Misplaced Pages

#788211

124-596: Khirbet Kerak ware is a type of Early Bronze Age Syro-Palestinian pottery first discovered at this site. It is also found in other parts of the Levant , including Jericho , Beth Shan , Tell Judeideh , and Ugarit . Khirbet Kerak culture appears to have been a Levantine version of the Early Transcaucasian culture , also known as the Kura-Araxes or Kur-Araz culture. The tell of Khirbet Kerak lies where

248-659: A Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria and a department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Turkey) . Levantine archaeology encompasses excavations, salvage, conservation and reconstruction efforts, as well as off-site research, interpretation, and other scholarship. The geographical scope of Levantine archaeology includes the Hatay Province of Turkey , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Jordan , and Cyprus . The terminology for archaeology in

372-423: A "vigorous new element to Syro-Palestinian archaeology." While the importance of stratigraphy, typology and balk grew in the mid-twentieth century, the continued tendency to ignore hard data in favour of subjective interpretations invited criticism. Paul W. Lapp, for example, whom many thought would take up the mantle of Albright before his premature death in 1970, wrote: "Too much of Palestinian archaeology

496-689: A circle." In 1974, William Dever established the secular , non-biblical school of Syro-Palestinian archaeology and mounted a series of attacks on the very definition of biblical archaeology. Dever argued that the name of such inquiry should be changed to "archaeology of the Bible " or "archaeology of the Biblical period" to delineate the narrow temporal focus of Biblical archaeologists. Frank Moore Cross , who had studied under Albright and had taught Dever, emphasized that in Albright's view, biblical archaeology

620-518: A colonnaded courtyard. During the Roman period, a fortress was built there and the place became known and named for this feature. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Bet Yerah as sitting alongside Sinnabri (al-Sinnabra), describing both as walled cities, but also uses the name Kerakh to refer to Bet Yerah. Kerakh , meaning "fortress", was the Aramaic name for the site in the Roman period, and it

744-472: A focus on tell archaeology on the one hand (H. Taha and M. Sadeq ) and on the investigation of the indigenous landscape and cultural heritage on the other (K. Nashef and M. Abu Khalaf)." The Palestinian Archaeology Institute at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah was established in 1987 with the help of Albert Glock , who headed the archaeology department at the university at the time. Glock's objective

868-458: A less dominant position, functioning as a "big tent" incorporating multiple archaeological practices. The Levant has displayed cultural continuity during most historical periods, leading to the increased study of the region as a whole. From prehistoric times through the Iron Age, chronological periods are usually named in keeping with technological developments that characterized that era. From

992-592: A link between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew . Some 120 scrolls are written in Aramaic, and a few of the biblical texts are written in Ancient Greek . Israel purchased some of the parchments, believed to have been composed or transcribed between 1 BCE and 1 CE, after they were first unearthed by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947. The remainder were acquired by Israel from the Rockefeller Museum in

1116-406: A part of the kingdom of Israel , was far more densely populated than Judah itself, and now held both the administrative capital, Mizpah, and the major religious centre of Bethel. Mizpah continued as the provincial capital for over a century. The position of Jerusalem before the administration moved back from Mizpah is unclear. From 445 BCE onwards, it was once more the main city of Yehud, with walls,

1240-792: A perspective can also be seen in the practices of Hamdan Taha, the director of the Palestinian National Authority 's Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, responsible for overseeing preservation and excavation projects that involve both internationals and Palestinians. Gerrit van der Kooij, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands who works with Taha, says that, "It doesn't surprise me that outsiders become frustrated [... Taha] sticks by his policy of equal partnership. That means Palestinians must be involved at every step," from planning and digging to publishing. In Van der Kooij's opinion, this policy

1364-643: A pivotal three-volume study entitled Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions: Journal of Travels in the Year 1838 . In Syria, Ernest Renan carried out research in the 1860s and Howard Crosby Butler of Princeton University carried out surveys of Byzantine Christian sites (1904–1909). In the early 1900s, major projects were set up at Samaria , Gezer , Megiddo and Jericho . An early school of modern Levantine archaeology

SECTION 10

#1732773211789

1488-408: A relatively rapid pace and is conducted according to generally high standards. Excavators return each year to a number of key sites that have been selected for their potential scientific and cultural interest. Current excavated sites of importance include Ashkelon , Hazor, Megiddo, Tel es-Safi , Dor , Hippos , Tel Kabri , Gamla and Rehov . Recent issues center on the veracity of such artifacts as

1612-588: A royal proclamation that ended the Babylonian captivity and initiated the return to Zion . In the new province, repatriated Jews began to revive their national identity and reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem . The province constituted a part of Eber-Nari and was bounded by Idumaea (now part of Achaemenid Arabia ) to the south, lying along the frontier of the two satrapies . Spanning most of Judea—from

1736-514: A second- to fourth-century village at Beth She'arim and a synagogue in Bet Alpha . Early archaeological pioneers in 1920s and 1930s included Nahman Avigad , Michael Avi-Yonah, Ruth Amiran , Immanuel Ben-Dor, Avraham Biran , Benjamin Mazar , E.L. Sukenik , and Shmuel Yeivin . By the 1950s, in contrast to the religious motivations of Biblical archaeologists, Israeli archaeology developed as

1860-483: A secular discipline motivated in part by the nationalistic desire to affirm the link between the modern, nascent Israeli nation-state and the ancient Jewish population of the land. Paleolithic archaeology was of little interest, nor was archaeology of Christian and Muslim periods. Yigael Yadin , the pioneer of the Israeli School of archaeology, excavated some of the most important sites in the region, including

1984-605: A site, one hole with Jordanians and 20 holes with Americans digging in them. After the work, usually it's the Americans who explain to the Jordanians what they've found." The involvement of Palestinians as practitioners in the study of Palestinian archaeology is relatively recent. The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land notes that, "The 1990s have seen the development of Palestinian archaeological activities, with

2108-423: A sub-field of biblical archaeology. "The archaeology of ancient Israel," is described by Franken and Franken-Battershill as, "but a small part of the far greater study of Palestinian archaeology." in A Primer of Old Testament Archaeology (1963). In a survey of North American dissertations, the overwhelming emphasis has been on the southern Levant . However it is only when considering the northern Levant alongside

2232-467: A total of 4,600 were exiled to Babylon . To such numbers must be added those deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE after the first siege to Jerusalem , when he deported the king of Judah, Jeconiah . His court, other prominent citizens, craftsmen, and a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Judah, numbering about 10,000. The Book of Kings also suggests 8,000. The former kingdom of Judah then became

2356-508: Is "fully justified and adds more social value to the project." Dever submits that the recent insistence that Palestinian archaeology and history be written by "real Palestinians" stems from the influence of those he terms the " biblical revisionists ", such as Keith W. Whitelam, Thomas L. Thompson , Phillip Davies and Niels Peter Lemche . Whitelam's book, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (1996) and Thompson's book, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and

2480-546: Is a consensus among biblical scholars that ancient Judah during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE was basically henotheistic or monolatrous , with Yahweh as a national god in the same way that surrounding nations each had their national gods. Monotheistic themes arose as early as the 8th century, in opposition to Assyrian royal propaganda, which depicted the Assyrian king as "Lord of the Four Quarters" (the world), but

2604-485: Is an inflated fabrication [...] Too often a subjective interpretation, not based on empirical stratigraphic observation, is used to demonstrate the validity of another subjective interpretation. We assign close dates to a group of pots on subjective typological grounds and go on to cite our opinion as independent evidence for similarly dating a parallel group. Too much of Palestinian archaeology's foundation building has involved chasing ad hominem arguments around in

SECTION 20

#1732773211789

2728-707: Is drawn from the definitions provided by the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible . For periods thereafter, the terminology and dates come from Sauer and Hoppe. Prehistory is defined as the period preceding the advent of writing, which brought about the creation of written history. For the Levant the introduction of writing occurs at varying moments, but the Late Bronze Age is considered as the first period firmly outside prehistory. To avoid sub-regional conflicts,

2852-546: Is especially true of the chronological sequence of Ezra and Nehemiah, with Ezra 7:6–8 stating that Ezra came to Jerusalem "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the King," without specifying whether he was Artaxerxes I (465–424 BCE) or Artaxerxes II (404–358 BCE). The probable date for his mission is 458 BCE, but it is possible that it took place in 398 BCE. The results of archaeological excavations and surveys suggest that in comparison to late Iron Age Judah, late Persian period Yehud

2976-868: Is from this name that the Arabic Khirbet al-Kerak ("ruins of the castle") is derived. The city was known in the Hellenistic times by the Greek name Sennabris . It was a twin city of Bet Yerah. In the Byzantine period , a church was constructed there and it shows signs of having been reused as a dar , or manor house, during the Early Islamic period. Hellenistic Sinnabris became known as al-Sinnabra or Sinn en-Nabra in Arabic. An Arab Islamic palatial complex or qasr in al-Sinnabra, known by

3100-412: Is intersected by two partition walls forming four compartments. In the courtyard were ovens in which Khirbet al-Kerak pottery was found. The building is generally identified as a public granary. At full capacity, the granary could hold an estimated 1700 tons of grain. Below this building, remains dated to both EB I(b) and EB II were found. At the beginning of EBIII, when signs of upheaval appear elsewhere at

3224-568: Is no evidence that a popular "assembly" existed, and he would have had little discretion over his core duties. Evidence from seals and coins suggests that most, if not all, of the governors of Persian Yehud were Jewish, a situation which conforms with the general Persian practice of governing through local leaders. The succession order and dates of most of the governors of the Achaemenid province of Yehud cannot be recreated with any degree of certainty. Coins, jar-stamp impressions, and seals from

3348-650: Is primarily due to the strong cultural and geographic continuity of the Levant, the northern sections of which were generally ignored in Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Towards the end of the twentieth century, Palestinian archaeology and/or Levantine archaeology became a more interdisciplinary practice. Specialists in archaeozoology , archaeobotany , geology , anthropology and epigraphy now work together to produce essential environmental and non-environmental data in multidisciplinary projects. A central concern of Levantine archaeology since its genesis has been

3472-610: Is represented by a tomb. Parts of the city walls are also dated to the MB. There are no signs of habitation from 1200-450 BCE until the site's reuse during the Persian period . A town established in the Hellenistic period (c. 4th century BCE) at Bet Yerah ceased to exist with the end of that period (c. 1st century BCE). It was given the Greek name Philoteria by Ptolemy II Philadelphus for his sister, as indicated by remains dating to

3596-614: Is thought to be a reference to the Early Bronze Age structure extant at Khirbet Kerak. The name Bet Yerah has generally been accepted and applied to the site of Khirbet Kerak, though the evidence for its being located there is circumstantial. The 2009 discovery at the tell of a stone palette with Egyptian motifs, including an ankh , points to trade/political relations with the First dynasty of Egypt , at approximately 3000 BCE. Excavators have identified four levels of occupation from

3720-588: The Bible outside of the Levant (e.g., Egypt or Persia ) and it takes into account the use and explanation of biblical texts, which Levantine archaeologist ignore. Beyond its importance to the discipline of classical archaeology, the region of the Levant is critical for an understanding of the history of the earliest peoples of the Stone Age In academic, political, and public settings, the region's archaeology can also be described in terms of ancient or modern Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and

3844-523: The Book of Chronicles , and genuinely original work including Ben Sira , Tobit , Judith , 1 Enoch and, much later, Maccabees . The literature from Ben Sira onwards is increasingly permeated with references to the Hebrew Bible in the present form, suggesting the slow development of the idea of a body of "scripture" in the sense of authoritative writings. One of the more important cultural shifts in

Khirbet Kerak - Misplaced Pages Continue

3968-620: The Church of the Nativity to the UNESCO World Heritage List have been initiated. The Dead Sea Scrolls are 981 parchments discovered in 11 caves in the hills above Qumran between 1947 and 1956. The discovery of the scrolls was dubbed "[u]nquestionably the greatest manuscript find of modern times" by William F. Albright, and the majority are transcribed in a unique form of Hebrew now known as "Qumran Hebrew", and seen as

4092-686: The Jehoash Inscription and the James Ossuary , as well as the validity of whole chronological schemes. Amihai Mazar and Israel Finkelstein represent leading figures in the debate over the nature and chronology of the United Monarchy . After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war , the West Bank was annexed by Jordan (1950), and archaeological excavations in the region were carried out by its Department of Antiquities, as had been

4216-587: The Journal of Palestinian Archaeology in July 2000 entitled, "The Debate on 'Ancient Israel': A Palestinian Perspective", that explicitly names the four "biblical revisionists" mentioned above, as evidence for his claim that their "rhetoric" has influenced Palestinian archaeologists. In the editorial itself, Nashef writes: "The fact of the matter is, the Palestinians have something completely different to offer in

4340-487: The Qumran Caves , Masada , Hazor and Tel Megiddo . Yadin's world view was that the identity of modern Israel was directly tied to the revolutionary past of the ancient Jewish population of the region. He therefore focused much of his work on excavating sites related to previous periods of Israelite nationalistic struggles: Hazor, which he associated with the conquest of Canaan by Joshua in c. 1250 BCE, and Masada,

4464-508: The Sea of Galilee empties into the Jordan River and the terrain rises by c. 15 meters above the level of the lake. It is triangular in shape and approximately 1.2 km by 380 m (at its widest point), covering 60-75 acres. The Jordan river runs to the south, although it previously (until at least the medieval period) ran north and west of it. The tell of Khirbet Kerak was at certain times

4588-588: The Second Temple after the region was conquered by the Persians. By the late sixth century BC, the temple in Jerusalem had been restored, and its body of worship, practice, and sacrificial cult had been re-established. Much of the literature which became the Hebrew Bible was compiled in the early post-Exilic period , and Persian Yehud saw considerable conflict over the construction and function of

4712-597: The Shephelah in the west to the Dead Sea in the east—it was one of several Persian provinces in Palestine , together with Moab , Ammon , Gilead , Samaria , Ashdod , and Idumaea/Arabia, among others. The province's overall population is gauged as having been considerably smaller than that of the fallen Israelite kingdom . The name Yêhūd Mêdīnāta is originally Aramaic and was first introduced after Judah fell to

4836-479: The Temple, and other facilities needed to function as a provincial capital, including, from 420 BCE, a local mint striking silver coins. Nevertheless, Persian-era Jerusalem was modest: about 1,500 inhabitants. It was the only true urban site in Yehud, as the bulk of the province's population lived in small unwalled villages. This picture did not much change throughout the entire Persian period. The entire population of

4960-563: The prehistory as a category is left out of the list. Modern Levantine archaeology began in the late 19th century. Early expeditions lacked standardized methods for excavation and interpretation, and were often little more than treasure-hunting expeditions. A lack of awareness of the importance of stratigraphy in dating objects led to digging long trenches through the middle of a site that made work by later archaeologists more difficult. Edward Robinson identified numerous sites from antiquity and published his findings with Eli Smith in

5084-445: The 'biblical archaeology'. I regret to say that all who would defend Albright and 'biblical archaeology' on this ground, are sadly out of touch with reality in the field of archaeology." In recent decades, the term Levantine archaeology has generally replaced Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Electronic database results reveal an "overwhelming adoption" of the term ‘Levant’ when compared to ‘Syria-Palestine’ for archaeological studies. This

Khirbet Kerak - Misplaced Pages Continue

5208-630: The 1940s, parts of the tell were excavated by Benjamin Mazar , Michael Avi-Yonah, Moshe Sheteklis, and Emanuel Dunayevsky. In 1946, in the northern quadrant of the tell, a fortified compound consisting of a series of large structures, including a bathhouse adjoined to large apsidal hall that is decorated with colorful mosaics , was discovered just above the granary (AKA the Circles Building), an Early Bronze Age structure uncovered in previous excavations. Between 1950 and 1953, P.L.O. Guy and Pesach Bar-Adon , two Israeli archaeologists excavated

5332-545: The 1967 war. When 350 participants from 25 countries gathered at a conference at the Israel Museum marking the fiftieth anniversary of their discovery, Amir Drori , head of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), said that the 2,000-year-old documents were legally acquired and an inseparable part of Jewish tradition. A Palestinian academic, Hamdan Taha , responded that Israel's capture of

5456-436: The 20th year of Artaxerxes (almost definitely Artaxerxes I, whose twentieth year was 445/444 BCE) Nehemiah , the cup-bearer to the king and in a high official post, was informed that the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed and was granted permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild it. He succeeded in doing so but encountered strong resistance from the "people of the land," the officials of Samaria (the province immediately to

5580-608: The 3rd-2nd centuries BCE were abundant in this settlement, and some houses had remains of decorated wall plaster." Four villas in Philoteria/Bet Yerah dating to the late Hellenistic period are the oldest known examples of the big mansion ( domus ), a type of domestic architecture seen in Roman-Byzantine period Palestine. One of them measures 22 x 12 metres and consists of 11 rooms decorated with marble, stucco, and mosaics that were accessed by way of an entrance to

5704-707: The 7th century by Mu'awiya and Abdel Malik , another Umayyad caliph who also commissioned the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem , it likely represents the earliest Umayyad complex of this type yet to be discovered. During the Crusades , it was the site of the 1113 Battle of Al-Sannabra , and in the lead up to the Battle of Hittin in 1187, Saladin and his forces passed through al-Sinnabra before moving on to command

5828-763: The Achaemenid Empire established its own Yehud province to absorb the Babylonian province of Yehud , which, in turn, had been established by the Neo-Babylonian Empire to absorb the Kingdom of Judah upon the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Around this time, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued what is commonly known as the Edict of Cyrus , which is described in the Hebrew Bible as

5952-503: The Achaemenid emperor Cyrus the Great shortly after the fall of Babylon, was a royal proclamation by which he ended the Babylonian captivity. In the Hebrew Bible , this decree is accredited as having enabled the return to Zion —an event in which the exiled populace of Judah returned to their homeland after it had been restructured as a self-governing Jewish province within the Achaemenid Empire. To replace Solomon's Temple, work began on

6076-671: The Babylonian era onward, naming is based on historical events. Scholars often disagree on the exact dates and terminology to be used for each period. Some definitions for the temporal scope, particularly earlier on tended to exclude events after the Byzantine Period, but the temporal scope of Levantine archaeology has expanded over the years. In 1982, James A. Sauer wrote that the Islamic periods (630–1918 CE) were part of Levantine archaeological research, and that while some periods had been "ignored, neglected, or even discarded for

6200-549: The Babylonian exile. Despite Ezra's and Nehemiah's intolerance of gentiles and Samaritans, Jewish relations with the Samaritans and other neighbours were otherwise close and cordial. Comparison of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles bears this out: Chronicles opens participation in Yahweh-worship to all twelve tribes and even to foreigners, but for Ezra-Nehemiah, "Israel" means the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone as well as

6324-546: The Babylonian province Yehud, with Gedaliah , a native Judahite, as governor (or possibly ruling as a puppet king). According to Miller and Hayes, the province included the towns of Bethel in the north, Mizpah , Jericho in the east, Jerusalem, Beth-Zur in the west and En-Gedi in the south. The administrative centre of the province was Mizpah. On hearing of the appointment, the Jews who had taken refuge in surrounding countries returned to Judah. However, before long, Gedaliah

SECTION 50

#1732773211789

6448-486: The Babylonians. In Jewish history , the Persian period marks the start of the Second Temple period . Governor Zerubbabel , who led the first Jewish returnees, laid the foundation of the Second Temple . Other Jewish leaders followed, such as Ezra and Nehemiah , and their efforts to rebuild Jewish life in the region are chronicled in biblical books named after them . Another significant Persian-period achievement

6572-583: The Civil Administration (ADCA). Though the Hague Convention prohibits the removal of cultural property from militarily occupied areas, both foreign and Israeli archaeologists mounted extensive excavations that have been criticized as overstepping the bounds of legitimate work to protect endangered sites. Vast amounts of new archaeological data have been uncovered in these explorations, although critics say that "relatively little effort

6696-496: The Early Bronze Age (EB). Architectural development shows the procession from (sometimes oval) pit dwellings (I) to mud-brick (II), to basalt foundations with mud-brick (III), and then on to basalt structures (IV), over approximately 1000 years. At its peak the site reached a size of 20 hectares with an 8 meter thick fortification wall. It was abandoned at the end of the Early Bronze III period. The basalt houses belong to

6820-420: The Exile broke the competing fertility, ancestor and other cults and allowed it to emerge as the dominant theology of Yehud. The minor gods or " sons of God " of the old pantheon now turned into a hierarchy of angels and demons in a process that continued to evolve throughout the time of Yehud and into the Hellenistic age. Zoroastrianism influenced the Judahite religion and, subsequently, Judaism. Although

6944-410: The Great decreed that the deportees in Babylon could return to Yehud and rebuild the Temple. Led by Zerubbabel, 42,360 exiles returned to Yehud, where he and Joshua the High Priest , although they were in fear of the "people of the land", re-instituted sacrifices. According to Book of Ezra , Jeshua and Zerubbabel were frustrated in their efforts to rebuild the Temple by the enmity of the "people of

7068-403: The Hatay province of Turkey. Archaeologists may define the geographic range more narrowly, especially for inquiries that focus on 'Israel' or 'Palestine,' whether construed as ancient or modern territories. The shifting terminology over the past 50 years reflects political tensions that operate within and upon the field. Levantine archaeology in the 21st century has relegated biblical concerns to

7192-420: The Late Bronze or Early Iron Age that connected the city at the top of the hill to its water source at the bottom, a spring known as Bir es-Sinjib. The tunnel allowed inhabitants to walk through it undetected, particularly useful during times of siege. There is evidence that the tunnel fell into disuse in the 8th century BCE, and that the entrance was subsequently rehabilitated some time in the Roman period, while

7316-468: The Levant has been defined in various, often competing or overlapping ways. Prior to and during the period of the British Mandate in Palestine (1920–1948), archaeology of the region was typically described as Palestinian archaeology or Biblical archaeology . Under the influence of William F. Albright (1891–1971), biblical inquiry and narratives became increasingly important; indeed, Albright conceived of Palestinian archaeology or Levantine archaeology as

7440-546: The Levant is highly important when forming an understanding of the history of the earliest peoples of the Stone Age . Current archaeological digs in Israel are carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and in the areas governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), by its Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity, working under the auspices of the IAA. The Palestinian Authority prohibits unrestricted excavation at sites of archaeological importance. There are equivalent and similarly named authorities in Jordan and in Cyprus ,

7564-551: The Myth of Israel (1999) were both translated into Arabic shortly after their publication. Dever speculates that, "Nashef and many other Palestinian political activists have obviously read it." Harshly critical of both books, Dever accuses Whitelam's thesis that Israelis and "Jewish-inspired Christians" invented Israel, thus deliberately robbing Palestinians of their history, of being "extremely inflammatory" and "bordering on anti-Semitism ", and Thompson's book of being "even more rabid." Dever cites an editorial by Nashef published in

SECTION 60

#1732773211789

7688-413: The Palestine Oriental Society was founded by, most prominently among them Tawfiq Canaan . The work of this society was more ethnographic and anthropological than archaeological. Interest in archaeological fieldwork increased as West Bank universities emerged in the 1980s and cultivated a new approach to Palestinian archaeology. A new generation of Palestinians, like Albert Glock , introduced innovations to

7812-426: The Persian period has survived, including some coins from Tell Jemmeh and Beth-zur using the Paleo-Hebrew script , two seal impressions on bullae from a cave in Wadi Daliyeh , a seal from Tel Michal , etc. In contrast, Aramaic-written epigraphic material is much more prevalent. In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Achaemenids. That event is dated securely from non-biblical sources. In his first year (538 BCE), Cyrus

7936-427: The Persian period was the rise of Imperial Aramaic as the predominant language of Yehud and the Jewish diaspora . Originally spoken by Aramaeans , the Persians adopted it and became the lingua franca of the empire, and already in the time of Ezra , it was necessary to have the Torah readings translated into Aramaic for them to be understood by Jews. Only a small amount of Hebrew-written epigraphic material from

8060-403: The Ptolemaic rule (3rd century BCE). Hellenistic remains identified as those of ancient Philoteria by Amihai Mazar consist of "a considerable number of spacious town-houses built on an orthogonal plan within the confines of the Early Bronze Age fortifications. The total extent of the settlement was about 700 meters from north to south, and 200 meters from east to west. Ceramic and other finds of

8184-405: The Temple and matters of cult (i.e., how God was to be worshiped). Persia controlled Yehud using the same methods it used in other territories; Yehud's status as a Persian holding is crucial to understanding the society and literature of the period. The returnees from the exile community attempted to restore in Yehud the pre-Exile tripartite leadership template of king ( Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel),

8308-468: The Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, by 586 BCE, much of Judah was devastated; the royal family, the priesthood, and the scribes, the country's elite, were in exile in Babylon, and the former kingdom suffered a steep decline in economy and population. The numbers of those who were deported to Babylon or made their way to Egypt and the remnants that remained in Yehud Province and surrounding countries are subject to academic debate. The Book of Jeremiah reports that

8432-503: The authors contend that research exploring the degree to which Phoenician art and symbolism penetrated into the different areas of Syria and Palestine will make little progress. Jewish interest in archaeology dates to the beginnings of the Zionist movement and the founding of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society in 1914. Excavations at this early stage focused on sites related to the Bible and ancient Jewish history and included Philistine sites in Afula and Nahariya , as well as

8556-411: The case throughout the British Mandate in Palestine . Made up of Muslim and Christian officials and headed by the British archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding until 1956, field archaeology was conducted primarily by foreigners. Large-scale expeditions included those of the American Schools of Oriental Research at Tell Balata (1956–1964), the British School of Archaeology at Jericho (1952–1958), and

8680-419: The compound, falsely identifying a building there as a 5th-6th century synagogue , because of the presence of a column base engraved with a seven-branched candelabrum . Excavations by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago led by Pinhas Delougaz and Richard C. Haines in 1952-1953 uncovered a Byzantine church to the north of the fortified compound. The Oriental Institute team returned to excavate at

8804-445: The creation of independent Arab states in the region, national schools of archaeology were established in the 1960s. The research focuses and perspectives of these institutions differed from those of Western archaeological approaches, tending to eschew biblical studies and the search for theological roots in the Holy Land and concentrating more, though not exclusively on Islamic archaeology. In doing so, Arab archaeologists added

8928-860: The debate on 'ancient Israel,' which seems to threaten the ideological basis of BAR (the American popular magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review , which turned down this piece - WGD): they simply exist, and they have always existed on the soil of Palestine ..." According to the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip there are 12,000 archaeological and cultural heritage sites, 60,000 traditional houses, 1,750 major sites of human settlement , and 500 sites which have been excavated to date, 60 of which are major sites. Excavation in Israel continues at

9052-518: The exact extent of that influence continues to be debated, a shared concept of God as creator, the one who guarantees justice, and the god of heaven. The experience of exile and restoration itself brought about a new worldview in which Jerusalem and the House of David continued to be central ingredients, and the destruction of the Temple came to be regarded as a demonstration of Yahweh's strength. Possibly

9176-543: The expulsion of the Persians from Egypt by Pharaoh Amyrtaeus (404 BCE), the Jewish temple in Elephantine was abandoned. Scholars believe that in the Persian period, the Torah assumed its final form, the history of ancient Israel and Judah contained in the books from Joshua to Kings was revised and completed and the older prophetic books were redacted. New writing included the interpretation of older works, such as

9300-497: The field by studying Islamic and Ottoman period ruins in village contexts. Belameh, located a little over one mile (1.6 km) south of Jenin , is an important Bronze Age site identified with the ancient Ibleam , a Canaanite city mentioned in the Egyptian Royal Archive that was conquered by Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE. Ibleam is also mentioned in three passages of the Hebrew Bible . The location

9424-665: The first to undertake joint missions with Palestinian archaeologists in the West Bank, which were possible only after the signing of the Oslo Accords . The first joint project was conducted in Jericho and coordinated by Hamdan Taha, director of the Palestinian Antiquities Department and the University of Rome "La Sapienza", represented by Paolo Matthiae , the same archaeologist who discovered

9548-498: The fortified compound was in fact the Arab Islamic palatial complex of al-Sinnabra. Syro-Palestinian archaeology#Ceramics analysis Levantine archaeology is the archaeological study of the Levant . It is also known as Syro-Palestinian archaeology or Palestinian archaeology (particularly when the area of inquiry centers on ancient Palestine ). Besides its importance to the discipline of Biblical archaeology ,

9672-475: The gaps made some headway at the Durham conference, though it was recognized that agreement on a single method of ceramic analysis or a single definition of a type may not be possible. The solution proposed by Dessel and Joffe is for all archaeologists in the field to provide more explicit descriptions of the objects that they study. The more information provided and shared between those in related sub-disciplines,

9796-543: The governor of Yehud appointed by Cyrus in 538, was of Davidic origin, as was his successor (and nephew) Zerubbabel; Zerubbabel in turn was succeeded by his second son and then by his son-in-law, all of them hereditary Davidic governors of Yehud, a state of affairs that ended only around 500 BCE. This hypothesis—that Zerubbabel and his immediate successors represented a restoration of the Davidic kingdom under Persian overlordship—cannot be verified, but it would be in keeping with

9920-474: The high priest (Joshua, descended from the priestly line ), and prophet (Haggai, Zechariah). However, by the middle of the next century, probably around 450 BCE, the kings and prophets had disappeared and only the high priest remained, joined by the scribe-sage ( Ezra ) and the appointed aristocrat-governor ( Nehemiah ). This new pattern provided the leadership model for Yehud for centuries to come. Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) Yehud

10044-548: The holy tribe of Levi. Despite Yehud being consistently monotheistic, some pockets of polytheistic Yahwism still appeared to exist in the Persian period: the Elephantine papyri and ostraca (usually dated to the 5th century BCE) shows that a small community of Jews living on the Egyptian island of Elephantine , while being devout supporters of Yahweh, also venerated the Egyptian goddess Anat and even had their temple on

10168-554: The island. This community had probably been founded before the Babylonian exile and had, therefore, remained cut off from religious reforms on the mainland. While it appears that the Elephantine community had some contact with the Second Temple (as evidenced by the fact that they had written a letter to the High Priest Johanan of Jerusalem ), the exact relationship between the two is currently unclear. Following

10292-491: The land" and the opposition of the governor of "Beyond-the-River" (the satrapy of which Yehud was a smaller unit). ( Ezra 3–4:4 ) However, in the second year of Darius (520 BCE), Darius discovered the Decree of Cyrus in the archives. He directed the satrap to support the work, which he did, and the Temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius (516/515 BCE). ( Ezra 6:15 ) The Book of Ezra dates Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem to

10416-472: The mid-5th century BCE the prophets and Davidic kings had disappeared, leaving only the High Priest. The practical result was that after c.500 BCE Yehud became a theocracy, ruled by a line of hereditary High Priests. The governor of Yehud would have been charged primarily with keeping order and seeing that tribute was paid. He would have been assisted by various officials and a body of scribes, but there

10540-649: The more likely it is that they will be able to identify and understand the commonalities in the different typological systems. Levantine archaeology also includes the study of Phoenician culture, cosmopolitan in character and widespread in its distribution in the region. According to Benjamin Sass and Christoph Uehlinger, the questions of what is actually Phoenician and what is specifically Phoenician, in Phoenician iconography , constitute one well-known crux of Levantine archaeology. Without answers to these questions,

10664-458: The north of Yehud, the former kingdom of Israel ) and other provinces and peoples around Jerusalem. ( Nehemiah 1–7 ) In Nehemiah 8 , the narrative abruptly switches back to Ezra, apparently with no change in the chronology, but the year is not specified. The Book of Nehemiah says Ezra gathered the Jews together to read and enforce the law (his original commission from Darius but put into effect only now, 14 years after his arrival). Ezra argued to

10788-663: The people that failure to keep the law had caused the Exile. The Jews then agreed to separate themselves from the "peoples of the land" (once again, intermarriage was banned), keep the Sabbath and generally observe the Law. ( Nehemiah 8–12 ) There is no complete agreement on the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods: the following table is used in this article, but alternative dates for many events are plausible. That

10912-446: The period provide the names of Elnathan , Hananiah (?), Jehoezer , Ahzai and Urio , all of them Jewish names. Some of them must have served between Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. Bagoas the Persian (Bagohi or Bagoi in Persian ) is known by this short form of several theophoric names that was often used for eunuchs . He is mentioned in the 5th-century Elephantine papyri , and must therefore have served after Nehemiah. There

11036-551: The prophet Jeremiah and others, the Judahite king Jehoiakim revolted against Nebuchadnezzar II . The revolt failed, and in 597 BCE, many Judahites, including the prophet Ezekiel , were exiled to Babylon. A few years later, Judah revolted yet again. In 589, Nebuchadnezzar again besieged Jerusalem, and many Jews fled to Moab , Ammon , Edom , and other countries to seek refuge. The city fell after an 18-month siege, and Nebuchadnezzar again pillaged and destroyed Jerusalem and burned

11160-441: The province remained around 30,000. There is no sign in the archaeological record of massive inwards migration from Babylon, in contradiction to the biblical account where Zerubbabel's band of returning Israelite exiles alone numbered 42,360. The Persians seem to have experimented with ruling Yehud as a vassal kingdom, but this time under the descendants of Jehoiachin , who had kept his royal status even in captivity. Sheshbazzar,

11284-1054: The region, with many of these projects centered in Arab countries, primary among them Jordan and Syria, and to a lesser extent in Lebanon. The most significant British excavations include the Tell Nebi Mend site ( Qadesh ) in Syria and the Tell Iktanu and Tell es-Sa'adiyah sites in Jordan. Other notable European projects include Italian excavations at Tell Mardikh ( Ebla ) and Tell Meskene ( Emar ) in Syria, French participation in Ras Shamra ( Ugarit ) in Syria, French excavations at Tell Yarmut and German excavations at Tell Masos (both in modern-day Israel), and Dutch excavations Tell Deir 'Alla in Jordan. Italian archaeologists were

11408-534: The roads around Kafr Sabt . The tell was first surveyed in the 1920s first by Eleazar Sukenik and then later by William Foxwell Albright . In 1933, Na'im Makhouly, a Christian Palestinian from Nazareth, who was an inspector for the Mandate Department of Antiquities at the time of the construction of the Samak-Tiberias highway that cut across the tell, conducted a salvage excavation. During

11532-672: The sake of other periods," it is now "an almost universally accepted principle that archaeological evidence from all periods must be treated with equal care." Leslie J. Hoppe, writing in 1987, submits that Dever's definition of temporal scope of Levantine archaeology excludes the Early Arab period (640–1099), the Crusader period (1099–1291), the Mamluk period (1250–1517) and the Ottoman period (1517–1918). However, Dever's definition of

11656-459: The same name, served as a winter resort to Mu'awiya , Marwan I , and other caliphs in Umayyad -era Palestine (c. 650-704 CE). For decades, part of this complex was misidentified as a Byzantine-era (c. 330-620 CE) synagogue ; excavations carried out in 2010 confirmed an architectural analysis made by Donald Whitcomb in 2002 suggesting the building to be the qasr of al-Sinnabra. Constructed in

11780-620: The same phase as the Khirbet al-Kerak pottery, dated to the Early Bronze Age III. From the earliest phases, the settlement was protected from the south and west by a city wall (the north and east facing the Sea of Galilee). The wall consisted of three connecting parallel walls, forming a massive wall, 25 feet (7.6 m) thick, built of mud-bricks. The gate was on the south and was built of basalt. Evidence of an urban, orthogonal layout

11904-567: The second year of Artaxerxes. Its position in the narrative implies that he was Artaxerxes I in which case the year was 458 BCE. Ezra, a scholar of the commandments of Yahweh, was commissioned by Artaxerxes to rebuild the Temple and enforce the laws of Moses in Beyond the River. Ezra led a large party of exiles back to Yehud, where he found that Jews had intermarried with the "peoples of the land" and immediately banned intermarriage. ( Ezra 6–10 ) In

12028-529: The single most important development in the post-Exilic period was the promotion and eventual dominance of the idea and practice of Jewish exclusivity, the idea that the Jews (meaning descendants of Jacob , followers of the God of Israel and the law of Moses ) were or should be an ethnic group apart from all others. According to Levine, that was a new idea originating from the party of the golah , those who returned from

12152-449: The site in 1963 and 1964. In 1976, Ruth Amiran conducted a salvage excavation on the tell. More salvage excavations were carried out by Nimrod Getzov in 1994 and 1995. In the summer of 2003, excavations were renewed in the northern part of the site with a pilot excavation in the granary. Excavations undertaken by Israeli archaeologists headed by Raphael Greenberg from Tel Aviv University 's Institute of Archaeology in 2010 confirmed that

12276-410: The site itself shows occupation into the medieval period. Plans have been drawn up to turn the site into an archaeological park. G. Schumacher had described the water tunnel in 1908, and a small-scale excavation was conducted by Z. Yeivin in 1973. The water passage of Belameh is important for the understanding of ancient water systems in Palestine. As of April 2007, the procedures to add Bethlehem and

12400-471: The site of Ebla in 1964. Unlike the joint missions between Americans and Jordanians, this project involved Italians and Palestinians digging at the same holes, side by side. Apart from Israeli archaeologists, Americans make up the largest group of archaeologists working in Israel. Joint American-Jordanian excavations have been conducted, but Nicolo Marchetti, an Italian archaeologist, says they do not constitute genuine collaboration: "[...] you might find, at

12524-517: The site of twin towns, Bet Yerah and Sinnabris. Beth Yerah means "House of the Moon (god)". Though it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or other Bronze or Iron Age sources, the name may preserve, at least in part, the Canaanite toponym of Ablm-bt-Yrh , "the city/fort ( qrt ) of his-majesty Yarih ". As Ablm (Heb. Abel ), this location is mentioned in the 14th century BCE Epic of Aqhat , and

12648-724: The site where Jewish rebels held out against the Romans in 72-73 CE. Masada was extensively excavated by a team led by Yadin from 1963 to 1965 and became a monument symbolizing the will of the new Israeli state to survive. Today, Israeli universities have respected archaeology departments and institutes involved in research, excavation, conservation and training. Notable contemporary archaeologists include Eilat Mazar , Yoram Tsafrir , Ronny Reich , Ehud Netzer , Adam Zertal , Yohanan Aharoni , Eli Shukron , Gabriel Barkay , Israel Finkelstein , Yizhar Hirschfeld , and many more. European archaeologists also continue to excavate and research in

12772-406: The site, the area was repurposed as a residential area. This change was marked by the appearance of Khirbet Kerak Ware marking the arrival of migrants to the site. New excavation at Tel Bet Yerah of layers associated with Khirbet Kerak Ware have been conducted in 2014 by R. Greenberg et al. In these contexts, significant discontinuity from the local tradition was found. This is showing influence from

12896-504: The situation in some other parts of the Persian Empire, such as Phoenicia. The second and third pillars of the early period of Persian rule in Yehud, copying the pattern of the old Davidic kingdom destroyed by the Babylonians, were the institutions of High Priest and Prophet. Both are described and preserved in the Hebrew Bible in the histories of Ezra–Nehemiah–Chronicles and in the books of Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi , but by

13020-473: The southern that wider archaeological and historical questions can be addressed. While both Classical archaeology and Levantine archaeology deal with the same general region of study, the focus and approach of these interrelated disciplines differs. Even scholars who have continued to advocate a role for Classical archaeology have accepted the existence of a general branch of Levantine archaeology. In addition, Classical archaeology may cover areas relevant to

13144-487: The study of ceramics . Whole pots and richly decorated pottery are uncommon in the Levant and the plainer, less ornate ceramic artifacts of the region have served the analytical goals of archaeologists, much more than those of museum collectors. The ubiquity of pottery sherds and their long history of use in the region makes ceramics analysis a particularly useful sub-discipline of Levantine archaeology, used to address issues of terminology and periodization. Awareness of

13268-623: The sub-discipline was cut off from other branches of ancient Near Eastern studies, apart from occasional references to Northwest Semitic epigraphy and Assyriology , as exemplified in the Mesha Stele , the Sefire Stelae , and the Tel Dan Stele . As a result, widely varying principles, emphases, and definitions are used to determine local typologies among archaeologists working in the region. Attempts to identify and bridge

13392-783: The temporal scope of the field in What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? (2001), indicates that Hoppe's critique is no longer valid. There, Dever writes that the time-frame of Levantine archaeology, "extends far beyond the 'biblical period,' embracing everything from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman period." The list below, from the Paleolithic Age to the Byzantine period,

13516-599: The value of pottery gained early recognition in a landmark survey conducted by Edward Robinson and Eli Smith , whose findings were published in first two works on the subject: Biblical Researches in Palestine (1841) and Later Biblical Researches (1851). Ceramics analysis in Levantine archaeology has suffered from insularity and conservatism, due to the legacy of what J.P Dessel and Alexander H. Joffe call "the imperial hubris of pan-optic 'Biblical Archaeology.'" The dominance of biblical archaeological approaches meant that

13640-416: The work of Khaled Nashef  [ de ] , a Palestinian archaeologist at Bir Zeit and editor of the university's Journal of Palestinian Archaeology , who writes that for too long the history of Palestine has been written by Christian and Israeli "biblical archaeologists", and that Palestinians must themselves re-write that history, beginning with the archaeological recovery of ancient Palestine. Such

13764-531: The works after the 1967 war was theft "which should be rectified now"., Israel is now digitally photographing the thousands of fragments that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls in order to make them freely available on the Internet. Yehud Medinata Yehud Medinata , also called Yehud Medinta ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : יְהוּד מְדִינְתָּא ‎ Yəhūḏ Məḏīntā ) or simply Yehud ,

13888-544: The world of Eastern Anatolia and the Upper Euphrates region. As a result, the introduction of Khirbet Kerak Ware in the Levant ca 2800 BCE is probable. It is further suggested that this provides evidence of kin-based group migration. Around 2000 BCE, the city was destroyed or abandoned. From the Middle Bronze Age I, a paved street, a potters workshop and other remains were excavated. Middle Bronze Age II

14012-640: The École Biblique at Tell el-Farah (1946–1960) and Khirbet Qumran (1951–1956). Rising nationalistic pressures led to Harding's dismissal in 1956 and thereafter, the Department of Antiquities was headed by Jordanian nationals. After Israel occupied the area during the 1967 war , all antiquities in the area came under the control of the Archaeological Staff Officer, who is the head of the Archaeology Department of

14136-626: Was a rural province with no more than half as many settlements as the late Iron Age, and a much smaller population. Jerusalem had shrunk to its pre-eighth century proportions and also had a much smaller population, which now concentrated in the Temple Mount and the City of David , especially near the Pool of Siloam . The most impressive building plan of the period was discovered at Ein Gedi . Throughout

14260-646: Was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire . Located in Judea , the territory was distinctly Jewish , with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and political leader. It lasted for just over two centuries before being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires , which emerged following the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire . Upon the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE,

14384-641: Was assassinated by a member of the former royal house, and the Babylonian garrison was killed, triggering a mass movement of refugees to Egypt. In Egypt, the refugees settled in Migdol , Tahpanhes , Noph , and Pathros , and Jeremiah went with them as moral guardian. Although the Babylonians deported many Judeans and Jerusalem was left in ruins, a small but far from negligible population of Judeans continued to live in their native land during this period. The population of Persian-period Jerusalem has been estimated at 1,500 inhabitants. The Edict of Cyrus, issued by

14508-551: Was called Belemoth during Roman-Byzantine times, and Castellum Beleismum in the Crusader sources. The site was initially discovered by Victor Guérin in 1874, then by Gottlieb Schumacher in 1910, and Bellarmino Bagatti in 1974. Later on, excavations in Khirbet Belameh, led by Hamdan Taha of the Palestinian Antiquities Department, began in 1996. These have focused on a water tunnel carved out of rock sometime in

14632-547: Was found, dating to the EB II, supporting the claim that the city was one of the regional urban centers of the period. A large (90×120 feet) building ("the circles building") was built, though not completed in the EBII, at the northern part of the tell. Of this building only the basalt foundations of the walls remain, in the form of a pavement 30 feet (9.1 m) wide. In this pavement, seven sunken large circles were found. Each circle

14756-487: Was led by William F. Albright, whose work focused on biblical narratives. Albright himself held that Frederick Jones Bliss (1857–1939) was the father of Levantine archaeology, although Bliss is not well known in the field. Jeffrey A. Blakely attributes this to Bliss' successor at the Palestine Exploration Fund , R.A.S. Macalister (1870–1950), who underplayed his predecessor's achievements. After

14880-570: Was made to preserve or protect archaeological remains from the later Islamic and Ottoman periods, which were of direct relevance to the areas Muslim inhabitants." By 2007, the ADCA had been involved with over 6,000 archaeological sites in the West Bank including surveys and excavations, the vast majority of which had been kept from public and academic knowledge.. In the early 20th century, Palestinians focused on investigating Palestinian "material culture," as it relates to folklore and customs . In 1920,

15004-408: Was not synonymous with Levantine archaeology, but rather that, "William Foxwell Albright regarded Palestinian archaeology or Levantine archaeology as a small, if important section of biblical archaeology. One finds it ironical that recent students suppose them interchangeable terms." Dever agreed that the terms were not interchangeable, but claimed that "'Syro-Palestinian archaeology' is not the same as

15128-503: Was smaller than the former Iron-Age kingdom of Judah, stretching from around Bethel in the north to about Hebron in the south, which at the time belonged to Idumaea, and from the Jordan River and the Dead Sea in the east to, but not including, the Shephelah , the slopes between the Judean highlands and the coastal plains in the west. After the destruction of Jerusalem the centre of gravity shifted northward to Benjamin ; this region, once

15252-598: Was the canonization of the Torah , traditionally credited to Ezra and playing an important role in shaping the Jewish identity . In the late 7th century BCE, Judah became a vassal state of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There were rival factions at the court in Jerusalem , some supporting loyalty to Babylon and others urging rebellion. In the early years of the 6th century BCE, despite the strong remonstrances of

15376-559: Was to establish an archaeological program that would emphasize the Palestinian presence in Palestine, informed by his belief that, "Archaeology, as everything else, is politics, and my politics [are those] of the losers." Glock was killed in the West Bank by unidentified gunmen in 1992. The first archaeological site excavated by researchers from Bir Zeit University was undertaken in Tell Jenin in 1993. Glock's views are echoed in

#788211