Volume 67, no. 4
DECEMBER 2004

New approaches to the archaeology of the ancient Near East

ON THE COVER:
Dr. Zahi Hawass (left) helps prepare Tutankhamun's mummy for its historic CT scan. Kenneth Garrett, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," Official Companion Book © 2005 National Geographic Society.

Caesarea's Temple Hill
by Kenneth G. Holum

Landscapes of Terror and Control: Imperial Impacts in Paphlagonia
by Roger Matthews

New Uses for Old Laboratory Techniques
by Jason A. Rech

Roman and Umayyad Settlements on the Karak Plateau
by Mark D. Green

DEPARTMENTS

ARTI-FACTS

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs
by Willeke Wendrich

Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur
by Shannon White

REVIEWS

Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology (Third Edition)
(Sarah Kielt Costello)

Sha´ar Hagolan 1: Neolithic Art in Context
(Katheryn C. Twiss)

Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology
(Aren Maier)

Daily Life in Biblical Times
(Karel van der Toorn)

184 Caesarea's Temple Hill
by Kenneth G. Holum

Some places seem furnished by nature with holiness, like the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in central Greece. For other places that lack inherent holiness or natural charm, a sense of the sacred must be manufactured. Just as the holiness of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was "socially constructed," so too, at Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, King Herod at the end of the first century BCE built a magnificent temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus and the goddess Roma. Situated on a simple promontory, the pagan sanctuary dominated the horizon from both land and sea. In this article, the excavator of this impressive structure describes its history from its construction through the Crusader period.

200 Landscapes of Terror and Control: Imperial Impacts in Paphlagonia
by Roger Matthews

The region of north-central Anatolia, known to the Romans as Paphlagonia, was always a backwater populated by rough and troublesome tribes. A new archaeological survey has recovered evidence for distinctive settlement patterns from two major periods of the Paphlagonian past. The survey has revealed a network of fortified sites, tracks and look-out posts from the middle of the second millennium BCE that bear testimony to the efforts of the Hittite Kings to control the bellicose tribes that constantly threatened security of their frontier during the Late Bronze Age. Much later, following the Pax Romana, in the late Byzantine period, 700-1350 CE, the region saw a reversion to conflict as Arab and Turkish newcomers disrupted existing settlement patterns, obliging the inhabitants to build fortified refuge sites, generating a landscape of terror.

212 New Uses for Old Laboratory Techniques
by Jason A. Rech

Mortar and plaster were used extensively in the ancient Near East to construct floors, walls, roads, aqueducts and even to construct art. As a result, these materials are virtually ubiquitous in archaeological excavations today. Imagine, therefore, how important it would be for dating sites if we could accurately determine the age of mortar or plaster using modern techniques. This is exactly what many scientists who work with radiocarbon dating have been trying to do for the last thirty years, with different levels of success. Recently, however, the author and his colleagues have made significant progress at radiocarbon dating plaster from Siloam's Tunnel in Jerusalem and at Khirbet Qana in the Lower Galilee.

220 Roman and Umayyad Settlements on the Karak Plateau
By Mark D. Green

How did ancient peoples decide where to live? A variety of factors, such as economy, the political situation, a site's intended use, and the constraints of the physical environment, all affected decisions about settlement location. But how do we know which of these factors played a role in a given settlement? On the Karak Plateau of Jordan, archaeologists have made headway in answering this question by supplementing and integrating data collected from traditional ground surveys with environmental information generated from satellite and digital elevation data.