BASOR 306 Abstracts
Shifting Patterns of Settlement in
the Highlands of Central Jordan
during the Early Bronze Age
TIMOTHY P. HARRISONOriental Institute
University of Chicago
1155 E. 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
harrison@midway.uchicago.edu
Survey data are a valuable source of archaeological information for tracing shifting patterns of human settlement, and they permit interpretive reconstructions of the changing organizational structure of regionally defined communities. In the semiarid highlands of central Jordan, Early Bronze Age survey data from the Madaba Plain region reveal a shift from a pattern of isolated site clusters concentrated along wadi systems or around perennial springs during the Late Chalcolithic/EB I to a more dense pattern configured in the form of a settlement hierarchy during the EB II-III. Models calculating the sustaining areas and rank-size distribution of known EB II-III sites, however, indicate a settlement system with a low level of integration and centralization. Rather than a truly urban culture, what emerged was a rural landscape composed of communities that remained self sustaining and sociopolitically autonomous while participating in limited production intensification. The settlement density reached during the EB II-III was reversed in the EB IV, with sites again confined to the principal wadi systems and springs in the region.
The Sphere-bearing Anthropomorphic
Figurines of Amathus
SHAWN O'BRYHIMDepartment of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Mailcode 4521
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Carbondale, IL 62901-4521
sobryhim@siu.edu
A number of female figurines from the Cypro-Archaic tombs of Amath s have been identified as frame-drum players on the basis of the round objects they hold. However, a close examination of these figurines reveals that several of them carry spheres instead offrame drums. These spheres represent a type of baetyl that served as a cult image in some Cypriot sanctuaries of the Cypro-Archaic period. Therefore, the terracottas may depict participants in a funerary ritual in which a baetyl played an important role.
Stamped Amphora Handles from Tel Beersheba
WILLIAM D. E. COULSONAmerican School of Classical Studies
54 Souidias Street
Athens 10676
Greece
wcoyl@leon.nrcps.ariadnet.gr
MARGARET S. MOOK
College of Arts and Sciences
Foreign Languages and Literature
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
msmook@iastate.edu
JAMES W. REHARD
1003 Hilldale Drive
Macon, Missouri 63552
with contributions by Virginia R. Gracet
This article publishes the 39 stamped amphora handles found during excavations conducted at Tel Beersheba between 1969 and 1976. All werefound in poorly stratified contexts and so have no real stratigraphic value. They do, however, attest to the importance of Beersheba in the Rhodian economic sphere of the late Hellenistic period and add to our knowledge of Rhodian fabricants and eponyms of the second century B.C.
A Preliminary Edition of a Fragment of 4QSamb (4Q52)
FRANK MOORE CROSSDepartment of Near Eastern
Languages and Civilizations
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
DONALD W.PARRY
Department of Asian and
Near Eastern Languages
Brigham Young University
4052 JKHB, PO Box 26117
Provo, UT 84602-6117
parry@yvax.byu.edu
This article presents an edition of the largest of the fragments of the oldest biblical manuscript from Qumran, 4QSaMb. Like the smaller fragments of the scroll published earlier, it presents a text which stands much closer to the Vorlage of the Old Greek translation than to the Masoretic Text. 4QSaMb is notable toofor the number of readings it preserves which are superior both to the Old Greek and to the Masoretic traditions.
From Monarchy to Markets: The Phoenicians in Hellenistic Palestine
ANDREA M. BERLIN
Center for Hellenic Studies
3100 Whitehaven St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
andrea-m-berlin@umail.umd.edu
Outside of a few scattered inscriptions and historical references, little information exists concerning Phoenician activities in Hellenistic Palestine. Now, however, a ceramic ware of demonstrably late Hellenistic date and Phoenician (probably Tyrian) origin has been identified, along with the corpus of shapes produced in it and their various distributions. The ware is called Phoenician semi fine, and its distribution pattern reflects later second century B.C. Phoenician market routes. Vendors apparently serviced only two regions: the city and hinterland of 'Akko-Ptolemais and the Hula Valley. Notably, though the country's Phoenician population was dispersed in both the south and the north, regular demandfor these Phoenician products was solely in the north. Northern "colonists" may have been less willing to assimilate than Phoenicians living in the south. The stronger cultural and economic ties maintained between the north and Tyre may have been a factor in the region's subsequent political restructuring.