Khirbet Kerak Research Articles

Archaeobotany at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak): Aspects of Food Production in Early Urban and Diasporic Early Transcaucasian Communities of the Levant

ABSTRACT Archaeobotanical material from excavations at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak) provides insight into Early Bronze Age urbanisation in the Southern Levant and differences in food choices between Levantine and diasporic Early Transcaucasian communities. In the pre-urban period of the Early Bronze 1B (3350-3100 BC), comparative analysis of cereals and crop processing by-products indicates that food production was managed by individual households in a village type economy. The site dramatically changed in the Early Bronze II urbanisation period (3100–2850 BC). Household food production appeared stable throughout, however, there is evidence for beginnings of centralised storage of agricultural resources in the urban period at Tel Bet Yerah. During the Early Bronze III (2850–2500 BC), the site’s urban organisation collapsed and migrant settlers bearing Khirbet Kerak Ware occupied abandoned sections of the site alongside local inhabitants. Comparison of crops and weed flora identifies that the two groups potentially cultivated and processed some of their crops separately and that the crop choices of the Khirbet Kerak Ware community maintained connections to northern Early Transcaucasian Culture culinary traditions.

Twenty years of Kura-Araxes research at Tel Bet Yerah: What we have learned

Tel Bet Yerah has provided us with an opportunity to advance the study of diasporic Kura-Araxes research in multiple ways. Reflecting on what we have learned in twenty years at the site, we summarize the evidence for an assemblage that goes far beyond Khirbet Kerak ceramics, and includes the organization of space, miniature art, stone and metal artifacts, food and fuel acquisition and consumption practices. We also reflect on our evolving understanding of migration and interaction with local cultures and on the role of intentionality in maintaining cultural and political distinction.

Cattle drivers from the north? Animal economy of a diasporic Kura-Araxes community at Tel Bet Yerah

Kura-Araxes animal management strategies in the core regions of the tradition and in areas of its 3rd millennium expansion have seen only sporadic study. Recently excavated contexts at Tel Bet Yerah were occupied in the first part of the Early Bronze Age III (c. 2850–2700 BCE) by people using Khirbet Kerak Ware and accompanying artifacts associated with a diasporic Kura-Araxes cultural tradition; they provide a rich zooarchaeological assemblage that may be contrasted with that of the local Levantine population, underscoring social and cultural distinctions maintained by the diasporic community. Focusing on the cattle assemblages in Kura-Araxes sites, their use for traction and transport is explored, as well as their role in maintaining cultural identity.

RESISTANCE AND AUTHORITY AT THE BEGINNING OF URBANISM: THE CASE OF TEL BET YERAH BROKEN MACEHEADS

SummaryA large number of broken limestone maceheads found at Early Bronze Tel Bet Yerah appears to be the result of intentional curation and fragmentation. Our analysis suggests that Early Bronze maceheads could function as weapons, but their efficiency and dependability were limited. Based on their properties, provenance, breakage pattern, and dating, we suggest that the maceheads symbolized the distribution of power in the community and resistance to centralized authority during Early Bronze II. Their accumulation and fragmentation would then represent a reversal of heterarchical tendencies and possibly an attempt to assert centralized power at the beginning of Early Bronze III.

Fishing, fish consumption, urbanism and migrants at Tel Bet Yerah, 3200–2700 BC

The role and significance of fish and fishing in the ancient Near East has been little studied. A new assemblage of fish remains and fishing gear recovered from Bronze Age Bet Yerah on the Sea of Galilee, however, offers insights into the transition from village to town life, and illuminates interactions between local populations and incoming groups. The assemblage also reveals temporal and spatial variations in the utilisation of local fish resources. As the first such assemblage obtained from a systematically sampled Early Bronze Age stratigraphic sequence in the Southern Levant, it highlights the contribution of secondary food-production and -consumption activities to the interpretation of socio-cultural change.

Fragments of an anarchic society: Kura-Araxes territorialization in the third millennium BC town at Tel Bet Yerah

ABSTRACT Neither a polity, nor a culture, nor an ethnicity in any strict sense, Kura-Araxes has been described as a ‘society against the state’, with an aversion to structures of economic and social centralization. What happens when such a society is thrown into an apparently dependent relationship with a settled urban population? This question is explored through the lens of Tel Bet Yerah/Khirbet el-Kerak, in the Jordan river valley, where a small diasporic Kura-Araxes community settled in abandoned spaces within a 25-hectare walled town, maintaining its corporate identity over a span of two or three generations.

The Khirbet Kerak Ware figurine: a new component in the Kura-Araxes cultural assemblage

Recent excavations of Khirbet Kerak Ware contexts at the type site of Khirbet el-Kerak/Tel Bet Yerah and re-investigation of earlier finds from this site have permitted the technological and typological identification of a distinct category of zoomorphic figurines, associated exclusively with the characteristic red-black burnished Khirbet Kerak ceramics. Comparative study shows affinity between these figurines and similar objects found in different parts of the Kura-Araxes cultural community, from the Levant to the Iranian plateau. Consisting solely of horned cattle, we suggest that zoomorphic figurines represent a significant aspect of the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition in its expansion along the margins of the West Asian political and economic cores, during the final phase of the ‘secondary products revolution’.

Contact between first dynasty Egypt and specific sites in the Levant: New evidence from ceramic analysis

New optical mineralogy and pXRF studies of ceramics from First Dynasty royal tombs at Abydos and from Tel Bet Yerah, in the Jordan Valley, reveal a very close correlation between vessels from Egypt and both fired and unfired wares from a potter's establishment at Tel Bet Yerah, marking the first time that vessels found in Egypt can be attributed a site-specific origin in the Levant. Other vessels, most of them previously identified as ‘metallic ware’, included some that likely originated in the northern Jordan Valley and two vessels from a the Lebanese Biqâ valley or Lebanese coast. The vessels found in Egypt most likely span the entire First Dynasty, beginning with Djer, whereas the equivalent material from Tel Bet Yerah falls in the EB II/ESL 4 period, radiometrically dated at Bet Yerah to ca. 3100–2900 BCE. No evidence was found for a more southerly origin of imported Levantine wares in the First Dynasty.

Radiocarbon chronology of the EB I–II and II–III transitions at Tel Bet Yerah, and its implications for the nature of social change in the southern Levant

A closely controlled radiocarbon sequence for the EB I–III, compiled over six seasons of excavations at Tel Bet Yerah, Israel, provides new information on the EB I–II and II–III transitions. These dates support the possibility of a decades-long overlap between some late EB I and early EB II sites and indicate a mid- to late 29th-century cal BC date for the introduction of Khirbet Kerak Ware in the southern Levant. South Levantine EB II is shown to co-extend neatly with the First Dynasty of Egypt.

Khirbet Kerak Ware (Kura-Araxes) Andirons at Tel Bet Yerah: Functional Analysis and Cultural Context

Horseshoe-shaped andirons have long been viewed, on little evidence, as a stand-in for the fire installations that play a central role in houses associated with the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition. A detailed examination of more than 100 andiron fragments from Tel Bet Yerah, accompanied by structural analysis and computerized simulation, has provided primary forensic evidence on their use, breakage and discard, and insights on their relation to ceramic cooking and consumption vessels. Our analysis reveals a previously unreported component of food preparation and consumption practices in the south Levantine branch of the Kura-Araxes diaspora that offers a striking contrast to local south Levantine behaviours and traditions.

The Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak): A New Synthesis (Excavations of 1945–1946, 2003–2015)

New excavations conducted in the Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah, first excavated in 1946, form the basis for a revised, detailed description of the construction and use of this unique ...

Conceiving the City

Early Bronze Age urbanization and urbanism in the Levant have long been important themes in scholarly discussion, with both the nature of the process and its results being the subject of lively debate. We view Early Bronze II (EB II) south Levantine urbanism as a novel ideological construct grounded in heterarchical modes of social organization, rather than a direct development from earlier village-based lifestyles. In the current study we employ a phenomenological approach that enables us to identify an urban habitus and to discuss cognitive aspects of town life, rather than constraining the discussion to urban morphology. Tel Bet Yerah in northern Israel is a good place to approach these issues, as it presents a continuous, extensively excavated Early Bronze Age sequence. One of the most prominent elements of the EB II fortified city is a system of paved streets that constructed space in a clear geometric pattern. The investment in street planning and engineering, alongside other aspects of planning, no doubt played a key role in the inculcation of urban concepts at the site. As shared public spaces, the streets were experienced and modified through the everyday practices of the town’s inhabitants and visitors. It is the negotiation between planning, ideology and practice that makes the streets of Bet Yerah an exemplary case of the role of architecture in promoting and sustaining a new social order.

Zoomorphic Figurines and Images from the Southern Levant

In broad terms, my area of interest is figurative imagery of the Bronze Age in the Middle East. However, for the final dissertation of my Masters degree from University College London (UCL), the study focus was directed towards a small collection of Early Bronze Age zoomorphic iconographic material in terracotta from the from Tel Bet Yerah in the Southern Levant. Early Bronze Age III decorative ram’s head applique. Tel Bet Yerah is a large 30-35 hectares Early Bronze Age mound on the shores...

New evidence for the Anatolian origins of ‘Khirbet Kerak Ware people’ at Tel Bet Yerah (Israel), ca 2800 BC

A Tel Bet Yerah, la fouille intensive de contextes associés à de grandes quantités de céramique Khirbet-Kerak (KKW), ainsi que de contextes associés à la poterie de tradition locale, qu’ils soient antérieurs aux contextes KKW ou contemporains, nous a permis d’élargir la définition du complexe culturel KKW. L’usage du torchis, le mobilier en terre cuite polie, une technologie lithique particulière, les supports de foyers en argile, des objets symboliques et des éléments de mobilier lourd en pierre, peuvent tous être attribués aux contextes KKW. Ils diffèrent nettement de la tradition locale et trouvent de nombreux précédents dans le monde ETC / Kura-Araxe en Anatolie orientale et dans le Haut Euphrate. Ces découvertes donnent plus de crédibilité à l’approche qui voit l’introduction vers 2800 av. J.-C. de la KKW au Levant comme un témoignage de la migration d’un groupe familial.

The Earliest Occupation at Tel Bet Yerah

The 2007 sounding in the northern part of Tel Bet Yerah yielded a stratigraphic sequence spanning the initial sequence of occupation on the mound, from EB IA to EB II. A robust ceramic assemblage, supported by radiocarbon dates, highlights the earliest part of the sequence. Comprising highly localized industries (including a little-known painted tradition) as well as regional ones (including Gray Burnished Ware), the Tel Bet Yerah assemblage provides a yardstick for ceramic evolution in the northern Jordan Valley between the end of the Chalcolithic and the mature EB I, offering a definition of two ceramic phases within an extended EB IA.

Is Khirbet Kerak Ware from Khirbet al-Batrawy (Jordan) local or imported pottery?

A multi-analytical approach has been applied to characterize Khirbet Kerak Ware from the archaeological site of Khirbet al-Batrawy (Jordan), a highly distinctive pottery production of Early Bronze III Levant. Sherds of Khirbet Kerak Ware vessels, dating back to 2750–2500 B.C., show peculiar shapes and a highly polished red/black coating, alien to other Levantine ceramic traditions. Micro-Raman, infrared spectroscopic and petrographic data have been obtained with the aim of defining the fabric, tracing the origin of the raw material used in the manufacturing process and exploring the technological aspects. The results on Khirbet Kerak Ware are then compared with those of ceramics of the same period found at that site in order to highlight possible differences or similarities in the manufacturing process. All these pottery productions reveal similar mineralogical composition, compatible with a local sourcing of the raw materials; moreover, the identification of a specific mineral assemblage allows to estimate a firing temperature ranging from 850 °C to 900 °C. In spite of the marked differences observed between macroscopic appearances of Khirbet Kerak Ware and those of other coeval and local pottery productions, the results are indicative of overall local manufacturing.

TEL BET YERAH: Hub of the Early Bronze Age Levant

During more than one thousand years at the dawn of written history, ancient Bet Yerah emerged and grew to be a focal point of Early Bronze Age interaction. Established as a large village circa 3500...

Prestige Weapons in an Amorite Context

Previous articleNext article No AccessArticlePrestige Weapons in an Amorite Context*Jordi VidalJordi VidalUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona Search for more articles by this author Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona*I am grateful to Wilfred G. E. Watson for his support in writing this article. Any mistakes, of course, are my own. Unless otherwise noted, all abbreviations follow those used in The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 70, Number 2October 2011 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/661044 Views: 44Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref © 2011 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Hai Ashkenazi, Danny Rosenberg RESISTANCE AND AUTHORITY AT THE BEGINNING OF URBANISM: THE CASE OF TEL BET YERAH BROKEN MACEHEADS, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 41, no.22 (Mar 2022): 136–151.https://doi.org/10.1111/ojoa.12238Alexander Fantalkin, Ephraim Lytle Alcaeus and Antimenidas: Reassessing the Evidence for Greek Mercenaries in the Neo-Babylonian Army, Klio 98, no.11 (Jun 2016): 90–117.https://doi.org/10.1515/klio-2016-0002

BET YERAH, APARAN III VE KARNUT: KUR-ARAS ÇEKİRDEK BÖLGESİ İLE BAŞKA BÖLGELERE AKTARILAN ÇANAK ÇÖMLEK TEKNOLOJİSİYLE İLGİLİ GÖZLEMLER

First results of the comparative technology of Kura-Araxes pottery and its derivatives are presented, includ­ing analyses ofKhirbet Kerak Ware and local traditions from Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet Kerak) and materi­al from two sites in Armenia: the fourth millennium site ofAparan III and the third millennium site ofKar-nut I. Petrographic and chaine operatoire analysis suggests that all three industries are entirely local and share a series ofcharacteristics that set them apart from non-Kura-Araxes industries: technological con­servatism, priority of surface treatment, non-correlation of form to fabric, variability of fabric, and sepa­ration from cooking ware. These results support the contention that the spread of the tradition should be associated with migration and diaspora communities.

A Home Away from Home? The Settlement of Early Transcaucasian Migrants at Tel Bet Yerah

The paper examines new aspects of the arrival of Early Transcaucasian (ETC) migrants in the southern Levant during the 3rd millennium BCE. A contextual analysis of Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW) pottery and related finds at Tel Bet Yerah reveals patterns of continuity and discontinuity at different levels of spatial and social organization: from house and household to site and region. These patterns are related to the settlement of ETC migrants at the site, and indicate a clear segregation of locals and newcomers at the site level and differences in cultural behaviour and the use of space at the household level. Through a discussion of various aspects of food preparation, consumption habits, domestic ritual, storage and architecture, the paper examines the manner in which this behaviour was active in the preservation and construction of the ETC migrants' identity as a diaspora community.