Book Specifications
col. 365-564 pp.
softcover
2024 | BiOr Volume 81 5/6 ISSN: 0006-1913
by M. Geller
In this reflection I comment on the current state of comparative work in ancient Near Eastern and biblical scholarship. Based on the work of Giorgio Buccellati, I examine the efficacy of using the biblical text(s) to inform the study of Mesopotamia. Sharing temporal and geographical space, comparison of the two has long been embraced by a subset of biblicists. Assyriologists, however, have been more hesitant to turn to the biblical text(s) to illuminate the study of Mesopotamia. I comment on the many potential risks within the comparative method, acknowledging criteria which I deem important for responsible comparison. Although comparative work is hazardous, it is an important method for the interpretation of ancient societies, especially as it continues to break down the silos which have appeared amongst our disciplines.
A place called Millo is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible, and scholars have put forward various suggestions as to the meaning of its name and its precise location. Some suggested that it was a site of earthen fill, a retaining wall, or an earthen embankment; more recently, it has even been suggested that it was an engineered repository for storing water. All these suggestions have related to a particular place in the City of David. In this article, I will argue that a place by name of Millo—as mentioned on three occasions in the stories about King Solomon (1 Kings 1–11) refers to a building that was one of Solomon’s seven major construction projects (1 Kings 9:15), stood on Temple Mount, and was linked to the residences of the king and his queen, who was Pharaoh’s daughter.
In an era where archaeological research is increasingly dominated by the application of costly, high-tech analytical techniques, we run the risk of neglecting the detailed reconstruction of human behaviour that informs on ancient lived experience. This re-issue of a 2003 volume on the site of Tor Faraj is in 2023 a delightful anachronism as it focuses on the craft of archaeology, employing multi-stranded analytical strategies to arrive at a meticulous reconstruction of a few days in the life of a group of Middle Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. The objective: to see if habitation at Tor Faraj was characterized by a differentiated use of space. This is proposed to be characteristic of the complex ways of life in which modern humans structure their settlements. Alternatively, the material remains of the stays at the rockshelter could be homogenously distributed throughout the excavated area. This spatially unstructured way of behaviour is generally taken to characterize “archaic” humans. As the inhabitants at the site are presumed to be Neanderthals (no bone is preserved so no fossils available), the latter would be the default expectation. In this review article, I introduce the volume on of Tor Faraj and summarise the archaeological results. I then contextualise these in view of changes in the field in the 20 years since the volume was originally published. In that time, the interpretative frame in which the excavation results have to be placed has become far more complex, but the review also shows that detailed data such as presented at Tor Faraj are of great value to start resolving some of the current open questions in the area.
With connections between human societies and their environments becoming ever more crucial to understand, archaeology could provide datasets and assessments to understand those relations on the longer term in ancient times. This requires strong interdisciplinary cooperation, which is what the archaeological field can offer. The challenge to build interdisciplinary work within classical archaeology is taken up in the work reviewed in this text. As such, this book is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on water in archaeology, but there are three connected concerns. First, the literature on interdisciplinary water studies that the book is based upon is quite dated, especially when it comes to more contextualizing references. Second, the discussions are rather onedimensional when it comes to the conceptual framework, with the natural environment “driving” human societies and similar terms. Third, the volume is mainly providing detailed descriptions of what we could label as environmental conditions when it comes to hydrological aspects and does not engage with the dynamic interplays that shape hydrology and humans. The book fails to include the latest insights on interdisciplinary water-based research within classical archaeology. This means, unfortunately, that the book does not really meaningfully engage with the dynamic interplays between humans and society.
This article analyzes the possibility that the Pahlavi word abzūd, which was usually used on numerous Sasanian coins with the word xwarrah, was slowly transformed to baraka, an Arabic word, by Iranians after the Arab conquest of Iran. To show that, this research compiles a catalogue of post-Sasanian coins featuring the GDH ideogram, the Pahlavi word ’pzwt, or the Arabic baraka on their margins. The Islamization of abzūd helped the concept stay alive through time, and it lives on in the form of baraka even to date. The term baraka was also used on various artifacts in the Islamic world, and a few of these are discussed here. Additionally, a new copper coin countermarked with the GDH ideogram, an Abbasid copper coin bearing this ideogram, and several other previously unpublished coins of significance within this context are introduced in this paper.
Faraonisch Egypte, Assyriologie, Hettitologie, Semitisch, Oude Testament, Vroeg Jodendom, Archeologie, Arabica, Iranica, Islam, Kunst van de islamitische wereld
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