Apologies

I can’t believe it has been over 6 months since I posted on this blog.  I would like to apologize for the time lapse and give a brief update on what I have been doing.

I finished my ACOR CAORC fellowship at the end of August of 2011, but had so many sherds to go through and scan that I stayed two extra months by myself (sans family).  My days consisted of 12-16 hours sorting through crates and using the 3D scanner.  In other words not too much to blog about.  After two weeks of being back in America I flew out to California for the annual ASOR meetings, then came Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Safita’s 1st birthday, Jack’s 3rd birthday, etc…

At Mabrak, a LB/Iron Age site near the Amman Airport Temple. On a FOAH trip close to the end of my stay in Jordan.

Throughout this time I have been going through the 2,000 (!) 3D scans of sherds and whole vessels, converting them in meshlab, and making drawings of them.  Again this process is not terribly exciting for blogging purposes.  However, now I am back to writing the dissertation full-time with the hope of finishing by the end of the summer. I have completed my historical geography chapter, it has been edited by my wife, my adviser, another professor, and sent to the dissertation secretary for format editing.  I am in the process of fixing and editing my middle bronze chapter, and so hopefully I will have more to blog about each week.  At the very least I will share little details from my chapters or the dig notebooks as I delve deep into the minutiae of Tall Safut.

Jack and Safita with her gumball birthday cake.

The Lack of Lachish: Part 1

As I have been thinking about a possible polity in the Shephelah during the 10th century BCE, I keep coming back to Lachish.  The site was proposed by Ido Koch (one of Israel Finkelstein’s PhD students), in his ASOR paper, as the location of a polity during this time period, the main rival to the Philistine city of Ekron (as opposed to Jerusalem).  Now Ido was incorrect on several points, including the size of Gath during this time, a point that would require a general rethinking of how he assigned these power centers.  Also it seems he didn’t include Qeiyafa within the sphere of Lachish, instead viewing it as a local fortified farmstead (another mistake in my view).  Despite these errors Koch has focused on Lachish for a reason.  Perhaps the reason is that Lachish was once part of the original argument for creating the Low Chronology, by his doktorvater Israel Finkelstein (in part because of the lack of Philistine bichrome pottery at the site).  Or perhaps it has something to do with the absence of Lachish for much of the Old Testament.

The site makes an appearance in Joshua 10 where its king  Yaphia is part of the coalition of the 5 led by Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem, who team up against Joshua and the Israelites.  Joshua and his men kill the kings and siege the cities, including Lachish.  It is as if Joshua has wiped Lachish from the pages of the Old Testament, because other than a brief mention in 2 Chronicles 11 as one of the cities Rehoboam fortified along the Diagonal Route through the Shephelah and 2 Kings 14:19 when Amaziah flees to the site, Lachish isn’t a major focus until 2 Kings 18 and the war of Sennacherib against Hezekiah in the late 8th century BCE.  This gap is over 400 years and we know from the excavations at Lachish that the site continued to be a large, strongly fortified site during this period.  In the next post I will look at the Rehoboam and Amaziah passages closer, and also try to determine what happened historically to the site after its destruction in the early 12th century BCE.

Finkelstein and Qeiyafa: Part 2

This post is the second part of a response to Israel Finkelstein’s lecture on Khirbet Qeiyafa at the SBL meetings in Atlanta.

4) Ethnic Affiliation:  Everyone agrees that Qeiyafa wasn’t associated in any way with the Philistines, there are no similarities in the material culture.  The other main option is a Judahite/Hill Country association, Finkelstein and others from Tel Aviv have had the hardest time coming up with an alternative solution.  They have come up with two other possibilities; the first is that the site was some kind of fortified farmstead belonging to local Canaanites (I think it was Ido Koch who suggested this), the second is that there was some kind of Shephelah polity in this time period.  This concept seemed to be what Finkelstein was suggesting. It is supported in part by the presence of Ashdod Ware I pottery at the site (which Garfinkel has used to date the site to Iron IIA), which appears more frequently in the Shephelah than in the Hill Country.  He pointed out that all 11th-10th century proto-canaanite or early hebrew inscriptions have come from the Shephelah (Izbet Sartah, Gezer, Tell Zayit, and now Khirbet Qeiyafa) and not from the hill country. This point was probably Finkelstein’s strongest, it is an idea that I have never thought of before and has not been published elsewhere.  This is not to say that there is not a good answer, but I can’t think of one currently. 

Most conservative biblical scholars would rely on the OT at this point and suggest that this (the fact there are multiple inscriptions found at the border of the kingdom) shows the development of some kind of state formation under David or Solomon.  This theory might hold true, but currently it lacks archaeological evidence to support it (especially with the redating of Eilat Mazar’s monumental structure in the City of David from the Iron IIA to the Iron I by Ami Mazar and Avi Faust, although there is a possibility that Mazar has found 10th century remains on the Ophel, just south of the Temple Mount).  In any case, both of these possibilities (Canaanite or Shephelah polity) are lacking simply because of the known strength of the Philistines at this time period.  It seems impossible that a small polity or local fortified farmstead would be allowed by the Philistines to exist so close to their border.  As can be seen by the length of this section, the ethnic identity of Qeiyafa is by far the most complicated aspect of this debate.

5)  Identification of the Site:  This was the weakest part of Finkelstein’s paper.  He rejects the identification of the site as Sha’arayim because there is no second gate (which is now confirmed) and because the texts (in the city lists of Josh 15:36 and 1 Chr 4:31, and in the Goliath story in 1 Sam 17:52) mentioning the site are all late.  It is clear that Finkelstein is not a historical geographer.  At what point did the final date of a text have bearing on site identification?  Even if the final dates of these texts weren’t disputed, that is still no indicator of when the original sources (written or oral) were formed. I have heard texts being dated based on when certain sites were occupied (the Joshua city lists are a good example of that), but not the other way around.  Most scholars would date the Joshua and 1 Samuel texts to the 8th or 7th centuries BCE (although some would date it later or earlier) which would only be a gap of 200 or 300 years.  Not nearly enough time for the memory of a site like Qeiyafa to fade.  The remains of this site are still visible on the surface today, and would have been plainly visible to anyone traveling through the area in the late Iron Age.

Now for a few conclusions.  In his paper Finkelstein seemed to exaggerate the differences between his interpretation of Qeiyafa and that of its excavators Garfinkel and Gaanor.  This is likely because in his first ASOR presentation on Qeiyafa, Garfinkel proclaimed the Low Chronology dead.  The pottery and radiocarbon dates fit well within the late Iron Age I through Iron Age IIA.  These dates allow proponents of both the Modified High Chronology and the Low Chronology to stake claim to the site of Qeiyafa.  So it is not the Low Chronology which is dead but rather assumptions about centralized government held by supporters of the Low Chronology.  It is clear that Qeiyafa was founded by a centralized government; due to its location, its large, fortified nature, the inscription found at the site, and the impressions on storage jar handles (Hoo-Goo Kang presented on these “finger” impressions at ASOR this year stating that they were applied using a tool, indicating some kind of control above that of an individual potter).  It is when talking about ethnic identity of the site where I part ways with Finkelstein.  Although he makes some compelling arguments for a polity in the Shephelah, I still believe that the material evidence still lends support for association with the hill country.  Finally I do believe that Qeiyafa is Sha’ariyim, and find Finkelstein’s toponymic suggestions entirely incorrect.

Publications Update

If you click on the publications tab at the top of this blog you will see I have updated the links with my ASOR paper and presentation on the Middle Bronze Age at Tall Safut and my book review of Eric Meyers Festschrift to be published in the upcoming NEASB.

Post ASOR and SBL

I was planning on posting more regularly over the course of the meetings, but I was too busy/without internet most of the time.  I presented on Thursday and was then able to enjoy the rest of the sessions sans stress.  The meetings are always a great opportunity to see old friends and network.  I saw friends from all over the world, people from: Wheaton, Jerusalem University College, Tell es-Safi, the Madaba Plains Project, and others random folk I’ve come to know over the years.  Since I am ABD networking is always an important part of the meetings and partially thanks to the 3D scanning I was able to make some new acquaintances.  I also attended a young scholars luncheon on post-doc fellowships, which was particularly helpful.

I attended many sessions and heard papers both good, bad, and ugly.  My paper in the Archaeology of Jordan Bronze and Iron Age session went fairly well.  There were technical difficulties at the beginning of the session, but all the papers were interesting, covering the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age.  I saw many familiar faces in the audience and also the new director general of the department of antiquities (who Barbara Porter has introduced me to the night before).

A particularly interesting/telling series of lectures took place on Saturday afternoon and evening.  I went over to SBL to hear the Ussishkin Festschrift Session and then came back to ASOR to hear the session on the Archaeology of the City of David.  Both sessions were star-studded events with Israel Finkelstein, Naadav Naaman, David Schloen, and Baruch Halpern presenting in the first session and Amihai Mazar, Avraham Faust, and Andy Vaughn in the second (to name a few).  The SBL session was packed with people standing in the back and sitting on the floor, the ASOR session was also quite full but in a much larger room.  The SBL session had been moved from an even smaller room, making one wonder how seriously they take their archaeology.  In any case there was a real dichotomy between the two sessions one where the Low Chronology/Tel Aviv School was in full effect, and the other where the High Chronology was being favored.  It was quite a transition, going from Finkelstein tearing down the standard interpretation of Kh. Qeiyafa (while Garfinkel squirmed in the audience), to Vaughn pointing out all the flaws in Finkelstein’s interpretation of Jerusalem.

Despite the tension in the room (especially at SBL) there were many light moments as well. Finkelstein showed pictures of his great grandparents alongside Ussishkin’s grandparents back in Europe and told a story of Ussishkin’s parents staying at his grandparents hotel in Jerusalem and still owing them for a coffee.  At Faust’s lecture, he focused on redating Eilat Mazar’s monumental stone structure (called by her David’s Palace) to the Iron Age I, prompting Ayelet Gilboa (director of excavations at Tell Dor) to suggest he except the Low Chronology and then once again we could have David’s Palace (instead of a Jebusite stronghold).  I’ve written plenty here, maybe as there is time over Thanksgiving weekend I will write about a few of the more interesting lectures, and write a thorough critique of Finkelstein’s interpretation of Qeiyafa.

Meetings

I have been absent from this blog the last couple weeks because I have been preparing a paper and powerpoint presentation for the annual (ASOR) archaeology meetings in atlanta. Once I return I will post the paper and corresponding powerpoint. The presentation is on the middle bronze age at Tall Safut and is entitled “The Middle Bronze Age at Tall Safut: To Glacis or Not to Glacis.”

Tonight myself and two other archaeology grad students will be road tripping down to Atlanta. We have to drive overnight because Jacob has a meeting at 2PM. I will be attending both ASOR and SBL meetings and hope to do a few blog posts on the more interesting sessions.

A few of the highlights from ASOR should be:

-Philistia and the Philistines During the Iron Age (chaired by Aren Maeir and Jeffrey Chadwick my former director and supervisor at Tell es-Safi)

-Archaeology of Jordan I: Bronze and Iron Ages (but I might be biased, this is the session I’m presenting in)

-Reconstructing Ancient (Biblical) Israel: The Exact and Life Science Perspective. An Atlanta 2010 Update (this is the preliminary results on a joint project of Tel Aviv University (Israel Finkelstein) and the Weizmann Institute which employs science and new technologies to answer questions regarding archaeology and ancient Israel)

-Technology in Archaeology (pretty self-explanatory)

-Archaeology of the Near East: Bronze and Iron Ages, I (including reports on Shechem, Megiddo, and Jaffa)

-Warfare, Empire, and Society in the Ancient Near East I

-“The MB-­LB Transition and the Role of Egypt’s New Kingdom in Forming Southern Levantine Culture, Settlement Patterns, and Society” (paper by Joe Uziel, special interest to me due to the transitional nature of the MB ceramic assemblage from Safut)

-Current Issues in Biblical Archaeology (focusing on Jerusalem and the City of David, with Andrew Vaughn, Amihai Mazar, Avraham Faust, and Garth Gilmour presenting)

 

I’ll post some of the SBL highlights later in the week.

 

 

3D Scanning Part 1

A large part of my dissertation is based on the pottery excavated from Safut, specifically the diagnostic sherds I have in my possession here at Andrews University.  Without these 100’s (1000’s ?) of sherds I wouldn’t have a dissertation, and I had to determine the best way to draw all of them.  The old school way of drawing sherds is to cut the sherd in half using a wet saw, then trace the profile using pencil, and eventually ink it.  Of course there were more steps along the way including determining radius of the sherd and its stance.  One of our MPP colleagues, Bob Bates, developed a way of drawing the sherds using a flatbed scanner and adobe photoshop.  This process is somewhat involved but created very nice looking sherd drawings.  Unfortunately one must still cut the sherd in order to scan its profile and there is still some guess work when creating the drawing in photoshop, determining the radius, and stancing the sherd.

A few years ago at the annual meetings of the American Society for Oriental Research in San Diego I heard a paper by Neil Smith of UCSD, discussing various technologies they were incorporating into the Edomite Lowlands Project.  One of these technologies was a 3D scanner and computer program that would convert the scanned sherd image into a nice drawing.  I was immediately fascinated and talked with Neil after about the logistics of the process, cost of the machine, etc.  I convinced my professors of the importance of this technology and began emailing Neil and Avshalom Kerasik who had developed this whole process at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

A little over a year after hearing the original paper by Neil, we purchased a NextEngine 3D Scanner.  This machine costs around $4,000 including software, which is a fraction of the cost of most scanners of comparable quality.  This post is getting long, so tomorrow I’ll explain how we get a pottery drawing from the 3D scan, and why it is so much better than the old way of drawing sherds.

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.