The Samaria Ivories—Phoenician or Israelite?

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From the moment they were discovered, the Samaria ivories created fanfare. In excellent condition, the ivories depict scenes of exotic wildlife and flora, mythological creatures, foreign deities and much more. Dated to the ninth or eighth century B.C.E. (the Iron Age), they were uncovered from the site of Samaria—the Biblical capital of the northern kingdom of Israel—during the 1920s and 1930s.^a Some of these ivories are on permanent display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and at museums throughout the world.

When the Samaria ivories were first excavated, they were immediately explained as Phoenician products and, therefore, considered foreign to their discovery site, Samaria. However, there is currently no archaeological evidence to indicate that the Samaria ivories were, in fact, Phoenician. Recently some scholars have challenged the long-accepted assumption about the ivories’ origins. Liat Naeh, the winner of the 2017 Dever Prize, offers a new perspective in her paper “In Search of Identity: The Contribution of Recent Finds to Our Understanding of Iron Age Ivory Objects in the Material Culture of the Southern Levant.”¹

Naeh reviews recent wood, bone and ivory finds from the sites of Jerusalem, Rehov and Hazor in Israel to shed light on the Samaria ivories. These discoveries suggest that there was a local tradition of wood, bone and ivory carving of inlays (decorative materials inserted in something else), featuring recurring themes, during both the Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant. The early interpretation of categorizing the Samaria ivories as Phoenician has impacted the subsequent discovery of other southern Levantine ivory artifacts. The bias to associate any such ivory find with the Phoenicians has caused the region’s local ivory tradition to be overlooked. Naeh suggests that it is necessary 011to change our view of the Samaria ivories—and ivories found throughout the southern Levant—as being made by the hands of foreigners.²

Liat Naeh is a Ph.D. student at the Archaeology Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation, supervised by Professor Tallay Ornan, explores the function and meaning of ritual artifacts made of bone and ivory from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in the Levant, especially inlaid boxes and thrones. Her fields of interest include the art and religion of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant, the affinity between text and image, and the history of archaeology in the Levant.

The Sean W. Dever Prize was established in 2001 by Norma Dever and Professor William G. Dever in memory of their son Sean. The judges of the Sean W. Dever Prize are Carol Meyers, Beth Alpert Nakhai, Walter Aufrecht, Peter Machinist, Sharon Herbert, Matthew J. Adams and Norma Dever.

From the moment they were discovered, the Samaria ivories created fanfare. In excellent condition, the ivories depict scenes of exotic wildlife and flora, mythological creatures, foreign deities and much more. Dated to the ninth or eighth century B.C.E. (the Iron Age), they were uncovered from the site of Samaria—the Biblical capital of the northern kingdom of Israel—during the 1920s and 1930s.a Some of these ivories are on permanent display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and at museums throughout the world. When the Samaria ivories were first excavated, they were immediately explained as Phoenician products and, therefore, considered foreign to […]