Phoenician Religion and Cult across the Mediterranean Workshop (original) (raw)
Related papers
The management and organization of archaeological data in complex database management systems (DBMS), and more recently data warehouses, such as the Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment (OCHRE), has become commonplace within the discipline. Traditionally, Near Eastern archaeologists have emphasized data interoperability and integration for inter-site comparison of archaeological data, often through attempts to establish data “standards,” which has proven relatively unfruitful. Furthermore, as highly atomized, item-based data structures come to replace the traditional relational data model often utilized by archaeologists, it has become apparent that a data standard is not necessary as long as our data ontologies remain appropriately abstract (i.e., highly itemized). In doing so, we can conceive of DBMS not as simple repositories of data, but as analytical environments in their own right, wherein lies the potential for not only the accumulation, but the construction and contestation of knowledge from archaeological data (Knowledge Discovery from Archaeological Data [KDAD]). Following a brief excursus into the phenomenon of data mining and its implications within the discipline, this paper will focus on the implementation of a revised apriori algorithm (after Agrawal and Srikant 1994) for establishing associations among items in a dataset. The algorithm is applied to a dataset from Tell Mastuma, Syria, to elucidate heretofore unrecognized patterns among the data derived from Stratum I-2b. It is argued such patterns are indicative of past practices enacted at the site, and association rules are utilized to paint a more nuanced portrait of the community of Tell Mastuma during the Iron II.
Haifa Center for Mediterranean History - Newsletter 2020-2021
Welcome! We are delighted to summarize in this bulletin our fifth year of activity at the Haifa Center for Mediterranean History and share more information on the upcoming year. Like many other institutions around the world, our events program was drastically modified due to COVID-19 circumstances and restrictions. We wish all our readers good health and safe return to normal activity.
Dressed to the Divine Nines: Clothing the Gods of Assyria in the First Millennium BCE
Visual representations of divine images and evidence of a rich textile industry in Assyria during the first–millennium BCE stand as testament to a cultural custom of clothing the gods, while textual sources speak to the creation and accenting of gods’ garments with equally exquisite bodily adornments. Royal inscriptions and correspondence disclose the kings who commanded the fabrication of clothing for the gods, including robes, crowns, and jewelry; the master craftsmen at whose hands these works of art came to life; and the culturally valued materials with which they were made, such as precious metals and exotic stones. The same letters also speak of the theft of such adornments from temples, reaffirming their high cultural value. Information on the lubuštu-ceremony (clothing ceremony) reveals the active role these materials played in ritualized practice: the garments and adornments contributed to the visual and sensorial qualities of the practice, their handling by members of the royal court signaled their prestige, and their placement on divine images allowed them to fulfill their principal purpose, transforming a man-made statue into a god. This paper, first, presents the assortment of visual and textual references to divine dress as confirmation of the cultural value and significance of these portable works of art—as expertly fashioned, inflected materials—and their integral role in "creating" the divine—as markers of the gods on earth; and second, it demonstrates how these eclectic garments and adornments of the gods acted as cues for culturally appropriate behavior and interaction with the divine image in ritualized practice in the Neo-Assyrian temple.
A corpus of alabaster sculptures, inscriptions, and archival documentation related to the modern exploration of sites in the Wadi Beihan in Yemen is housed today in research archives and institutions in Washington, DC. In recent years, a team has begun to revisit and study this corpus with the aim to understand the implications of removing materials from the Wadi Beihan, and to improve our current knowledge of the Qataban cultures of the late first millennium BCE and the first centuries of the first millennium CE. This paper will introduce results of a series of ongoing projects that involve multidisciplinary approaches and collaborative international research initiatives. The aim of the presentation is to (1) highlight new technological work on the extent and role of polychromies in ancient South Arabian material cultures, (2) to outline current major challenges and research trajectories when working on the preservation of Yemeni heritage from Washington, DC, and (3), to critically reflect upon current preservation effort narratives of the wider Middle East in the context of Yemen.
Rural peace after city life? Kamid el-Loz during the Iron Age
ASOR
It is well known that the site of Kamid el-Loz, ancient Kumidi, has been a flourishing city – governed by a palace and built around a pronounced temple area – during the Middle and the Late Bronze Ages. Shaken by several disasters during these times of political ‘global’ interaction, the small but strategically situated city fully recovered and reinvented itself every time but the last: During the Iron Age, Kumidi reshaped itself to a settlement of rapid building sequence, even including post-built houses and stone corals alongside stone- and mud-brick-built buildings, but no IA I graves yet. Since temple and palace left their traditional locations that they inhabited for hundreds of years, and since no such functional buildings could have been identified yet in other places of the site, the question rises whether the transition from Late Bronze Age to Iron Age has left ancient Kumidi as an extensive and densely settled village struggling with its new position in the Beqaa valley and the region of Upper Galilee. The extensive excavations of both the universities of Saarbrücken and the Freiburg raise questions and give preliminary answers about the course of the Iron Age in the southern Beqaa. By viewing at the data available (architecture, pottery, small finds etc.), the paper diachronically follows the site’s specific settlement history of collapse (LBA II), persistence (IA I) as well as decline and abandonment (IA I-II).
A Society of Horsemen? Handmade Syrian Horses and Riders Figurines during the First Millennium B.C.E
2015
Handmade Syrian Horses and Riders figurines (hereafter HSHR) appeared in the Middle Euphrates approximately at the beginning of the seventh century B.C.E This production was first recognized as “snowman” figurines by L. Woolley during the excavation at the ancient Karkemish (1911-1920), together with the Syrian Pillar-shaped type (SPFs). Indeed, the Syrian types are characterized by several applied ornamental bands and medallions representing harnesses, while the horse figurines of the southwestern Levant were highly standardized. This paper focuses on data gathered from the analysis of the HSHR recovered especially at Karkemish by the new Turkish-Italian excavations. Both the contextual study and the technical characteristics are here considered to provide a preliminary typological and chronological frame for this class of artefacts. The expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the West and the resulting conflicts may have caused deep changes within the local population, also affecting the social dynamics. The majority of Iron Age figurines produced by Levantine cultures are zoomorphic, precisely equids. Nevertheless, most of the scholars dealt mainly with anthropomorphic specimens. This contribute highlights this preponderance, trying to relate it to the new socio-political scenario after the Assyrian takeover.