Books in Brief

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Biblical Dan

Avraham Biran

(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion, 1994) 280 pp., $32.00)

Avraham Biran’s excavation of Tel Dan, begun in 1966, is the longest continuous excavation of any site in Israel. Located in a beautiful valley in northern Galilee, the tell has yielded an enormous amount of material spanning the Neolithic to the Late Roman periods—some five thousand years of occupational history. The excavator is the director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and a former director of the Israel Department of Antiquities.

Although Biran has published numerous articles on various aspects of the excavation, this volume is his first book-length report on Dan. A revised English version of the author’s original 1992 Hebrew edition, it is written in a popular, non-technical style intended for a general audience.

Biran describes the occupational history of the site, beginning with the Neolithic period (fifth millennium B.C.E.) and ending with a brief discussion of Dan’s history from Iron Age II (1000 B.C.E.) through the Roman periods (first century B.C.E.-fourth century C.E.). In a postscript, the author relates the dramatic discovery of the now-famous Aramaic inscription found in July 1993.^a The bulk of the book is devoted to the Middle Bronze Age (2200–1550 B.C.E.) and to what Biran calls “The Sacred Precinct,” located in Area T.

In the Middle Bronze Age II period (c. 1900–1550 B.C.E.), Dan (then called Laish) was a thriving Canaanite city. During this time, the Canaanites built the huge earthen rampart that gives the mound its present shape. Biran suggests how this rampart was built, based on his excavations of it in four areas. He concludes that at its base the rampart was nearly 200 feet thick. Biran estimates that to construct the rampart would have required 1,000 workmen laboring for three years.

Associated with this massive rampart is the remarkable triple-arched gate, first discovered in 1979. Biran devotes an entire chapter to this impressive architectural remain, describing in detail its excavation and construction. The top plans and section drawings included in his discussion, as well as numerous photographs, make this chapter one of the more useful in the book. Unfortunately, the rapid deterioration of the sun-dried mudbrick of which the gate was constructed required that the gate be partially covered again in order to preserve it.

The longest chapter discusses the excavation of Area T, where this reviewer began his own archaeological field work in 1978. The discoveries here leave little doubt that this part of the site served as a religious center throughout most of Dan’s long history. Biran restricts his discussion primarily to the Israelite phases to which most of the architectural remains were dated. The rich material found here includes altars, incense stands, statuary, faience figurines, numerous ceramic vessels (including seven-spouted oil lamps) and architectural remains. Among the latter is what Biran identifies as a bamah (often translated “high place”;^b see 1 Kings 12:31), the first phase of which he dates to the time of King Jeroboam I of the northern kingdom of Israel (tenth-ninth centuries B.C.E.).

Among the important discoveries at Tel Dan, the following are especially noteworthy. A bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription containing a reference to “the god who is in Dan” was found in 1976. This inscription provides rare literary evidence for the identity of the site and for the cultic nature of this part of the tell.

In 1978 a plastered basin from the tenth-ninth centuries B.C.E. was found south of the bamah. A large basalt slab flanked each end of the basin. Attached to the end of each slab was a large sunken jar. Despite the superficial similarity between this structure and olive presses known from other excavations, Biran identifies it as some sort of a water libation installation.^c Many archaeologists remain skeptical of this interpretation, 008preferring instead the olive-press explanation. To support his conclusion, Biran argues that because the bottom of the sunken basin is constructed of unplastered stones, any attempt to collect olive oil in it would have resulted in considerable waste of this valuable commodity. Whether or not it served for water libations is still uncertain.

A few meters southwest of the bamah lies a rectangular room that Biran dates to the eighth century B.C.E.^d In this room Biran found a stone structure measuring 1.03 by 1.03 meters (3 feet, 3 inches square) and standing 27 centimeters (10.6 inches) high. Associated with this apparent altar were three iron shovels, a bronze bowl and part of a jar that had been buried in the ground upside down. The jar was full of ashes. Biran identified the stone structure as an altar from the time of Jeroboam II. Removal of the altar stones revealed a bronze and silver scepter head 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) high and 3.7 centimeters (1.5 inches) wide. Why this object was buried beneath the altar is still a mystery.^e

The book is enhanced by a brief bibliography, 228 illustrations and 44 color plates. Informed readers interested in Biblical archaeology will find it useful for its broad description of this major Israelite tell. However, its lack of detailed stratigraphical section drawings and top plans (especially for Area T) showing precise relationships of artifacts to architectural phases will reduce the usefulness of Biran’s book for other archaeologists. For their sake, we hope that more detailed reports will be published in the near future.

010

Enchanted Landscapes: Wall Paintings from the Roman Era

Text by Silvia Rozenberg

(Jerusalem: R. Sirkis, 1993) 176 pp., $40.00

This lavish catalogue, for an exhibition in the Bible Lands Museum^f in Jerusalem, presents Roman fresco fragments from such distant sites of the empire as the Bay of Naples in Italy, Samaria and Jerusalem in Israel, and the Syrian-Lebanese coast. The goal of the exhibition, to be “a guide to understanding the development and influence of Roman painting on the Eastern Roman provinces” (p. 7), is eminently worthwhile. Although the artistic influences of the imperial west on the east do not fully emerge, the exhibition does bring western paintings into the eastern province of Judea to offer an intriguing introduction to Roman painting.

Seventy-seven of the 93 fragments displayed decorated first-century C.E. villas on the Bay of Naples, the area best known for Roman painting. Many of the pieces come from Boscotrecase on the slopes of Vesuvius, where several villas were excavated between 1894 and 1903 but then covered again by the eruption of 1906. The compositions show striking resemblances to the famous frescoes from an Augustan villa, that are now in the Naples Archaeological Museum and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but their less precise style seems to place them later, in the mid-first century. It is even possible that these later frescoes are copies of the earlier, better-quality paintings. Sixteen exhibited fragments were found in the eastern Roman provinces.

The catalogue sets a high standard of visual documentation: On the glossy plates, the frescoes appear as they are—jagged, unframed and in various states of preservation. Close-ups reveal the true colors and textures of pigments as well as the muralist’s individual brushstrokes. Accompanying the stunning photographs, the text by Silvia Rozenberg, curator of classical archaeology at the Israel Museum, achieves a high level of scholarship, with footnotes, bibliography, glossary and informative sections on the development of Roman wall designs. The catalogue familiarizes the reader with the typical motifs, colors, arrangements and “feel” of Roman paintings.

The exhibition presents parts of the “subsidiary” decorative framework in Roman villas, rather than large figural scenes of Greek myths or trompe l’oeil^g landscapes. We see the architectural perspectives and scattered motifs that filled the colored surfaces of walls and were often ignored by early archaeologists. Highlights include three black fragments of a ceiling (that part of a room seldom preserved because of the collapse of upper stories), a panel of a satyr startling a nymph, and an elegant caryatid that seems to step forward while balancing a cornice. While the schemes are formulaic, the muralist’s quick execution produced spontaneous effects of atmosphere and light, evoking the glow of metals and the translucency of diaphanous cloth. Through clever combinations of architecture and color, the artist simulated infinite depth and projected forms into the viewer’s space.

Because the paintings are displaced fragments, the key challenge to their interpretation is the lack of context. In the show, the Italian fragments are grouped by “rooms,” which without reference to excavation reports or plans seem more symbolic than real. Despite this suggestive presentation by rooms and the layout of certain fragments called the “White Room” pieces, the catalog makes no attempt to reconstruct a possible original wall scheme. Many clues in the “White Room” fragments—such as mirror reversals, directional lighting and perspective—offer a great opportunity for a fuller reconstruction. From these hints, a whole wall could, conceivably, be recontructed. Rozenberg’s alert recognition of how some fragments connect with their lost relatives, scattered in museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, also might have been supplemented by drawings bringing them into a hypothetical whole.

Enchanted Landscapes is essentially a show of fragments and isolated motifs. It captures the repetitive, formulaic nature of Roman paintings and offers glimpses into the vivid enclosures of daily life.

The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C.

Robert Drews

(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993) 252 pp., $35.00

Soon after 1200 B.C.E. the kingdoms and empires that had dominated the Eastern Mediterranean region for centuries came to sudden, often violent, ends. Cities and palaces were burned throughout Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine. Scholars have postulated a variety of causes for this tumult and destruction at the end of the Bronze Age: a series of major earthquakes, a period of drought, massive migrations, overspecialized economies, revolts by downtrodden peasants and collapsing systems, among others. However, no theory suggested so far has attracted majority support. Now Robert Drews, professor of classics and history at Vanderbilt University, proposes a military solution to the problem.

After a brief overview of the era of conflict and devastation, which he labels simply “the Catastrophe,” Drews reviews and rejects most of the prominent explanations advanced in the past. While he does a good job of discrediting some of these hypotheses (especially those blaming earthquakes and ironworking), several of his arguments in this section are not entirely persuasive. For example, in his discussion of the drought hypothesis, he fails to consider important evidence, especially the indications that the levels of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were very low during the 12th century B.C.E. And in what will certainly be one of the most controversial of his arguments, he rejects the idea of an invasion by Sea Peoples. For Drews, the Peleset (Philistines) were not migrants from the Aegean or Asia Minor, but native Palestinians. The Shardana, Shekelesh, Lukka and Tursha were not wandering tribes, but just warriors from Sardinia, Sicily, Lycia and Italy. He concludes that “the only ‘migrations’ that contributed to the Catastrophe are the encroachments of Libyans and Palestinians on the Egyptian Delta” (p. 72).

In part three of his book, Drews maintains that the Catastrophe resulted from “a radical innovation in warfare, which suddenly gave ‘barbarians’ the military advantage over the long-established and civilized kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean” (p. 97). He identifies this “radical innovation” as reliance on massed infantry rather than on chariot forces. The change, Drews claims, occurred when foreign foot soldiers employed by the great kingdoms suddenly realized that with their javelins and long slashing swords they could defeat their employers’ chariot divisions. “Once that lesson had been learned, power suddenly shifted from the Great Kingdoms to motley collections of infantry warriors” (p. 97).

Among the most interesting parts of the book are the chapters in which Drews attempts to reconstruct the nature of chariot warfare and the role of infantry in the Late Bronze Age. He argues convincingly that chariots were mobile platforms from which archers launched volleys of arrows at enemy forces. Such chariots, Drews contends, formed the major component of Bronze Age armies, with foot soldiers being used only as supplementary “runners” or skirmishers. True infantry forces supposedly were used only to besiege cities and to attack enemies in terrain too rough for chariots. When the great kingdoms’ chariots proved vulnerable to swarming foot soldiers, they did not 056have large infantry forces of their own to rescue them.

Drews presents his case with great learning and skill. Nevertheless, many objections can be raised to various parts of his thesis. If, contrary to Drews’s claims, major migrations did occur during the Catastrophe (as the evidence seems to indicate), then much of his argument is undermined. Furthermore, he probably underestimates the role of infantry in the Bronze Age as well as the continued effectiveness of chariots in the early part of the Iron Age. The evidence suggests that the Israelites, the Aramean kingdoms, the Assyrians and others continued to make effective use of chariots well into the Iron Age. For example, when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III invaded Syria in 853 B.C.E., his army included 2,002 chariots (though it also had 5,542 men on horseback), while the opposing coalition force fielded 3,900 chariots (2,000 of them contributed by King Ahab of Israel), but only 1,900 cavalrymen and 1,000 camel-riders.

The demise of chariotry in the Near East was probably due more to the development of more effective mounted cavalry than to the infantry tactics Drews describes. And in Greece the disappearance of chariot warfare may have been a result of the Catastrophe rather than its cause. After the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces, the wealth required to maintain a chariot force was long absent in Greece.

Drews has probably not succeeded in explaining the cause of the Catastrophe. But he has given scholars some new factors to ponder, and he will undoubtedly encourage them to analyze more carefully the nature of warfare in the Bronze and early Iron Ages.

Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead

Elizabeth Bloch-Smith

JSOT/ASOR Monograph Series, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 123

(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992) 314 pp., $70.00

This study of Judahite burial practices and beliefs by Elizabeth Bloch-Smith tackles two types of evidence. First, she presents a complete account of the archaeological materials dealing with Iron Age burials in ancient Palestine, a task surely daunting, given the fact that this information is scattered in various journals, in chapters of reports and sometimes even in unpublished papers. This is followed by a fresh look at Biblical references to death through the lens of the assembled archaeological data.

Tomb architecture and type varies from place to place. The inhabitants of the coastal regions and the lowlands used predominantly cist tombs (stone-lined graves). Along the central and northern coast, they used jars with the necks removed in order to place the remains of infants or young children in them. Egyptians in Palestine employed pit graves, cist tombs and anthropoid coffins. Assyrians commonly used bathtub-like coffins. The hill country people of Judah (Israelites or proto-Israelites) at first buried their dead in caves. By the eighth century B.C.E., these hill country Judahites were cutting tombs into hard rock, often carving out benches or recesses in the walls of the rock-cut tombs for placement of the remains.

Various kinds of tomb goods were deposited with burials in different tomb types. Pottery was the most common item, but different types of pottery appear in tombs of particular regions at certain times. Bloch-Smith’s valuable results in describing these differences are conveniently summarized in a table (p. 73). Similarly, her inventory of other types of tomb artifacts delineates features of burial practice in different sub-regions and among the varying population groups of Judah (again with a table of results, on p. 144).

When she turns to the literary traditions in the Bible, the author analyzes Biblical names for the dead, Biblical formulae dealing with death, information about interment, references to grave markers and a variety of other descriptions of burial activity. Larger issues are also addressed, such as powers believed to be held by the dead, feeding the dead and evidence for a cult of the dead.

A detailed appendix contains a catalogue, together with succinct descriptions, of the numerous sites where Iron Age burials have been excavated and recorded.

Bloch-Smith deals only briefly with theoretical issues and problems of method relating to more recent investigations of a people’s burial remains. Current approaches to mortuary remains, using interdisciplinary methods and materials, attempt to explain what we can know of a living society by the way it treats its dead. Such information about the population of Judah, from about the ninth to the end of the seventh centuries B.C.E., is invaluable for archaeologists and Biblical historians alike. As newer, theoretically based excavations bring to light fresh data, our understanding of the social dimensions of Judah’s burial practices and beliefs about the dead should become even more firmly grounded. This book, necessarily based on older excavations not attuned to such problems, will nonetheless be a good resource for such studies.

Biblical Dan

Avraham Biran

(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion, 1994) 280 pp., $32.00)