Queries & Comments

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House Shrines

Goddesses or Guards?

In discussing an ancient house shrine’s two female nude figures, Hershel Shanks (“Scholars Fear to Publish Ancient House Shrine,” 31:06) writes, presumably dependent upon the three anonymous scholars, “The figurines on the shrine are almost surely deities—or multiple copies of a single deity. They probably indicate the identity of the deity that was believed to dwell inside the shrine.” I confess, I have little experience with house shrines, but to me it seems that the figures are standing as ceremonial guards to the side of the entrance. The figurine of the deity would have been a separate figure, standing in the center of the shrine itself. You seem to suggest this, when you write elsewhere on page 22 that the shrine is, “Probably the home of a now missing statuette of a deity.” Is it “almost sure” that these figures on the outside are deities? Or could they, for example, be temple prostitutes/priestesses that are often associated with ancient Near Eastern fertility goddess worship? Of course they could be lesser deities that are honoring the primary deity, and of course, whoever they are, they can give us a clue to indicate the identity of the primary deity of the shrine.

The anonymous scholars on whose paper the story was based responded to this query: The reader’s suggestions are indeed possible interpretations.—Ed.

Excavating Ekron

Did Israelites Man The Oil Industry?

Seymour Gitin (“Excavating Ekron,” 31:06) says olive oil production was borrowed from neighboring cultures, while four-horned incense altars are considered the work of craftsmen who have moved to Ekron. Why couldn’t the olive oil production be the result of Israelite manufacturers setting up shop in Ekron? Why is it unlikely that the altars represent a significant Judahite population living in Ekron? I’d love to hear more from the excavators about what evidence led them to treat these apparently similar changes in culture to different causes.

I was also curious as to how far afield the olives for the oil production would have come. Were there massive plantings of vast orchards of olive trees around Ekron to feed all those presses? If not, how were the olives obtained? Would the oil production have been a seasonal activity or somehow maintained year-round?

Seymour Gitin responds:

In answer to Mr. Taber’s first question, regarding why olive oil production was not “the result of Israelite manufacturers setting up shop in Ekron,” while the technology was Judahite, it is more likely that it was adopted, that is, imported from Judah with the assistance of Judahite olive oil workers, and not the result of Israelite entrepreneurship. The Assyrian Annals state that in 701 B.C.E., King Sennacherib gave the towns of Hezekiah, the Judean king of Judah, to Padi, king of Ekron, and the archaeological record confirms the Assyrian destruction of Judahite cities and the decimation of the Judean 008population in the region at this time. Thus, Judahite resources and capacity for setting up their own olive oil production centers, especially at the industrial level of mass production that existed at Ekron, does not seem feasible.

The source of the olives was most likely the low hills of Judah (the Shephelah), which are only half a kilometer from Ekron and a prime region for the growth of olive trees. Olive oil production took place during the fall/winter when olives are harvested, and there is evidence at Ekron of a second industry for the rest of the year, that of producing textiles.

As for why “the altars do not represent a significant Judahite population living at Ekron,” four-horned incense altars are not known in Judah after the tenth century B.C.E., while they are attested in Israel—the northern half of the country. We know from the Assyrian Annals that after conquering territories, the Assyrians often transported groups of craftsmen from one region to another. Therefore, we assume that after the Assyrians had depopulated Israel in the eighth century B.C.E., Israelite craftsmen were transported to Ekron, where they fashioned these altars in the seventh century.

It’s Not a Knife, It’s a Sickle

While I wouldn’t dream of disputing Seymour Gitin’s professional expertise and insight, I can draw on my own six decades of study, collection and use of edged weapons to suggest that the fascinating artifact identified as a dagger or a knife (“Excavating Ekron,” 31:06) is more likely to be a sickle for harvesting grains and grasses.

From the picture, it is apparent that the curved blade was sharpened on its inner side (the “fingertips” side in the photo). The choil of the blade—the extension of the tang to which the ivory handle is riveted—protrudes for perhaps a quarter of an inch just below the left hand’s little fingertip and it is rectangular in cross section, with square corners, as the tang would be, but the blade itself has been ground down or forged to a cutting edge. From the photo it appears that the outer side of the blade (the “palms” side in the photo) may have been fashioned with a strengthening rib along its edge rather than sharpened.

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Both of those characteristics would have made it very clumsy, indeed almost impossible, to use as an edged weapon or other cutting tool. But those characteristics are almost definitive on sickles. In fact, the complex curve and taper of the blade is quite typical of sickles shaped by trial and error over some thousands of years for maximum efficiency in reaping. Note, for example, that the “drag” of the “belly” of the cutting edge lies on, or slightly below, an extension of the midline of the handle to ensure that the tool does not twist in the hand during use. (After all, it was “tools,” not weapons, that the Israelites are said to have brought to the blacksmiths of Ekron and elsewhere for “sharpening and repair.”)

I’m certainly not qualified to speculate on why a simple sickle would have been fashioned with an elaborate handle of ivory, rather than wood or leather; if the folkways of the British Isles offer any guide, it may be that patriarchs or priests could have used it to cut the ceremonial final sheaf of their field’s yearly harvest.

Seymour Gitin responds:

I greatly appreciate Mr. Copeland sharing his expertise on sickles. His conclusion that the Ekron ivory-handled knife would have made a clumsy weapon seems reasonable. However, the characteristics of the blade, which he described, do not preclude it from being defined as a knife, that is, as some type of cutting tool. Unfortunately, the word “dagger,” implying a weapon, appeared in the photo caption, which was composed by a BAR editor. Nevertheless, 012I take responsibility for not catching this mistake when I proofed the article. The term knife is documented in n. 16 on page 67 of my article, citing the article by my colleague Trude Dothan in Israeli Exploration Journal Vol. 52/1 (2002), pp. 14–23, which includes dozens of parallels from Israel, Cyprus, and the Aegean, all of which are designated as knives.

Universal God

The Law Was Portable

André Lemaire’s article (“The Universal God,” 31:06) on the development of Yahweh as a universal God has merit with regard to his comments on the establishment of Israelite centers in Babylon with their priests and prophets intact. He has failed, however, to include the Book of Deuteronomy as the most important factor for that development.

The written Mosaic law—Deuteronomy—in conjunction with a strong charismatic power given by the people to the priesthood before the Exile is, in my estimation, the prime reason for the cohesion and further spiritual development 077of the Israelite nation. By comparison, the Philistines, even if technologically advanced, were a culture lacking a central cohesive spiritual entity. The concept of an intangible monotheistic God elevated the collective Israelite religious thought that gave birth to this very powerful charismatic central spiritual core. It is this that separated them from all other peoples at that time, up to and including the Romans. So with due respect to the Babylonians, I think it reasonable to state that no matter where the Israelites were exiled, they had a strong transportable religion that would not have been easily influenced by the idolatry of their hosts.

André Lemaire responds:

The main purpose of my article was to let readers know about this new cuneiform tablet concerning Judean exiles in Babylonia that reveals an important group was staying together in a place that was a kind of “New Jerusalem” in Babylonia. I hope that other tablets from this same place will be published soon.

To understand the faith of these Judean exiles, I agree with Mr. Spilkin that we must take into account the Book of Deuteronomy. The problem is that this book was apparently written in stages. The main stream(s), written before the Exile, insisted on the importance of the Temple of Jerusalem, rejecting High Places, standing stones and sacred trees. Actually, Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s reforms were very important steps toward a systematic aniconism and monolatry in Israelite religion, but they concerned only the religious situation in Judah.

A clear affirmation of universal monotheism, with the negation of the existence of the other gods for the other peoples, only appears in Deuteronomy 4:35 and 39, probably as the result of an Exilic or post-Exilic revision of the text in the second half of the seventh century B.C.E. For further details see my book: Naissance Du Monothéisme (Paris: Bayard, 2003).

Jehoash Inscription

Research Is About Discussion

In his letter to the editor, Victor Avigdor Hurowitz (“Publish to Your Heart’s Content,” Queries & Comments, 31:06) presumes to authenticate inscriptions written in ancient languages, yet he cannot understand my simple letter (“Blocked from Publishing,” Queries & Comments, 31:04) written in his own native tongue—English. Hurowitz claims that my study of the Jehoash inscription was rejected by the first journal I approached. That is not true. The editors did not even ask to see the manuscript. Their stated reason: Since the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) committee (of which Hurowitz was a member) had declared the inscription to be a forgery, the matter was closed. Thus my study was never submitted to the journal.

An article may be accepted or rejected for whatever reason. But it is rejected only when it is submitted, read and a decision is made not to publish it. That did not happen in my case, and I made that clear in my first letter to BAR. Hurowitz blunders when he jumps to the conclusion that the evidence presented in my study [now published in Ugarit Forschungen 35] was compared with that of the IAA committee and was rejected; this is mere fantasy on his part (and jumping to conclusions is bad scholarship). His lecture [his letter to the editor —Ed.] on rejected articles and frustrated authors is sheer nonsense and a desperate attempt to be personally abusive.

The “official” verdict of the IAA that the Jehoash inscription is a forgery has made publication of new evidence difficult—and Hurowitz has contributed, however insignificantly, to that problem. He even cautions me not to complain since I was not arrested for saying the text of the inscription could be genuine (he again jumps to conclusions when he claims I said the inscription was genuine). I now suspect Hurowitz is living in a police state and therefore felt coerced to brand the inscription a forgery to avoid arrest himself.

Research is about discussion: We investigate, not pontificate. Committees such as the IAA’s are an anachronism that smacks of the 16th-century Vatican and its edicts. The proper place for any committee, organization or scholar that aids in closing published discussion on a controversial issue is with the mullahs of Iran—those who stifle discussion, issue arrest warrants and decree fatwahs.

My published study shows that, at least, the text of the Jehoash inscription may be authentic, but Hurowitz posing as an expert in a field not his own is definitely fake.

Where Credit Is Due

David Harris, a photographer who has contributed many fine images to our pages, tells us that the photos of the Taanach cult stand (on p. 23 of our November/December 2005 issue and credited only to the Israel Museum), the jar with figs (p. 46) and the ivory figure (p. 51) were all taken by him. We are happy to give him the credit he deserves.—Eds.

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Armageddon at Megiddo: Finkelstein Review of Harrison Draws Strong Rebuke

Disappointed by Half

I was disappointed in Israel Finkelstein’s review of Timothy Harrison’s Megiddo 3: Final Report on the Stratum VI Excavations (ReViews, 31:06), but only in its latter half. The first half of the review was informative and interesting. Halfway through the review, however, Finkelstein’s tone changes. While he correctly chides Harrison for glossing over the controversy concerning the existence or extent of the Kingdom of David and Solomon, he goes on to make assertions such as “the year 1,000 B.C.E. used by Harrison [as the transition from Iron Age I to Iron Age IIA] is based solely on a simplistic reading of the Biblical account,” and “there was no scribal activity in Jerusalem and Judah before the eighth century B.C.E.” and “In the time of King David, Jerusalem was a small village and the highlands of Judah were sparsely inhabited by a small number of people—a few thousand at most.” These assertions are currently being debated by scholars. To claim they are settled facts is to overstate the case and to judge Harrison’s book simply on how closely it matches Finkelstein’s own views.

The Lesson of the Scrolls

Israel Finkelstein’s assertion that “there was no scribal activity in Jerusalem and Judah before the eighth century B.C.E.” seems like a hasty foundation for his statement, “Thus there was no archive in which to record tenth-century B.C.E. events.”

Why is he so anxious to erect a gravestone over archaeology in Israel, especially since such a small percentage of ancient Israel has been excavated to date?

Haven’t any of the Bible’s critics learned the lesson that the Dead Sea Scrolls taught to those living before 1947, who doubted Hebrew Scripture predated the Masoretes (i.e., the late first millennium A.D.)?

Finkelstein’s Review “Seriously Misrepresents” My Book

In the November/December BAR, Israel Finkelstein reviewed my recent book, Megiddo 3: Final Report on the Stratum VI Excavations. Since the subject of the volume has become a linchpin in the highly contentious debate about the archaeological character and chronology of the early Israelite monarchy, a subject on which Finkelstein and I hold strongly opposing views, it is hardly surprising—indeed, it was to be expected—that he would be sharply critical. However, Finkelstein’s critique seriously misrepresents both the purpose of the book and its basic content. I therefore am compelled to respond and set the record straight.

As is well-known, Finkelstein has attempted to lower the date (his so-called “low chronology”) of Iron Age IIA material culture from the tenth century B.C.E. (the time of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon) to the ninth-century B.C.E. According to his “low chronology” the monumental architecture traditionally attributed to Solomon should be reassigned to a later ninth century B.C.E. king. Although few archaeologists have opted for Finkelstein’s low chronology, the debate continues, focusing more recently on the interpretation of radiocarbon dates that have been collected from successive strata at a number of key sites, including Megiddo.

The first radiocarbon evidence from Early Iron Age Megiddo was mentioned by Finkelstein in a 1998 article, and was used to support his low chronology.¹ In that article, Finkelstein attempted to link the destruction of Stratum VI, which all agree was the first Iron Age cultural stratum at Megiddo, to the Sheshonq I (Biblical Shishak) campaign of 925 B.C.E. Yet, when the full report on this radiocarbon evidence was later published, the calibrated date ranges clearly did not favor his late-tenth-century date for the destruction of the stratum.²

Since then, Finkelstein has co-authored several articles challenging analyses of radiocarbon evidence from other sites, most notably Tel Rehov, that also go against his low chronology. In these articles, he has invoked support for his case by alluding to new radiocarbon evidence from Megiddo, but without actually presenting any of this evidence in print.³ The dates for one of these newer samples was finally published in 2005, after our Megiddo 3 had already appeared in print, in an article co-authored with a colleague. Rather than supporting Finkelstein’s low chronology, however, this sample also falls within the chronological parameters expected by my dating of Stratum VI,⁴ which places the life of the Stratum VI settlement in the 11th century, and its destruction sometime toward the end of the century (though not explicitly at 1000 B.C.E.), or early in the tenth century.

Interestingly, in his BAR review, Finkelstein suggests that the radiocarbon evidence from Megiddo now supports a mid-tenth-century date for the destruction of Stratum VI, rather than the late-tenth century date he has previously advocated. In a further effort to reconcile the growing discrepancies in his low chronology scheme, Finkelstein also has now begun to question the standard Egyptological dating of the Sheshonq campaign. These subtle shifts, unfortunately, have become all too familiar, amounting to an intellectual sleight-of-hand that serves only to obscure the evidence and his changing positions in the debate. It will not come as a surprise if the remaining radiocarbon evidence, once it finally appears in print, also reveals earlier date ranges than previously implied.

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Finkelstein also disparages my approach to the Hebrew Bible, accusing me of reading the Biblical text as “a straightforward, fully historical document,” and apparently unaware of the “ideological goals” of the authors of these texts. He then proceeds to lecture the reader about the current state of play in the scholarly debate on the early Israelite monarchy, imposing his own minimalist historical view. It is hard to know who is being more naÏve. I am fully aware that the narrative accounts in the Book of Kings preserve a complex redactive history, and that the various authorial strands reflect the ideological concerns of their redactors. But it hardly follows ipso facto that these accounts do not preserve reliable historical information simply because of this complexity. Though this line of argument is all too commonplace today, it is both illogical and facile. The effort to discern the historical development of ancient Israel from the existing archaeological and textual evidence is already challenging and difficult enough, without having to contend with agenda-driven ad hominem attacks such as this. The BAR readership would have been better served by a more informed and balanced critique of the volume.

As I explain in the preface, Megiddo 3 is the product of a resumed effort to produce the final report of the University of Chicago’s excavations at Megiddo during the 1920s and 1930s. The original excavators planned a series of volumes intended to present the remains of each cultural stratum uncovered during their excavations. However, the onset of World War II, as well as other circumstances, forestalled these plans. Rather than delay publication, they decided to produce a report in catalogue form detailing the results of their final field seasons (1935–1939). As Gordon Loud, the director of the expedition at the time, states in his foreword to Megiddo II: Seasons of 1935–39, it was their hope that others might take up the task of completing the final report at some point in the future.

To accomplish this goal, we were forced to work almost exclusively from the original field records of the expedition. Although many of the intact objects were kept by the expedition, including some of the pottery, once they had been recorded, the vast majority of the artifacts were discarded in the field. Fortunately, these records contain considerable amounts of information. Consequently, every effort was made to compile this information and reproduce it in the new volume in as systematic and accessible a manner as possible. To this end, electronic copies were made of the primary field records, including the original field photographs and field plans, and a relational database was created of all the artifacts itemized in the object registers, object cards and locus lists produced by the expedition. This artifactual record was then linked to a fully scaleable computerized base map of the site, which we created using ArcGIS, so that the reader would be able to conduct her or his own statistical queries and spatial analyses.

Finkelstein fails to mention any of this in his review, though he does acknowledge in passing that copies of the original field plans are included on an enclosed CD. More importantly, in dismissing the volume, Finkelstein appears to miss the significance of these electronic records. By including digitized copies of the original field plans, the new volume makes it possible for the reader to assess our architectural and stratigraphic reconstructions, while also considering alternative ones. Moreover, while Finkelstein is correct in recognizing that the architectural plans presented in the hard-copy version of the report closely resemble those that appear in the earlier Megiddo II, something that should be expected, since both reports relied on the same field records, there are also numerous additional features on the new plans that appear to have escaped his attention.

Finkelstein takes issue with our choice of title for our volume, noting that it shares the same lead title as his Tel Aviv University’s first seasonal report, which appeared in 2000. As unfortunate as this is, there is more to the story than Finkelstein appears willing to acknowledge. In correspondence that dates back to late 1995, I discussed the Stratum VI material with him, and he was aware of the fact that I had resumed work on its publication. It was already well-known that Douglas Esse had begun to work on the publication of this material before his death in 1992, producing a lengthy article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies right before he died.⁵ In 1997, the project received a grant from the White-Levy Program for Archaeological Publication, a development that was made public in a variety of media, including BAR and The Washington Post. I also presented papers on the project at a number of scholarly conferences in the late 1990s.

Consequently, it came as a rude surprise, when in 2000, having already submitted our manuscript to the Oriental Institute Publications Office earlier in the year, we learned that the Tel Aviv team had decided to adopt the numbering system of the Oriental Institute’s reports, and had inserted their first seasonal report directly into this sequence. Finkelstein was fully aware of the ongoing Oriental Institute project in Chicago when he did this, and chose this aggressive, confrontational course anyway. After careful reflection, the Oriental Institute decided to keep the submitted title, and proceeded with publication of the volume as originally planned.⁶ Finkelstein’s suggestion that we should have chosen an alternative title reflects an arrogance that does not deserve response.

Finally, Finkelstein is also critical of the lack of interpretive analyses in our volume, such as the spatial distribution of distinctive artifact types. Here, we simply do not agree about the nature and fundamental purpose of an excavation report. In keeping with the intent of the original Oriental Institute excavators, we believe such a report should present the results of the excavation as thoroughly as possible, but with minimal interpretation, and in a manner that will permit the reader to assess the evidence independently, without the obscuring interpretive filter of our own reconstructions. Thus the spatial data (coordinates, etc.) are presented in the volume, but not the spatial analyses of these data, which we believe are more suitably published separately as part of more interpretive synthetic studies, as indeed we have already begun to do.⁷

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The same will serve as answer to Finkelstein’s comments concerning the pottery in our volume. Since the vast bulk of the artifactual record was discarded in the field, the line-drawn illustrations that appear in Megiddo II represent the only detailed illustrations that exist of the Stratum VI pottery. As I explain in Chapter Four, the challenge was to extract as much information as we could from the existing field records about the diverse ceramic traditions preserved in this remarkably rich assemblage. Fortunately, the Oriental Institute excavators were systematic in their record keeping, and produced a detailed artifact inventory of the more than three thousand items recovered from Stratum VI. Contrary to Finkelstein’s claim, the Register of Finds in Megiddo II provides only a partial listing of these artifacts. Readers wanting the full record will have to turn to Megiddo 3.

The significance of the pottery record presented in the new volume, therefore, is not in the line drawings reproduced in the pottery plates, which were simply meant to illustrate each of the principal types in the assemblage, but in the more comprehensive database presented in tabular form in Appendix B, and as part of the relational database in the Digital Archive in Appendix D. This database provided the basis for the typological characterizations presented in Chapter Four, which do include extensive comparisons with the pottery assemblages of other sites in the region, despite Finkelstein’s claim to the contrary, including the Stratum VI pottery published thus far by his own Tel Aviv University expedition.

House Shrines