Animals, Ancestors, and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria
Animals, Ancestors, and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria

Author: Glenn M. Schwartz

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2024-02-01

Total Pages: 722

ISBN-13: 1950446433

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Animals, Ancestors, and Ritual in Early Bronze Age Syria: An Elite Mortuary Complex from Umm el-Marra, edited by Johns Hopkins professor Glenn M. Schwartz, is a final report of the excavation of Tell Umm el-Marra in northern Syria, conducted in 1994-2010. It is likely the site of ancient Tuba, capital of a small kingdom in the Early and Middle Bronze periods, in the Jabbul plain between Aleppo and northern Mesopotamia. Its study advances our understanding of early Syrian complex society beyond the big cities of Antiquity. Of particular importance in the Early Bronze excavations are the results from the site necropolis, tombs of high-ranking persons containing objects of gold, silver, and lapis lazuli. Separate installations hold kungas (donkey x onager hybrids), sometimes along with human infants. This site provides the first archaeological attestation of the kunga equids, unique in the archaeology of third-millennium Syria and Mesopotamia.

Archaeology from Every Angle
Archaeology from Every Angle

Author: Katherine Blanchard

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum

Published: 2024-06-30

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1949057283

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Archaeology from Every Angle brings together a wide range of scholars whose work has been influenced by Richard Zettler's career in Near Eastern archaeology. The volume includes work from various archaeological specialties including ceramics, small finds, seal impressions, mortuary practice, social identity, and zooarchaeology. Several contributors provide broader overviews of sites, architecture, and landscape features. Chronologically, this book spans the 5th millennium BCE through the Iron Age in the Near East. The breadth of the contributions to this book speak to the lasting and far-reaching impact Zettler has had on the field. Archaeology from Every Angle does what it says and brings together disparate topics and scholars to form a volume in honor of an archaeologist with a long and storied career.

The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant
The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant

Author: Raphael Greenberg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-11-07

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1107111463

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An up-to-date, systematic depiction of Bronze Age societies of the Levant, their evolution, and their interactions and entanglements with neighboring regions.

The Archaeology of Syria
The Archaeology of Syria

Author: Peter M. M. G. Akkermans

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 9780521796668

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This was the first book to present a comprehensive review of the archaeology of Syria from the end of the Paleolithic period to 300 BC. Syria has become a prime focus of field archaeology in the Middle East in the past thirty years, and Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz discuss the results of this intensive fieldwork, integrating them with earlier research. Alongside the major material culture types of each period, they examine important contributions of Syrian archaeology to issues like the onset of agriculture, the emergence of private property and social inequality, the rise and collapse of urban life, and the archaeology of early empires. All competing interpretations are set out and considered, alongside the authors' own perspectives and conclusions.

Sacred Ritual
Sacred Ritual

Author: Bryan C. Babcok

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2014-05-05

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 157506877X

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Israelite festival calendar texts (Exod 23; 34; Lev 23; Num 28–29; Deut 16; and Ezek 45) share many features; however, there are also differences. Some of the most-often-cited differences are the following: festival dates, festival locations, date of the New Year, festival timing, and festival names. Scholars have explored these distinctions, and many have concluded that different sources (authors/redactors) wrote the various calendars at different times in Israelite history. Scholars use these dissimilarities to argue that Lev 23 was written in the exilic or postexilic era. Babcock offers a new translation and analysis of a second-millennium B.C. multimonth ritual calendar text from Emar (Emar 446) to challenge the late dating of Lev 23. Babcock argues that Lev 23 preserves an early (2nd-millennium) West Semitic ritual tradition. Building on the recent work of Klingbeil and Sparks, this book presents a new comparative methodology for exploring potential textual relationships. Babcock investigates the attributes of sacred ritual through the lens of sacred time, sacred space and movement, sacred objects, ritual participants, and ritual sound. The author begins with a study of ancient Near Eastern festival texts from the 3rd millennium through the 1st millennium. This analysis focuses on festival cycles, common festival attributes, and the role of time and space in ritual. Babcock then moves on to an intertextual study of biblical festival texts before completing a thorough investigation of both Lev 23 and Emar 446. The result is a compelling argument that Lev 23 preserves an early West Semitic festival tradition and does not date to the exilic era—refuting the scholarly consensus. This illuminating reading stands as a model for future research in the field of ritual and comparative textual studies.

Processions: Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony presented to Robert B. Koehl
Processions: Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony presented to Robert B. Koehl

Author: Judith Weingarten

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2023-10-05

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1803275340

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Robert Koehl has long considered processions to have played an integral role in Aegean Bronze Age societies. Papers concentrate mainly on evidence from Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland, with additional perspectives from abroad, these geographic divisions forming the basic outline of this volume.

A History of Syria in One Hundred Sites
A History of Syria in One Hundred Sites

Author: Y. Kanjou

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2016-07-10

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 1784913820

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This volume presents the long history of Syria through a jouney of the most important and recently-excavated archaeological sites. The sites cover over 1.8 million years and all regions in Syria; 110 academics have contributed information on 103 excavations for this volume

Defining the Sacred
Defining the Sacred

Author: Nicola Laneri

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2015-05-08

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1782976833

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Religion is a phenomenon that is inseparable from human society. It brings about a set of emotional, ideological and practical elements that are pervasive in the social fabric of any society and characterizable by a number of features. These include the establishment of intermediaries in the relationship between humans and the divine; the construction of ceremonial places for worshipping the gods and practicing ritual performances; and the creation ritual paraphernalia. Investigating the religious dimensions of ancient societies encounters problems in defining such elements, especially with regard to societies that lack textual evidences and has tended to lead towards the identification of differentiation between the mental dimension, related to religious beliefs, and the material one associated with religious practices, resulting in a separation between scholars able to investigate, and possibly reconstruct, ritual practices (i.e., archaeologists), and those interested in defining the realm of ancient beliefs (i.e., philologists and religious historians). The aim of this collection of papers is to attempt to bridge these two dimensions by breaking down existing boundaries in order to form a more comprehensive vision of religion among ancient Near Eastern societies. This approach requires that a higher consideration be given to those elements (either artificial -- buildings, objects, texts, etc. -- or natural -- landscapes, animals, trees, etc.) that are created through a materialization of religious beliefs and practices enacted by members of communities. These issues are addressed in a series of specific case-studies covering a broad chronological framework that from the Pre-pottery Neolithic to the Iron Age. (Cover illustration © German Archaeological Institute, photo N. Becker)

The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria
The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria

Author: Lluís Feliu

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9004496319

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Subject of this book is the god Dagan (biblical Dagon), the principal deity of the Middle Euphrates region. Lluís Feliu, carefully analysing the sources from Ebla and Mari for the third millennium, from Mari for the Old Babylonian period and from Emar and Ugarit for the Middle Babylonian period, here gives a meticulous diachronic survey of the divine subject. A final chapter summarizes the results in describing the character of Dagan, his origin and his area of influence. Of particular interest to Assyriologists, to biblical scholars and to comparative religionists.