Jezreel Valley Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In light of the large wine processing installation found in Jezreel in 2013, the pre-Deuteronomistic Naboth story is imagined as featuring a rich Naboth who offended a weak Israelite king. Since the Assyrian conquest of the Jezreel Valley, the Israelite king had little political clout over the region and could thus be snubbed, til the queen of the rump kingdom of Samaria arranged a meeting with the governor of Megiddo.

- by
- •
- Viticulture, Megiddo, Inalienable Possession, Jezreel Valley

Rabah culture in the Jezreel Valley, dating to the 6 th millennium cal BC. The site was under excavation from 2013 to 2016, and the fifth and final season of fieldwork in 2016 completed a project that aimed to explore this settlement and its transregional interactions with the northern Levant. Remains of rectilinear architecture with floor levels, stone lined pits, and plastered installations were uncovered. Four burials were unearthed within the domestic quarter and have tentatively been dated to a later phase of Wadi Rabah occupation. The finds indicate that Ein el-Jarba played a key part in an exchange network that extended between the Halaf and the Wadi Rabah cultures, and which brought goods and notions of style and iconography into the southern Levant. Below the Early Chalcolithic remains, finds dating to the Pottery Neolithic Yarmukian and Jericho IX/ Lodian cultural entities have been unearthed, suggesting a continuous occupation at Ein el-Jarba from the Neolithic to the Early Chalcolithic period.

The survey of the Legio area, conducted on behalf of Tel
Aviv University in 1998-2000, recovered numerous finds
related to settlement sites in the region, and enabled us to
suggest the locations of a Jewish village, a Roman
military camp and a Roman-Byzantine city in a welldefined
geographical area, characterized by an abundant
water source throughout the year and an important road
junction in the northern Land of Israel. The paper
presents the finds of the survey, focusing on the Roman
military camp at Legio. The location of the camp was
detennined with the assistance of the survey finds and
analysis of the routes of Roman roads and aqueducts, and
tl1e distribution of cremation burials. The size of the camp
was ascertained on the basis of old maps, aerial
photographs and the ceramic finds of the survey. The
paper takes into account the results of other surveys and
excavations conducted in the area and the discovery of
roof tiles with stamps of the legions stationed at the camp
site. The smmnary presents preliminary conclusions,
within the limitations of the study, relating to the Roman
military presence at Legio.

- by Yotam Tepper
- •
- Jezreel Valley, Roman legions, Roman Archaeology
- by Nadav Na'aman
- •
- Amarna Letters, Highlands, Shechem, Jezreel Valley
- by Norma Franklin
- •
- Iron Age, Jezreel Valley, Jezreel, Food Storage and Archaeology

presents the stratigraphic sequence at this site, shedding light on our
understanding of the Iron Age in the Jezreel Valley and the neighboring regions. The evidence from the large-scale salvage excavations at this key site enabled the authors to identify Ḥorvat Ṭevet as a royal administrative center during Iron IIA and to illuminate its role within the royal Israelite redistributive system.

- by Omer Sergi and +3
- •
- Archaeology of Ancient Israel, Ancient economy, Early Iron Age, Jezreel Valley

Trial and salvage excavations at Ḥorvat Tevet in the Jezreel Valley revealed a cemetery comprised of twenty-five burials on the upper and middle terraces of the site. The goal of this research is to use burial practices to shed light on various aspects of the community that used this cemetery, including social structure, ideology, and funerary rituals. This is accomplished through an application of both processual and post-processual frameworks to mortuary data. Finally, the cemetery of Ḥorvat Tevet is placed within its wider regional context in order to assess continuity and change in burial practices in the Jezreel Valley from the end of the Late Bronze Age to the Iron IIA.

The development of the text at the beginning of the Book of Hosea
(Hos 1:1–2:3) is investigated synchronically. Special attention is paid to the development of the horizons of meaning of “Jezreel”, since it is of central importance. “The bloodshed of Jezreel” refers, in view of the theme of “whoring”, to the idolatry of Ahab’s family (especially Jezebel). Analogous to the judgement on the house of Omri which began in 747 BCE and which was connected to Jezreel, judgement on the dynasty of Jehu is announced in 1:2–9. This takes the form of a reinterpretation of the promise of the dynasty as a judgement on the dynasty. In 2:1–3, growth and an increase in the population is announced for the future. Jezreel, the place of bloodshed, becomes a place of fertility. The synchronic analysis suggests a diachronic perspective according to which 1:2–9 comes from the time around 750 BCE (Jeroboam II), while 2:1–3 probably dates from after 720 BCE (Hezekiah).

- by Beat Weber
- •
- Biblical Studies, Israel, Biblical Exegesis, Ancient Israel

As a prelude to a forthcoming article (“Deborah’s War Memorial”, ZAW 123), this study examines the influential interpretation of F. M. Cross and B. Halpern, according to which Jdg 5:15b-17 describes participation in battle. In identifying problems with this interpretation, I point to suggestive comparative evidence for war commemoration in the Bible and the Aegean world, as well as to more recent studies of war commemoration.

- by Jacob Wright
- •
- Homer, Biblical Studies, Jewish History, Commemoration and Memory

Legio is the base of the Roman II Triana and the VI Ferrata Legion, occupied from the early 2nd century to the early 4th century CE. It is the first of its kind to be excavated in the Eastern Roman Empire. Today the site sprawls beneath 30 hectares of pasture with slopes up to 15 degrees. Rapid, dense ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey with an antenna array would be ideal, but so far logistically impractical. The survey has proceeded since 2013 with a single 400 MHz antenna using parallel transects 0.5m apart for 5.85 ha to date. Like most Roman bases, Legio includes an extensive network of buildings and streets enclosed by rectangular fortifications. Unlike most Roman bases, however, it was constructed on a hillside with architectural components built by a combination of bedrock incision and above-ground construction. In addition, much of the site’s stonework has been robbed. These aspects demand topographic correction and interpretation using reflection profiles, depth slices, and 3D models. This paper presents data processing and results for the principia (central headquarters). Previous investigations were conducted at Legio and surrounding area by Tel Aviv University from 1998 to 2010. GPR and excavations since 2013 have been conducted as part of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP)in association with the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.

- by Matthew J Adams and +2
- •
- Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Legionary fortresses, Jezreel Valley

I was one of two writers documenting volunteer accounts of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project's excavations at Tel Megiddo East and the Roman camp of Legio VII Ferrata during the summer of 2013.

- by Annelies Van de Ven
- •
- Archaeology, Jezreel Valley

The article presents and discusses the results of Residue Analysis performed on 27 pottery vessels, placed as offerings in burials dating to the Iron I period (ca. 1050–900 BCE) at the site Ḥorvat Tevet (Israel). The results show that heated beeswax was used during the burial ceremonies and placed in variety of vessels. These results shed new light on burial practices of South Levantine rural communities. They also contribute to the growing body of evidence regarding bee-product economy in the Southern Levant during the beginning of the Iron IIA.

- by Omer Sergi and +3
- •
- Early Iron Age, Archaeology of death and burial, Archaeology of the Southern Levant, Jezreel Valley
- by Nadav Na'aman
- •
- Megiddo, Jezreel Valley, Beth Shean Valley

This paper reports on a study conducted on archaeological sediments from two sites in the Jezreel Valley, Israel: the Roman military camp of Legio, dating to the 2nd-3rd centuries CE, and the Bronze Age village of Tel Megiddo East, dating to Early Bronze I. The primary purpose of the study was to test the assumption that chronologically-specific metallurgical production and consumption would be evident through trace elements within archaeological sediments. Sediment samples were analyzed using a portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) device, as well as conventional wet chemistry techniques in order to compare the results between bulk element analysis and readily leachable cations, and to assess the feasibility of field-based pXRF for such study. Samples taken from various contexts at each site were analyzed specifically for concentrations of lead, copper, and zinc, which should hypothetically differ between a Roman Period site utilizing lead and brass (a copper/zinc alloy), versus an Early Bronze Age site participating in primarily copper metallurgy. Results demonstrate quantitative differences in the sediments between both sites, as well as the capability of pXRF to detect and quantify such trace elements. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of the archaeo-metallurgical context of the two sites.

- by Robert Homsher and +4
- •
- Roman military archaeology, Roman Army, Archaeometallurgy, Early Bronze Age (Archaeology)

We use high resolution cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies that include both baryons and dark matter to show that baryonic physics (energetic feedback from supernovae and subsequent tidal stripping) significantly reduces the dark matter mass in the central regions of luminous satellite galaxies. The reduced central masses of the simulated satellites reproduce the observed internal dynamics of Milky Way and M31 satellites as a function of luminosity. We use these realistic satellites to update predictions for the observed velocity and luminosity functions of satellites around Milky Way-mass galaxies when baryonic effects are accounted for. We also predict that field dwarf galaxies in the same luminosity range as the Milky Way classical satellites should not exhibit velocities as low as the satellites, since the field dwarfs do not experience tidal stripping. Additionally, the early formation times of the satellites compared to field galaxies at the same luminosity may be apparent in the star formation histories of the two populations. Including baryonic physics in Cold Dark Matter models naturally explains the observed low dark matter densities in the Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal population. Our simulations therefore resolve the tension between kinematics predicted in Cold Dark Matter theory and observations of satellites, without invoking alternative forms of dark matter.

- by Yotam Tepper
- •
- Geology, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Legionary fortresses, Jezreel Valley

Abstract
A recently excavated early Pottery Neolithic (PN) site, Tel Izhaki (Jezreel Valley, Israel) revealed clear evidence for the collecting and recycling of Pre-Pottery Neolithic B blades. This technological behavior, common during the period, occurred along with some on-site production of bidirectional blades, the latter a technological feature characteristic for an early phase of some Yarmukian sites in the central Jordan Valley, e.g. Sha‘ar Hagolan and Hamadiya. Other aspects indicating affinity between Tel Izhaki and key Yarmukian sites in central Jordan Valley constitute a rare incised decoration on a stone vessel, the plano-convex shape of mudbricks as well as some flint raw material.
The variability of the material culture at Tel Izhaki, including the presence of both Yarmukian and Jericho IX traits in pottery decoration and flint technology is compared to that of other early PN sites in the area. This variability in combination with the particular location of the sites, reveal a pattern supporting the Yarmukian PN expansion from the Jordan Valley into the Jezreel Valley and subsequently into the Lower Galilee. While radiocarbon dates available from a few sites at the area, including Tel Izhaki, correlate with that scenario of PN distribution, more studies are needed to investigate chronological and spatial aspects of variability defining the early PN in the Levant.
Pottery Neolithic, Yarmukian, Jericho IX, recycling of PPNB blades, bidirectional blades, Jezreel valley, Jordan valley, Lower Galilee

WINNER--Biblical Archaeology Society Apocalypse. Judgment Day. The End Time. Armageddon. Students of the Bible know it as the place where the cataclysmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil will unfold. Many believe that this battle will take place in the very near future. But few know that Armageddon is a real place--one that has seen more fighting and bloodshed than any other spot on earth. The name Armageddon is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase Har Megiddo, and it means&amp;quot; Mount of Megiddo.&amp;quot; ...

- by Beth Alpert Nakhai
- •
- History, Military History, Cultural Studies, Archaeology

This thesis proposes that due to its historic significance Jezreel should be developed as a heritage site. Furthermore, it investigates the significance of the ruins of the church and tower located on the site to the area of Greater Jezreel and proposes that as the only standing architecture of any antiquity present, they would serve as the natural focal point for site development and provides recommendations for how stakeholders might proceed to initiate and invest in site development. It proposes a program of conservation and research which will facilitate further study of the history of the site while simultaneously making the area safely accessible to visitors.

- by Norma Franklin and +1
- •
- Near Eastern Archaeology, Archaeology of Ancient Israel, Jezreel Valley, Jezreel
- by Eric H Cline
- •
- Military History, Israel/Palestine, Biblical Archaeology, Megiddo

- by Eileen G Ernenwein
- •
- Geology, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Legionary fortresses, Jezreel Valley