Amarna Tablets Research Articles

The Iron Age I in the Northern Levant: New perspectives from Lebanon

The beginning of the Iron Age in the Levant has been for the past three decades the focus of intense studies and debates. The main reason that had triggered this interest is the turmoil characterizing the end of the Late Bronze Age coupled with the migration of newcomers dubbed the “Sea People” to the coastal Levant. This phenomenon has been studied to a length in the southern Levant where evidence of destructions followed by a new culture is attested on many coastal sites. However, in neighboring Lebanon, few studies focused on this period mainly due to the paucity of archaeological sites dating to the end of the Late Bronze Age/beginning of the Iron Age. In recent years, remains uncovered at major sites such as Tell Arqa (Irqata of the Amarna Tablets), Sarepta, Tyre, or Kamid el-Loz (Kumidi of the Amarna Tablets) gave no evidence for destructions at the end of the Late Bronze Age in this country. On the contrary, the architectural and material culture found at sites such as Tell Arqa and Sarepta points to a smooth transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. While the exposed architecture is usually flimsy and is characterized by a widespread use of pits and silos (a phenomenon equally observed on other neighboring sites such as Tell Afis in Syria or Tell Tayinat in Turkey), the pottery still retains old characteristics; yet integrated into a few new shapes and fabrics. The patterns of archaism observed in the material cultural in Lebanon challenges the established understanding of the Iron Age I in the southern Levant where it is characterized as a period of turmoil and transformation.This presentation analyses the architectural and material characteristics of the end of the Late Bronze Age I/beginning of the Iron Age I in Lebanon with the aim at isolating both local characteristics and regional influences.

Understanding Philistine Migration: City Names and Their Implications

The origin of the Philistines, their quantity, quality, and status among the native Canaanite population, have all been the focus of a substantial volume of research. However, limited attention has been paid to the fact that at least four of the five primary Philistine cities—Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron—have Semitic names. Four of these five toponyms are known from the Bronze Age historical sources (such as the documents from Ugarit and the Amarna tablets and other Egyptian records), while the fifth (Ekron) is mentioned in Iron Age documents. This paper examines the influence of various factors (e.g., migration, conquest, exile, colonial and imperial rule) on the naming of sites settled by immigrants from other periods and cultures. The results of this examination are then applied to the existing theories regarding the settlement of the Philistines, in order to investigate the choice of location of their cities and the reason for adoption of existing toponyms by the immigrants.

Back to Bethel: Geographical Reiteration in Biblical Narrative

The history of Syro- Palestine did not begin with appearance of Israelites. The topography and climate of that region helped to shape cultures for thousands of years. As a result, many of cities mentioned in biblical narrative had long histories prior to appearance of ancient Israelites.1 For instance, archaeological excavations at Jericho have revealed occupation layers reaching back to Mesolithic era, ca. 9,000 b.c.e. Jerusalem, which would eventually become Israel's capital city, had, according to mid-fourteenth-century b.c.e. El Amarna tablets, an earlier incarnation as a political center, serving as a Canaanite citadel ruled by an Egyptian political appointee.2 This prior history associated with significant sites in part explains inclusion of scribal glosses in text that provide both old and new names for several cities. Thus, Hebron was once known as Kiriath-arba (Josh 15:13); Dan originally was named Laish (Judg 18:29); and Jerusalem previously was referred to as Jebus (Josh 18:28). The process of placenames evolving also contributes to development of a scribal and political strategy known as geographic reiteration, which takes advantage of authority associated with sites and, in some cases, uses this to manipulate story or memory of events. Before exploring characteristics of geographic reiteration as they relate in particular to often-mentioned site of Bethel, I want to focus first on significance of place in biblical narrative and briefly discuss contribution of spatiality theory. Using a definition of place as any area which an observing consciousness . . . distinguishes and separates, by whatever means, from other areas,3 I would further note that can be divided into distinct types or modes. Firstspace is used to identify those concrete locations that can be mapped and that we determine to be physical realities, such as cities, mountains, and rivers.4 Secondspace represents imagined in other words ideas about such as traditional significance or sacred character of a place. Finally, thirdspace, can be thought of as lived space, which encompasses full range of human activities associated with a particular firstspace.5 Henri Lefebvre uses term for what I am calling thirdspace. He identifies social as the outcome of a sequence and set of operations and notes that there is nothing imagined, unreal or 'ideal' about it.6 There is value in employing this spatial framework for understanding how is perceived in ancient world and how concept of is manipulated by different elements of society. By applying these concepts, it becomes possible to classify how is associated with events, legal formulations, architectural design, political boundaries, economic activities, and personal ambitions.7 For instance, it is instructive to note where modern politicians declare their candidacy for office or deliver major policy speeches as a clue to significance they place on specific sites (a secondspace concept). One means of deciphering spatial understanding of ancient Israelites is to examine ways in which is both defined and manipulated by persons and events. This can be as simple as identifying physical places where Israelites performed different types of work, worshiped and engaged in religious rituals, transacted business, practiced and executed legal decisions, and gathered for important announcements (all thirdspace designations). However, these mundane social practices take on different meanings, purposes, or intentions depending on where in and time they occur and characteristics of participants (e.g., Boaz calling together elders of Bethlehem in gate area to discuss Naomi's legal problem [Ruth 4:1-2]). Thus, content or substance of act (farming, public speaking, ritual, and transaction) derives meaning from ( 1) rank, authority, or status of person involved, and (2) physical and symbolic character of space (including time, place, occasion, or setting) in question. …

YUVAL GOREN, ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN and NADAV NA'AMAN, Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts

YUVAL GOREN, ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN and NADAV NA'AMAN, Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts

Amarna Studies: Collected Writings

Amarna Studies: Collected Writings, by William L. Moran. Edited by John Huehnergard and Shlomo Izre'el. HSS 54. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003. Pp. xxxi + 363. $44.95 (hardcover). ISBN 1575069067. This book is a tribute to the memory of the dominant scholar in Amarna studies during the second half of the twentieth century. The editors seek to present all of the major essays on the grammar and contents of the Amarna correspondence that Moran wrote and published. They begin with his Ph.D. dissertation, A Syntactical Study of the Dialect of Byblos as Reflected in the Amarna Tablets, completed under William F. Albright in 1950. Described by the editors as of the most oft-cited unpublished works in the field of Near Eastern studies, the publication of this work fifty-three years after its completion attests to the groundbreaking nature of Moran's study and its ongoing importance for research. It is the most important single service that the editors perform. They make easily accessible a previously unpublished work that within its 130 pages provides the syntactical distinctives of this important dialect, and thereby presents the major single corpus of linguistic information for antecedents to biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, and the West Semitic languages of the Iron Age. To this may be added the value of the dissertation as a model for the study of the whole collection of West Semitic dialects as represented in the corpus of the Amarna correspondence, the fourteenth-century B.C.E. cuneiform letters exchanged between the princes and administrators of Canaan and the pharaohs of Egypt. In the period before Moran's work, the general perspective on the language of the Amarna correspondence was that it reflected poorly trained scribes or, at best, made use of mixed dialects that confused interpretation. Moran chose to study the largest collection of Amarna letters from one geographic site, that of Byblos. In this manner, he was able to define a dialect from a single city over a relatively short period. Moran identified significant features in the particles, verbal morphology, and clause syntax that demonstrated a meaningful and distinct dialect. He argued that this dialect consistently reflected West Semitic grammar and syntax, distinct from the Old Babylonian language, which appeared in the script and vocabulary that the scribe used. One example of a major breakthrough in Moran's study was his identification of modal congruence in purpose clauses. …

The Expansion of the Kingdom of Amurru According to the Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets

A petrographic investigation of the Amarna tablets has been carried out by the authors since 1997. Over 300 tablets have so far been examined, including 14 letters sent by the rulers of Amurru. The...

The Seat of Three Disputed Canaanite Rulers According to Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets

The Seat of Three Disputed Canaanite Rulers According to Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets

Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets

Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na'aman The Amarna letters are a collection of 382 tablets from the fourteenth century BCE that represent international and vassal correspondence from local rulers in Canaan and Egyptian pharaohs, primarily Amenophis III and Akhenaten. Even though the Amarna tablets are written in (peripheral) Akkadian, the then current language of diplomacy, they reflect a distinct Northwest Semitic morphology and syntax (and occasionally vocabulary), which is attributed to their native Canaanite setting. Since 1997 the authors have carried out extensive petrographic analysis of the Amarna tablets kept in museums in Berlin, London, Oxford and Paris. Their research aims at pinpointing the geographic origin of the tablets and clarifying problems related to the geographical history of the ancient Near East. In particular, the authors look at the following case studies: the location of the kingdom of Alashiya, the expansion of the kingdom of Amurru which was located in western Syria, the system of Egyptian administration in Canaan and the territorial and political division of Canaan.

The Seat of Three Disputed Canaanite Rulers According to Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets

(2002). The Seat of Three Disputed Canaanite Rulers According to Petrographic Investigation of the Amarna Tablets. Tel Aviv: Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 221-237.

Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan. Anson F. Rainey

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsCanaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan. Anson F. Rainey Dennis PardeeDennis Pardee Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 58, Number 4Oct., 1999 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/468760 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1999 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Kathryn McConaughy Medill The Idrimi Statue Inscription in its Late Bronze Age Scribal Context, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 382 (Sep 2019): 243–259.https://doi.org/10.1086/705563

Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan

This four-volume reference work deals with the language of the Amarna letters written by scribes who had adopted a peculiar dialect mixture of Accadian and West Semitic syntax. Each volume is written as a separate monograph; together they treat the problems of morphology and syntax, providing an invaluable source for the historical study of the North West Semitic family, including biblical Hebrew.

The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the Debate on Jerusalem's Political Position in the Tenth Century B. C. E.

Understanding of the problems involved in the excavations of multilayered highland sites and an examination of the long-range perspective are both essential for the correct appreciation of Jerusalem's political position in the tenth century B.C.E. No negative conclusions about Jerusalem in the Late Bronze II and Iron Age I-IIA should be drawn from the results of the excavations conducted on the Ophel Hill. A comparison between the evidence of the Amarna tablets and contemporaneous archaeological data is essentialfor the correct evaluation of the data about Jerusalem. Investigation of the archaeological data and written sources indicates that tenth-century Jerusalem must have been a highland stronghold and the center ofa kingdom, dominating large, hilly territories with many settlements, and thus was able to expand to nearby lowland territories and possibly even to the areas of neighboring kingdoms. According to modern socioarchaeological criteria, the tenth-century kingdom was a prestate, polymorphous chiefdom with Jerusalem as its center of government.

The Divine Election of Israel (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 206 Reviews Lambdin, Thomas O. 1971 "The Junctural Origin of the West Semitic Definite Anicle." Near Eastern Studies in Honor ofWilliam Foxwell Albright. H. Goedicke, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. pp. 315-333. Moran, W. L. 1950 A Syntactical Study of the Dialect ofByblos as Reflected in the Amarna Tablets. Ph.D. dissenation, Johns Hopkins University. Polotzky, H. J. 1965 Egyptian Tenses. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Rabin, Chaim 1951 Ancient West-Arabian. London: Taylor's. Rendsburg, Gary A. 1990 Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew. New Haven: American Oriental Society. Steiner, R. C., and C. F. Nims 1985 "Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin: A Tale of Two Brothers from the Aramaic Text in Demotic Script." RB 92: 60-81. Young, G. Douglas 1953 "The Origin of the Waw Conversive." JNES 12: 248-252. THE DIVINE ELECTION OF ISRAEL. By Seock-Tae Sohn. Pp. xvi + 296. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. Paper, $19.95. Seock-Tae Sohn contends that the concept of the election of Yahweh's people Israel in the OT is not limited to passages in which the root bahar appears, but encompasses all the words, phrases, metaphors, and relationships which the OT uses to describe Israel's election. An examination of these texts reveals that the main concern of OT writers who refer to Israel's election is not a past event in which Yahweh chose Israel to be his people, but the ongoing relationship between Yahweh and Israel. When Israel became aware that Yahweh had chosen her to be his special people, she used common, everyday metaphors to describe this. In order to perceive the OT concept of Yahweh's election of Israel, it is necessary to Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 207 Reviews undertake three procedures: (1) find the tenns, phrases, parables, and metaphors in the OT which describe Yahweh's relationship to Israel; (2) detennine how and in what kind of life setting these tenns were used; and (3) deduce the particular aspects of the OT teaching on election contained in these words and descriptions. Although Seock-Tae Sohn's ostensible concern is the election of Israel, in reality he deals with five stages in the history of Yahweh's interaction with Israel: (a) Yahweh "takes" or "chooses" Israel to be his special people when he brings them out of Egyptian bondage and gives them his instructions at Mount Sinai; (b) Yahweh gives Israel the land of Canaan as her possession, but she "forsakes" or "turns away from" him and worships the baalim; (c) Yahweh raises up the Assyrians and the Babylonians to overthrow North Israel and Judah respectively for their sins and to carry them into exile; (d) Yahweh still loves and cares for his people and yearns for them to return to him; (e) Yahweh will restore Israel and Judah to himself and will reestablish his fonner relationship with them. Seock-Tae Sohn suggests that various OT writers drew upon eight common relationships to communicate this historical sequence of Yahweh's relationship with his people. The earliest metaphor used to depict this relationship is that of Yahweh as warrior-king and Israel as his chosen anny. This figure appears in the Song of the Sea (Exod 15:1-18), the accounts of Joshua's battles in Canaan (Josh 5:13-15; 6:2, 16-19; 10:8-13), the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), and the account of Gideon's battle against the Midianites (Judg 7:7, IS, 22); therefore, it is premonarchic. The prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. were responsible for introducing the other seven metaphors: Yahweh is a husband and Israel is his wife; Yahweh is a father and Israel is his adopted son; Yahweh is a fanner and Israel is his vineyard; Yahweh is a shepherd and Israel is his flock; Yahweh is a potter and Israel is the clay which he shapes and reshapes into a vessel to his liking; Yahweh is a master and Israel is his servant; and Yahweh is a holy God and Israel is a holy people whom he has set apart for himself. The application of certain details of some of these metaphors to the historical relationship...

Is There Really a yaqtula Conjugation Pattern in the Canaanite Amarna Tablets?

Is There Really a <i>yaqtula</i> Conjugation Pattern in the Canaanite Amarna Tablets?

On the Genitive after umma in the Amarna Tablets

In BASCR 87.32-7 Professor Albright in his usual pioneerinA fashion has thrown new light on several historicaL and linguistic de ils of the tablet from Tell el-Hesi. Among other interesting observations is that in Note 7 on the oocurrence of the genitive endin after the formu]a umma, which he believes is characteristic of Canaanite as opposed to Akkadian, which uses the nominative case after umma. This observaticn led me to Ao through the umm« formula in the Amarna tablets and to list the sases where vmma is followed by a personal name and an appositional noun written phonetically, such as ardu and ipru (in most cases these common epithets are written as ideoArams). Apparently the personal names are treated as indeclinables in most cases, but there are a few variations: Riboddi and Ribadda, «ubandi and «ubandu. More interesting is the fact that there are variations in the endings ofsappositional nouns, in perhaps more than 10 percent of the cases where the noun followinq umma is phonetically written. I give a few examples.

The Habiri in the El Amarna Tablets

The Habiri in the El Amarna Tablets

Mahanaim; Altaic Letter from Tell Amarna; The Lachish Inscription; The Hebrews on the Tell Amarna Tablets; Baal Gad; Notes on theQuarterly Statement

Mahanaim; Altaic Letter from Tell Amarna; The Lachish Inscription; The Hebrews on the Tell Amarna Tablets; Baal Gad; Notes on the<i>Quarterly Statement</i>