Report on Underwater Excavation at the Phoenician Harbour,Atlit, Israel

Atlit is a small Phoenician settlement on the Carmel coast, with an artificial harbour, built during Iron Age II, before the Assyrian occupation, and used until the end of the Persian era. There are no remains of any later construction, in contrast to other Phoenician ports such as Sidon and Tyre. The study of Atlit harbour has therefore provided invaluable information on the positioning, planning and construction of Phoenician harbours in the Levant. This article is a summary of the most recent underwater excavation seasons at the harbour, and presents our conclusions on construction techniques and their historical implications. © 2009 The Author     

Ancient history and contemporary political theory: the case of liberty

ABSTRACT

Providing an introduction to this special issue on the ancient notions of liberty and its modern perspectives, this essay contains, first, some reflections about the relation between the fields of ancient history and contemporary political theory. Building on the comments of the final roundtable with Kinch Hoekstra and Quentin Skinner, it then makes an attempt at extrapolating some theoretical understandings of liberty from a wide range of geographical and historical contexts covered in the contributions. Moving away from a strictly classical Graeco-Roman focus, these include investigations from the second millennium BCE polities in the Levant to the Byzantine empire in the fifth-century CE.     

A Fresh Look at the Egyptian Environment of the Pharaonic Period

Abstract

The article deals with the territorial history of the southern steppe areas of the Levant in the period between ca. 1050–750 BCE. In the early days of the Iron Age, until the mid-9^th century BCE, parts of them, were ruled by local desert entities: in the late Iron I a Moabite polity and in the early Iron IIA and the early years of the late Iron IIA the Tel Masos-Beer-Sheba-Negev Highlands Highlands entity. This situation changed in the later years of the Iron IIA as a result of Damascus' rise to hegemony in the Levant. In the second half of the 9^th century BCE Judah, under Damascene domination, expanded for the first time into the Beer-Sheba Valley. In the first half of the eighth century BCE, with the revival of Assyrian power in the days of Adad-nirari III, Damascene authority was replaced by north Israelite domination in the south.     

Archaeology and the List of Returnees in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah

Abstract

The list of returnees (Ezra 2, 1–67; Nehemiah 7, 6–68) forms one of the cornerstones for the study of the province of Yehud in the Persian period. Because of the lack of ancient Near Eastern sources on Yehud, discussion has focused primarily on the biblical texts and has thus, in certain cases, become trapped in circular reasoning. The only source of information that can break this deadlock is archaeology. The finds at the places mentioned in the list of returnees seem to show that it does not represent Persian-period realities. Important Persian-period places not mentioned in the list support this notion. The archaeology of the list seems to indicate that it was compiled in the late Hellenistic (Hasmonaean) period and represents the reality of that time.     

Rethinking the Historiographical Impulse: The History of Ancient Israel as a Problem

The first part of this paper provides some insights into the problematic nature of the genre “history of ancient Israel”, both in terms of historiography and of historical epistemology. It is argued that the concept “history of ancient Israel” is essentially valid within a particular modern theological or biblical historiographical context. As such, this history of ancient Israel may indeed progress and generate new understandings but is nonetheless seriously limited by its main concern with “biblical Israel”. It is also proposed that in order to overcome these thematic and epistemological historical limitations, a wider history of ancient Palestine or the Southern Levant should be envisioned, into which to understand the epigraphic and archaeological realia of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, together with other contemporary polities in the region, and the later development of biblical traditions and texts. The second part of the paper addresses questions of ethnogenesis, socio-political organization and identity in the light of the previous discussion, setting the stage for an alternative history of Israel and other historical realities in ancient Palestine.     

Solomon and His Empire: Fact or Fiction?

Abstract

The essay examines the plausibility of a “Double Monachy,” a large state, under a king Solomon in the 10th century with Jerusalem as its capital. First, all texts in the Old Testament are mentioned, and it is pointed out that no extrabiblical texts from the period mention such a state. In the next paragraph the archaeological finds from the period are examined whether they may allow the existence of such a state, and it is concluded that it is improbable. Also from historical knowledge of the period in the Levant as well as Solomon’s name it is concluded that there was not a large kingdom in Jerusalem under a king of that name.

In the rest of the essay I try, from the story in the Bible, to date the various elements of the story, and comparing them with other legendary kings (e.g. Sargon of Akkad) to find a suitable period when such a legend could be construed, I point to the second half of the 7th cent. BCE as the best possibility for the story’s date.     

Ramesses III and the ‘Sea‐peoples’: Towards a New Philistine Paradigm

The Philistine paradigm attempts to answer fundamental questions in Philistine history, namely the how and when of Philistine settlement in the southern Levant. According to the traditional paradigm, the Philistines, among other ‘Sea‐Peoples’, came from the Aegean islands and were settled in Egyptian strongholds in the south Canaanite Coastal Plain in the eighth year of Ramesses III. Formulated on the basis of Egyptian texts and Philistine archaeological remains, the paradigm has been criticized over the reliability of both source materials. Therefore, it is the aim of the present study to conduct a methodological analysis of the pillars on which the paradigm rests and to offer a new reconstruction of the events that took place in the Levant in the twelfth century BCE.     

Prognosis and Postgnosis in Biblical Prophecy

The Prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible are more than documents containing pronouncements from the prophets after whom the texts are named. They include not only prophecies, but also interpretations of these prophecies’ historical consequences, a quality that makes the Bible’s prophetic literature stand out from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts. This interpretive dynamic is indispensable for understanding the reception of these prophecies in the texts from Qumran and in the New Testament.     

论《十七史商榷》的“经世”意识

清初倡导的实学仍为多数乾嘉学者所继承,但其内涵以及分析视角则有所变化。由于所处的时代和环境不同,乾嘉学者已不可能像清初那样高扬"经世致用"旗帜,但其著作中不乏"经世"内容。王鸣盛代表作《十七史商榷》虽以考史为重点,但并未放弃史学的基本功用,其考据注重涉及国计民生方面的内容,评论历史人物、事件也从社会现实出发,折射出强烈的"经世"意识。     

A hoard of Nilotic nacreous shells from Egypt to Jericho (Early Bronze II, 3000–2800 BCE): Their finding,content and historical archaeological implications

ABSTRACT

The Tell es-Sultan, ancient Jericho, is amongst the earliest “cities” that rose in the Southern Levant between the end of 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. The site is being excavated, studied and rehabilitated for tourism by Sapienza University of Rome and the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities since 1997. In 2017, during the 13th season of excavation, an unexpected discovery occurred: five Chambardia rubens shells have been found piled up in a dwelling unit dating back to the Early Bronze Age IB-II. The discovery is a tangible evidence of trade and cultural interconnections between the Southern Levant and Egypt, as these shells belong to a species that is only been found to live in the Nile. Moreover, chemical analysis, and thorough Scanning Electron Microscopy examination revealed that the shells contained Manganese Dioxide, an inorganic compound used as make-up ingredient in ancient Egypt, and available in the ores of the Sinai. These findings strongly support the existence of a link between the urban rise in EB IB-II through international trade of luxury goods, and are suggestive of the emergence at Jericho of a ruling elite that was influenced by Egypt.     

Freedom,ethical choice and the Hellenistic polis

ABSTRACT

This paper examines ideas of individual freedom in the Hellenistic city-states (c. 323–31 BCE). It concentrates on the civic ideas expressed in the laws and decrees of Hellenistic cities, inscribed on stone, comparing them with Hellenistic historical and philosophical works. It places different Hellenistic approaches alongside modern liberal, neo-Roman republican and civic humanist theories of individual liberty, finding some overlaps with each of those modern approaches. The argument is that the Hellenistic Greeks developed innovative ways of combining demanding ideals of civic virtue and the common good with equally robust ideals of individual freedom and ethical choice. They did so not least by adapting and developing traditional Greek approaches close to modern civic humanism, in ways very relevant to modern debates about how to reconcile civic duty, the common good and pluralism.     

周秦诸子书多出于国史、家乘论

最早的古书,大体是“六艺”类的官书。诸子出于王官论,从古书形成的层面而言就是诸子书出于官书。然而具体来说,周秦诸子书与史乘类古书最为密切。无论从书名、内容还是叙述方式来看,周秦诸子书多出于国史、家乘这一史实是成立的。     

Compositional Phases,Geography and Historical Setting behind Judges 4-5 and the Location of Harosheth-ha-goiim

In this article I deal with the compositional history, geographical background and possible historical setting of Judges 4-5. I propose that the original heroic, oral material behind these chapters represents two different traditions: One (embedded in Chapter 4) originated in the area of Mount Tabor and the hills to its east and northeast and had the city of Anaharath (the name behind the pun or polemic twist of “Harosheth-ha-goiim”) at its core. The other (part of Chapter 5, 19-22) came from the southwestern Jezreel Valley. These traditions represent memories of turbulent 10^th century BCE events—the fall of the last of the late-Canaanite city-states and the take-over of the region by highlanders (Israelites) just before, or in very early days of, the rise of the Northern Kingdom. They were put in writing for the first time by a North Israelite author in the first half of the 8^th century. This author had only vague knowledge of the western valley tradition (Chapter 5); hence while composing the early song, he “imported” details from Chapter 4, merged the two tales into one account, and “expanded” both to portray a broad (North) Israelite scene. A Deuteronomistic author of the late 7^th century BCE inserted the frames characteristic of the Book of Judges, harmonized Chapter 4 with the Jabin story in Joshua 11, included other “explanatory” notes and entered the divine intervention in Chapter 4. A Deuteronomistic author also introduced the adoration of YHWH segments in Chapter 5.     

Structural Features of the Stone-Built T'ing-Pagoda

This article examines representations of Music Master Kuang in early Chinese historical and philosophical texts. Music Master Kuang was entirely blind, at a time when people with disabilities suffered serious discrimination. However, in spite of his handicap, he was able not merely to become a fine musician, but also served as a key advisor to two rulers of Jin, Lord Dao (r. 573–558 BCE) and his son, Lord Ping (r. 557–532 BCE), and in some texts is said to have acted as their prime minister. In achieving this transition, he is unique among Music Masters of the period. This article classifies the stories told about him into two main thematic groups, as a musician and as a statesman, to show the way in which music was related to statecraft through the persona of an individual who was both a highly respected government minister and a noted performer on the qin.     

Memory and History: Liturgical Time and Historical Time

This article investigates the differential structure and representation of time in memory and history. It examines two moments in Jewish historical thought—in the Middle Ages, and in works written within and after the Holocaust—and demonstrates the fundamentally liturgical nature of Jewish historical memory in selected texts from these two periods. Following the groundbreaking work of Yerushalmi, it seeks to demonstrate that for Jews, historical experience is incorporated into the cyclical reenactment of paradigmatic events in Jewish sacred ritual. Recent or contemporary experiences acquire meaning only insofar as they can be subsumed within Biblical categories of events and their interpretation bequeathed to the community through the medium of Scripture, that is to say, only insofar as they can be transfigured, ritually and liturgically, into repetitions and reenactments of ancient happening. In such liturgical commemoration, the past exists only by means of recitation; the fundamental goal of such recitation is to make it live again in the present, to fuse past and present, chanter and hearer, into a single collective entity. History, in the sense that we understand it to consist of unique events unfolding within irreversible linear time, is absorbed into cyclical, liturgical memory.
This article argues that the question of Jewish history—both medieval and post-Holocaust—poses in a compelling fashion the question of the relationship between memory and history more generally, and serves to contest the current tendency in academic historiography to collapse history into memory. It claims that to the extent that memory "resurrects,""re-cycles," and makes the past "reappear" and live again in the present, it cannot perform historically, since it refuses to keep the past in the past, to draw the line, as it were, that is constitutive of the modern enterprise of historiography.     

A new approach for geomagnetic archaeointensity research: insights on ancient metallurgy in the Southern Levant

We present results from an archaeointensity investigation based on a relatively unexploited recording medium, copper slag deposits. Together with a recently improved experimental design for the archaeointensity experiment, we demonstrate the applicability of this medium, as well as other archaeometallurgical artifacts, for the study of the ancient geomagnetic field intensity. In addition to archaeointensity data from well-dated archaeological contexts, we obtained reliable archaeointensity results from poorly dated or contentious archaeometallurgical sites in the Southern Levant. These results shed new light on the dating of these sites, among them the copper smelting installation of Timna 39b – a site that has important implications for the beginning of metallurgy during the fifth millennium BCE. The paper also aims to introduce archaeointensity research to the archaeologist scholar, and to encourage further collaboration between the disciplines in future research.     

改铸历史:先秦时期“以史为鉴”观念的形成

"以史为鉴"是中国古代政治实践与史学思想的重要命题。早在周公之前,"以史为鉴"的思想就有了萌芽,上古先民规避祸灾的行为是历史意识起源的重要来源之一。这种意识,经夏商两代直到周初,才臻至完善。周代的鉴戒观念,包括"以天为鉴"和"以事为鉴"等方面,到了"以史为鉴",方可谓大成。"以史为鉴"的前提是对于历史进行改铸与剪裁,这是适应现实社会需要的结果。