Iron age chronology and biblical history rejoinders: The late bronze/iron age transition,Tel ʿEton and Lachish

ABSTRACT

In this article, I review three recent articles. In the first, Asscher and Boaretto (2018 Asscher, Y. , and Boaretto, E. , 2018. ‘Absolute time ranges in the plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition and the appearance of Bichrome pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant’, Radiocarbon 60, 1–25. doi: 10.1017/RDC.2017.96 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. ‘Absolute time ranges in the plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition and the appearance of Bichrome pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant’, Radiocarbon 60, 1–25) suggest that the Late Bronze/Iron I transition occurred in neighboring sites a century and more apart. In the second, Faust and Sapir (2018. ‘The “Governor's Residency” at Tel ?Eton, the United Monarchy and the impact of the old-house effect on large-scale archaeological reconstructions’, Radiocarbon 60, 801–820.) date the construction of a solid building at Tel ?Eton to the tenth century bce and interpret this as validation for the historicity of the United Monarchy of ancient Israel. In the third, Garfinkel et al. (2019a Garfinkel, Y. , et al. , 2019a. ‘Lachish fortifications and state formation in the Biblical kingdom of Judah in light of radiometric datings’, Radiocarbon 61, 1–18. doi: 10.1017/RDC.2019.5 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. ‘Lachish fortifications and state formation in the Biblical kingdom of Judah in light of radiometric datings’, Radiocarbon 61, 1–18) announce the discovery of a city-wall belonging to Level V at Lachish, and affiliate it with the building operations of King Rehoboam of Judah, described in 2 Chronicles. Scrutiny of the methods and facts dismisses all three theories.     

青铜器粉状锈空气传播过程新探

为研究青铜器粉状锈传播过程,本研究设计了专用实验箱并采用电化学方法模拟了青铜的腐蚀过程,并对青铜粉状锈的生长情况予以实时记录,进而应用电感耦合等离子体质谱、拉曼光谱和新亚铜灵-吸光度等方法对箱内气溶胶颗粒物进行检测。研究结果表明,箱内气溶胶铜离子含量明显高于常值,结合观察实验表明粉状锈生长是一个由内而外不断膨胀直到锈层破裂的过程,这个过程产生的气溶胶细颗粒物(氯化亚铜和碱式氯化铜)会在空气中悬浮、沉降造成传染现象。这一开创性的实验极大地丰富了国内对青铜粉状锈传播过程研究的成果,为粉状锈利用空气动力传播提供了依据,并为青铜锈蚀机理研究提供了新的思路。基于实验结果,本研究同时对青铜器保存和展示环境提出了相应的建议。     

Hazor rulership and ritual manipulation

ABSTRACT

Hazor was unquestionably the largest Bronze Age Canaanite site, standing as an anomaly in the southern Levant in terms of its size, elaborate public architecture, special geopolitical stature and far-reaching international networks. While the site has been well established as an urban center with many temples, the use of each of Hazor’s temples and how they relate to one another remains unclear. In this study, we analyze the rituals and other activities that were conducted within Hazor’s numerous temples. The methodology we employ stresses, fundamentally, the necessity to contextualize objects within entire assemblages – through spatial analysis – to most accurately assess how Hazor’s cultic spaces were actually used. We apply the same methodology to other MB and LB Canaanite temples to establish a generalized ideal-type temple assemblage for Canaanite temples. This study successfully demonstrates that Hazor’s temples substantially diverge from the ideal temple assemblage, indicating cult at Hazor was practiced differently than elsewhere in the region. This includes the atypical distribution of certain cultic vessels (e.g. miniature vessels), the appearance of special vessels in ritual contexts (e.g. cups), and a fundamentally different use of indoor and outdoor spaces when compared to other Canaanite temples. It turns out that Hazor’s elites were major factors controlling the anomalies of cultic practice at the site. Hazor’s rulers impacted cultic architectural forms and locations and played instrumental roles in dictating and manipulating the types of rituals and associated cultic paraphernalia that were allowed to be performed and used throughout the entire settlement landscape.