NEAR

EASTERN

Archaeoidgy
^^* -*

VOL. 69

NOS. 3-4

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2006

A PUBLICATIONOF THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTALRESEARCH

'/

flrv/

.m.'*'

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. *

',*

Stf

rtf#f*.

Cult

Stands

of

the

Philistines

Forum The Talpiot

"Jesus" Family Tomb

I
H
^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^m ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H

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VOLUME 69

NOS. 3-4

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2006

116

Forum: The Talpiot Family Tomb

"Jesus'

4A?L ^O
A Genizah
Raz Kletter,
A

Cult Stands of the Philistines:

from Yavneh, Israel
Zwickel Irit Ziffer, and Wolfgang

Eric M* Meyers, Sandra Scham, Christopher A. Rollston, Stephen J. Pfann, and James Tabor
In this expanded edition of the NEA Forum, five scholars debate the prominent Talpiot Tomb and its possible associations with the family of Jesus.

recent salvage excavation conducted by the Israel on a small hill adjacent to the Authority Antiquities large tell of Yavneh, identified with the Philistine city of in the Bible, uncovered remains of a Yavneh mentioned small pit dating to the Iron Age thousands of ritual that contained objects, including an especially large number of cult stands. As ritual objects, these items were ceremonially disposed of in the pit when they were no longer
serviceable. Here, the authors

138
Reform,

The Ottoman Qasr at Hisban: Architecture, and New Social Relations

discuss

Lynda Carroll, Adam Fermer, and 0ystein S. LaBianca

The sweeping reforms that the Ottoman Empire initiated a profound at the end of the nineteenth had century
effect on the provinces. New land-tenure policies

the possible uses and significance of the cult stands, and argue for their Philistine (as opposed to Israelite) manufacture and design.

that favored private landholding drew moneylenders, and elites to Transjordan, where they merchants, established large farmsteads, in the process transforming not only the lives of the tribal groups and peasant fellahin already living in the area, but the local landscape
and architecture as well.

160

The Lower Paleolithic Occupation of Iran

Iran is a natural bridge connecting Western Asia to South and Central
Asia and, therefore, been expansion location, a main we might route expect for Despite it it to have hominin its strategic

Fereidoun Biglari and Sonia Shidrang

The impact of these new state policies on the built is still in environment evidence in particular
in one Ottoman-period the Qasr at farmstead,

eastwards. however,

Hisban

in Jordan.

has so far produced little evidence for early hominin occupation. The
authors present here the results of

new

in the region that investigations affirm the archaeological potential of Lower this region for understanding Paleolithic hominin adaptation to
their environment.

On

the Cover:

A cult

stand

from Yavneh,

Israel decorated

with

musicians

and

lion protomes.

Photo

by Leonid

Padrul.

Workshop

from Tell es-S?fi/Gath

More

Liora Kolska Horwitz, Justin Lev-Tov, Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Stefan J. W?mmer, and Aven M* Maeir
BCEbone workshop The discovery of a ninth-century recent in excavations the biblical city of Gath offers during valuable insights into the production and use of bone tools in Iron Age Palestine.

Than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic Diversity in the Near East
(Daniel S.Adler)

Object Worlds in
Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies Past and Present
(TMusacchio)

Whose

DEPARTMENTS
A -TA ARTI-FACTS
Heros, Mummies, Treasure: Near Eastern and
mi?t:

Pharaohs? Museums Archaeology, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I
(Darren Glazier)

Artifact:
Stolen

The Hunt for

Treasures...

Archaeology
Movies
Kevin McGeough

in the

Kersel) (Morag

The Museum of the Ancient Orient

Sandra Schr?m

/SBv A f

PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH

NEAR EASTERN From the Editor /pCHAEOIDGY

Editor Sandra A. Scham Managing Editor Billie Jean Collins Assistant Editor Camilla Luckey Art Director Monica McLeod Sawyer/McLeod Creative arti-facts Editor Benjamin Porter Review Editor Justin Lev-Tov Editorial Committee Jeff Blakely Lynn Swartz Dodd Ann E. Killebrew Yuval Goren Adel Yahya Denise Neil Asher Silberman Sharon Steadman Bethany Walker Samuel Wolff Richard Zettler Schmandt-Besserat

My work on this journal over the past four years has been a pleasure as well as a learning experience. Among it so is Billie those who made our to Collins with has returned the journal who, Jean deep gratitude, to be the Managing issues. I am also Editor for this and subsequent much Justin Lev-Tov and Camilla Luckey, all and, most of all, very professional. competent knowledgeable, As should be apparent, this is the last issue of NE A Iwill work on as editor. Ann Killebrew, who will be on the editorial team from volume indebted to Ben Porter,

in pulling together the articles for instrumental 70 forward, was most so I can say that the transition has definitely moved forward. 69/3-4, Ann was one of the first members of my editorial board and she has been This have a great help and supporter from the beginning of my tenure. to thank the members is also my opportunity of ASOR who and more the fruit given me their encouragement, importantly, scholarship. a journal I have a day-to-day having relationship come to care about. I hope that some of the that all of us made on the journal will continue under I will miss to expand our coverage to touch on regions, time seen before in our that have not been

Annual subscription rates are $35 Subscriptions for individuals and $100 for institutions. Near Eastern Archaeology is also available as a part of the benefits of some ASOR membership categories. For details, contact ASOR toll-free at (888) 847-8753. Postage forCanadian and other international addresses is an additional $10. Payments should be sent toASOR Member/Subscriber Services, 656 Beacon St., 5th floor, Boston, MA 02215 2010. Fax (617) 353-6575. E-mail: asorsubs@bu.edu. VISA/MC orders can be phoned in, or subscribe online at www.asor.org/pubs/howtoorder.html. Back contacting issues Back issues can be obtained Brown Book Co., The David by PO Box

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innovations

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and perspectives periods, have also tried to provide a venue for opinion, debate, and We pages. seldom seen in traditional alternative archaeological viewpoints?all Forum, journals, but vital to our growth as a discipline. This months put front and center rather than in the back as is usually the case, is to see in this section. exemplary of the kind of thing we have wanted to look forward, as I do, to I hope that you enjoy it and continue receiving your quarterly copy of Near Eastern Archaeology.

CT 06779. Tel. (800) 791-9354. 511, Oakville, Fax (860) 945-9468. E-mail: david.brown.bk.co@snet. net. Web: oxbowbooks.com. Editor's Office All editorial correspondence should be addressed toNear Eastern Archaeology, 656 Beacon St., 5th floor, Boston, MA 02215-2010. Tel. (617) 353-6570. Fax. (617)353-6575. E-mail: asored@bu.edu All articles must follow NEA's instructions for contributors, available at www.asor.org/pubs/nea/instructions.html. should be addressed Advertising Correspondence to ASOR Publications, 656 Beacon St., 5th floor, Tel. (617) 353-6570. Boston, MA 02215-2010. Fax Ads E-mail: asorpubs@asor.org. (617) 353-6575. for the sale of antiquities will not be accepted.

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ill VTV

l^%^mm%^ -&w$. ^w The The Jesus Talpiot "Jesus" Family

-i- AJs -i" ?,.,h .A,f, not adequately

S& ?^i??^?^?3?i<4fe

^ri

^9H Wy^ c

, .Q?", .Q'-W s<,xr;'. -, D C, < , J X <:x >

Tomb
. -Ah - ?K -j- d,,F>"?. A,.K -i. ?,?N -!- ?,A -i" ?.,N -i. A,K

tomb
an overview

from the New Testament

take into

and other ancient documents,

account other theories about

and do
them.

controversy:
Eric M* Meyers
?t

all began on the steps of the New York Public Library on February 26, 2007 at 11:00 am when the Discovery Chan

include Yeshuah (Jesus) son of Yehosef (Joseph), and the possibility that a second part of the inscription Mariamne, rather be read as "leader" and identified with Mary Magdalene than Mary or Marta, Yehudah son of Yeshuah, alleged to be alleged to be a close relative Jesus' son, Mattiyah or Matthew, of Jesus, Maryah, alleged to be Jesus' mother, and Yoseh, alleged to be Jesus' brother. They also claim that three of the other The names
ossuaries were uninscribed, but that the tenth one, reported

nel unveiled two ossuaries believed to be the burial containers of the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene. In

attendance were Jane Root, president of the Discovery Channel; James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, producers of the film; of North Carolina at

Professor James Tabor of the University Charlotte; Dr. Shimon Gibson, theAlbright of Statistics

an archaeologist

associated with

Institute in Jerusalem; Andrey Feuerverger, professor and Mathematics from the University of Toronto; Semi of

to have been plain and uninscribed in the published report of Amos Kloner in 1996,1 is to be identified with the James Ossuary that was revealed to the public in a similar kind of press in 2002 in Toronto and supported by the Biblical conference Society and the Royal Ontario Museum. Archaeological collector The owner of the James Ossuary, antiquities is currently on trial in Israel for antiquities Oded Golan, fraud. He contends that he bought the ossuary prior to 1978 when purchasing such materials was still legal, which, if true, invalidates the claims of those who believe itwas originally the tenth ossuary of the Jesus Tomb. At the time of this writing, in the Israeli court. Needless the matter was still unresolved in an odd legal to say, it now pits Golan against Jacobovici a at that time film since battle, especially Jacobovici produced supporting Golan's claims of authenticity of the full inscription, including the still disputed portion of the inscription, "brother of Jesus." At the time, and even today, Golan claimed that the

Professor James Charlesworth nary; and Dr. Charles the book, The

from Princeton Theological

Pellegrino,

co-author with Jacobovici

Jesus Family Tomb, by HarperCollins, claimed

and forensic archaeologist. came out the same day. of a tomb

The book, published Most

of these individuals

that the excavation

in 1980

in a southern suburb of Jerusalem known as East Tal ten ossuaries, or receptacles for the reburial

piot had produced of disarticulated

remains of the dead, and that the six that were

with thefamily of Jesus. inscribed couldpositivelybe identified

Professor Charlesworth attendance claimed Nazareth and Dr. Gibson were the only scholars in to deny the identification with Jesus. Professor Tabor that the tomb uarguably" was and should not be dismissed. connected to Jesus of

In spite of these qualifica

tions, the overall tone was one of optimism for the identification of a tomb associated claim with Jesus. Moreover, the book and film and had a

that Jesus was married or Judah.

toMary Magdalene

son named Yehudah

in The arguments in favor of such a stunning identification the view of the authors and producers and their supporters are of the names inscribed largely on the coincidence dependent on the ossuaries all coming from a single-family tomb. The are with identified historical names, however, personages family
The facade of the Talpiot Tomb.

y'#X?fe:i>,?M5SP':lt,41B6^,M^

116

NEAR

EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

Pyr^^r^y/

il

James Ossuary is from Silwan, near the Temple Mount, and that the patina and dirt on it prove its provenance there. Needless to say, it ismost difficult to argue that this ossuary was stolen from the Antiquities Authority or even from the site. Much of the statistical data are dependent on the James Ossuary being part of the original corpus. One of the additional claims of the authors and producers is that a series of marks that look like crosses prove that the family may be identified with the earliest Christians of the Jerusalem Church, even though most critics take them to be construction
marks to note a particular spot, as in "x" marks the spot (as

However, there ismuch more work to be done on this matter. First, the tomb was robbed in ancient times, and so the remains were found disturbed when it was discovered in 1980. The even removed skeletal remains from boys in the neighborhood the ossuaries and played with skulls until someone stopped them and called the Israel Antiquities Kloner Authority. estimated thirty-five skeletons in his excavation report,3 and only ten ossuaries found. Eighteen secondary burials were not
associated with the ossuaries.

Given evidence

Hebrew taw is used; Rahmani 1994: 19). In addition, supporters of the identification of the tomb with the family tomb of Jesus use DNA sampling to support the idea that the individual from the Mariamne represented by the bone dust collected to Jesus and ossuary could not have been related maternally therefore, if the Mariamne of the ossuary is one and the same with Mary Magdalene, she could have been his wife, as the later Gospel of Phillip identifies her.2 In addition, analysis of soil samples taken from the patina of the Talpiot ossuaries and the James Ossuary, they contend, support the idea of a match between them, though subsequent interviews with individuals from the Suffolk County Crime Lab where the work was done
leave many doubts about the samples and any conclusions to

addition, any of the ossuaries? This is especially true when many scholars have suggested that the ossuaries contained multiple burials, one of which, for instance, can be supported by an alternative

the repeated disturbance of the tomb, the DNA must be treated with the greatest In suspicion. how can anyone be certain of whose bones were in

reading to the so-called Mariamne ossuary, which could have held the bones of Mariamne and aMary or aMarta.4 Multiple secondary burials in ossuaries are common in Jewish tombs in Judea and inGalilee after 70 CE. For example, at Beth She'arim in western Galilee, where many of the sages were buried, the vast majority of burials are secondary and thus disarticulated, many being reburied from abroad, and a significant number of the reburials are deposited in larger coffins called sarcophagi. The issue of why Jesus would have had a secondary burial after having his body taken from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and buried elsewhere on the third day and then
again a year later in an ossuary, is a serious issue that cannot

be drawn from them, not to mention

the uncertainties and surrounding provenance. the purchase,

the overriding problem of

James Ossuary's ownership,

The book is a great read, and the film is engaging and fun to watch. A first read of the book and viewing of the film can to a layperson. Yet, in also potentially be quite convincing as a the world of scholarship and the world of archaeology a or at raises film look either the book doubts about discipline, the reliability of the entire enterprise and the motivations of its authors, producers, and supporters. The article by Chris in this issue successfully deals with the question of Rollston names and prosopography. Let me add some of my own reasons for questioning the veracity of many if not of all the claims. one does not have to sign a confidentiality Normally, agreement to participate in a scientific experiment or analysis of material, which iswhat all the principals in this adventure story did. Normally, scientific and archaeological method require one to put forward the evidence in such a way that one's peers can are drawn. evaluate the data before such major conclusions the individuals concerned with this Instead, project chose to launch a huge commercial enterprise coterminus with the publication of the book's and the film's premier; and even in the film the producers allowed actors to present their conclusions
in docudrama matter. Be that format as as if there were a mass has consensus put on the it may, its early success archaeology

easily or readily be resolved. Ossuary burial after the flesh has decayed approximately a year after death was common in Jerusalem in the last two hundred years of the Second Temple period, or a bit less. Secondary burial, however, was practiced in the biblical world for centuries, and one of the major idioms for dying in the Hebrew Bible is "to be gathered to one's ancestors" (or fathers). So reburial in a family tomb was a way of rejoining with one's ancestors in death, since the Jewish requirement for could not accommodate rapid inhumation in Deut 21:22-23 the desire of many who died far from home and the family tomb, to be joined in death with their fathers and mothers. In Jerusalem at least, the practice of reburial in an ossuary ismost often associated with the most pious individuals, namely, the Pharisees, and it is difficult to associate Jesus with the more

conservative wing of that group.5 Moreover, with the practice of secondary reburial so common in Roman-period Palestine, why would the family of Jesus not have taken his remains back to Nazareth where the family tomb (if there was one) most surely would have been located? In regard to the names, Iwould point out that, in Galilee,
Greek was uncommon, if not rare, among first-century Jews,

back in the spotlight, and that iswell and good. It has also put Jesus back in the news along with his Jewish background, and that is also good.

on the Mariamne and the fact that the Greek inscription ossuary fits much better in the world of Jerusalem and Judea than in the tomb of a Galilean family. The material remains of

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

117

VWWWWWW2

the tomb, because itwas so badly disturbed according to Kloner, allow for a dating from the late-first century BCE to 70 CE,which is certainly amuch broader time frame than proponents of the in about the crucifixion identification would assume. With 30 CE, the family of Jesus would have used 70 CE, a rather brief span by any calculation
family-tomb complex. There were numerous

a hypothesis to the public as well as to the scientific and as am I As communities. the far concerned, archaeological a remains that has the of of tomb story merely Jesus hypothesis
raised many important issues, but that remains unsubstantiated,

the tomb until for so decent a

sherds recovered

doubtful,

and completely

suppositious.

Notes
1. Kloner tenth as he (1996: 15-22). In press interviews, insisted Kloner has denied that that the ossuary had gone missing clearly and has all along 21. in this issue. comment that only to the nine it was plain,

in the cave, which suggests a longer life to the tomb, one that era. This fact only would have begun in the pre-Christian the awkwardness of positing that the family of exacerbates in Jerusalem when they Jesus would have had a family-tomb were living in Galilee, and that it was in their family at least a generation or so before Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the end of his life. In light of the sensitivity of the subject, which perforce raises the issue of whether there was a physical resurrection, and in light of the questions it raises about the veracity of the accounts of the death and burial of Jesus, I New Testament submit that this was not the appropriate way to present such

states quite (1994: (1993: ossuary, were

in the report on page

2. Rahmani 3. Kloner Mariamne ossuaries

222-23), 105; no. 1996: 701

and see also Rollston 22, n. 2). in Rahmani

In Rahmani's (1994),

he notes

returned (1994) discussion has

to the IAA. and Rolleston in this issue. matter more see, Meyers than with 1982). (1971: has

4. See Rahmani 5. For a fuller 85-92). identified

of this complicated been the scholar of reburial who

Rahmani

any other

the Jerusalem article

practice

in ossuaries (1981,

the Pharisees.

See his four-part

in Biblical Archaeobgist

Is the Talpiot
Shimon Gibson
There

tomb

really

the family
I too attended considerable

tomb of Jesus?

was a hushed air of expectancy the attendants took away

in the hall when

the black cloth covering bore inscriptions,

two stone boxes (ossuaries), which so the assembled journalists were

even though I had the press conference, doubts regarding their controversial interpretation of the Talpiot tomb as the family tomb of Jesus. But I did think it important for me to be present, first because I happened to be one of the team members the tomb who excavated twenty-seven years ago, and second so that Imight register my skepticism on the spot and tell journalists a different side of the the film makers for inviting me to be story. Imust commend at this press conference, knowing quite well that I had present serious misgivings on the subject.

told, of none other than Jesus You could have cut the was made. The press at the New Channel, York and

son of Joseph and Mary Magdalene. air with a knife when conference

the announcement

took place on February 27, 2007,

Public Library and was organized by Simcha documentary moment, Jacobovici

by Discovery

The Discovery
The tomb was excavated twenty-seven years ago on

and James Cameron, the makers of the " was indeed a dramatic "The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It on

with a panel of experts ready to answer questions the endless flashing two main of cameras questions

the area of East slope of a hill, within was a new residential constructed suburb that Talpiot, due south of ancient Jerusalem. The about two kilometers a westward-facing
area had the appearance of an enormous quarry site, with

the stage, and with the moment

recording

for posterity. The tongue,

that hung on the

ever}! journalist's announcement, that the family if so, how would

in the stunned

silence following

was whether

there if as sufficient scientific proof

tomb of Jesus had indeed been discovered, and, this ultimately affect Christianity?

churning up the sides of hills, large trucks trundling around the place, piles of rubble, and clouds of yellow dust in different directions. The general layout of the billowing streets had already been roughly demarcated and these were sufficiently flat to allow vehicles access to most areas bulldozers under construction.
not at all. There was

The

buildings
a

were only partly built, or

station on the corner.

already

petrol

118

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3--4

(2006)

VWWWWWW2

the tomb, because itwas so badly disturbed according to Kloner, allow for a dating from the late-first century BCE to 70 CE,which is certainly amuch broader time frame than proponents of the in about the crucifixion identification would assume. With 30 CE, the family of Jesus would have used 70 CE, a rather brief span by any calculation
family-tomb complex. There were numerous

a hypothesis to the public as well as to the scientific and as am I As communities. the far concerned, archaeological a remains that has the of of tomb story merely Jesus hypothesis
raised many important issues, but that remains unsubstantiated,

the tomb until for so decent a

sherds recovered

doubtful,

and completely

suppositious.

Notes
1. Kloner tenth as he (1996: 15-22). In press interviews, insisted Kloner has denied that that the ossuary had gone missing clearly and has all along 21. in this issue. comment that only to the nine it was plain,

in the cave, which suggests a longer life to the tomb, one that era. This fact only would have begun in the pre-Christian the awkwardness of positing that the family of exacerbates in Jerusalem when they Jesus would have had a family-tomb were living in Galilee, and that it was in their family at least a generation or so before Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the end of his life. In light of the sensitivity of the subject, which perforce raises the issue of whether there was a physical resurrection, and in light of the questions it raises about the veracity of the accounts of the death and burial of Jesus, I New Testament submit that this was not the appropriate way to present such

states quite (1994: (1993: ossuary, were

in the report on page

2. Rahmani 3. Kloner Mariamne ossuaries

222-23), 105; no. 1996: 701

and see also Rollston 22, n. 2). in Rahmani

In Rahmani's (1994),

he notes

returned (1994) discussion has

to the IAA. and Rolleston in this issue. matter more see, Meyers than with 1982). (1971: has

4. See Rahmani 5. For a fuller 85-92). identified

of this complicated been the scholar of reburial who

Rahmani

any other

the Jerusalem article

practice

in ossuaries (1981,

the Pharisees.

See his four-part

in Biblical Archaeobgist

Is the Talpiot
Shimon Gibson
There

tomb

really

the family
I too attended considerable

tomb of Jesus?

was a hushed air of expectancy the attendants took away

in the hall when

the black cloth covering bore inscriptions,

two stone boxes (ossuaries), which so the assembled journalists were

even though I had the press conference, doubts regarding their controversial interpretation of the Talpiot tomb as the family tomb of Jesus. But I did think it important for me to be present, first because I happened to be one of the team members the tomb who excavated twenty-seven years ago, and second so that Imight register my skepticism on the spot and tell journalists a different side of the the film makers for inviting me to be story. Imust commend at this press conference, knowing quite well that I had present serious misgivings on the subject.

told, of none other than Jesus You could have cut the was made. The press at the New Channel, York and

son of Joseph and Mary Magdalene. air with a knife when conference

the announcement

took place on February 27, 2007,

Public Library and was organized by Simcha documentary moment, Jacobovici

by Discovery

The Discovery
The tomb was excavated twenty-seven years ago on

and James Cameron, the makers of the " was indeed a dramatic "The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It on

with a panel of experts ready to answer questions the endless flashing two main of cameras questions

the area of East slope of a hill, within was a new residential constructed suburb that Talpiot, due south of ancient Jerusalem. The about two kilometers a westward-facing
area had the appearance of an enormous quarry site, with

the stage, and with the moment

recording

for posterity. The tongue,

that hung on the

ever}! journalist's announcement, that the family if so, how would

in the stunned

silence following

was whether

there if as sufficient scientific proof

tomb of Jesus had indeed been discovered, and, this ultimately affect Christianity?

churning up the sides of hills, large trucks trundling around the place, piles of rubble, and clouds of yellow dust in different directions. The general layout of the billowing streets had already been roughly demarcated and these were sufficiently flat to allow vehicles access to most areas bulldozers under construction.
not at all. There was

The

buildings
a

were only partly built, or

station on the corner.

already

petrol

118

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3--4

(2006)

^?^^p^^ ^<>m^^^
The cave was in the side of a rocky scarp just above the street (later known as Dov Gr?ner Street) and the gaping hole of the the entrance was visible even from a distance. Although rock-cut fa?ade of the tomb was in the shade, I found it quite striking as I approached it. It was hewn from gleaming white limestone and there were chisel marks cut diagonally across the entrance that were set off by the orange staining derived from the doorway were the soil fills removed by bulldozers. Above two simple raised carvings of a circle and a pointed triangle. The facts of the discovery are quite straightforward. A blast at the East Talpiot construction site brought to light the tomb in of its large external rock-cut the destruction and resulted courtyard and part of the roofed vestibule. The discovery of the cave was reported separately by two individuals on Thursday, March in charge of the supervisory 27, 1980?Kerner Mandil, office of the Armon Hanatziv/East Talpiot Project, and the company Solel engineer Ephraim Shohat of the construction Boneh. An archaeologist, Eliot Braun, was dispatched on that Shimon Gibson (left) and James Charlesworth (right) stand over the
cement shaft and lid situated above the Talpiot Tomb.

same day by the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums to check on the nature of the discovery and he reported back to Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District Archaeologist. Clearly the cave needed to be excavated. The blocking stone to the cave was missing and the interior of the burial chamber had become blocked with approximately half a meter of soil that had been washed in from outside. The tops of the ossuaries were, however, visible. A few fragments of ossuaries were also It was too late to do any noticed outside the cave entrance. digging so the work was postponed to the following day.

The working
and

next

("Yoske") Gath, an archaeologist day, Yoseph in the Department, for Kloner began excavating,
managed to extract ten ossuaries from the cave,

by noon

then transported on a special truck back to the Museum. These ossuaries of the Rockefeller safekeeping were handed over to the curator, anthropologist Joe Zias, were later and placed into temporary storage where they which were The work examined by the chief curator L. Y. Rahmani. in a hurry, since excavations were not had to be undertaken permitted on the Saturday, and any ossuaries left in the cave might be pilfered by greedy antiquity thieves. Alternatively, members of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and this could and create disturbances demonstrate might lead to a cessation of the excavations altogether. Indeed, this to another Second Temple-period is exactly what happened to the northeast of the only twenty meters was full of ossuaries excavated tomb, it (some inscribed). it was However, because of ultra-Orthodox Jewish objections, later sealed and still remains unexcavated. Not long after the archaeologists left the site that Friday, an tomb. Situated boy named Ouriel, as he was returning from eleven-year-old school, entered the building site and saw the cave entrance. This was after he had heard additional blasting at the site. At that time he says there was only one Arab guard and all the construction workers had gone home. He peered into the cave, identified it as a tomb, and then went home to tell his mother, Rivka Maoz. The Maoz family was living in an apartment block into in 1976 in the older part of the East Talpiot one hundred meters or so to the south of about neighborhood, the area of the tomb. His mother tried to contact archaeologists at the Rockefeller Museum, but without much success since they had moved

Yoseph

Gath,

the excavator

of the Talpiot

Tomb.

they had already gone home.

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

119

WW?

There

were

no

excavations

that

Saturday

and

the

guard

The Results
The original courtyard in front of the tomb entrance had been badly destroyed by the blasting operations. Enough of the
vestibule was preserved, however, for me to ascertain its size at

at the construction site was not very diligent. As a result the tomb was visited by local children who had heard about the tomb and were drawn to investigate it. This resulted in some human bones being taken out of the tomb and removed from Rivka Maoz, with the help of her son, the site. Conscientiously, collected the pilfered bones from the kids and placed them in a plastic bag. When the excavations were resumed on Sunday, Ouriel handed over the bones to the archaeologists. My own personal involvement with the Talpiot tomb began with a telephone call from Kloner: "Could you go tomorrow to to Talpiot where Yoske is digging?" he wanted morning was as a know. At that time I part-time archaeological working assistant
wanted

the time Iwas preparing the plan of the tomb. Above the doorway are raised decorative carvings. Gath an to that these attempt suggested represented depict a rosette with a gable above, and that it was left unfinished, perhaps because the local chalky rock (nari) was too soft to make the claims carvings in any greater detail. Notwithstanding made by the filmmakers, I should point out that these carvings
are not at all mysterious, but are known from the rock-cut

and surveyor
me to take

in the Department
make

of Antiquities.
a drawn plan,

He
and

measurements,

record elevations of the tomb. I contacted the excavator, Gath, to meet with him the following day and made arrangements on the edge of the new neighborhood. He possessed a rather morose demeanour, quite the opposite of myself. "Anything special about this tomb?" I asked him. "Not really," he replied, "anyhow you will get a good look at it tomorrow." The excavation within the cave (IAA Permit No. 938) was conducted in stages with breaks between March 30 to April 11, 1980, and itwas supervised by Gath, with the help of three to four workers provided by the Solel Boneh construction company. Having completed the excavation, Gath returned to excavations

and interior doorways of a number of tombs around of gabled doors with acroteria are Jerusalem. Representations the Akeldama known from several tombs within ("Field of Mount Zion. The south of circle, however, Blood") cemetery most likely represents a wreath, and examples are known from the decoration of tombs around Jerusalem, notably from the ceiling of the inner chamber of the so-called "Tomb of Absalom" in the Kidron Valley, and from the lintel of the "Tomb of the Apostles" inAkeldama. Clambering into the cave, I could see that its interior chamber was intact. Toolmarks left by the hewer's chisels were evident facades

(April 15) and wrote up a preliminary report on the and prepared a File Card for the site, both of which in the Department's he deposited archives. Tragically, Gath died before he was able to publish the results of his excavations, and itwas left to Kloner to publish a final report on the tomb in his office the pages of the journal 'Atiqot in 1996. in writing this report owing to Kloner faced a challenge the fact that Gath left behind only sparse and incomplete
notes about the results of his excavation. My examination

of Gath's

notes

in the archives

at the Rockefeller

Museum

confirms (IAA administrative archives/peh/J-M/bet/8/X), in content and that a lot of vital that his notes are minimalist information about the tomb has been lost. The second problem Kloner faced was that the human bones from the cave had not been written up; anthropologists Joe Zias and Patricia Smith, who studied material from tombs at that time, both confirm that neither of them examined the human bones from this specific cave. Moreover, the bones were no longer available to Kloner for study since they had been transferred to the religious authorities for reburial, in accordance with an the Israeli government that was made between agreement and the religious authorities who objected to the storage of storerooms. bones within the Antiquities Authority's
The original plan of the tomb made by Shimon Gibson.

human

120

NEAR

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ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

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on the walls and ceiling. A step led down into the square (2.9 x 2.9 m) chamber whose ceiling was sufficiently high (2m) to allow for standing room, so that family members could arrange with ease the burial of their kin on the two shelves positioned within arched burial spaces (arcosolia) in the upper northern and eastern walls of the cave. This was where the shrouded bodies were placed as primary burials and left to decompose that took about one year), with the bones later gathered and placed within ossuaries. Cut into the lower walls of the chamber were tunnel-like burial recesses (averaging 1.8 meters in depth and half a meter in width), known as kokhim, (a process and there were two in each of the three walls. Except for one, they were all used as storage spaces for ten soft limestone boxes (ossuaries) containing human bones in secondary burial. The cave had evidently been forced open, entered, and era by tomb ransacked at some point before the modern it was clear to Gath the time of the excavation, that intruders had disturbed the tomb because the blocking stone for the door was missing and quantities of soil had later in from accumulated within the cave having been washed outside. The intruders were probably also responsible for the robbers. At removal originally of the stones had them), the kokhim (if indeed they blocking for the sweeping of the intact primary

inhumations from the arcosolia shelves, and for the smashing of some of the ossuaries (seven were broken and six of these were eventually restored), and with the chucking of two ossuary lids onto the floor of the main chamber. Gath noticed skulls and large limb bones at two points on the floor, and it is feasible that these came from the primary burials, which were swept off the arcosolia shelves by the intruders.

Carved Mount The original sections of the tomb made by Shimon Gibson. Talpiot

doorways Zion with tomb.

from

tombs

in the similar

area

of Akeldama facade

south

of

decoration

to that on the

of the

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Xl? N X

At the time of the excavation, only a thin compacted fill (five centimeters thick) of crushed bones was found on the shelves. A third skull was found in the corner of the main chamber, and it may have been taken out of one of the ossuaries in the adjacent kokh. In addition to this, fragmentary human bones CE potsherds were found scattered and a few first-century throughout the main chamber. The number of interments in the cave is unknown, but, basing himself on data obtained from other tombs that have been studied, Kloner believes that it might have been about thirty-five individuals. Unfortunately, this ismere guesswork since the anthropological remains from the Talpiot tomb were never examined or quantified.

Ten ossuaries were discovered in the Talpiot tomb. Inmaking a measured plan of the cave, I recorded the position of the ossuaries according to information provided by Gath. Since Gath did not match IDAM accession up the Rockefeller numbers given to the ossuaries with the attribution numbers as they appear on my plan of the cave, we will never know for certain which ossuary came from which kokh, and this is as it represents a major loss of information. unfortunate In addition, we have no information about the ossuary fragments Gath picked up outside the tomb entrance. In total, only three of the ossuaries were found intact; the rest were broken and had to be restored. Six or seven lids were discovered, one gabled and the rest flat in appearance. Five of the ossuaries were plain and five were decorated with double-rosette motifs in panels, surrounded by bands with chip-carved zig-zag designs, except for one, which also has a decoration of vertical rows of small circular disks. Maker's marks were detected scratched on three of the ossuaries.

of the Apostles" in the area of Akeldama. Wreaths like the ones on this lintel are probably what the carver of the facade to of the Talpiot tomb intended depict.

The

carved

lintel above

the

so-called

"Tomb

Only nine of the ten ossuaries from the tomb are at present in the Israel Antiquities Authority storerooms in Beth Shemesh is the tenth missing ossuary? Where (Nos. 501-508/1980). Rahmani in his 1994 catalogue described it as "a plain, broken got a specimen." The filmmakers, Jacobovici and Cameron, lot of mileage out of this missing ossuary, suggesting that it might be the same as the "James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" ossuary, implying that the ossuary was stolen and eventually ended up in the hands of the collector Oded Golan. This is highly unlikely since we know that the tenth ossuary was plain, and uninscribed, and, on top of everything else, undecorated, was it broken. This description does not fit the "James" ossuary, which is complete and decorated on one side with rosettes and on the other with a deeply carved inscription. Rahmani, however, recently provided me with an explanation as to how the tenth ossuary might have become mislaid. All decorated or inscribed ossuaries, when received at the Rockefeller Museum in the 1980s, he tells me, were placed on shelves, whereas broken plain ossuaries, of which there were large quantities, were stored in the external courtyard of the museum. When the ossuaries were transferred to Beth Shemesh, the tenth broken example was most likely thrown away, owing to a lack
of storage space.

Six of the ossuaries were inscribed (five inHebrew script and one in Greek). The inscriptions were scratched in different hands with a nail or stylus. The location of the inscriptions vary: three were on the front of the ossuary and another on the back, with two on the short end of the ossuary and one on the inside. The inscriptions were originally read by Rahmani (assisted by L. Di Segni) and published in his Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in
This drawing person who reconstructs carved the what facade was probably of the Talpiot in the mind Tomb. of the

1994 (nos. 701-706), and similar readings appeared in Kloner's Atiqot report on the tomb (nos. 1-6).

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The Family Tomb of Jesus? The Inscriptions

j Rahmani read the Greek inscription as "Mariamenou Mara" (ofMariamenon, who is [also called] Mara), with Mariamenon being interpreted as a diminutive a reading he inferred based on form of Mariamene, made with Greek inscriptions of later comparisons date found at the cemetery of Beth Shearim previously published by Schwabe and Lifshitz in 1974. Mara is interpreted as "honorable lady," but, in fact, the correct form for "honorable lady" should be Martha. Mara is either the emphatic male form, which sits
oddly on a woman, or a colloquial contracted form.

a lot of controversy worldwide about the that the tomb be the suggestion might Talpiot family tomb of Jesus. This is the point of view taken by the filmmakers There has been and Cameron, but the full archaeological and Jacobovici historical arguments for this idea have been nurtured over a couple of years by James Tabor, first in his book The Jesus Dynasty and later in a series of blog statements on the internet. Beyond the general recognition of the similarity between certain names on the Talpiot ossuaries with that of names known from the Gospels (Jesus> Mary, and Joseph), the main thrust of their argument has been that the "Mariamene" named on one of the ossuaries is a form of Mariamne, that should be identified as ossuary and that the "Yos?" name on another that of Mary Magdalene, should be identified as that of Joses the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3). This clustering of names, when examined statistically in terms of the appearance of Jewish names of the

(The Virgin Mary and female saints are given the title Martha in the later Syriac church.) Recently, however, two scholars, Emile Puech and Stephen Pfann, have suggested, independently of each other, that the inscription should be read as "Mariame kai
Mara," that is, that it represents the names of two

separate individuals, Mariame

name is a variant of two very

and Mara. The

common Jewish

first

names

in the first century CE: Miriam/Maryam and Marya. The second name "Mara" is generally held to be a shortened version of Martha. ? in Hebrew A deeply incised inscription script: "Yehuda bar Yeshua" on the decorated front of the ossuary. The names "Yehuda" (Judas) and "Yeshua" (Jesus) were very popular names in the first century
CE. Rahmani suggested that this person was the son

period, are taken to represent strong evidence in support of the Jesus family tomb hypothesis. So what should we make of this? The suggestion that the name is that of Mary Magdalene is based on an Mariamne association between the two as reflected in the Acts of Philip and as it appears in an article published by Fran?ois Bovon in 2002. Since the Acts of Philip date from the fourth century, and since the only other possible reference toMary Magdalane as Mariamne is in the writings of Hippolytus from the second
century CE, one must was express Mary extreme caution in the suggestion that Mariamne However, Magdalene's above, the real name. proper reading for the

as mentioned

of the "Yeshua(?) son of Yehosef" who appears in an

inscription on another ossuary (see no. 4, below).

so-called Mariamne Mara," as suggested

inscription by Pueche

Inscriptions
"Matya" and

in Hebrew
"Mata," on

script in different
the exterior and

hands:
interior

of the ossuary. Both are contractions of the name Rahmani (Matthew). Matityahu suggested that the name of the have been worn away second may yod and that it too should be read as "Matya." L in Hebrew A badly scrawled inscription script: "Yeshua(?) son of Yehosef." The first name "Yeshua (Jesus)" is not at all clear, but this is the reading provided by Rahmani and Kloner. The first name is preceded by an X maker's mark. in Hebrew Inscription script: "Yos?." This is a shortened version of Yehosef (Joseph) which itself
was a very popular name in the first century CE.

support. wholeheartedly female individuals were daughter, or perhaps two sisters.

appears to be "Mariame kai and Pfann, a reading that I It would imply that remains of two and kept in the ossuary, a mother

If one accepts this reading then the entire argument about Mariamene being Mariamne, and Mariamne being Mary Magdalene, evaporates. The name "Yos?" on one of the other ossuaries is actually a shortened form of Yehosef, and, inmy opinion, this is probably the same Yehosef who is the father of Yeshua on another ossuary in the

if we tomb, who, in turn, was the father of Yehuda. Hence, and discount the Mariamne=Mary Yos?=brother Magdalene then we are simply left with a group of of Jesus connections, ossuaries bearing common Jewish names of the first century CE. As a result of this, there is nothing to commend this tomb as the family tomb of Jesus. At best, the names of the ossuaries are
suggestive, but nothing more.

This Yos? may possibly have been the father of the individual (identified as Yeshua) who appears in an
inscription on another ossuary (see no. 4, above).

Inscription inHebrew

script: "Marya."

that the family tomb of Jesus might Finally, is it conceivable have been situated in the vicinity of Jerusalem, since, as we all know, Jesus' family originated in Nazareth? Jesus, the Gospels tell us, was crucified in Jerusalem and buried there. Joseph of

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 123 (2006)

i VdOR

-L NOF/AOF/Ari L'IFI/i \iV/A NRV/-jRM.

-'sVI' z

751VIIII,

7,

Zi
14.

OR

NO

Zv

Arimathea,

a man

of

some

standing

in Jerusalem's

society

in

to want

to relocate

to Jerusalem,

and

that

some

of

them

would

the first century CE, was able to beg for the body of Jesus from the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Subsequently, Jesus' body was anointed in a shroud and placed within and wrapped
Joseph of Arimeathea's "newly-made" rock-hewn sepulchre.

The day after the burial, the women who came to the tomb found it empty. Since there was no body in the tomb that could it would not have been possible for his family decompose, to transfer his bones in an ossuary back to his hometown in Nazareth. physically Since Jerusalem was the last place that Jesus was seen, it would make sense for the extended family

eventually die and be buried there. tell us about Jesus' brothers (or half Indeed, the Gospels brothers), notably James, who died in Jerusalem, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55). They became based in Jerusalem. important figures among the Nazarenes Hence, it remains conceivable that a family tomb of Jesus might still be found in the vicinity of Jerusalem, perhaps in the vicinity of the actual tomb of Jesus situated, I believe, at the spot marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. As for the Talpiot tomb, I do not believe the present archaeological evidence supports identifying it as the family tomb of Jesus.

Trial
Sandra

by statistics
Scham
ewould probably not need a statistician to tell us that
even more recently, Andrey Feuerverger, the film's statistician,

declared
it is not tombsite much

in an open letter to his colleagues

in the purview of statistics Testament to conclude

that
whether such or not this

theprobabilityo/The Lost Tomb of Jesus having

w been inspired b}i the success of theDa Vinci Code is high. In fact, the website is quite candid about its associations with that wildly popular and absurdly wrongheaded thriller. Though offer up a son of Jesus, rather than the daughter of Dan Browns famous fable, theirs is nonetheless a conjecture that was clearly intended to the filmmakers' ultimate conclusions cause a sensation

is that of the New rightfully

family. Any

conclusion historical

more who into

belongs

to the purview position

of biblical

scholars entering

are in a much such

better

to assess

the assumptions Open Letter

computations.

(Feuerverger

2007,

to Statistical

Colleagues)

to know what to make of this, particularly in light of the fact that both Tabor and Feuerverger appear in the film as avid proponents of the theory advanced by the filmmaker.
The statistician, in fact, went so far as to state, with confidence,

It is difficult

both in the scholarly community and among the general public. The assumptions of Browns novel, however, while seemingly based upon research, are clearly related to the process of creating a story (to my knowledge, it did not appear on any bestseller's list in the "non-fiction" category). In contrast, what the creators of The Lost Tomb present is a putatively scientific interpretation of actual archaeological evidence based, in part, upon one of those mainstays of modern archaeological interpretation-statistical analysis.

that the statistical analysis affirmed the identification of the tomb as having belonged to Jesus' family. Much of the statistical support for the Tomb's identification, as Feuerverger describes of it, is based upon the measure
"surprisingness," which is presumably the same as the term that

with data mining. Data mining developed from fairly tried-and-true Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), between but, whereas EDA examines causal relationships
variables, from the objectives patterns of data mining rather are than to extract merely sort rules out observable in data

is used in connection

The device used by film's creator, Simcha Jacobovici, of "James

Ossuary" renown, is a compelling one. He presents a case step

to end. On film, it unfolds much as by step from beginning a complex case presented to a jury by a particularly talented attorney. The argument is a fairly convoluted one, but the film manages to simplify it remarkably well. Too well, it seems, as some of the scholars who supported the project initially seem to now be slow-dancing away from it. The latest assessment of Professor James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at is that the tomb "arguably" might be connected to Charlotte the Jesus of Nazareth (Tabor, e-mail dated March 1, 2007) and,
''???^if *3???c? wr?S?^

dependent and independent variables or degrees of association (Diaconis and Mosteller 2003). The ubiquitous "predictive is the outcome model" and its from data mining expected cohort, knowledge
In data-mining more considered

discovery.
processes, objective interestingness than surprisingness measures measures are

and assumptions? (Freitas 1999) that rely on expectations in other words, previous knowledge of the data. Measuring
surprisingness is, therefore, a method that combines prior

assumptions about the data with the statistical recognition of patterns within the data itself. This is referred to as domain

124

NEAR

EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

i VdOR

-L NOF/AOF/Ari L'IFI/i \iV/A NRV/-jRM.

-'sVI' z

751VIIII,

7,

Zi
14.

OR

NO

Zv

Arimathea,

a man

of

some

standing

in Jerusalem's

society

in

to want

to relocate

to Jerusalem,

and

that

some

of

them

would

the first century CE, was able to beg for the body of Jesus from the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Subsequently, Jesus' body was anointed in a shroud and placed within and wrapped
Joseph of Arimeathea's "newly-made" rock-hewn sepulchre.

The day after the burial, the women who came to the tomb found it empty. Since there was no body in the tomb that could it would not have been possible for his family decompose, to transfer his bones in an ossuary back to his hometown in Nazareth. physically Since Jerusalem was the last place that Jesus was seen, it would make sense for the extended family

eventually die and be buried there. tell us about Jesus' brothers (or half Indeed, the Gospels brothers), notably James, who died in Jerusalem, Joses (or Joseph), Judas, and Simon (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55). They became based in Jerusalem. important figures among the Nazarenes Hence, it remains conceivable that a family tomb of Jesus might still be found in the vicinity of Jerusalem, perhaps in the vicinity of the actual tomb of Jesus situated, I believe, at the spot marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. As for the Talpiot tomb, I do not believe the present archaeological evidence supports identifying it as the family tomb of Jesus.

Trial
Sandra

by statistics
Scham
ewould probably not need a statistician to tell us that
even more recently, Andrey Feuerverger, the film's statistician,

declared
it is not tombsite much

in an open letter to his colleagues

in the purview of statistics Testament to conclude

that
whether such or not this

theprobabilityo/The Lost Tomb of Jesus having

w been inspired b}i the success of theDa Vinci Code is high. In fact, the website is quite candid about its associations with that wildly popular and absurdly wrongheaded thriller. Though offer up a son of Jesus, rather than the daughter of Dan Browns famous fable, theirs is nonetheless a conjecture that was clearly intended to the filmmakers' ultimate conclusions cause a sensation

is that of the New rightfully

family. Any

conclusion historical

more who into

belongs

to the purview position

of biblical

scholars entering

are in a much such

better

to assess

the assumptions Open Letter

computations.

(Feuerverger

2007,

to Statistical

Colleagues)

to know what to make of this, particularly in light of the fact that both Tabor and Feuerverger appear in the film as avid proponents of the theory advanced by the filmmaker.
The statistician, in fact, went so far as to state, with confidence,

It is difficult

both in the scholarly community and among the general public. The assumptions of Browns novel, however, while seemingly based upon research, are clearly related to the process of creating a story (to my knowledge, it did not appear on any bestseller's list in the "non-fiction" category). In contrast, what the creators of The Lost Tomb present is a putatively scientific interpretation of actual archaeological evidence based, in part, upon one of those mainstays of modern archaeological interpretation-statistical analysis.

that the statistical analysis affirmed the identification of the tomb as having belonged to Jesus' family. Much of the statistical support for the Tomb's identification, as Feuerverger describes of it, is based upon the measure
"surprisingness," which is presumably the same as the term that

with data mining. Data mining developed from fairly tried-and-true Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), between but, whereas EDA examines causal relationships
variables, from the objectives patterns of data mining rather are than to extract merely sort rules out observable in data

is used in connection

The device used by film's creator, Simcha Jacobovici, of "James

Ossuary" renown, is a compelling one. He presents a case step

to end. On film, it unfolds much as by step from beginning a complex case presented to a jury by a particularly talented attorney. The argument is a fairly convoluted one, but the film manages to simplify it remarkably well. Too well, it seems, as some of the scholars who supported the project initially seem to now be slow-dancing away from it. The latest assessment of Professor James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at is that the tomb "arguably" might be connected to Charlotte the Jesus of Nazareth (Tabor, e-mail dated March 1, 2007) and,
''???^if *3???c? wr?S?^

dependent and independent variables or degrees of association (Diaconis and Mosteller 2003). The ubiquitous "predictive is the outcome model" and its from data mining expected cohort, knowledge
In data-mining more considered

discovery.
processes, objective interestingness than surprisingness measures measures are

and assumptions? (Freitas 1999) that rely on expectations in other words, previous knowledge of the data. Measuring
surprisingness is, therefore, a method that combines prior

assumptions about the data with the statistical recognition of patterns within the data itself. This is referred to as domain

124

NEAR

EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

mwmmmmmwm

can include everything which from proven knowledge, scientific conclusions relating to the project to mere intuition know all (Abelson 1995: 158-62). Of course, archaeologists it is what we go into the field about data mining. Essentially to do. Most of us, however, are well aware of the constructions that we have placed upon our evidence even before a trowel is lifted. To undertake an expensive project without making any assumptions would be folly. To base a project upon too many however, would be equally unwise. Statistical assumptions, here is analyses are not so very different. The presumption an obvious one?either the analyst has personal knowledge relating to the project or is relying upon the assertions of other experts (Healy 1983: 348). In short, it is as acknowledged many people have feared?an expert analysis based upon too
many assumptions that, when closely examined, proves to be

for the brother of Jesus;" and 3) the Latinized version Marya is "an appropriate appellation for Mary of the New Testament." Several other assumptions, in a similar vein, are listed as well, but every biblical scholar will recognize the pattern here without The assumptions upon which the resorting to computations.
measures of surprisingness are based, in short, are not facts and

not knowledge but conjecture. In fairness to the filmmaker

note that, despite its unsound

and his colleagues,

premise, there are

we should
two moments

in this film that should represent a cautionary tale to those who are entranced with the idea of "biblical" finds. In one segment, Jacobovici argues with an Israel Antiquities Authority official about the identification of an ossuary from the Talpiot tombs with the high priest Caiaphas of New Testament fame. is a identification if the Caiaphas Jacobovici asks pointedly, is not he that valid one, why the identifications proposing? It's a good question, and it appeared to catch the person being interviewed totally off guard. Jacobovici's discovery of a text of the book of Jonah in the times after the tomb was Talpiot tomb, put there in modern discovered, emblematic of the "soft science" of for their supposed biblical discoveries exploiting archaeological was and the associations. first missionary, the world's Jonah to convince the chance find of his story seems spiritually filmmaker that his conclusions are valid. It is a good reminder this is in fact old that, despite its use of high-tech methods, text into and trowel. with the field archaeology?heading is even more

if not false. questionable, Feuerverger gamely lists his core premises, but notes almost in passing that "the results of any such computations are highly dependent on the assumptions that enter into it. Should even one of these assumptions not be satisfied then the results will not be statistically meaningful" (Feuerverger 2007). In this context, to the determination, the list itself is fairly significant and, while these assumptions may look reasonable to Feuerverger's statistical colleagues, most of them are highly debatable among Marianemou archaeologists. They include the assumptions that 1) eMara is "a singularly highly appropriate appellation for Mary 2) Yose/Yosa is "a highly appropriate appellation Magdalene;"

Inscribed
Christopher
The

Ossuaries:
A. Rollston

Personal

names,

statistics,

and laboratory

tests

The Study of Names: Methods and Models

are those based on The most reliable prosopographies a convergence and (when of epigraphic, archaeological, controls certain minimal data. However, available) literary or even are mandatory for such analyses to be convincing
tenable. Patronymics and matronymics are a most fundamental

term "prosopography" derives from two Greek words, " pros?pon "face" and graf? "writing. After being coined, this word could be used (e.g., during the Renaissance) an attempt to pen a physical description of someone. More of recently, prosopography became a technical term for attempts to reconstruct and describe data revolving around the subjects of the genealogy, names (onomastics), and demographics. Within a on ancient is there the status, field of prosopography, often focus vocations, and kinship of elites. The reason for this focus is simply because most of the data available are written texts derived from elite circles. When one looks at prosopography in a field such as biblical studies, analyses will also include attempts to argue for (or against) the identification of a person attested in a literary corpus with someone attested in the epigraphic corpus (e.g.,Avigad 1987). Before we turn to the Talpiot tomb in particular, discussion of the standard methods would be instructive.
?H?il?OKr??H?i?fi?li:*E5?^^

component for prosopographic was a means of differentiating

the same name; thus, patronymics

analyses. For the ancients, this (to some degree) people with
are very common in the

a epigraphic corpus. For example, the Samaria Papyri refer to slave named "Yehohanan bar She'ilah" (Gropp 2001: 35, no. and Hebrew the corpus of Aramaic inscriptions 1).Within from Masada, there is reference to "Shimeon bar Yehosep" 1989: 40, nos. and "Shimeon ben Yo'ezer (Yadin and Naveh occur. For also 463, 466). Matronymics example, a Jerusalem ossuary is inscribed in Greek "Alexas Mara, mother of Judas Simon, her son" (Rahmani 1994: 258, no. 868). However,
because complementary data are not present, nothing more

some

can be said about any of these people and they substantive cannot be identified with anyone in the literary corpus.

69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN

(2006)

125

mwmmmmmwm

can include everything which from proven knowledge, scientific conclusions relating to the project to mere intuition know all (Abelson 1995: 158-62). Of course, archaeologists it is what we go into the field about data mining. Essentially to do. Most of us, however, are well aware of the constructions that we have placed upon our evidence even before a trowel is lifted. To undertake an expensive project without making any assumptions would be folly. To base a project upon too many however, would be equally unwise. Statistical assumptions, here is analyses are not so very different. The presumption an obvious one?either the analyst has personal knowledge relating to the project or is relying upon the assertions of other experts (Healy 1983: 348). In short, it is as acknowledged many people have feared?an expert analysis based upon too
many assumptions that, when closely examined, proves to be

for the brother of Jesus;" and 3) the Latinized version Marya is "an appropriate appellation for Mary of the New Testament." Several other assumptions, in a similar vein, are listed as well, but every biblical scholar will recognize the pattern here without The assumptions upon which the resorting to computations.
measures of surprisingness are based, in short, are not facts and

not knowledge but conjecture. In fairness to the filmmaker

note that, despite its unsound

and his colleagues,

premise, there are

we should
two moments

in this film that should represent a cautionary tale to those who are entranced with the idea of "biblical" finds. In one segment, Jacobovici argues with an Israel Antiquities Authority official about the identification of an ossuary from the Talpiot tombs with the high priest Caiaphas of New Testament fame. is a identification if the Caiaphas Jacobovici asks pointedly, is not he that valid one, why the identifications proposing? It's a good question, and it appeared to catch the person being interviewed totally off guard. Jacobovici's discovery of a text of the book of Jonah in the times after the tomb was Talpiot tomb, put there in modern discovered, emblematic of the "soft science" of for their supposed biblical discoveries exploiting archaeological was and the associations. first missionary, the world's Jonah to convince the chance find of his story seems spiritually filmmaker that his conclusions are valid. It is a good reminder this is in fact old that, despite its use of high-tech methods, text into and trowel. with the field archaeology?heading is even more

if not false. questionable, Feuerverger gamely lists his core premises, but notes almost in passing that "the results of any such computations are highly dependent on the assumptions that enter into it. Should even one of these assumptions not be satisfied then the results will not be statistically meaningful" (Feuerverger 2007). In this context, to the determination, the list itself is fairly significant and, while these assumptions may look reasonable to Feuerverger's statistical colleagues, most of them are highly debatable among Marianemou archaeologists. They include the assumptions that 1) eMara is "a singularly highly appropriate appellation for Mary 2) Yose/Yosa is "a highly appropriate appellation Magdalene;"

Inscribed
Christopher
The

Ossuaries:
A. Rollston

Personal

names,

statistics,

and laboratory

tests

The Study of Names: Methods and Models

are those based on The most reliable prosopographies a convergence and (when of epigraphic, archaeological, controls certain minimal data. However, available) literary or even are mandatory for such analyses to be convincing
tenable. Patronymics and matronymics are a most fundamental

term "prosopography" derives from two Greek words, " pros?pon "face" and graf? "writing. After being coined, this word could be used (e.g., during the Renaissance) an attempt to pen a physical description of someone. More of recently, prosopography became a technical term for attempts to reconstruct and describe data revolving around the subjects of the genealogy, names (onomastics), and demographics. Within a on ancient is there the status, field of prosopography, often focus vocations, and kinship of elites. The reason for this focus is simply because most of the data available are written texts derived from elite circles. When one looks at prosopography in a field such as biblical studies, analyses will also include attempts to argue for (or against) the identification of a person attested in a literary corpus with someone attested in the epigraphic corpus (e.g.,Avigad 1987). Before we turn to the Talpiot tomb in particular, discussion of the standard methods would be instructive.
?H?il?OKr??H?i?fi?li:*E5?^^

component for prosopographic was a means of differentiating

the same name; thus, patronymics

analyses. For the ancients, this (to some degree) people with
are very common in the

a epigraphic corpus. For example, the Samaria Papyri refer to slave named "Yehohanan bar She'ilah" (Gropp 2001: 35, no. and Hebrew the corpus of Aramaic inscriptions 1).Within from Masada, there is reference to "Shimeon bar Yehosep" 1989: 40, nos. and "Shimeon ben Yo'ezer (Yadin and Naveh occur. For also 463, 466). Matronymics example, a Jerusalem ossuary is inscribed in Greek "Alexas Mara, mother of Judas Simon, her son" (Rahmani 1994: 258, no. 868). However,
because complementary data are not present, nothing more

some

can be said about any of these people and they substantive cannot be identified with anyone in the literary corpus.

69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN

(2006)

125

4W Ov

ZA 4?QMA ;k!-,WZA 0

?-44?j

4q -A, MId L\-q VA MPZA 0,00

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Nevertheless,

sometimes

there

are

sufficient

data

to posit

in the epigraphic corpus and a figure that a figure attested a attested in literary corpus are probably the same. This can be very useful for prosopographic analysis. For example, during Shiloh's excavations at the City of David, a number of bullae were discovered in stratum X, a stratum that was destroyed by the Babylonians in about 587 BCE.Bulla 2 reads: "Belonging to Gemaryahu ben Shaphan." Shiloh posited that the Gemaryahu of this bulla is to be identified with "the scribe Gemaryahu son in Jer 36:10 (Shiloh 1986). of Shaphan" who is mentioned the editio princeps of this corpus, Shoham However, within reiterated Shiloh's declaration, but noted a caveat: "It should be borne inmind, however, that the names found on the bullae were popular in ancient times and it is equally possible that there is no connection between the names found on the bulla in the Bible" (Shoham 2000: 33).l and the person mentioned Similarly, the Babatha Archive (from the chronological horizon preceding the Second Jewish Revolt of 132-135 CE) refers to a certain elite woman named "Julia Crispina" (Lewis 1989: nos. 20, 24). An Egyptian document refers to a propertied woman of the same horizon and Levantine activities (Yadin a substantial amount of Ilan has marshaled 1971: 247-48). evidence and argued that they can probably be identified, but she remains cautious (Ilan 1992: 361-81). During the early caution was not the history of the field, such methodological norm. However, it soon became evident that there had been some misidentifications. For example, Albright had argued that the stamped jar handles he found at Tell Beit Mirsim inscribed to Eliakim, the steward of Yokan" were to be "Belonging associated with King Jehoiachin (Albright 1932: 77-106). After all, the title "steward" was one that could be associated with the throne and "Yokan" was arguably a variant of the throne name Jehoiachin. Ultimately, it became apparent however, that the Eliakim jar handles were not to be associated with the same chronological horizon as the Judean monarch. Albright's seemed rational, but it had been wrong. quite rare, there are occasions when someone Although in the epigraphic attested record can be identified, with enormous certitude, with someone known from literature. This identification
requires substantial corroborating evidence. For example, the

CE) as a certain Simon "Bar Kokhba" (Dio Cassius; Eusebius). and Talmud, he is sometimes referred to the Mishnah Within as "Bar Koziba" (Yadin 1971: 255-59). For some time, scholars "Bar Kokhba" ("son of have stated that Simon's patronymic
the star") was a messianic appellation rather than an actual

patronymic. Of course, the Mishnah and Talmud's ("son of the lie") was understood to be a pejorative. With the publication of the Bar Kokhba Letters, the actual patronymic of Simon became known: "Bar Kosiba" (Yadin, et al. 2002). of the name, the because of the convergence Ultimately, chronological horizon, and historical context, it can be stated that the figure of literature and the epigraphic confidently figure can be identified. will contain a personal ancient Sometimes inscriptions and a title. Data such as these would have been useful in antiquity for a number of reasons. A bulla from the City " son of Zakar, to [Tobsillem] reference of David contains no. From the Aramaic the physician" (Shoham 2000: 35, 6). to "Data-Mithra the corpus, there is reference Persepolis the corpus of treasurer" (Bowman 1970: 71-74, no. 1).Within seal refers to "Palatya ben Ammonite inscriptions, amagnificent name Ma'a?, the recorder" (Taleb 1985: 21-29).2 A beautiful ossuary from Mount Scopus is inscribed with the words "Yehosep, son the scribe" (Rahmani 1994: 262, no. 893). Of of Hananya,
course, these sorts of data can be very useful for a modern

"BarKoziba"

and sometimes such scholar attempting to do prosopography a can be the basis for probable identification. For example, data sources referred to "Gallio" who was a "Proconsul of literary Achaia" (e.g., Tacitus, Annals 16.17.3; Pliny, HN 31.62; Acts 18:12). During the twentieth century, some nine fragments of a Greek inscription from Delphi referring to "Proconsul Gallio" were published. Based on a convergence of data (including is name it that the Gallio of the and title), the personal likely sources and the Gallio of the Delphic Inscription are literary one and the same person (Hemer 1980: 3-18). Similarly, the Mishnah refers to a Temple gate that was known as the "Gate of Nicanor," with Nicanor as someone hailing from Alexandria.
During the early-twentieth century, an ossuary was discovered

Moabite Stone was commissioned by "Mesha King of Moab." In this inscription, there is also reference to the Moabite site of Dhibon and to the fact that Moab was under the hegemony of Israel during the reign of Omri of Israel. Then, Mesha states that he was able to secure Moab's during the independence of the reign of Omri's "son." Because of the correspondences personal names, the title king of Moab, and the basic harmony of the historical data, it is convincing to argue that the Mesha of the Moabite Stone is the Mesha named in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kgs 3:4-5). Similarly, there are a number of literary sources that refer to the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt (132-135
*4F3C^? fx* ? -?sor * 'dgscy ? :*5csr; ^'-oc^;

the "the Ossuary of Nicanor in Jerusalem, inscribed in Semitic then and who made the doors" script: Alexandrian, "Nikanor Alexa" (Finegan 1992: 357-59; cf. Kane 1978: 279 82). It is cogent to argue that this ossuary is the ossuary of the in the Mishnah maker of the "Gate of Nicanor" mentioned (cf. lian 1992: 367). argued for rigorous methodologies Avigad Significantly, to affirm that a personal name attested in the for attempts epigraphic corpus and a figure attested in the Hebrew Bible can be identified. Namely, he states that the name and the patronymic must be the same in the epigraphic corpus and the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, he affirms that both must hail from the same chronological horizon (i.e., the archaeological

in Greek

r?ar?r<c5e?>s>?sx?"*v*3G?'?'<?3?^^

126 NEAREASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

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for the inscription and the putative historical context for the biblical personage must be the same). Finally, he affirms that the presence of a distinctive title in the epigraphic and the biblical corpus fortify identification. Nevertheless, Avigad was not satisfied even with this, for he also stated that because of certain names the presence of the of the preponderance same personal name and patronymic cannot be understood as demonstrative of the certainty of an identification (Avigad 1987: 235-37).

context

of ossuaries

and

some

are

very

common.

For

example,

Sukenik

published an ossuary inscribed "Yeshua4 son of Yehosep" more than seventy-five the years ago (Sukenik 1931). Moreover, names Yeshua4 and Yehosep are predominant in the family of Babatha's first husband and her first husband's grandfather was named "Yeshua4 bar Yehosep" (Lewis 1989: 35-40). That of is, even with the small corpus of epigraphic attestations even occurrence "Yeshua* the tomb of names, personal Talpiot bar Yehosep" is not unique. is the fact that Pellegrino, Striking, however, Jacobovici, and Tabor have argued that the ossuaries of the Talpiot tomb can indeed be identified with Jesus of Nazareth and his family Qacobovici and Pellegrino 2007; cf. Tabor 2006). To be precise, it has been argued that it is convincing to affirm that the ossuary of Yeshua4 bar Yehosep is that of Jesus of Nazareth, the ossuary inscribed "Maryah" is that of the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, the ossuary inscribed "Mariam(n)e" is that of Mary Magdalene of the gospels, the ossuary inscribed "Yoseh" is that of Jesus' brother Joseph, that of "Yehudah bar Yeshua" is that of a son born to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and the ossuary inscribed It is "Mattiyah" is also that of a relative of Jesus of Nazareth. in also affirmed that the persons buried the ossuary inscribed "Yeshua4 bar Yehosep" and that inscribed "Mariam(n)e {?} Mara" were married. Finally, it has even been argued that the unprovenanced ossuary with the inscription "Ya'akov bar 'ahui Yeshua" (i.e., the "James Ossuary") was stolen Yehosep from the Talpiot tomb decades ago (and it is assumed that the entire inscription is ancient). However, the problems with this proposal are legion. First of all, one should note that of the six inscribed ossuaries, there are just two personal names with patronymics: (1) "Yehudah bar Yeshua" and (2) "Yeshua4 bar Yehosep." Moreover, there
are no matronymics. There are no There are no to fraternal references or sororal to marital status. references relationships.

The tomb that has been identified as the "Jesus tomb" was discovered in 1980 by Yosef Gath during a salvage excavation at a site in the neighborhood of East Talpiot, Jerusalem. Within the tomb complex, ten ossuaries (six of them inscribed) were found (Rahmani 1994: 222-24, nos. 701-709). One of the ossuaries, plain and without an inscription, was quite damaged (Rahmani 1994: 222, comment 1; cf. 94, no. 70). Based on the totality of finds in the tomb, Kloner states that the tomb can be dated to the late Second Temple period, with about thirty five total burials (Kloner 1996: 21-22). Rahmani read the as names on ossuaries the Mariam?nou follows: (1) personal {?} Mara (Mariamne who is also called Mara).3 (2) Yhwdh br Ysw' (Yehudahbar Yeshua'). (3) Mtyh (Mattiyah). (4) Ysw' br Yhwsp (Yeshua4 bar Yehosep). (5) Ywsh (Yoseh). (6) Mryh in Pfann article this issue) has now argued (see (Maryah). that the reading Mariam?nou {?} Mara is erroneous and has proposed Mariam and Mara (i.e., Miriam and Mara). The names Yehosep, Yoseh, Yeshua4, Yehudah, Mattiyah, (or the variants Miryam, and Martha Maryah, Mariam(n)e, thereof) all have multiple attestations in the multilingual corpus

The Talpiot Tomb

These

are pivotal such data it is issues, because without the precise kinship relationships of impossible to ascertain antiquity. Such tombs were "family tombs," but to assume that a tomb represents some sort of nuclear family and to assume that one can discern without empirical evidence the nature of

the relationships within that family is problematic. With this in mind, it is helpful to look more closely at the Maryah Ossuary. There is no empirical reason to assume that she is the mother of Yeshua4 bar Yehosep. She might have been the wife of Yehudah, or the wife of Yoseh, or the wife ofMattiyah, or the wife of Yeshua4. Sometimes we have complementary
information that makes an affirmation about marital status.

One such instance is an ossuary from the Kidron valley, which is inscribed with the words "Shalom, wife of Yehudah" (Rahmani 1994: 81, no. 24). Also, an ossuary from Jerusalem's French Hill reads in both Semitic
The ossuary bearing of Associated courtesy the inscription Producers. "Jesus son of Joseph." Photo

(Rahmani,
Ossuary there

1994:
is no

and Greek, "Miryam, wife of Mattiyah" on the Maryah 197, no. 559). However,
such reference to marital status.

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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

127

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Maryah might even have been the daughter of one of the men
in the tomb. Sometimes such data are present. For example, an

nature of the relationship of the Mariam(n)e the Yeshua4 of the Yeshua* Ossuary.

of this ossuary to

from Jerusalem's Mount Scopus is inscribed "Judith, (Rahmani 1994: 201, no. 572). Likewise, daughter of Nadav" an ossuary from Ramat Eshkol, Jerusalem reads: "Ossuary of Shalom, daughter of Sha'ul, who failed to give birth. Peace, daughter!" (Rahmani 1994: 132, no. 226).4 However, no such data are present for the Maryah Ossuary; therefore, to assume ossuary scholar can discern and affirm the nature of that a modern some relationship is risible. Similarly, the assumption that the Yoseh of the Yoseh Ossuary was brother of Yeshua4 is problematic: the Yoseh Ossuary has no it fratronymic (designation that identifies the brother). While
is rare, sometimes ossuaries do mention the name of a brother.

DNA Evidence, Patinas, and Statistics

There have been some attempts to appeal to DNA evidence, and such evidence is popular among journalists and the public because it appears to be objective and scientific. However, the fact of the matter is that the DNA evidence simply cannot carry the weight that has been placed on it. That is, Jacobovici and Pellegrino have stated that the laboratory was able to recover from the Yeshua4 Ossuary and the sufficient bone material DNA analysis (but not for mitochondrial Mariam(n)e Ossuary enough for nuclear DNA analysis). Because the mitochondrial DNA did not "match," they have assumed that Yeshua4 and
Mariam(n)e notes that were too many married. Once assumptions again, are being the astute and observer that the made

ossuary from Mount Scopus is Asiya, brother of Hanin" (Rahmani when we look at the Talpiot Tomb, neither fratronymic nor patronynmic An

"Shimi, son of 1994: 200, no. 570). Yet, we notice that there is on this ossuary. Thus, it is not possible to make affirmations about paternity or fraternity. or the son of Ultimately, Yoseh could be the son of Mattiyah, was son or he the father of the of Yeshua4. Yehudah, Perhaps inscribed

results

should be called

potential the DNA

in-law and

into question. That is, a number of relationships can be posited that would account for evidence. For example, perhaps they were father
daughter-in-law, or brother-in-law and sister-in

or Mattiyah. Maybe he Maryah, or the father of Miriam(n)e, is the uncle of one of these or perhaps Yoseh was the son or father or brother or uncle of someone who was buried in one of the uninscribed ossuaries. It is even possible to suggest that the he was a cousin of someone in the tomb. Furthermore, could and the Yoseh of the of the ossuary patronymic Yehosep be the same person. After all, this is actually the same name and these ossuaries were inscribed at two different times and
in neither case is there a patronymic for "Yehosep" or "Yoseh."

law. In fact, they could have been brother and sister (with different mothers, but the same father). It could even be that and Yeshua4 were paternal aunt and nephew. In Mariam(n)e
summary, numerous options present themselves. Jacobovici

state that the DNA do not "negate" [their] and Pellegrino conclusion" (Jacobovici and Pellegrino 2007: 173), but this is much different from proving their conclusion. Of course, there is also no means of determining with certainty that the bones analyzed are those of the person whose name is inscribed on
the ossuary! In that short, cannot it is important be proven. not to make too many with regard assumptions Furthermore,

The
but

possibilities
ultimately,

detailed
because

here are not all mutually

is no patronymic, or

exclusive,
statement of

there

fraternity, or title, any suggestion about the relationship of Yoseh to those interred there remains conjecture and speculation. Of course, it has also been suggested that the Mariam(n)e ossuary inscription is to be identified with the Mary Magdalene ishardly a unique of the gospels. The problem is that Mariam(n)e
name and, moreover, the ossuary inscription does not contain

to the analyses of the patinas of the James Ossuary, certain 1) The origin and chain are not known and it

2)

the word "Magdalene." Sometimes we do have data about the region from which the deceased hailed. For example, an ossuary from the Kidron Valley contains a Greek inscription with the words "Sara (daughter of) Simon of Ptolemais" (Rahmani 1994: 102, no. 99). However, the Mariam(n)e ossuary does not
such a reference (i.e., no "Magdala"). Therefore, for

with any certitude authenticity of the entire inscription). the GSI) have Several laboratories (including actually authenticated modern forgeries during recent years; therefore, the field of epigraphy should be very a laboratory cautious about credulously accepting
analysis. laboratory There tests is, after all, a human component as well.

on the Talpiot ossuaries and those things should be stated. of custody for the James Ossuary is not possible to reconstruct them (nor is it even possible to establish the

to

3)

contain

someone to assume that the Mariam(n)e of the ossuary must of the gospels is without be the Mary Magdalene justification (cf. Fitzmyer 2007). She could be the wife of Mattiyah, Yoseh, Yehudah, or Yeshua4, or she could be the sister of any person in the tomb (even of someone interred in an uninscribed ossuary). Again, not all of these are mutually exclusive, but the point is the that it is na?ve to assume that one can state confidently

4)

There has been no indication that the laboratory tests were double-blind the (a standard practice within hard sciences). Iwould suggest that (a) ossuaries made Furthermore, from the same basic Jerusalem limestone and stored in rock hewn tombs of the same city can have similar patinas and that (b) the control group must be very large for decisive statements to be made about the differences between the patinas on ossuaries in Jerusalem tombs of
'?aOKB?atiW?Se?':a'<*SaKH

69:3-4 (2006) ARCHAEOLOGY 128 NEAR EASTERN

I m i^py^y-^M^,

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same chronological patina horizon. analyses indeed.5 Therefore, any attempt is

the

that "the presence

that "we also assume

of Matya
that

does not invalidate

son of Yeshua

the find" and

ossuary does

to use most

these precarious

as corroborating

evidence

the Yehuda

not invalidate tests performed

nexus of He then goes positing of a complete contentious."

the find, but we ignore it in the computations."

on I would to concede argue that that "this last assumption decision not is to Feuerverger's

Ultimately,
are not

it is readily apparent that the DNA

to permit the

sufficient

relationships in the face of a dearth of the necessary prosopographic that data, nor are the patina tests sufficient for demonstrating the Ya4akov Ossuary hailed from the Talpiot tomb. Regarding the statistics, Andrey Feuerverger has posted an open letter describing his basic premises and assumptions. He says, "we assume that "Mariam?nou eMara" is a singularly highly appropriate
concedes that this that

the presence of names such as factor in (as negative evidence) is problematic. After all, Yehudah bar Yeshua4 and Mattiyah there is no ancient evidence that Jesus of Nazareth fathered a child named Yehudah of Nazareth
It seems

with

and the closest known relative of Jesus the name Matthew was a great grandfather!
to suggest that Feuerverger's decision to

reasonable

appellation
"this drives

for Mary Magdalene."

is contentious the also outcome states that of and the "it

However,
furthermore computations is assumed

he

assumption

is avoid including data that militated against his hypothesis a critical flaw, as is his decision to weigh heavily several very
subjective assumptions.

assumption

substantially."

Feuerverger

that

Yose/Yosa
referred that this

is not
to on the

the same person

ossuary may be of Yeshua." erroneous.

as the father Yosef who

However, In addition, I have he noted assumes

is

assumption

Thomas Lambdin's famous dictum is that within the field we often "work with no data." This is a hyperbole, but the fact remains that we do work with partial data, and sometimes the data we have are just plain opaque. With the Talpiot tomb, there is a dearth of prosopographic data and this is a fact. There are no titles inscribed on the ossuaries
there are no associated epigraphic

and this is a fact. Also,

in the tomb (e.g.,

materials

a preserved epistle with some historical data). Based on the dearth of epigraphic evidence, it is simply precarious to make assumptions about the relationships of those buried therein, and it is certainly not tenable to suggest that the data are sufficient to posit that this is the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. there is nothing in the statistical or laboratory data Moreover,
that can sufficiently clarify the situation.6

Notes
1. I am grateful Michal A view Associated of the Mariamne Producers. from the front. Photo of this corpus ossuary courtesy 2. Note to Hava Katz of the of the Dayagi-Mendels of bullae. some consider this seal point. to be Moabite. I am grateful For the purposes of of to that and to Israel Antiquities Authority Israel Museum for allowing me to collate

this paper,

this is not of Jordan states and cf.

a relevant and Director

to the Department for permission

Antiquities collate this seal. 3. Rahmani name Martha 222 [no. 701];

Fawwaz

al-Khrayshah

that he believes that this

the name Mara

is a short name

form of the

is the case of a double [no. 468] for Mara to the same woman).

181-82

and Martha

1994: (Rahmani on the same

ossuary, arguably referring inscribed "Sha'ul" was found in the same that an ossuary 4. It is striking seems but had no children, had been It this that married, daughter place. in a tomb with her father, rather than in a tomb with and was interred her husband. of some of the problems with the laboratory tests on the 5. For a discussion to protocols for laboratory reference Ya'akov Ossuary, tests, and discussion results from labs, see Rollston of erroneous (2003: 182-91). the DNA and Ryan Jackson for discussing 6.1 am grateful to Lindsay Hunter in online evidence with me. An earlier version of this article was published to JimWest I am indebted for posting The SBL Forum (March 2007). Also, 13, 2007. my preliminary analyses on his blog on February 26 and March

The Greek Associated

inscription Producers.

on the Mariamne

ossuary.

Photo

courtesy

of

???aMr?E?'?4B5w>+?asar

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? *se^

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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

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129

0'7

z, N X'N

"O S?
IT

'NZ N X114V N
xp:

-,NZ L
"pt _7 XL i)

N Z' X. NY/A" NV/

Mary Magdalene the room

A suggested new

has

left

9.

There

are no

examples

of a scratch

or punctuation

mark

reading of

standing for a signum (or any other phrase) among the Greek inscriptions of this period. 10. The existence of two consistently distinct handwriting and cursive, brings into question styles, documentary the proposed unity of the inscription. Both of the scribal hands preserved on this ossuary are exceptional and betray writers who are both practiced and comfortable in writing Greek. Therefore, it isdifficult to imagine that an apparently literate Hellenistic Jew of first-century Jerusalem could produce such an extraordinary list of anomalies, lapses in basic Greek
grammar, and writing errors, all within the space of two words.

ossuary CJO 701

Stephen J, Pfann
The name "Mariamene" is of central importance to the story

line of the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" and its companion book. Since "Mariamene" isunique (and likewise, "Mariamne," is rare) among the ossuaries, this name is also highly significant when creating statistics and probabilities concerning the uniqueness of the Talpiot cave and its inscribed ossuaries. The filmmakers considered the name on this ossuary to be like the Ringo names, when found together in among John, Paul, and George?the the tomb give the entire site a specific connection with history. The original publication of the ossuary by archaeologist L. Y Rahmani (with L. Di Segni), followed by A. Kloner, interpreted as reading MARIAMENOU'MARA: "of this inscription
Mariamene (a.k.a.) Mara." However, in order to maintain this

According
is the one

to normal methodology,
that accounts for the

the reading to be preferred

number of elements

greatest

in place of with the least number of difficulties. Therefore, Rahmani's original reading, I suggest the following reading:

MARIAME KAIMARA.
The first name on the ossuary was written in the contemporary

Greek documentary

style of the first century:

reading, one must first accept a string of premises upon the following anomalies and exceptions: 1.

that are based Four letters of the first name are clear and erect: M, A, R, I.The
next the two scribe's letters are written of a bit more a scratch or askew (apparently between due to the avoidance imperfection

Except for the two first-century inscriptions thought to bear the name "Mariamne" (CJO 701 and 108, both now in question), and the spellings of MARIAMNE MARIAMENE do not appear before the third century CE (Beth Shearim). The ending for the proposed familiar form of the name, MARIAMENOU, appears as -OU, rather than the expected diminutive ending TOU. The connection of the two letters OU (as a ligature) begins to appear regionally and only sparingly in the in the form century (and is not written early-second in this inscription). found is assumed to contain a backwards N MARIAMENOU
and not an ordinary K.

2.

3.

two letters) : A, M. This is followed by a proper, documentary H of this period, in the same style as the previous letters. So far, the word as it stands forms "MARIAME," which is the normal Greek form of the Hebrew name "Mariam." ("Mariame" appears seven times in the Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries.) This name is followed by a gap that is sufficiently wide to signify a space between distinct words. As we shall see, this is not because the scribe suddenly introduced anomalous letterforms, nor even changed his handwriting style inmid-sentence. Rather, I suggest that it is because a second scribe had subsequently added the last two words of the inscription in a different style. Upon closer examination, I suggest that the three letters Rahmani read as "NOU" should be translated by the common word "KAI" and, written in the Greek cursive form of the word. Cursive tendencies among various scribal hands lead to varying degrees of cursive forms. These cursive forms often appear in the in official documents that normally would be written be termed forms These formal Greek documentary may script.
as cursive these or semi-cursive are found. tendencies depending The most upon common the extent cursive to which tendency

4. 5.

An arguably accidental scratch before MARA is assumed to stand for the feminine article H "eta," an unknown abbreviation for H KAI, which in turn is an inaccurate
version of THS KAI, meaning "who is also called...."

6.
7.

IfMARA
name, In a signum,

is assumed
be the

to be a signum (alias) for the first

must be in the same grammatical

it cannot

a title.

two names

8.

(especially inflectional case) form, but they are not. In a signum, the two personal names are typically foreign to one another (e.g., Hebrew/Greek), but Mariamne and Mara are both Jewish names.

is to execute individual letterforms without lifting the tip of the tendency is to connect pen from the writing surface. Another consecutive letters without lifting the pen, to form ligatures.

--130

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appearance of cursive writing is that there is a graceful sequence of looping strokes as can be seen inKAI MARA. This stands in contrast to the triangular, squared and rather jagged succession of strokes in the more formal script used in the first Also, from the part of the inscription (i.e., with MARIAME). I line of horizontal argue space, standpoint that although each scribe inscribed a total N of seven letters, the cursive style of the second scribe allowed him to write his seven letters, but within three-quarters of the line space of the first. The kappa on this ossuary exhibits the ?m full cursive form of this letter, which requires that the letter's three strokes be executed without lifting the tip of the pen (see The overall below).

question

has a shallow U-shaped profile as can be seen in the upper right of the photo. The scribe also continued in the cursive style with respect to
the word MARA. Mara, as noted

by Tal lian, among other

was of a common the Aramaic shortened name

scholars,
form "Martha."

reading
"Mariam

the ossuary CJO

who is also Mara."

Several scholars have suggested 701 as MARI AM H KAI MARA

If all the words of the inscription were in the standard Greek script (as above) then the inscription could be documentary read either as

"KALON KERAMION" This

letters

Masada

tp 858

is also true concerning

A and I, which, as

the cursive form of the remaining

in this case, were commonly written

MARI AME KAI MARA, "Mariame and Mara," or, alternatively, MARIAM H KAI MARA, "Mariam who is also Mara," including the standard signum formula "H KAI." is how the The second graphic example (in red, below), would appear had the second scribe (who transcription originally wrote KAI MARA) written the entire inscription. (Note also the clearly distinct form of the H (eta) used in these
two reconstructed lines.)

together as a ligature, that is, without lifting the tip of the pen. At times the entire word iswritten without lifting the pen.

Document

exhibiting KAI with a semi-cursive kappa followed by the cursive ligature AI (5/6 Hevl2)

Another document parroting the same text containing KAI but with cursive kappa, ligature AI and connected writing

Likewise, if all words were in the Greek cursive script (as above) KAI then the inscription could be read either: MARIAME MARA: "Mariame and Mara," or alternatively MARIAM H KAI MARA: "Mariam who is also Mara." However, 1) the eta is not detached from MARIAM; 2) the eta iswritten in the same squared documentary style (and not as not MARIAMH the MARIAM; cursive) 3) MARIAM) (and is by far the normal formal name for "Mary" among the ossuaries; and 4) according to Schwabe and Lifschitz, the signum formula should have two names of distinct ethnic origins. Above all, I have argued here that the inscription was written in two distinct script styles?standard Greek documentary
script and Greek cursive script?consistent within the two

Yadin [olim 5/6Hev] 16) (R

There are no examples of a scratch or

punctuation mark standing for a signum (or any other phrase) among the Greek inscriptions of this period. In fact, the scratch that stands after KAI and was identified by Rahmani as standing for, in itself, "H KAI," was not made with either tool that was utilized in writing the two parts of the inscription. The strokes of the inscription have either double grooved or deep V-shaped troughs in profile. However, the scratch in

parts of the inscription. This being the case, it seems logical to postulate that two scribes were involved in the writing process. It is also logical to
postulate that the writing took place on separate occasions. In

light of the above, I suggest that the inscription should be read KAI MARA, "Mariame and Mara." as, MAPIAMH

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il?SKMSM^Siga^^

Testing

a hypothesis

James D. Tabor
Thefirst time theTalpiot attention was a BBC Question" "Jesus" tomb received any public its excavation when titled "The Body in

sixteen years after documentary

produced

aired in the UK on Easter

1996. The London Sunday

Times ran a feature story titled "The Tomb that Dare Not Speak " Its Name, based on that documentary. Both the documentary and the newspaper article called attention of names inscribed on six ossuaries found a Joseph, a Matthew, to the interesting cluster in the tomb: Jesus son and a Jude son of headlines that the officials than starting with the tomb and its six inscribed ossuaries, and exploring all the alternative possibilities, which given the scarcity of data, are endless, I take a different approach. It
is true, for example, that a name like Yose, appearing alone The James inside of the Talpiot tomb, looking north. Photo courtesy of

of Joseph, twoMarys,

Tabor.

Jesus. A flurry of wire stories followed with

"tomb of Jesus" had perhaps been found. Archaeologists, from the IsraelAntiquities quickly weighed " common. One Authority

(IAA), and biblical scholars that "the names were with the

in, assuring

the public

lone voice, Joe Zias, an anthropologist

without

IAA at the Rockefeller at that time, demurred, stating that the cluster of names considered together was so significant that had he

he not known they were from a provenanced

IAA excavation

were forged. Zias called for further would have been certain the;y investigation. Within a short time the press dropped the story

patronym, could be any male of a Jewish clan, whether father, brother, son, nephew, or uncle. But ifwe begin with our was the historical records asking a different question?who reason we in "Yose" Jesus' life, and is there any might expect answer him to be in a hypothetical pre-70 CE Jesus tomb??the is specific and singular. Rather than starting with an endlessly
open and undetermined set of "unknowns," my approach,

and no one in the academy more to be done. It was

other than Zias saw any reason for

in terms of method, is to begin with the specific "knowns." Essentially what Iwant to do is test a hypothesis, something we
constantly do when we seek to correlate the material evidence

in response to that 1996 story, and the director of the IAA, report on the tomb,

attention

that it drew, that Amir Drori, to write up an official

of archaeology
"horizons." that That one can

within

our known
no matter posit still other not

textual
what one's

and chronological
theory might be,

It is obvious, always some can

asked Amos Kloner published

later that year in 'Atiqot.1

is why

and alternatives. possibilities on or not there whether agree

is

The current 2007 discussion of the tomb, also prompted a TV in and passionate by documentary, though heated some quarters, has prompted some extensive and thoughtful in this academic responses, as witnessed by the contributions issue of Near Eastern Archaeology. Each of these scholars finds the evidence lacking for identifying this particular "Jesus" tomb with that of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and his family, and most consider the hypothesis overly speculative or even academically irresponsible. that there is My view is quite the opposite. I am convinced a surprisingly close fit between what we might postulate as a pre -70 CE Jesus family tomb based on our textual hypothetical and this particular tomb with its contents. Rather records,

a "fit" between the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls and In terms of method I think what I suggest the site of Qumran. can turn out to be and I hope it will here quite enlightening
contribute to the discussion in a positive way.

in this article is what one might I want imagine for a hypothetical, pre-70 CE, Jerusalem tomb of Jesus and his family. Given our textual evidence, what might we reasonably construct in terms of likelihood? What to explore

The Second Burial of Jesus

I begin with what we know
Nazareth. Nearly everyone

about

the burial
that the

of Jesus of
report

assumes

gospels

that Joseph of Arimathea took the corpse of Jesus and laid it in his own new tomb late Friday night. A group of women,

32

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(2006)

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and others, followed, noting the location of Mary Magdalene the tomb. Sunday morning when they visited, to complete the Jewish rites of burial, the tomb was empty. The problem with is that our best evidence this assumption indicates that this was into which tomb, Jesus temporarily placed, did not belong to Joseph of Arimathea. following: And he [Joseph of Arimathea] bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb
that had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against

A Jesus Family Prosopography

Based on our earliest textual sources, I propose the following as potential list of individuals candidates for burial in a tomb: hypothetical Jesus family Jesus himself Joseph his father Mary his mother His brothers: James, Joses, Simon, and Jude, and any of their wives or children His sisters: Salome and Mary (if unmarried) Any wife or children of Jesus

Mark,

our earliest

account,

says the

the door of the tomb (Mark 15:46). John's gospel, reflecting further explanation:
Now in the place where a new

an independent

tradition,

offers a

he was

crucified had

there was ever been

a garden,

and

in

the garden

tomb where

no one

laid. So because at hand, they

of the Jewish

day of Preparation,

as the

tomb was

close

laid Jesus there (John 19:41-42). Mark does not explain the choice of the tomb, but according to the gospel of John this initial burial of Jesus by Joseph of
Arimathea was a temporary, emergency measure, with the

There had to be, of course, many other names we simply to the Jesus family, do not know, with various connections but these names and relationships we can at least consider as hypothetically likely. I realize the matter of Jesus having a wife and children is usually seen as unlikely but one has to factor in the nature of our records and the social context in which Jesus lived. None of the wives or children of any apostles or the brothers of Jesus are ever named in the gospels, yet Mark indicates that Peter was married (Mark 1:30), and Paul mentions that the apostles and brothers of Jesus traveled about with their wives (1 Cor 9:5). Silence regarding women, in late, sources such as our New Testament post-70 CE, theological gospels, does not imply non-existence. Also, when Paul strongly recommends celibacy as a superior spiritual lifestyle he fails to
use Jesus as an example even in a context where he is desperate

Sabbath hours away. It was a burial of necessity and opportunity. This particular tomb was chosen because it was to be near. The idea that this tomb unused and happened to are of Arimathea makes no sense. What belonged Joseph the chances that he would just happen to have his own new Passover family tomb conveniently located near the Place of the Skull, or Golgotha, where the Romans regularly crucified their victims?2 Mark indicates that the intention of those involved was to complete the full and proper rites of Jewish burial after Passover. one would expect the body of Given these circumstances, resting Jesus to be placed in a second tomb as a permanent place. This second tomb would presumably be one that either belonged to, or was provided by, Joseph of Arimathea, who had both the means and the will to honor Jesus and his family in one would not expect the permanent this way. Accordingly, tomb of Jesus, and subsequently his family, to be near Golgotha, in Jerusalem. These but in a rock-hewn tomb elsewhere also address the issue that some have raised that the Talpiot tomb could not be that of Jesus since he is poor and from Galilee. James, the brother of Jesus, became leader of the Jesus movement following Jesus's death in 30 CE.Our evidence in Jerusalem indicates that the movement was headquartered circumstances until 70 CE. The core group of followers, banded around Jesus' took up residence there family and the Council of Twelve, as well, even though most of them were from Galilee. This evidence points strongly toward the possibility of a Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem, but different from the temporary burial cave into which Jesus' body was first hastily placed.
>K-iX K YK I K -: Y -'1-'YK -:X Y7 K^:-.r-:Kc -:-'Yx X K -NAYS

to refer to him for authority (1 Cor 7:8-12). Ifwe next ask which of these individuals might hypothetically be buried in a pre-70 CE Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem, after the year 30 CE when Jesus was crucified, we come up with a more chronologically restricted list of potential candidates:

Jesus himself Mary his mother Joseph his brother, and maybe James Any wife and children of Jesus who died before 70 CE Jesus' father Joseph should be eliminated because he seems to have died decades earlier, probably in Galilee, and we have no record of him in Jerusalem in this period (see Acts 1:14). Jesus' mother Mary, given her age, could well have died before 70 CE, and as a widow, according to Jewish custom, would be put in the tomb of her oldest son. Jesus' brothers Simon and Jude apparently lived past 70 CE based on our records, so they should be eliminated from our list. Jesus' brother Joses is a strong candidate since he is the "missing brother" in our historical in 62 CE, it is Simon, the records. When James is murdered third brother, not Joses, the second, who takes over leadership of the movement. The New Testament letters of James and we even to their and have an account influence, Jude testify
-RNK -:C E-_S R -A-OG-R- Y NEA EASER YL -9 -:3- tr 133 69:3 4- (2006 133

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ARCHAEOLOGY

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survives of the death of Simon by crucifixion, but nothing Given the brother the whatsoever culture, it regarding Joses. is likely that Jesus' sisters would be married, and thus buried in the tombs of their husbands, so they are not prime first level candidates either. Since we have no textual record of a wife or children we can only say, hypo the tically, that if such existed they might be included.

hypothetical
our textual

list of potential
evidence:

candidates we can construct

from

1) Yeshua bar Yehosef 2) Maria (Aramaic) 3) Yose (Aramaic)

(Aramaic)

[also known as] Mara (Greek and decorated) 4) Mariemene 5) Yehuda bar Yeshua (Aramaic and decorated) 6) Matya (Aramaic)

The TalpiotTomb
in the Talpiot tomb with six of There were ten ossuaries an them inscribed. This is high percentage. exceptionally For example, just taking the sample of ossuaries retained in the state collection of Israel only about twenty percent are ismuch too high for ossuaries inscribed, but that percentage in general, since plain ones are regularly discarded. It is not as remains the case, has been reported, that the of up to were in individuals found this tomb. thirty-five additional As Kloner makes clear in his article, this is a demographic estimate, not data based on any kind of anthropological study of the Talpiot tomb remains. There were remains of at least two or possibly three individuals?skulls vertebrae, and limb swept from the arcosolia, and found just bones?apparently below on the floor, perhaps by intruders in antiquity. That the bones of these individuals were never gathered and put in ossuaries seems to indicate that the 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem terminated the family use of the tomb.3 Although it is possible that the bones of more than one individual were DNA the mitochondrial results of placed in the ossuaries, the two that could be tested, that of Yeshua and Mariamene, showed clear singular profiles.4 The Talpiot tomb seems to be a small (2.9 x 2.9 meter), modest, pre-70 CE family burial cave with remains of a dozen or so individuals. in the Talpiot The six inscriptions tomb show a rather to the chronologically remarkable correspondence restricted

Yeshua bar Yehosef is an appropriate inscription for Jesus of Its messy informal style and the lack of honorific Nazareth. titles ("theMessiah," or "our Lord") fit what Iwould expect for his burial in 30 CE. The toponym "of Nazareth," like the title Nazarene, ismore reflective of later theology than contemporary informal usage?especially within the family.5 The Aramaic form of the nickname Yose (nov), short for Yehosef/Joseph, is rare in this period, found only here on an ossuary and on two other inscriptional examples. It is equivalent to the later to an equally popular nickname Yosi (*OV*).6It corresponds rare form of the name in Greek, namely Yoses or Yose (lcoor|s/ Icoorj), that occurs only five times in all our sources, literary and inscriptional. This is in fact the precise form of the nickname by which the gospel of Mark, our earliest source, knows Jesus' second brother Joseph (Mark 6:3). There are two "Marys" in this tomb, known by different mitochondrial
is not related

The forms of that name, namely Maria and Mariamene. in this tomb DNA test indicates the Mariamene
to Yeshua as mother or sister on the maternal

leaves open the likelihood that Maria could well be the mother, especially if we have two of her sons, Yeshua and Yose, in this tomb. It would make sense that she would be buried with her children in this intimate, small, family tomb side. That and that her ossuary would be inscribed Maria.

Jesus
SAMECH yAy PEAH

son or Joseph
yyD

RESH

AY

VAV
YVD

A close-up of Associated

of the

inscription Producers.

"Jesus

son of Joseph."

Photo

courtesy The reading of the "Jesus son of Joseph" - , ??. inscription.

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the presence of the named son of Yeshua in this tomb, and based on the mitochondrial DNA namely Yehuda/Jude, seems it is that Mariamene the mother evidence, quite likely Given of this son. The of Nazareth, speculation, if this is indeed the tomb of Jesus is based on a that she might be Mary Magdalene, cluster of later evidence. There were three intimate "Marys" in Jesus* life, his mother,

I find it striking that five of the six inscriptions correspond so closely to a hypothetical pre-70 CE family tomb of Jesus in we as Jerusalem might imagine it based on textual evidence.
The one inscription we cannot account for, Matya or Matthew,

remains a puzzle. The name is relatively rare (2.4 percent of males, compared to Joseph at 8.6 percent and Yeshua at 3.9 It is worth noting that Matthew is a name known percent). within Also, the family of Jesus (see the genealogies of Matt 1; Luke 3). the only Matthew known to us in the gospels, also called Levi, is said to be of the Alphaeus family clan (Mark 2:14). In some early Christian or Clophas is this traditions, Alphaeus the brother of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Still, just who this particular Matthew was and why he would be in this tomb, if it did belong to Jesus and his family, we simply to not know. I find between this hypothetical "fit" the intimate pre-70 CE

his sister, and Mary Magdalene. Indeed, itwas Mary Magdalene, his mother, and his other sister Salome, that attended to his burial rites (Mark 16:1). Family intimates carried out this important rite of washing and anointing the corpse for burial. If is not Jesus' mother or sister, as the mitochondrial Mariamene DNA then that she indicates, it seems a logical possibility could be that "third" Mary, namely Mary Magdalene, his

We don't know much

in our New Testament of means to be a woman

about Mary Magdalene

but she does seem with and she is associated

sources,

and family of Jesus and Nazareth the names found in this tomb quite impressive and it argues strongly against an out of hand dismissal of the tomb as possibly, or even likely, associated with Jesus of Nazareth.

several other women of standing from Galilee.

and close companion, based on her inclusion as a named intimate in our earliest records. We don't know much in our New Testament sources, but she about Mary Magdalene follower does seem to be a woman of means and she is associated with several other women of standing from Galilee (Luke 8:1-3). The Mariamene is and the inscription ossuary is decorated in Greek, which surely fits this data, as Migdal, according to the record of Josephus, was a large, thriving, and culturally diverse "Romanized" city with a theater, hippodrome, and large aqueduct system. Despite alternative proposals, I accept the reading of Rahmani is a (and Di Segni) that Mariamene7 diminutive or endearing form of the name Mariamne, derived from Mariame, a name that is associated with Mary Magdalene in early Christian tradition (Hippolytus, Acts of Philip, Origen, Greek fragments of the Gospel ofMary). That she is also known by theAramaic name "Mara," (the absolute feminine of Mccp/NIO) which like "Martha," (the emphatic feminine) means "lordess," seems all the more appropriate.8 Recent scholarship on Mary has gone a long way toward rehabilitating her Magdalene In a important place in earliest history of the Jesus movement. sources diverse collection of early Christian dating from the late first century through the fourth, she is a prominent leader and voice among the apostles and an intimate companion of Jesus, holding her place over against better-known male disciples.
nine

5?
were

Notes
1. Kloner of the ossuaries 222-24). The included (1996:15-22). Two years earlier in Rahmani a short had been in the catalog Joseph Gath, the ossuary description had

(1994:

late excavator, but before

published

preliminary

report

in 1981,

inscriptions

deciphered (Hadashot Arkheobgiyot 76 (1981: 24-26).

2. The assumption that Joseph where tomb" owned this tomb is based interpolation of Matthew, he adds (Matt two words to make to his on a theological source Mark, fit the

"he laid it in his own new prophecy a rich man." 3. Such Boaz in Isa 53:9,

27:60)

Jesus' burial would

that the grave

of Yahweh's

"Servant"

be "with

is the case with in 1998 and

the Akeldama subsequently of a skeleton

"Tomb examined dating

of the Shroud," by Shimon Gibson

found

by

Zissu

where (see

the shrouded Zissu, Gibson, 4. Carney than one of testing 5. Jesus

remains

before

70 GE were (2000: DNA 70-72). work, given

found

and Tabor, Hadashot who would did have

Arkheobgiyot

Matheson, individual

the mitochondrial shown

says more the methods

up in the sample

that he followed. is legally known as the "son of Joseph" ' in both the Synoptic

tradition and in John (Luke3:23; 4:22;Matt 13:55; John 1:46;6:42). One

other example of "Yeshua bar Yehosef It was "discovered" is known on an ossuary (No. 9, pi. 2 storage in Rahmani). by Eleazar Sukenik in a basement

area of the Palestinian unfortunately

Archaeological He

Museum

in Jerusalem

in 1926 but

is unprovenanced. in January, 1931, and the news one ever found until the Talpiot small 1930: stir in the world 213-39). The press, nickname

that

a report about the ossuary published such an inscription the only existed, in 1980, created no tomb was discovered in Europe; a contracted see Vincent (1929?

particularly Yeshua,

form of Yehoshua/

NEAR

EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)13

X1.7 UZN'JX N N'XN"Vi X N V ?N?Z,- N, X N-V

X N, X N X x N X N?V -i N x N,
N Z''

L\c

Xj Y, N

N X NL -vl L'Zx N X N X N X

-X77- 4:? X--) :??XP. I IC 'V 5? /-n< \ CNX?, ?x

"x

N 3

N /J-

N Z N XX N x

N X

IV, I 1.

Joshua elsewhere 6. The

(which makes on eleven

up 3.9 percent ossuaries.

of male

names

in the period)

occurs

Freitas, A. 1998 On Objective in Principles of Rule Surprisingness. 1-9 Pages Data and Second of Mining Knowledge Discovery: PKDD '98. Nantes, France, September Symposium, edited by J.M. Zytkow, M. Quafafou. Measures

onomastic

data here

is from Ilan (2002). Although

her chronological

in (not just the ossuaries period is broad, her inclusion of all known ossuary the state collection of Israel), textual, and inscriptional offers an evidence, to do work on name frequencies among impressive data base upon which males and females in ancient Palestine. 7. The Greek in the genitive reads Mapiauf]VOU, form case, a diminutive is rare and is found also on one This form of the name (1994: ossuary no. in the 108). state collection of Israel, Rahmani

European 23-26, New Finegan, 1992 J.

1998 Proceedings, York: Springer.

The Archaeology Beginning University

of theNew

Testament: Rev.

The Life of Jesus and ed. Princeton: Princeton

the

of Mapiaurivr). other ossuary, Rahmani 8. There is another

of the Early Church. Press.

(1994: no. 868) that reads in Greek: AAe?asMapa

Lordess], is also which offers a strong case, parallel to this usage. See the The in the genitive followed by Mara. and Greek limited

[of Alexa/
name Alexa examples

Fitzmyer, 2007

J.A. Review of The Jesus Family Tomb in America. The National

CatholicWeekly 196/13: 36-37.

Gath, Y. Archaeological Document Discoveries in IDAM Hadashot archives, in East Talpiot in Jerusalem. n.d.

of the use of Mar/Mara

in Aramaic

in Ilan (2002:

422-23). Rockefeller Museum. (Hebrew)

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POO??CX^9=

CO'

'

CX;?*

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13{?a?XT?'-iC5CS?'?Oi-O"*w

?3C*sCJ?*

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(2006)

NZ/NIN
4 N ~ ~ ~ ~ -XNl-'' (N \ N NX-~ CN> ~) (x)(x i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I (:) C

V 4

;; ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4~

?j$ (I>K+j~.7;

> J':j

xx?Yn X<

XC<N

>/%

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M.

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1983
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c??K?a?c??:?sffiKiri??ii?5ra^^^^^

w^zm

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* -^^w * -mxm %r?x?'?is?i;i!r?ai:iiR?

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ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN 69:3-4

(2006)

The

Ottoman Reform,

at Hisban: Qasr and New Social

Fermer, and 0ystein

Architecture, Relations
S. LaBianca

by Lynda Carroll, Adam

Toward

settled in Transjordan. Many were taking were state to create private that the Ottoman designed by advantage policies implemented tax increase and the stated base, encourage market-based help in the stated landholdings, agricultural production, their resources and capital, established modernization efforts. In the process, some of the new settlers consolidated large same construction the of farmsteads and local At the merchants notables. time, farmsteads, and became large important the end of the nineteenth of new land-tenure century, merchants from Palestine by these new "pioneers" changed the lives of the tribal groups and peasant fellahin already living in the area.

Located just southwest of Tall Hisban in Jordan lies a complex of farm buildings dating to the late Ottoman period. Known as the "Qasr" or "Bayt Nabulsi" (the Nabulsi House) in the Village of Hisban, this complex is but one example of late-nineteenth century farmsteads that can be found throughout the Jordan
countryside. Its position above the surrounding valleys and

on a daily basis can illustrate how people organize their lives and societies. As a result, the landscapes and architectural like the of late-nineteenth century farmhouses composition for the changing political Qasr at Hisban provide evidence economy of the late Ottoman (1516? period in Transjordan 1916) and its effects on the people living on this frontier.

commanding landscape
twentieth

views of its environs of Hisban during

More

helped transform the built and early the late-nineteenth

the Qasr represents a

Reform, Investment, and Crisis

During the nineteenth century, major economic and political transformations swept throughout the Ottoman Empire and its state initiated the provinces. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman Tanzimat reforms, which established new rights for all Ottoman individual property rights, more included subjects. These new In 1858, and land-tenure taxation, policies. equitable
land-tenure reforms required Ottoman subjects to register

centuries.

importantly,

period of major social and economic change in Transjordan, and provides evidence of a changing way of life for the people who lived in this frontier region of the Ottoman Empire. between the One way to understand the relationship state and its subjects is to examine how local Ottoman
landscapes change when new state policies are implemented.

are the physical and architecture stages on Landscapes which life is played out. The way that these spaces are used

private landholdings intended to encourage

and

with

the state. Private

tax base for

landholding

was
state.

investments, by new
the Ottoman

agricultural reforms
state

production,

a strong

the Ottoman

Energized
policies,

and economic
once again

In its interest to its Arab provinces. a at it established al-Salt, garrison Transjordan, built the Hijaz railroad, settled immigrants in frontier regions, built roads, and established a turned
functioning regional government.

***** 1

Large farmsteads were being used as themodel in most of for profitable private landholdings state offered land the empire, and the Ottoman grants to colonists and migrant populations in
Transjordan. Tracts of pastureland?once used

The Qasr, courtesy

an Ottoman-period of Lynda Carroll.

farmhouse

in Jordan.

View

facing

southwest.

Photo

converted primarily for sheep and goats?were to farms (Rogan 1999: 89). The new emphasis on grain provided a degree of security to those in its production; involved during times of on it sold the international could be plenty were when but low, prices markets, yields rose and presented significant profits to local became a Private landholdings producers.

138

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

agriculture

and

land

acquisition

as

an

economic

venture.

and

inexpensive

source

of

grain

on

these

plantation-like

Merchant families west of the Jordan River in particular were drawn to the region by the prospect of acquiring agricultural for land (Rogan 1992: 240). Faced with the competition limited amounts of land, settlers and Bedouin alike registered land, thereby gaining state recognition of private ownership. Some local Bedouin registered lands in their names, but, not
interested in agricultural pursuits themselves, made agreements

with merchant-farmers who paid a proportion of the crop to the tribes in return for its use and protection (Lewis 1987: 129). Ultimately, not all groups benefited from the Tanzimat policies. The new land-tenure system legalized private ownership of the
land. In the process, access to and rights over land use were

settlements. This practice proved to be very profitable and many families became quite wealthy. Several major farmstead in the region surrounding settlements al-Salt, developed including al-Yaduda, owned by the Abujaber family (Abujaber 1989), Umm al-Kundum of the Bisharats, al-Rajib of the Abu Quras, and Hisban of the Nabulsi family. Records from some of the larger farmsteads like al-Yaduda still survive. However, there is limited information on the estate farms like the one at Hisban. Yet, the operations of small remnants of the buildings and farmsteads themselves, along with oral histories, still remain.

Some new settlers secured areas used whose traditional use was neither by Bedouin, previously nor state (Lewis honored always recognized by the Ottoman 1987: 127-29). Many people also lost the right to use lands reshuffled and redistributed. through cycles of credit and indebtedness. In an economy where liquid capital to pay for taxes and debt was scarce, some local or tribal groups mortgaged their lands, usually to merchants
officials in al-Salt who were interested in mercantile endeavors

Ottoman Hisban
centuries, the state During the sixteenth and seventeenth considered the Hisban area to be farmland. Settlement was seasonal (Russell 1988: 30). Semi-nomadic tribes no doubt made use of the pre-Ottoman-period buildings and cisterns
in the Hisban region, were and also a natural used for spring. storage, The shelter, many and caves as animal around pens

and the profits brought from agricultural production. The need for cash and capital created a crisis formany people in the region. For the previous two centuries, Jordan had an on barter and semi-nomadic economy based predominantly were introduced, most Tanzimat Until the reforms pastoralism. of the population had little use for cash. As rain-fed grain became the basis of the new economic system, there agriculture was a rise in demand for cash, since it was needed to purchase
seeds, tools, draft animals, and other provisions necessary for

(LaBianca 1990: 76; 2000: 210). century, Hisban was inhabited seasonally By the nineteenth and the Adwan (Russell 1988: by two tribes, the Ajarma involved in 31). Both tribes were semi-nomadic pastoralists, limited cultivation of the land. Archaeologists have recently uncovered on the summit of Tall Hisban (located to the north use of of Bayt Nabulsi) evidence of temporary Ottoman-period the site for agriculture and animal husbandry, and a series of nineteenth century Adwan burials dating prior to 1876 (Walker 1999;Walker and LaBianca 2003). of the Ajarma Members tribe registered Hisban and the surrounding region with the Ottoman state in 1881 (Lewis 1987: in an attempt to secure official rights to use of the 127-28) to ethnohistorical land. According sources, the farmstead was a to local strongman named Salman al-Barare. It is not registered
clear to his whether strength the as registration strongman of land in al-Barare's community, or name was due in the if registration

settled life. In addition, new economic

taxation created a demand for hard

policies
currency

that emphasized
to pay taxes

(Abujaber 1989: 83-84). By the second half of the nineteenth

investors used this crisis as a new opportunity

century,
to extract

outside
profit

from the local population through money lending (Abujaber 1989: 83-84). and moneylenders investors, Merchants, a foothold in the local economy, thus established through land acquisition, and trade. moneylending, The collateral that moneylenders would accept varied, but or were common. As Bedouin most land agricultural products and fellahin fell into more debt, merchants and moneylenders were able to contract out their land to sharecroppers. Creditors were often patient with debtors; this is clear since some debts were
not collected through the courts until they were years overdue.

Although leniency may have allowed debtors to fall even more into debt, it ismore likely that the moneylenders would deeply not have cared whether or not debts were paid on time as long as the flow of grain was uninterrupted (Rogan 1992: 248-54). When a debtor was unable to pay back the allotted amount, creditors would either collect by appropriating land, or claim rights over its use (Abujaber 1989: 83-85).

created new leadership through state legitimization. Reportedly, the Adwan did not complain when the Ajarma registered the land, since they wanted to form an alliance with the Ajarma that would allow them to stand against the larger and more powerful Beni Sahkr tribe (Conder 1892: 322; Russell 1988: 32). Exactly how and when the Nabulsi family came to Hisban is inNablus, the family became quite wealthy still unclear. While soap through production and property transactions. They were one of the richest families in the city by the nineteenth century the east bank of the Jordan River (al-Nimr 1938: 87). When became more secure for investment, members of the family saw an opportunity to diversify their income and assets. One to al-Salt. Controlling of the Nabulsi family moved considerable amounts of capital, they became merchants and contracts with and acquired money-lending moneylenders, local tribes (Kana'an 1993). branch

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006)

139

gradually fell into debt (Russell 1988), and were obliged to sell the land at a low price. Al-Barare, the farmstead's original owners, was pressured by his fellow tribesmen to sell his home to the Nabulsis. The Qasr remains inNabulsi family control to this day. The farmstead is currently jointly owned by the third generation of the al-Salt Nabulsi family. Once in control of the land, the Nabulsi family turned their attention tomaking a profit through agriculture (Ferch, Russell, and Vyhmeister 1989: 31-33). Needing seasonal workers, the Nabulsi hired the Ajarma to work the fields. Later, migrants from the Jordan valley andWest Bank were added to the workforce. Members of the Nabulsi family came to Hisban during the summer months to make sure the harvest took place without incident. But for the most part, the Nabulsi family did not live in the farmstead throughout the year. Instead, they lived in their home in al-Salt. Local accounts confirm that the Nabulsis
were only part-time residents. This was not uncommon, since

gain and legitimize their control over this area. Over the past 150 years, the landscape at Hisban has been transformed by changing settlement patterns in the region. Part time farmers and semi-nomadic pastoralists went from living in tents, caves, or the abandoned ruins at Hisban to a daily life centered around a complex of buildings, stables, storage rooms,
and workers towns, quarters, similar to the more What was urban-style once houses of especially in Palestine. a transhumant,

other landlords in the region, such as the Abujaber family, also resided at their plantations only seasonally. Hisban was run by the Nabulsis using the muraba'a system of labor (Abujaber 1989: 85-86, 274). Under this system, workman received one fourth of the production divided by the number of pairs of oxen employed to till the land (Burkhardt 1822: 295). In some cases, the workmen would have been entitled to free room and board, and if they chose to live off the farmstead, they would have received some household provisions (muna). A workman who agreed to work for the landlord would almost always have agreed to stay for a complete year; this meant that he would have been present for ploughing and harvesting (Abujaber 1989: 85-89). Harvest took place from mid-April through mid-August. This was the most important time of the year, as it required of the available workforce. There was complete mobilization always the possibility of a brush fire igniting the crops, or of locusts devouring a year's work in a few days. Although security had improved, the Bedouin continued to pose a threat, carrying off whatever they could (Abujaber 1989: 54-55). However, the greatest source of concern for the farmers were the herds of animals brought into the cultivated regions in early May to feed, as they would have devoured grazing areas as well as crops (Rogers 1889: 177). a

seasonal use of the site was transformed into settled life by the construction of a plantation-like complex, which was relatively formal, with urban architectural elements. At the height of its use, it would have been both imposing and impressive, visible from the summit of the tell as well as the fields in the valley. The construction of the Bayt Nabulsi provides evidence of the in the profitable investments made by merchant-moneylenders fertile Balqa plains in the nineteenth century. to Nabulsi family history, the two-story farmhouse According was built around 1850. The farmhouse went from being a single
residence to the center of a substantial farm complex, whose

function
Qasr

included

storage of surplus agricultural

also included stables, private

goods. The
quarters,

complex,

however,

and smaller
workers,

structures
with

possibly
stables,

used as domestic
storage rooms, living

space for
quarters,

complete

and perhaps even guest rooms. It is likely that much of the Qasr complex was pieced together in stages on the footprints of several earlier buildings, sometime between 1882 and 1890. The largest building, on the eastern edge of the site, was a reused structure, and included the bases of two octagonal towers, and Umayyad or Roman arches, which predate the construction of the complex on this site. These buildings were used as stables,
concrete troughs,

and occasional
as well

domestic
and

space, and include

grinding installations.

as an oven

Just to the west is another large structure with a courtyard (which was bisected in the 1970s by the road that leads into the structure, which abuts village of Hisban). This dome-vaulted

Architecture, Relations
out, changes

the Built Environment, and New Social

is the stage on which
provide

If the landscape

social

life is played
of new social

in its organization

evidence

relations over time. The construction and development of at Hisban provides clues to understanding architecture local power structures in this region, and illustrates how control over Hisban shifted during the late Ottoman period. While the reforms made by the Ottoman Administration opened the area

at in use, the upper story contained story of the Qasr. When rooms with dome-vaulted least three and was accessed by an ceilings external staircase. of Lynda Carroll. Photo courtesy Second

140

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

and theWadi Majar. A smaller dome-vaulted building, and a series of non-descript single roomed buildings, all used primarily as domestic space, define the western edge of the complex
overlooking the wadi. Finally, a series of single-story, one-room

structures east of the main buildings

site maps) were used as domestic

(but not yet included on our

for workers.

space

Two caves located beneath the two-story Qasr also provide evidence of a new use of the landscape. An animal pen, located in the back of the cave, and nails for hanging torches provide
evidence for the cave's use. A large structure was also built in

the cave, and was probably used for storage. Interestingly, local oral history describes the caves and structure as a hiding spot
used to avoid Ottoman tax collectors, and the only entrance

into a large structure inside the cave was a hole located in the inside of the main storage room inside the Qasr. create the western, While these buildings eastern, and northern boundaries for the Qasr complex, and the caves are located at the southern end, the most impressive building is the two-story
structure,

farmhouse

found

in the south of the site. This

of sandstone, includes

constructed

predominantly

taken from nearby ruins. The inclusion of building materials earlier architectural elements in several buildings indicates that the area was used prior to the late-nineteenth century. Although these buildings were constructed among previously standing

The

entrance

courtesy

to a large habitation of Lynda Carroll.

cave

below

the Qasr.

Photo

r<'.".*'

4:'?^ftfftl.
%i?r'^'"

Artist's

depiction

of the Ottoman

period

Qasr

at Hisban,

circa

1900.

Drawing

by Brian Manley.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

141

The farmhouse at Hisban is a rare example of early modern architecture in Jordan; it represents an architectural style unique to al-Salt with influences from the West Bank, identifiable in its large size and style of stonework. Architectural details, such as roof construction, window style, and the general house plan, help us date the farm complex to sometime before 1890 includes (Muaz 1990: fig. 2.15). The two-story farmhouse a storerooms dome-vaulted and second story single-storied
used second as a residence, story was as well unusual as a for guesthouse. a rural context, The and presence suggests of a that

the building could have been constructed by skilled workers. The house differs from the homes of the fellahin who would rarely have been able to employ skilled professionals. The two floors and the different architectural characteristics represent successive building phases from the 1880s through the 1950s and differ considerably from a typical single-room home and from tents used in the region whose open design gave it the ability to meet a variety of purposes for the family (Amiry and Tamari 1989: 27-34). Instead, each room of Bayt Nabulsi could have served a different purpose. Parts of the house are physically separated, making some private and others public. The lower floors were reserved for storage and for wheat, as well as a guesthouse (madafeh), while the upper story served as
the residence.

(Muaz 1990: fig. 2.15), although these windows are presently filled in with rubble and concrete to prevent theft. The only star ornamentation that can be found is a small eight-pointed on the arch of a window, which is typical of the late Ottoman period (Khammash 1986: 96). Evidence of the changing use of the farmhouse includes the creation of a second story, which allowed the structure's use to change from primarily storage to housing. Metal I-beams were added to support the weight of the second story as well as to allow a small balcony. The building's second story functioned as a sleeping quarters, providing privacy for its occupants. This upper floor was reached by the use of an arched stairway, which led to a doorway with a rounded arch lintel. On the western side of the second story there are two distinctly private rooms with windows and vaulted roofs. The walls and ceilings were at one time plastered and may have had rudimentary frescos visible when initially constructed. The windows found in these rooms are large and similar to the ones found on the building's first story showing stylistic influence from al-Salt. Both rooms have small niches in the walls (t?qah) for storage. These niches may have been used to hold bed linens (Amiry and Tamari 1989: 30). An addition was constructed under the orders of Wadhah Nabulsi and is located on the south side of the structure

ground floor was built in different phases. The two major components of the farmhouse were constructed during the first phase. On the building's north side, there are several rooms with vaulted ceilings that fit the region's typical late nineteenth century style. Originally, these rooms were probably used as the family's main living space and perhaps also were The
used for entertaining or receiving guests. Its large windows were

Remains

leading the modern the

rooms and a central of storage to the roof of the structure. The was

with a staircase courtyard, road (left), which leads into in the 1970s, bisecting

North a second

fa?ade

of the Qasr, an external Photo

facing

southwest.

Note

the construction which would have

of

village of Hisban, structure. Photo courtesy

constructed

of Lynda Carroll.

supported

story, a balcony.

staircase, courtesy

and beams,

of Lynda Carroll.

142

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

The Ottoman in 1516. At

Empire gained control of Transjordan

that time, the region was well populated survivals ofMamluh most of the sixteenth 1986: 11;

and included sizable villages-the period settlements?throughout and seventeenth centuries

(Khammash

Walker

1999). However,

the state viewed Transbordan benefits

as a rural frontier A herd of sheep and goats is led through the Nabulsi farmstead
complex. Photo courtesy of Lynda Carroll.

that offered few economic

and strategic advantages, traveled Hajj caravans cities ofMecca established

aside from the months when through Jordan Although to the holy

and Medina.

the Ottomans route to

a series of forts along

trie Hajj

provide security for the caravans of pilgrims, as soon as the Hajj season passed, so too did the state's interest

in the region (Abujaber 1989: 24).

Using great flexibility the empire and in its approach often relied to rule over on the local its subjects, administrators (Greene Ottoman 2005).

their knowledge

of trie provinces century, and much

During

the seventeenth

investment

in the area declined

of the region returned

to tribal leadership and semi

nomadic pastoralism (Johns 1994; Walker 1999). To

in the back of a cave beneath the Qasr. pen an enclosure The low cave ceiling, and the built wall (left) provide animals. Photo of Lynda Carroll. courtesy penning Remains of an animal some for extent, raids, taxation, government reprisals, and

fear of conscription may also have made life undesirable (Amiran 1953:

settled village and

78; H?tteroth

(Walker and LaBianca 2003: 460). The addition was built with an architectural design characteristic of the early-twentieth a flat roof, small doors, and little century (1918-1935), using
ornamentation. It was constructed using rough concrete and

Abdulfattah 1977). Settled villages declined steadily

as their populations more abandoned them to move fringes to the (Brown secure highlands and plateau

cut stone. The final addition to the building was added during is little more than a the 1950s when a small room, which concrete cubical used for storage, was built. in 1927 heavily damaged An earthquake the structure, evidence of which can be seen in cracks in the fa?ade and in rooms that had to be repaired before they could be reused (Walker and LaBianca 2003: 459). However, the structure was not completely abandoned. Instead, the farm continued to use the structure for storage and supplies. Construction continued even today, into the 1950s and the farmhouse ismaintained illustrating its value throughout the twentieth century.

1992: 87; H?tteroth andAbdulfattah 1977:55-67).

By the late 1860s, town remaining the only substantial on the east bank of the Jordan River. alSalt was

the seeds of capitalism, modernity, and reform were spread in Jordan in the late-nineteenth century. Yet, despite their access to the wealth afforded by an expanding global economy, and the legal rights over private ownership provided to them would need by the empire, new landlords and moneylenders to establish their legitimacy. While the state could legitimize control over its domains through grants and official state registration, legitimizing control of land and rights of ownership among tribal groups would be more difficult to achieve. For
relative newcomers in the area, such as urban merchants and

Symbols, the Global Economy, and the Ottoman Frontier

state initiated the Tanzimat as a way to reform property rights amongst its subjects. In reality, global capitalism and large-scale agricultural production worked to the advantage as of moneylenders, and families of substance merchants, The Ottoman

moneylenders,
permanent

formalizing
transformations

this new social order would

in the use and meanings of

require
space.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

143

Hisban
engaged caves,

also served as a social place, where

in social and the activities. of The use of placement a tribal cemetery

people
at the

lived and
and summit

1892

Heth and Moab: ExplorationsinSyria in 1881 and 1882. 3rd and

rev. ed. London: Macmillan. W. K. toHesban University. and M. B.; and Vyhmeister,

springs,

cisterns,

Ferch, A. R.; Russell, 1989 Historical

of Tall Hisban (Walker 2001) indicate that the area was an important place historically?a place embedded with meaning. The construction of the Qasr complex, however, changed the fabric and social meaning of Hisban in the landscape.
Formal architecture, as a permanent and imposing symbol

Foundations:

Vicinity. Hesban Greene, 2005 H?tteroth, 1977 M. The Ottoman B. D.,

Studies of Literary References 3. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews

Experience. K.

Daedalus

(Spring

2005)

: 88-99.

and Abdulfattah,

of wealth and power, could provide its owners with prestige in their new positions as landlords and leaders. At neighboring such as al-Yaduda and Qasr Tuqan, hired masons Qasrs, and artisans from Nazareth and Nablus constructed large
farmsteads to set the Qasr apart from their surroundings, and in

His torical Geography of Pales tine, Transjordan and Southern in the late 16th Century. Erlangen: Palm und Enke.

Syria

Johns,

]. The in Dur?e: State and Settlement Longue Strategies Southern Across the Islamic Centuries. Pages Transjordan 1-13 in Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern and T. Tell. London: British Jordan, edited by E. L. Rogan Press.

1994

the process brought urban sophistication to the rural landscape the architectural style of the (Rogan 1992: 255). Likewise, and Qasr at Hisban, which is comparable to late-nineteenth
early-twentieth conjure symbols century of urbanism urban or architecture, sophistication, was setting intended the to large,

Academic Kana'an, 1993 R. Patronage of Ottoman Nineteenth Khammash, 1986 A. Notes

and Style in Mercantile Residential The Nablus Bilad ALSham: Century. Master's Thesis. Oxford

Architecture Region University. in the

two-story
complex quarters

farmhouse
apart used from until

and the well-built

the that cave dwellings, Under time.

buildings
tents, these or

in the Qasr
even workers

circumstances,

the Qasr at Hisban was a symbol of the urban brought to the frontier, and of an attempt on the part of local notables,
eager to create positions of power, prestige, or legitimation for

on Village Architecture of Southwestern Louisiana S. Sedentarization

in Jordan. Lafayette, Art Museum.

LA: University

LaBianca, 1990

0.

and Nomadization:

themselves
more

in a rapidly changing global economy,

space. Qasrs residences. frontier was served The also not only as

to construct

a
2000

permanent

in Transjordan. and Vicinity Hesban and Andrews Institute of Archaeology Life in the Shadow

Food System Cycles at Hesban 1. Berrien Springs, MI: University Press.

Ultimately, or spaces, Ottoman

farmsteads, of Qasrs of the

storage on economic Lewis, N. 1987 the

construction a symbol

of Empire: A Food Systems Approach Daily to the Archaeology in of the Ottoman Empire. Pages 203-17 A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New edited by U. Baram and L. Carroll. New York: Plenum. Ground,

transformations brought to the empire's frontiers at the end of the nineteenth century, as well as of the negotiation of political
relations between the Ottoman state, emergent strongmen,

Nomads Cambridge

and Settlers University

in Syria and Jordan Press.

1800-1980.

Cambridge:

of Qasr and tribal groups. The architecture moneylenders, farmsteads is a physical reminder of a new system of political and economic power, in which new landlords become local elites, and their status legitimized by an Ottoman administrative
procedure of land registration.

Muaz,

S. 1990 Salt: A Plan for Action, Corporation. vol. 1. June. Amman: Salt Development

Nimr,

I. 1938 Tarikhjabal Zaydun. Nabulus wa-aLBalqa. Damascus: Matba'at ibn

References
Abujaber, 1989 R. S. Pioneers 1850-1914. Amiran, 1953 D. H. K. The Pattern of Settlement in Palestine. Israel Exploration over Jordan: The London: Frontier of Settlement in Transjordan,

Rogan,

E. L. Moneylending and Jerusalem Ottoman Rule. and Capital Flows to Qada aLSalt from Nablus, in the Last Damascus, Decades of

1992

Tauris.

in The Syrian Land in the 18th Pages 239-60 and 19th Century: The Common and the Specific in theHistorical 5. T. Islamstudien edited Berliner Experience, by Philipp. Stuttgart: Steiner. the State Back: The Limits of Ottoman Rule in

Journal Amiry,

3: 65-78. V. Village Home. London: British Museum

1994

Bringing

S., and Tamari, The

1989

Palestinian

Publications. Brown, R. Late Islamic Ceramic Production and Distribution and Political in the Rogers, M. 1999

in Village, Steppe and State: Jordan, 1840-1910. Pages 32-57 The Social Origins of Modern Jordan, edited by E. L. Rogan and T Tell. London: British Academic Press. Frontiers 1850-1921. E. Domestic Life in Palestine. 2nd ed. London: Kegan Paul. of the State Cambridge: in the Late Ottoman Cambridge Empire: Transjordan, Press.

1992

University

Southern Ph.D.

Levant: A Socio-Economic of New

Interpretation.

diss, State University

York, Binghamton.

1889

144

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006)

toHesban and Vicinity, edited by L. Geraty and L. G. References 3. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews Herr. Hesban University. Walker, 1999 B. J. Militarization Periods. Near 2001 The to Nomadization: Eastern Archaeobgy The Middle 62: 202-32. Bulletin and Late Islamic

Society

of Biblical

Literature

Late Ottoman

of theAmerican Walker, 2003 B. J., and LaBianca, The the Islamic 1998

in Field L, Tall Hisban. Cemetery Schools of Oriental Research 322: 47-65 S. of Tall Hisban: Seasons. Annual

0.

Qusur and 2001

Preliminary Report of the Department

on of

Antiquities,

Jordan 47: 443-71.

ABOUT

THE
Lynda Department University,

AUTHORS]
is a Ph.D. candidate in the of Anthropology SUNY, and at Binghamton project director at

Carroll

its Public Archaeology

excavated and surveyed

Facility.
Ottoman-period

She has
sites

The Quest
Debating Israel Finkelstein

for the Historical

and the History

Israel
of Early Israel

inTurkey with the Madra ?ay Archaeology Project (1996, 1997) with support of a Social Science Research CouncilNMERTA pre-dissertation fellowship, and has worked Lynda Carroll in Jordan with the Tall Hisban Expedition (2001) and theNorthern Jordan Survey (2003). She is co-editor (withU. Baram) ofA Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire (KluwerAcademic/Plenum,
Adam Department and graduate Fenner

Archaeology

andAmihai Mazar editor

Brian B. Schmidt,

2000).
is a graduate student in the

Three decades of dialogue, discussion, and debate within the interrelated disciplines of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, ancient Israelite history, and Hebrew Bible over the question of the relevance of the biblical account
for reconstructing early Israels history have created

of History

at Stanford

University, Fenner

the need for a balanced articulation of the issues and their prospective resolutions. This book brings together
for the first time, "centrist" and under one cover, a emerging paradigm as articulated currently two by

of Andrews

University.

has worked in Jordan at Tall Hisban (2004).

Fenner History, is currently with a focus specializing on Latin in Economic America. He

has taught English inCentral America.

Adam Fenner S. LaBianca, Ph.D. is Professor

leading figures in the fields of early Israelite archaeology and history. Although Finkelstein and Mazar advocate distinct views of early Israels history, they nevertheless
share biblical sources the position traditions, are all that and the material the ancient relevant cultural Near data, the written Eastern

0ystein

significantly

to the historical

of Anthropology and Associate Director of

the Institute of Archaeology He currently at Andrews serves as an University.

quest for Iron Age Israel. The results of their research are featured in accessible, parallel syntheses of the historical reconstruction of early Israel that facilitate comparison
and contrast of their respective interpretations.

administrative
Plains Tall Project, Hisban

director of the Madaba

and as senior He director of the is the author

excavations.

0ystein

S.

LaBianca

and Nomadization of Sedentarization (Andrews University 1990), and co-editor in (with S. Scham) of Connectivity as a Term Globalization Antiquity: Long Historical Process (Equinox 2005).

220 pages, 2007 978-1-58983-277-0 Paper $24.95 Biblical Studies 17 and Code: 061717 Archaeology Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Societyof Biblical Literature P.O.Box 2243 Williston, VT05495-2243 Phone:877-725-3334 (toll-free)or 802-864-6185 Fax:802-864-7626
Order online at www.sbl-site.org

NEAREASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

145

(Lower one. vessel

The

left and opposite) The process of excavating and cleaning the cult stands was a painstaking as entire pit was dug using delicate such dental tools, picks, and the removal of a complete often took hours. Photo by Raz Kletter.

(Right) Cleaning Press Agency.

a stand

fragment

after

recovery.

Photo

by Avi Ohayon,

the

Israel Governmental

ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006) 146 NEAR EASTERN

Cult

Stands
1

of
A/^

the

Philistines
7 A C 1 Raz Kletter, hit Ziffer, and

Lremzah

from

Yavneh

w^z^ku

ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006) NEAR EASTERN

147

is also known from the biblical story about the "good" Judahite king Uzziah who "warred against the Philistines" and broke down the walls of Gath, Ashdod, and Yavneh (2 Chr 26:6). The site until recently. In of the Philistine city remained undiscovered 2002, a salvage excavation of a small hill next to the large tell of Yavneh revealed spectacular remains almost three thousand
years old.2 Our excavation uncovered a genizah containing a

During the construction of a public garden in 2000 or early the 2001, the Temple Hill was badly damaged. Although contractor was not supposed to do any digging, a bulldozer was used to scrape and reshape the entire southern slope in order to create terraces, public paths, and plantings. Aerial photos of Yavneh showed that the bulldozer's shovel had dug twice deeply into side of the hill, turning up, breaking and scattering of the damaged site, of pottery. In an examination some cult stand fragments and collected noticed archaeologists and chalices from a huge quantity of broken sherds strewn around the area. The importance of the site was finally realized and reported thereafter but every effort was made not to call the fragments attention of the public to it before it could be excavated properly. site Usually those who are caught damaging an archaeological in Israel are required to finance a salvage excavation, but the for the damage to Yavneh were not individuals responsible
caught and, without funds, no action was taken.

large hoard of cult stands and other sacred objects, an amazing discovery that, in the words of a veteran Israeli archaeologist, is made only "once every fifty or sixty years."3 called "the Temple For decades, the hill was unofficially Hill." The modern
were hastily

town of Yavneh,
to

the first buildings of which

new immigrants

constructed

accommodate

soon after to Israel (Kletter 2006: 64-70), was established town on started to the slopes of this hill. Residents of the 1948 or find antiquities when building enlarging their houses, and a number of scholars visited the site and published finds from it (Stern 2001: 487). In the sixties, it was identified as a cultic site based on the chance discovery of fragments
cult stands. Later, a small excavation revealed

of figurines and
two fragments

it turned out, word about the site had spread and it was looting that provided the final impetus for a real excavation. As

W?????????m???????????im?????????B
What is a Genizah?
the disposal of sacred texts and objects, like Torah Scrolls, that were worn out or damaged and could In antiquity, therefore no longer be used, posed a real problem. For believers, the holiness that is imbued in such items dictated that the term "genizah" is applied to a storeroom or repository they could be thrown away like ordinary refuse. Usually associated a synagogue. The Latin term favissa, which denotes an underground room in a temple where sacred probably derives from the Hebrew root objects of the temple were kept, probably denotes a similar custom. Genizah BCE Aramaic ritual texts from is used in reference to priests in fifth<entury gnz; a related term, "Ganzabara," were sacred the safekeeping of objects. charged with Persepolis who with The most famous is an accumulation genizah is the Cairo genizah renowned for its abundance of valuable documents. This

genizah associated with the Ben Ezra synagogue in of almost two hundred thousand Jewish manuscripts Cairo, which was built in 882 CE. The significance of the Cairo genizah was first recognized bv the Jewish traveler and researcher Jacob Saphir in the mid 1800s, but it was chiefly through the work of Solomon Schechter at the end of the nineteenth 1967-68: 297). these materials overemphasized. these documents. in this manner was practiced in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the ancient Near East, of sacred materials Disposing such pits have been found where ritual objects no longer used were buried in underground pits. In Syria-Palestine, near the "fosse temple" outside the walls of Lachish, dating to the Late Bronze Age and in the Philistine temples come also Edomite (Mazar 1980: 24-25, from such pit L25). Probably, the finds from En-Hazeva of Tell Qasile a "genizah" (Cohen and Yisrael 1995). Since we do not know how the Philistines described this custom, genizah seems a good option. In any case, the Yavneh genizah is the richest ever found in Israel-Palestine. the term century that the contents documents The Cairo (Katsh of the genizah were brought to scholarly and popular attention were written from about 870 to as late as 1880 CE. The importance of

the social and economic history for the period between 950 and 1250 cannot be for reconstructing S. D. Goitein wrote his celebrated six-volume work, A Mediterranean (1967), based upon Society

148

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

as seen view of the tell of Yavneh This photograph gives a general was found. Photo the Philistine from the "Temple Hill" where genizah by Raz Kletter.

the locations This map shows stands have been found. This photograph excavation) public shows the damage by a bulldozer by Raz Kletter. to the used site (before the of a

of sites,

including

Yavneh,

where

cult

wrought Photo garden.

in the construction

as it was in the middle of a bustling town, proposed solutions like covering the site could not save it from further ruin. The ancient genizah was the only element excavated with the aim to salvage the remaining finds from it as other parts of the hill did not seem to face imminent danger. This salvage excavation revealed a pit two meters in diameter and one and a half meters deep that was dated to the Iron Age (roughly the ninth century BCE) based mainly on the style of smaller pottery vessels, such as bowls and juglets. At that time, Yavneh was ruled by the Philistines (2 Chr 26:6). Thousands Situated of finds filled the ancient pit, including cult stands, bowls, chalices (footed bowls), and other vessels. The excavation
was a unique experience as the entire pit was excavated with

Antiquities Authority began a move of its central storage facilities, and the supply of plastic crates for finds suddenly stopped. It was difficult to explain to officials why such a tiny site, barely one square (actually, one circle) required so many and finally, after tried every possible alternative out mountain containers of finds, for the of completely running we rushed to a row of falafel stands on the main street of Yavneh to beg for used food cartons. Impressed by the number of small artifacts emerging from this space, visiting archaeologists pitched in with advice and labor, which included helping to cart the finds back to the office. Other sympathetic visitors were worried about the efficiency of our work, since only two or three people could squat inside the pit at any given time and suggested the use of bulldozer to "lift" the pit all at once and carefully pour it nearby allowing us to work in greater comfort! Thanks to our (more conventional) methods of excavation and
to our dedicated workers, we eventually managed to excavate

crates. We

delicate tools, such as dental picks, and the removal of a complete vessel often took hours. was an unusual one, its If the genesis of the excavation execution was marked by a number of similarly curious events. in the middle For example, of the excavation, the Israel

the entire pit and salvage the finds. For three years, the finds waited in their crates, until, thanks to the Eretz-Israel Museum inTel Aviv, the cult stands could be restored and exhibited at the Museum. The Israel Antiquities

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

149

the cult the process of restoration and study was completed, were at the Eretz-lsrael in a special exhibition displayed in Tel-Aviv Museum also 2005-March, [November, 2007], which After stands houses Photo finds significant by Leonid Padrul. the from the Philistine site of Tel Qasile.

MHHBHHHBM?IMBHHBM
Interpreting the Cult Stands
How what were used and the cult stands from Yavneh did they symbolize? The fact that so many stands in a sealed location at one site enables found our understanding literature scholarly many of these exceptional on cult stands is huge were

us to advance vessels. The and

theories. We do not different advocate theory fits best theory, but ask which It is important to understand the stands from Yavneh. terms when that different scholars have used various it includes a new referring to these vessels. We use the term "cult stand" because it is fairly neutral, however, some scholars call " " or "house models, such vessels "architectural models, not "shrine models." But, the ancient stands do fit the

Today, models are miniatures replicas of larger, real buildings that either exist or are in a stage of planning. This does not fit the stands from Yavneh, for they do not look even generally similar to any temple or house in the Iron Age term "model" as used in architecture. or smallscale Levant. roofs, building in Iron Age or roofs and walls with No had small windows, Palestine such had concave

large openings. the expertise of was not yet making flat sheets of glass for windows invented. The stands do form constructions of a sort, Buildings since made
Crates of pottery from Yavneh Photo analysis. by Raz Kletter. in storage awaiting restoration and

using

from various parts. Inevitably, we find ourselves terms taken from the world of architecture when

W??????????????mmm?????m??O????mm???^^
(2006)

150

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

The

stand. Most final cleaning of a restored intact when have been taken to the pit and their and were discovered

of the about intact

stands a dozen inside the

seem

to

Michal figurine. pit.

Ben-Gal, At

survived ancient

the end that

the pottery of the not be

restorer, restoration restored

puts

together

a broken

final deposition Photo by Raz Kletter.

fragments Raz Kletter.

could

process, remained.

few relatively Photo by

wm??????m???????????????m???????m
describing such stands, like "walls," "roof," or "windows." This is because the language for any type of construction one. The inevitable use of architectural is an architectural terms does not necessarily represent real architecture. At most, one can assume imply that the ancient stands have played additional no further that is, once offered, they function; the role in ritual preformance within Beck has suggested that the Tayanach

temple. Pirhiya stands were used as pedestals for cult images (2002: stands are closed at the The Ta^anach 392-418). therefore could in theory have supported an image; but this is not true for the Yavneh stands. First, many stands are open on top in a way that precludes top and statues. placing more than 120 it is hardly conceivable that Second, statues (or even 120 images of a few in a small would have been worshiped Third, many

that the front parts of the stands represent temple fa?ades, with a central entrance and pairs (compare Yachin of symmetrically positioned figures/pillars

and Boaz in Solomons temple, 1Kgs 7:15-22; Zwickel

1999: a divine 113-24). statue Some stands show an opening at the front

a standing female figure. This figure is perhaps occupied !ry

that may the temple, the Holy have stood in the innermost part of If so, the potters "telescoped" of Holies.

the space of the temple on the front (Beck 2002: 407-11).

Perhaps pairs of similar females at the corners of the front also represent statues from the fa?ade of a temple; or symbols of a deity (compare the glazed bricks decoration of the lshtar is that the gates in Babylon). Another possible interpretation stands are clay versions of pedestals or thrones of the cult

stands are poorly fired and are not suitable for heavy loads. Some scholars have suggested that cult stands were used in libation ceremonies or even as pots for plantsl Recently, Amihai

divinities) town like Yavneh.

Mazar
found areas at

(2003) suggested that stands from Tel Rehov

incense altars. on some stands Evidence for this is in the form of blackened, burned theory fits the stands from sites end in a closed top or basin.

and other sites are

statue(s) inside the temple (Keel 1977: 23-35; Mettinger 2006: fig. 4; Bunnens 2006: 128, figs. 81, 103).We do not
yet fully understand the meaning of decoration on the stands,

in northern However,

the top. This Israel, which

but the Yaimeh potters selected themotifs from a highly

charged religious repertoire that was far from random. is another The way such stands functioned complex issue. It is possible that they were votives and did not

none of the Yavneh stands show any signs of since they are open from above rather than and burning, closed, it is impossible to use them directly for burning incense. Clearly, the Yavneh stands retain some secrets them in Philistia nearly

of those who made and used three thousand years ago.

ji^m???????????????mm?????m????m?m I
69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN (2006) 151

Stands stand series

with

bull

is elliptical, of knobs

representations with a roof that adorns the

are numerous has two

at Yavneh.

This A

two upper edge show bull protomes front openings rounded (the horns are onto the wall of The front legs are applied missing). mostly common in the imagery animal the stand. Bulls are the most of the naked stands. on the stands with Bull figures together appear or with trees, or as a single motif. Usually, or protomes of the bulls are shown. The bull was component East from in the of the at vocabulary religious least the third millennium of bce.

large openings. of the front. The

females,

just heads a very important the ancient Near It is common Levant in the

as well

Late Bronze with

art of Cyprus and the religious often and Iron Ages, appearing

associated

were a naked female often figure. Bulls inAnatolia Teshub for example storm-gods, of also attributes and Baal or El in Syria. However, they were Ornan Kletter 2007: and female goddesses 2006). 20; (Ziffer in combination with 17.5 cm. Photo by Leonid Padrul.

Height

This

stand,

which

shows

a musical

ensemble made

of the most that has three lower part of the

interesting. openings. of the front.

It is delicately Two

or procession, with a concave protrude from

is one roof the

stand at the figures front. Only the righthand figure has arms preserved, runs across most An oblong which may hold some object. opening a or a tree with in the middle of the front, separated by pillar sides stood in two pairs beside six drooping leaves. Four figures once The remaining this tree, but "one figure (on the right) is missing. have small breasts, actually on the arms rather figures applied then musical drum on the chest instruments). in her hand, hidden because the chests were by (perhaps The first figure on the left may have held a now missing. The second figure from the left The third

lion protomes female Caryatid-like

a double flute. plays we have an orchestra to the Musicians'

held a lyre. Thus, figure probably or a procession similar of musician's playing, This stand from Yavneh Stand from Ashdod.

on its narrow sides. On one side there is a has ample decoration At the with another female her breasts, figure now missing. holding with a pillar(?), most side there was an opening probably opposite an had role in the without Orchestras religious figures. important ancient Near East and stand are mentioned was once in the Old Testament (1 Sam 1:5). The Yavneh motifs, stands, but since very covered

little survives

of them.

geometric by painted This is true for many of the plain ruined most Padrul. cm. Photo

of the painted

of the high humidity decoration. Height

Israel's coastal 16.6

by Leonid

152

69:3-4 (2006) NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

This

It is one of the most is rectangular and very small. lion stand ismade The "roof" of crossed stands from Yavneh. richly decorated on The walls are mounted tying begms with four small openings. crouching is the/only lions with stand with Three up-swinging decoration tails modeled on the back wall. The lions have This an on the back wall.

?%.\

incised mane. animal

figures 1,1 cm. Photo

the lions, while between large knobs are applied of the front. Human (bull?) heads adorn the upper corners with more knobs. Height stand on the narrow sides together by Leonid Padrul. >r'r

Another here and

is one two

trees and caprids. The stand shown fine group of stands shows stands with solid fronts identical elliptical of a pair of nearly and of the front is extended The upper edge tying beams. with

decorated

by a vertical the corners breasts.

tree (rendered nibble at a schematic knobs. Two caprids bulls flank the caprids, while ridge). Two longed-necked their females of the front are occupied holding by standing cm. Leonid Photo Padrul. 15.5 by Height

Stands stand

with-lions is one

lionesses. roof with

or lionesses form an impressive group. A lioness of a group of three similar stands with squatting is rectangular and has a concave stand This particular one opening. The upper part of the front has a rope

crowned incised diagonally, by a row of knobs. The sides pattern are almost open. The front wall rests upon protomes completely backs tie the front and back walls of the whose of two lionesses, stand. between The lionesses their open their jaws and Their eyes stick out are made their tongues

apodied pellets are seen heads

I/they
motif Note, was

are punctured. nostrils Similar lions of the Iron Age period?but Syrian inMiddle The earlier Bronze Age Anatolia. appear already a sacred structure is a Syrian tradition. of a lion carrying in North cult basin from Ebla Bronze Age for example, the Middle the Iron Age, of 'Ain Dar?, which fa?ade of the sanctuary by 18-19). Ziffer and lion protomes 144-45; (Ziffer 2005: cm. 17.5 Leonid Photo Padrul. by Height

fangs. exposed of clay and their

of small,

arid the

supported Kletter 2007:

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

153

and a bilingual catalogue was published (Ziffer and Kletter sent various We also for 2007). analysis and started samples a study on a small selection seven (around percent) of the
pottery. The pottery restoration was very exciting, as whole

p %' % I?!

?f

Si ^3,1

Several over

cult stands,

the course

including those above, of many years of excavation.

have

been

found

The Yavneh

stands

at Megiddo are Cult stands are a rare and valued cult stands find in excavations were in Israel. These

in their design and decoration, and so present for the however, unique first time a large regional is that of assemblage diagnostic potentially in the early the Philistines and their religion Iron Age IIperiod. Drawings by Yosef Kapelian.

well-known

by excavations years apart. The rarity of such finds sixty-six separate makes the Yavneh all the more remarkable. genizah

from Tell Ta'anach

discovered

154

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

and, at the end of the restoration, relatively few fragments that could not be restored remained. This indicates that most or all of the stands were intact when taken to the pit, though we
cannot determine at present their exact pattern of breakage.

Not

a dozen survived all the stands were found broken?about their final journey, and we discovered them in situ, that is, intact or almost intact inside the ancient pit. Clearly, this was no ordinary pit, but a repository for a temple,
based on at least two observations. For one thing,

imagine that it would be possible to find, at one place and in a small-sized excavation, a hundred complete or restorable cult stands. Counting fragments, we have at least 125 stands. This is roughly a dozen times more than all the stands (including in Philistia from more than a hundred fragments) discovered and provide for the first time a large regional assemblage indicative of the Philistines and their religion in the early Iron Age II. The stands have ("windows") and are decorated with applied and openings incised elements, such as knobs and rope designs, as well as with paint. Many stands have animal and human figures. We found more than a hundred figures in the pit that had become years of scientific exploration. The Yavneh stands are unique,

a conclusion

the unique and rich finds are not the sort we expect to find in a private home; cult stands are almost always found in relation to temples. Moreover, many of the chalices and bowls from the pit show traces of burning in distinctive patterns, which suggests
that they were not used for ordinary domestic purposes.

The cult stands from the Yavneh pit are a true wonder. Excavators in Israel can consider themselves lucky if they find
even a few fragments, not to mention one entire cult stand.

into three types, defined have classed the Yavneh stands as their is "architectural" which the by plan, shape of the main walls seen from above. stands Rectangular (top left) are the largest group, while ellipto-rectangular stands (bottom left) are the least common type. Photos by Leonid Padrul.

Excavators

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

155

with various postures and styles of representation.

styles show that several potters manufactured the

The different
stands.

altars reached Philistia earlier than previously thought, that is, Israelite refugees from the northern they did not accompany kingdom after the fall of Samaria.4

We have classed the stands into three types, defined by their

"architectural" plan, that is, the shape of the main walls as

seen from above. These elliptical,

largest

types can be delineated Rectangular

stands

and ellipto-rectangular.
while ellipto-rectangular

as rectangular, stands are the

are the least

group,

latter are actually elliptical stands, in which the one long side to create the front. Thus, their flattened potter front is straight while their backside remains elliptical. Most of the elliptical stands have and open (with beams), while most have concave "roofs" that lack beams a "roof" that is straight of the rectangular stands

common. The

(they usually have one one located stand has a completely centrally opening). Only is solid "roof," which nearly flat. Stands with concave tops or in Israel-Palestine.

with beams have never before been found

The only parallel is one corner fragment without figures from 2005: 180, fig. 3.75). Ashdod (Dothan and Ben-Shlomo one to is Not stand identical another, but some form thematic groups and there are pairs of nearly
The various motifs that appear on the stands

identical
are, for

stands.
the most

part, familiar and known

combinations and some of

from a wide geographic

the features are unique

area; but the

to Yavneh.

This This shows Leonid four-horned traces Padrul. clay of burning altar, on found the in the pit among the top, between the horns. stands, Photo by

chalice

and

small

bowl

were

found from

Many of the in distinctive ordinary

chalices

and bowls

which patterns, domestic purposes.

suggests Photos

inside. with traces of burning the pit show traces of burning not used for that they were

by Raz Kletter.

156

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

necessarily

expensive

incense,

as

local

plants

or

resins

could

also have been used. It is possible

on the the cult stands, were one used as or two at stands incense

that these bowls were placed

the stands. time on each the stand. incense If so, was After

consumed, the bowls would have been removed and replaced by new ones. This would explain why there are thousands of bowls with signs of burning in the pit, but relatively fewer stands. We will examine this possibility in the coming months. The historical sources about Iron Age Philistia are few and far between. The Bible provides only a negative, outsider's view of the Philistines, while indigenous Philistine documents are extremely rare, making the Yavneh genizeh all the more culture. According Philistine important for understanding to the Bible, Yavneh belonged to Philistia at least until the remains alone cannot eighth century BCE.Archaeological
prove the existence of ethnic communities, and a few scholars

have even suggested that the Philistines never constituted a distinct ethnicity, but were instead a group of merchants (Bauer 1998: 155-62; Sherratt 1998). Despite these challenges to the biblical account, we follow the more mainstream view that the Philistines constituted a distinct ethnic group in the Iron Age I period. People have often asked us what makes these finds Philistine and how can we be sure that they are Philistine? In the Iron I period, many features distinguished Philistine material culture from that of their neighbors, including pottery and bichrome), architectural elements, (both local monochrome such as hearths and the use of shells for flooring, ashdoda (long necked female figurines whose bodies and legs form a chair), and incised scapulae. The mourning figurines, spoolweights, burial of babies beneath floors of houses, and dietary habits also
set them apart. Many of these features seem to originate from

The Yavneh Cypriot, Larnaka,

stands

share such

features

with

western, on

stands, Cyprus.

as the open-work

particularly this bronze stand

from

to early Iron Age II Philistia are beginning to emerge (for and Maeir 2004), Ashdod ware; Shai, Ben-Shlomo, example, are rare. still The Yavneh although they genizah has offered new evidence for a continuing Philistine material culture in the form of a group of painted chalices that continue motifs and colors of the Philistine Iron I bichrome decoration (see Maeir and Shai 2006). is a The cult stands too provide evidence that Yavneh true is is It mixed. Philistine that their city. iconography For example, motifs like caprids flanking a tree are known throughout the ancient Near East over a long period. However, nature of the stands are which forms, unparalleled in the that point to theWest, whence the work technique; bull protomes and heads by means of a peg into a hole the Philistine handles) is evident in their unique Levant. They show features Philistines came: the open heads; the insertion of bull (similar to Cypriot inserted

Cyprus and the Aegean world. At the beginning of the Iron II period (ca. 1000 BCE), these distinctly Philistine features seem to disappear and the material culture all over Israel/Palestine appears to be quite homogeneous (Ehrlich 1997: 198-99; Stone 1995: 7-10, 19). From the late-ninth century BCE onwards, however, the Philistines appear in historical sources, including not only Assyrian inscriptions but indigenous inscriptions as well, most notably the Ekron temple inscription and the ostraca from Tell Jemmeh. In the late-eighth and seventh centuries BCE, the material culture of Philistia is again clearly distinct from that of neighboring kingdoms like Judah and Israel (Stone 1995:19-20; Gitin 1998; 2003: 61-73; Stager 2006: 16-19). Did the Philistines disappear in the tenth century BCE just to make a comeback in the later Iron II period (see already Stone 1995: 9-11, 24)? Hardly. Two decades ago, when little was known about the Philistine culture of the early-Iron Age II period, scholars assumed that they had completely assimilated by this time. This "gap," though, is now being filled in part by the new excavations at Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, Tell es-S?fi, and Yavneh. Features of material cutlure that are distinctive

; and the technique of seated figures in windows with legs dangling below. Some of these features are discussed in the exhibition catalogue (Ziffer and Kletter 2007). The Philistines were the first "Greeks" in the Levant (Niemeir 2001: 11), and
it seems that they continued to maintain connections with

and with Cyprus in particular throughout the Iron Age (Rollinger 2001; Muhly 2005; cf. Stone 1995: 22). The connection to the west is also evident from fire pans (or incense shovels) found in the Yavneh repository, which are not yet published. Finally, the style of the figures in the Yavneh stands is similar to that of free-standing figurines from Philistia, but different from that of figurines from Judah. For example, incised

the west

NEAR EASTERN

ARCHAEOLOGY

69:3-4

(2006)

157

To sum up, this is a major discovery of a genizah pit from a temple, which was located at Yavneh, either on the Temple hill itself or within the ancient city on the tell. Temples near cities, outside walls, arewell known from the ancient Near East.We know that the mound of Yavneh was occupied in the Iron Age.4 Some of the vessels that appear at Yavneh are also found in domestic contexts, but the quantity and the nature of the pit shows that it is a genizah from an official cult and not some form of popular or domestic cult. Most of the vessels were dedicated by believers to the temple, and they acquired holiness. Therefore, when they could no longer be used in the cult, they were sealed in the genizah. The assemblage of the genizah does not reflect the entire repertoire would have been happy to find a of the temple furnishings?we or statue silver coating, or a large altar for animal cult with its gold we sacrifices. Therefore, may assume that this genizah is related a to peaceful procedure: the temple gradually became overloaded, so votive offerings (perhaps together with worn or damaged cultic furniture) were deposited in the genizah; but the temple continued
to function. as a conquest is not If so, the genizah or a natural disaster. related to a violent event, such

Schools Bunnens, G.

of Oriental

Research

335:

1-35.

2006
Cohen, 1995 R.,

A New Luwian Steleand the Cult of theStormGod at Til Barsip

Masuwari. and Yisrael, On No. Leuven: Y. to Edom. Discoveries The D. Excavations of Areas HandK(l 968-1969). Authority. from 'En Hazeva. Catalogue Peeters.

the Road 370.

Jerusalem:

Israel Museum.

Dothan, 2005

M,

and Ben-Shlomo, Ashdod VI: The

IAA Reports Goitein, 1967 S. D. A Mediterranean World

24. Jerusalem:

Israel Antiquities

Society:

The

Jewish Communities

of the Arab 6 vols.

as Portrayed

in the Documents University

of the Cairo Geniza. of California

Berkeley Gitin, S. 1998

and Los Angeles:

Press.

Tenth Century and Beyond. Pages to in Transition: Thirteenth Peoples BCE, inHonor of Professor Trude Dothan, Early Tenth Centuries Israel and E. Stern. Jerusalem: edited by S. Gitin, A. Mazar, Philistia 162-83 in Mediterranean Exploration Society. Neighbors 57-85 edited of the Canaanites, Phoenicians and in

in Transition:

The

range of time does the genizah represent? Were the finds placed in the pit at one time, or perhaps on several separate What
occasions? There are still many questions to be answered, as

2003

The

Philistines: Pages East,

Israelites. theMiddle Boston: Ehrlich, C. S.

in J00 Years of American Archaeology and V. H. Matthews. by D. R. Clark of Oriental Research.

well as many
for restoration

crates of pottery waiting

and study.5

in the IAA storerooms 1997

American

Schools

"How theMighty are Fallen":The Philistines inTheir Tenth

Century Context. Scholarship Leiden: in The Age of Solomon: 179-201 Pages at the Turn of theMillennium, edited by L. K. Handy.

Notes
1. We wish to thank the all of the benefactors Authority, financed who made this project possible, and Honigman, 1978 including Israel Antiquities foundation personal who the Eretz-Israel the restoration Museum,

Brill.

an anonymous 2. Oren

of finds. by R. Freund

A. Yavneh Surveys (Ma'abara). Hadashot Arkheologiyot (Hebrew) (Excavations and

Shemueli,

communications; on the mound 2002.

a team headed in 2005.

of Hartford 3. Kochavi, 4. Moreover, 5. We

University personal there

excavated communication is no written

in Israel) 65: 42-43.

Katsh, in Philistia. stages, thus

A. Geniza Talmudic Fragments Review from 58/4: the Antonin

mention

of such refugees is still every

1967-68Unpublished Collection. Keel, O. 1977 Jahwe-Visionen

should

stress here

that our

research With

in its early passing no

The Jewish Quarterly

297-308.

this paper new have aspects

is of a preliminary in the stands. With Scholars these

nature.

such a discovery, will continue hope

day, one sees scholar can hope to and to formulate about

und

"the final word." concerning stands

to discuss to publish

Majest?tsschilderungen Stuttgart: Kletter, 1996 R. The Judean Pillar Verlag

der Eine neue Deutung Siegelkunst. 10 und Sach 4> in Jes 6, Ez 1 und Bibelerk.

theories the cult

finds. We future.

a full volume

Katholisches

in the near

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the Archaeology

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Just Past? The Making and Ziffer, Yavne. Israel) I.

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2002

Imagery and Representation: of Ancient U. Zevulun, Tel Aviv Emery Palestine: and Collected

Studies Articles, of the

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A Philistine "HeadedCup" (Rython) fromTell es-S?fi/Gath.

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I.Hein,

H. Hunger, Analecta

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of a Yavneh Catalogue. Temple. Tel Aviv: Bilingual Eretz-Israel Hebrew-English Museum. Exhibition

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The Temples and the Cult of the Philistines. Pages 213-32 in

edited by E. D. The Sea Peoples and theirWorld: A Reassessment, 108. Philadelphia: Museum. The University Oren. Monograph

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salomonische

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The

Excavations

at Tel Rehov

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for Significance Israel 26: 143-59.

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Mettinger, 2006 T. N. D. A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in in the First Temple? Israel 273-96 Essays on Ancient Pages to Nadav A Tribute in its Near Eastern Context. Na^aman, by Y. Amit, Lake, E. Ben-Zvi, I. Finkelstein, and O. Lipschits.

ABOUT

THE AUTHORS
Raz Kletter received his Ph.D. in

edited Winona Muhly,J.D. 2005

IN: Eisenbrauns.

1996 fromTel Aviv University. He has

served in various positions in the Israel most recently

'Em or Leave 'Em. Pages 685 Love Craftsmen: Traveling in the Central and Eastern 90 in vol. 2 of Emporia: Aegaeans and E. Greco. Aegaeum edited by R. Lafftneur Mediterranean, 25. Li?ge: Universit? at Austin. de Li?ge and Austin: University of Raz Kletter Israel/Palestine, The Lady and Pages Context: E. Ben-Zvi, IN: Eisenbrauns. the Bull: 297-312 Remarks on the Bronze from Plaque Israel in itsNear edited by Y. He has conducted ancient many

Antiquities

Authority,

as head of the SPR unit. His research

interests Ages economy, salvage include the Bronze Levant, and Iron in in the southern and

Texas Ornan, 2006 T.

religion

the history

of archaeology. and has

excavations

in Israel

Tel Dan. Eastern Amit, Lake, Rollinger, 2001 R.

in Essays on Ancient toNadav Na^aman, A Tribute I. Finkelstein, and O.

recentlypublished Just Past:The Making of IsraeliArchaeology

(Equinox, 2006). He currently lives in Tallinn, Estonia.

Lipschits.

Winona

hit
Greeks and the Impact of the Ancient Perspective and Mythologies. Influences, edited Near East: BC). Ceramics pavilions Tel Aviv. and

Ziffer
and at She

is is curator
Nehushtan

of the
(metals)

The Ancient Textual Pages

Evidence 233-63

and Historical in Mythology

(ca. 750-650

the Eretz trained

Israel Museum, in archaeology cultures received art. at her

Approaches Melamu Schmidt, 1999 R. Philistische

to Intercultural Symposia 2. Helsinki:

Methodological by R. Whiting.

ancient

Near

Eastern and

C. Sch?fer-Lichtenberger.

Irit Ziffer
Terrakottafigurinen. Ugarit-Forschungen

Tel Aviv PhD

University, Near

in ancient

Eastern

31: 577-676.
Sherratt, 1998 S. "Sea Second 292-313 People" and the Economic in the Eastern Peoples BCE, inHonor Structure of the Late Pages to

Zwickel is Professor Wolfgang Studies and for Old Testament Biblical Archaeology at the Johannes
Gutenberg-University (Germany). His research of Mainz has been on

Millennium

Mediterranean. in Transition:

inMediterranean

Thirteenth

Early Tenth Centuries edited by S. Gitin, Society.

A. Mazar,

of Professor Trude Dothan, Israel and E. Stern. Jerusalem:

the cultic history of Israel and Jordan

in the Bronze also interested Palestine. and Iron Ages. He is of in the He

Exploration Stager, 2006 L. E. New and Stern, E. The Assyrian,

topography has excavated

Discoveries Iron Ages.

in the Excavations Qadmoniyot

of Ashkelon (Hebrew)

in the Bronze

ancient

131: 2-19.

Wolfgang Zwickel
Babylonian and Persian Periods (732-332 B.C.E.).

in Khirbet survey

ez-Zeraqony Shemesh Regional

organized area, Project.

a and

in the Bet

2001

Vol. 2 of The Archaeology of theLand of theBible. New York:

Doubleday.

is presently

the coordinator

of the Kinneret

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

159

The occupation

Lower

Paleolithic of
Fereidoun Biglari and Sonia Shidrang
water sources, but also for other essential resources such as

iran

Bounded

Asia

and south by the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf respectivelyy Iran is a natural bridge connecting southwestern Asia to southern and central and therefore could have been a main route for hominin

in the north

its strategic location, however, it expansion eastwards. Despite has produced little evidence for early hominin occupation. This evidence generally comprises stone artifacts with no clear strati graphic contexts and no associated compared to theLevant, it has been one of the least-known regions of Southwest Asia. Here we present a pre?minary synthesis?using information from western conducted researchers surveys by during the late 1950s through the 1970s, data from recent field surveys, re-analyses of old collections by Iranian researchers, and research undertaken faunal remains. Therefore, theCaucasus or the Indian subcontinent,

(gravels), plants, and game. The known sites usually produced small surface assemblages and in each site artifacts number fewer than 100 to 150. Only a few sites have yielded larger numbers of artifacts; these are large and extended workshops associated with raw-material sources. Unfortunately, with the exception of one cave site, none of these sites have produced animal remains or other evidence for the subsistence activities of early hominins in Iran. Thus, our brief discussion is essentially limited to stone-artifact assemblages. For other Lower of Paleolithic evidence from aspects occupation, elsewhere in the old world has been used. It is feasible that Iran, like some other parts of Southwest Asia, was first colonized during the Plio-Pleistocene. We do not have

raw materials

conditions and enough evidence to determine environmental climatic changes during early hominin expansion in the region, but it is clear that such environmental factors had a significant by joint Iranian and foreign teams during the last decade?that effect on the availability and variability of floral and faunal yields new data about the Lower Paleolithic occupation of Iran resources, which in turn affected distribution and survival of and its probable relations with neighboring regions. in the region. Grassland-type hominin populations vertebrate fossils from the late-Miocene Since the 1960 discovery in localities of Maragheh of a biface on the terrace The available Lower Paleolithic record from Southwest Asia Iran indicate northwestern in Su River of the Qara indicates the importance of the region in understanding initial the presence of a savannah the intermontane nine valley of and a half hominin dispersal toward both Asia and Europe. According landscape
Kermanshah, at least ten

localities or groups of localities to the that can be assigned Lower Paleolithic period have in various been recorded parts of Iran. These localities include along gravel deposits River the Kashafrud

to evidence from Dmanisi in the Caucasus region, hominin in Asia Southwest reaches back to the Plio-Pleistocene presence there (Gabunia and Vekua 1995). In addition to Dmanisi, is evidence for early hominins at Ubeidiya, Yiron, and Erq elAhmar in the Levant, and Riwat in Pakistan dating back to the late Pliocene-early Pleistocene (BarYosef 1998; Dennell 1998). Located as it is between these regions, it has always

to

seven

million

years

ago

(Campbell et al. 1980). These localities also yielded some fossil hominoids belonging to Mesopithecus pentelici. Later, in the Pliocene period, Iran
was part of an extensive

grassland belt that extended in northeastern the Iran, to East Asia. from Africa to been assumed that Iran has the potential provide early and Karun, Kargar, Mashkid, the Plio-Pleistocene During evidence of hominin colonization of this part of Asia. Ladiz Rivers in the south and and Lower Pleistocene, these Sefidrud River in were southeast, still grasslands largely a cave site in the North, Mahabad River in the northwest, present (Dennell 1998). It seems reasonable to suppose that western Alborz, and some surface assemblages and isolated early hominins who expanded eastward could survive in this finds from various parts of the country. similar to their African region since it had an environment In general, these Lower Paleolithic sites are associated with homeland. This early wave of hominins had simple core and as river terraces waterside locations such and flake industries as evidenced by stone assemblages excavated at lakeshores, site of Dmanisi and at some other sites in the Plio-Pleistocene although there are some sites on hilly terrains with rawmaterial
outcrops. The waterside locations were not only important as

the Levant and Pakistan.

160

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Probable evidence the Kashafrud Basin

and early-Pleistocene

for this early population includes sites in in northeastern Iran, where late-Pliocene
exposures are widespread. These sites

east of Mashhad and a small collection of four artifacts from to the south Delbaran located about thirty-two kilometers
southwest of Mashhad, far from other occurrences.

were discovered and sampled in 1974-1975 by Thibault and course Ariai (Ariai and Thibault in the of their survey 1975) of the Kashafrud Basin. They are located some thirty-five to at a distance of eighty-five kilometers southeast of Mashhad,
one to ten kilometers away from the main river course.

Biglari's reexamination of the Kashafrud collections revealed that some of the claimed artifacts are in fact natural objects? quartz pebbles, cobbles, or fragments with no clear human modification except for some fracture surfaces with irregular scars that could have been the result of fluvial mechanical of Unit
volcanic

Thibault and Ariai recognized three major alluvial units in the basin, which they named Units I, II, and III, top to bottom. They tentatively attributed these units to the Lower, Middle, and Upper Pleistocene. The type section of Unit I, near
Abravan, is a thirty-meter-thick accumulation of alternating

action. Quartz pebbles and cobbles are abundant in the gravel I, level 3. Because quartz is brittle and thus more easily chipped than other rock types, it was preferred, even though
rocks such as and?site were also present in the gravels.

layers of gravel and sand. All artifacts were collected from the surface of level 1 and from the eroded talus slope of gravel level 3. The artifacts from the surface were abraded, while those collected at the foot of the section under level 3 were in fresh condition, which may indicate that they originated from level 3. The presence of a gravel layer (layer 3) overlying a thick sandy
layer is interpreted as evidence for the presence of a vast and

This rock type usually produces flakes with sharp edge, which is very effective for cutting activities. Because of quartz's friable
nature, producing flakes with it requires experience and control.

Its use indicates that early toolmakers at Kashafrud were skilled and had good knowledge of quartz fracture mechanics. in technology as well as The assemblages are homogeneous raw material cores include and core forms (core type. They choppers),
hammerstones. hammerstones

whole
The

flakes, flake fragments,

presence that of debitage complete

chunks/debris,
products, reduction cores, sequences

and
and

shallow lake that gradually filled the basin in the late Pliocene. The localities in the Kashafrud basin collections yielded eighty pieces that come from seven sites; all are now housed in the National Museum site yielded the largest collection, with thirty-nine pieces. Other important collections are Chahak (nine pieces), and Baghbaghu (four pieces). There are four more collections from (with no clear provenience) of Iran. The Abravan

indicates

took place on the sites that were close to the paleolake of Kashafrud. The cores were knapped by direct percussion and in some cases by bipolar reduction. Those cores knapped by the direct percussion technique can be classified into one of four categories?unipolar (the dominant category), multiple, and indeterminate. The cores discoid, in size between and vary thirty ninety-four millimeters with a mean of sixty millimeters. show fewer than They frequently removals from unprepared platforms
are mostly natural surfaces with

five that

appropriate

KSK:^vHS?f^-

" k

'"** w^

^'""^TaJpt

^*v *"

* ?t .-?? 'V ^ S '*

1 * "'

angles. An abundance of raw material in the local gravels may account for the low degree
of core reduction. As mentioned above, one

?k!fiB??9E6v\tV.'*'i*

3t^: ''$>^^^^2**~'~'

of the techniques used to extract sharp flakes from pebbles is the bipolar technique where the knapper sets a pebble on a flat rock (anvil) and hits it from above with a hammers tone. to This technique helps the toolmaker produce the largest flakes possible from the pebble. It is especially useful when a pebble is too small or rounded to hold in one hand, as was the case at Kashafrud. There is little evidence for secondary modification of the artifacts and the most important tools were probably simple flakes that provided a useful sharp edge. A few modified tools could be classified as scrapers, notches, and awls, and some core forms could have been
used as choppers.

This map indicates the distribution of known Lower Iran. (Blank topographic map of Iran after Deutschen some modifications.)

Paleolithic

localities

and

Bergbau-Museums

findspots Bochum 2004,

in with

and Thibault (1975), comparing the Kashafrud industry with final Oldowan assemblages from East Africa, attributed the

Ariai

NEAR EASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

161

11

12

Selected artifacts from some of the mentioned Lower Paleolithic sites in Iran. 1. cleaver from Shiwatoo (after Jaubert et al. 2006); 2. handaxe from Quri Goll (after Singer and Wymer 1978); 3. handaxe from Ganj Par (after Biglari et al. 2004); 4. polyhedron from Sahand region (after Sadek-Kooros 1976); 5. biface from Amar Merdeg (unpublished); 6. core-scraper from Ganj Par (unpublished); 7. trihedral pick(?) from Sahand region (after Sadek-Kooros 1976); 8. pointed chopper (partial biface?) from Amar Merdeg (unpublished); 9. flake from Kashafrud (after Thibault 1977); 10. unipolar core from Kashafrud (after Thibault 1977); 11. corechopper from Pal Barik (after Mortensen 1993); 12. handaxe from Pal Barik (after Mortensen 1993). Kashafrud industry to the pre-Acheulian. The composition and characteristics of the industry, such as a high percentage of single platforms (including core-choppers), moderate numbers of bipolar cores, the casual nature of retouched artifacts, the dominance of a single raw material type, and the high numbers of cortical elements, resemble both East African Oldowan and those fromWest Asian sites such as Dmanisi assemblages et al (de Lumley 2005). Hume (1976) identified a Lower Paleolithic core and flake region of Iran, based on lithic industry for the southeastern on collected assemblages gravel terraces of the Ladiz, Mashkid, and Simish Rivers in the Sarhad plateau between 1966 and 1967. During surveys in the Ladiz valley, seven localities were recorded on the river terraces at an altitude of 1400 to 1500 meters above sea level and ten more localities were recorded 1150 to 1250 and Simish Rivers between along the Mashkid meters above sea level. The type assemblages for Ladizian come two River that from localities Ladiz Industry along are or to Hume undisturbed according only slightly disturbed is floors. This demonstrated by presence of some occupational one from the of which includes a core sites, refitting groups and a substantial number of flakes revealing a nearly complete
reconstruction of a cobble. The most common raw material

employed was quartzite,

although

chert and jasper were

also

162

NEAR EASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

used to some degree. These rock types are local and obtained from gravels along the rivers. Unipolar cores are the most frequent core type, followed by other types such as those with double, irregular, or multiple platforms. The bipolar technique is applied on chert and jasper nodules that are small in size. Tools consist of various types of scrapers, notches, denticulates, points, simple burins, and borers. Some of these tools show bifacial retouch along their also occur in the industry, although in edges. Core-choppers low frequency (Hume 1976). Based on the g?omorphologie context of the localities and the of the assemblages, Hume characteristics typo-technological suggested that the Ladizian Industry was produced between the late Riss-early Wurm glacial periods (between 130,000 and 110,000 years ago). But this chronological framework has been criticized because it is based on the traditional Pleistocene glacial sequence of Europe (Smith 1986). that the Ladizian Industry belongs to a If it is demonstrated terminal Middle Pleistocene-early Upper Pleistocene period (dating to marine isotopic stages 6 and 5), we may assume it is an early Middle Paleolithic industry with some affinities with industries from the Indian subcontinent. dates available Thermoluminescence from aMiddle Paleolithic site in western (aboutl300 kilometers east Rajasthan indicate a terminal Middle southeast) Pleistocene to early Upper Pleistocene years ago) for its age (150,000-100,000 lithic industry (Misra 1989). Ladizian and northern Indian industries also use similar raw materials and they contain similar tool types. Hume did not mention Although in the the use of the Levallois method Ladizian
some

alluvial deposits stratigraphically organized in a Quaternary four-level sequence that is dissected by the drainage network of
the Kargar and Karun rivers.

the highest terrace of the Kargar and Karoun Rivers, four lithic samples were collected that consist of Lower Paleolithic fifty-one artifacts made from quartz, radiolarite, and volcanic include flakes, flake fragments, cores, rocks. The collections and notches and and tools such as side scrapers, denticulates one partial biface. Debitage products are generally small in On size and cores also have small dimensions. Nearly half of the assemblages are composed of cores that generally have few flake removals and platforms that lack any preparation (Thibault made from millemeters), 1977). The partial biface (12x9 grayish green volcanic rock, has some retouching on its right and distal edges at one face and three large removals on other face. The retouching on the distal part resulted in a transverse edge resembling a cleaver bit. The proposed age for the Minab occurrences on the highest terraces places them, like the Ladizian Industry, within the new framework of the regional Middle Paleolithic. chronological to Regard and colleagues (2005), the highest terrace According on the Kargar and Karoun Rivers may have formed during a humid period to the d?glaciation corresponding between stages 6 and 5e, isotopic onset of the last interglacial before the used conditions. New dating methods sites inWestern for Middle Paleolithic Asia and South Asia specify that the Paleolithic Middle began sometimes and 250,000 between years 200,000 ago, which agrees with new dates for the European Middle Paleolithic. Although we should not dismiss the possibility that in some areas, the Lower Paleolithic tool traditions persisted well into late and even into the Middle Pleistocene last interglacial. routes of of the proposed One is into Iran from northern hominin entry Mesopotamia and along the southwestern foothills of the Zagros range (Rolland that 2001). Some have suggested

Industry,

it is represented
on the Makran

in

surface

occurrences

coast (about four hundred kilometers to the southwest) in association with denticulated pieces and core-choppers 1980). An (Vita-Finzi and Copeland industry similar to the Ladizian has been reported from some surface localities at Khash valley that are located about A quartz core-chopper to the south of the ninety kilometers of Iran. Photo courtesy Ladiz valley (Marucheck 1976). Most of these localities are associated with raw material outcrops and seem to have functioned as workshops. for late Lower Paleolithic Probable evidence occupation comes from the Minab region in southeastern Iran. In 1977, a joint French-Iranian team led by Thibault collected some lithic assemblages on the surface of terraces (25-50 meters above sea level) spreading at the foot of the Zendan range, north of Minab, which are attributed to the Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic periods (Thibault 1977). The area that is located between Zendan range and strait of Hormoz coast is characterized by

from Kashafrud, Fereidoun

northeastern

Lower Paleolithic groups penetrated only rarely into the Zagros or beyond to it central Iran (Smith 1996). But the recent discovery of occurrence at the western edge of the a probable Acheulian central Iranian desert (Kavir), suggests that the Zagros mountain into range was not a major barrier to population expansion
Biglari.

central Iran during the Lower Paleolithic period. The Geleh site is situated about ten kilometers northwest of Kashan, at an elevation of 1100 meters above sea level, at the opening of the narrow side valley of Tang-e Khozaq on the eastern slopes of the Karkas mountains. The site is limited on the east and west by two shallow streambeds that lead to the

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

163

main

stream by

channel a dense

running scatter of

to

the Kashan rocks

plain. that

The

area

is covered

angular

are mostly

trachy and?site. The outcrops of this igneous rock are located along northern margins of the valley overlooking the area. This site was recorded by Biglari and Heydari during a preliminary Paleolithic reconnaissance of the Kashan region in 2003 (Biglari 2004a). Seven large flakes were collected in an area stretching along the left side of the main stream channel and measuring approximately one hundred meters in diameter. A second survey of the site by Biglari in 2006 revealed an
additional sample of twenty-three artifacts from the same area.

different periods of prehistory of which Middle Paleolithic artifacts are the most common. Survey of a hilltop located about five kilometers to north of the handaxe findspot, west of
the village of Gakia, revealed some core-choppers, numerous

dating to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Ages (Biglari 2004a; Heydari 2004). The Gakia chert outcrops extend about twenty-five Levallois
kilometers southeast to the vicinity of Harsin, where a survey

cores and flakes and lithic artifacts

This
a few

sample consists
large cores, one

of large flakes,
twenty-seven

unifacial
centimeters

handaxes,
in

and

length.

The

artifacts

are all made

than ten

of altered
centimeters.

trachyandesite
There was no

and are
smaller

generally

larger

by the authors in 2006 revealed two bifaces in association with Levallois cores and debitage, and other Middle Paleolithic in artifacts. One of the bifaces measures 85.80 millimeters a is and and has cortical the other butt, (127 length larger in length) and made by large removals over one millimeters face while the other face bears few large retouch scars. Both are made on local chert nodules and are heavily patinated. Association somewhat Acheulian of these bifaces with Levallois elements makes it difficult to determine whether they belong to the or Mousterian industries. It should be noted that in the Zagros Mousterian assemblages discovered so far in caves and rock-shelter sites, there are only two known bifaces. These were found by Garrod in association with Middle Paleolithic assemblages from Hazar Merd Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. The closest analogs to Gakia are found in a similar surface
scatter of artifacts associated with raw material sources in

debitage, suggesting that the lighter specimens were washed away during seasonal floods of the Tang-e Khozaq. The main characteristic of the Geleh industry is the production of large end and side struck flakes that mostly have no bulb or have only an ambiguous bulb. A few collected cores are also large, between 16 to 27 centimeters in length. No effort was made to and only a few show some shape the flakes after detachment partial retouch. Generally, the industry is dominated by primary as a stage reduction pieces that suggest Geleh functioned
workshop. Aside from sources of the raw material, the abundant

springs in the vicinity (evidenced by travertine formations), probably attracted hominins to the area. The presence of large unifaces made of side struck flakes, cleaver-like flakes, and a large broken biface with steep retouching along its lateral edges makes it likely that the Geleh industry is a part of the Acheulian There industrial complex. ismore evidence for Lower Paleolithic
regions of northwest and western

the southwestern foothills of the Zagros Mountains kilometers to the southwest of Gakia. Amar Merdeg
a cluster of hills covering approximately six square

some 150 consists of

to

kilometers

the east of the Konjan-Cham River, north of the town of Mehran and at two to three hundred meters above sea level. These occurrences were recorded and sampled in 1999 by Biglari, arid Heydari Nokandeh, (2000). These assemblages consisted of only core-choppers, flake tools, and large numbers of tested fieldwork in cobbles, cores, and cortical debitage. Additional 2001 and 2004 resulted in the discovery of four bifaces and partial bifaces, some Levallois cores and debitage, and more
core-choppers. Chert, commonly sandstone, used and cobbles quartzite raw materials. are They were plentiful the most on the

occupation
Iran, where

in

the mountainous

environmental conditions may have been more favorable for hominin occupation than dry regions of central and southeastern comes from three regions including Iran. This evidence
intermontane valleys and foothills of the western Zagros, east

and south of Lake Urmia, and the western Alborz range. As mentioned earlier, the first recorded Lower Paleolithic
find in Iran comes from the west-central Zagros, where a

hilltops.
these

High

proportions
cobbles,

of core-choppers
as were a handaxe

are made
and

from

well-rounded

various

(1960) undertook a prehistoric by Braidwood some in intermontane survey valleys in the archaeological Kermanshah Region in 1959-1960. During a survey of the hilly team directed
area of Gakia, about ten kilometers to the east-southeast of

types of cores. The handaxe has a thick proximal end that was and its distal part is triangular in left completely unretouched, cross-section. Two of the three sides of the tool are partially It retouched while the remaining side was left unretouched. Balka from Barda resembles most closely the illustrated handaxe in Iraqi Kurdistan at the western foothills of the Zagros (Wright and Howe 1951). In both the Gakia and Amar Merdeg assemblages there are a few bifaces and a larger number of core-choppers, but no tool and core types such as cleavers, other Lower Paleolithic
spheroids, polyhedrons, or core scrapers. These are usually

Kermanshah, on one of the lower terraces of the Qara-Su River at an altitude of about 1260 meters above sea level, a biface was found in association with numerous flakes and cores. The cores and flakes were assigned to later periods based on their techno typological characteristics (Singer andWymer 1978). The biface is 16.5 millimeters in length and has an amygdaloid form. A new survey of the Gakia area by Biglari and Heydari in 1997 that this occurrence is and later by the authors demonstrated a scatter continuous of flint artifacts that are part of huge and associated with radiolarian chert outcrops. The workshops and chipping floors relate to the manufacture of flint artifacts during

present western

of assemblages quantities and southern Asia. On the other hand, the presence of large number of various types of Levallois cores and their
products characterize these assemblages. Similar surface

in various

in Acheulian

164

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

sites with Acheulian industries with Levallois elements are in the Levant reported from southwestern Asia, especially like (Ronen 1982). Since there is hardly any combination this in excavated assemblages, we may have essentially mixed assemblages remaining from successive workshops from both Paleolithic the Lower and Middle (O. Bar-Yosef, periods 2002). personal communication, site from west-central Iran is Pal Another reported Acheulian Barik, recorded by RMortensen during his archaeological survey of the Holailan Valley, and located some sixty-five kilometers to the south of the Kermanshah Valley (Mortensen 1993). The site is situated on a flat hilltop overlooking the Saimareh River valley, at an altitude of about 975 meters above sea level. In an area of approximately 50 X 80 meters, he collected a total of eighty-nine heavily patinated artifacts. The assemblage consisted of a relatively small sub triangular biface; large numbers of core' and choppers; unipolar, discoid, multiple as retouched tools such side cores; irregular and end scrapers; notched, denticulated, and other debitages (Mortensen 1993). An additional small biface was found about one to the southwest of Pal Barik. kilometer in cross This core-like biface is biconvex section and has a twisted profile. In some respects, for example, the large number of core-choppers and its poor is the assemblage Acheulian component, similar to the assemblages from Gakia and Amar Merdeg, although in the latter sites there are high frequencies of Levallois elements and the Pal Barik assemblage includes only one small Levallois core. research in the valley Geomorphological indicates that the locality is associated with one of two pediments that extend from to the base of the limestone escarpments to Brookes, the alluvial valley. According who

the high altitude of this find, it may belong to a Considering warm interval of the Pleistocene because such a high altitude to have been occupied region was too cold and unfavorable during glacial periods. The presence of rich and well-preserved fossil beds of at the foot of Sahand, encouraged Sadek Koroos Maragheh (1976) to undertake a preliminary survey for probable evidence of Pliocene-early
Her survey covered

Pleistocene
stream

hominin occupation
terraces and rocky

of the region.
regions around

the Sahand massif at an altitude between 1400 to 1800 meters above sea level. A total of seven open-air localities and three cave sites were recorded that yielded Lower Paleolithic artifacts (Sadek-Kooros 1976). Artifacts from the open-air occurrences
are in secondary context and those reported from caves are

in the vicinity of those collected caves. The collected artifacts include core choppers, retouched flakes, and cores that were made from chert and other rock types. Based on published images, there are polyhedrons, and a probable trihedral pick. spheroids, the assemblages resemble Lower Generally, core flake Paleolithic simple and industries. But a of the presence probable pick may indicate that the industry isAcheulian. A recent survey by S. Alipour along Mahabad River to the south of Lake Urmia revealed some Lower Paleolithic
the same year, a joint

on terraces

localities
Iranian-French

in 2004.

In

team

and sampled some of these localities, among which Shiwatoo produced the largest number of artifacts (Jaubert et al. 2006). This locality, situated about seven kilometers west visited lies at an altitude of about 1380 of Mahabad, meters above sea level on the left bank of River overlooking Mahabad the Mahabad Piranshahr road. Over three visits to the site, the team collected nearly one hundred artifacts
from an area measuring about one hectare, which slopes twenty

A biface Mehran Photo

from Amar plain, courtesy

Merdeg southwestern of Markus

in the Zagros. Schicht.

of the Holailan valley, these studied the geomorphology (Mortensen pediments probably predate the last interglacial 1993). Thus, the site may date back to the last interglacial, or somewhat later. As for the Minab and probably the Sarhad for Pal Barik iswithin localities, the age proposed by Mortensen the early Middle Paleolithic time range. a A team led by Singer and Wymer (1978) conducted

in the survey for evidence of Lower Paleolithic occupation in northwestern 1970. Their ten-day portion of the country survey covered a large region along the main roads connecting Tehran, Tabriz, Kermanshah, and Hamedan. The team failed, to recover any secure traces of Lower Paleolithic however, occupation, except for a single surface find from the Lake Quri Goll vicinity, northeast of the Sahand massif. Here they found an isolated biface on the surface of a low terrace, about one kilometer southeast of the lake, at an altitude of about 1900 meters above sea level. It is a subcordate form handaxe made of quartzitic sandstone and is heavily patinated and worn.

one to twenty-six degrees towards the valley floor. The presence of many well-rounded pebbles and cobbles an terrace to alluvial old dismantled testify (Jaubert et al. were the made from these of artifacts and?site, 2006). Many quartzite, and basalt cobbles, as well as from local basalt and limestone outcrops. The industry consists primarily of cores, and tested cobbles, and core-choppers. Unipolar, multiple, discoid cores were found; some were quite large (one unipolar core is thirty centimeters in length and exhibits some large and elongated scars of previous removals). A number of pebble and cobble cores exhibit bipolar technique (Jaubert et al 2004). The paucity of small pieces in general suggests that the assemblage has undergone some lateral transport over the sloping surface. The most characteristic find from Shiwatoo is a large cleaver made on a side-struck flake with a relatively straight distal edge. In general, the industry is typified by hard hammer flaking, large cores and flakes, rare retouched pieces, and a few core

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

165

forms with bifacial removals that resemble partial bifaces. The characteristics technological industry shows some Acheulian such as the flake cleaver, some bifacially shaped core forms, and large cores and flakes. Other localities with similar industries are Kalakawe, Kani Samburian, and Shakar Bag, which are of Shiwatoo along the Mahabad River located south-southwest (Jaubert et ai. 2004). So far, the best evidence for the Acheulian industry in Iran western comes from Ganj Par located in the Alborz range, in northern Iran. This locality, discovered by Biglari and Heydari in 2002, lies at an elevation of about 235 meters above sea level, on the 200-160 me ter-high terrace of the Sefidrud in the Rostamabad plain (Biglari, Heydari, and Shidrang 2004). During three visits to the site we collected about 140 artifacts in an area of about half a hectare. All pieces were plotted on topographic map to record all potential information. Almost half of the assemblage ismade from limestone that comes from the local bedrock. A
artifacts are made from sandstone,

they were almost all made from limestone. During a recent visit, a limestone subspheroid was also found on the site. similarities with early and The industry shares technological western in Middle Acheulian Asia, including the assemblages
use of volcanic rocks as raw material from gravel sources, the

presence of large cutting tools, the use of large flakes as blanks, the presence of discoid the high frequency of core-choppers, and the specific use of and anvil flaking along other methods,
raw material for production of certain cores and core-tools.

Given
Caucasus,

the geographic
its assemblage

location
bears

of Ganj
closer

Par close

to the
to the

resemblance

Caucasus Acheulian than to theWestern Zagros assemblages. The narrow Sefidrud valley, where Ganj Par is located, provides easy passage in two directions, south toward the Iranian central plateau and north of the Zagros, and north to the southern a to the Caucasus, shores of the Caspian Sea and northwest record (Lioubine 2002). region with a rich Acheulian of Ganj Par, the Some sixteen kilometers east-southeast of has site Darband discovered yielded the first-known recently in a cave in Iran. evidence for Lower Paleolithic occupation The Darband cave and an adjacent larger cave are located on the north side of a deep tributary canyon of the Siahrud River, a tributary of the Sefidrud River that flows into the Caspian
Sea. The site lies at an altitude of seventy-five meters above sea

large proportion
quartzite,

of the other
and volcanic

rocks such as tuff, and?site, and basalt, which come primarily from secondary gravel sources along Sefid Rud and its left bank tributary of Kaluraz. The presence of some small flakes in the assemblage and the low degrees of abrasion on the artifacts there was no significant may indicate post-depositional disturbance, although there is a possibility that some lighter
artifacts washed away.

level and faces south, on a nearly vertical cliff dominating

deep canyon. meters Darband long, with is a single chamber cave about twenty one a seven-meter-wide entrance.

the

The
choppers

assemblage
and cores,

is composed
along with

of high
core

frequencies
bifaces,

of core
large

scrapers,

flakes, and hammers. The bifacial assemblage is composed of handaxes, cleavers, a partial hand axe and a pick. About half of the bifaces were made on large flakes. The cleavers and core scrapers found are the first-known examples of these types in a Lower Paleolithic archaeological context in Iran. Cores can be categorized as unipolar, multiple, discoid, and indeterminate.
There are also some bipolar cores. Cores vary widely in size and

V. Jahani located the site in 2005; he collected some faunal remains and potsherds on the floors of both the Darband cave and its neighbor. We visited Darband with Jahani in 2006; that expedition yielded a large number of faunal remains and twenty-five stone artifacts, which were collected from disturbed deposits along the western wall of the cave. The lithic artifacts are mainly made of chert, followed by rocks. Chert artifacts are silicified tuff, and other volcanic

Darband Photo

Cave courtesy

and

its neighboring cave, of Fereidoun Biglari.

overlooking

deep

canyon.

A core-chopper

from

the Darband

lithic collection

is shown

in the

inset.

166

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

smaller than those made from other rock types, which may have to do with the small size of the chert nodules. Flakes make up the majority of the artifacts and their platforms are plain or cortical; few are small. The majority of flakes have a high flaking angle (exceeding ninety degrees) mostly between 110 and 124 degrees. Aside from four specimens, all the artifacts show some retouch that allows them to be classified as marginal retouched flakes,
scrapers, Other notched, artifacts awls, consist of end-scrapers, a few cores and and small a core core-scrapers. chopper and

archaeologists in order to establish the context and nature of the industry, which seems provide the earliest evidence for presence of hominins in Iran. In southern Iran, except for the probably site of Minab near the Strait of Hormoz, there late-Acheulian is no evidence for Lower Paleolithic occupations. Although sites in southern Iran could the relative absence of Acheulian be the result of geomorphic factors, and, even more likely, the lack of survey in the region, the presence of large numbers of sites in the Arabian peninsula, especially inOman, Acheulian shows the potential of the peninsula as a dispersal route from east Africa and eventually through the Arabian Peninsula into the Iranian Plateau. The lowering of sea levels during could reduce the distance between the Arabian glaciations Peninsula and southern Iran at the Strait of Hormoz, where the present-day depth of the strait is about ninety meters. sites in Large gaps in the distribution of Lower Paleolithic other parts of Iran such as in the central region is clearly due to the lack of survey in these regions rather than the real absence of hominins. The presence of localities such as the probable one mentioned near Kashan, indicates the potential of these unknown that regions for Lower Paleolithic investigations in could fill the of the distribution Lower gap large eventually Paleolithic sites in these regions.

some flakes and a flake fragment. Most of the artifacts are heavily patinated; the patination on one broken flake measured three millimeters in thickness. A flake with a convex profile and subradial dorsal scar pattern may have been struck from a biface, in turn could be evidence for the use of biface as core and presence of an Acheulian industry in the site. The faunal assemblage is dominated by cave bears, along with a few ungulate remains. The presence of large numbers of cave-bear remains in the faunal assemblage and sparse lithic artifacts at the site indicates that Darband primarily represents a bear den. The co-occurrence of artifacts and bear bones does which
not imply human pr?dation or scavenging. Because there are

no clear cut marks except for a few signs of burning on the bear bones, they probably accumulated through natural mortality. Such alternating use of caves by hominins and cave bears is cave sites in the Caucasus reported from Middle Pleistocene
and Mediterranean Basin. Remains of cave bear are absent

at Paleolithic cave sites in the Zagros region and elsewhere in Iran. Darband represents the first record of this taxon from
Iran. to be The presence of this carnivore at western of Caucasian Alborz population seems of a southeastern extension

Paleolithic studies are becoming increasingly import among the new generation of Iranian archaeologists, who unlike their predecessors, are interested in devoting their careers to the Paleolithic prehistory of Iran. Certainly, Lower Paleolithic research in Iran, as a part of Paleolithic archaeology, is still taking its first steps, and much work remains to be done by this young generation and its foreign colleagues.

cave bear. Our preliminary observation based on Pleistocene both lithic and faunal assemblages indicates a probable Middle Pleistocene age for the site; meanwhile we have submitted two bear teeth for U-series dating that could help us to put the site in a chronological framework. Previous Paleolithic investigations in Iran generally have not been as extensive as those in neighboring regions such as the Caucasus and the Indian subcontinent, and only some of this field research has been oriented toward the Lower Paleolithic is based question specifically. But this brief review, which new on Lower Paleolithic demonstrates discoveries, mostly the importance of the Lower Paleolithic record of Iran for in broader hominin and behavior understanding adaptation context of theWestern Asia. The concentration of Lower Paleolithic Iran indicates that this region close considerable archaeological potential, explorations will result in new evidence sites such as the one known from Darband sites can provide information on the sites inNorthwestern to the Caucasus has and more intensive from primary-context Cave. Such stratified economic and social

Acknowledgments
We wish
comments

to extend our sincere

and encouragement.

thanks to A. Nowell
We are also grateful

for her
to M.

Kargar, the director of National

Mashkour, encouragement. and M. Azarnoush

Museum
for their

of Iran, K. Abdi, M.
support and

continuous

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Pracht: Bergbau, Handwerk, Katalog der Ausstellung Arch?ologie: vom 28. November Bochum des Deutschen Bergbau-Museums 2004 bis 29. Mai 2005, edited by T St?llner, R. Slotta, and A. Vatandoust. Biglari, 2004 F.; Heydari, 2 vols. Bochum: S. for Lower Basin, Paleolithic Occupation 78. Online: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.

et de g?ologie du Quaternaire de pr?histoire Research and Center for Paleolithic de Bordeau 1) of Iran). J.; Bruxelles, L.; Mourre, V; Shidrang, S.;

Museum

F; Bordes, S.

S.; and Shidrang, Par: The

Research

on Paleolithic

of Iran: Preliminary Archaeological 4: 17-26.

Report

of

Ganj in the Southern

First Evidence Caspian

Iranian-French

Joint Mission.

Reports

Iran. Antiquity

(Iranian Center Lioubine, 2002 V E Lacheul?en Li?ge. Misra, ; Mortensen, 1993 V. N. Stone Age Environment R Paleolithic Northern

for Archaeological

Research)

http://62.189.20.34/projgall/biglari/index.html. Braidwood, 1960 R. J. Seeking Full-Scale The Campbell, Morris, the World's First Farmers in Persian Kurdistan: A

du Caucase.

ERAUL

93.

Li?ge:

Universit?

de

Sites of Prehistoric Investigation Illustrated London News 237: 695-97. M. H.; J.A.; Bernor, R. L.; Dickinson,

near Kermanshah.

1989 W; Drake, R. J.A. H.

India:

An

B. G.; Amini, R.; Van Couvering, Maragheh: Northwestern

Ecological

Perspective.

Man

and

14: 17-64.

and Van Couvering, Late Miocene 287: 837-41. D.; Cauche,

1980

A Classical

Vertebrate

Locality

in

Iran. Nature M.; Barskyc, D.;

de Lumley, Nioradz?, 2005

H.; Nioradz?, G.; Nottere, Les O.;

D..; D.

Celiberti,

V;

Zvania,

and Lordkipanidze,

in the Hulailan Sites and Epipaleolithic Valley, in The Paleolithic Prehistory of Luristan. Pages 159-87 and H. L. Dibble. the ZagroS'Taurus, edited by D. I.Olszewsky University of Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia: du d?but en G?orgie. du Rolland, 2001 N. The Initial

industries

Pleistocene Lanthropobgie Dennell, 1998 R.W.

lithiques pr?oldowayennes du site de Dmanisi inf?rieur 109: 1-182.

Europe

of and the Early Occupation of Eurasia Peopling in Its Afro-Asian Issues and Current Context: Major

Colonization of and the Hominid Tool-Making in Early Southern Asia: A Reconsideration. Pages 280-303 inGlobal Context, Human Behaviour edited by M. D. Petraglia Grasslands, and R. Korisettar, London: Routledge.

in A Very Remote Period Indeed: 78-94 Pages Perspectives. on to Derek Roe, edited by S. the Paleolithic Presented Papers Milliken Ronen, A. (ed.) The Transition Modem Man. Middle Paleolithic and theOrigins from Lower to BAR. BAR International Series 151. Oxford: of and J.Cook. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

1982 East Georgia,

Gabunia, 1995

L., and Vekua, A

A. Hominid 373: 509-12. 1976 from Dmanisi, Sadek-Kooros,

Plio-Pleistocene Nature

H. Early Hominid Traces in East Azarbaijan. Symposium edited 1-10 Pages on Archaeological by F. Bagherzadeh. Research. in

Caucasus. Heydari, 2004 S. Stone Pages

Proceedings Raw Material 124-29 Sources antike in Iran: Some Pracht: Case Studies. Research Tehran: Singer, R., 1978 and Wymer, A Hand-Ax Movement in Persiens Katalog Bergbau, Handwerk, Bergbau

of the IVth Annual in Iran, Tehran 1975,

Iranian Center J.

for Archaeological

Arch?ologie:

der Ausstellung

des Deutschen

from Northwest between Africa

Iran: The and Asia

Question in the Lower

of Human Palaeolithic

ABOUT
at the National

THE
Museum

Periods.

AUTHORS|
Thibault, 1977 C. main research interest is the

Prehistory Hague:

in Views Pages 13-27 and Paleoanthropology,

inOld World of the Past: Essays edited by L. G. Freeman. The

Mouton.

Fereidoun Biglar is head of theCenter for Paleolithic Research

of Iran. His

Pr?histoire 1977.

de la r?gion de Minah Institut

Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Iran andWestern Asia. Sonia Shidrang is a member of Center for Paleolithic Research
at the National Museum of Iran. Her research interest is transition Vita-Finzi, 1980 Wright, 1951 C,

Bordeaux:

de Pr?histoire

dact., Octobre (Iran). Rapport et de Geologie du

Quaternaire. and Copeland, Surface Finds L. from B. on Soundings at Barda Balka. Sumer Iranian Makran. Iran 18: 149-55.

fromMiddle Paleolithic toUpper Paleolithic in theZagros and the earlyUpper Paleolithic of Iran.

H. E., Jr., and Howe, Preliminary 7: 107-17.

Report

168

NEAREASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Working

Bones: Workshop

UniQue from Tell

Age es-S?fi/Gath
Stefan J.Wimmer,

Iron

IIA Bone 1
s.mmtm?m*mn:m

Liora Kolska Horwitz,

Justin Lev-Tov, Jeffrey R* Chadwick,

published

and Aren M. Maeir

Ornaments, tools, and utensils manufactured from ardmd bane were an integral part of human material culture, even following the advent of metal technology. The attraction of this raw material lay in the probably ease with which it was available (animals consumed), its low mercantile value (discarded carcasses), as well as its versatility as a raw material (strong but soft) (Ayalon 2003; MacGregor 1991, 1997). 1985;Wapnish An impressive amount of information is available concerning the range of products manufactured from bone in antiquity. far less is known

one can note a possible Late Helladic exceptions, context at Asine, Greece; an Iron Age workshop production from Stratum K-4 (=VIA) at Megiddo, Israel; the fourth- to BCEworkshops from Al?sia and Compierre second-century in France; and extensive Roman-period debris bone-working a at not Reasons for the Caesarea.1 (if per se) workshop dearth of workshops may be the mobility of craftsmen whose (Barnett 1982: 11, workshops were temporary establishments 46; Zaccagnini 1983), or the fact that inmany excavations, all so that unidentified bones were not systematically collected
fragments, such as waste products of bone artifact production,

However,

about the technology of their raw of which both the material requires knowledge production, and technical skill. This is due primarily to the limited number that have been excavated. Of the few

of bone workshops

were routinely discarded. As a consequence, the discovery of an Iron Age IIA bone season at Tell es-S?fi/ excavation 2006 the workshop during Gath was an important find. The workshop was located inArea F, Locus 95404, an excavation area situated to the northwest a room of the summit of the tell. This context represents a structure within that had been destroyed, along with the stratum throughout the rest of the site, in the contemporary We believe that this destruction was late-ninth century BCE. caused by the conquest of Gath by Hazael of Aram-Damascus, as mentioned in 2 Kgs 12:18, and can be paralleled to Stratum A3 of the late-ninth century BCE exposed in the excavations of Area A, on the eastern side of the site (e.g., Maeir 2004). The
context around the workshop contained a large assortment

of finds mainly nature, including different of this period, all destroyed in types of pottery characteristic a collapse. In the center of the excavated room, we found a stone. Around and under the stone, we large, doughnut-shaped recovered a total of 141 fragments of worked bone. In addition, we recovered approximately 120 small bone fragments ranging in size from one to three centimeters in length. Although these fragments showed no signs of modification,
are associated with bone-tool production

of a domestic

most probably they

activities. Here, we

like to point out some of initial insights the technology of Iron gleaned from these finds concerning Age bone-tool production. remains from the Tell es-S?fi/Gath workshop The modified a comprise remarkably homogeneous assemblage. All 141 would (metacarpal) and (Bos taurus). A few (metatarsal) similarly worked cattle bones, probably metatarsals, also either waste products or partially completed tools, have been retrieved from other sites in the region, such as inMiddle and Late Bronze worked bones derive from the lower forelimb hindlimb of domestic cattle

that can be

Map sites,

the showing and Megiddo,

location where

of Tell es-S?fi/Gath, another bone

selected was

Philistine found.

workshop

NEAR EASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

169

SECONDARY

has

enabled

us

to

reconstruct

a nearly

complete

reduction

sequence (cha?ne op?ratoire) of the artifacts manufactured here. Although the reconstruction of the stages of production of pre-modern technology through the cha?ne op?ratoire perspective has most commonly been utilized with respect to tool production, it can also be applied prehistoric flaked-stone to the realms of other human technologies (see e.g., Schlanger from Tell es-Safi/Gath 1994; Bleed 2001). The evidence a good example and of such a perspective, provides
enables us to reconstruct the various stages of production.

0 ft
IU

The

three main

stages

in the production

of a bone

artifact (Ashby2005; MacGregor 1985):

The Primary Stage unworked material of complete bones The Secondary involves the initial processing of and includes chopping or sawing up

The

bone-tool

production

sequence

(cha?ne

op?ratoire).

these pieces

pieces. involves the conversion of Stage into blanks and roughouts for the production

into smaller, workable

of thefinal object. The Tertiary Stage includes the final phases of

of the object, from shaping pin heads and tips, or cutting teeth of a comb, to the final phase in which the object is trimmed, smoothed, and finished. construction

Primary Stage
The first stage of work was the selection of a uniform corpus
of bones, in this case complete metacarpals or metatarsals of

cattle, that is,with fused ends. These bones were selected based on their large size, robusticity, and preferentially the thickness of their compact bone, facilitating modification and reduction in all dimensions. An additional consideration adult domestic behind the selection of these elements is that, anatomically, they were composed of two separate bones that fused together feature enabled the bone to before birth. This morphological be split easily in a longitudinal direction, creating long bone "blanks ready for further reduction and modification. The modifications probably commenced with the soaking of the bones in water in order to soften them, followed by the distal and removal of both epiphyseal ends of the bone?the was achieved by severing the the proximal epiphyses (c). This ends and then smoothing the resulting edges with a rasp. These procedures are attested to by the find of two complete bone cylinders without ends, the relative paucity of distal or proximal epiphyses in the assemblage, and the consistently smooth ends In some cases, of the resulting bone shafts (bone cylinders). a groove and on is that evident the ends stepping indicating snap technique
then smoothed.

Twelve workshop

of the fourteen assemblage.

distal Note

metapodial the absence

ends

represented of distal ends.

in the

Age contexts at Ashkelon (Ayalon and Sorek 1999: 16, fig. 4). The minimum number of long bones represented is estimated at fourteen based on the reoccurrence of the same distal portion of the bone, and comprised six metatarsals, four metacarpals, and four indeterminate metapodials. The latter may represent either the lower forelimb or hindlimb. The most striking feature is the uniform nature of the modifications evident on all bones, which indicates that a standardized technique was used tomodify both metatarsals production The presence of complete bones, partially worked bones, in the Tell es-S?fi/Gath and waste products workshop and metacarpals, and that this was aimed at the of a limited repertoire of similar shaped artifacts.

had been used to remove

the end, which was

170

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Secondary Stage
cm The bone cylinder was then divided (d) into two equal halves by splitting it longitudinally down the shaft, probably using the midshaft sulcus as a two to line natural dividing for the halves. This appears have been achieved
using a percussion technique, where a sharp implement was struck down

against the end of the bone while the bone rested against a hard surface. This is evident in that the resultant edges of the bone halves are consistently flat and straight. It is likely that the large stone around which the metapodials were found was the anvil used in the operation. The straight edges evident on the shaft fragments could only have been obtained by working fresh bone, as old or weathered bone would have fractured and broken
horizontally rather than vertically.

Either before or after division of the bone cylinder, the external surface of the bone shaft was roughly modified through whittling and removal of bone flakes (e) to make the shaft rounded and less angular. This was achieved using a V-shaped metal rasp and/or gouge that left characteristic
marks on the surface of the bones.

The halved bone shafts resulting were then further reduced in width by a secondary splitting of the half cylinder the removal of a bone fragment through This using the percussion technique. reduction stage likely also used the anvil (f). This part of the reduction sequence is evident in the presence of percussion

^^^^^^^^^H
Secondary flaking stage (stage e). of bone tool

fracture

scars

on

numerous

fragments.

production:

rounding

off the

shaft

by whittling

and

Evidence bone with

of the primary production and distal ends proximal

stage: removed

metacarpal (stage c). Secondary stage of bone tool production: split bone cylinders (stage d).

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

171

Tertiary Stage
The resulting, thinner, long-bone fragments were then reduced in size yet again, by whittling off bone flakes to form rough-outs of bone points (g). The desired final shape was obtained by further removal of bone and smoothing the external surface (h). The final products were either bone awls, pins, points of some kind, or arrowheads.

may help us understand what exact tools and which materials (stone, bone, metal) were used in their production. The Tell es-S?fi/Gath workshop thus presents a unique opportunity for in-depth study of technology and production in the Iron Age of
the southern Levant.

End Products
Although none of the finished products were found in this context, similarly shaped objects from this and other sites
can serve as suggested

parallels

for

such
Tertiary stage of bone tool head from Lachish, Stratum artifacts (#39-798). may have been courtesy production: III (late-eighth an example century of a bone arrow bce; Stage h). Similar at Tell es-S?fi/Gath Authority.

objects. The possibility exists that at least some of the objects so

produced were meant

Photo

produced of the

in the workshop Israel Antiquities

to be arrowheads.

Bone

arrowheads have been found at several sites in

the southern Levant,

Notes
1. Asine, Greece: Nilsson (1997); Megiddo: Gadot and Yasur-Landau

including original
excavations stage of bone tool production: Secondary the long splinters of bone have been in length and breadth reduced further to produce proto-points (stage g). from simple,

both and

the

(2006: 591); Al?sia and Compierre: Ayalon (2003: 268 and references
therein); Caesarea: Ayalon (2005).

renewed

at Lachish,

2. Lachish: Tufhell (1953: 398, pl. 63); Gottlieb (2004: 1908, pl. IX, fig. 27.1); Megiddo: Loud (1948: pl. 174);Gerar: P?trie (1928: 16, pl. XXIII);
and Gezer: Macalister (1912: pl. CCXV).

and Gerar, Megiddo, Gezer.2 Such arrowheads take different forms,

rough,

References
Ashby, 2005 S. Craft and Industries: Bone, Antler House, In Blue and Horn-Working. on Excavations;

points,

to elegant leaf shapes imitating those made from metal, complete with tangs. The assemblage from Tell es-S?fi/Gath contains several pieces of bone that appear to be rough-outs for leaf-shaped arrowheads. Other evidence that makes us and even

Bridge Lane and Fishergate

York. Report

July 2000 toJuly 2002, edited by C. A. Spall and N. J.Toop.

Archaeological Planning Consultancy Ltd 2003-2006. Online: /. http://wivw.archaeohgicalphnningconsultancy.co.uk/mono/001 Ayalon, 2003 E. The Assemblage Israel, of Bone 1st?13th and Ivory Artifacts CE. Ph.D. from Caesarea diss., Bar-Han

think this scenario possible, likely, includes the rasp marks on many of the bone fragments, which are very similar to tool scars visible on at least one of the more-elegantly shaped bone arrowheads from Lachish, which also seems to have
been manufactured on a cattle metapodial. Circumstantially,

Mar?tima, University, 2005

Centuries (Hebrew) and

Ramat-Gan. of Bone

context in which the bones were found the archaeological at Tell es-S?fi/Gath, namely a collapsed house apparently destroyed during the seige of Hazael, makes this scenario that much more plausibe. Perhaps, as part of the preparations for
the Aramean attack (or perchance, as a desperate measure

The Assemblage Mar?tima, Series

Ivory Artifacts Reports,

Israel. British Archaeological 1457. Oxford: Archaeopress. C. Ancient Artifacts

from Caesarea International

Ayalon, 1999

E., and Sorek, Bare Eretz Bones:

from Animal

Bones.

Tel Aviv:

to produce weaponry during the Aramean siege itself), bone arrowheads were produced on site. A somewhat similar context and explanation has been suggested for the bone arrowheads from Lachish (Gottlieb 2004: 1908), which were discovered in the Assyrian destruction level at that site. Further research on this context and the related finds will aspects relating to the stages of hopefully reveal additional production of these objects, as well as the actual technology behind it. For example, microscopic examination of the objects

Israel Museum.

Barnett, 1982

R. D. Ancient Institute Ivories in the Middle Hebrew East. Qedem 14. Jerusalem:

of Archaeology,

University.

Bleed, E
2001 Trees and Chains, Links or Branches: of Stone Journal Tool for Consideration Sequential Theory Activities. Conceptual Production Alternatives and Other Method and

of Archaeological

8: 101-27.

172

NEAREASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Gadot, 2006

Y., and Yasur-Landau,

A. Life in the Courtyard IV. The Building 1998-2002

Finds: Reconstructing Beyond of Level K-4. Pages 583-600 Seasons, edited by I. Finkelstein, Series Monograph of Archaeology. 24. Tel Aviv:

inMegiddo Tel Aviv

D. Ussishkin,

and B. Halpern. Institute University

New
The

from ASOR Publications

of Difference

Archaeology

Gottlieb, 2004

]. The Weaponry of the Assyrian Attack. Pages at Lachish Renewed Excavations (1973-1994), Ussishkin. Archaeology. Tel Aviv: Emery and Claire 1907-69 edited in The

by D. in Yass Publications

Class Ethnicity, Gender, the "Other" in Antiquity

Studies in Honor of Eric

and

M. Meyers

Loud, G. 1948 Megiddo Chicago Macalister, R. A. S. II: Seasons Press. of 1935-39. Chicago: The University of

Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, editors

Fund.

1912
MacGregor, 1985

The Excavation ofGezer 1902-1905 and 1907-1909. London:

Palestine A. Bone, Antler, The Technology Ivory and Horn: since the Roman Period. London: Croom of Skeletal Helm. Exploration

What

Materials Maeir, A. M.

distinguishes an individual or a group in an cient society? How do issues of gender, ethnicity, so cial stratification and the view of the "other" impact

2004

The Historical Background and Dating of Amos IV 2: An

Archaeological Testamentum 54/3: Perspective 319-34. from Tell es-S?fi/Gath. Vetus

individuals, groups, and societal attitudes? Foucault in his classic work, The Archaeology of Knowledge, observes that layers of information embedded in language and society often elucidate the unspoken that individuals, groups, or societies assumptions hold most dear.What is perceived to distinguish one group can carry such symbolic
societies structure their laws,

Nilsson, 1997

K. of Production, Fragments 81 in Trade and Production and the Craftsman. Down to Bare Bones. Greece: Pages 275?

in Premonetary

Production

Athens Workshops, Risberg and B. Sj?berg. and Literature P?trie, W. M. 1928 Schlanger, 1994 F. Gerar. N. Mindful London:

Proceedings 1994 and Studies

of the 4th and 5th International C. 1995, edited by C. Gillis, inMediterranean Archaeology

power

that whole
roles, ethnic

gender

Pocket-Book

143. Jonsered:

Astr?ms.

identities, and views toward the "other" in light of perceived differences. The ancient world was domi nated by such differences. Clothing, hair, costume, housing, gender, religion, set apart one from the other. Ascertaining the rules governing difference in antiquity is challenging. Such rules were gener ally assumed, not clearly delineated. The studies in this volume draw on textual and material culture to
determine "the archaeology of difference." at the Uni is Rodes

British

School

of Archaeology

in Egypt.

Archaeology Elements B. W. Tufnell, O.

the cha?ne op?ratoire for an Unleashing Technology: in The Ancient Mind: of Mind. 143-51 Pages

edited by C. Renfrew and E. of Cognitive Archaeology, Zubrow. Cambridge: Press. University Cambridge

1953
Wapnish 1991 P

Lachish 111(TellEd-Duweir): The IronAge. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Douglas versity

R. Edwards of Puget Sound.

is Professor of Religion C. Thomas McCollough

Professor of Religion at Centre College (Danville, KY).

and Utility Beauty Biblical Archaeology Bone, 40 Near in Bone: Review New Light on Bone Crafting. ASOR Annual, Volume 60/61 ISBN 13: 978-0-89757-070-1 335 in the Cloth $124.95. Fall 2007 133 b/w figures, 6 tables Ca. 440 pages, 17: 54-57.

1997

and Technology. Ivory and Shell: Typology Pages in vol. 1 of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology East, edited by E. M. Meyers. Oxford: Oxford

University To order, contact: The David Brown Book Co. PO Box 511 (28 Main Toll-free: Street)

University. Zaccagnini, 1983 C. Patterns Journal of Mobility of Near among Ancient Near Eastern Craftsmen.

Eastern

Studies 42: 245-64.

Oakville CT 06779
800 791 9354 Tel: 860 945 9329 Fax: 860 945 9468 david.brown.bk.co@snet.net

NEAREASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006)

173

^^H

cirtl^f
Heroes,

cLCtS

^^^^^^^^^^^^1
and

^- Porter '1V BenJamin ^^H

Cinema is one place where this pre-processualist vision of archaeology continues to thrive in the public imagination and where there is a significant difference between the realities of archaeology. public face and the professional or very react either very positively Archaeologists negatively to these imagined renderings of their discipline. For example, Shelly Lowenkopf takes a typically hostile stance towards Indiana Jones, arguably the most influential cinematic refers to Indiana archaeologist. Lowenkopf as "an since unfortunate his training and Jones paradigm" were not in the films.2 Some methodology emphasized archaeologists, however, respond very positively and even make the claim to be "the real Indiana Jones," leaving other and at worst archaeologists feeling at best uncomfortable angry since for many within archaeology, this adventurous so quick image is seen as a negative.3 With archaeologists to discount or accept the portrayal of the discipline in the
movies, they have missed an opportunity to come to a

Mummies,

Treasure: Archaeology
Kevin McGeough
The

Near

Eastern in the Movies

general public has associated Near Eastern archae ology with adventure from the very beginnings of to the this discipline.1 In the ill-fated expeditions Bible lands sent by Frederick V of Denmark, the adventure tales of Austen Henry Layard, and the romantic illustrations of the Napoleonic expedition, Near Eastern archaeologists' own narratives have invoked images of danger and excitement for public consumption. These narratives were deliberately provided to the public and have remained very much a part of the public conception
states, corporations, and

of archaeology, promoted by nation

archaeologists themselves. Yet, after

World War

II and concomitant with the rise of scientific were abandoned by narratives these kinds of archaeology, Rather, archaeologists. archaeologists began cultivating nar ratives of scientific distance and positivist objectivity. For the public at large, however, archaeology remained a romantic, remote from its own daily experi adventurous occupation, ence, yet easily accessible through popular media
and museum

greater understanding of the social messages communicated to the public at large. While about archaeology popular
audiences may not take away messages from films about

such as

magazines,

documentaries,

exhibits?media

scientific and excavation strategies, they techniques are likely to take away important messages about who are, why they do what they do, and how archaeologists to the past are constituted. By studying relationships in film, it should be the representations of archaeology possible for archaeologists better to understand the public's perception knowledge of their work and to communicate archaeological more to popular audiences. effectively

the early romantic narratives could still be found. As popular and academic communication styles diverged, so to did the public's perception of archaeology?especially Near Eastern archaeology?diverge from the realities of the academic discipline.

in which

The Traditional Complaint Archaeology is Serious Work

tend to analyze films about archaeology Archaeologists in the same way one would criticize much another the basis of excavation archaeologist?on techniques and methodology. John Pohl writes about the first Indiana Jones movie, "Although Raiders of theLost Ark (1981) enlightened on how an archaeologist audiences integrate might ethnohistorical research with a field investigation, the expeditions amounted to little more than thievery, and the adventures were caused in large part by paramilitary-style dismal project planning" (1996: 574). These comments seem to miss the point. Even if one could detect any evidence of ethnohistorical research in Raiders of the Lost Ark (which would require a significant stretch of the imagination), these were not the messages Spielberg and Lucas wanted to convey. By no means was Raiders intended as a documentary
or treatise on archaeological methods.

Movie

poster

for

Indiana

Jones

and

the Last Crusade

(1989).

The depiction of poor excavation techniques in archaeo logical films is a plot feature; it serves to make the fictional account entertaining. A cinematic feature is not, like Lewis

174

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Binford's New Perspectives inArchaeology (1968), going to push an agenda calling for a new, more scientific, approach to archaeology. Dramatic interest iswhat is at issue, and it is unlikely that film will change in order to promote and foster many much better archaeological techniques. However, film does convey other types of information, and so powerfully that of this information is unquestioned by the viewing It is these unquestioned audience. (or unquestionable) that lie at the heart of the popular audience's messages of archaeology and archaeologists, and it conceptions is the investigation of these messages that will help the archaeologist better understand his or her public role.4

Archaeology,

the Bible, and Film

to Egyptology, Next is biblical archaeology most common to the type perhaps of archaeology cinema. The most famous appear in Hollywood of the film to feature biblical themes isRaiders Lost Ark, but many other films feature characters striving togain or prevent trieunearthing of artifacts in trieO?d Testament or relating to the mentioned life of Jesus yor perhaps even Jesus himself, as in 2000s The Body. Generally, these films feature or Catholic skeptical protagonists protagonists who are struggling with course of the adventure, learn their faith. Through the these troubled characters have their faith event. Certainly

Money, Museums, and Making a Living

Within confusion
profession.

popular film, there appears to be significant as a is structured about how archaeology

Audiences are given a variety of messages about

the actual organization of archaeological work, and the between relationship archaeologists and public institutions
(museums, universities, and government agencies). There

lessons and important some miraculous confirmed by

about where funding comes from are financially compensated and how archaeologists for their work. Films confuse the general public about what archaeologists do, who they do it for, and how archaeologists are able to make a living. It is very rare, for example, for film archaeologists to be affiliated with a university or institution of higher learning. is further confusion Most often the archaeologist is a freelance individual, like Lara Croft, or is hired directly by a museum, like Steven Banning in The Mummy sHand (1940). Indiana Jones is an exception to this; in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and

these films perform similar functions for religious audiences as biblical archaeology once did. Both the films out start the may questioning Bible, by the end, the "truth" of the Bible or religious doctrine is confirmed and skeptical tensions are eased. ease the concerns of faith communities in reaction to biblical skepticism. While that arise

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), scenes of Indy at the fictional teaching (and trying to avoid teaching) Marshall College5 are used as settings for the exposition of the coming adventure. Nonetheless, in spite of this academic affiliation, Indy's archaeological adventures are are bought funded directly by the museum; antiquities from and his directly Indy, teaching responsibilities can be
dropped at a moment's notice.

with other professional disciplines, like law or accounting; or along the lines of other more sensationalized cinematic like the "private eye." It is no wonder that occupations, in outreach settings, public audiences are surprised to find out that archaeologists are not allowed to keep what they find. It is equally difficult to explain the role of the private donor, who in feature films treats an archaeological dig like a capitalist investment, with an expectation that the finds will be a financial return on the previous investment. As stated by Croft's love interest in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,
"it's all just a business."

Archaeological particular research objectives request of a government agency (Raiders of the Lost Ark), at the request of a private individual hoping to save the world (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider [2001]), or as a capitalist venture (TheMummy's Hand). Inmost cases, the archaeologist uses to fund the funds given by private donors or institutions After the artifacts have been retrieved, the archaeologist either splits the loot with the private donors, or is paid a cash settlement by the museum or government In other words, the agency that retained his services. organization of archaeological work is imagined as analogous excavation.

excavations

in films are not initiated with inmind. They can occur at the

film portrays the profession of archaeology Although it is understandable with a skewed perspective, why this is invoked by filmmakers. Exotic perspective locales, hidden treasure, and unsolved mysteries are all romantic and exciting topics for film. As early Near Eastern scholars realized, archaeological work lends itself well to adaptation into the adventure genre, and even given the best efforts of the processualists, hints of this are still apparent. Joyce and Preucel ably demonstrate that professional archaeological the writing involves specific approaches to communicating process of discovery that are similar to narrative devices

NEAR EASTERN 69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY

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175

used in communicating adventure stories (2002: 35). It is no wonder that archaeological topics translate well into film,
even though site reports are worlds away from adventure

imagining cowboy, the moral force central to the American of the taming of theWest.7 In these films, the archaeologist
is a secondary The same character is true of other used to facilitate It the excitement. not a genres. is a detective,

novels. With

this in mind, it is telling to investigate the role of the archaeologist as the hero of an adventure story.

The Archaeologist
A

as Hero

literary or film hero reflects certain sets of values and beliefs; both the hero's own and the beliefs of the author as refracted through the character that has been created.6 If the hero is embraced in popular culture, he likely reflects forms of the values held by society more exaggerated generally. Given this, the popularity of the Indiana Jones movies makes them ideal candidates for this kind of study. It is interesting, however, that early films did not feature Indiana Jones-like heroic archaeologists, and in fact did not portray archaeologists in the same heroic light in which in their own works. described themselves archaeologists as Early films about archaeology depict the archaeologist
a victim who required rescue by another, more masculine

cowboy who investigates the murder of the archaeologist, in Phantom of Chinatown is (1940). Likewise, John Wayne enlisted to protect archaeologists in Legend of theLost (1957). In 1977's March or Die, the Foreign Legion must protect a team of helpless archaeologists from a murderous tribe. Heroes backgrounds in Stargate (1994),
Kurt army protect R?ssel, man, the a who

Arab

from military play this role led by

must tortured

archaeologist,

played by James Spader.

In various the archaeologist film genres, can

heroic
of the

figure.

In The Mummy
are able

(1932),
to prevent

for example,
the attacks

none
of J^f ^. ' ,o,sV

archaeologists

Imhotep, and it is only intervention

is able to save the day. There are

be found as a character in peril, and himself the object of an heroic quest. Often the hero is the adult child of the archaeologist,
or someone who has been

by the goddess
some exceptions

Isis that
to the

non-heroic

depiction

UAM

Mat ?sSS *IAN& ^^^^Hj* WOMB LOKEM ^^^B|S5E&M|^^Ijr

nnrouTCAIHIlA

in early film, most of archaeologists notably Steven Banning in ^Jie dummy's Hand (1940),

Movie poster for King

Solomon's Mines (1985).

retained to rescue
archaeologist

by the child the helpless

who has

but it is not until Indiana Jones that the archaeologist

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|b r^BH^^^^^^^^^^H
if?f

hisplace acinematic took In Death Rides the

Professor

^P^^^^^^^H

(1939),thegood Range
Wahl
archaeologist

in over his head, as inAce Drummond (1936), Daughter of the Sun God (1962), and Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937). Recent film pays to this tradition. In Raiders of homage Oedipal/Freudian the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones goes off in search of his missing gotten mentor, Abner Ravenwood, and, Indy seeks his missing father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). In the 1985 version of King Solomons Mines, Sharon disappointing Stone, playing an archaeology student, enlists Richard

OM^^^^^^^^H

1^y^^^2i?ra9|B|
^ ^^^^^Hlffl^^nHl H^^^^^H|

is rescued by

H^HH^HH|^^HH|

to help her find Chamberlain (playing Alan Quatermain) l by ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ her archaeologist father who ismissing inAfrica. Similarly, attempting j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B archaeologists ahelium |^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H| missing in Israel, in the forgettable 2001, The Order. an in mine ancient Native
Jean Claude van Damme attempts to rescue his father, gone American cave. The

non-archaeologists. Subsequently, the professor

Movie poster for Boy on a Dolphin (1957)._ gang

American

for the gold

site. The

archaeologist in Gun Smoke (1945) fe equally unlucky_ murdered by a villainous at a North relics he had discovered
non-heroic nature of the archaeologist

Many of the older heroic figures are combined in Indiana to the American West and the myth of the Jones. Allusions in his clothing (brown leather jacket cowboy are manifest

and brown fedora) and equipment (holstered revolver and Most bullwhip). explicitly, Indy's fighting skills and ability to engage in physical feats of daring signify his connection to heroes of past genres. Unlike these past heroes, however, abilities are also emphasized. His skill Indy's intellectual with languages is apparent in his ability not only to sight
read ancient inscriptions, but also to speak numerous

is underscored in Hidden Valley (1932), where Professor a Woolridge hires cowboy to help him find North American
native gold. The adventure turns to tragedy, when the

and the innocent cowboy is blamed. professor In all of these Westerns, the heroic figure is the figure of the

ismurdered

languages fluently. Other

characters

refer to him as Dr. Jones

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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

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1----

1-

--

-- -

1-

I---

or Professor Jones, and acknowledge

achievements, rather than focussing

his various intellectual

on his physical prowess.

Indy is an heroic, intellectual figure. is always associated with The archaeologist

This is the common trait that these movies

The "MacGuffin"
Alfred Hitchcock used a plot device in his adventuremovies that he called a "MacGuffin." This was the object of pursuit, protection, and rescue,by both theheroesand thevillains. It could be a briefcase,some kind of scientificdevice, or an artifact. Hitchcock believed that itwas betternot to revealwhy itwas so important to retrieve the object, since itwas never possible to have stakes that were realistically high enough to justify the eventsof the film. Or, if the stakeswere presented, theymight seem so high that the film becomes implausible and violates the audience's willing suspension of disbelief. For a list of the various "MacGuffins" used in archaeological films, see Day (1997: 23-24).

intelligence. and
ancient

communicate?

that the archaeologist

training that allows him

has
or her

specialized
unique

knowledge
to an

access

is specialized knowledge of an archaeologist most in in is film. evident the This reading greatly simplified of inscriptions. For example, the Aramaic in Stigmata (1999) culture. The difficulty, while Indiana Jones easily reads on a piece of parchment brought to him in Indiana Jones and theTemple of Doom (1984). As soon as the inscription is revealed inA?en vs Predator (2004), the team is able to reconstruct a history where aliens archaeologist the Sanskrit once used Earth as an arena for battle with other types of aliens. In these situations, archaeological knowledge is used as a means of providing the back story or reveal important plot information to the audience. Such plot devices work time after time because the public is conditioned to imagine that this is the scale of knowledge that archaeologists hold to the general public, do not about the past. Archaeologists, is less make arguments, but learn facts. Their knowledge and akin to the knowledge of historians or anthropologists, more akin to the knowledge of the dealers in the Antiques in the public imagination, are Road Show. Archaeologists, experts on all past times and cultures, and all types of language.
Gaining expertise about the past,

is read without

all types of artifacts,

according to cinema,

brings with it a responsibility to protect the past. In many films, artifacts of the past are in danger and the archaeologist's real role is as intercessor for the relics of ancient times. On the other side of this, the worst peril comes from evil who have twisted their role of protector archaeologists that is accepted by for their own gain. This is a metaphor popular audiences, and is one of the key messages that film
provides about archaeology to nonarchaeologists. A sense

of urgency about the past is presented, and even if no one really believes that the artifacts are in immediate danger,
there is a sense that archaeologists are the guardians of

JohnWayne, Rossano Brazzi, and Sophia Loren inLegend of the

Lost (1957).

humanity's
The

cultural heritage.
role as guardian/protector centers on

their archaeologicalcontext. Nonarchaeologists encounter

artifacts in a fetishized context inmuseums, or see films that

archaeologist's

like the "MacGuffin" of artifacts. Much the preservation in an Alfred Hitchcock film (Day 1997: 23), artifacts for the the plot by providing motivation help to move for the and forming the basic framework protagonists adventure or horror story. This disembodied use of artifacts an important in film highlights disconnect between archaeologists and the general public. While archaeologists it is difficult to convey obviously care about antiquities, to the public the importance of preserving and recording

depict archaeologistsdesperately tryingto recapturestolen with distorted which furtherencodes ancient relics artifacts, value, challenging real-world archaeologists to explain how and why archaeological sites need to be preserved. An interested layperson, educated throughexperiences at amuseum and informed through themessages of popular
cinema, may feel that it is better to retrieve an arrowhead rather than from a site and bring it to an archaeologist in context. the to leave the artifact archaeological simply

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

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177

I----- -

1-

1---- --

---- ---

- ------

1- ---- - -

I----- - -

It is equally difficult that archaeologists

and preservation.

to explain to the public the many roles play beyond mere artifact acquisition interested
the

Archaeologists
an archaeological barrier a significant

in film are never

site. to On the the

in preserving
site presents to gain

contrary,

public. It is unlikely that anyone truly believes that there are attempting to enslave the world by gaining archaeologists ancient time travel devices (as with Lara Croft's nemesis). Audiences, however, have to believe that the villains truly are bad, and so films convey their villany through various
types of unsavory archaeological practices, character traits,

archaeologist's

attempt

the object of his quest. Often remote and difficult to get to, the site is filled with a variety of dangers. Inmummy films, the tomb is demarcated from the profane world by a curse. the site, In adventure films, booby traps anthropomorphize and giving it agency to protect itself from archaeologists looters. Climactic scenes often involve the destruction of the site, which isnever lamented by the archaeologist (e.g. Indiana Jones and theLast Crusade, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider). The site can provide information to the archaeologists, but usually this information is in the form of riddles that must be solved in order to avoid booby traps or to inform about the location of hidden artifacts. Sites are exciting, dangerous, and remote in film, but not themselves the subject of scholarly enquiry.

are told what makes the Moviegoers archaeologist "bad," and, for the film to work, the audience must find these characterizations plausible. characteristics (like killing Beyond familiar villainous without reason or having a mad desire to rule the world), there are two types of archaeological villains. The villain may be utterly indiscriminating about who he works for, as with Belloq, the lead antagonist in Raiders of the Lost Ark, who has no loyalty to the Nazis but is simply willing to work with and declarations.
them to achieve his own ends. In an important encounter,

The Archaeologist

as Villain

Belloq claims that he and Indy are one and the same. Indy is in the company denies this, stating that the difference they choose to keep. The other type of archeological villain is the private collector. In Boy on a Dolphin (1957), a film most famous for marking Sophia Loren's American film
debut, the antagonists are the collectors who tempt the

are not always protagonists in films. Just Archaeologists as frequently, they are depicted as immoral, ruthless, insane, and even evil. These portrayals are particularly telling
about the messages popular cinema convey to the general

discoverers of a beautiful statue to sell it rather than take to either type of villain, the In opposition it to a museum. a hero is hero because he wants to share the archaeological treasures with the world, usually through an institution like a museum. The villain greedily wants to possess and control the the object for himself. From a cinematic perspective
of this issue is clear-cut: private collecting is wrong.

Planet of the Apes

Archaeology plays an interesting recurring role in the first three Planet of the Apes films, in three astronauts of the Apes, 1968's Planet of the future where humans and primates have become mindless animals the world. Of the primates, Cornelius dominate is an archaeologist and excavations conducting once were The intelligent planet. this information scientist, who has been to prove that humans return to an Earth

morality

The Dangerous Past

Since the first showing of The Mummy (1932), starring horror star, Boris Karloff, Near Eastern the quintessential archaeology has had a close relationship to the horror genre. The "horrors" of horror films are frequently monsters or spirits who have come from the past to cause harm in the present. The various Mummy films are all predicated on the idea that the archaeologist has disturbed something (or someone) that should not have been disturbed. Likewise, films as diverse as The Exorcist (1973), Ghostbusters (1984), and Lair of the White Worm (1988) involve monsters or deities who have been brought back to the earthly realm after long sabbaticals. The archaeologist who has awakened these terrors may be depicted as naively proceeding with his or her work and the tension lies in the audience's knowledge that the archaeologist is really doing something he should not be. In these films, the past is best left undisturbed. Similarly, when the dangers of the past take the form of (for example, both Lara technology rather than monsters Croft films and Stargate), archaeologists are just as guilty of unearthing something that should be left buried. The villains in such films are typically archaeologists or collectors who dramatic

beings and once ruled the theocracy, however, does not want

to to be revealed and attempts social the heavy-handed ban his work. Within commentary, archaeology plays a revolutionary role; it is a type of scientific investigation that can show the truth about the past and subsequently

established authority. None of the other Planet of the Apes films or television programs are nearly as memorable, but this archaeological undermine theme does surface frequently, first two sequels. especially in the

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--

to use the ancient technology for their own nefarious are good archaeologists who The heroes, meanwhile, gain. want to prevent their evil counterparts from gaining control ofthat technology. The message is the same as in the monster one movies?some things are best left forgotten. When want meddles with the past, one risks grave danger. use another These horror films involving technology at least is evident that (a perception public perception as early as Herodotus) that in the past there were great that have since been forgotten, a technological wonders works as theme readily apparent in pseudo-archaeological this idea as modern unease well. Popular film perpetuates is projected back on the advancement with technological past. Film audiences are shown that terribly destructive were known, but wisely hidden away by technologies ancients that ancients. learn the audiences Or, thoughtful to from their their tombs grave protect goods booby-trapped robbers or archaeologists. The elaborateness of these traps demonstrates the supposed technological sophistication of it is unlikely that any audience member the ancients. While will believe that the artifacts in a Lara Croft film actually

Boris Karloff as The Mummy (1932)

The Mummy Movies

mixed with The success of UniversaVs Monster Movies (especially Dracula and Frankenstein) driven frenzy of the curse of King Tut's tomb led to the creation of a horror film staple-the Mummy. in bandages for Boris Karloff became the first actor to bring Imhotep to life.Wrapped The Mummy, moments of film, these brief images left an indelible impression on film audiences. Karloff plays an who had been buried alive during the 18th Dynasty as punishment order to try to bring his beloved princess back to life. The film follows love in the 1930s; and this plot provides the framework for many of based on an earlier silent film, The Dust of Egypt (1915), which, Hand the media In 1932's only a few individual

for stealing the sacred scroll of Thoth in the mummy's attempts to resurrect his lost the later mummy films. It may have been according to Day (1997: 80), features a

it isUniversaVs The Mummy's mummy who comes back from the dead and is particularly amorous. However, more a conventions to the establishes that the 1932 of the genre. In this hit, typical (1940), follow-up a are tomb terrorized fry mummy who has been brought back film, archaeologists excavating Princess Ananka's to life b;ya modern "priest of Karnak)}. Excavation members, including Dr. P?trie (I) are killed off one b;y one, Tomb in the kidnapping of the heroine. The direct sequel to this film, The Mummy's (1942), culminating In this film, the protagonists of the original are Hand. takes place years after the events of theThe Mummy's living quiet lives inNew England, when the mummy is brought there to kill off all who had disturbed Ananka's and Studios. Titled The Mummy, tomb in the previous film. In 1959, this movie was remade tryHammer a starring the horror greats Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, this film is vastly superior to the original and its has resurrected Universal More the mummy subgenre. Mummy franchise, starting recently, forgotten gem of

The Scorpion The Mummy Returns (2001) and a prequelof sorts, with 1999'sThe Mummy, followed rry
King (2002). In these mummy movies, professional archaeologists are mostly non-existent, replaced instead by adventure seekers and treasure hunters. The basic premise of UniversaVs first mummy movie, that Imhotep has come back to life intent on resurrecting his forbidden love lies at the basis of both of the more recent mummy films. However, these new films are clearly situated within the genre of action-adventure as opposed to horror.

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1-- --

exist,

or

that

there

really

were

"stargates,"

after

seeing

these

Once
and

films they may be more willing to believe a documentary that describes the technological wonders of Atlantis and the hubris that led to its destruction, for example. The anxiety about lost knowledge also extends tomystical artifacts. Each of the Indiana Jones movies involves the an or for that has artifact quest properties. mystical powers From a more comic perspective, Jim Carrey, in The Mask a obtains mask that transforms him and (1994), mystical him remarkable The powers. message that the popular gives audience takes from films like these is that archaeology can provide access to the dangerous, but compelling, knowledge
the ancients.

again though, such plot devices work because of the preconceived notions that the public holds about archaeology
the past. Antiquity represents the unknown?something

that has been

lost and must

be sought and rediscovered.

Oversexed Archaeologists Undersexed Spouses

and

There has been a gradual transformation of the popular cinematic conception of the archaeologist from the older, weak victim to the younger, strong heroic figure. With
this transformation has come a sexualization of cinematic

of

are portrayed as of the dangers that archaeologists when the past reflect a general encountering investigating fear of the unknown. At the surface level, the script writer is simply falling back on a well-established plot device by All
situating the dangerous monster or object in ancient times.

In the early films (like The Mummy), the archaeologists. are sexless figures, being either elderly archaeologists or impassive. This is not simply a symptom of changing cinematic sensibilities that previously did not allow the depiction of sexuality; in The Mummy (1932), Zita Johann plays the damsel in distress, and her sexuality is the very evident object of desire
in contrast,

This is an explanatory framework that an audience will accept within the fictional parameters established for the genre.

for Boris Karloff's

is not sexualized, but

mummy.

The

archaeologist,

is a character

without agency who is at the mercy of the mummy. Even as late as The Exorcist (1973), the archaeologist who unleashes is in fact a Catholic Priest, and not a the ancient menace
sexualized character.

the Indiana Jones films, the sexuality of archaeo teaching logical characters ismore fully transformed. While his class in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy stumbles during his lecture after seeing that one of his students has written "LOVE YOU" on her eyelids. At the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, reference ismade to the non With in earlier films when the sexualized image of archaeologists female protagonist, Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw),
expresses surprise that Indy is an archaeologist, stating,

"Well, I thought
men searching for

archaeologists
their mommies."

were

always funny
The recent

little

mummy

series starring Brendan Fraser, and the Lara Croft movies characters starring Angelina Jolie, feature archaeological
that, while not overly sexualized characters themselves, are

unquestionably gorgeous. Lara Croft, based on a video game, plays on male lust and female fantasy. The initial action sequence in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider leads directly into an extended shower scene, featuring Angelina Jolie, which does not advance the plot, but certainly sets the tone of the film. archaeology fundamental In the few archaeology-romance about films, messages are conveyed. The most and sexuality of these is that the field provides an insecure lifestyle. Although most of the archaeologists in these romance

Movie poster for LaraCroft Tomb Raider (2001).

films appear to be independently wealthy, their work takes place in geographically unstable locations. The uncomfortable lifestyle or the tension caused by living in remote locations acts as a plot device for the romantic elements. In I Live Mv Life (1935), a bored New York society girl travels to Greece

180

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

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M-- -

and falls in love. The where she meets an archaeologist tension in the film is this couple's struggle to come to terms with one another's lifestyle choices. In La Maison du Maltais (1938), Safia has an illicit affair with an unseemly figure named Matteo. Although
marries an archaeologist

pregnant with Matteo's

who is wealthy,

child, she
and

A Warning to Archaeologists about Funding Agencies and Private Donors

that archaeologists If there is one organization should be cautious about, based on the lessons it is the people learned from modern cinema, work. At best, funding who fund archaeological or in film are cold donors private agencies in human concerns uninterested corporations, and the well-being of the people that thev fund, as in Timeline (2003). At worst, the;y are immoral or working against villains actively manipulating the archaeologist, in a nefarious plot to control the world (e.g., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). lack the specialized These people or organizations skills and heroes that the archaeological knowledge must attach possess, and parasitically to the unsuspecting or financially

respectable,

since he travels, provides a plot device to separate Matteo and Safia. InOtklonenie (1967), an archaeologist and an engineer
reunite seventeen years after their love affair ended, each

having chosen their careers over romance. In The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Jeff Daniels plays a fictional archaeologist who brings romance into Mia Farrow's life when he literally
walks out of the cinema screen.

If the archaeologist is not providing romantic encounters to bored travelers, then he or she is likely involved in a of these relationship with a graduate student. Neither
romantic scenarios may seem surprising to archaeologists

or academics
to note that

in general,
they are also

but nonetheless,
part of the public

it is interesting
consciousness.

In El Tesoro (1988), the lead character is an archaeologist who brings with him four graduate students, one of whom he is romantically involved with. The supposedly oversexed appetites of archaeologists are apparent in 1980's On a vol? la cuisse de Jupiter, where two couples (including a Greek professor and an archaeologist) meet each other. The tension starts when the archaeologist discovers the buttocks of a classical statue and wants to donate it to the museum, but his attractive partner wants to sell it. The film turns into a of the murder mystery, but throughout, the hypersexuality archaeologists is always present. The uninhibited nature of modern Greek culture is also emphasized in Summer Lovers (1982) where a beautiful female archaeologist complicates the relationship of an American couple (featuring Daryl Hannah in a pre -Splash role) visiting the islands. La V?nus dille (1962) is a very odd film showing the sexual dangers that an archaeologist can face. Here, an archaeologist slips his wedding ring on a statue's finger with the result that a goddess visits him in the night and his bride-to-be loses her mind. Of course it is no surprise that there are also cinematic who are romantically of archaeologists examples neglectful
various men

themselves

strapped scholar.

British Thinkers, American Fighters, and Repressed Librarians

is The public perception of gender roles in archaeology also influenced by fictional films, issues that have been well about addressed by feminist and gender theory. Messages and the gender have real ramifications for archaeologists way they negotiate their public roles. Gender roles that are presented or reified by film can be particularly burdensome issues of gender are if not limiting. For male characters, tied up with ethnicity, not unlike detective or spy stories. if heroic, are heroic because of their British archaeologists, intellect and sophistication. American male archaeologists tend to be serious, adventurous, rogueish individuals with a tend to think penchant for drinking. British archaeologists fight their way through problems, whereas the Americans to this; both (Stargate is an exception through problems In this types of heroes appear, but both are Americans). is the thinker, particular case, the heroic archaeologist
whereas the heroic adventurer is a military man. It is clear

(see also Day

while her

1997:

110). Nancy
is away on an

dallies with
excavation

husband

in Borrowed Husbands (1924). In 1926's Made For Love, the wife of the archaeologist has various affairs while her husband is at work. In the Swedish film Loving Couples (1966), Angela describes how her archaeologist husband walked out on her and their child, but explains that she has come to terms with her role as a single mother. The
consequences are not always simply emotional. In The

is such a neglectful (1980), Charlton Heston Awakening that he does not notice when his wife gives husband of an ancient Egyptian queen. birth to an incarnation

in archaeology films ismarked either by that masculinity urbanity and intelligence or else by fighting skills. seem to fall into one of two Female archaeologists categories. They can be privileged women with a love of adventure, who happen to be extraordinarily beautiful, yet
are unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the male gaze. Or,

they can be junior level scholars

(perhaps graduate students

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

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181

-- -

I or librarians), who, when they take off their glasses and let down their hair, become remarkably beautiful (the make-up and costume design for Rachel Weisz in The Mummy [1999] is intentionally designed to play on this motif). Women from the first category are either heroes or villains. Of the second category, the female is either one of the heroes or a damsel in distress. Both types of female character exhibit elements of male sexual fantasy, whether they are sexually aggressive or sweet and demure. Yet one should not deny the elements of female fantasy that both of these types of characters provide to women. The shy librarian waiting to be swept off of her feet provides obvious chances for the female viewer to identify and fantasize alongside. Likewise, the more recent Lara Croft character can be equally appealing to women as a model a to archaeological characters, moral judgment is implicit in the sexual activities of these women. Lara Croft, while without a doubt a beautiful and powerful woman, chooses to ignore the male gaze and not to utilize her sexual power. In Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, she rebuffs her butler for telling her to act like a lady and be modest about covering her body. This both acknowledges that Lara has the male desire for her and demonstrates to no concern for patently male issues. It is interesting that there is very little sexual activity in note, however, In the first, Lara participates the "Tomb Raider" movies. iti a very chaste relationship with a fellow archaeologist and in the second, she has a brief romantic interlude with a past lover, only to gain the upper hand in a quest. By contrast, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the audience finds out that Dr. Usa Schneider (played by the is actually a villain when it is beautiful Allison Doody) that she had sexual relations with both Indy and his father. Indy, and the audience, are not convinced of her villainy until this information is revealed. Judging by these examples, sexual promiscuity is not a heroic trait for female revealed
archaeologists in the cinema.

films are guilty of be required. Certainly archaeological notions Near East. The of "Orientalist" the perpetuating Near East iswithout a doubt the most frequent backdrop in archaeological cinema. It is an exotic land where European and American characters play out their adventures with the help or hindrance of secondary characters fitting numerous Middle The environment itself is Eastern stereotypes. of the lush gardens there is no representation extreme; in Jerusalem or along the Nile but rather miles of endless desert, dotted by oases or "Bedouin" tent camps.

Archaeology
Television medium

on Television
has proven to be another popular

of sexual power. not unique Certainly

as entertainment, for archaeology Near Eastern archaeology per se cannot although be said to be as prominent in this medium as it is in film. Often though, archaeology programs are created in response to the success of certain feature

films. The

Hunter, is an amalgamation of played by Tia Carrere, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Stargate SG-1 are both spin-offs of the and Stargate Atlantis feature film, the original researched to go well beyond but both manage in terms of creativity and well

central

character

in Relic

content. Some may archaeological remember the brief run of Tales of the Gold as the (orTales of the Brass Monkey Monkey original promotional material referred to it), which to recreate the adventure of Indiana attempted content. Jones, with occasional archaeological television programs feature archaeology, Many even when program. this is not the central Both The X-Files where dangers incarnations concern of the and Millennium archaeological from the past.

on gender observations should be is apparent viewers. film It for critical surprising particularly in cinema communicates that archaeology particularly to the wider public. It reinforces conservative messages certain notions that are equally apparent in the fiction ofmore established genres, such as the western or the detective story. Yet, the general public only rarely encounters an actual private None of these an archaeologist is communicating eye or cowboy. When with the general public, it is very probable that the public is taking these messages about gender into the encounter.

episodes featured excavations revealed the various recent

In

archaeological is an amateur Picard archaeologist, Captain and in one episode, prepares to give an academic paper at an archaeological conference. Very the <(MacGuffin1} frequently, archaeology plays role in television programs. Recent programs such as Alias and Smallville include desperate quests " "MacGuffins.

excavations

also

of Star Trek, lead to danger.

Camels, Deserts, and Assassins:

TheMiddle East
So much can be said about the depiction in cinematic that another archaeology of "the Other" article would

for archaeological

182

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

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Archaeology and Japanese Cinema For themost party archaeology fulfills the
same plot functions in Japanese cinema as in

Certainly these roles reflect general Allied sentiments during World War II and Hollywood's role in propagandizing and war. for the After relations with rallying support Germany retained normalized, however, the German archaeologist his villainous status. However, instead of emphasizing their German ethnicity, film-makers emphasized their affiliations with the Nazi party, which have clear villainous overtones (the Indiana Jones films are the best example of this). Frequently the French are depicted as bad as well. Though not normally evil, the French archaeologist, in Hollywood is unscrupulous and immoral, and will stop at cinema, find or to steal credit nothing to make an archaeological from another. The best example of this is the character of Most films that take place in Near archaeological Eastern locales also feature local characters, typically of three types, all rooted in Western stereotypes of the Middle East. There are those "noble savages" who are extremely educated and are, for some reason or another, the archaeological finds from falling into the protecting wrong hands. Almost always, these locals are inscrutable members of secret societies that trace their lineage back to ancient times (see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, well Bey in the two most recent Universal "Mummy" movies starring Brendan Fraser). these characters are descendents of tribes that Generally were not assimilated into Islam, but rather retained earlier faiths. As in the Brendan Fraser films, these locals are of Ardeth expert horsemen and camel riders, expert swordsmen, and entirely devoted to the ancient cause. However powerful these people are, though, they still require an American or to save the day. British archaeologist ^^^| same In the of these local vein, there are versions archaeologists the situations, an evil ancient to a foe or evil significance who collude with evil forces. In these to individual may have religious devotion force or may simply be too weak to stand up and the character

^^^J ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^H ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^H ^^^H ^^^H

Hollywood films. In Yokai Hanta?Hiruko (1990) f themain hero is an archaeologist who uses his knowledge of thepast to defeat a
cartoon known goblin. The genre of Japanese as anime frequently features archaeologists. In these extremely violent and stylized cartoonsf

archaeologists typically play heroic roles. In the animated Project A-Ko 4: Final (1989), ruins provide the key to archaeological
understanding the invasion of an alien fleet.

LostArk. Belloq inRaidersof the ^^^M

Similarly science-fiction oriented is Majing? Zetto (1972), which features archaeologists

investigating of archaeology of the way in general. the ruins of an ancient in anime are nearly civilization endless.

that used to build giant robots. The examples This brief sampling however is representative
the genre approaches archaeology

Even though many of the films are set in the Near East, the protagonists in archaeological films are almost exclusively of are by far the European descent.8 British archaeologists most common, and are usually situated within the British upper classes. In some films, such as the early Universal mummy films, lower class British characters provide the comic relief; they are the bumbling hapless characters who may have good intentions but lack the abilities and mental acuity to keep out of trouble. Class is not so obviously marked in films featuring American protagonists. However, occasionally characters with markedly Brooklyn or Bronx accents fulfill the same comic function as their lower class British counterparts. In these instances, the comedy comes not necessarily from the New Yorker's lack of intelligence, but more from their greed and general cowardice in the face of danger. Both British and American archaeologists are the

demon. Middle Eastern characters of lesser may simply be the goons of other bad guys. Frequently, Arab goons are assassins, using their skills with ^^^H poisons or swords to thwart the heroes. ^^^H Finally, there are those local archaeologists who simply lack the skills of their visiting counterparts. The poor, must rely on the heroic uninformed local archaeologist or British intelligence and physical skills of the American to find the treasure or save the world. While archaeologist of Middle Eastern nationality may be archaeologists well intentioned, they tend to lack the physical prowess and mental agility to solve the problems without British or American assistance. There are no Yadin-like heroes Middle East. Whether good, bad, or in archaeological the Middle Easterner cinema neutral, never truly holds full agency in archaeological cinema. from the cinematic

^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^H ^^^H ^^^H ^^^H ^^^H ^^^H ^^^| ^^^|

characters with whom the audience is supposed to identify. Viewers approach the exotic peoples and cultures through
the eyes of these characters.

Non-British Europeans are not portrayed as positively in the cinema. The German archaeologist is the quintessential bad guy. In World War II-era films (taking place in and out of the Near East), German archaeologists are spies, saboteurs, or thieves (for example, 1939's Death Rides the Range).

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

183

^^^^^^H

^^^H^H^HH H ^^^^1

Abbott andCostello Meet the Mumm)(1955) AceDrummond (1936)

AnArchaeology Filmography

(2004) ^^^H Ancient Evil: Scream of the H Mummy (2000) ^^^H A.l. (2001) H Artificial Intelligence: ^^^B

Alien L.A. (1988) I ^^H Alien from vs. Predator H

H Alan Quatermain and theLost City of Gold (1987) ^^^H

Mask, The (1961) Mask, The (1994) Mask of FuManchu (1932) Master Keaton (1998) Minion, The (1998) Mole People,The (1956)
Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation

Manteau,Le (1996)(France) ^^^^^U MarchorDie (1977)H|

The (1980) I ^^H Awakening, Krishna I (1998) Baby ^^H Beneath thePlanet (Japan) the H
^^^H of

(1939)

Apes (1970)

Bleak Future I (1997) ^^H The I Body, (2001) ^^m BorrowedHusbands H (1924) ^^^H I Boyona Dolphin(1957) ^^H La H

^^^^M

(1958) of ^^^H Curse of the H Mummy's Tomb, The (1965) H Dangerous Venture (1947) ^^^H Death Curse of Tartu (1966) H ^^^H H ^^^H

On Behind I (1975) Carry ^^H Charlie Chan inEgypt H (1935) ^^H Crystal I (1987)(Japan) Triangle ^^H Curse theFacelessMan H

(1961) (Mexico) ^^^^M Cabeza viviente, Caltiki ilmostr? immortale (1960) (Italy) H ^^^H

DeathRidesthe I Range(1940) ^^H Demons at theDoor

(2003)

The(1995) Dig, I ^^M H Dominion: Prequel to theExorcist (2005)

^^^^M

I I

H ^^^H H ^^^H ^^^^1 H

Dust The (1915) ^^H Dve ofEgypt, tri solntsa The (1973) Exorcist,

(1998) (Russia/Ukraine) luny, Apes (1973) Escape From the Planet of the Exorcist:The Beginning (2004) Friends (1993) (South Africa/France)

^^H

The (1946) Flying Serpent, H ^^^H

H ^^^H

Mummy, The (1932) Mummy, The (1959) Mummy, The (1999) Mumm} and theCurse of the Jackal,The (1969) Mummy's Boys (1936) Mummy's Curse, The (1944) Mummy's Ghost, The (1944) Mummy's Hand, The (1940) Mummy's Shroud,The (1967) National Treasure (2004) On a vol? la cuisse de Jupiter (1980) (France) Order, The (2001) Orion's Key (1996) Otklonenie (1967) (Bulgaria) Out for a Kill (2003) Pascali's Island (1988) Phantom of Chinatown (1940) Pharaoh's Curse, The (1956) Planet of the Apes (1968) Plunder of the Sun (1953) \ AKo 4: Final (1989) (V) \ Project Purple Rose of Cairo, The (1985) ! Raiders of theLostArk (1981) Rebel Storm (1990) Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937) RobotWars (1993)
Rock W Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy

^^fl

^^m
^^^^M

Ghostbusters I (1984) ^^H Glass The (1968) I Sphynx, ^^H Guide I (1965)(India) Gun Smoke I (1945) ^^H Hidden Valley(1932) ^^m Horror H of Snape Island (1972) ^^^H l Live My Life(1935)
Indiana Jones and theLast Crusade (1989) Indiana Jones and theTemple of Doom (1984) Jiang shi xian sheng xu ji (1986) (HongKong)

H ^^^H H H ^^^H

^^m
^^^^M

^^^H H ^^^H H ^^^H

KidMillions(1934) ^^M H King Solomon sMines (1985) Lairof the White Worm(1988) I ^^m Lara I Croft Tomb Raider:The Cradle ^^H Lara Tomb Raider I (2001) Croft: ^^H Lost(1957) of the I ^^H Legend shar(1987)(Russia) I ^^H L?ovyj Live Wire,The (1935) ^^m The H

(1964) (Mexico) Rundown, The (2003) Runestone, The (1990) Sabirni centar (1989) (Serbo-Croatian)\ South ofAlgiers (1953) Sphinx (1981) Spring,The (1989) Stargate (1994) Summer Lovers (1982) Susana y yo (1957) (Spain) Tale of the Mummy (1998)
Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)

of Life (2003)

(1992) (Israel/Hungary) Long Shadow, Loving Couples (1966) (Sweden) Maison duMaltais, La (1938)

Tesoro, El (1988) (Spain) Timeline (2003) Tomb, The (1986) Une femme ou deux (1985) (France) Unearthed (2004) Valley of theKings (1954) V?nus dille, La (1962) (Belgium) \ Werewolf (1996) Witch Hunter (1997) ] YokaiHanta Hiruko (1990) (Japan) ;

Zetto(1972)(Japan) H ^^H Majing?

184

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

Outreach and Cinema

archaeology
to be

5. Marshall Yale about In the audiences studies University 6. The by and

College

in New

York seems

to be an amalgam although in other

of Princeton, press material College.

Film conveys many messages to the general public about film is supposed and archaeologists. While
entertaining, and most audiences understand that

the University

of Chicago,

Raiders

of the Lost Ark, program, that that

Indy is said to teach The Young Indiana was

at Barnett Jones

television

Chronicles, of medieval from the

are informed at Princeton of Chicago. and

it is fiction, non-archaeologists still "learn" much about at movie the theatre. who seek archaeology Archaeologists
to reach into out to the wider whether archaeologists, public they must or take reject these the messages cinematic account, For accept

Indy's Dad

a professor his doctorate

Indy received

study of heroes

has also been

skewed

in the public

consciousness

the writings lines the

of Joseph that heroes topic from

images.

successfully

communicating

Jungian approach Bakhtin

who argues along simplified Campbell, are the same in myths around the world. almost the opposite attributes perspective as distinct (following to the culture

information to the general public requires archaeological the negotiating preconceived beliefs with which the public the profession. Joyce and Preucel argue that approaches
archaeology carries with it universal narrative meaning,

1982: 335),

taking heroic

that produced

the character. that scholars have established that cowboy language (see Joyce 1985). feature to gain

7. It is noteworthy is also used and Preucel 8. The Japanese exposure

which

from the public images of Indiana Jones in which archaeology narratives is and the adventure that the authority situated (2002: 27-28). This means of the archaeologist (in the public eye) is tied up in the derives
archaeologist's of heroic narrative heroic persona. in Near Given the formative role Eastern are work under in other archaeology, even more regions, modern pressure as they

in professional 2002:

conceptualizations

of archaeology on Gero from films 1983 and Japan have that failed

27 and their comments here are the few of

exceptions

films these

archaeologists. on a global level.

Most

References
Bakhtin, 1982 M. M. Translated The Dialogic Imagination, edited by M. Holquist. of and M. Holquist. Austin: University by C. Emerson Texas. L., and Binford, New S. (eds.) inArchaeology. Chicago: Aldine Press.

Near than

Eastern

archaeologists who

archaeologists

must

between the fantasy (the negotiate successfully and the of film) archaeologist reality (the archaeologist of the academy) in order to communicate successfully with a whose of the for better or worse, field, perceptions public are sculpted through popular film.

Binford, 1968 Day, D. 1997

Perspectives

A Treasure Hard

toAttain.

London:

The

Scarecrow

Press.

Notes
1.Thanks Rutz are due to Elizabeth drafts of Galway, this article, Benjamin and Porter, to Sandra and Matthew Scham and for reading Porter This

Gero,

J. 1983 Gender Pages Bias 51-57 inArchaeology: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. in The Socio-Politics edited of Archaeology, D. Lacey, and M. of Massachusetts. Blakey. Amherst, MA:

Benjamin be valuable.

for initially article

suggesting

that an article with many

on film would to another considerable 1985

by J. Gero, University

is dedicated, buff, Walter

thanks, whose

archaeologist knowledge 2. Lowenkopf Indiana opposite involving Indiana Jones

and movie

E. Aufrecht,

of film still left him (1996: 575).

confused

about Dannie

Darko. states that the The novels the films. Spielberg. is a Lowenkopf, Joyce, R., 2002

of Archaeology Socio-politics Ideology. American Antiquity and Preucel, Writing R. the Field

and

the Woman-at-home

50: 342-50.

films were

also mistakenly Lowenkopf based on the Rob MacGregor authors have on

novels. written from

of Archaeology.

Pages

18-38

in The

is in fact Indiana Jones

the case. Numerous Jones, based

the characters Lucas "real

Dialogue, Narrative, Languages of Archaeology: edited by R. Joyce. Oxford: Blackwell. S.

and Writing,

is the creation straight,

of George there is no

and Steven Indiana

3. To set the record fictitious character to mix

Jones." He Lucas of 1930s

1996

Archaeology

in Fiction. Pages 575-76

edited

in The Oxford
Oxford:

that Steven

Spielberg with

and George the heroes

created serials. Pohl, J. 1996

in an attempt Since

James Bond

to Archaeology, Companion Oxford University Press.

by B. Fagan.

the Indy films are purposeful it is very fitting that than

throwbacks Indy is more

archaeology, archaeologists archaeologists. 4. One of

to a pre-processualist akin to early heroic science-oriented

like Layard

to Scientificist,

Archaeology in The Oxford by B. Fagan.

in Film

and Television.

Pages

574-75 edited Press.

to Archaeology, Companion Oxford: Oxford University

these The

messages validity

worth

important.

of archaeology

is basic acknowledging as a discipline

yet

still

is never

in films like Planet of the Apes Most evident (1968) and questioned. it is suggested from that, centuries Artificial Intelligence: A.Z. (2001), now and for different will remain a legitimate species, archaeology means of understanding the past.

Visit NEA Online at www.asor.org/pubs/nea/

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

185

1---

I --- -

I - --

of the The Reopened Museum in Istanbul Ancient Orient

Sandra Scham
Aheautifuly European-designed Late Ottoman building

Istanbul, among the most fascinating cities in the world, has for some time in the museum world played second fiddle to the more prosaic capital city of Ankara because of the latter's award-winning Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The treasures amassed in one location in the Museum of the Ancient Orient, however, are nothing short of astonishing. The museum's proximity to the renowned Ottoman palace serves as an important reminder of the historical reality that riches to the capital brought many of these archaeological as well as many of its more building, from dates the late-nineteenth century spectacular assets, Hamdi Bey, who has Osman when Turkish archaeologist attained the status of a national hero, became the director that had been systematically of the antiquities preserved Sultans since the earlier part of the century. by Ottoman of a Hamdi Bey supervised the design and construction it to enhanced and house this collection actively building not own. He did excavations his of unfortunately through live to see the opening of the "new" wing of the museum in 1917, established for the Ancient Orient exhibit. The building selected to display these artifacts was formerly the Institute of Fine Arts. Since the redoubtable Hamdi Bey had been a painter before taking up his trowel, it is difficult to say whether he would have approved of this development. and the Siloam Tunnel The Code of Hammurabi
Inscription are in the museum's permanent collection.

complex in Istanbul, in the first court of the Topkapi Palacey houses three extraordinary museums ing Turkey's rich and varied past. One of theAncient Orient, represent

of the empire. The museum

of these, theMuseum

after nearly a decade of work, has only

recently been reopened to the public on a regular basis.

This

to around 605-562 dates tiled panel, which bce, once to the Ishtar that led from the Gate lined the processional way was in ancient the Year held New Festival where the sanctuary All photos org. courtesy of Carl Rasmussen, www.

city of Babylon. holylandphotos.

that are significant Most of the pieces in the collection on to is it find difficult (and anything display that is not) BCE. from the Artifacts fifth before the date from century Near East include of the earliest civilizations Mesopotamian tiles with stamped inscriptions, an early bronze bar weight, and statues of the Sumerian king Gudea and the governor of Mari?all dating from 2000 BCE or before. The Kassite (Middle Babylonian) period is well represented as are the and New Assyrian periods. A Old Assyrian, Mitannian, III is among these large basalt statue of King Shalmaneser reliefs from the palaces of artifacts along with Assyrian III, Sennacherib, and Ashurbanipal. Tiglath-pileser rooms of the museum contain such important Other finds as the obelisk of Adad-nirari III, reliefs with mythical tiled Ishtar Gate in Babylon, animals from the monumental tablet recording astronomical and an unusual Babylonian on a Sumerian A lively representation observations. devotional basin of girls carrying pitchers of water whose source relates to the contents are filling an underground ancient Mesopotamian belief that the world was surrounded

This

six

line Hebrew

inscription

describes

the digging found carved on display

of

Hezekiah's Tunnel joining the Gihon Spring and the Pool of Siloam
in the of the ancient tunnel city of Jerusalem. in 1880, removed, was It and into the wall in Istanbul. is now

BCE sphinx by water. Fragments of the thirteenth-century entrance (the that once graced the southern monumental Yerkapi Gate) to the Hittite capital at Hattusa, alongside finds from excavations other Anatolian prior to the First World War are also housed in the Museum.

186

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4

(2006)

-- -- -

M-

---

covers periods from the first The Egyptian collection BCE of the the beginning 3000) (ca. through dynasty Ptolemaic period (ca. 100 CE). Three mummy cases with inscriptions identifying their occupants as deceased priests are prominently displayed here and priestesses of Ammon with canopic jars and various funerary artifacts. This collection comprises finds from excavations, pieces donated and chance finds, and includes from private collections, altars, steles, sarcophagi, and objects from tombs sphinxes, display of objects from pre-Islamic Arabia (fourth century BCE to the first century CE) features a magnificent relief with five bulls' heads above a floral design, flanked by giraffe heads; an early Arabic inscription the name of Jesus; and statuettes of deities from mentioning Across the room are two more Arabian Late Antiquity. reliefs, one of a robed warrior and the other of a mythical
The Treaty concluded powerful Rameses of Kadesh between was the

creature with the head of a bearded man and the body in of a lion. These ancient cultures are underrepresented ancient Near Eastern collections and this Istanbul museum is one of the few places where examples of statues, burial features from the architectural goods, and monumental Arabian Peninsula can be seen. ^^^| Other lesser-known civilizations are represented as well, the who produced including the enigmatic Aramaeans, museum's relief from the palace of King Barrakab showing in a procession, dated to the eighth century four musicians BCE, and a basalt stele showing a warrior from the same time period. The fascinating Urartians created the beautiful BCEToprakkale near floor mosaic from seventh-century

^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^H ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^J ^^^J ^^^| ^^H ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^H ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^H ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^| ^^^|

and temples. An unusual

LakeVan in easternTurkey.

Egyptian pharoah, IIand the Hittite

king, Hattusili IIIin the

thirteenth written copy, the international of the day, was bce. This century in Akkadian, language discovered

most is One of the Museum's holdings significant its archive of tens of thousands of clay tablets from until recently, which, (ancient Hattusa) Boghazk?y extant about the recorded material the only represented civilization of Hittites. The archive includes copies of the between earliest international peace treaty, concluded 1259 BCE. Two the Hittites and Egypt in approximately virtually identical versions were drawn up in Hattusa and Ramesses IPs capital, and exchanged. The Pi-Ramesse, version composed in Hattusa was translated into Egyptian and enscribed on the walls of the temple at Karnak, while survives the Egyptian version, translated into Akkadian, in a clay copy of an original silver tablet sent from Egypt. The treaty was honored by both parties, resulting in an period of peace and prosperity in the eastern unprecedented Mediterranean. later, however, the Only two generations Hittite Empire would collapse and Egypt would go into it is intended to be a reminder of the decline. Whether of the treaty's fate of empires or merely a commemoration claims to bring "eternal peace" to the region is unclear, but a copy of the Kadesh Treaty adorns the walls of the United

^^^|

at Boghazk?y in 1906.

Nations Building.

to Turkish tour guides, the Museum of the According is seldom visited even though literally Ancient Orient swarms of people head to nearby Topkapi Palace every day during the tourist season. Its highly significant collections deserve more attention and certainly for a scholar of the ancient Near East it is a required stop. Hopefully, now that is open regularly and its treasures are once the museum again on display to the public,
was surrounded in Jerusalem The Temple by a balustrade about five feet (one and a half meters) high. Inscriptions and Greek from entering the temple Gentiles forbidding that was in Latin area

^^^|

this situation will change.

The Museum except Mondays,

is open every day, of the Ancient Orient between 9:30 am and 5:00 pm. ^^^|

on the balustrade. of This complete proper were mounted example in Jerusalem the inscription was found and is now in Istanbul. The Greek text has been or have the balustrade is caught will translated, "Foreigners into the forecourt around himself to blame must not enter inside the sanctuary. death." Whoever

for his ensuing

69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN

(2006)

187

Lev-Tov byJustin rCVlCWS H edited

based analysis, times the these an on modern, and discordant entire volume cutting-edge but of interpretation, reflections within and source others, of data also techniques on the of excavation, and position Given at insightful, that context.

More Than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic in the Near East Diversity
b} A. Nigel Goring-Morris and Anna Belfer-Cohen. + 310; plates, maps. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. Pp. x Edited Cloth, $79.95, ISBN1-84217-082-1. in

senior

researchers intellectual

a unique this and

qualities integral

volume ideas

is certain for serious

to become scholars

and students of the Palaeolithic

geographic As with or most temporal other focus. periods

regardless of their specific

and proto-history, one of

in pre-

essays assembled
this volume

the paramount problems facing Levantine Upper Palaeolithic studies is the lack of a comprehensive and acceptable
vocabulary with which archaeologists can easily communicate

impressive The stem from a session at the 65th

and understand
such the a vocabulary issue

one another. Although

is not one of this in several suggestions

the development
volume's and the stated goals, important problem

of

annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology PA, 2000) (Philadelphia, and reflect current thinking on the observed diversity of Upper Palaeolithic action and thought within the Levant and how this diversity might
be structured according variables cognition, such social to as particular climate,

is addressed and

contributions

chapters, are made. Yet

of

multiple working definitions and meanings persists and will likely continue to plague the discipline of archaeology so long as diversity of action and thought remain typical features of
modern human behavior.

Daniel S*Adler
University of Connecticut

organization, and learning. The editors of the volume, A. Nigel Goring-Morris and Anna Belfer-Cohen, tapmany of the field's most accomplished researchers to present both site-based and
synthetic essays that trace regional developments, primarily

in the realm of lithic technology, between roughly 50y000 and 10,000 years before the present. The stated goal of the volume is to provide a venue where regional Upper Palaeolithic paradigms, in use since the 1980s, can be reconsidered and modified in light of recent fieldwork and advances in lithic studies. In this regard the volume is a
true success, and most readers will be pleased to see how far

Object Worlds inAncient Egypt: Material Biographies

Past and Present
By Lynn Meskell. Oxford 2004. Pf>. xii + 248. doth, and New $26.95, York: Berg Publishers, ISBN 1-85973-867-2. to the Berg

Upper Palaeolithic studies in the Levant have progressed over the last two decades. That said, however, do not be surprised by
the palpable lack of consensus among the authors concerning

recent book is an addition Meskell's series Materializing Lynn Publication

Culture volume culture. and on is to date ancient the Near to give series' sole Eastern improved

basic questions of agency and meaning. This fact highlights the dynamic nature of Upper Palaeolithic studies within the Levant and in part the speed with which ideas can evolve in
the face The that of new main excavations body of the and volume analytical contains techniques. nineteen essays

It is an attempt

contexts to objects from ancient Egypt and to provide "material biographies" of the objects for their individual worth and within their own frameworks rather
than for their value contexts. as contributors to

consider

the Levantine

environment

(via palaeoclimate,

micromorphology, and zooarchaeology) in the the time frames of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition, Early Upper and Later Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic-Epipalaeolithic transition. These are prefaced by an introduction and followed by three discussion essays penned by L. Copeland, A. E. Marks, and O. Bar-Yosef, all of whom have been active scholars of the Levantine Upper Palaeolithic formany decades. In this respect, the volume's strengths derive not only from thoughtful essays

archaeological

Meskell's
a manner

book
similar

is structured
to that of her

in
work, Archaeologies of

earlier

Social Life. In each book, Meskell first examines, in-depth, all of the modern scholarship relevant to the subject at hand and then applies it to Egypt in the last few chapters. Her discussion and references in the present book assume a prior knowledge

188

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006)

Lev-Tov byJustin rCVlCWS H edited

based analysis, times the these an on modern, and discordant entire volume cutting-edge but of interpretation, reflections within and source others, of data also techniques on the of excavation, and position Given at insightful, that context.

More Than Meets the Eye: Studies on Upper Palaeolithic in the Near East Diversity
b} A. Nigel Goring-Morris and Anna Belfer-Cohen. + 310; plates, maps. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003. Pp. x Edited Cloth, $79.95, ISBN1-84217-082-1. in

senior

researchers intellectual

a unique this and

qualities integral

volume ideas

is certain for serious

to become scholars

and students of the Palaeolithic

geographic As with or most temporal other focus. periods

regardless of their specific

and proto-history, one of

in pre-

essays assembled
this volume

the paramount problems facing Levantine Upper Palaeolithic studies is the lack of a comprehensive and acceptable
vocabulary with which archaeologists can easily communicate

impressive The stem from a session at the 65th

and understand
such the a vocabulary issue

one another. Although

is not one of this in several suggestions

the development
volume's and the stated goals, important problem

of

annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology PA, 2000) (Philadelphia, and reflect current thinking on the observed diversity of Upper Palaeolithic action and thought within the Levant and how this diversity might
be structured according variables cognition, such social to as particular climate,

is addressed and

contributions

chapters, are made. Yet

of

multiple working definitions and meanings persists and will likely continue to plague the discipline of archaeology so long as diversity of action and thought remain typical features of
modern human behavior.

Daniel S*Adler
University of Connecticut

organization, and learning. The editors of the volume, A. Nigel Goring-Morris and Anna Belfer-Cohen, tapmany of the field's most accomplished researchers to present both site-based and
synthetic essays that trace regional developments, primarily

in the realm of lithic technology, between roughly 50y000 and 10,000 years before the present. The stated goal of the volume is to provide a venue where regional Upper Palaeolithic paradigms, in use since the 1980s, can be reconsidered and modified in light of recent fieldwork and advances in lithic studies. In this regard the volume is a
true success, and most readers will be pleased to see how far

Object Worlds inAncient Egypt: Material Biographies

Past and Present
By Lynn Meskell. Oxford 2004. Pf>. xii + 248. doth, and New $26.95, York: Berg Publishers, ISBN 1-85973-867-2. to the Berg

Upper Palaeolithic studies in the Levant have progressed over the last two decades. That said, however, do not be surprised by
the palpable lack of consensus among the authors concerning

recent book is an addition Meskell's series Materializing Lynn Publication

Culture volume culture. and on is to date ancient the Near to give series' sole Eastern improved

basic questions of agency and meaning. This fact highlights the dynamic nature of Upper Palaeolithic studies within the Levant and in part the speed with which ideas can evolve in
the face The that of new main excavations body of the and volume analytical contains techniques. nineteen essays

It is an attempt

contexts to objects from ancient Egypt and to provide "material biographies" of the objects for their individual worth and within their own frameworks rather
than for their value contexts. as contributors to

consider

the Levantine

environment

(via palaeoclimate,

micromorphology, and zooarchaeology) in the the time frames of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition, Early Upper and Later Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic-Epipalaeolithic transition. These are prefaced by an introduction and followed by three discussion essays penned by L. Copeland, A. E. Marks, and O. Bar-Yosef, all of whom have been active scholars of the Levantine Upper Palaeolithic formany decades. In this respect, the volume's strengths derive not only from thoughtful essays

archaeological

Meskell's
a manner

book
similar

is structured
to that of her

in
work, Archaeologies of

earlier

Social Life. In each book, Meskell first examines, in-depth, all of the modern scholarship relevant to the subject at hand and then applies it to Egypt in the last few chapters. Her discussion and references in the present book assume a prior knowledge

188

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 69:3-4 (2006)

of the study of object worlds, while her tone and treatment are introductory. Meskell returns primarily to the artifactually rich (and thus ideal for a study of artifacts) workman's village of Deir elMedina when she does focus on ancient Egypt, a feature shared with Archaeologies of Social Life. After a short introduction discussing materiality, Meskell jumps into her first chapter, entitled "Objects in theMirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." In this chapter,Meskell probes the reasons
why artifacts used have been considered, insight first into and foremost, material culture, and culture, to give historians the ancient

viewed as objects of actual use only secondarily. She suggests that when considering the sociality of the objects themselves, previously unstudied networks unfold and elucidate both the objects and the society.Meskell begins with an overview of the study of materiality, acknowledging her major sources (in particular Giambattista Vico, Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, and Jean Baudrillard) and illustrating the ideas of their work with examples from Egyptian history. In chapter 2, "Taxonomy, Agency, and Biography," Meskell traces the historical tradition of the classification of objects, wending her way throughMichel Foucault, Thomas Huxley, and fetishism. The study of classification is essential to the understanding of the Egyptians' relationships with their goods; do the classification
systems that modern historians and archaeologists impose upon

Egyptology is a notoriously insular field and Meskell does her ^^^H anthropological background justice by introducing cross-cultural ^^^H references. However, she never fully seems to engage the heart of ^^^H her material, which is ostensibly ancient Egypt. Instead, her work ^^^H has a feeling of skirting the issues she raises and using the cross^^^H cultural references in lieu of in-depth analysis. ^^^H In her attempts tomake her book accessible to awider audience, ^^^H including both Egyptologists and theoreticians, Meskell seems to ^^^H dilute her content and make her book more accessible but less ^^^H worthwhile. Although she has an amazing command of language, ^^^H her writing can tend toward obfuscation. At other times her ^^^H points are extreme; for instance, in suggesting on page 15 that her ^^^H study will help in "repositioning archaeology as a discipline with ^^^H something tangible to contribute." Whether Meskell accomplishes ^^^H her goal and makes archaeology more meaningful or whether you ^^^H feel that the discipline of archaeology is already valuable, Object ^^^H Ancient Egypt is an interesting read that offers its readers Worlds in ^^^H much to think about. Meskell's scholarship iswell rounded, she is ^^^H incrediblywell versed in theory, and she has an amazing knowledge ^^^H of world culture. Her attempts to apply these to Egyptology are a ^^^H firm beginning for the furthering of the field. ^^^H

the ancient goods adequately represent the goods? Meskell raises

questions, but leaves them largely unanswered.

X Musacchio ^^^|

Universityof Pennsylvania^^^M

Chapter 3, "MaterialMemories: Objects asAncestors," treats the object category of ancestor busts, found primarily at Deir elMedina. Chapter 4, "StatueWorlds and Divine Things," is a lengthy look at the place of statuary within Egyptian religion. Meskell shifts gears slightly in the next chapter, "On Hearing, Phenomenology, and Desire," and introduces Egyptian hearing ear stelae, which she personalizes and uses to begin a discussion on traditional Mexican milagro ex votos. Chapter 6, "Sketching Lifeworlds, Performing Resistance," examines satire and irony as manifested in Egyptian material culture. Meskell does not shy from graphic and satirical depictions of sexual intercourse and instead introduces an interesting discussion of Egyptian attitudes

Whose Pharaohs? ^H Museums and Archaeology, Egyptian National Identity ^H World War I from Napoleon to
B;yDonald Malcolm Reid. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 409. Cloth ^^H $45, Paper$19.95, ISBN 0-520-24069-3. ^H W???

^H ^H
^^^H

toward sexuality. Because the subject of sexuality in ancient Egypt the history of Egyptian is rarely eontextualized (although this is rapidly changing; the certainnames loom field of Egyptology has traditionally had a conservative bent that Within archaeology, tended toward censure of graphic sexuality), MeskelFs arguments large.Champollion, Young,Mariette, are particularly effective. In the final chapter, "Object Lessons from Modernity," Meskell examines ancient objects through the lens of modernity. She discusses the notion of collecting at length, discussing both private and institutional collectors, and highlights the appeal that Egyptian goods still have in popular culture. For instance, high attendance at museum exhibitions or the popularity of the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas suggest widespread public interest. Much of this chapter is a first^person account of the Luxor Casino, including the author's impressions and interviews with amasseuse and several salespeople.

;jj^-f ^^^H8?^Hh?? ^^^H ^^^H?^B^H? Wilkinson P?trie,and Maspero,Lepsius, ^^^^H^^^H ^^^| within disciplinary allfigureprominently ^^^^^^^^^H ^^^H histories. So too do these characters ^^^^^^^^^H a text that revisitstheorigins Pharaohs?, ^^^^^^^^^B ^^^| with a candor 9HHHHH of Egyptianarchaeology ^^^H

^^^H ^^^H

feature in Donald Reid'sWhose ^^^^^^^^^H

^^^H

^^^H

that is as surprising as it is refreshing. ^^^H Reid's book is a history that introduces us to other individuals too, a history that examines the uses that European imperialists and, crucially, Egyptian nationalists made of the country's past throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ^^^H

^^^H ^^^H ^^^H

69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN

(2006)

189

of the study of object worlds, while her tone and treatment are introductory. Meskell returns primarily to the artifactually rich (and thus ideal for a study of artifacts) workman's village of Deir elMedina when she does focus on ancient Egypt, a feature shared with Archaeologies of Social Life. After a short introduction discussing materiality, Meskell jumps into her first chapter, entitled "Objects in theMirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." In this chapter,Meskell probes the reasons
why artifacts used have been considered, insight first into and foremost, material culture, and culture, to give historians the ancient

viewed as objects of actual use only secondarily. She suggests that when considering the sociality of the objects themselves, previously unstudied networks unfold and elucidate both the objects and the society.Meskell begins with an overview of the study of materiality, acknowledging her major sources (in particular Giambattista Vico, Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, and Jean Baudrillard) and illustrating the ideas of their work with examples from Egyptian history. In chapter 2, "Taxonomy, Agency, and Biography," Meskell traces the historical tradition of the classification of objects, wending her way throughMichel Foucault, Thomas Huxley, and fetishism. The study of classification is essential to the understanding of the Egyptians' relationships with their goods; do the classification
systems that modern historians and archaeologists impose upon

Egyptology is a notoriously insular field and Meskell does her ^^^H anthropological background justice by introducing cross-cultural ^^^H references. However, she never fully seems to engage the heart of ^^^H her material, which is ostensibly ancient Egypt. Instead, her work ^^^H has a feeling of skirting the issues she raises and using the cross^^^H cultural references in lieu of in-depth analysis. ^^^H In her attempts tomake her book accessible to awider audience, ^^^H including both Egyptologists and theoreticians, Meskell seems to ^^^H dilute her content and make her book more accessible but less ^^^H worthwhile. Although she has an amazing command of language, ^^^H her writing can tend toward obfuscation. At other times her ^^^H points are extreme; for instance, in suggesting on page 15 that her ^^^H study will help in "repositioning archaeology as a discipline with ^^^H something tangible to contribute." Whether Meskell accomplishes ^^^H her goal and makes archaeology more meaningful or whether you ^^^H feel that the discipline of archaeology is already valuable, Object ^^^H Ancient Egypt is an interesting read that offers its readers Worlds in ^^^H much to think about. Meskell's scholarship iswell rounded, she is ^^^H incrediblywell versed in theory, and she has an amazing knowledge ^^^H of world culture. Her attempts to apply these to Egyptology are a ^^^H firm beginning for the furthering of the field. ^^^H

the ancient goods adequately represent the goods? Meskell raises

questions, but leaves them largely unanswered.

X Musacchio ^^^|

Universityof Pennsylvania^^^M

Chapter 3, "MaterialMemories: Objects asAncestors," treats the object category of ancestor busts, found primarily at Deir elMedina. Chapter 4, "StatueWorlds and Divine Things," is a lengthy look at the place of statuary within Egyptian religion. Meskell shifts gears slightly in the next chapter, "On Hearing, Phenomenology, and Desire," and introduces Egyptian hearing ear stelae, which she personalizes and uses to begin a discussion on traditional Mexican milagro ex votos. Chapter 6, "Sketching Lifeworlds, Performing Resistance," examines satire and irony as manifested in Egyptian material culture. Meskell does not shy from graphic and satirical depictions of sexual intercourse and instead introduces an interesting discussion of Egyptian attitudes

Whose Pharaohs? ^H Museums and Archaeology, Egyptian National Identity ^H World War I from Napoleon to
B;yDonald Malcolm Reid. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 409. Cloth ^^H $45, Paper$19.95, ISBN 0-520-24069-3. ^H W???

^H ^H
^^^H

toward sexuality. Because the subject of sexuality in ancient Egypt the history of Egyptian is rarely eontextualized (although this is rapidly changing; the certainnames loom field of Egyptology has traditionally had a conservative bent that Within archaeology, tended toward censure of graphic sexuality), MeskelFs arguments large.Champollion, Young,Mariette, are particularly effective. In the final chapter, "Object Lessons from Modernity," Meskell examines ancient objects through the lens of modernity. She discusses the notion of collecting at length, discussing both private and institutional collectors, and highlights the appeal that Egyptian goods still have in popular culture. For instance, high attendance at museum exhibitions or the popularity of the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas suggest widespread public interest. Much of this chapter is a first^person account of the Luxor Casino, including the author's impressions and interviews with amasseuse and several salespeople.

;jj^-f ^^^H8?^Hh?? ^^^H ^^^H?^B^H? Wilkinson P?trie,and Maspero,Lepsius, ^^^^H^^^H ^^^| within disciplinary allfigureprominently ^^^^^^^^^H ^^^H histories. So too do these characters ^^^^^^^^^H a text that revisitstheorigins Pharaohs?, ^^^^^^^^^B ^^^| with a candor 9HHHHH of Egyptianarchaeology ^^^H

^^^H ^^^H

feature in Donald Reid'sWhose ^^^^^^^^^H

^^^H

^^^H

that is as surprising as it is refreshing. ^^^H Reid's book is a history that introduces us to other individuals too, a history that examines the uses that European imperialists and, crucially, Egyptian nationalists made of the country's past throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ^^^H

^^^H ^^^H ^^^H

69:3-4 ARCHAEOLOGY NEAR EASTERN

(2006)

189

It

is hardly

revolutionary and reader national interested

to identity

suggest are

that inextricably

archaeology, entwined. of

within Egypt and among the huge numbers who flocked to the
country There account. from are, He the 1840s onward. several only names with missing events from that Reid's however, is concerned

imperialism, Indeed, any

in the historical

development

Egyptian or Near Eastern archaeology will be familiar with the

nineteenth-century scramble for antiquities, the treasure hunts

occurred

within Egypt; there is no place for those who preferred

more measured confines of the European museum. Nor

the
will

in the heat of the desert that filled the museums of Europe and North America with symbols of Empire. Egyptian scholars,
in contrast, have traditionally been omitted from accounts in vain of in or great their the development our history books Mariette. pioneers, of Egyptian archaeology?we for an Egyptian counterpart that Lepsius deserve and his to be colleagues celebrated look

you find any detailed discussion of Tutankhamen, symbol of Egyptian national identity for many
whose granted tomb was uncovered in the same year independence of a sort from the British

the ultimate in theWest,

Egypt was Rather,

that

to Maspero were for

Empire.

It is true individuals

the book focuses upon what Reid terms his "long nineteenth
century," opened the Egypt period up in which the Napoleonic scholars, through expeditions to the start for Western

who

contribution
an age during is significant. European were their

to the study of ancient Egypt. That they did so in

which What modern is equally and to nation-states significant came is that, a number potentials into existence era of in an

colonialism

domination, the

of Egyptians inherent in

beginning past too. are as yet that accounts who have

recognize

of the FirstWorld War. And it is a fitting time period: an era in which archaeology and Egyptology defined themselves as disciplines, in which the world leapt from understanding little or nothing of Pharaoh to reading his language, and in which
the modern nation-state was born.

There archaeology, traditional theorists of other

very

few

revisionist that

histories seek to go

of Egyptian beyond the The histories

It would
rewrite

be easy for a book

Yet, is not one, Reid avoids

of this nature
the temptation vision presented

simply
to resort to replace as helpless versus we

to
to

is, histories of caused lionized, such

history.

Western upheavals Said,

individuals. in the

polemics?this a Euro-centric victims East, no

nor

simply are Egyptians domination.

an Arab-centric

disciplines?Foucault,

Gramsci?have

barely caused a ripple within

Pharaohs? is different. In

of European imperialism a with

There here.

is no West Instead, and

traditional Egyptology. Whose

are invited to explore the

versus complex

nationalism web of

are

it, we

presented

juxtapositions

intrigues,

development
of four key Museum Coptic

of Egyptian
institutions, Art, Reid

archaeology

through
Museum, the

the growth
the and past the in

sympathetically
lucidity of details. that Reid of Reid's We are

examined
prose invited to do so

and brilliantly highlighted

attention long-held that to challenge in a manner and

by the

namely,

the Egyptian

Museum,

and his meticulous

to the finest assumptions;

of Arab Museum.

the Greco-Roman examines the role of

ancient

is able beautifully This

is accessible is an exceptional

yet

constructing an identity for Egypt (an Egypt for the Egyptians), while writing modern Egyptians into the histories of these
national challenging Muhammad institutions. traditional Ali take Europeans narratives: their place and Egyptians al-Jabarti, in a pantheon are juxtaposed, and al-Tahtawi, that

scholarly, achievement.

written, is a history

compelling

of Egyptian

archaeology

that

can

be read in the bath.

Understanding to question which a the history its purpose, and of our discipline the we draw social many encourages context us from to recognize from which

previously

had room only for Champollion,

It is perhaps worth noting,

Lane, Denon,
that

andWilkinson.
this book is not

it emerged

of our most

however,

history of Egyptology
highlights, the ancient the very dynasties,

in the traditional sense. As Reid himself

term "Egyptology," with its focus upon the Pharaonic era of Egypt's

deeply held beliefs. Whose Pharaohs? challenges us to recognize

the world the importance of archaeological to consider past has had symbolism the on impact the beyond that the narrow the quest interests for that of archaeology, archaeological

privileges

various

past, an implicit slight to both modern Egypt and Egyptians themselves. Rather, Whose Pharaohs? is about the developing
interest So, for in, and example, who uses we labored of, are for the Egyptian introduced several past in all its varied guises. to al-Falaki, years on a map an Egyptian of ancient

met

in the melting pot of Egypt in the nineteenth century. It is part of a tradition of self-reflection and critical evaluation that has swept through archaeology, history, and anthropology but has yet truly to impact the world of Egyptian archaeology and Egyptology. Donald Reid's
process of r??valuation, both

scholar

Alexandria.
forms We also meet

The map was eventually

of our Marcus understanding Simaika, pioneer

published
ancient of Coptic

in 1871; it
city today. archaeology,

remarkable book begins

and sympathetically.

this

sensitively

the basis

of the

and AH Bahgat,
directed excavations

"the father of Islamic archaeology"

at al-Fustat, the original Arab-Islamic

who

It is compelling reading for anyone who has ever looked in awe at the wonder of the land of the pharaohs. With the help of scholars like Reid, we might just begin to work out whose
pharaohs they really are.

capital, early in the twentieth century. Yet, it is in his discussion

of to the the Pharaonic fore, past that Reid's talents as a historian the works of East come and effortlessly interweaving

Darren

Glazier of Southampton ,UK

West,

exploring

popular perceptions

of the past both from

University

Artifact: The Hunt

Treasures
Outset Media

for Stolen

..
$29.99

were miffed that their country of origin was not included on that "either the board or in the artifact cards. Assurances there were no cultural items that needed to be repatriated from their respective countries, or that their countries had no cultural items of note" did little to mollify them. An eclectic ^^H mix of countries is represented on the board and one wonders on what basis these were chosen. The objective is to get three artifact cards of the same type in order to repatriate that item ^^H to its country of origin, and thus move around the board. Cards are acquired in various ways, but one of the most enjoyable and dealing between of the game is the wheeling over Mexico and Iwould like artifact cards?"I have players to trade for New Zealand"; "Well, I have New Zealand and I'll take Iraq and four coins." Vaguely don't want Mexico?but reminiscent of Go Fish in this respect, a player's competitive streak is evident in the trading (or hoarding, in the case of one aspects player) of artifact cards and coins. ^^H To take one's turn a player must first spend or earn coins. in countries The coins enable players to place ARTeams a an to repatriate must in in ARTeam order be country (there an artifact), buy informant cards (providing helpful hints, clues, and enabling additional moves around the board), and trade artifact cards with players. Players earn coins by drawing Challenge cards from the deck that present Memory, Quiz, or Surprise challenges. Most of the players found the states: cards unchallenging and confusing. The manufacturer "The stories on the Challenge cards are based on true events or facts. We hope it [sic] helps you to appreciate and explore the difficulties that museums, scientists, and countries have ^^H in protecting precious artifacts. Reading the stories on the cards is not necessary; however it does put the Challenge context for you" (p. 1). During every game, we in challenge were careful to read aloud each Challenge card in order to get the full game experience. Many of the players were not from North America and found the cards very Amero-centric?for asked the player to memorize and example, one Challenge recite the ten Ivy League schools. Like us, you may wonder what this has to do with artifact repatriation, a valid question ^^H also inmany other cases. Many of the stories associated with the cultural artifacts were unrelated to the actual Challenge are were not demanding. There and some Challenges also some factual errors in the cards - one archaeologist specializing in Greek pottery noticed that an artifact card reading "lecythoi" (in the plural) rather than "lecythos" (in the ^^H singular) depicts one artifact. ^^H The Challenge cards definitely caused the greatest consternation and frustration among players. One player remarked on some of the cards were that the scenarios presented to the countries of origin?one in particular condescending mentions the "poor Afghanis" and how the "experts" from the West would come to help them protect their cultural property from their own people. Most thought that the Challenge cards

^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H

the When
review editor

book
of

Near Eastern Archaeology

approached reviewing me a board about game

for the journal,

email discussing board game exchange what

a lively
ensued form like the assessment should a book, take. Reviewing more solitary a

is not

reviewing once

a much

pursuit. We decided that the evaluation would

the game more than and with a mixed to (not only assessment. archaeologists) A board game in order enthusiast ensure

involve playing
group of players a balanced certain that

myself

and

I could find willing participants,

the and aid of friends, housemates, graduate students

I readily agreed.
cultural property law, medicine,

I enlisted
specialists, and

in archaeology,

social anthropology at my university, and a group of fellows at theWE Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem where Iwas conducting some field research (many thanks to all of these participants). Prospective players were
usually general primed merriment with beer, surrounding wine, and food, of enhancing the game. the the playing

When I approached potential participants to play "Artifact: The Hunt for Stolen Treasures ..." their eyes would light up
in anticipation. The most common question was "Do we get

to pretend we are in the jungle and search for artifacts?" And

some even asked, "Do we get to steal artifacts?" Conjuring up

images of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft traveling the world in

search of lost and stolen treasure, the game's is, however, fundamental as one player misleading, more is the prosaic goal pointed grandiose out. Instead, of title its

repatriation

artifacts

to their country of origin. In order to do so, players must try to make a complete circuit of the board (at times very slowly) by means of placing Artifact Recovery Teams (ARTeams) in
countries, the form collecting of memory artifact quizzes, cards, and answering challenges artifacts. in repatriating

The first time I played the game was with amedical student and a mechanical engineer and we each read through the instructions before we started to play. Finding them very confusing, we decided simply to jump in and learn the rules
as we twice went. we This found were generally ourselves unclear. seemed making to work, up our own although rules once when or the

instructions

To play the game, a player is dealt eight coins and eight

artifact of cards, each item of from the a latter particular bearing a representation Some of the a cultural country.

^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H ^^H

international mix of individuals with whom

I tested the game

69:3-4 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(2006)

191

should with the

be more data related

like Trivial to cultural

Pursuit

where

players rather

come than

away a list of after a

in

the

game

instructions players, potentially aficionados enough tasked players acquisition would make

are

suggestions agreed

for that for that everyone of

tailoring it would age

the be

property,

game

to younger and

and most

tallest

mountains turn. a player has cards

in the world,

forgotten

minutes

entertaining Some

instructional suggested because with thought of black the game was

this the

group. was

player's After trade

board-game really exciting ARTeam Some forgeries,

game

spent with

or earned the deck

coins, or

he/she

must

then Most

not

was

a good

artifact

other

players.

guy?an artifacts. fakes,

the mission that adding

repatriating elements of and life and to

players found
Here, they

this element
fine-tune

of the game the most

their negotiating and

enjoyable.
diplomatic

could

market more that

antiquities, true it was to

skills or simply exchange with

with games other arose players. as games Inevitably progressed,

the deck without

comparisons with one

interacting
board remarking

punishments engaging. The

to other player

overall

consensus

a fun way

spend a couple of hours, although

more exciting than the first.

the last hour was definitely

that "despite its political sensitivity, Monopoly in the final analysis."

The at first your final seems step in a player's turn counterintuitive, the board. in a country You into game, need place. a strategist any because Rather,

it becomes
the

a lot like
dice, which advance allows card. you play,

is to roll

it does a roll of an

not the dice

Morag

Kersel of Cambridge

piece

around placed confusing? it all falls spirited refused other was

University

ARTeams Sound the more In one cards deck This current Parthenon with some and

to exchange to play, and

artifact

the more

among artifact

us held cards else's to for

back with

his the

to exchange players, somewhat disputes the Weary refusing of the games the near

or with situation

to everyone analogous over, Herakles, to "play (six general the end

frustration. the reality of the bust, the others more was action no that than the

repatriation Marbles, countries In each different is fun, up. But

example,

or Nefertiti's nicely" with with

ASOR ANNUAL MEETING

November 14-17, 2007 The Sheraton Hotel and Marina San Diego, CA

involved. twenty game picks

in total consensus when was

players), especially

the

really

is it educational?

There

consensus

on this point. Players did not feel that the message

destructive in playing nature the game, why of of the a goal illegal stated trade by in artifacts came the manufacturers. to repatriate these issues

of the
across Nor artifacts are too

Plenary

Speaker

is it explained to their countries for initial

it is important origin. Perhaps

JODI
Professor,

MACNESS
Department of Religious Studies

complex The

a board-game? placement taking going. The up of ARTeams a lot of time among namely, buying it. And in the various and making us insisted countries the that early we

University

of North Carolina

Chapel Hill

is perfunctory, stages use the slow

pedantic

correct

terminology, rather than

placing

an ARTeam coins

in a country

exchanging

led some of the players to recall images of corrupt regimes and payoffs surrounding the world of cultural for ARTeams
property several In the repatriation, instances. "post-mortem" of the game, I asked the participants perhaps not far from the truth in

mThe Current State Archaeology" Qumran

Ever since de Vaux

of

if they would
and friends. reservations, patronizing

play again or recommend

In most usually undertones cases, concerning of the the response

the game to family

was yes, but with or the the cards

at Qumran in the 1950s, a excavations conducted was the community it with him that scholars have majority of agreed center of a Jewish sect who deposited the Dead Sea Scrolls in the nearby caves. However, over the last twenty years a vocal minority of scholars a villa, manor house, fort, and have identified Qumran differently?as and Yuval Peleg, who commercial entrep?t, for example. Yizhak Magen at Qumran, claim that it was renewed excavations recently conducted a pottery production reviews the center. In this lecture, Prof. Magness the site and examines history of scholarly interpretation of the Qumran validity of the different identifications.

the Challenge all-knowing West

saving

day for the poor disadvantaged

countries of origin. Included

Near

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Introducing

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Schools Research

Founded in 1900
From its inception,
research, phy, Islam especially languages, and

the goal of ASOR

has been to encourage

about the history, geogra archaeological, the societies and of of the literatures, religions

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M..--.; gg?

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Categories Contributor Benefactor $10,000 or more Patron $5,000 or more Friend $1,000 or more Sponsor $500 or more Sustainer $250 or more Contributor up to $249

Sustaining $250 h
Professional $110 Professional student/retired Associate $50 $85

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contact: For more information, ASOR at Boston University 656 Beacon Street, 5th floor, Boston, MA 02215-2010

Tel (617) 353-6570 Fax* (617) 353-6575

E-mail: asor@bu*edu