From BAR/BAS – Biblical Peoples, The World of Ancient Israel. The pdf is in the BAR directory in DropBox. This is a collection of articles published in their magazine with photos and maps. A great resource.
CONTENTS
- The Egyptians 6 “The Egyptianizing of Canaan” By Carolyn R. Higginbotham
- Since the discovery of the Amarna letters, archaeologists have also unearthed mounds of artifacts in Egypt and Canaan, dating to the late second millennium B.C.E., which make it clear that life in Ramesside Canaan was markedly different from that in the preceding Amarna age. In short, during the Ramesside period, the material culture of the Canaanite lowlands began to show conspicuous Egyptian influence. True, during the Amarna age, Egyptian artifacts were present in the archaeological record of Canaan. But by the 13th century B.C.E. (Late Bronze Age IIB, which corresponds roughly to the 19th Dynasty of Egypt), the amount of Egyptian-style objects had increased significantly at Canaanite sites. Egyptian-style artifacts are similarly prevalent at Iron Age IA (between about 1200 and 1150 B.C.E.) sites; thereafter, these kinds of objects decline in frequency.
- The two principal imperial centers were Beth-Shean (south of the Sea of Galilee) in the north and Deir el-Balah (near Gaza) in the south. In addition, Egyptian installations with more strictly administrative functions were probably located at Gaza and Jaffa.
- The Hittites 19 “Warriors of Hatti” By Eric H. Cline
- Just who were the Hittites? When this question began to be asked a little more than a century ago, our only knowledge of the Hittites came from the Hebrew Bible.1 Abraham buys a burial plot for his wife Sarah from “Ephron the Hittite” (Genesis 23:3–20). King David falls in love with Bathsheba, the wife of “Uriah the Hittite,” as he watches her bathe (2 Samuel 11:2–27). David’s son Solomon chooses “Hittite women” to number among his wives (1 Kings 11:1). Perhaps the most famous biblical reference to the Hittites comes in Exodus, when God appears to Moses in the burning bush and declares: I have come down to deliver them [the Israelites] from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Exodus 3:7).
- The Hittite Empire collapsed around 1200 B.C.E., perhaps destroyed by the mysterious Sea Peoples—who, according to Egyptian documents, destroyed the “Land of Hatti”—or perhaps by unfriendly neighbors. After the fall of Hattusa, the so-called Neo-Hittite city-states in northern Syria continued to function for almost 500 years. Originally Hittite vassal kingdoms, these petty monarchies assumed the mantle of their former masters, keeping alive Hittite writing, sculpture and mythology.
- The Assyrians 30 “Who Were the Assyrians?” By Chris Hays
- The Assyrians whom the biblical authors encountered were part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which expanded rapidly across the ancient Near East in the ninth through seventh centuries Its scale had no precedent, but it emerged in a land that already had an ancient history—and, as many nations have, it claimed its roots in distant antiquity. The Assyrian heartland was northern Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. More than a millennium before the Neo-Assyrians, some of the most powerful kings in the region’s history had ruled not far from the same area. These included Sargon of Akkad (r.2334–2279 B.C.E.), who was important in propagating the Akkadian language, which became the lingua franca of the ancient Near East for centuries, and Naram-Sin (r. 2254–2218 B.C.E.), who declared himself a god.
- The Babylonians 40 “Nebuchadnezzar & Solomon” By Bill T. Arnold
- The other main features that gave rise to statehood in Babylonia were also present in Israel, that is, improved economic condition and external military threat. Due to the rise of iron technology and improved agricultural techniques, the early Israelites eventually enjoyed economic improvement, though nothing quite as dramatic as the Chaldean advances in Babylonia.10 And just as the tribal groups of southern Mesopotamia were united politically by the long history of Assyrian aggression, so the Philistine threat attested in the Bible provided motivation for centralization of Israelite authority. Recent sociological and archaeological studies demonstrate that the Philistine problem intensified as the Israelite population grew and expanded westward. These circumstances provided an impetus for the rise of the Israelite monarchy.
- The Persians 52 “Making (Up) History” By Matt Waters
- Once in power, Darius had to deal with rebellions throughout the empire: Elam, Babylonia, Media, Assyria, Egypt, Parthia, Armenia, Margiana (in modern Turkmenistan), Sagartia (in central Iran), Sattagydia (in modern Afghanistan), Scythia and Lydia. By 519 B.C.E., Darius was in full control, and the empire that Cyrus and Cambyses had built was intact. Page 55.
- In taking power, Darius incorporated the empire founded by Cyrus II into his own
- “Achaemenid” Persian empire. He proclaimed his rule in numerous, monumental, trilingual
- inscriptions—for which he adapted cuneiform script for the Old Persian language. He built the magnificent citadel of Persepolis as a visual emblem of his power, a kind of panegyric in stone. And he continued the work of Cyrus in expanding the empire, eastward into central Asia (where Persian influence remained paramount for hundreds of years), and westward into Europe.
- The Canaanites pg. 62 “Texts from Ugarit Solve Biblical Puzzles” By Edward L. Greenstein
- See the Phoenicians below who were the Canaanites. “Phoenicians” was the name given to this people by the Greeks, but the Phoenicians continued to refer to themselves as Canaanites or by the names of their principal cities.
- Hebrew is a “language of Canaan,” says the prophet (Isaiah 19:18), a conclusion amply confirmed by archaeologically recovered inscriptions. In scholarly terms, Hebrew is a south Canaanite dialect. As with the language, so with the alphabet: From its earliest appearance until the Babylonian destruction, Hebrew was written in the Canaanite alphabet. As with language and the alphabet, so with culture generally: Ancient Israelite culture was in many respects a subset of Canaanite culture. From page 62.
- In the golden calf story, the animal was being treated by the Israelites as a god. Suddenly the strange combination of burning, grinding and scattering over water makes sense. As we learn from the Ugaritic myth, this is the stereotypical method of destroying a deity. The ancient Hebrew audience, upon hearing the story of the golden calf’s disposal, would understand that the statue was being treated like a god in need of elimination. Knowing the Ugaritic source enables us to understand the biblical narrative more authentically. From page 71.
- The Philistines pg. 73 “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines” By Daniel M. Master
- Building on the discoveries of the past 200 years, we are not reliant solely on the Bible to formulate our conclusions. Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian texts all speak of the Philistines. Archaeologists have now excavated four of the five major Philistine cities listed in the Hebrew Bible (Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath). More recently, geneticists have sequenced Iron Age genomes from the city of Ashkelon, providing dramatic new insights into Philistine origins. All these sources clarify the Philistine story. Page 74.
- As soon as hieroglyphs were deciphered, in the 19th century, references to “Peleset” were observed in ancient Egyptian texts. The Peleset were immediately connected to the Philistines—an equation still considered valid today. Because the Egyptian New Kingdom had dominated the land of Canaan in the preceding centuries, Egyptian records would likely have mentioned any Philistines even tangentially involved in the southern Levant. So when they suddenly appear in the 12th-century inscriptions from the walls of Ramesses III’s temple at Medinet Habu, we have a good indication of when they first arrived in the region. In the Egyptian texts, the Peleset appear as part of a confederation of peoples from the “islands” who wreaked havoc across the eastern Mediterranean and finally attacked Egypt itself. Page 75.
- Toward the end of Philistine history, the biblical prophets Amos and Jeremiah both share an interesting observation about the Philistines of their day. Amos’s oracle sees the divine hand in earlier events: “Didn’t I bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir?” (Amos 9:7, author’s translation). In Amos’s telling, all three groups were immigrants to the region. Page 83
- The Philistines valued their distinctive origins, and, despite the vicissitudes of the Iron Age, their memory defined who they were. Only now, with ancient texts deciphered, ancient cities excavated, and ancient genomes decoded, can we begin to see the Philistines as they saw themselves. They were not merely the enemies of the Israelites. They were a proud immigrant people, defining themselves for almost 600 years as the “remnant of Caphtor,” heirs of the Bronze Age Aegean. Page 85.
- The Phoenicians pg. 86 “Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel” By Ephraim Stern
- The Phoenicians were the nearest people to the ancient Israelites in every respect. They spoke the same language and wrote in the same script. Even their religion was similar, at least during the First Temple period. The Phoenicians and the Israelites built Jerusalem together, as well as several other cities, and they went on joint trading expeditions. By marriage, Phoenician royal houses and those of Israel and Judea were related. The clearest sign of the close relationship between the two peoples must have been the fact that they never went to war against each other (in complete contrast to the Israelites’ relationship with all their other neighbors).
- The Phoenicians were the late Canaanites of the first millennium B.C.E. (Iron Age through Roman period), descendants of the Canaanites of the second millennium B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age through Late Bronze Age). “Phoenicians” was the name given to this people by the Greeks, but the Phoenicians continued to refer to themselves as Canaanites or by the names of their principal cities. During the second millennium B.C.E., the Canaanites controlled Palestine, Transjordan and Syria—from Ugarit down to the Egyptian border—and they developed a rich culture. Around 1200 B.C.E., they were forced out of these countries by the Arameans and the Neo-Hittites in the north, the Israelites and the Sea Peoples (Philistines, Sikils and Sherden, etc.) in the south, and by the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the east. Between about 1200 and 1050 B.C.E., they retained control of a greatly reduced area—the narrow coastal strip of Lebanon between Arwad, Tyre and Akko. Most of the population lived in five main cities: Arwad, Byblos, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre.
- Throughout their existence, the Phoenicians encountered numerous groups. With some of these groups, they competed, and with others, they warred. With almost all, they traded—exporting their culture and their goods throughout the Mediterranean world. Yet their relationship with the Israelites was distinct from all the others. It should not surprise us that when the kingdom of Israel fell, the Phoenicians suffered, too. The loss of their close neighbor and ally disrupted the growth and strength of the Phoenician empire.
- The Phoenicians inherited all the earlier rich Canaanite culture that had been developed during the entire second millennium B.C.E.—in contrast to the other peoples who settled in the region and who in the beginning were but simple nomads.
- The Phoenicians’ commercial empire was brought to an end by the Romans who came into conflict with the Phoenicians—whom they described as “Punics”—in a series of wars that became known as the Punic Wars. The Carthaginians had no standing army (they employed mercenaries) and relied on their fleet for defense. The Punic Wars culminated in the Roman destruction of the Punic capital, Carthage, in 146 B.C.E., thereby ending a millennium of Phoenician influence, success and power.
- Ammon, Moab, and Edom pg. 94 “Gods and Kingdoms East of the Jordan” By Joel S. Burnett
AMMON
The Hebrew Bible’s usual designation of the Ammonites as “the children of Ammon” (bĕnê ‘Ammôn, e.g., 1 Kings 11:7, 33) matches the threefold reference in the Ammonite Tell Siran Inscription, “the king of the children of Ammon” (mlk bn ‘mn; c. 600 B.C.E.; cf. mlk bny ‘mwn, Jeremiah 27:3). This kin-based formulation of political identity reflects a tribal social makeup and kingdom organization analogous to that of ancient Israel, “the children of Israel” (bĕnê yiśrā’ēl).
Archaeological excavations at the Amman Citadel over the past five decades have unearthed monumental architectural remains from the Iron Age II (1000–580 B.C.E.), including portions of the city’s defense walls and water system. The excavations also exposed a large building complex resembling an Assyrian palace on the lower terrace. Running beneath a later Roman period temple to Hercules, still visible today, are remains of an Iron Age megalithic building of limestone boulders containing several votive figurines, possibly the Ammonite kingdom’s main temple to its leading deity.
References to building and architectural terms in the first-person speech of a king or god make up the apparent focus of the famous Amman Citadel Inscription, dating to the late ninth century B.C.E. The inscription begins with a partially restored mention of Milcom, regularly named in the Hebrew Bible as the leading god of the Ammonites (see, e.g., 1 Kings 11:5, 33; 2 Kings 23:13). Milcom is also invoked in personal names, including the name of a royal official—“Milkom’ur servant of Baalyasha”—on a clay seal impression from excavations at Tall al-‘Umayri, dating to c. 600 B.C.E. Baalyasha is identified with the Ammonite King Baalis mentioned in Jeremiah 40:14. Just as the worship of Yahweh set Israelites apart from other peoples during the Iron Age II, so did the Ammonites’ worship of Milcom distinguish them from their closest neighbors and rivals.
MOAB
Turning to Moab, the famous Mesha Stele (c. 840 B.C.E.) presents the longest Iron Age epigraphic text surviving from the southern Levant. The basalt stone monument once stood in Mesha’s capital, Dibon (modern Dhiban), marking a worship place that the king built in honor of Moab’s god Chemosh, whom Mesha credits in the inscription with his achievements of territorial expansion, building cities and defeating enemies. The principal enemy in the inscription is the northern Israelite kingdom previously ruled by Omri and “his son.”* According to Mesha, Moab had suffered in the past under these Israelite kings because Moab’s god Chemosh “was angry with his land.” In describing the lands he rules and conquers, Mesha reveals a kin-based society, invoking his father, Chemosh[yat],4 who ruled before him, identifying himself by the peoplegroup designation “Daybonite,” and discussing “the men of Gad,” doubtless the same Gad figuring as an Israelite tribe in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 49:19; Deuteronomy 33:20–21; etc.). Though built on this tribal basis, Mesha’s kingdom is identified primarily by geography, namely, the ancient country of Moab appearing in Egyptian texts centuries earlier and united from territorial segments through warfare in the name of the god Chemosh. Like ancient Israel, Moab’s practices of ritual warfare included ḥerem, the execution of whole populations in devotion to the vanquishing deity (Deuteronomy 13:15; 20:16–17; Joshua 6:17–19; etc.).
The Mesha Stele views Moab and Israel as analogous kingdoms in irreconcilable opposition: each with its own territory, people, king, royal lineage (Chemoshyat and Mesha vs. Omri and “his son”) and god Chemosh vs. Yahweh). These oppositions resolved at the boundaries through warfare, conquest, and ḥerem.
Moab Comes to Life by P. M. Michèle Daviau, Paul-Eugène Dion at BAR
Although King David counted Ruth among his ancestors, most readers of the Bible are likely to have a rather negative view of the Moabites. The Bible often depicts them in very negative terms. Their god Kemosh is “filth” (shiqqutz) (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:13 They owe their name to the incestuous offspring of Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and his elder daughter (Genesis 19:36–37. Lot’s two daughters, thinking they were the only people left on earth after the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, each plied their father with wine and seduced him. The sons born to these two unions were named Moab and Ben-ammi (the eponymous ancestor of the Ammonites; Genesis 19:37).
… one painstakingly combs the Hebrew Bible to find a few hints about the Moabites’ occupations. We only learn that the Moabites of Sibma (near Heshbon2) maintained excellent vineyards and enjoyed the wine that they produced (Isaiah 16:8–10; Jeremiah 48:32–33),3 and that Mesha was a sheep-breeder (noqed4) on a grand scale. According to 2 Kings 3:4, he paid Israel a tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.5 Mesha was from Dibon, precisely in the region where the sons of Gad (an early Israelite tribe) built their sheep pens (Numbers 32:34–36). The Bible also tells us that Israelite and Moabite men and women intermarried. King Solomon himself had a Moabite wife (1 Kings 11:1).
EDOM
Like Moab, Edom figures primarily as a territorial designation in Late Bronze Age Egyptian texts and in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Genesis 32:4; 1 Kings 11:14–16). As reflected in biblical etiologies connecting to Esau Genesis 25:25, 30), Edom refers to the mountainous “red” land of sandstone, granite and soil east of the Arabah, extending south of the Zered (modern Wadi Hasa) to the Gulf of Aqaba. Along with the closely associated place-name Seir (cf. Genesis 36:8–9, 21), Edom appears in Egyptian texts with frequent associations to the tent-dwelling mobile pastoralists designated Shasu.
The Hebrew Bible’s mysterious silence regarding Qos, or any Edomite deity for that matter, along with Yahweh’s associations with the territory of Edom and its vicinity in biblical poetry (Judges 5:4; Habakkuk 3:3, 7) and the biblical traditions of Edom’s “brotherhood,” may reflect a possible close connection—if not an original equation—between Israelite Yahweh and Edomite Qos.
Yet from Israel we do not have a single piece of monumental sculpture comparable to those from Ammon and Moab. When it comes to inscriptions, the disparity is even more dramatic. The great inscriptions confirming the history (even the very existence) of Israel and Judah and shedding light on national (and international) religious life come from kings and kingdoms other than Judah and Israel—most important, the Mesha Stele, the Tel Dan Stele and the Balaam inscription from Deir ‘Alla.
Edom & Copper – The Emergence of Ancient Israel’s Rival by Mohammad Najjar, Thomas E. Levy at BAR. Extracts below.
What seems clear is that, at least by the beginning of the Iron Age, Edom was a complex society with the ability to construct major buildings, defend itself with strong fortifications and create a technologically sophisticated organization to draw copper from ore and thereafter to manufacture objects with it. If it could do this, there is no reason to doubt that it could also field an army.
Edom was always a kind of tribal society, even at its most advanced period, when highland sites like Busayra and Umm el-Biyara were occupied in the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. But it was also a complex society quite early in the Iron Age, if not toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. Looking at a broader canvas, when the center of eastern-Mediterranean copper production in Cyprus collapsed, along with the rest of civilizationc at the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400–1200 B.C.E.), Edom’s copper production—which had flourished previously during the Early Bronze Age (c. 3600–2000 B.C.E.)—was resurrected. Control of lowland-Edom copper production at the beginning of the Iron Age provided a catalyst for the emergence of Edom as a “super chiefdom,” if not as a state supported by a complex copper-mining and processing apparatus.
In this context, the Biblical references to the Edomites, especially their conflicts with David and subsequent Judahite kings, garner a new plausibility.
CItation – Najjar, Mohammad, and Thomas E. Levy. “Edom & Copper,” Biblical Archaeology Review 32.4 (2006): 24, 26–35.
