Monthly Archives: May 2011

JUST PUBLISHED

Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Volume 38, Number 1, 2011

CONTENTS
In Memoriam: Anson Rainey
Deborah Sweeney

Judahite Stamped and Incised Jar Handles: A Tool for Studying the History of Late Monarchic Judah Oded Lipschits, Omer Sergi, Ido Koch

The paper probes the distribution of the various stamped and incised Judahite jars with two criteria in mind: (1) their estimated date; (2) the assumption that in addition to Jerusalem, sites that yielded large quantities of stamped handles (mainly Lachish and Ramat Raḥel) served as major collection centres while sites that yielded only a few dozen stamped handles served as secondary administrative centres of the kingdom. Based on their findings, the authors reconstruct the evolution of the royal administrative system in the late 8th through the early 6th centuries BCE.

Tell Qudadi and Tel Gerisah: Two Early Bronze II Sites on the Yarkon River Ram Gophna, Yitzhak Paz

Tell Qudadi and Tel Gerisah are two multi-period sites located on the Yarkon River. Recent research has revealed that they were the only settlements along the central Coastal Plain that were inhabited during the Early Bronze Age II. Tell Qudadi and Tel Gerisah could have played important roles as an outpost and as a main inner anchorage site, respectively, in maritime activities between Old Kingdom Egypt and the North Levantine coast.

An Egyptian Mortuary Cult in Late Bronze II Canaan Katia Charbit Nataf

The paper re-examines the significance of the banquet scenes depicted on the Late Bronze Age II Megiddo and Tell el-Far>ah ivories. The author attempts to identify and link a set of characteristics on the panels—the lotus flower, the drinking vessels, the musical instruments and the Delta papyrus marshes—to the Egyptian goddess Hathor. She then proceeds to explore the hypothesis that mortuary Hathor worship, a direct legacy of Egyptian cultic belief, was adopted by the Canaanites during this period. The archaeological context of such a cult is discussed.

The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon: Methodological Musings and Caveats Christopher Rollston

The Qeiyafa Ostracaon is an important inscription from the late stage of Early Alphabetic. Regarding its language, some have argued that it is written in Hebrew. This article, however, contends that there are no discernable diagnostic features in the ostracon that mandate such a conclusion. Furthermore, the article also emphasizes that the script of this inscription is certainly not Old Hebrew, nor is it the immediate precursor of the Old Hebrew script. Rather the Old Hebrew script derived from Phoenician. Thus, there is some distance between the script of this inscription and the Old Hebrew script. Finally, the article contends that it would be difficult (because of the dearth of
data) for grand proposals about statecraft and literacy to be made on the sole basis of this ostracon.

Textual and Historical Notes on the Eliashib Archive from Arad Nadav Na’aman

The first part of the article discusses in detail some letters addressed to Eliashib, possibly the commander of the fortress of Arad.
New readings and interpretations are suggested for Ostraca Nos. 3, 5, 10, 12 and 18 and their structure and contents are clarified. The second part of the article offers new solutions for some problems in the history of the Negev in the late years of the Kingdom of Judah. It suggests that the elite troops of Kittiyim were hired by one of the last kings of Judah and sent to the Negev in an effort to curtail the Edomite danger. However, the efforts to defend the Negev failed and its centres were destroyed some time before the Babylonian 588–587 BCE campaign against the Kingdom of Judah. The heavy destruction brought about by the Edomites was deeply engraved in the collective memory and provides the background for the distinctive negative attitude to Edom in biblical prophecy of the exilic and post-exilic periods.

Egypt and the Levant in the Iron Age I–IIA: The Ceramic Evidence Shirly Ben Dor Evian

Traditionally, relations between Egypt and the Levant in the early phases of the Iron Age have been reconstructed based on the scant historical record and on biblical descriptions. This article introduces a new facet of Egyptian regional intervention into the
discussion: the presence of Egyptian pottery at Iron Age sites in Israel.

The Babylonia–Elam Connections in the Chaldaean and Achaemenid Periods—Part I Ran Zadok

The paper discusses the political and economic connections between Babylonia and Elam during the periods of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid empires (626–539 and 538–332 BCE respectively). It is based on both published and unpublished sources in Neo/Late-Babylonian as well as in Neo-Elamite and Royal Achaemenid Elamite. These are mostly implicit, as pertinent chronicles and royal inscriptions are rare.
Therefore, the evidence for political history is minimal whereas the socioeconomic information is much more detailed. Nevertheless, even this information is chronologically uneven as most of it refers to the Chaldaean and early Achaemenid period with very few sources about the late Achaemenid period (483–332 BCE). An appendix is devoted to workmen from upper Mesopotamia and Syria (‘Assyrians’) in Elam including Arabians. They were—at least partly—subjects of the Neo-Babylonian empire before its demise.

Editors: Israel Finkelstein, Benjamin Sass Editorial Board: Nadav a’aman, Oren Tal, David Ussishkin Managing Editor: Myrna Pollak

Tel Aviv is Published by Maney Publishing for The Emery and Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology of The Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University

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