Moab In The Iron Age

Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology uses Moab as the centerpiece of an extended reflection on the nature and meaning of state formation.

New evidence and research has challenged old assumptions for the early Iron Age kingdoms of Edom and Moab in southern Jordan; the sixteen essays in this volume focus on the archaeological, textual and literary sources for this region between the thirteenth and seventh centuries BC, and constitute an up-to-date summary of present knowledge. Contributors include: J R Bartlett (Biblical sources for the early Iron Age in Edom); K A Kitchen (Egyptian evidence on early Jordan); A Millard (Assyrian involvement in Edom); P J Parr (Edom and the Hejaz); G L Mattingly (Moabite origins); J A Dearman (settlement patterns in Iron Age Moab); J M Miller (early monarchy in Moab); S Hart (Iron Age settlement in Edom); J P Zeitler (`Edomite' pottery from the Petra region).

Specialists from different fields converge on one relatively circumscribed and, until recently, largely neglected area of biblical archaeology. The eleven papers comprise archaeological reports from Buseira (Biblical Bozrah) and Wadi el Hasa in Moab, technical studies of Midianite and Edomite pottery, Iron Age burial practices and copper smelting in the Arabah, a semantic study of barzel ('iron') in Biblical Hebrew, and three essays of more general interest, on the history of the Ishmaelites and the Midianites.

This volume of essays, in honour of Professor Michele Daviau, focuses on the archaeology of the area of central Transjordan known in antiquity as Moab. The range is wide, covering social organisation (the polycentric nature of social order, tribalism and segmentary society), studies of the environment and settlements in Iron Age Moab, Moabite pottery production, the concept of sacred space in ancient Moab, studies of particular sites and objects, and a survey of bioarchaeology in Transjordan. It includes papers dealing explicitly with material from Daviau's own projects in the Wadi ath-Thamad and Khirbat al-Mudayna, and some which extend their focus to include Moab's neighbours and a wider chronological span. The international contributors comprise the leading authorities on the archaeology of Moab, and the volume as a whole offers an up-to-date picture of the state of archaeological research on ancient Moab.

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.

Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention? is a collection of essays responding to the radical claims that Israel and its history actually began following the Babylonian exile, and that the history of Israel we read about in the Bible is a fictionalized account. Contributors are leading Bible and archaeology scholars who bring extra-biblical evidence to bear for the historicity of the Old Testament and provide case studies of new work being done in the field of archaeology and Old Testament studies.

Presents the results of recent excavations at a small, isolated but very important Iron Age shrine in Moab, southern Palestine.