Scholar’s Bookshelf
059
Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective After Two Millennia
Avner Raban and Kenneth G. Holum
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996) 694 pp., $266.00
This handsome, folio-size volume collects more than 40 articles on Caesarea Maritima, making the site on Israel’s seacoast, in the words of the editors, one of the most “well-known of the classical Mediterranean cities.” Chronologically, the volume runs the gamut from classical antiquity to the medieval period; the archaeology concerns discoveries on land and sea, conveyed in both technical reports and interpretive studies. There is a section on inscriptions, another on Caesarea’s Jewish and Christian communities, and even two semipopular articles on maritime archaeology.
The editors’ ambitious and ardent hope for this book is that its contents “will reveal a continuity between the stones of the ancient city now being excavated and the culture that flourished there,” and that study of the city’s archaeology “will promote understanding of how Caesarea created, sustained, and transmitted art, ideas, and other manifestations of culture.” As much as I share such a hope, it will require a huge effort to read so hefty a volume. Like most books of this genre, similar to a festschrift, many articles here will get lost, but any student wanting to be up-to-date on the archaeology and literature of this great site will have to use this volume. One hopes that its exorbitant price will not deter too many libraries from buying it.
Several articles deserve special mention. Ze’ev Weiss’s “The Jews and the Games in Roman Caesarea,” drawn from his doctoral dissertation, concludes that despite rabbinic opposition to the cultural world of games, it is quite obvious that by the middle Roman period—third century and later—Jews participated in games and spectacles on a regular basis. In a similar vein, but drawing separate conclusions, Hayim Lapin, in “Jewish and Christian Academies in Roman Palestine,” points out important differences between the two main religious communities in Caesarea; Christianity looked outward to the world of classical philosophy and literature, while Judaism faced inward to the local, Aramaic-speaking culture.
The volume contains a handful of very beautiful color photos, particularly several aerials, printed on glossy paper. The thinness of the paper elsewhere, however, often leaves a shadow on the reverse side of black-and-white photos, greatly diminishing their effectiveness. The plans of the Herodian, Roman and Byzantine city are excellent, though, at least in my volume, they are too lightly pasted in to last very long.
Editors Raban and Holum deserve much praise for this volume’s timely publication. The papers collected here were first presented at a symposium held in January 1995. Credit for the symposium belongs to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who has long supported excavations at Caesarea. Let us hope that his example inspires others to support research at other worthy sites.
Timnah (Tel Batash) I: Stratigraphy and Architecture, Qedem 37
Amihai Mazar et al.
(Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1997) 2 vols., 265 pp. plus 107 plans and sections
With this elegant and sumptuous two-volume contribution, the final publication of 12 seasons of work at Tel Batash, Biblical Timnah, is one-third complete. Already there is more than enough for the specialist who, thanks to other publications on Tel Batash by Mazar and George Kelm, has a substantial corpus with which to work.
The report describes each area with great care and is supplemented with ample plans, sections, photos and interpretive drawings. Each area presentation concludes with a locus list that is keyed to section and plan and includes a short description of the locus and its associated top and bottom elevations. This list is extremely helpful in understanding the visual presentation. In this respect both Kelm, the expedition director, and Mazar, the archaeological director, have given the report a universal touch that is especially welcome in American and British circles. Along with the publication of Gezer, Tel Miqne (Biblical Ekron) and Beth Shemesh, Batash fills out our understanding of the intensively studied Sorek Valley and the northern Shephelah region.
Among the conclusions to be tentatively drawn from this publication is that Timnah may have been destroyed in the late-tenth-century B.C.E. invasion of the Egyptian pharaoh Shishak early in the reign of Rehoboam (the termination of Stratum IV, possibly to be equated with Beth Shemesh IIa). Timnah may ultimately have reverted to the dominion of Ekron, whose material culture is very similar.
These stunning volumes are welcome additions to the growing literature on the archaeology of an important region.
Studies in the Iron Age Pottery of Israel: Typological, Archaeological and Chronological Aspects
Orna Zimhoni
(Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology, Occasional Publication of the Journal, no. 2, 1997) 263 pp.
This volume honors the memory of Orna Zimhoni, whose untimely death, at age 45, occurred in December 1996. It collects four previously published articles—two on the Iron Age pottery from Tel Jezreel, one on Tel ‘Eton and one on Lachish levels III and II—and one unpublished chapter on Lachish Levels V and IV. Beyond the convenience of having this material in one volume, it is good to have Zimhoni’s views on the chronological issues. Her expertise in ceramic typology and comparative analysis is readily apparent throughout the volume and she provides significant data on the Iron Age that every serious student working in the field will want to have. Studies in the Iron Age Pottery of Israel is a fitting tribute to the author.
Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective After Two Millennia
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