in archaeological activity in the region, A. Mazar (1990) and A. Ben-Tor (1992) published updated archaeological summaries of the southern Levant. Both volumes, which served as textbooks for a generation of undergraduate students and valuable reference works, prioritize the archaeological data, examined together with the primary textual sources.Other surveys dedicated to the archaeology of this region emphasize anthropological approaches to reconstruct the social archaeology of the southern Levant (see, e.g., Levy 1995 and Yasur-Landau et al. 2019). One publication, J. M. Golden's (2009) Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction, organizes the archaeological data thematically. Margreet Steiner and A. E. Killebrew's 2014 multi-author handbook is the most comprehensive archaeological treatment of this region and includes both the northern and southern Levant and Cyprus. It serves as a general resource and reference work for the broader Levant and its interaction with neighboring regions.Greenberg's 2019 monograph differs from these earlier publications in his prioritization of processes over agency. Additionally, it centers solely on the Bronze Age and focuses primarily on the archaeological data interpreted through the lens of socio-anthropological theory while minimizing the use of textual sources. As a coherent, up-to-date narrative written by a single author, it also avoids the pitfalls of earlier edited handbooks and surveys comprised of chapters of uneven quality and differing approaches.The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant appears in the Cambridge World Archaeology series, whose targeted audience comprises students, professional archaeologists, and academics in related disciplines. The aim of this series is to publish up-to-date surveys of the archaeology of a particular region that integrate findings, contemporary theoretical approaches, and intellectual trends with broader cross-cultural interpretations. Greenberg's volume is solidly situated in the socio-anthropological approach to Levantine archaeology and lives up to the goals of this series. It is written as a narrative that traces social and cultural change in the Levantine Bronze Age and how communities there interacted with the broader developments in the Near East and Mediterranean, ranging from emulation to resistance. Major transregional themes addressed include the emergence of states, international trade and elite networks, and external imperial ambitions. The author also considers the impact of landscapes and places of commemoration as reflected in the archaeological record. The book consists of seven chapters, including an introduction (Ch. 1) and conclusions that summarize the legacy of the Bronze Age Levant (Ch. 7).Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the Levant and its environment. In this volume, the Levant refers to a section of the eastern Mediterranean littoral, the rift valley and the highlands bordering the valley on either side, today forming the modern entities of coastal Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian territories, and Jordan. Greenberg outlines his rules of engagement and defines the Bronze Age as a period when key human institutions develop, subdividing these into cities, states, markets, military power, legal codes, and institutionalized religion. The fourth–second millennia BCE also witnessed the human impact on the physical landscape, including the appearance of the layered mound (tell), and the integration of the Levant into a Mediterranean world resulting in the establishment of contact networks and interaction (3). This chapter defines the geographical boundaries of the Levant and characterizes it as “a diverse patchwork of environmental affordances and potentialities” and an “ecological mosaic” with a range of microclimates that serve as a buffer to climatic change (6–7). Contrary to much recent scholarship on the importance of climatic change for settlement patterns, social organization, and economic development, Greenberg downplays its impact on the Bronze Age Levant.Chapter 1 also outlines the principal themes that form the framework for this book. They include the ebb and flow of centralization of power, which the author attributes to the tendency of people in the Levant to both emulate the political ideologies of neighboring regions and resist their practical application (13). In his approach, Greenberg begins with the material culture evidence, privileging excavation results over surveys. As contemporary texts are usually fragmentary and often not directly relevant to the material culture interpretation, he uses these texts sparingly, prioritizing the archaeological over the literary record. In each chapter, chronological parameters and the environmental setting are discussed. Main archaeological categories including settlement patterns, architectural features / built landscape, key artifact types, crafts/industries, and burials / mortuary practices are described in detail.Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to the Early Bronze (EB) I, II, and III, a period of time spanning over a millennium (ca. 3800/3600–2400 BCE) and the focus of much of Greenberg's decades-long excavation and research. Greenberg traces several trends, including the transition from the village-based world of the EB IA, the establishment of more complex mega-villages, and the beginnings of inequality, that appear in the EB IB during the final centuries of the fourth millennium. The latter period also coincides with the first significant interaction between Egypt and the Levant, which Greenberg terms the “first Egyptian intrusion” (13, 57).The following millennium represents the crystallization of fortified population centers and the appearance of “urban ideologies” (13) in the EB II and III. Chapter 3 explores the nature of EB II–III Levantine society. A key question addressed is: Can the EB II fortified cities be considered “urban”? The physical features of these settlements meet some of the criteria usually defined as “urban” (e.g., fortifications and evidence of town planning), as exemplified in contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. However, other commonly cited features of urbanization, such as large, clustered populations, writing, and administration, are lacking. These characteristics suggest that the EB II and III Levant represents “partial” urbanization (what some have termed “complex villages”) or, as Greenberg proposes, a uniquely local, “Levantine” urbanism.Chapter 4 investigates the Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA), a 500-year period of time that in the southern Levant is marked by changes in settlement patterns including the abandonment of mound settlements, a shift in mortuary practices, and regional ceramic assemblages based on village workshops. The retreat from urbanism during the IBA is often attributed to the well-documented climatic change that occurred between ca. 2200 and 1900 BCE. However, Greenberg challenges this interpretation, noting (140) it is difficult to evaluate the impact of climate change on microregions within the Levant and the nature of human response to it. As he points out, counterintuitively, the number of settlements in drier, more marginal regions increases in the southern Levant during the final centuries of the third millennium, coinciding with a period of a warming climate.In Greenberg's account, the picture that emerges during the IBA is one of regionally diverse cultural assemblages that are difficult to place chronologically due to the dearth of uninterrupted stratified sequences in the archaeological record and insufficient radiocarbon dates. Although the IBA is culturally distinct from the EB III, some material-culture features demonstrate elements of continuity with the EB III and overlap with the MB I. These findings suggest that, chronologically, the IBA may have partially co-existed with the EB III and MB I, a phenomenon that Greenberg (182) terms in Chapter 5 as “archaeologically coeval.”Chapter 5 examines the first half of the second millennium, conventionally termed the Middle Bronze Age (MBA). The MBA is also often understood as a cultural “regeneration” that represents the apex of Bronze Age urban culture in the Levant. Following his goal of disentangling the textual and archaeological evidence, Greenberg constructs what he terms a new “conceptual scaffolding” (184), which is grounded in the archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dates. This approach leads him to decouple the end of the MB II from the documented expulsion of the Hyksos and link it with the eruption of the Thera volcano that occurred ca. 1600 BCE and doubtlessly had a profound short-term effect on the environment in the eastern Mediterranean.The remainder of the chapter presents the archaeological evidence, mainly from the southern Levant, arranged chronologically and regionally. Greenberg (264–65) concludes, somewhat controversially, that the end of the MB II is marked by societal collapse, coinciding with the period of the Thera eruption but unrelated to disruptions that may have resulted from New Kingdom Eighteenth Dynasty accounts of a “Hyksos expulsion” from Egypt. In his view, this “collapse” is best exemplified by two phenomena: first, what he considers to be a marked discontinuity between MBA and Late Bronze Age (LBA) material culture (a statement that not all archaeologists would agree with); second, a contraction in population that led to a decrease of settlements, both in size and in number, during the LB I.The LBA is featured in Chapter 6. Greenberg outlines the two main themes that serve as the framework for his narrative interpretation of this period: the expansion of Egyptian imperialism in western Asia and the impact of interconnected regional economic networks. Several dozen pages are devoted to the concept that the Levant was “under Egypt's heel.” This view is puzzling since archaeological evidence for Egyptian interaction during the LB I and LB IIA is scant, as Greenberg himself (299–300, 309) points out. Rather, our knowledge of Egyptian engagement in Canaan during this period depends largely on textual evidence: Eighteenth Dynasty annals, which describe periodic Egyptian campaigns to Canaan, and the mid-fourteenth-century BCE Amarna letters. Except for Jaffa, there is little archaeological evidence for an Egyptian occupation during the LB I and IIA. This changes in the thirteenth century BCE, when Egyptian intervention is archaeologically visible but confined to a number of sites that served as Egyptian strongholds, as summarized by Greenberg (291–99, 302–10). Outside of these strongholds, Egyptian artifacts in Canaan are not abundant and, when they do appear, are usually imported prestige objects. Based on the archaeological evidence, there is little support for the view that New Kingdom Egypt “annexed” the southern Levant as Greenberg maintains (287). Rather, the archaeological evidence suggests Egypt appears to have exercised varying degrees of informal to administrative imperialism during the course of the LBA. Though Greenberg emphasizes the role of Egyptian imperialism in the region, when considered in its larger eastern Mediterranean political context, one may question how much Egyptian imperialistic ambitions affected daily life or controlled socioeconomic, political, and cultural developments in the LBA Levant.The second part of this chapter discusses the LB II prestige economy, exemplified by discoveries from Hazor, Megiddo, and other small towns and nodes of ritual power. In this section, Greenberg justifiably highlights the role of interconnected networks in shaping the LBA Levant. The archaeological evidence is unequivocal. The large number of imported Cypriot and Mycenaean objects at Levantine sites and elsewhere reach their apex during the LB IIA and testify to the Levant's integration in LBA global networks. This coincides with a period during which direct Egyptian imperialistic control seems to have been minimal. Not discussed is the central role of copper from Cyprus and long-distance trade in tin in this imperial and elite-controlled exchange system. Unlike many scholars of this period, Greenberg (341–42) does not consider the end of the LBA and transition to the Iron I period, or what he terms the Terminal Bronze Age (ca. 1200–1100 BCE), to represent a period of societal collapse or significant disruption.In his final, seventh chapter, Greenberg considers the legacy of the Bronze Age Levant, asking “what changed, what stayed the same, and what was passed on to the following eras” (354). The first signs of early state formation can be discerned in the EBA. EB II and III polities, which can be described as “just short” of being towns and states, are, in Greenberg's view, the foundations for MBA, LBA, and later Levantine political entities. Another development is the Levant's unique ability to adopt innovations from neighboring cultures and its willingness to absorb technologies, peoples, and ideas. One of Greenberg's more interesting observations is the linear rise in the “capacity for violence” (355) over time, best evidenced by the increase in weapons and human-induced destructions during the course of the Bronze Age. As Greenberg concludes, ultimately it is the geographic characteristics of this region that shaped the Levant and its cultures, creating a uniquely Levantine idiom. Its diverse landscapes, microregions and climates, and lack of unifying geographic features tended to suppress the ability to accumulate great amounts of surplus or wealth (which, in turn, would have required the development of large bureaucracies). These tendencies also encouraged exploitation of the region by imperial powers. The result is the resilience, creativity, and flexibility to adapt to new situations as narrated in Greenberg's masterly, nuanced, and engaging account of the Bronze Age Levant.

The Enigma of the Hyksos, Volume 1: ASOR Conference Boston 2017—ICAANE Conference Munich 2018—Collected Papers

New Epipalaeolithic assemblages from the middle Euphrates and the implications for technological and settlement trends in the northeastern Levant

This article explores the distribution of Cypriot Red-on-Black and Red-on-Red (RoB/RoR) ware in the southern Levant during the Middle Bronze I to Late Bronze I. While traditionally associated with Middle Bronze II through Late Bronze I, the study presents evidence suggesting an even earlier appearance of RoB/RoR in the southern Levant, specifically in Tel Kabri Phase DW V, corresponding to the transitional Middle Bronze I–II. The findings challenge previous assumptions about the timeline and trade routes of this distinctive pottery. In examining the earliest occurrences of RoB/RoR in the southern Levant, potential characteristics of Bronze Age sailing mobility between Cyprus and the southern Levant are also presented, indicating that open-sea crossings would have been possible, especially to the major coastal sites in the area of Tel Kabri, such as Achziv and Akko.

Often an Egyptian demand for olive oil and wine is seen as a stimulus not only for the increasing production of these commodities in the Early Bronze Age (EBA) southern Levant, but also for their growing socioeconomic importance. While the import of southern Levantine wine to Egypt is proven by archaeological finds, the scale of this trade as well as its significance for the socioeconomic development of the southern Levant is debatable. It is more likely that the production of cash crops in the southern Levant was primarily directed towards the needs of local markets, and that it was local elites who gained power by controlling the flow of agricultural goods between the highlands and the lowlands. Thus the production of cash crops may be regarded as one of the factors that led towards increasing social stratification, eventually resulting in an urban society in the EBA southern Levant.

The carabids of the tribe Platynini from the southern Levant (Egypt: Sinai Peninsula, Israel, Jordan) and adjacent regions of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are reviewed in terms of species taxonomy, ecological, distributional traits, and conservation biology. In addition to a classical dichotomous identification key to the 14 species of the region, identification tools are made freely available via the Xper3 knowledge database “Platynini, southern Levant”. Besides an interactive identification key, a matrix with character states for the species and single access identification keys are available. A database including all available records from the southern Levant is also provided. First faunistic records are recorded for Anchomenusdorsalisinfuscatus from Sinai (Egypt), Olisthopusfuscatus from Lebanon and Iraq, and for O.glabricollis from Iraq. Threatened species are discussed, also with regard to the reasons of their decline. The majority of species lives in wetlands, especially on the shore of winter ponds and streams, which have been extremely degraded in the last decades.

Birds and the exploitation of birds by humans are typically overlooked in archaeofaunal collections. While the frequency of avian remains does not rival those of domestic livestock, that does not render them insignificant in the overall animal economies of Levantine sites. Birds and humans have a long history in the southern Levant, from prehistoric food source to sacrificial offering. Avian remains have been identified, in all periods, at many sites throughout the southern Levant, allowing for an in-depth diachronic exploration to be conducted. This paper tracks the presence and frequency of major avian species—specifically geese, ducks, partridges, pigeons, and doves—in light of changes that occurred in climate, environment, agriculture, trade, and the geopolitical landscape, as well as processes of cultural emulation and cultic influence that took place in the southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age I, and Iron Age II. The key foci will be on the role of geese in cultural emulation, pigeons as sacrificial offerings, waterfowl affected by climate change, and the differences between local vs. import exploitation of birds.

:<i>Metal Finds and Coins: Final Publications from the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project II</i>

ASIA, WEST | Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization