The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East

Abstract

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xviii + 492; vi = 488; vi + 489; vi + 536; vi + 553. $595.00. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (OEANE) is the ultimate work of service. The result of this service is the fourth major reference work of this ilk to appear in this decade. The first of these new tools was the Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman (Doubleday, 1992). The second was the encyclopedia of the Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (CANE), conceived and directed by J. Sasson (Scribner, 1995). Freedman's collection was a form of encyclopedia, confined largely to the biblical world. Sasson's was an extensive survey of Near Eastern culture especially. The third tool, the New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavation in the Holy Land (NEAEHL), is an updated version (1993) of an earlier encyclopedia (1975) assembled under the direction of Ephraim Stem. It contains in-depth articles on every site relating to biblical Israel on which there is a significant bibliography and many on which there is not. Where, especially in the light of NEAEHL, was the niche for the present project? It was in the presentation, in short form but with good bibliography, of information on every major archaeological site in the Near East. In addition, it lay in the presentation of articles on subjects of archaeological method and interest (e.g., a delightful article on Sheep and Goats by Melinda A. Zeder, and another and even more provocative one on Syro-Palestinian Houses by John S. Holladay). Entries of this sort are far more numerous and far-ranging than the comparable items in NEAEHL. Ideally, in other words, this should be a reference work for site reports, with lines of communication extending out into the detailed reports, and a primer for basic subjects of inquiry in the field of archaeology. The conception is marked by an intelligent clarity. What we have is the World Book of Near Eastern archaeology, a transparent, basics-oriented starting point for students. It would be unfair to hold the articles in this work up against standards to which they were never intended to be held, because the word limits imposed by the publisher (to be fair: in negotiation with the editor) prohibited more nuance. But as examples of their genre they are almost uniformly serviceable and effective; and, periodically, they rise to virtuosity. The editing of the volume was far more intelligent than is typically the case in journal publications, and the result is a generally higher standard of argument and evidence. This is one of the lessons of our recent reference works: major projects attract scholarly energies in a way that the chaos-governed intellectual behavior of the scholarly collective otherwise cannot do. And this in itself tends to raise the bar in terms of the quality of contributions. The better the editor-and the editor's board, of course-the better the publication. This editor and this board secured able contributors. How ably do the contributors overcome the problem of synthesis of large bodies of information? There is a palpable difference between articles about sites outside and inside literate zones. Consistently, the sites from periods and places without a history of documentation fall into the category of general anthropological reportage: competent, relatively detailed, and framed in a larger interlocutory framework. The sites connected with texts directly or indirectly attract far more synthetic treatment, and sometimes, as in the case of Dur-Katlimmu, text seems to overwhelm the archaeology. Indeed, in some articles, highly doubtful textual connections stemming from an earlier era of scholarship-to the biblical patriarchs, for example, or, in the article on Shechem, to the identity of a temple and the etiology of a destruction reported in Judges 9-survive almost without historical qualification. …