In The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit Mary Buck takes a new approach to the field of Amorite studies by considering whether the site of Ugarit shares close parallels with other sites and cultures known from the Bronze Age Levant. When viewed in conjunction, the archaeological and linguistic material uncovered in this study serves to enhance our understanding of the historical complexity and diversity of the Middle Bronze Age period of international relations at the site of Ugarit. With a deft hand, Dr. Buck pursues a nuanced view of populations in the Bronze Age Levant, with the objective of understanding the ancient polity of Ugarit as a kin-based culture that shares close ties with the Amorite populations of the Levant. "The author covers a contentious area of scholarship with confidence and competence, and has produced a convincing case for the Amorite origins of Bronze Age Ugarit." -Nick Wyatt, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44.5 (2020) The Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant series publishes volumes from the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Harvard Semitic Studies and Harvard Semitic Monographs, https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications.

Dura-Europos is one of Syria's most important archaeological sites. Situated on the edge of the Euphrates river, it was the subject of extensive excavations in the 1920s and 30s by teams from Yale University and the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Controlled variously by Seleucid, Parthian, and Roman powers, the site was one of impressive religious and linguistic diversity: it was home to at least nineteen sanctuaries, amongst them a Synagogue and a Christian building, and many languages, including Greek, Latin, Persian, Palmyrene, and Hebrew which were excavated on inscriptions, parchments, and graffiti. Based on the author's work excavating at the site with the Mission Franco-Syrienne d'Europos-Doura and extensive archival research, this book provides an overview of the site and its history, and traces the story of its investigation from archaeological discovery to contemporary destruction.

This book concerns the ancient rock-cut monuments carved throughout the Near East, paying particular attention to the fate of these monuments in the centuries after their initial production. As parts of the landscapes in which they were carved, they acquired new meanings in the cultural memory of the people living around them. The volume joins numerous recent studies on the reception of historical texts and artefacts, exploring the peculiar affordances of these long-lasting and often salient monuments. The volume gathers articles by archeologists, art historians, and philologists, covering the entire Near East, from Iran to Lebanon and from Turkey to Egypt. It also analyzes long-lasting textual traditions that aim to explain the origins and meaning of rock-cut monuments and other related carvings.

Amongst the civilizations to participate in the dynamic processes of contact and interchange that gave rise to complex societies in the ancient Near East, Elam has remained one of the most obscure, at times languishing in the background of scholarly inquiry. In recent years, however, an increasing body of academic publications have acknowledged its relevance and suggested that its legacy was more considerable and long-lasting than previously estimated. The Elamite World assembles a group of 40 international scholars to contribute their expertise to the production of a solid, lavishly illustrated, English language treatment of Elamite civilization. It covers topics such as its physical setting, historical development, languages and people, material culture, art, science, religion and society, as well as the legacy of Elam in the Persian empire and its presence in the modern world. This comprehensive and ambitious survey seeks for Elam, hardly a household name, a noteworthy place in our shared cultural heritage. It will be both a valuable introductory text for a general audience and a definitive reference source for students and academics.

This volume presents a series of studies by scholars working in Middle Eastern archaeology who actively apply social theory to interpret their fieldwork. It aims to highlight the value of using social theory in the interpretation of field work in a region where, traditionally, such approaches have not played a major role.There are a number of factors that account for why social theory is often under-exploited by archaeologists in this part of the world. In many countries, where large numbers of the foreign archaeologists are involved, a division between those doing fieldwork and those undertaking archaeological interpretation can easily arise. Or, the lack of interest in social theory may stem from a legacy of positivism that overrides other approaches. There is also the fact that archaeology and anthropology often belong to separate academic departments and are considered two separate disciplines disconnected from each other. In some cases the centrality of historical paradigms has precluded the use of social theory.There are also divisions between universities and other research institutions, such as departments of antiquities, which is not conductive to interdisciplinary cooperation. This factor is especially debilitating in contexts of rapid destruction of sites and the exponential growth of salvage excavations and emergency surveys.The papers integrate a wide range of perspectives including 'New' or 'Processual' archaeology, Marxist, 'Post-Processual', evolutionist, cognitive, symbolic, and Cyber- archaeologies and touch on many topics including 3D representation, GIS, mapping and social theory, semiotics and linguistics, gender and bioarchaeology, social and technical identities, and modern historical modellingy and social practices in Middle Eastern archaeology.

In The City Gate in Ancient Israel and Her Neighbors, Daniel A. Frese provides a wide-ranging portrayal of one of the most prominent social institutions in the kingdoms of the southern Levant during the Iron II period: the use of the city gate as a hub for numerous and diverse civic functions. The book provides an up-to-date description of the architecture of gate complexes based on archaeological evidence, and a systematic description of the many functions of the gate seen in hundreds of texts from the Hebrew Bible and the broader ancient Near East. The final chapters of the book discuss the conceptual significance of gates in Israelite culture, based on idiomatic and symbolic gate terminology in the Hebrew Bible.

The discovery of 17,000 tablets at the mid-third millennium BC site of Ebla in Syria has revolutionized the study of the ancient Near East. This is the first major English-language volume describing the multidisciplinary archaeological research at Ebla. Using an innovative regional landscape approach, the 29 contributions to this expansive volume examine Ebla in its regional context through lenses of archaeological, textual, archaeobiological, archaeometric, geomorphological, and remote sensing analysis. In doing so, they are able to provide us with a detailed picture of the constituent elements and trajectories of early state development at Ebla, essential to those studying the ancient Near East and to other archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, and linguists. This work was made possible by an IDEAS grant from the European Research Council.

The book presents the results of a complete detailed archaeological survey of parts of Eastern Samaria. This territory is one of the most important in the country from the Archaeological, Biblical and other points of view, and the survey is a valuable tool for scholars of the Bible, Archaeology, Near Eastern history, tourism, and other aspects of the Holy Land.

From 1981 until 1986, the archaeologist Judith McKenzie, then a graduate student at the University of Sydney, travelled to the ancient site of Petra in Jordan, living in a cave there for extended periods, in order to survey and measure architectural mouldings on the rock-cut monuments. It was a critical time in the history of Petra, where, for centuries, its local inhabitants, known as the Bdoul, had lived and worked. But that tradition was coming to a close. In 1985, the Bdoul began a move to the nearby village of Umm Sayhoun, as directed by the Jordanian government. This first-hand account of life in a cave at Petra, based on diaries Judith kept at the time she lived among the Bdoul, is therefore important as a record of a lifestyle now largely vanished. As she writes in her introduction: "I spent so much time socializing with the Bdoul, I came to observe many aspects of Bdoul life in a series of visits over three main field seasons. As women we had access to the world of young girls and women, which men from outside did not, while we were also sometimes treated as honorary men." This memoir thus stands as a reminder of life at Petra before the arrival of modern-day tourism at the site. But this book is not only a memoir. Observations are made on the ways in which the Bdoul have adapted to their new environment. Changes at the site that have taken place since 1981 because of weathering and erosion are recorded through comparisons between photographs taken forty years ago and more recent images. Ramifications of the expansion of the tourist-industry at Petra in the 21st century are also considered. Life in a Cave in Petra with the Bdoul: 1981-1986 is therefore an important and essential volume on the archaeology and history of one of the best-known ancient sites in the world.

Citadel and Cemetery in Early Bronze Age Anatolia is the first synthetic and interpretive monograph on the region and time period (ca. 3000-2200 BCE). The book organizes this vast, dense and often obscure archaeological corpus into thematic chapters, and isolates three primary contexts for analysis: the settlements and households of villages, the cemeteries of villages, and the monumental citadels of agrarian elites. The book is a study of contrasts between the social logic and ideological/ritual panoply of villages and citadels. The material culture, social organization and social life of Early Bronze Age villages is not radically different from the farming settlements of earlier periods in Anatolia. On the other hand, the monumental citadel is unprecedented; the material culture of the Early Bronze Age citadel informs the beginning of a long era in Anatolia, defined by the existence of an agrarian elite who exaggerated inequality and the degree of separation from those who did not live on citadels. This is a study of the ascendance of the citadel ca. 2600 BCE, and related consequences for villages in Early Bronze Age Anatolia.

This book brings together our present-day knowledge about textile terminology in the Akkadian language of the first-millennium BC. In fact, the progress in the study of the Assyrian dialect and its grammar and lexicon has shown the increasing importance of studying the language as well as cataloging and analysing the terminology of material culture in the documentation of the first world empire. The book analyses the terms for raw materials, textile procedures, and textile end products consumed in first-millennium BC Assyria. In addition, a new edition of a number of written records from Neo-Assyrian administrative archives completes the work. The book also contains a number of tables, a glossary with all the discussed terms, and a catalogue of illustrations. In light of the recent development of textile research in ancient languages, the book is aimed at providing scholars of Ancient Near Eastern studies and ancient textile studies with a comprehensive work on the Assyrian textiles.

This volume presents Babylon as it has been passed down through Western culture: through the Bible, classical texts, in Medieval travel accounts, and through depictions of the Tower motif in art. It then details the discovery of the material culture remains of Babylon from the middle of the 19th century and through the great excavation of 1899-1917, and focuses on the encounter between the Babylon of tradition and the Babylon unearthed by the archaeologists. This book is unique in its multi-disciplinary approach, combining expertise in biblical studies and Assyriology with perspectives on history, art history, intellectual history, reception studies and contemporary issues.

This is the legacy report of an extensive joint US/Afghan archaeological project in the southwest quadrant of Afghanistan: the Smithsonian Institution/ Afghanistan Institute of Archaeology Helmand-Sistan Archaeological Project, 1971-1976. While the fieldwork was conducted in the 1970s, political events in Afghanistan over the past half century make this the first major archaeological synthesis of the region and the only one for decades to come. The Helmand River is one of the main routes between the Middle East, South, and Central Asia over the past 5,000 years and project findings reflect that cross-cultural mixing of cultures. The research identified key monuments from Bronze Age, Persian, Greek, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Islamic cultures, and explored the role of intensive irrigation agriculture in one of the world's driest regions. Volume 1 describes the 200 archaeological sites surveyed or excavated by the survey and their material culture.

In this lively treatment of one of antiquity's most mysterious civilizations, whose history disappeared from the records over 3,000 years ago, Trevor Bryce sheds fresh light on Hittite warriors as well as on the Hittites' social, religious and political culture and offers new solutions to many unsolved questions. Revealing them to have been masters of chariot warfare, who almost inflicted a disastrous defeat on Rameses II at the Battle of Qadesh (1274 BCE), he shows the Hittites also to have been devout worshippers of a pantheon of storm-gods and many other gods, and masters of a new diplomatic system which bolstered their authority for centuries. Drawing authoritatively both on texts and on ongoing archaeological discoveries, while at the same time offering imaginative reconstructions of the Hittite world, Bryce argues that while the development of a warrior culture was essential, not only for the Empire's expansion but for its very survival, this by itself was not enough. The range of skills demanded of the Hittite ruling class went way beyond mere military prowess, while there was much more to the Hittites themselves than just skill in warfare. This engaging volume reveals the Hittites in their full complexity, including the festivals they celebrated; the temples and palaces they built; their customs and superstitions; the crimes they committed; their social hierarchy, from king to slave; and the marriages and pre-nuptial agreements they contracted. It takes the reader on a journey which combines epic grandeur, spectacle and pageantry with an understanding of the intimacies and idiosyncrasies of Hittite daily life.

The Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) is the oldest exploration society of the Levant which is active today. Since its founding meeting in 1865 in Westminster Abbey of London, the PEF scholars have conducted systematic exploration of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Prominent archaeologists such as C.W. Wilson, C. Warren, C. Schick, C. Conder, W.M.F Petrie, H. Kitchener, and R.A.S Macalister, were sent to dig the Holy Land on behalf of the PEF. A remarkable enterprise carried out by the PEF, in cooperation with the Royal Engineers, was the first precise scientific survey of the region - The Survey of the Western Palestine - which yielded the pioneering high-quality detailed maps of the Holy Land. Marking the 150 years since the PEF emerged, the studies collected in this volume provide a retrospective on the endeavours in the light of the findings of the contemporary archaeological research.

This volume is a critical study of recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem. Considered one of the holiest places on Earth for Jews and Muslims, it is also a place of controversy, where the State marks 'our' remains for preservation and adoration and 'theirs' for silencing. Based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees, readers can explore for the first time this archaeological 'heart of darkness' in East Jerusalem. The book follows a series of unique discoveries, reviewing the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the areas once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate, what to preserve - or 'remove'? Who pays for the archaeology, for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book 'excavates' the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of Archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism, and heritage.

This book focuses on conflict, diplomacy and religion as factors in the relationship between Rome and Sasanian Persia in the third and fourth centuries AD. During this period, military conflict between Rome and Sasanian Persia was at a level and depth not seen mostly during the Parthian period. At the same time, contact between the two empires increased markedly and contributed in part to an increased level of conflict. Edwell examines both war and peace - diplomacy, trade and religious contact - as the means through which these two powers competed, and by which they sought to gain, maintain and develop control of territories and peoples who were the source of dispute between the two empires. The volume also analyses internal factors in both empires that influenced conflict and competition between them, while the roles of regional powers such as the Armenians, Palmyrenes and Arabs in conflict and contact between the two "super powers" receive special attention. Using a broad array of sources, this book gives special attention to the numismatic evidence as it has tended to be overshadowed in modern studies by the literary and epigraphic sources. This is the first monograph in English to undertake an in-depth and critical analysis of competition and contact between Rome and the early Sasanians in the Near East in the third and fourth centuries AD using literary, archaeological, numismatic and epigraphic evidence, and one which includes the complete range of mechanisms by which the two powers competed. It is an invaluable study for anyone working on Rome, Persia and the wider Near East in Late Antiquity.

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone's head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both images and texts, particularly in the context of war, from a trans-chronological perspective that aims to shed light on some of the conditions, relationships and meanings of this specific act. The severed head is a "coveted object" for the many individuals who interact with it and determine its fate, and the act itself appears to take on the hallmarks of a ritual. Drawing mainly on the evidence from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the third and first millennia BC, and with reference to examples from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, this fascinating study will be of interest not only to art historians, but to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world.

Near Eastern archaeology is generally represented as a succession of empires with little attention paid to the individuals, labelled as terrorists at the time, that brought them down. Their stories, when viewed against the backdrop of current violent extremism in the Middle East, can provide a unique long-term perspective. Extremism, Ancient and Modern brings long-forgotten pasts to bear on the narratives of radical groups today, recognizing the historical bases and specific cultural contexts for their highly charged ideologies. The author, with expertise in Middle Eastern archaeology and counter-terrorism work, provides a unique viewpoint on a relatively under-researched subject. This timely volume will interest a wide readership, from undergraduate and graduate students of archaeology, history and politics, to a general audience with an interest in the deep historical narratives of extremism and their impact on today's political climate.

It's been a church, a mosque and a synagogue. Jesus is said to have dined there. James, his brother, is believed to have been interred there. King David may be buried beneath the floor. The subject of intense speculation by both scholars and the faithful, the Cenacle on Mount Zion-also known as the Upper Room of the New Testament gospels and as the Tomb of David-has remained a mystery for centuries. Claimed by Jews, Christians and Muslims, the sacred structure continues to evoke passionate controversy. Does it date back to the time of Christ? Was the Last Supper celebrated there? Is this the place where the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on the first Pentecost following Easter Sunday? Did King David's remains ever lie there? These and many other questions are explored in this first-ever study, offering a readable, fully researched narrative account of the Cenacle's history, archaeology and imagery. Artistic, architectural and photographic illustrations document the Cenacle and its surroundings over the past 1,500 years.

This fresh approach to the study of Islamization proposes an innovative conceptual framework that treats the subject as a particular case of cultural change. The aim of the volume is to make Islamization amenable to archaeological and historical analyses of changes in material conditions of life without forsaking the specific history of Islam. Islam and Islamization must be understood in their particular social context, but also in relation to the conditions that hold them together over large geographical and chronological expanses. Archaeologists and historians have considered Islamization from a range of different perspectives, from conversion to cultural change, though these studies have tended to be underpinned by a normativist conception of Islam. In contrast, Jose C. Carvajal Lopez takes a hermeneutical stance, wherein Islam is the result of exploration, and adopts a New Materialist theoretical analysis to explore Islamization and its impact on identities, communities and their material culture. The consequences for the study of Islamization are examined through examples that include some of the author's own experiences. This innovative take on Islamization is not exclusively interested in the spread of the religion or of the polity, and therefore it overcomes the theoretical limits imposed by the concepts of religious conversion and ideological imposition. This book will appeal to scholars interested in associating cultural and religious change and, in particular, those working on Islam, whether within or outside the discipline of archaeology.

This volume provides an in-depth study of tribal life in the Near East in the 19th century, exploring how tribes shaped society, economy and politics in the desert, as well as in villages and towns. Until the First World War Near Eastern society was tribally organized. Particularly in the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, where the Ottoman empire was weak, large and powerful tribes such as Anaze, Beni Sakhr and Shammar interacted and competed for control of the land, the people and the economy. The main sources for this study are travel accounts of 19th century adventurers and explorers. Their travels, on horseback, on camel or on foot opened a fascinating window on a world with an ideology that was fundamentally different from their own, often Victorian background. One chapter is dedicated to oral traditions in the region, from heroic epics to short poems, which lets the tribes and tribe members themselves speak, giving a voice to the tribal frame of mind. Evidence of tribal organization as a driving force in society can be found in documents and sometimes in the archaeological record from the Bronze Age onwards. While a straight comparison between ancient and subrecent tribal communities is fraught with difficulties and must be treated with caution, a better understanding of 19th century tribal ethics and customs provides useful insights into the history and the power relations of a more distant past. At the same time it may help us understand some of the underlying causes for the present conflicts afflicting the region.

Death, grief and funerary practices are central to any analysis of social, anthropological, artistic and religious worlds. However, cemeteries - the key conceptual and physical site for death - have rarely been the focus of archaeological research. 'Prioritizing Death and Society' examines the structure, organisation and significance of cemeteries in the Southern Levant, one of the key areas for both migration and settlement in both prehistory and antiquity. Spanning 6,000 years, from the Chalcolithic to the present day, 'Prioritizing Death and Society' presents new research to analyse the formation and regional variation in cemeteries. By examining both ancient and present-day - nationally Jewish - cemeteries, the study reveals the commonalities and differences in the ways in which death has been and continues to be ritualised, memorialised and understood.

When Western explorers first encountered dolmens in the Levant, they thought they had discovered the origins of a megalithic phenomenon that spread as far as the Atlantic coast. Although European dolmens are now considered an unrelated tradition, many researchers continue to approach dolmens in the Levant as part of a trans-regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus mountains to the Arabian peninsula. By tightly defining the term 'dolmen' itself, this book brings these mysterious monuments into sharper focus. Drawing on historical, archaeological and geological sources, it is shown that dolmens in the Levant mostly concentrate in the eastern escarpment of the Jordan Rift Valley, and in the Galilean hills. They cluster near proto-urban settlements of the Early Bronze I period (3700-3000 BCE) in particular geological zones suitable for the extraction of megalithic slabs. Rather than approaching dolmens as a regional phenomenon, this book considers dolmens as part of a local burial tradition whose tomb forms varied depending on geological constraints. Dolmens in the Levant is essential for anyone interested in the rise of civilisations in the ancient Middle East, and particularly those who have wondered at the origins of these enigmatic burial monuments that dominate the landscape.