BASOR 309 Abstracts
The Aegean Pottery at Megiddo: An Appraisal and Reanalysis
ALBERT LEONARD, JR.
Department of Classics
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
aleonard@ccit.arizona.edu
ERIC H. CLINE
Department of Classics
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0226
clinee@ucbeh.san.uc.edu
Approximately 87 whole or fragmentary Aegean vessels were found at the site of Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) during the excavations undertaken by the University of Chicago between 1925 and 1939. Virtually all of these imports are of Late Helladic IIIA or IIIB (14th-12th centuries B.C.E.) manufacture. Together they form an important corpus of imported material that is systematically studied and presented here for the first time as a unit. Computer-generated, intrasite, locational analysis demonstrates that each of the 51 whole or fragmentary Aegean vessels from Late Bronze Age settlement contexts (Strata Vlll, VIIB, and VIIA) at the site came from one of three general locations: in or near Palace 204]; in the vicinity of the city gate; or in a cluster of residential buildings at the southern end of the site. Such a tight concentration contrasts sharply with the 25 whole or fragmentary Aegean vessels from funerary contexts which, with the exception of seven examples from Tomb 912, are widely distributed among 11 tombs on the southern slopes of the tell. Eleven additional vessels or fragments thereof lack aufficient documentation to be assigned to either group.
Distinctions among Canaanite, Philistine, and Israelite Lyres, and their Global Lyrical Contexts
BO LAWERGREN
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Hunter College of the City University of New York
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021
bo.lawergren@hunter.cuny.edu
Bathyah Bayer, in memoriam
For several millennia after 2500 B.C.E. lyres were confined to a few archetypes. Each had clear territorial affinities, and those belonging to the East (the Fertile Crescent) were distinguishable from those of the West (the Aegean).
Palestinian Iyresfound in Canuanite/Phoenician (ca. 1400-800 B.C.E.) and Philistine (ca. 1000-800 B.C.E.) contexts had Eastern and Western characteristics, respectively. Information from later periods is scarcer, but one lyre from ca. 800 B.C.E. at Kuntillet 'Ajrud in the Negev is Eastern in shape. Lyres shown on Bar Kochba coins (133 C.E.) were closely patterned on Roman models. All Iyres had wide geographic spread, and none was unique to Palestine.
The territorial spread of the main Eastern lyre (the "thin lyre") coincides with the distribution of the term kinnarum, which is likely to have been the ancient name of the thin lIyre. The biblical kinnor, a late form of the term, was given to the thin lyre during the final centuries of its life. The demise of the lyre came during the Hellenistic period after nearly three millennia of stability.
The Geopolitical History of Philistine Gath
WILLIAM M. SCHNIEDEWIND
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511
williams@humnet.ucla.edu
The identification of Philistine Gath with Tell es-Safi has met with widespread, though not complete, acceptance. The present study argues for using historical geography not only to identify the site but also to reconstruct the socioenvironmental context and geopolitical history. In the present case, Tell es-Safi's history is shaped by its position along the international highway, by its location on the fertile Philistine Alluvial Basin, and by its junction with an important local route leading into the hill country and Jerusalem. These factors confirm its identification with Gath while at the same time illuminating the geopolitical interaction between the coastal plain and the hill country in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.