A historical, geographical and archaeological survey of the Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze Age (original) (raw)
Related papers
This volume is a study of the archaeology and history of the Jordan Valley of the Southern Levant (from Dan in the north till the Dead Sea in the south) during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1500 B.C.E). The study attempts to summarize a large body of relevant materials bringing together a variety of types of finds and approaches, to form a coherent picture on the role, and significance of this region during this period. Starting from a general regional overview (including an in-depth geographical, ecological and environmental summary), a critical review of the finds from the various sites in the region are presented, followed by a discussion of various aspects of the material culture (including a detailed discussion of the pottery of region throughout the various phases of this period), the historical sources, trade and chronology, and an attempt to synthesize the settlement pattern and processes, from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age until the onset of the Late Bronze Age. While including traditional aspects of analysis such as comparative stratigraphy, pottery typology, and the discussion of the historical sources, this study also attempts to incorporate a wide range of other perspectives, including extensive pottery provenience studies (Neutron Activation Analysis), the study of settlement ecology and population dynamics, and attempts to classify the production patterns, and political and economic structures in these and adjacent regions during this time frame. In addition to dealing specifically with the finds from within the Jordan Valley, the ramifications of these finds on other regions (and issues) in the Middle Bronze Age, and vice-a-versa, influences of other regions and sites on the Jordan Valley. Thus, general questions such as the underlying mechanisms behind the beginning, development and end of the Middle Bronze Age are discusses, as well as controversial topics such as the chronology of the period and the role of the city of Hazor. The volume concludes with an appendix with a detailed list on all MB sites in the Jordan Valley, and a list and discussion of all 14C dates from the Jordan Valley (by Ezra Marcus). The volume should be of interest to scholars dealing the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Eastern Mediterranean, as those connected to the study of material culture, production, pottery provenience, chronology, trade, settlement patterns and cultural interactions, both in the ancient near east but in archaeology and ancient history in general as well.
2002
At the beginning of the project I had asked myself a simple question: why are there so many Late Bronze Age sites around Deir 'Alla? When I started looking for answers, I stumbled upon another question, a much bigger one: to what extent does the tribal society of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reflect human behaviour in earlier periods, and what does that mean for the interpretation of the archaeological record? That question opened a Pandora's box of ideas and possibilities, that is yet far from exhausted. Over time it has influenced and changed my views, and consequently the original scope of the project, as it played an ever increasing role in the answers that I found. In places this process is still visible in the book: some chapters, such as chapter 5, reflect ideas that I had several years ago, but that have developed since then. Should I have to write that chapter now, I would write it differently. Sometimes I feared that my ideas were far-fetched, but when I shared them with others, reluctantly, there were always people who believed in them. The first time that happened was in 1997, at the SBL conference in San Francisco. I was extremely nervous about what I was going to say, but after I had finished, Anson Rainey came up to me to tell me how much he appreciated my ideas. He has never stopped encouraging me since. Since that time there have been many more people who shared my enthousiasm and encouraged me to go on: Israel Finkelstein, Gloria London, Piotr Bienkowski, Mervyn Richardson, and last but not least, Prof. Ed Noort, my supervisor during the last stages of the research, without whose encouragement and occasional pushing there would not have been a book now. Mervyn Richardson also kindly offered to correct my English and remove the Dutchisms from it, and he has been very thorough. A special paragraph of thanks goes to Margreet Steiner. She has stood at the cradle of this project, just like she stood at the beginning of so many other episodes in my life. In the past 12 years we have not only shared our love for the archaeology of Palestine and Jordan, but the ideas, emotions, enthousiasm and frustrations that were the result of that love. She has given me the lion's share of the feedback that I needed to finish it. Eke Bakker and Kees Donkersloot proved to be invaluable friends, who were always there when I needed to unwind from too many potsherds and Bedouin. Last but not least I want to thank my parents for their support, love and encouragement, and for making it all possible in the first place. This book is dedicated to them. Leiden, October 2002 Redford (1982) has suggested that the lists were composed from pre-existing itineraries for Western Asia, which were used by Egyptian couriers in the fifteenth century. He has interpreted rings 89-101 of this list as an itinerary describing a route from Damascus to Kerak across the Transjordanian Plateau. The following place names are involved:
The present volume reports the results of a regional research project, supervised by the editor, under the patronage of SCIEM 2000 (The Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C.; coordinator M. Bietak). SCIEM 2000 is a research programme inaugurated by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW) at the Austrian Research Foundation (FWF). This venture is a “regional project” which focuses on the Middle and Late Bronze Age material culture and chronology of three of the most important sites in the Transjordanian Jordan Valley, namely, Pella, co-presented by S. Bourke, R. Sparks and M. Schroder; Tell Abu al-Kharaz, presented by the editor of this volume, P.M. Fischer; And Tell Deir cAlla, presented by G. van der Kooij. The Jordan Valley between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, a distance of a little more than 100 km as the crow flies, is a fertile region and has attracted settlers during many millennia. The Jordan River runs from north to south in almost the same direction as the Mediterranean coast which is some 60 km distant in the northern part and some 80 km in the southern part of the valley. The Ghor, the Jordan Valley Rift bottom, several km wide and almost flat, which extends to the east and west towards the hilly regions leading up to the “plateaus” in the east and west, is very well suited for farming and grazing. The proximity of the Mediterranean harbours and access to international trade are of considerable importance in the interpretation of the cultures of this region and its intercultural relations. There are also important trading routes close to all three sites. One is the north-south trade route which connects the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea on the eastern side of the Ghor and which passes Tell Abu al-Kharaz and Tell Deir cAlla, and within a few km also Pella. Another trade route is the Jordan Valley crossing road which links, among other sites, Tell Abu al-Kharaz and Pella via Beth Shean and Megiddo with the Mediterranean Sea in the Mount Carmel area. From Pella come other trading routes towards the north into Lebanon and Syria, and towards the south and east proceeding past Tell Abu al-Kharaz onto the northern part of the Transjordanian plateau. There are additional routes of importance as regards the connection with the Transjordanian plateau in the east: for example, the route from Tell Abu al-Kharaz directly through the Wadi al-Yabis towards the east and the northern part of the Transjordanian plateau including the regions around Irbid and Jerash, the route from Tell Deir cAlla through the Wadi al-Zarqa towards the Jerash region, and the route from Tell Deir cAlla towards Amman in the south-east. There were certainly other roads crossing the Jordan River and leading to Schechem, Jericho and Jerusalem. It is tempting to assume that the entire region of the Ghor, which is topographically, geologically and climatically relatively uniform, also represents one cultural unit. Our regional study of these three sites, which are only approximately 30 km apart, will demonstrate cultural similarities but also differences. As far as the terminology is concerned, all the authors use for the Middle Bronze Age the MB I–III terminology, and for the Late Bronze Age the terminology modified by the editor, with subdivisions into LB IA–C and LB II A–B (see Fischer’s contribution for details). In Chapter 1, Bourke et al. from the Sydney University Excavations begin the presentation with Pella (Tabaqat Fahl), the most northerly of the three sites: Pella in the Middle Bronze Age. This presentation deals with the entire Middle Bronze Age of Pella, with a few excursions into the Late Bronze Age. Chapter 2, The Rise and Fall of the Middle and Late Bronze Age Societies of Tell Abu al-Kharaz, is presented by the editor (Swedish Jordan Expedition and SCIEM 2000) and covers the Middle and Late Bronze Age occupational sequence of Tell Abu al- Kharaz. This is identical with the second main occupational period (the first being Early Bronze Age) of that site, namely, the flourishing period which covers approximately the MB III to the transition LB IC/IIA. The most southerly site, Tell Deir cAlla, is presented by van der Kooij from the Tell Deir cAlla Archaeological Project (a joint venture of Leiden University, Holland, and Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan) in Chapter 3: Tell Deir cAlla: The Middle and Late Bronze Age Chronology. The presented Middle and Late Bronze Age occupational sequence 005_008 Jordan Valley.qxd 27.11.2006 10:52 Seite 7 of Tell Deir cAlla covers approximately the MB III through LB II periods. The presentation of the three sites’ material culture and chronology is followed by a summarizing Chapter IV: The Essence of the Studies of Pella, Tell Abu al-Kharaz and Tell Deir cAlla in which the editor discusses the main issues concerning the chronology of the Jordan Valley during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, based on the individual reports. This is followed by a response by Bourke which constitutes Chapter V: Pella and the Jordanian Middle and Late Bronze Ages. The final summary is presented by the editor again as Chapter VI: Résumé.
5 - North Jordan during the early iron age: an historic and archaeological synthesis
2017 North Jordan During the Early Iron Age: An Historical and Archaeological Synthesis. Walking Through Jordan. Essays in Honor of Burton MacDonald. Pp. 63-77. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing., 2017
The beginning of the Iron Age (ca. 1200 BC) saw the collapse of the Egyptian and Hittite Empires, events that had repercussions for social and political systems throughout the Levant as late Bronze Age city-states were transformed into various kinds of ethno-political structures. So far as early Iron Age Jordan is concerned, the area south of Wadi az-Zarqa has been relatively well-studied and is known from archaeological and literary sources (e.g., the Bible) to have comprised three small kingdoms (Ammon, Moab and Edom) that extended for about 275 km from north to south along the eastern escarpment of the Jordan Rift. In contrast, the region north of the Wadi az-Zarqa is poorly known. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the Iron Age history of this area based on relatively sparse archaeological data augmented by more fine-grained Assyrian literary sources. Two political entities have been identified (Zobah/Beth-Rehob and Gil’ad/Gil’az?)
This study aims at discussing the way of life and the settlement patterns at the Central Jordan Valley during the Iron Age. The presented informations are based on the results of surveys and excavations conducted by Jordano-Dutch teams during the last decades at the following three sites: Tell Deir 'Alla, Tell el-Hammeh and Tell Damiyah. Generally speaking, the inhabitants of the Jordan Valley conducted during the period ranging from about 1200 to 539 BC different economic practices such as cultivation in principal, pastoralism, trade and industry. Actually, these economic activities have been changed during the Iron Age. For example, it has been assumed by the first excavators of the site of Tell Deir 'Alla that the settlers of the site were pastoralists during the beginning of the Iron Age I. The results of the last excavations however proved that this assumption must be reconsidered. The change in interpretation is based on the type and function of the architecture and other archaeological material dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age (ca. 1300-1100 BC).
Primary Early Bronze Age Contexts from Tell Abu al-Kharaz, Jordan Valley
The excavated part of the Tell is divided into ten portions, Areas 1−10. A few explanations on terminology, chronology and material selection are given here to facilitate an understanding of the following text: The Early Bronze Age occupation at Tell Abu al-Kharaz was limited to the period covered by the conventional Early Bronze Age IB and II. There are three main phases and six subphases of occupation at the site. Based on 16 radiocarbon dates from all Early Bronze Age phases, the Early Bronze Age settlement lasted roughly 200 years, i. e. from approximately 3150−2950/2900 BCE2. During the course of the ARCANE project, which aims to synchronise regional assemblages of archaeological material in the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean which date from the late 4th and the 3rd millennia BCE, and to provide an absolute chronological framework, a differing terminology has been suggested.