Levantine archaeology


Levantine archaeology is the archaeological study of the Levant, a region encompassing the modern areas of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and sometimes Cyprus. The field examines the material cultures of both the Northern and Southern Levant from prehistory through late antiquity. While older scholarship was dominated by biblical archaeology, Levantine archaeology in the 21st century has relegated biblical concerns to a less dominant position, functioning as a "big tent" incorporating multiple archaeological practices. The Levant has displayed cultural continuity during most historical periods, leading to the increased study of the region as a whole. Besides its importance to biblical archaeology, the Levant is highly important when forming an understanding of the history of the earliest peoples of the Stone Age.
Current archaeological digs in Israel are carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and in the areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, by its Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity, working under the auspices of the IAA. The Palestinian Authority prohibits unrestricted excavation at sites of archaeological importance. There are equivalent and similarly named authorities in Jordan and in Cyprus, a Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria and a department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Terminology and scope

Levantine archaeology encompasses excavations, salvage, conservation and reconstruction efforts, as well as off-site research, interpretation, and other scholarship. The geographical scope of Levantine archaeology includes the Hatay Province of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Cyprus. The terminology for archaeology in the Levant has been defined in various, often competing or overlapping ways. Prior to and during the period of the British Mandate in Palestine, the focus of archaeological inquiry was on biblical archaeology, or Palestinian archaeology.
Under the influence of William F. Albright, biblical inquiry and narratives were the priority; indeed, Albright conceived of Palestinian archaeology or Levantine archaeology as a sub-field of biblical archaeology. "The archaeology of ancient Israel," is described by Franken and Franken-Battershill as, "but a small part of the far greater study of Palestinian archaeology." in A Primer of Old Testament Archaeology. In a survey of North American dissertations, the overwhelming emphasis has been on the southern Levant. However it is only when considering the northern Levant alongside the southern that wider archaeological and historical questions can be addressed.
While both Classical archaeology and Levantine archaeology deal with the same general region of study, the focus and approach of these interrelated disciplines differs. Even scholars who have continued to advocate a role for Classical archaeology have accepted the existence of a general branch of Levantine archaeology. In addition, Classical archaeology may cover areas relevant to the Bible outside of the Levant and it takes into account the use and explanation of biblical texts, which Levantine archaeologist ignore.
In academic, political, and public settings, the region's archaeology can also be described in terms of ancient or modern Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and the Hatay province of Turkey. Archaeologists may define the geographic range more narrowly, especially for inquiries that focus on 'Israel' or 'Palestine,' whether construed as ancient or modern territories. The terms "Syro-Palestinian archaeology" or "Palestinian archaeology" are still used. Shifting terminology over the past 50 years reflects political tensions that operate within and upon the field.

Temporal scope

From prehistoric times through the Iron Age, chronological periods are usually named in keeping with technological developments that characterized that era. From the Babylonian era onward, naming is based on historical events. Scholars often disagree on the exact dates and terminology to be used for each period.
Some definitions for the temporal scope, particularly earlier on tended to exclude events after the Byzantine Period, but the temporal scope of Levantine archaeology has expanded over the years. In 1982, James A. Sauer wrote that the Islamic periods were part of Levantine archaeological research, and that while some periods had been "ignored, neglected, or even discarded for the sake of other periods," it is now "an almost universally accepted principle that archaeological evidence from all periods must be treated with equal care."
Leslie J. Hoppe, writing in 1987, submits that Dever's definition of temporal scope of Levantine archaeology excludes the Early Arab period, the Crusader period, the Mamluk period and the Ottoman period. However, Dever's definition of the temporal scope of the field in What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?, indicates that Hoppe's critique is no longer valid. There, Dever writes that the time-frame of Levantine archaeology, "extends far beyond the 'biblical period,' embracing everything from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman period."

List of archaeological periods

The list below, from the Paleolithic Age to the Byzantine period, is drawn from the definitions provided by the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. For periods thereafter, the terminology and dates come from Sauer and Hoppe.
Prehistory is defined as the period preceding the advent of writing, which brought about the creation of written history. For the Levant the introduction of writing occurs at varying moments, but the Late Bronze Age is considered as the first period firmly outside prehistory. To avoid sub-regional conflicts, the prehistory as a category is left out of the list.
  • Paleolithic Age = 1,500,000–14,000 BCE
  • Epipaleolithic Age = 14,000–8,000 BCE
  • Neolithic Age = 8,000–5,800 BCE
  • Chalcolithic Age = 5,800–3,700 BCE
  • Bronze Age
  • * Early Bronze Age = 3,700–2,500 BCE
  • * EB IV/Intermediate Bronze = 2,500–2,000 BCE
  • * Middle Bronze Age = 2,200–1,550 BCE
  • ** MB I = 2,000–1,750 BCE
  • ** MB II = 1,750–1550 BCE
  • * Late Bronze Age = 1,550–1,200 BCE
  • ** LB I = 1,550–1,400 BCE
  • ** LB II = 1,400–1,200 BCE
  • Iron Age = 1,200–586 BCE
  • * Iron I = 1,200–980 BCE
  • * Iron IIA = 980–830 BCE
  • * Iron IIB = 830–721 BCE
  • * Iron IIC = 721–586 BCE
  • Babylonian period = 586–539 BCE
  • Persian period = 539–332 BCE
  • Hellenistic period = 332–63 BCE
  • * Early Hellenistic = 332–198 BCE
  • * Late Hellenistic = 198–63 BCE
  • Nabatean period = 300 BCE–106 CE
  • Roman period = 63 BCE – 324 CE
  • * Early Roman = 63 BCE – 135 CE
  • * Late Roman = 135–324 CE
  • Byzantine period = 324–640 CE
  • Islamic period = 630–1918 CE
  • * Early Arab period = 640–1099 CE
  • * Crusader period = 1099–1291 CE
  • * Mamluk period = 1250–1517 CE
  • * Ottoman period = 1517–1918 CE

    History

Modern Levantine archaeology began in the late 19th century. Early expeditions lacked standardized methods for excavation and interpretation, and were often little more than treasure-hunting expeditions. A lack of awareness of the importance of stratigraphy in dating objects led to digging long trenches through the middle of a site that made work by later archaeologists more difficult.
Edward Robinson identified numerous sites from antiquity and published his findings with Eli Smith in a pivotal three-volume study entitled Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions: Journal of Travels in the Year 1838. In Syria, Ernest Renan carried out research in the 1860s and Howard Crosby Butler of Princeton University carried out surveys of Byzantine Christian sites. In the early 1900s, major projects were set up at Samaria, Gezer, Megiddo and Jericho.
An early school of modern Levantine archaeology was led by William F. Albright, whose work focused on biblical narratives. Albright himself held that Frederick Jones Bliss was the father of Levantine archaeology, although Bliss is not well known in the field. Jeffrey A. Blakely attributes this to Bliss' successor at the Palestine Exploration Fund, R.A.S. Macalister, who underplayed his predecessor's achievements.
After the creation of independent Arab states in the region, national schools of archaeology were established in the 1960s. The research focuses and perspectives of these institutions differed from those of Western archaeological approaches, tending to eschew biblical studies and the search for theological roots in the Holy Land and concentrating more, though not exclusively on Islamic archaeology.
In doing so, Arab archaeologists added a "vigorous new element to Syro-Palestinian archaeology."
While the importance of stratigraphy, typology and balk grew in the mid-twentieth century, the continued tendency to ignore hard data in favour of subjective interpretations invited criticism. Paul W. Lapp, for example, whom many thought would take up the mantle of Albright before his premature death in 1970, wrote:
"Too much of Palestinian archaeology is an inflated fabrication Too often a subjective interpretation, not based on empirical stratigraphic observation, is used to demonstrate the validity of another subjective interpretation. We assign close dates to a group of pots on subjective typological grounds and go on to cite our opinion as independent evidence for similarly dating a parallel group. Too much of Palestinian archaeology's foundation building has involved chasing ad hominem arguments around in a circle."

In 1974, William Dever established the secular, non-biblical school of Syro-Palestinian archaeology and mounted a series of attacks on the very definition of biblical archaeology. Dever argued that the name of such inquiry should be changed to "archaeology of the Bible" or "archaeology of the Biblical period" to delineate the narrow temporal focus of Biblical archaeologists. Frank Moore Cross, who had studied under Albright and had taught Dever, emphasized that in Albright's view, biblical archaeology was not synonymous with Levantine archaeology, but rather that, "William Foxwell Albright regarded Palestinian archaeology or Levantine archaeology as a small, if important section of biblical archaeology. One finds it ironical that recent students suppose them interchangeable terms." Dever agreed that the terms were not interchangeable, but claimed that "'Syro-Palestinian archaeology' is not the same as the 'biblical archaeology'. I regret to say that all who would defend Albright and 'biblical archaeology' on this ground, are sadly out of touch with reality in the field of archaeology."
In recent decades, the term Levantine archaeology has generally replaced Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Electronic database results reveal an "overwhelming adoption" of the term ‘Levant’ when compared to ‘Syria-Palestine’ for archaeological studies. This is primarily due to the strong cultural and geographic continuity of the Levant, the northern sections of which were generally ignored in Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Towards the end of the twentieth century, Palestinian archaeology and/or Levantine archaeology became a more interdisciplinary practice. Specialists in archaeozoology, archaeobotany, geology, anthropology and epigraphy now work together to produce essential environmental and non-environmental data in multidisciplinary projects.