James, P., 2004. Review Article: The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Periods in Palestine, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 22, 47-58 (original) (raw)
Book based on my habilitation treatise now in preparation. Download of introduction (earlier draft) as preview here now available.
There exists increasing evidence that the terminal phase of Iron Age IIB did not already end in 701 BC when the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib destroyed Lachish and some other sites in the Shephelah region. It is believed that the impact of the latter's raids was less dramatic than has been held by multiple scholars. Besides Jerusalem (which was besieged but not conquered) it is very doubtful that the Assyrians actually sought to destroy the infrastructure of Judah's flourishing towns and villages, let alone of the important trading stations in the Arad-Beersheba valley. Manifold examples will be presented (including lammelek stamps, Assyrian imported and imitated pottery styles, iconography on seals and bullae etc.) to show that the terminus ad quem of Iron Age IIB encompassed the reign of king Manasseh, Hezekiah's son and successor. Also the end of Iron Age IIA is believed to be later than hitherto thought as some evidence now suggests. This period may have lastet at least until the middle of the 8th century BC (as confirmed by 14C ) and in some areas could have overlapped with early Iron Age IIB as late as the reigns of kings Ahaz and his son Hezekiah (early reign). Contents Introduction 1 Neo-Assyrian Related Sillographic Elements and the terminus ante quem of Iron Age IIA 2 'Assyrian-Type Pottery' and its Implications for Iron Age IIB Chronology 3 Inscribed Jar Handles and (Other?) Fiscal Related Sillographic Evidence 4 A Tentative Reconstruction References Abbreviations Tables and Figures Bibliography Indices
The presentation focuses on a stone stele of the Assyrian king Sargon II that was found at Najafehabad, about 100 km northeast of Kermanshah, and that is on display in the National Museum in Tehran. I will also say a few words about a rock relief of Sargon's at Tang-i Var, which is located approximately 85 km northwest of Kermanshah, and speak a bit about Assyrian steles and rock reliefs in general. I have been studying the inscriptions on these as part of my research preparing a book editing all of the royal or official inscriptions of this Assyrian monarch who reigned 721-705 BCE. The erection of stone steles and the carving of rock reliefs at strategic locations to commemorate military conquests and to assert claims of political and/or economic control over an area is a tradition well attested in the ancient Near East, a tradition going back to at least the third millennium BCE. The most famous of these is of course the Behistun relief of the Persian ruler Darius I from about 500 BCE. Assyrian monarchs have left a particularly large number of steles and rock reliefs scattered throughout their vast empire. Such monuments of Sargon II have been found in various parts of his realm: Ashdod in the southwest, Acharneh on the Orontes, Til Barsip on the upper Euphrates, and Najafehabad and Tang-i Var in western Iran near Kermanshah. In addition, a stele of his was found on Cyprus and one appeared on the antiquities market in Beirut. Fragments of steles possibly to be assigned to Sargon have also been discovered at Samaria and Carchemish.
ISRAEL'S PERSIAN PERIOD DISCOVERED IN JERUSALEM'S STRATIGRAPHY
Nothing seems more bizarre than the total absence of the construction activities of Ezra (480s-440s BC), who, after the Babylonian exile, rebuilt Jerusalem with walls and Temple and, thus, made Judah's continued existence possible in the first place. However, if one removes out of Jerusalem's chronology puzzlingly empty centuries, one finds, right below its Hellenistic-Hasmonean finds, where Ezra's Persian period has to be looked for, the imposing remains of the so-called High Urban period. They are the material findings of Jerusalem’s Persian period. Yet, they are dated about 300 centuries earlier, because a whole series of rulers' names is mentioned in the Bible and dated, following inner-biblical year-counting, from the 9th to 7th century but not between the 6th and 4th century. If one renounces such Bible fundamentalist year counting, then one finds many items inside Iran (6th to 4th c.), which, like representations of gods, architectural styles, portraiture, Greek mercenaries, etc., that are elsewhere dated to the 9th to 7th century. Bible-faithful dating thus proves to be the strongest ground for the erasure of real Jewish history. An even more famous example of this procedure is the deletion of King David. His Jerusalem time around 1000 BC has no building layers, but puzzlingly empty centuries. If one leaves this emptiness aside, however, Jerusalem's undisputed "Early Urban" building stage is found. It is dated according to the Mitanni, Indo-Aryan horse breeders, whose empire is later subjugated by Aziru, the Martu/Amorite. They are merely an alter ego, incorrectly dated 800 years earlier, of the Medes, Indo-Aryan horse breeders, who are later subjugated by Cyrus, the Mardian/Amardian, around 550 BC. At their, wrongly dated, time letters are written to Amarna about Jerusalem menacing Habiru under Yishua and Dadua. The Mitanni, more or less correctly dated, have their alter ego in the Medes. They live at the time of Aeolian capitals, biblically attributed to Yishai and David. For them, however, the capitals, because of their Bible fundamentalist dating, come 400 years too early. The main role in the deletion of these Hebrew heroes, due to the disregard of the Mitanni/Medes sources, fell to Israel Finkelstein. The art of Finkelstein, who downgraded King David to near nothingness, consists in the conservatism that he leaves our mainstream textbook chronology untouched, but then writes down, without respect for any dogma, for which centuries there is simply no hard evidence. This lifts him high above many of his archaeological peers. As a result, he mercilessly throws out biblical stories with their pious dates if he has no strata for them with an equivalent textbook date. To proceed in a more inclusive way, however, one must leave aside, for the time being, pious dates for both biblical stories as well as the dates found in textbook chronology that is used to date archaeological strata. Stories with at least two independent sources may be discarded only if there are no two different places with archaeological remains, that may confirm them. If such archaeological finds are available, the checking of their textbook dating must begin. The best way to do this is to look for the parallelity of strata from different sites without any regard to their currently believed dating. The best way to do this is look for a parallelism of the strata from different sites without any regard to their currently believed dating. The fact, e.g. that not only Egypt’s Amarna with its letters on the Habiru but also Jerusalem have wrongly dated strata, should surprise a researcher, but never discourage him to begin his work.