Essays On Syria In The Iron Age

The Iron Age, i.e. the period between c. 1200 and 300 B.C., is a crucial period in Mediterranean and Near Eastern history. Syria especially saw one of the most flourishing moments of its history in the early first millennium B.C. New kingdoms emerged which developed an intense cultural life and took advantage of their geographical location to gain a dominant position in interregional relations. As a consequence, Syria became the main target of Assyrian expansion. It also became an intermediary between Asia and the Mediterranean world. Twenty-two essays, aiming to reflect essential aspects of on-going research, review major historical, archaeological and linguistic aspects of Syria in the Iron Age. Interaction between Neo-Hittites and Arameans, new forms of art, changes in political and social structures, linguistic conservatism and innovation, regional particularism, impact of Assyrian expansion are some op the topics dealt with in the volume.

This collaborative commentary on, or dictionary of, Kings, explores cross-cutting aspects of Kings ranging from the analysis of its composition, historically regarded, to its transmission and reception. Ample attention is accorded sources, figures and peoples who play a part in the book. The commentary deals with Kings treatment in translation and role in later ancient literature. While our comments do not proceed verse by verse, the volume furnishes guidance, from contributors highly qualified to advance contemporary discussion, on the book's historical background, its literary intentions and characteristics, and on themes and motifs central to its understanding, both of itself and of the world from which it arose. This volume functions as a meta-commentary, offering windows into the secondary literature, but assembling data more fully than is the case in individual commentaries.

From North Syria to Sicily and North Africa, this is the first study to bring together such a breadth of data, and compares responses to colonization in the Iron-Age Mediterranean.

Drawing on many parallels from Philistia through the Levant, Anatolia, the Aegean Sea, and beyond, this research begins to fill a longstanding lacuna in the Amuq Valley and attempts to correlate with historical and cultural trends in the Northern Levant and beyond.

This book focuses on the characteristics and the development of the stone vessel industry in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian period (c. 1200 – 330 BCE).

In this comprehensive final report David Ilan and 12 other contributing authors present the rich finds from the Iron Age I (circa 1200-950 BCE) levels at Tel Dan, gleaned in the course of Avraham Biran's 1966-1999 excavations at the site. The architecture, ceramics, metal, flint, bone and ground stone objects and ecofacts, all contribute to the portrayal of a cosmopolitan society that thrived, initially, under Egyptian imperial rule, subsequently forging its own way with the departure of Egyptian hegemony. The early Iron Age levels at Tel Dan show material evidence for the presence of local peoples, Egyptians, Cypriots, Aegeans, and Syrians, who together, negotiated a new identity, as Danites.

The history of Canaan in the Iron Age is generally written from the perspective of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The scope of this book is to inverse this relation and to focus on "the skirts of Canaan", while regarding the "United Monarchy" and the "Divided Monarchy" as external and sometimes marginal players of the regional history. After having examined the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the mid-12th century B.C., the book deals thus with the Philistines and the role of Egypt in Canaan during Iron Age II, especially in the face of the Assyrian expansion. It treats further of the Phoenicians and the Aramaeans. There follow five chapters on Bashan, Gilead, Ammon, Moab, and Edom with the Negeb. Several indices facilitate the consultation of the work on particular topics.