Publications by Year: 2010

2010
Yavneh I: The Excavation of the "Temple Hill" Repository Pit and the Cult Stands
Kletter, Raz, I. Ziffer, and W. Zwickel, Yavneh I: The Excavation of the "Temple Hill" Repository Pit and the Cult Stands (Academic Press Fribourg: Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica, 2010), pp. 496 + map.Abstract

In the words of late Professor Moshe Kochavi, the Philistine repository pit at Yavneh is the kind of discovery made only once every fifty years. It is the richest repository pit ever found from Bronze and Iron Ages Israel/Palestine, containing thousands of cultic finds originating from a temple, including an unprecedented number-more than a hundred-of cult stands (so-called 'architectural models') carrying rich figurative art, dozens of fire-pans, chalices and other objects. The present volume includes the full publication of the excavation, the stratigraphy, the cult stands and the figures detached from cult stands, several clay and stone altars and some pottery vessels related to burning of plant material, most likely incense. This exceptional book raises a host of highly important and intriguing questions. Is this a favissa, or even a genizah? Why are many cult stands badly broken, while some are intact-were cult stands broken on purpose? What is the explanation for the unique stratigraphy and for the layer of gray ash in the pit-was fire kindled inside as part of a ritual? How do we know that these finds are Philistine? Are they part of the 'furniture' of the temple or objects dedicated by worshipers as votives? Do the figures on the cult stands represent mortal beings, or divinities? If divinities, can we relate them with Biblical or extra-biblical data on the gods of the Philistines? What was the function/s of cult stands? Were they models of buildings, supports for images, offerings tables, altars, or perhaps incense burners? Why are female figures dominant, while male figures are virtually absent? In discussing such topics, Yavneh I treats issues that are central to many fields of study: religion and cult in Iron Age Israel/Palestine; the history and archaeology of the Philistines and their 'western' relations; Near Eastern iconography, the meaning of cult stands/architectural models and the understanding of votive objects and of repository pits in general. Literally salvaged from the teeth of the bulldozer, these rare finds are now published. Generations of scholars will discuss and reinterpret them – there is no 'final word' for such finds and hence this final excavation volume is not an end, but a beginning.

With the generous help of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program, the project was successfully completed in 2015. Two final excavation volumes were published by Dr. Ras Kletter, together with W. Zwickel and I. Ziffer: Yavneh I: The Excavation of the ‘Temple Hill’ Repository Pit and the Cult Stands (2010) and Yavneh II: The ‘Temple Hill’ Repository Pit (The Finds) (2015). They are open access: https://www.academia.edu/40648480/2010_Yavneh_I and https://www.academia.edu/40693449/2015_Yavneh_II._The_Temple_Hill_Repository_Pit_the_complete_book

Angelochori: A Late Bronze Age Settlement in Emathia, Macedonia, Greece. Vol. I.
Stefani, Evangelia, Angelochori: A Late Bronze Age Settlement in Emathia, Macedonia, Greece. Vol. I. (Kyriakidis Brothers, 2010).Abstract

The prehistoric settlement of Angelochori, Emathia, in Macedonia, is located in a rural area, near to its modern namesake village. The excavations lasted from 1994 until 2003 and were conducted by the 17th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. The remains of a Late Bronze Age settlement have come to light. The study has started since 2000 and has been supported by the “Shelby White - Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publica­tions” of the Harvard University (2000-2002), as well as by the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust. The present volume focuses on the natural environment, the habitation phases, the stratigraphy and the architecture of the settlement. It also presents radiocarbon dates, as well as archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeomalacological material. A second volume will include the pottery and other small finds. T he book written in Greek contains a detailed summary in English.

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Copies may be ordered by contacting:
Kyriakidis Brothers
Kon / nou Melenikou 5
546 35 Thessaloniki


 

Gilgal: Early Neolithic Occupations in the Lower Jordan Valley (The Excavations of Tamar Noy)
Bar-Yosef, Ofer, A. Nigel Goring-Morris, and Avi Gopher, Gilgal: Early Neolithic Occupations in the Lower Jordan Valley (The Excavations of Tamar Noy) (Oxbow Books, 2010).Abstract

The late Tamar Noy, who served as the Curator of Prehistory in the Israel Museum, surveyed, tested and excavated the Gilgal sites from 1973 until 1994. The study of the Gilgal sites holds monumental significance, because the features and artifacts uncovered there directly relate to the transition to agriculture in the Levant. The excavation produced various archaeological data that reflects this crucial socio-economic transition....This volume is a tribute to the consistent efforts and devotion of the late Tamar Noy, who continued the excavations and research of Gilgal over many years, often under harsh climactic conditions and with the help of numerous volunteers and some small donations.

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Copies may be ordered by contacting:
Oxbow Books
PO Box 511 (28 Main Street)
Oakville CT 06779.

 

The City of Sindos: A Settlement of the Late Bronze Age to the Classical Period on Thermaikos Gulf in Macedonia
Gimatzidis, Stefanos, The City of Sindos: A Settlement of the Late Bronze Age to the Classical Period on Thermaikos Gulf in Macedonia (Alle Rechte Vorbehalten, 2010).Abstract

The multi-part settlement hill of Anchialos is situated 23 km west of present-day Thessaloniki in a marshland on the plain Thermaic Gulf and belongs to the largest of its kind in Macedonia. It is being identified with historical Sindos which, until now, was mainly known because of its rich graves, Excavations of the University of Thessaloniki under M. Tiverios (1990-1997, 2000-2002) revealed buildings with mud brick walls with or without a stone foundation, clay or gravel floors, thatched and later tiled roofs. Additionally, there was evidence for terraces and substantial settlement material belonging to 16 phases, mainly pottery, of which 738 vessels were selected for the catalogue and illustrated. The focus is on two handmade and 28 wheel-thrown wares of the Late Bronze and Iron Age. There were also inscriptions on vessels and small finds consisting of pottery, bone, antler, sea shells, glass, stone, bronze, and iron. The book ends with a discussion of the chronological development and comparisons with other settlements to the result that the continuity between the Geometric and the Archaic Period at Sindos is the most distinctive feature.

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Copies may be ordered by contacting:
Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH
Stellerloh 65 • D-32369
Rahden / Westf.
Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH

Gamla II: The Architecture (The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations 1976-1988)
Syon, Danny, and Zni Yavor, Gamla II: The Architecture (The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations 1976-1988) (Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010).Abstract

The importance of Gamla as the best preserved-and to date the most extensively excavated-late Second Temple period Jewish site in the north cannot be overstated. It provides direct archaeological evidence, rich in quantity and quality, from a site not inhabited after 67 CE, for the notoriously elusive first centuries BCE and CE in Galilee. Scholars, who have in the past relied on much later evidence to reconstruct life in the first century-a method with its inherent, but not always considered, dangers-will now have a corpus of closely dated material to build upon.

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Copies may be ordered by contacting:
The Israel Antiquities Authority
P. O. Box 586,
Jerusalem 91004 Israel.

Roland de Mecquenem: Archives de Suse (1912-1939)
Boucharlat, Rémy, and Noëmi Daucé, Roland de Mecquenem: Archives de Suse (1912-1939), 2010 . Online PublicationAbstract

WEBSITE LINK

In 1912, following the resignation of Jacques de Morgan, Roland de Mecquenem, who had joined the delegation team in Persia since 1903, was in charge of the excavation of Susa in Iran. The missions followed one another each year until 1939, interrupted only during the First World War. At the end of each of his campaigns, Mecquenem sent a mission report to his ministry of guardianship, the Ministry of Public Instruction. These reports are now kept at the Historical Center of the National Archives in Paris. They are generally divided into two parts, the first is devoted to the results of the current campaign while the second describes the daily life of the mission in Susa. Only archaeological results are published on this site, along with their appendices; from 1921, these include inventories, plans and photographs illustrating the progress of the work and the main discoveries.

The reports by Roland de Mecquenem constitute a unique collection of documents that partly make up for the deficiencies, frequently underlined, of the excavator's publications. Indeed, unlike the broad syntheses he published, his reports were written at the end of each mission. They thus more reliably trace the evolution of sites open between 1912 and 1939 and shed new light on some of them that Mecquenem considered unproductive and that he did not mention in his publications.

The website allows online consultation and download of all unpublished documentation of Roland de Mecquenem: annual reports, inventories, plans and photographs associated with reports. The databases that were created for this publication also offer the possibility of querying all the data in several search modes, free or indexed. The search help placed in the top banner of the site offers assistance with the use of the free search engine. Finally, the publications of Roland de Mecquenem are also available for download on this site.

Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City Jerusalem Volume IV: The Burnt House of Area B and Other Studies
Geva, Hillell, Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City Jerusalem Volume IV: The Burnt House of Area B and Other Studies (Israel Exploration Society, 2010).Abstract

This is the fourth volume on the results of the excavations directed by the late Professor Nahman Avigad in the years 1969-1982 at the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The first two volumes on these excavations (Jewish Quarter I, II) dealt with Areas A, W and X-2, including remains of the Broad Wall, the Israelite Tower, and the First Wall, all fortifications dating to the First and Second Temple periods. These are located in the northern part of the Jewish Quarter, in areas that had been included within the city's fortified area by the end of the First Temple Period (Jewish Quarter I, II). The third volume presents the results of excavations in Area E, where remains of private dwellings from the time of Herod the Great were exposed; they were shown to have been put into disuse when a stone-paved street was constructed over them (Jewish Quarter III). These three volumes also included studies of specific artifact assemblages from the Jewish Quarter excavations, including various seal impressions and Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions of the First and Second Temple periods, glass production waste from the beginning of the Herodian period, and stone scale weights of the late Second Temple period, among others.

This volume presents the remains and artifacts discovered in Area B, at the eastern end of the Jewish Quarter, opposite the Temple Mount and Western Wall on the other side of the Tyropoeon Valley. Remains of four settlement strata were found there, dating from the end of the First Temple period (Stratum 4), the late Second Temple period (Strata 3 and 2), and the Byzantine period up to the late Mamluk/early Ottoman period (Stratum 1). The most important of these remains is a residential structure that has come to be known as the Burnt House (Stratum 2). It consists of a small courtyard with a number of rooms, a kitchen, and a miqweh, but was clearly part of a larger structure that extended beyond the limits of the excavation. The house was constructed around the beginning of the 1st century CE and destroyed in a conflagration during the period of the ROman conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In the rooms of the Burnt House were found fragments of dozens of ceramic and stone vessels and hundreds of other finds of different types, buried under layers of charred wooden beams and collapsed stone walls. These remains were remarkably well preserved, lying buried for 1,900 years under layers of later construction. The building and the finds are of particular significance to the archaeological research of the late Second Temple period. Furthermore, the excavation of the house marked the first time in which clear and tangible evidence for the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was recovered. Evidence was also encountered for the name of the house's owner, which appears engraved on a stone weight: "belonging to] the son of Qatros." This was a priestly family that lived in the Upper City of Jerusalem, known from Jewish written sources relating to the Second Temple period.

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Copies may be ordered by contacting:
The Israel Exploration Society
P. O. Box 7041,
5 Avida Street,
Jerusalem 91070 Israel.
Fax: 972-2-6-247772
Phone: 972-2-6-257991
E-mail:ies@vms.huji.ac.il

 

Excavations at Dor: Figurines, Cult Objects and Amulets
Stern, Ephraim, Excavations at Dor: Figurines, Cult Objects and Amulets (Israel Exploration Society, 2010).Abstract

With contributions by Adi Erlich, Renate Rosenthal-Heginbottom and Christian Herrmann

This volume presents the rich and impressive finds of clay figurines, stone, ivory and metal statuettes, and Egyptian faience amulets uncovered in the two decades of excavations at Tel Dor conducted under my supervision during the years 1980-2000.

The purpose of the volume is to make available to students of Holy-Land archaeology the cultic finds from Dor, in a separate monograph, to enable them to benefit from the new material and not be obliged to await publication of the final excavation reports which, due to their complexity, are often delayed.

A collaborative undertaking, this book includes my own contribution and those of three specialists, each in his/her field of expertise. The cultic remains, both those of an official nature and those associated with the popular apotropaic traditions, represent an important chapter in Israeli archaeology and their various aspects have been examined in numerous studies. These finds enable us to identify the cultic ideas held by the various peoples of Israel and to examine the changes made prior to the Persian period when the ancient Eastern cult was predominant and its replacement by the West Greek cult in the Hellenistic period.

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Sha'ar Hagolan Vol. 3. Symbolic Dimensions of the Yarmukian Culture: Canoization in Neolithic Art.
Garfinkel, Yosef, David Ben-Shlomo, and Naomi Korn, Sha'ar Hagolan Vol. 3. Symbolic Dimensions of the Yarmukian Culture: Canoization in Neolithic Art. (Israel Exploration Society, 2010).Abstract

Contributions by Michael Freikman, Debi Hersman and Dov Levitte

Sha‛ar Hagolan is a major Pottery Neolithic site (dated to ca. 8400–8000 cal BP) that spreads over ca. 20 hectares near the Yarmuk River, Israel. Eleven excavation seasons (in 1989–1990 and 1996–2004) had been conducted at the site by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The excavations exposed ca. 3,000 sq.m. of the Yarmukian village. The site is well known for the planning of the settlement, specifically its courtyard buildings, each occupying several hundred meters and separated by systems of streets or alleys and passageways, and a well. The excavations yielded a wealth of archaeological material including pottery, flint, ground stone, very rich art objects and figurative items, as well as faunal and floral remains. These data supply a wealth of information on the Yarmukian economy and social life.

This book summarizes more than 20 years of research on the Neolithic art assemblage of Sha‘ar Hagolan. The site presents the largest known assemblage of prehistoric art in Israel and one of the largest in the Near East. The quantity and quality of the items allow a detailed understanding of the art assemblage of the site, the Yarmukian culture to which it belongs, and the Neolithic period in general.
The artistic tradition of Sha‘ar Hagolan, especially the cowrie-eye figurines, form part of a much more widespread phenomenon, which began in the Levant a millennium earlier, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. This tradition later spread through the entire Near East and is well represented in Mesopotamia, Iran and Anatolia. Its last manifestation in this region are the ‘Ubaid figurines of southern Mesopotamia, dated to the 5th millennium BCE. The tradition also defused to southeastern Europe and is known at a large number of sites in Greece, former Yugoslavia and Cyprus. For the benefit of readers, relevant items from Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia and southeastern Europe are presented here in Chapter 9.

Beyond its enormous contribution to better understanding the art and cult of the Neolithic period, the Sha‘ar Hagolan art assemblage includes the earliest representation of a standardized surrealistic human figure. This personage was shaped in accordance with clear conventions that dictated a specific final product. A single type of anthropomorphic figurine dominates the assemblage. This is an unparalleled phenomenon in early village communities, but is characteristic of subsequent urban societies in the Near East and beyond. Canonization occurs here for the first time in the history of art. This reflects a transition from personal imagination to social imagination, and indicates the existence of a formalized establishment that creates and controls religious beliefs. The Sha‘ar Hagolan figurines are the first clear evidence for the creation of gods in the ancient Near East. In addition to the physical characteristics of urban concepts such as size, density, streets and courtyard structures, we see that art and cult also underwent changes that characterized the much later urban societies of the Near East.

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Please visit the publication pages for volumes 4 and 5.