Publications by Year: 2003

with contributions by Daniella E. Bar-Yosef, Liora Kolska Horwitz, Omri Lernau, Nili Liphschitz, Ya'akov Meshorer, Naomi Porat, Steven Rosen, Pamela Sabari, Patricia Smith, Miriam Tadmor and Anabel Zarzecki-Peleg

Tel Qashish (Tell Qasis in Arabic) is located on the northern bank of the Kishon River, where a bend in the stream encloses the site on two sides. The settlement thus occupied an excellent strategic position on one of Kishon fords, in close proximity to Tel Yoqne'am some 2km away, the major site in the region, on which Tel Qashish was most probably dependent.

The elongated mound (ca. 270 x 160 m) covers an area of about 10.7 acres (ca. 43 dunams) at the base of the tel. The western half is about 5 m higher than the eastern half. The mound slopes steeply on all sides, except on the northeast, where the approach road to the site was probably located.

Aharoni suggested that the site should be identified with Ḥelkath, No. 112 on the list of Thutmose III (Aharoni 1959:119-122, 1979:163). Another possibility, which the authors prefer, is to identify it with Dabbesheth (Josh 19:11).

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From 1969 to 1982, extensive archaeological excavations were conducted in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem under the direction of the late Professor Nahman Avigad. During these excavations, impressive remains of fortifications, public buildings and domestic dwellings were found, as well as numerous artifacts from all of the periods of the continuous settlement of this area, beginning at the end of the Iron Age until the Ottoman period.

Among the major discoveries made in the course of the Jewish Quarter Excavations are fortifications dating to the First and Second Temple periods; luxurious residences of the Upper City of Jerusalem of the Second Temple period, including the Palatial Mansion; the Byzantine Cardo and Nea Church; and a gate tower of the Early Islamic period. These and other findings from the excavation have dramatically changed our concept of the size and topography of Jerusalem in ancient times.

Volume I is the first of the final reports of these excavations. It presents the architectural remains and part of the small finds from three excavation areas: A, W, and X-2. Here were found remains of the northern section of the First Wall that protected ancient Jerusalem's Southwestern Hill during the First and Second Temple periods. The remains of these fortifications were restored following their excavation. They are currently on display to visitors in open courtyards and under the new buildings of the Jewish Quarter.

Volume II is the second of the final reports of these excavations. Included are pottery, glass, metal, stone, bone, epigraphic, numismatic and incised and painted plaster finds, among others, from three excavation areas: A, W and X-2. These finds range in date from the end of the First Temple period to the Late Islamic period.

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In this final report on the late Mrs. Bennett's excavations, Piotr Bienkowski and specialist contributors describe and illustrate the architecture, stratigraphy, pottery and other finds in detail. The concluding chapter revises accepted ideas of Busayra's date, nature and role and assesses the site in its proper ancient context in the light of current research on tribal kingdoms. Busayra was settled from the late eighth century to c. 300/200 BC, with some reuse, perhaps for agricultural purposes, in the Nabataean and Roman periods. It is ideally located on an easily defended, high spur among rich arable lands, providing secure opportunities for agriculture and pastoralism and maximizing proximity to the copper mines of Faynan and to the crossing of the Wadi Arabah used by the Arabian incense trade. Piotr Bienkowski concludes that Busayra was not a capital of a nation state, as it is often described, but the administrative and religious centre of the supratribal authority of the heterarchical state of Edom, recognized and treated as kings by the Assyrians.

Piotr Bienkowski is Curator of Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities and Head of Antiquities at Liverpool Museum, and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He served as editor of the archaeological journal Levant from 1987 to 1992, and since 1993 has edited the series British Academy Monographs in Archaeology. In 2000 he was annual professor at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

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For a site that has been well known for its tombs, this volume on Early Bronze Age settlement at Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ brings a new perspective by turning attention from the cemetery to the living community and its activities, insofar as these can be reconstructed from the archaeological finds. The burial evidence and accompanying artifacts are naturally always important in themselves as well as for comparison, and reference to them will be found at many places in this volume. But the focus here is on a large body of data relating to the people who settled this Early Bronze site from the latter quarter of the fourth to the end of the third millennium B.C.

Lapp's excavations in 1965 were the first to show that Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ was an Early Bronze Age settlement rather than a specialized ceremonial site, as many had speculated prior to his work (P. Lapp 1966: 560-61; for references to the prevalent interpretation of the site as a distinctive one accompanied by cultic activities see Schaub and Rast 1989: 17-18). Following upon Lapp's discoveries, the several seasons of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain (EDSP) have uncovered a great deal more evidence for the history of Early Bronze settlement here. Therefore, it now has to be recognized that if a special significance is to be ascribed to Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ it is not because it was an unusual site in antiquity but rather because it provides a unique case of Early Bronze Age urbanism in an exceptional part of the country, the isolated environment along the southeastern Dead Sea Plain. Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘ takes its place within the discussion of the social and political events occurring on both sides of the Jordan Rift during the late fourth and third millennia B.C. Its remains open a window to the lifeways of the people who constructed its numerous tombs throughout the entire Early Bronze Age.

This volume is the second in the series Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan. The first contained the final publication of all tombs excavated in the cemetery under Lapp's direction between 1965 and 1967 (Schaub and Rast 1989). Two further reports of the EDSP are to follow: one dealing with the excavations of the EB III site of Numeira, an EB I cemetery at Feifa, and an EB I cemetery at Khanazir; and another devoted to the tombs excavated by the EDSP, with special attention to the human remains. Both volumes are in progress. The present volume deals with the data retrieved at the town site by the EDSP during seasons in 1975, 1977, 1979 and 1981. The fields excavated under Lapp's direction in 1965 are also incorporated. The inclusion of the latter was facilitated by the fact that the EDSP has been using the same numbering and locus system as the earlier excavations. Lapp's fields were numbered Fields I-VII while those of the EDSP were designated Fields VIII-XIX.

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Vounous is the name of a low hill overlooking the sea on the north coast of Cyprus. It is situated one and a half miles east of the Abbey of Bellapais, which is one of the chief tourist attractions of the island. The site, located in the northern foothills of the Kyrenia range, is a large prehistoric Bronze Agel cemetery. Vounous was initially mentioned by Professor Gjerstad under the heading Kasafani. Its tombs were looted in the early 1930's and the Department of Antiquities was alerted of the sale of Red Polished vases at Kyrenia. Porphyros Dikaios, Curator of the Cyprus Museum, undertook the rescue excavations at Vounous in 1931-1932. P. Dikaios uncovered Tombs 1 to 48 in the western part of the site. In June 1933, Claude F. A. Schaeffer, representing the National Museums of France, excavated Tombs 49 to 79 in the same area, in collaboration with P. Dikaios. An expedition of the British School at Athens, directed by James R. Stewart, continued the excavations in 1937-1938. Tombs 80 to 164 were uncovered at both sites A and B. All of them conducted unsuccessful field research around the site in order to find a settlement connected to the necropolis.

In 1956, Professor J.R. Stewart obtained an agreement from C.F.A. Schaeffer to undertake the publication of his (Schaeffer's) excavations at Bellapais Vounous as the report in extenso remained unpublished. The documents from Schaeffer's season available to J.R. Stewart and his student, R.S. Merrillees - who completed his Archaeology III thesis on "Vounous Tombs 49 to 79" in 1959 at Sydney University - were comprised of the manuscript notebooks restricted to the contents of the tombs, photographs of the tombs, and Schaeffer's book Missions en Chypre. It was only a few years later, in 1961, that more documents - and not the least: in situ plans and sections drawn by Dikaios and prepared for publication, and Dikaios's notebookg all in pencil - on the 1933 excavations were given to them. These important sources of information implied a revision of R.S. Merrillees' thesis that he never brought to the state of publication, encouraging "any qualified student or scholar to finalize this long overdue undertaking".

NOTES EXPLANATORY TO THE CATALOGUE

The present report was written from copies of the original catalogue cards and notes made by J.R. Stewart and R.S. Merrillees. It is no easy matter to undertake the publication of another archaeologist's excavations, particularly those in which one has had no part. Inevitably there must be gaps in the treatment of the following tomb groups, but it seems more than indispensable to finally reveal the material unearthed some 70 years ago. Tombs 49 to 79 are discussed in detail further on, including tomb plans when available; the plates have been organised by tomb groups in order to give an overall picture. We have followed Schaeffer's numbering system instead of Stewart's to designate the tombs. The number of the tomb alone refers to the Main Chamber, whereas a letter in lower case (a or b) added to the number of the tomb indicate that it is a Side Chamber. JR. Stewart applied his own system to the Vounous tombs as a whole which is confusing as he used letters in upper case in order to differentiate each chamber, for example 50 A (Main Chamber), 50 B (Side Chamber a) and 50 C (Side Chamber b).

The human remains have been drawn on the in situ plans but no skeletal material was apparently kept because of their bad state of preservation as early excavators in Cyprus found skeletons of little academic interest. Only four skulls, one of the most likely parts of the body to be preserved, have been recorded in the Field Registers. Animal bones are also only occasionally reported in the course of the excavations and no identification was carried out post-excavation on the material.

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The photographic album of the archaeological excavations at Qumran inaugurates the final presentation of the results achieved at Khirbet Qumran and at Ain Feshkha. If the forthcoming, complete presentation of the results has been slow in arriving, it is due to the complex nature of the site. Few archaeological sites have raised so many questions and excited so much interest and heated discussion, sometimes touching on controversy. It hardly seems necessary to remind readers that the research project at Khirbet Qumran and its environs was a mission financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; that the mission was jointly led by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, whose director, Mr. Gerald Lankester Harding, was personally involved, by the Palestine Archaeological Museum (Rockefeller Foundation) and by the Ecole Biblique. The American School of Oriental Research cooperated in the exploration of the cliffs.

Roland de Vaux himself had, of course, counted on producing the definitive publication on the work executed on the site and its surroundings. He first gave the essentials of the archaeological data in his preliminary reports, interwoven with an historical framework that he wanted to test. Therefore, the most urgent thing for him was the scrolls.

One cannot say, however, that the archaeology of Qumran has not been published. Season after season, de Vaux published preliminary reports in the Revue Biblique. If they were bound together, they would form a considerable volume: 153 pages of text, 41 photographic plates, 249 drawings of complete pottery items, and 6 foldouts suggesting an architectural evolution. An archaeological description of the caves appeared in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series. The preliminary results were not only published but treated perhaps even more comprehensively than in many final reports that have appeared since, in the economic manner that sometimes seems to prevail today. However, de Vaux would not have wanted the sum of his work to be compared in this way. A number of scholars who were fairly frequent visitors to the excavation also published on the subject on different occasions: J. T. Milik, a close disciple of de Vaux, concerned more with the history and the texts than with the site, supported his master's conclusions as to the archaeology in 1957. E.-M. Laperrousaz drafted with meritorious care a status quaestionis of the archaeology of Qumran, not neglecting to give his opinion. He repeated his opinions in a long article in a dictionary. M. Du Buit O.P., in charge of the architectural surveys during the second and third seasons, made use of a popular publication to express some of his ideas.

De Vaux's preliminary reports, together with the result, of the dig as the stages of the work unfolded, furnished first-hand documentation that bore testimony to his intuitions and hesitations, but above all, to his progress in understanding the intricate nature of Qumran. A few years later, de Vaux delivered the volume of Schweich Lectures in two versions: the French in 1961, followed by the English in 1973. This volume was published posthumously but had been corrected by him before his death. Therein de Vaux elaborated his thoughts, taking account of the objections that had been aired. His sole aim had always been to try to establish, above all else, the maximum coherence between the archaeology of the site, the texts from the caves and the history supplied by the coins. De Vaux's reconstruction was not always convincing, far from it. He faced attack from various quarters: objections were made that the connection he established between the site and the manuscripts was not correct, that his chronology was inadequate and, finally, that his vision of communal life lacked proof. In two articles in the Revue Biblique, he refuted, point by point, the theses that contradicted him. He defended his position with strong conviction in his "Esseniens ou Motes?", following a more serious challenge on some points put forward by G. R. Driver. De Vaux crossed swords effectively with an ardor well known to us, without departing from a rigorous intellectual honesty. In his discussion relating to the chronology, the link between the site and the texts, and the attribution of the remains to the Essenes, he set out his assertions so convincingly that there was no room for hesitation. Some uncertainties in the archaeology remained insignificant in his view and never provided sufficient cause, however one interpreted them, for him to alter the broad outline of his presentation, the merit of which was not only its clarity but its great probability. He never abandoned it.

De Vaux died five years later at the height of his powers without having completed his work.

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The island of Mochlos and the adjacent plain that lies on the coast of Crete opposite it are located in a graben (tectonic valley) flanked by horsts (mountain blocks) on the east and west. As a result of normal faulting, the island and plain have experienced considerable subsidence with respect to the areas on either side. In the Bronze Age, the two were still connected by a narrow isthmus of land, now submerged below sea level, that provided excellent shelter for passing ships as well as a bridge for land traffic from the island to the adjacent coast. The plain runs along the coast, mostly to the east of Mochlos, for a distance of ca. 4.5 km (Fig. 1). Nowhere more than 1 km wide, it is isolated from the interior of Crete by the Ornos Mountains, which ring the plain on the east, west, and south, and rise abruptly to a maximum height of 1237 m above sea level.

The plain's geology consists of a coalescing apron (20-30 m deep along the coast) of fluvial deposits formed in the Pleistocene by torrential deposits of muds, sands, pebbles, gravels, boulders, and other materials eroded from the surrounding mountains.' In the Pleistocene, when sea level was much lower, these deposits extended considerably beyond the present coastline. Erosion of these deposits, caused primarily by the rise in sea level that accompanied deglaciation, has resulted in the present coastal configuration of steep vertical bluffs interrupted by narrow ravines in which modern streams flow toward the sea. Eight of these ravines cut through the plain to the coast, two on either side of the headland where the modern village of Mochlos lies, directly opposite the island, and six farther to the east. Only one ravine continues to be fed by a freshwater stream that runs year round, the easternmost ravine that lies at the eastern end of the coastal plain below the site of Chalinomouri; the other stream beds are dry throughout most of the year. Today, the area is intensively farmed. Terraces of olive trees are planted on the mountain slopes; vineyards and wheat are grown on the terraces along the coast; and rich gardens with bananas, pomegranates, and other fruit trees are located in the ravines. Until recently, most of the inhabitants in the area lived in the villages of Lastro, Sphaka, Tourloti, and Myrsini along the main highway in the mountains above the coast.

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