Production centers of cooking pots in Iron Age Judah

This paper will present and discuss a multifaceted research project dealing with the production of cooking pots during the Iron Age II (ca. 1,000–586 BCE) Judah (modern Israel). In particular the new compositional analysis of 541 cooking vessels from 11 sites in Iron Age Judah will be presented. The study employs petrographic and chemical (NAA) analysis. The results of this ongoing research have already produced interesting information about production centers and movements of cooking pots in Iron Age II Judah. Apparently, the vast majority of the cooking pots sampled were made of a similar type of clay, related to terra rossa soil. This is true also for sites in the northern Negev and Judean Desert, where the type of soil was not available in the region of the sites. Furthermore, many of the cooking pots distributed around Judah were made in Jerusalem according to a well-located chemical profile (JleB). Other groups may represent Judean Shephelah production centers as the Lachish area as well as production centers in southern Israel or ancient Edom. The implications of the importation patterns of cooking pots by peripheral Judean sites will be discussed.     

Dating and Interpreting Desert Structures: The Enclosures of The Judean Desert,Southern Levant,Re‐Evaluated

Enclosures, single large curvilinear structures, constitute ubiquitous relics of past human societies in marginal environments. Many enclosures suffer from severe scarcity of related artefactual and ecofactual remains, allowing only tentative assessments of their date and function. A case in point comes from the Judean Desert, Southern Levant, where several dozen enclosures were surveyed and described as Chalcolithic cult sites. Using new research strategies, incorporating critical evaluation of previous surveys, test excavations and optically stimulated luminescence dating, we were able to date enclosures to a much broader time span than previously suggested, and reject their proposed ritualistic function.     

New Light on the Development of Chalcolithic Metal Technology in the Southern Levant

Several decades after the discovery of the spectacular Nahal Mishmar Hoard (a collection of cast metal goods, some quite ornate, found in a cave high in the cliffs of the Judean Desert) many important questions about Chalcolithic metallurgy in the southern Levant remain unanswered. What is the origin of the materials used? Where were the final goods produced and what were the dynamics of production? In fact, new questions have also arisen as recent discoveries force us to reconsider previous interpretations of Chalcolithic metallurgy and the societies within which it evolved. Such will be the focus of this paper.     

THE METALLURGY OF THE NAHAL MISHMAR HOARD RECONSIDERED

The Nahal Mishmar hoard, found in a cave in the Judean Desert in 1961, is a key find for the study of Chalcolithic metallurgy in Israel and the Levant. Recent analyses of Chalcolithic metalwork from sites such as Shiqmim in Israel raised doubts about the validity of published analyses from the hoard. Accordingly a programme of re-analysis was established using atomic absorption spectrometry and electron probe microanalysis. The new analyses confirmed the doubts and showed that the metallurgy of Nahal Mishmar was the same as that at the other sites. The alloys used for the cast products in the hoard were generally ternary arsenic-antimony copper alloys with up to 20% alloy content; less common were compositions with arsenic and nickel. The unusual metallography of these alloys is described. Some suggestions are offered as to the mode of manufacture of the alloys.     

Meir Har-Zion's act of reprisal: Reality and memory

On the night of March 5, 1955, Meir Har-Zion set out with three friends to avenge the murder of his sister and her boyfriend in the Judean Desert (in Jordanian territory), about two months earlier. They murdered five innocent Jordanian Bedouins and crossed back into Israel. Upon their return, they were placed under arrest and held until the end of March. This article examines the changes in Israeli perceptions of Har-Zion's reprisal act over the course of thirty years, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, in order to shed light on the ways in which collective memory is molded in Israel as well as on the changes in Israeli society's attitude toward the issue of revenge and retaliation, from understanding and even admiration to condemnation and delegitimization.     

Of burning monks,unidentified churches and the last Cistercian foundation in the East: Our Lady of Camina in the principality of Achaia

The existence of the monastic church of Camina in Frankish Morea has long been noted by historians of Frankish Greece, but its history has never been thoroughly investigated and its location remains unknown. Moreover, some of the documents pertaining to this church have not been published while others have been published in faulty editions that have obscured their full significance. In the present study the surviving documents are edited and the church's history is reconstructed and its location identified. It is suggested that some of the original Benedictine inhabitants of Camina were the only Latin religious to have been burnt at the stake for heresy in medieval Greece. It is also argued that Camina was the last Cistercian abbey to be founded in the Latin East, and that it may be identified as the present monastery of Our Lady of Blachernae near Glarenza (Killini).     

Pottery Production in the Buddhist Communities in Central Asia: The Kushan‐Sassanian Pottery Workshop of Kara Tepe (Termez,Uzbekistan)

We present the first full archaeometrical study of Kushan‐Sassanian pottery from the Buddhist monastic complexes at Kara Tepe (Termez, Uzbekistan), recovered both in the pottery workshop and in the monastery, using a combination of analytical methods (XRF, XRD, SEM–EDS and OM). The study allowed the identification of the reference group, the correspondent fabric, the raw materials used for its productions, some of the technological processes involved in manufacture and several weathering processes. All the results confirm that the kiln was supplying the religious community of the monastery with pottery, made using local raw materials, and highlight the possibility that the kiln could have supplied the nearby monastic complexes, where no kilns have been found. Further archaeological evidence indicates the existence of specialized potters working itinerantly at the broader Bactrian area.     

甘肃合水金代清凉禅院敕牒碑考释

甘肃合水金代清凉禅院敕牒碑是甘肃庆阳地区目前发现的唯一一通载有金代寺额敕牒的碑刻,其所载的清凉禅院牒在历代金石著作中均未收录。该敕牒的发现,为了解金代佛教寺院管理制度提供了新资料,对研究庆阳地区政治史、佛教史等具有重要意义。本文利用原碑拓片对敕牒的内容进行了补释,对金代敕牒的格式、获取寺额的程序、缴纳钱数以及敕牒产生的原因和时代背景等进行了探讨。     

The application of biometry and LA-ICP-MS to provenance isolated bones: a study of hominin remains from Oumm Qatafa Cave,Judean Desert

Three hominin phalanges were recently identified in old faunal collections attributed to the Late Acheulean (Layer D2) dated to ca. 213 Kya, from Oumm Qatafa Cave (Judean Desert), a site excavated in 1928–1949. In terms of general appearance (colour, patina and adhering sediment), these specimens resembled the fauna with which they were found, but the likelihood of stratigraphic problems especially in old excavations, the presence of 4th millennium b.c. burials in the topmost Layer A at the site and the absence of any mention of Late Acheulean hominin remains in publications relating to the site prompted us to verify that the phalanges were indeed in situ. Osteometric examination showed the phalanges to be indistinguishable from those of Middle Paleolithic Levantine anatomically modern humans (AMHS) as well as Upper Paleolithic and recent populations, thus contributing little to the resolution of their provenance. To further investigate this issue, we compared the elemental composition of the phalanges to that of fauna from the same and overlying archaeological layers using non-destructive laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The results showed a close resemblance in elemental composition between the phalanges and fauna from Layer D2, implying that they are in situ. This would indicate either an early occurrence of AMHS in the region or the presence of an ancestral archaic Homo. We propose that LA-ICP-MS offers a useful minimally invasive method for provenancing isolated human and faunal remains.     

A consideration on the interest of a pottery typology adapted to the late Sasanian and early Islamic monastery at al-Qusur (Kuwait)

Since 2011, the French–Kuwaiti Archaeological Mission in Failaka has aimed at defining the function and the chronology of al-Qusur, located in the middle of Failaka Island (Kuwait). The central part of the site appeared to be a monastery, mainly occupied in early Islamic times. The creation of a site-specific pottery typology adapted to this settlement was one of the main objectives of the team. This typology is still in progress and the present paper will highlight the variety of questions that it can address. Certain pottery types provide new information about the monastery’s foundation, probably at the end of the Sasanian period, and abandonment, maybe during the ninth century AD. Pottery studies are also crucial for a better understanding of the monastery’s economic life and the eating practices of the monks. The question of the local or regional provenance of the pottery provides an insight into the inclusion of Failaka in exchange networks.     

A Rejection of the Aramaic Origin of the Chinese Word for Monastery

Christopher Beckwith has recently devoted two publications concerning the origin of the word for “monastery” in East Asia. The proposed Aramaic origin has met with criticism from two eminent authorities, Laurent Sagart and Alexander Vovin. While the present article is not interested in the debate per se, here renamed the “Beckwith Controversy,” it is important to discuss in more detail Beckwith’s view about the Chinese word si 寺 (monastery), its origin, and its reconstruction. It is concluded that, although very imaginative in its conclusions, Beckwith’s argument is methodologically opaque and, therefore, should be definitely abandoned in favour of more plausible solutions.     

‘The revolt of the medievalists’. Directions in recent research on the twelfth-century renaissance

This paper examines an attempt to introduce a male administrator at a Benedictine women's monastery in Catalonia in the fourteenth century. It argues that records from the monastic and episcopal archives indicate the existence of a complex and dynamic interplay between the nuns and their abbess and the bishop. Due to this complicated process of negotiation, the bishop did not succeed in imposing a new male authority figure over the traditional leadership of the community. Over the next fifty years, the abbesses reasserted themselves and redefined the procurator's role as one subordinate to themselves. The episode illustrates that nuns could employ varied tactics to resist attempts to change their traditional administrative structure.     

Archaeological evidence of an early Islamic monastery in the centre of al-Qusur (Failaka Island,Kuwait)

The history of Christianity in the Gulf is still largely unknown since both archaeological and written sources are sparse. Many questions remain about the development and disappearance of Christian communities, as well as their form. A few sites were identified as Christian because of the discovery of churches or crosses. A church was excavated at al-Qusur (Failaka Island, Kuwait) by the French Mission to Kuwait in 1988–1989. Since 2011, a new French–Kuwaiti Archaeological Mission in Failaka (MAFKF) has aimed to better understand the site’s phasing and organisation. The discovery of a large refectory and a small tripartite building that is most probably a monk’s cell, as well as the reinterpretation of a church-like building as a structure perhaps dedicated to the spiritual education of monks has demonstrated that at least the central part was a monastery, making it the second Christian settlement in the Gulf to be proven to be a monastery.     

Illustrations of Domestic Manners During the Reign of Edward I

Abstract

A small ivory head of a tonsured man, expertly carved in relief, was found in 1991 during excavations at the great eighth-eleventh century Lombard monastery at San Vincenzo al Volturno. The head was excavated with other fragments of carved ivory, antler and bone, in the vicinity of the collective workshop of the monastery, and was doubtless carved in this workshop. The head-type is a variant on an early Byzantine formula which was employed in Rome by the sixth century and subsequently, in the eighth century, was adopted by artists working for noble Lombard patrons in northern Italy. The painters responsible for decorating the churches and claustral buildings of San Vincenzo in the first half of the ninth century also used this type, and in details of its carving the new ivory head seems to show the direct influence of painted heads of early ninth-century date from the walls of the monastery. The relief was probably intended for the embellishment of a small casket or the cover of a book. The new head, besides being a significant addition to the tiny corpus of surviving carvings in ivory from early medieval Italy, shows the craftsmen in the monastery's workshop had at their disposal a material which was both rare and prestigious in the period.     

A saint,an abbot,his documents and her property: power,reform and landholding in the monastery of Homblières under Abbot Berner (949–82)

The monastery of Homblières, after 949, when it was turned from a community of nuns into a reformed Benedictine monastery under the rule of Abbot Berner, left a surprisingly large amount of tenth-century written material, producing both a Vita and a Translatio of Homblières’ patron saint Hunegund, as well as a large collection of charters. These documents allow us crucial insights into how a small monastery managed its possessions and its connections to patrons. This trail permits a closer view of strategies of landholding than can be had with many West Frankish monasteries. This article argues that the community at Homblières acted over several decades to consolidate its lands in specific locations. By producing such extensive documentation of his activities, Berner both solicited further donations for his monastery and protected its existing patrimony from potential threats.     

Assembling the Austrasian Letters at Trier and Lorsch

This article is a reconsideration of the Epistulae Austrasicae. We critique the widespread notion that the constituent letters were compiled by a courtier in the late sixth century at Metz as a book of models for use in the Austrasian chancellery. We argue instead that a monk from the monastery of Lorsch assembled the letters in the early ninth century from individual exemplars and groupings that he found in archives at Trier. We conclude by outlining some implications of this rereading for the edition and interpretation of the letters as sources for the Merovingian period, and point out some avenues for future research on their reception in the Carolingian period.     

Notices of the Priory of Southwick,in the County of Southampton

In February 1995 Cleveland County Archaeology Section (now Tees Archaeology) carried out a small scale excavation at the rear of 23 Baptist Street on Hartlepool Headland prior to the construction of a garage (Illus. 1). The site lies in the immediate vicinity of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery which contained ‘inscribed stones’ and which is believed to belong to the Anglo-Saxon monastery of the seventh to eighth centuries A.D. (see Daniels forthcoming for the most recent discussion of the monastery and Okasha forthcoming for that of the cemetery). The cemetery was located in the mid-nineteenth century during house construction and there has been no previous opportunity to undertake archaeological investigation in this area. A proposal to build a garage in this area was therefore seized upon as a chance to examine the stratigraphy and establish further details of Anglo-Saxon activity in this area.     

Julian of Vézelay,a Twelfth-Century Critic of his Monastery's Worldly Success

Abstract

This article analyses the sermons of the Benedictine monk Julian (c. 1080 – 1165) from the small Burgundian monastery of Vézelay in the context of the other contemporary sources issuing from this monastery. It argues that Julian was a reformer who criticized his monastery for an unhealthy attachment to its newfound wealth and neglect of proper monastic practice. The themes in his preaching may further be reflected in some of the capitals of the cathedral Sainte-Madeleine at Vézelay. More broadly, his sermons provide a striking illustration of one monastery's struggle to come to terms with an influx of money in the twelfth century.     

Occipitalization of the Atlas in Archaeological Material from the 16th–19th Century

During the anthropological analysis of skeletal material dated in the 16th–19th century from St Katarina monastery in Split, a female skull with occipitalization of atlas has been found. Anterior part of atlas and foramen magnum were fused, with numerous perforations on auricular surface of atlas. As the age at death was estimated at more than 70 years, it is most likely that this woman had progressive course of illness. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some churches of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries in southern Germany: a review of the evidence

An historical introduction outlines the main events in the lives of the principal missionaries – Willibald, Wynnebald, Waldburga, Sola – during the central years of the eighth century, and argues that Willibald was consecrated bishop of Erfurt. A review of the topographical and archaeological evidence concentrates on Eichstätt, whose street pattern reveals the layout of the early town and monastery; new interpretations are suggested for unusual features uncovered by excavation at the cathedral/monastery site. The excavations at Solnhofen are similarly re-examined. Overall, no substantial evidence is found for Anglo-Saxon influence on the church archaeology of the area.