Iron Age Kingdoms Research Articles

Trade, Kingdom, and Empire: Edom and the South Arabian Trade

AbstractDuring the first millennium BCE, extensive trade networks linked the South Arabian and Mediterranean worlds. While these trade networks are well known for their transport of highly lucrative materials, these connections afforded myriad economic and diplomatic opportunities for the intermediaries located along its routes, and held significant bearing on the political economies of southern Levantine kingdoms. While the wealth and opportunity afforded by the Arabian trade to these kingdoms are frequently invoked—particularly in relation to Edom—such references, and related discussions of the Arabian trade, are often restricted in their chronological scope and reliant on limited data. Recent scholarship on Edom, however, has substantially contributed to a more detailed understanding of settlement trajectories and shifts in sociopolitical organization, which, combined with recent archaeological research on varied aspects of the Arabian trade, necessitate an expanded synthesis of the trajectory of this trade and its relation to Edom. This work thus presents first an outline of the diachronic trajectory of the Arabian trade in relation to the southern Levant using textual and material culture data, and second, analyzes it within the context of sociopolitical developments in the late Iron Age kingdom of Edom. Ultimately, this work argues for a close association between the flourishing of long-distance trade in the southern Levant and the presence of sedentary sociopolitical complexity in southern Transjordan, as evident in the kingdoms of Edom and later Nabataea.

Literacy in Judah and Israel

A highly discussed issue in the fields of Hebrew epigraphy and biblical research is the level of literacy in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah (Rollston 2010; Davies and Romer 2013; Schmidt...

THE BEGINNING OF THE IRON AGE AT ARSLANTEPE: A14C PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACTThe Iron Age chronology at Arslantepe is the result of the interpretation of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions and archaeological data coming from the site and its surrounding region. A new round of investigations of the Iron Age levels has been conducted at the site over the last 10 years. Preliminary results allowed the combination of the archaeological sequence with the historical events that extended from the collapse of the Late Bronze Age empires to the formation and development of the new Iron Age kingdoms. The integration into this picture of a new set of radiocarbon (14C) dates is aimed at establishing a more solid local chronology. High precision14C dating by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and its correlation with archaeobotanical analysis and stratigraphic data are presented here with the purpose of improving our knowledge of the site’s history and to build a reliable absolute chronology of the Iron Age. The results show that the earliest level of the sequence dates to ca. the mid-13th century BC, implying that the site started developing a new set of relationships with the Levant already before the breakdown of the Hittite empire, entailing important historical implications for the Syro-Anatolian region at the end of the 2nd millennium BC.

Culinary Traditions in the Borderlands of Judah and Edom during the Late Iron Age

Cooking pots and culinary practices can be used as a sensitive proxy for social identities. Through an analysis of culinary traditions in the northeastern Negev—the borderland region between the Iron Age kingdoms of Judah and Edom—a complex narrative of social interaction between diverse social groups can be identified. This article demonstrates patterns of social and economic alliances, migration and intermarriage through spatial and temporal analyses of the distribution of cooking pot types. The resultant portrait is the outcome of opportunities afforded by the South Arabian trade network traversing the borderland region.

History & Geography

History & Geography Christopher T. Begg, Andrew W. Litke, Victor H. Matthews, Randy C. Payne, William J. Urbrock, and Fred W. Guyette ________ 288. [Cyprus] M. G. Amadasi and J. A. Zamora, “The Phoenician Name of Cyprus: New Evidence from Early Hellenistic Times,” JSS 63 (2018) 77–97. The Phoenician name of Cyprus was not known with certainty until now. From the beginning of the Iron Age until the Hellenistic period, the island was divided into independent kingdoms, each of which took its name from that of its capital city. For this reason, only the names of towns or regions—not that of the entire island—appear in local inscriptions of the period in question with the result that the island’s name in Phoenician has been unknown. In our paper, we review all relevant evidence concerning the question, from the second and first millennia b.c., both internal and external, and present a new document, which definitively settles the question of the Phoenician name for Cyprus. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 289. [Scribes; Libraries] Sidnie White Crawford, “Scribes and Libraries in Ancient Israel,” Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran, 49–111 [see #828]. In the previous chapter (see #48), I surveyed evidence for scribes and libraries in the ANE and the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. In this chapter, I narrow the focus to biblical Israel, beginning with the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah until the Babylonian destruction in 587 b.c.e., continuing through the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, and concluding with the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (135 b.c.e.). I exclude the Qumran evidence (with the exception of a few pertinent texts), which I deal with in chap. 4 (see #703). In the first section of the chapter, I survey the epigraphic and literary evidence for scribes and writing, while in the second section I look at the archaeological evidence for book collections, archives, and libraries. The essay concludes with an appendix entitled “Scribes in the Synoptic Gospels.” [p. 49, adapted—C.T.B.] 290. Shimon Dar, “Archaeological Evidence for the Settlement Enterprises of the Hasmonean House in the Districts of Ofaraiam, Lod and Ramataim,” LASBF 68 (2018) 227–46. D.’s paper surveys a dozen archaeological sites that have been excavated in the ancient districts cited in his title in recent years. These districts were ceded to the Hasmonean rulers of Judea by King Demetrius II (reigned 145–140 b.c.e.), a Seleucid ruler who had a troubled reign. Prior to the excavations, only written sources were available to scholars for the reconstruction of the actual process referred to in 1 Macc 11:32–34. The excavations revealed the existence of many small villages and farmsteads established by [End Page 86] the Hasmonean rulers, particularly under John Hyrcanus I (134–104 b.c.e.) and his successors. This process of settlement continued until the Herodian period. At the excavated sites, many agricultural installations were unearthed, as were mikvaot, stone vessels, coins of the Hasmonean rulers, and synagogues in the larger settlements. During the two revolts against Rome, many of the settlements were destroyed and abandoned, especially after the Bar Kokhba war (132–136 c.e.). Several generations later, they were resettled by non-Jewish populations. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 291. [Siloam Tunnel] Philip R. Davies, “The Siloam Tunnel Revisited,” Finding Myth and History, 30–50 [see #789]. In this essay, D. revisits an article that he and J. Rogerson published in 1996 in Biblical Archaeologist. In it they argued that the so-called Siloam Tunnel was built by a Hasmonean king in the second century b.c.e. rather than by Hezekiah. D. provides an updated discussion of the relevant issues in archaeology, history, biblical tradition, geology, and paleography regarding the tunnel. He concludes that while it may never be known who built the tunnel, “Hezekiah is a poor candidate.”—A.W.L. 292. [Nebuchadnezzar II] Alexander Fantalkin, “In Defense of Nebuchadnezzar II the Warrior,” Altorientalische Forschungen 44 (2017) 201–8. Recent scholarship tends to downplay the military achievements of Nabû-kudurrīuṣur II (Nebuchadnezzar II...

Bounded Landscape

While massive defensive walls were characteristic of many central sites in antiquity, small rural settlements were typically unfortified. In the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah, however, all types of settlements were usually surrounded by walls, separating the nucleated settlements from their surroundings. These Iron Age villages differed from most Bronze Age villages in the region, and from contemporaneous villages in neighboring cultures. While the existence of boundary walls is indicative of community organization and social relations, this study asks why the Israelites created bounded landscapes, and so made such a clear dichotomy between inside and outside, between places of human habitation and the surrounding areas, between culture and nature? A sharp dichotomy between places of human habitation and the countryside is also reflected in the (biblical) Hebrew language and in various texts, as well as in a structural analysis of other material cultural traits, providing additional insights into ancient Israel’s perceptions of space. This study also exemplifies how patterns observed in the archaeological record of historical periods can be combined with an examination of that society’s spoken language, and along with indirect information obtained from the period’s documentary sources may provide a fuller understanding of the worldviews of the ancients.

Two (?) Lion Reliefs from Iron Age Moab: Further Evidence for an Architectural and IntellectualKoinéin the Levant?

The collection of the Karak Archaeological Museum contains two carved basalt slabs, both of which show the rear parts and hindquarters of a leonine figure. Although the two slabs differ vastly in their state of preservation, a comparison of their physical properties and iconographic features suggests that the two reliefs originally formed a matching pair and were part of a single architectural feature. Comparing the slabs to the well-known corpus of northern Levantine monumental sculpture, it is argued that the reliefs constitute the remains of two gateway figures, most plausibly dated to the Iron Age. The Karak slabs thus provide the first likely evidence for the use of architectural stone sculpture by Moabite elites, a practice most commonly associated with the Iron Age kingdoms of the northern Levant. Lion sculptures were often employed as gateways figures in public buildings, especially in the northern Levant and northern Mesopotamia, attesting to the close relationship between these images and the royal ideology they helped to project. Through their existence, the Karak slabs not only provide further evidence for cross-cultural artistic interaction in the Iron Age Levant but also suggest that ancient Karak played an important role in these exchanges.

Exploring the lower settlements of Iron Age capitals in Anatolia and Syria

Abstract

Eastern Mediterranean Economic Exchange during the Iron Age: Portable X-Ray Fluorescence and Neutron Activation Analysis of Cypriot-Style Pottery in the Amuq Valley, Turkey.

Two markers of regional exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during the first millennium BCE are the White Painted and Bichrome Wares from Cyprus’s Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic periods. Although these ceramics are often assumed to be imports from Cyprus, excavations in southern Turkey at sites such as Tarsus-Gözlükule, Kilise Tepe, Sirkeli Höyük, and Kinet Höyük suggest that at least some of this pottery was produced locally, requiring a major revision of our understanding of economic interaction in the Eastern Mediterranean. We employ a combination of portable x-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analysis to investigate the White Painted and Bichrome Wares recovered from Tell Tayinat, Çatal Höyük, and Tell Judaidah, three sites in the Amuq Valley of southeastern Anatolia. Our results demonstrate that a clear geochemical distinction exists between imported and local versions of this pottery. Through comparison with legacy datasets, we locate the likely origin of the imported pottery in the Circum-Troodos sediments of central and southern Cyprus. The secondary and tertiary settlements of Çatal Höyük and Tell Judaidah had access only to this imported material. In contrast, the inhabitants of Tell Tayinat, capital city of the region, consumed both imported and locally produced White Painted and Bichrome Wares. This pattern cannot be explained in purely economic terms whereby the frequency of imports decreases as distance from the point of production increases. Instead, we suggest that elite feasting practices drove demand, resulting in either local potters producing Cypriot-style pottery or Cypriot potters settling in the vicinity of Tell Tayinat. These findings offer new insights into the relationship between historically attested Iron Age kingdoms in southern Turkey and Cyprus and complicate our understanding of exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Iron Age.

A boom-bust cycle in Ottoman Greece and the ceramic legacy of two Boeotian villages

Asserting that scholarly obscurantism has hindered the evolution of Ottoman Archaeology during the new millennium in different parts of the Eastern Mediterranean would be a hyperbole. It is accurate to acknowledge though that research into the Ottoman past sprang out of Historical Archaeology through untangling its archaeological marginality only as late as the 1980s, when archaeologists and anthropologists started to appreciate the rich textual and material legacy of the Ottoman era in the framework of regional survey projects. Up until that time, the negative perception and unpopular legacy of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the creation of national identities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the focus on the Biblical past, Iron Age kingdoms and Hellenic culture in present-day nation-states of the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Greece, Cyprus, Israel or even Turkey itself, did not encourage the growth and huge potential of Ottoman Archaeology as a discipline.

Economy and Exchange in the Iron Age Kingdoms of the Southern Levant

Studies of the ancient world, and of the ancient Near East in particular, disagree over how to characterize the ancient economy. This paper attempts to contribute to this discussion by outlining an economic framework for the Iron Age kingdoms of the southern Levant. Three institutions—the kingdom, the market, and the trade route—provided opportunities for exchange, each according to a distinct economic rationale.

Building Power: Palaces and the Built Environment in Cyprus in the Archaic and Classical Periods

A detailed study of the topography of Cypriot cities in the time of the Iron Age kingdoms is not possible based on our present state of knowledge. The most important points of reference occur in th...

Basic elements of the traditional garden identity in the city of Van

Garden culture in the architectural patterns in and around the city of Van in the East Anatolian region of Turkey has been a tradition from the Urartian Iron AgeKingdom in Eastern Anatolia to the present. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the city of Van had an exclusive residential area where houses were surrounded by gardens. In this study, by exploring the texture of the old gardens in some current residential areas of the Van city center and its surroundings, we evaluated depending on the house-garden relationship, the street-house relationship, and size, garden elements, types of the plants. In this study the garden culture and understanding of the landscape will be brought from the time of the Urartians to our time and to the future. Further, an understanding of the traditional use of plant types in the city and their ornamental use will be recorded and perpetuated for regenerating into garden culture. Key words: Van/Turkey, landscape, Van lake, garden elements, structure of Van gardens.

Nabataean Edom: a demographic and archaeological approach to modelling sedentarisation and regional dynamics

There is a general consensus amongst scholars that the Nabataeans were originally nomads who had migrated from somewhere in Arabia into southern Jordan in the period following the collapse of the Iron Age kingdoms and the beginning of the Persian period. The questions of why, when and how the process of the sedentarisation of the Nabataeans took place is still a matter of debate, but scholars have in general concluded that trade was the principal factor. Here arguments for a different approach are presented in the form of two models. Model 1 suggests how the sedentarisation of the Nabataeans in its initial phase can be seen as a self-initiated process impacted by two main factors: demographic (population growth) and political (centralisation of power); trade, however, must have intensified this process. Model 2 suggests that the process of sedentarisation was not sudden but gradual, and that it resulted in regional specialisation.

Constructing the Cypriot Iron Age: Present Praxis; Future Possibilities

The Iron Age of Cyprus, while treated in various degrees at various international conferences over the past 30 years, seldom has been the focus of them. The session on Iron Age kingdoms at the 1995 Archaeological Institute of America meeting in San Diego represented one of the few gatherings devoted exclusively to the island's Iron Age remains. The meeting allowed one to review the present praxis of research concern with sites that date primarily to ca. 1150-450 B.C.E. While the excavations of these sites are executed with the traditional high standards and objectives of classical archaeology, the goals and scope of the investigations tend to be circumscribed. Future field work and analyses, however, present researchers with other possibilities and directions for their investigations of the Cypriot Iron Age. The suggested holistic conjunctive/contextual approach to the study of this seminal period in the island's cultural development would ensure that future results would be in the mainstream of archaeological thought and praxis in the Mediterranean region and beyond.

The Iron Age Kingdom of Marion

Princeton University archaeology teams have been digging at Polis Chrysochous (ancient Marion and Arsinoe), Cyprus, since 1983. Good evidence for the Iron Age is limited to sanctuaries of the seventh and sixth centuries B. C. but there are also scattered traces of earlier periods. The rare domestic remains are very poorly preserved in shallow deposits. Foreign contacts begin in the seventh century but first become important in the sixth century, a conclusion confirmed by over 100 years of excavation in the large cemeteries surrounding the site. The political structure of the Archaic kingdom of Marion has left no archaeological traces, but the similarity of pottery found throughout the Chrysochou Valley from the sixth century B. C. on indicates a cohesive geographic unit. The tombs provide no insight into social stratification. The one well-preserved sanctuary (B. D7) does provide good evidence on cult and the range of Attic imported pottery aids the study of trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

Notes on the Iron Age Kingdoms of Cyprus

This essay briefly examines trends in current research on the Iron Age kingdoms of Cyprus, with reference to recent discoveries at Amathus, Idalion, Kition, Kourion, and Marion, all subjects of articles in this issue of BASOR. In addition, it suggests ways of furthering the present understanding of the histories of these kingdoms. On the one hand, it is gratifying that more than 110 years after the publication of Cesnola's large, three-volume Descriptive Atlas of the island's antiquities, multivolume atlases are now needed for each of the kingdoms, and that Cypriot archaeology has, so to speak, entered a subatomic age. Whereas a previous generation of scholars had simply to study Cyprus as one atom within a larger Mediterranean molecule, it is now possible to examine more clearly the subatomic particles of the larger whole-the electrons, positrons, and quarks, one might say, of the island itself. Cyprus in the past was excavated primarily to understand its relationships with what were known as greater powers and civilizations: Greece, Phoenicia, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia. But we can now properly study the histories of the individual kingdoms, using the evidence of tombs, sanctuaries, and even settlements, although the last remain notoriously few. On the other hand, given this achievement, a question necessarily follows: how is the progress made in understanding the island to continue?

Canadian Palaipaphos (Cyprus) Survey Project: Second Prelilllinary Report, 1980–1982

During the second field season (1980) of the Canadian Palaipaphos Survey Project in the Paphos District of SW Cyprus, an archaeological survey was continued within the assumed boundaries of the Iron Age kingdom of Paphos. The survey, based on a stratified random sampling strategy, was confined to the Ezousas and Xeros river drainages, and resulted in the discovery of 102 sites ranging from Aceramic Neolithic to recent times. The Ezousas drainage shows a more extensive pattern of settlement both in terms of time and space than does the Xeros.Research conducted in 1980 and 1982 sought to identify the chert sources of the lithic artifacts from the region, and to locate evidence of copper: mining and smelting/refining. Analysis of the lithic material, macroscopic use-wear analysis of the tool edges, and ethnographic interviews with elderly knappers of dhoukani, or threshing-sledge, flints have enabled us to develop a functional classification system for lithic artifacts for the region. The ceramic and technological evidence relating to the copper exploitation indicates that it occurred during the 3rd through 7th centuries A.C.A preliminary geological reconnaissance identified and delimited the igneous and volcanic rocks of the Troodos Ophiolite zone, the Mamonia Complex, and the Mesozoic sedimentary formations. Rock specimens were collected from each lithologic unit examined and catalogued for further reference. A soil survey resulted in the description and classification of 12 major genetic soil units. The soils were characterized physically, chemically, and mineralogically, and a data base was established for the assessment of soil fertility.

Production and Commerce in Temple Courtyards: An Olive Press in the Sacred Precinct at Tel Dan

Previous article No AccessProduction and Commerce in Temple Courtyards: An Olive Press in the Sacred Precinct at Tel DanLawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. WolffLawrence E. Stager Search for more articles by this author and Samuel R. Wolff Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research Volume 243Summer 1981 A journal of the American Schools of Oriental Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1356661 Views: 21Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research (1921-2021), which is continued by the Bulletin of the American Schools of Overseas Research (2022-present). Copyright 1982 The American Schools of Oriental ResearchPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Saar Ganor and Igor Kreimerman An Eighth-Century b.c.e. Gate Shrine at Tel Lachish, Israel, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 381 (May 2019): 211–236.https://doi.org/10.1086/703343 Daniel M. Master Economy and Exchange in the Iron Age Kingdoms of the Southern Levant, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 372 (Nov 2018): 81–97.https://doi.org/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.372.0081