The 2006 Season at Tall al-‘Umayri and Subsequent Studies


Book Description

This volume is the tenth in a series of technical seasonal reports on the excavations of Tall al-ʿUmayri, Jordan, part of the Madaba Plains Project. It covers artifactual finds and related research from excavation fields active during the 2006 season: Field A, the western citadel with Early Iron Age domestic structures; Field B, the western defenses and northwestern domestic quarters showcasing a rare Late Bronze Age temple/palace complex; Field H, the southwestern acropolis boasting a Late Iron I courtyard sanctuary; and Field L, the southern edge with Iron I remains, limited Late Iron II architecture, and the now fully exposed area of a Late Hellenistic agricultural complex. This volume includes an important synthesis of the long-term data on repeating cycles of abatement and intensification of settlement population patterns, and the chapters are supplemented by an article on sherds with incised marks and another on coins found at ʿUmayri in 2006. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Robert D. Bates, David R. Berge, John W. Betlyon, Kent V. Bramlett, David C. Hopkins, and Gloria A. London.




The 2006 Season at Tall Al-'Umayri and Subsequent Studies


Book Description

Covers the important finds at Tall al-ʻUmayri, an archaeological dig site in western Jordan, in 2006. Includes a summary of the cumulative results of all excavation seasons to date, from 1984 through 2006.




Review of Biblical Literature, 2023


Book Description

The annual Review of Biblical Literature presents a selection of reviews of the most recent books in biblical studies and related fields, including topical monographs, multi-author volumes, reference works, commentaries, and dictionaries. RBL reviews German, French, Italian, and English books and offers reviews in those languages.




Excavations at Tall Jawa, Jordan


Book Description

In Excavations at Tall Jawa, Jordan: Volume 3, The Iron Age Pottery, Michèle Daviau presents a detailed typology of the Iron Age pottery excavated from 1989 to 1995. She looks beyond the formal changes to an in-depth analysis of the forming techniques employed to make each type of vessel from bowls to colanders, cooking pots to pithoi. The changes in fabric composition from Iron I to Iron II were more significant than those from Iron IIB to IIC, although changes in surface treatment, especially slip color, were noticeable. Petrographic analysis of Iron I pottery by Stanley Klassen contributes to our growing corpus of fabric types, while Peter Epler documents typical Ammonite painted patterns and Elaine Kirby and Marianne Kraft present a typology of potters’ marks.




The Madaba Plains Project


Book Description

The year 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of Mabada Plains Project archaeological research in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Madaba Plains Project is one of the longest-lived, continuously running archaeological excavation projects in the Middle East. Spanning four decades, the project, with its beginnings at Tall Hisban in the late sixties, has engaged 1,500 participants, produced scores of publications and spawned a dozen other projects. Its legacy includes being one of the first major Near Eastern archaeology projects to adopt a multi-millennial, regional approach; to incorporate ethnoarchaeology and environmental studies; to construct data around a food-systems' approach; and to computerize procedures for archaeological data acquisition and analysis, thus helping advance both the theoretical underpinnings and the field methods of archaeology in the southern Levant and beyond. Madaba Plains Project directors, wishing to celebrate this major scientific and historical milestone, have produced this anniversary volume which: highlights the value of ongoing collaborative research across the region of central Jordan, attempting to explain life and survival from the Bronze ages through the Islamic and early modern periods and features the latest results from ongoing research; enlivens the discussion by hearing from major scholars in the field who, in the process of assessing the contributions of the project to the archaeology of the southern Levant, broaden the discussion in the context of ancient Near Eastern archaeological research; and, expands the horizons of the project's research by presenting the ever enlarging number and extent of projects conducted by dig directors once on staff with the Madaba Plains Project, thereby taking readers all over Jordan and beyond.




Beyond the Texts


Book Description

A handbook for biblical scholars and historians of the Ancient Near East William G. Dever offers a welcome perspective on ancient Israel and Judah that prioritizes the archaeological remains to render history as it was—not as the biblical writers argue it should have been. Drawing from the most recent archaeological data as interpreted from a nontheological point of view and supplementing that data with biblical material only when it converges with the archaeological record, Dever analyzes all the evidence at hand to provide a new history of ancient Israel and Judah that is accessible to all interested readers. Features A new approach to the history of ancient Israel Extensive bibliography More than eighty maps and illustrations




Exploring the Narrative


Book Description

This volume brings together a number of scholars who use archaeology as a tool to question the sometimes easy assumptions made by historians and biblical scholars about the past. It combines essays from both archaeologists and biblical scholars whose subject matter, whilst differing widely in both geographical and chronological terms, also shares a critical stance used to examine the relationship between 'dirt' archaeology and the biblical world as presented to us through written sources.




The Fire Signals of Lachish


Book Description

In this volume honoring Tel Aviv University archaeologist David Ussishkin, colleagues and students representing some of the major names in the field today present 25 essays on a variety of topics of interest to the honoree. The contributions cover a range of periods from the Late Bronze Age through the Persian period and disparate subjects such as Judahite bullae, destruction levels at Megiddo, a diversity of results from various tells in Israel (and one in Jordan), Egyptian influence on Canaan, the city of Jerusalem and its temple, and much on the archaeology of the Shephelah, an area of particular interest to the honoree—who is best known for his excavations at Tell ed-Duweir, the site of biblical Lachish. The volume takes its title from a reference in one of the Lachish ostraca. From 1966 until his retirement in 2004, David Ussishkin taught in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University. Between 1975 and 1978, he served as Chair of the Department, and between 1980 and 1984 as the Director of the Institute of Archaeology. In 1996, he was nominated incumbent of the Austria Chair in Archaeology of the Land of Israel in the Biblical Period. He served as the editor of Tel Aviv: The Journal of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University for 30 years.




The 2006 Season at Tall al-‘Umayri and Subsequent Studies


Book Description

This volume is the tenth in a series of technical seasonal reports on the excavations of Tall al-ʿUmayri, Jordan, part of the Madaba Plains Project. It covers artifactual finds and related research from excavation fields active during the 2006 season: Field A, the western citadel with Early Iron Age domestic structures; Field B, the western defenses and northwestern domestic quarters showcasing a rare Late Bronze Age temple/palace complex; Field H, the southwestern acropolis boasting a Late Iron I courtyard sanctuary; and Field L, the southern edge with Iron I remains, limited Late Iron II architecture, and the now fully exposed area of a Late Hellenistic agricultural complex. This volume includes an important synthesis of the long-term data on repeating cycles of abatement and intensification of settlement population patterns, and the chapters are supplemented by an article on sherds with incised marks and another on coins found at ʿUmayri in 2006. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Robert D. Bates, David R. Berge, John W. Betlyon, Kent V. Bramlett, David C. Hopkins, and Gloria A. London.




Age of Empires


Book Description

Storage jars of many shapes and sizes were in widespread use in the ancient world, transporting and storing agricultural products such as wine and oil, crucial to agriculture, economy, trade and subsistence. From the late 8th to the 2nd century BCE, the oval storage jars typical of Judah were often stamped or otherwise marked: in the late 8th and early 7th century BCE with lmlk stamp impressions, later in the 7th century with concentric circle incisions or rosette stamp impressions, in the 6th century, after the fall of Jerusalem, with lion stamp impressions, and in the Persian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods (late 6th–late 2nd centuries BCE) with yhwd stamp impressions. At the same time, several ad hoc systems of stamp impressions appeared: “private” stamp impressions were used on the eve of Sennacherib’s campaign, mwṣh stamp impressions after the destruction of Jerusalem, and yršlm impressions after the establishment of the Hasmonean state. While administrative systems that stamped storage jars are known elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the phenomenon in Judah is unparalleled in its scale, variety and continuity, spanning a period of some 600 years without interruption. This is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon as a whole and to develop a unified theory that would explain the function of these stamp impressions and shed new light on the history of Judah during six centuries of subjugation to the empires that ruled the region—as a vassal kingdom in the age of the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Babylonian empires and as a province under successive Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid rule.