Middle Bronze at Safut

Safut is known for having a MB glacis, based on a report by Ma’ayeh after observing a cut made into the tell by bulldozers when expanding the highway from Amman to Jerash (1960 AJDA).  Wimmer attempted to address this question by opening two squares (D1 & 2, see site map in previous post) above the cut.

There is no question that the bedrock was cut in antiquity as foundation for the crowning wall, and that the composition of the inclined place agreed with the earlier description, except that no certain signs of plaster appeared. It could have weathered away, or have been removed by the 1950s construction…It should be noted that the crowning wall, as it was called, is curved, and that the segment on the west has its counterpart on the east as is evident in a pre-excavation slide. Excavation produces only MB/LB Bronze Age pottery in the layers immediately above the glacis itself which proved to be sterile (Wimmer 1987a: 279).

After more bulldozing was done no cross section of the glacis appeared and so brought into question its existence. Although at the very least there appears to have been added fortifications in this area. WimmerWimmer 1992: 896).  There is no pure MB stratigraphy, the pottery was always mixed with LB. later reports that what was thought to be a glacis is nothing more than a natural geological formation.

So it is interesting that the majority of MBIIB/C pottery was only found in area D.  Perhaps the original cut into the tell eliminated most of the glacis, which would have only been located on the southern half of the tell where the hills of Suweileh looked down on the tell.  Or perhaps there was no glacis.  For now we will have to see that there is no evidence of a MB glacis, but there is evidence of a MB occupation (but no architecture yet).

ASOR Updates

Having now returned from the annual meetings and being done with class until after break I thought it would be a good time to write up my notes on some of the more interesting presentations I heard.  Also I will be putting up a version of my paper with pictures, beginning with the Middle Bronze period at Safut.

First up is the always (over)confident Rami Arav, director of the Bethsaida excavations.  His paper was titled: Bethsaida Stratum V: The Four Chamber City Gate: Its Origin, Function, Date, and Implication for Dating Megiddo IVA.  His presentation took on a slightly different form than his title would suggest.  Basically his thesis was that the four-chamber gate is modelled after a granary and not after any previous gate systems (such as those from the MB with their large towers and multiple entrances).

Bethsaida Stratum V dates from 850-732 BCE and was destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III.  Over 1 ton of barley was part of that destruction level, located in chamber 3 of the 4 chamber gate.  The previous stratum had a granary directly inside of the gate area and so perhaps the granary was incorporated into the gate in the next period.  Arav sees the chamberd gate system as architecturally very similar to granaries from various Iron Age sites.

His presentation centered on this idea and he only briefly mentioned Megiddo IVA at the very end.  But based on his abstract:

The four-chamber city gate of Megiddo Stratum IVA is a smaller version of the Bethsaida gate and must have been contemporary with it.  Therefore, contrary to those advocating the Low Chronology, Megiddo IVA was probably constructed by Ahab in the mid-9th century BCE and destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III in 734-2 BCE.  Megiddo VA-IVB, with the six-chamber city gate, must have been destroyed no later than 850 BCE.

So, unfortunately we saw no pottery and didn’t get a detailed comparison of the stratigraphy  between Bethsaida V and Megiddo IVA.  As it was the lecture was very interesting but not very well received.  There were several questions about the validity of Arav’s thesis (i.e. if the inner gates were used for grain storage why do some have benches?), including from Ami Mazar and the excavators of Tel Kinrot, but Arav brushed them all aside as if they didn’t matter.  Suffice to say that archaeologists will have to look elsewhere for the origin of this gate style.