Canaan and Palestine
Called by the Egyptians Rhetenu or Kharu -- by the Syrians of the second millenium BC Canaan -- by the Hebrews Israel -- and by the Greeks Romans and Saracens Palestina -- the Holy Land has remained over the centuries a land that displays no inherent unity or cultural autochthony ... (*)
Canaan: The fourth son of Ham ... Genesis 10:6
And the sons of Ham; Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
(Crosswalk Bible Study Tools)
(Crosswalk Bible Study Tools)
His eldest son Zidon was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. He had eleven sons who were the founders of as many tribes ... Genesis 10:15-18
10:15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn and Heth10:16 And the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgasite
10:17 And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite
10:18 And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite: and
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad ...
10:17 And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite
10:18 And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite: and
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad ...
The area derived its name from the preceding. In the time of Moses and Joshua it denoted the land to the west of the Jordan and the Dead Sea ...
The land known as Canaan was situated in the territory of the southern Levant which today encompasses Israel -- the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- Jordan and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. Throughout time many names have been given to this area including Palestine -- Eretz-Israel -- Bilad es-Shem -- Holy Land -- Djahy. The earliest known name for this area was Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan were never ethnically or politically unified as a single nation. They did however share sufficient similarities in language and culture to be described together as Canaanites.
Israel refers to both a people within Canaan and later to the political entity formed by those people. To the authors of the Bible Canaan is the land which the tribes of Israel conquered after an Exodus from Egypt and the Canaanites are the people they disposed from this land. The Old Testament of the Bible is principally concerned with the religious history of Israel in Canaan ...
Selected Excerpts on Canaan (Palestine)
(1) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (2) The Neolithic of the Levant (A) Neolithic 2 Palestine (Page 211) (B) Neolithic 3 Palestine (Pages 359-360) (C) Neolithic 3 South Palestine (Pages 360-368)(D) Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)
![Cyrus Cylinder (London (British Museum)) [LIVIUS]](http://www.livius.org/a/1/mesopotamia/cyrus_cilinder.JPG)
Canaan and Palestine
Called by the Egyptians Rhetenu or Kharu -- by the Syrians of the second millenium BC Canaan -- by the HebrewsIsrael -- and by the Greeks Romans and Saracens Palestina -- the Holy Land has remained over the centuries a land that displays no inherent unity or cultural autochthony ... (*)
Canaan: The fourth son of Ham ... Genesis 10:6
And the sons of Ham; Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
(Crosswalk Bible Study Tools)
His eldest son Zidon was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. He had eleven sons who were the founders of as many tribes ... Genesis 10:15-18
The land known as Canaan was situated in the territory of the southern Levant which today encompasses Israel -- the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- Jordan and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. Throughout time many names have been given to this area including Palestine -- Eretz-Israel -- Bilad es-Shem -- Holy Land -- Djahy. The earliest known name for this area was Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan were never ethnically or politically unified as a single nation. They did however share sufficient similarities in language and culture to be described together as Canaanites.
Israel refers to both a people within Canaan and later to the political entity formed by those people. To the authors of the Bible Canaan is the land which the tribes of Israel conquered after an Exodus from Egypt and the Canaanites are the people they disposed from this land. The Old Testament of the Bible is principally concerned with the religious history of Israel in Canaan ...
Selected Excerpts on Canaan (Palestine)
(1) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (2) The Neolithic of the Levant (A) Neolithic 2 Palestine (Page 211) (B) Neolithic 3 Palestine (Pages 359-360) (C) Neolithic 3 South Palestine (Pages 360-368)(D) Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)
The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium
The Dead Sea Region
Salt lake of Jordan -- Palestine -- Israel which is the lowest water surface on earth at minus 395 metres compared to the level of the Mediterranean Sea ..... The Dead Sea is geologically part of the Rift Valley system. The principal source of the Dead Sea is the Jordan River but there are other streams feeding it too ..... There is no outlet for the lake and evaporation leads to the high content of salt as it is about 6 times more salty than the ocean water. There is no life in the lake ..... Near the Dead Sea lies Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found and the important Israeli national monument of Masada ...
Ancient Israelite History
. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem -- Photographer: Zangaki Blatchford Collection of Photographs (American University of Beirut) |
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:
Note and Prologue: Doubtlessly confusing is the fact that (1) the Hebrew people under the patriarchs established Eretz Israel or the land given to them supposedly by God when they conquered the land of Canaan (hence Israelites); (2) the Kingdom of Israel (10 Northern Tribes: Capital Samaria) was deported by Assyrian King Sargon II east and scattered all over Mesopotamia where they lost their (religious) identity; (3) the later Neo-Babylonian captivity and deportation of political and religious leaders of the Kingdom of Judah (2 Southern Tribes: Capital Jerusalem) was more centralized in Babylon facilitating the continuation of their identity and religious beliefs and their eventual repatriation in Judea (hence Jews) ...
Patriarchal Age: The story begins with the departure of Abram, a son of Terah, from Ur, his ancestral homeland in southern Mesopotamia circa 1950 BC. He journeys to Haran, a city in northwestern Mesopotamia and from there to the land of Canaan (Genesis 11:31-12:5). In Canaan Abram's son Isaac is born and Isaac, in turn, becomes the father of Jacob, also called Israel. During a famine Jacob and his 12 sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel, leave Canaan and settle in Egypt, where their descendants become slaves (See *1 Below) ...
Israel in Egypt: These Hebrews settled in the region of Goshen in the Nile Delta. Their proliferation and prosperity were perceived as a threat to Egyptian security. Drastic measures were introduced to curb the Hebrew population growth and they were pressed into corvée labour ..... The beginning of the exodus cannot be fixed with certainty at any particular time and most likely it involved the steady flow of Hebrews from Egypt over hundreds of years; probably peaking in the 12th century BC with the collapse and exhaustion of the two superpowers of the Near East - the Hittites and the Egyptians (ibid) ...
Settlement in Canaan (Judges Period) [Iron Age I Circa 1200-1000 BC]: During the century or so before the closing of the Bronze Age Canaan was organized politically into small city-states. Occasionally these city-states were clustered into small alliances; often they were in conflict with each other. The Hebrews were described as semi-nomads emerging from the desert fringes and as such would have been at a decided disadvantage when encountering the chariots and trained forces of Canaan's strongly fortified city-states. This disparity was compensated for by maximum use of (1) reconnaissance (2) clever strategems such as ambush and pre-emptive strikes and (3) the convenient recruitment of defectors ..... The earliest known reference to the existence of Israel is from the Merneptah Stele which verifies their presence in the central hilly country. The era of settlement in Canaan and the Judges ended and the transition into nationhood and the United Monarchy under Saul occurred during the priestly career of Samuel - the last of the Judges (ibid) ...
United Monarchy: The United Kingdom (1030-931 BC) was the moment of Israel's glory on the international scene. The impetus for its formation was the emergence of the Philistines in the Gaza Strip. An Ammonite presence also played a role in beginning an end to the loose tribal confederacy. Charismatic tribal leaders who arose as needed were no longer enough to lead the emerging nation. Under Saul the Israelite monarchy controlled a small and petty territory. Under David - and then Solomon - Israel was transformed into a larger unified kingdom with vassal states subject to it. Other powers - mainly Phoenicia and Egypt - were required to give due regard to Israel ..... Solomon's death circa 930 BC and the political errors of his son and successor Rehoboam led to the division of the monarchy into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel (ibid) ...
Divided Monarchy: The emergence of strongly centralized governments based in the capital cities of Samaria and Jerusalem and the growth of large regional centres such as Hazor, Megiddo and Dan in the north and Lachish and Beersheba in the south led to a highly stratified society (ibid) ...
Conquest of Israel: In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered Israel. They forced the ten tribes to scatter throughout their empire. One consequence of the Assyrian invasion of Israel involved the settling of Israel by Assyrians. This group settled in Samaria and they took with them Assyrian gods and cultic practices (See*A Below) ...
Conquest of Judah: Judah barely escaped the Assyrian menace but would be conquered by the Chaldeans about a century later. King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586. The Hebrew Kingdom - started with such promise and glory by David - was now at an end (ibid) ...
Restoration Under the Persians: When Cyrus the Great (Achaemenid Dynasty) conquered Babylon in 539 BC the Persians succeeded Neo-Babylonia as the major imperial power of the Near East. The Achaemenid Persians presented themselves to their subject states as a benevolent power concerned with maintaining peace and order throughout their empire ..... The Cyrus Cylinder describes the policy of Cyrus of religious toleration which allowed subject peoples to return to their homelands. The Bible records a similar decree of Cyrus that permitted the Jews to resettle Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple (2 Chronicles 36:23 and Ezra 1:2-4) [See *1 Below] ...
Rebuilding the Temple: There were successive waves of Jewish repatriation under Persian rule. The rebuilding of the Temple becomes a centerpiece of the Book of Haggai and First Zecchariah (Chapters 1-8) which presumes that this took place in the time of Zerubbabel (520 BC) [ibid] ...
Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great changed the face of Judea along with the rest of the known world. In 336 BC he became king of Macedomia and of the Greek city-states conquered by his father (Philip II). Within a decade he defeated the Persians and fell heir to their empire. In 332 BC he conquered Judea ..... The Greeks were interested not only in military victories, political expansion and economic gain; that were also committed to disseminating their way of life. In addition to political hegemony and imposition of taxes, Greek conquest exposed the eastern Mediterranean lands and beyond to Hellenism (ibid) ...
Addendum: The shift from Hellenic to Hellenistic in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks - however scattered geographically - to a (1) culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity and from (2) the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies (See WIKIPEDIA) ...
Judas Maccabaeus and the Hasmonean Dynasty (142-37 BC): The Hasmonean rise to power was a long and arduous process that succeeded only after a 25-year struggle. Under the command first of Judah Maccabee the Jews attacked the Seleucid armies as they attempted to reach Jerusalem and reinforce the garrison there (See Antiochus IV and 1 and 2 Maccabees). Jewish sovereignty was lost to the Romans when Pompey conquered Judea in 63 BC ... (ibid)
Roman Domination: Some important subjects are (1) the Herodian Dynasty; (2)Christianity; (3) the Jewish Revolt; (4) the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD and the end of Judaism - at least in Eretz Israel; (5) Masada ...
(*1) Ancient Israel Edited by Hershel Shanks
Library of Congress #DS 121 A53 1999
Library of Congress #DS 121 A53 1999
(*A) The Two Kingdoms (Jewish Virtual Library)
The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
Ancient Samaria (Hebrew Shomron)
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary -- Samaritans
had removed into captivity ... 2 Kings 18:9-12
18:9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
18:10 And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
18:11 And the king of Assyria (Sargon) did carry away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes:
18:12 Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded
and would not hear them nor do them ...
These strangers amalgamated with the Jews still remaining in the land and gradually abandoned their old idolatry and adopted partly the Jewish religion. After the return from the Captivity the Jews in Jerusalem refused to allow them to take part with them in rebuilding the temple and hence sprang up an open enmity between them. They erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim which was however destroyed by a Jewish king (BC 130). They then built another at Shechem. The bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans continued in the time of our Lord: the Jews had "no dealings with the Samaritans" ...
Tel Sheva (Biblical Beersheba)
PDF Document: The Prehistoric Culture of Beersheba (654 KB) [JSTOR]
Jean Perrot -- Journal of Educational Sociology Volume 36:8:1963:371-376
A site in southern Palestine which formed one of the desert frontier outposts. The earliest occupation belongs to the 12th and 11th centuries BC but the first town belonged to the period of the United Monarchy (lOth century). The only phase which has been excavated on any scale is Stratum II of the 8th century BC. The town wall of this period was a casemate wall with a great gateway flanked by double guard chambers and external towers. A ring road 15 metres inside the wall divided the inner and outer towns. Beersheba may have been the adminstrative centre of the region and the storerooms may have contained the royal stores for the collection of taxes in kind: grain -- wine -- oil -- etcetera. The town was destroyed in the mid-7th century BC ...
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Donald Redford -- Princeton University (1992)
Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archaeology
Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:
But now another ethnic group, by geopolitical posture also opposed to Assyria, had adopted the former Hittite goal, and was moving eastward into Mesopotamia, and this was the Arameans. Here was a force to be reckoned with, young and vibrant, and with all the vigor associated with a tribal state. Twenty eight times, so Tiglath-Pileser tells us, he was obliged to lead punitive campaigns against the encroaching Aramaeans, until finally he burst into Syria. The startled Phoenician cities of Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad followed time honored practice and "bought off" the newcomer with presents and facilitated his cutting of timber in the (Lebanon) Mountains. But Tiglath-Pileser's exploit proved ephemeral. His successors for over 150 years were wholly incapable of resisting Aramaean pressure; and by the third quarter of the tenth century BC, just as Sheshonq I was seating himself on the throne of Egypt, the invader's had reached the Tigris.
The Aramaeans themselves, however, found it difficult to sustain their own momentum, and once the disciplined military might of Assyria had been marshaled by an effective head of state, they gradually gave ground.
FOR EXACTLY THREE CENTURIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF ADAD-NIRARI II THE STORY OF ASSYRIA IS ONE OF ALMOST UNINTERRUPTED EXPANSION AS ASSYRIA TRANSFORMED ITSELF INTO THE SCOURGE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
(911 - 612 BC).
At its greatest extent its empire stretched from northeast Africa to the Caucasus, and from the Mediterranean to the mountains of Iran.
For Egypt and its clients and neighbors in the Levant, the moment of truth came during the reign of Shalmaneser III (858 - 824 BC). Shalmaneser crossed into North Syria and established himself in the captured principality of Bit-Adini; but when he turned south to advance up the Orontes River, he was met by formidable opposition. At last all Syria had been galvanized into action, and twelve independent states united under the leadership of Hada-Ezer of Damascus, including Hamath, Cilicia, Arvad, Israel, Musri, Ammon, and even an Arabian tribe. With nearly seventy thousand troops, the coalition met the Assyrians at Qarqar on the Orontes in 853 BC and fought them to a standstill. Repeated attacks by Shalmaneser in the years that followed failed to crack the unity of the Aramaean front.
The same pattern of indecisive confrontation between the Tigris based power of Assyria and the Mediterranean coastlands was to prolong itself for over one hundred years after the battle of Qarqar until a civil war in Assyria unseated the royal family and catapulted a general named (Biblical "Pul") known to history as Tiglath-Pileser III to the throne of the empire. This usurper proved to be an organizational genius and a master strategist. By relentless campaigning and indiscriminate use of mass deportation, he encompassed the destruction of Damascus and Israel and by 732 BC even threatened Egypt.
At the outset he faced formidable opponents. The upstart state of Urartu (Biblical Ararat) had expanded into North Syria and the northern Zagros, thus encircling the Assyrian heartland. Arpad in north Syria was Urartu's ally, and elsewhere in Syria no state felt obliged to offer "Pul" presents. Tiglath-Pileser's action was swift. By skillful campaigning he completely defeated Urartu in two years and repaired to Syria in 743 to receive tribute. The next year he laid siege to Arpad, which fell after a three year investment. The years 740 and 738 witnessed the sacking of Ullubu and Kullanu and it became evident that Tiglath-Pileser III aimed at nothing less then the liquidation of all states in the Levant to the border of Egypt.
One can imagine the panic that must have seized Damascus and Samaria as they saw the irresistible advance of the Assyrians. Their first impulse was to proffer a propetory tribute to Tiglath-Pileser in 738 BC. Again an attempt was made to revive the Syrian anti-Assyrian coalition under Damascene and Israelite leadership. Only Ahaz of Judah remained outside the group and Ahaz asked Tiglath-Pileser for help instead of joining the alliance.
Again Tiglath-pileser responded with a speed a determination that bewildered his enemies. Adopting a strategy of attacking the weaker, coastal allies and of driving a wedge between Israel and Damascus, he descended upon Phoenicia in the spring of 734 BC, capturing Sumur, Arka, and Byblos, and forcing Tyre to pay tribute and suffer partial deportation. Acco was assaulted and reduced to ashes, the territory of Naphtali annexed, and the Assyrians were able to march all the way through Philistia.
Two years later Damascus fell, its population was deported and the territory annexed as a province. This period also witnessed the annexation of Israel's territory in Galilee and TransJordan, and the reduction of the state to little more than the environs of Samaria.
None of the implications of this spectacular spread of Assyrian power could have been lost on the Egyptians. While from 732 to 725 BC the Assyrians were occupied elsewhere, it was but the calm before the storm. It may well have looked to observers on the Nile that Assyria considered expansion into Africa its "manifest destiny ...
Chapter 5: Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums
Megiddo was first inhabited towards the end of Neolithic 2 but was also occupied in the next stage. A layer of debris, designated Stratum XX, which contained a mixture of Neolithic and Chalcolithic material was found on the rock in Area BB on the northeast side of the mound. A number of post-holes and small pits, mostly about 1 metre in diameter had been cut in the rock here. Built on te rock were the fittings of a curved stone wall and also a mud-brick wall which may have been parts of dwellings originally.
There were no arrowheads among the flints from Stratum XX but there were a number of segmented sickle blades with fine or coarse denticulation. These are similar in type to the group of sickle blades found in Stratum XX. There were also two denticulated blades, an end-scraper on a blade, a piece of delicately retouched tabular flint and a fragment of obsidian. The sickle blades are the most dignostic type and these resmble examples from phases 1 and 2 at Jericho. One of the broad, segmented sickle blades with extensive retouch characteristic of phase 1 at Jericho was found on the surface at Megiddo in 1925 and is now in the Oriental Institute in Chicago. It probably originated in Stratum XX.
Both coarse and finer Neolithic pottery was found in Stratum XX at Megiddo. The most common vessel shapes were hole-mouth pots with knobs or lugs and collared jars with strap handles. Some of these pots had rounded bases. The fabric was tempered with white grit and straw. Some vessels were wiped over and their surfaces left rough but others were burnished. The pots were usually grey in colour on the surface. The finer vessels had thinner walls and were decorated with horizontal bands or rows of zigzag lines painted in red. The shapes of these vessels and the decoration of the finer ware resemble the pottery of Pottery Neolithic A at Jericho but the burnished grey finish of many of them is a northern feature found also at Kfar Giladi.
The similarities between the flints and pottery from Megiddo and material from Pottery Neolithic A Jericho and Kfar Giladi indicate that the site was occupied in phase 1. It is also fairly clear, despite the mixture of material in each stratum, that the phase 1 settlement of Stratum XX was inhabited not long after the Neolithic 2 occupation of Stratum XX. It is thus possible, though incapable of proof given the evidence we have, that Megiddo was continuously occupied from the end of Neolithic 2 into Neolithic 3.
Mallon found a Neolithic surface station at Sepphoris a little way north of Nazareth. He collected a number of flat flaked trapezoidal flint axes there on what seems to have been a workshop site used also in other periods. These axes are similar to some found at Abu Gosh, Tannur and Qat in Neolithic 3 so the flint at Sepphoris was probably worked then as well as at other times.
The great mound of Beth Shan was first occupied in this stage. The earliest habitations were large pits dug into the subsoil at the bottom of the site. Some simple pottery was found in these pits though very little was kept for later study. The sherds still in museum collections consist for the most part of a series of strap and other loop handles. One of these and several other sherds were painted with thin lines in chevron or criss-cross patterns. This pottery is quite like the phase 1 material from both Megiddo and Jericho in shape and decoration while the dwelling pits found at the site are another indication of Nelithic 3 occupation.
The site of Wadi Yabis is beside a spring on the west side of the road from Deir Alla to Khirbet Shuneh in the Jordan Valley. It was discovered when a cistern was made and all the material recovered came from this pit. No pottery was noticed but a number of flint and ground stone artifacts were recovered. The most diagnostic flints were denticulated, segmented sickle blades and a pressure-flaked tanged arrowhead though long nibbled blades, a burin on a a blade and several flake scrapers were also found. Most of the ground stone tools were made of basalt and the remainder of limestone. Among these were several hammers and pestles, a ring which may have been a weight and an axe with a stright edge and rounded butt.
The sickle blades indicate that the site was occupied in phase 1 but the arrowhead and nibbled blades taken together with the absence of pottery suggest that the site was occupied at the beginning of this phase, that is early in Neolithic 3. The ground stone tools would also fit such a context.
Munhatta was inhabited again in both Neolithic 3 and Neolithic 4. The deposits of these stages have been called phase 2. Phase 2 at Munhatta has been divided into a later sub-phase, 2A or the Wadi Rabah phase and two earlier sub-phases, 2B1 or the Munhatta phase and 2B2 or the Shaar Hagolan phase. The levels of 2A are later than the stage which we are considering in this chapter so it is only phase 2B which concerns us here.
In 2B2 the inhabitants seem to have lived in large pits 3 to 4 metres in diameter which contained paved areas, benches and hearths. There were also some bell-shaped pits about 1 metre deep which may have been used for storage. In 2B1 the large pits were replaced by hollow shallows which were as much as 10 or 12 metres in diameter. The floors of these hollows were pock-marked with smaller pits and depressions. One had a circular structure in the middle with walls of bun bricks on stone foundations.
The two principal flint tool types were segmented, denticulated sickle blades and tanged arrowheads. The sickle blades were quite abundant and included some relatively wide and flat ones like those found at Jericho. The tanged arrowheads were retouched by pressure-flaking and were mostly quite small. A few large flaked axes with rounded polished cutting edges were found in 2B2 but none in 2B1; they resemble examples from Abu Gosh and the sites in the Upper Jordan Valley. The only other stone tools were small flat basalt querns.
Some obsidian found in the phase 2 levels at Munhatta has been analysed. It may have come from the 2B settlement. Two pieces were from Ciftlik, one from Nemrut Dag and a fourth from near Lake Van.
The pottery of phase 2B was tempered with grit but relatively little straw compared with sites in the southern group. The shapes include collared jars with loop handles at the base of the neck, hole-mouth jars also with loop handles or lugs and handled cups. The pots were grey or buff in colour and their surfaces were scraped or wiped before firing. Some of the vessels were burnished. The fabric and surface finish of the vessels resemble the grey wares of Megiddo and Kfar Giladi. This pottery was decorated with incised designs or paint. The incised designs usually took the form of lines of herringbone incisions which ran around the vessel near the rim and in zigzag bands across the body. These designs were sometimes combined with areas of red wash. There were also many vessels painted with groups of lines with chevron patterns or bands of paint which formed simple patterns on the body. This painted decoration resembles that found at Jericho, Megiddo and Beth Shan in phase 1. The incised herringbone patterns are characteristic of phase 2 at Jericho and elsewhere but seem to have been used earlier on this northern group of sites. Several other kinds of objects were made of baked clay in Munhatta 2B2, among them rods with a conical end, animal and human figurines. The human figurines were females with pointed heads and eyes and ears made of applied pieces of clay, the eyes being shaped like coffe beans. These stylized figurines were made in the same way as those from Tell Ramad III and they are quite like the one from Kfar Giladi. It is also of interest that a number of pebbles were found in this level which had been marked with a few lines to represent human beings just like ones from Neolithique Ancien Byblos.
The large pit dwellings, the typology of the flint tools and pottery together with unusual objects found on other sites such as the human figurines in baked clay and on pebbles all indicate that Munhatta 2B was occupied in phase 1. There are changes in both the flint industry and the pottery as the settlement developed which imply that the site was occupied for longer than would seem to be the case on most of the sites I have discussed so far.
The site of Shaar Hagolan is situated about 3 kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee on the present course of the Yarkon River a little way upstream from its juction with the Jordan. It thus lies only 6 kilometres north of and across the valley from Munhatta. Additional material was collected in later years as more of the site was exposed when fishponds were made there. A little of the site has been tested in archaeological excavation but most of the considerable amount of material collected has been picked up from these other disturbances. The principal phase of occupation was in the Neolithic from which stage most of the artifacts date but the site was also inhabited in periods as late as the Bronze Age.
A wide variety of flint tools has been found on the site. The arrowheads were usually tanged or leaf-shaped and retouched by pressure-flaking. At least two Amuq points were collected and one arrowhead with a swollen tang, types familiar in Neolithic 3 contexts futher north, particularly on sites in the North Syrian group. The numerous sickle blades were segmented and most were narrow with coarse denticulation. The other tools included some burins, flake-scrapers and very many small flake borers. These tools were made on flakes and blades struck off prismatic, pyramidal and also double-ended, hump-backed cores.
A considerable number of core tools have also been found at Shaar Hagolan. Most of these were relatively small, often between 5 and 7 centimetres in length and flaked all over although a few had polished cutting edges. The principal types were axes, chisels and picks. These core tools are usually found on phase 1 and 2 sites though rarely in such quantities as at Shaar Hagolan.
The pottery at Shaar Hagolan consisted of collar jars with loop handles at the base of the neck and deep hole-mouth jars with lugs or loop handles at the rim; all had flat bases. The fabric of these vessels was relatively well levigated with grit and straw filler. Their surfaces were grey or brown in colour, hand smoothed or scraped and then burnished in some instances. Many of the collared jars and a few of the other vessels were decorated with incised or incised and painted decoration. The incised paterns were usually bands of oblique dashes or herringbones between parallel lines running horizontally or in zigzag fashion around the pots. The bands were sometimes outlined with red paint. A very few pieces were decorated with lines of red paint alone, occasionally on a cream slip.
The remaining artifacts from Shaar Hagolan included a range of bone borers and hafts, hollow querns and many small stone cups and dishes. There were also numerous incised pebbles, spindle whorls and a conical-ended rod like those from Munhatta. Many of these incised pebbles were stylised human beings similar to those from Munhatta and Byblos. Another link with Munhatta, Tell Ramad III and other sites was a group of clay figurines with pointed heads, coffee bean eyes and applied ears.
When discussing Shaar Hagolan in my earlier article I placed it in phase 2 because I thought the pottery with its characteristic herringbone patterns was contemporary with similar pottery found at Jericho at the phase 2 stage there, Neolithic Pottery B. I thought that certain typologically earlier elements in the flints, notably the Amuq and other tanged arrowheads and the double-ended cores, were evidence of an earlier Neolithic 2 occupation not recognized when the site was found. In reviewing the evidence I believe this interpretation should be modified. Firstly, most of the flints and pottery seem to form a homogeneous group with the exception of certain obvious Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and other elements not discussed here. Secondly this material is matched closely in the stratified deposits of Munhatta 2B and there are general parallels also for much of it in Byblos Neolithique Ancien, Tell Ramad III and at the Neolithic 3 sites at the head of the Jordan Valley and in the Bekaa. Thirdly, there is none of the fine red wash and red burnished ware at Shaar Hagolan typical of Pottery Neolithic B Jericho, Munhatta 2A and other phase 2 sites all over Palestine.
The presence of relatively early elements among the flint tools such as Amuq arrowheads and double-ended cores would indicate that the site was first settled early in Neolithic 3 at a time when Beisamun, Tannur, Qat and Abu Gosh were probably inhabited. The pottery resembles that from Munhatta 2B, Megiddo and Kfar Giladi though there is very little of the painted pottery found at Munhatta and Jericho in Pottery Neolithic A. It now appears to me that the grey incised pottery typical of Shaar Hagolan, Munhatta and other sites in the Northern Palestinian group came into use earlier there than at Jericho though it continued to be made well into phase 2 as the evidence of Pottery Neolithic B Jericho makes clear. Shaar Hagolan, then, was probably quite early in phase 1 on the evidence of the flints and may have been inhabited as late as phase 2 since its characteristic pottery was made in both phases.
One other phase 1 site has been excavated at Hamadiya east of Beth Shan on the edge of the Jordan Valley. Some pits, floors and hearths were found here and also a chipping floor on which sickle blades were made. These sickle blades were segmented and coarsely denticulated. The pottery was in general like that from Shaar Hagolan although there were some painted and coarse sherds more like those from Pottery Neolithic A Jericho. Among the other finds were baked clay spindle whorls and female figurines.
It will be clear from the descriptions I have given of phase 1 sites in Palestine that they form a distinct group somewhat different from Neolithic 3 sites further north. The only habitations found on most of them are pit dwellings and buildings of any sort are rare whereas further north the normal type of house is a rectilinear structure with several rooms. The phase 1 flint industry has much in common with sites further north since its core technique and several types of tools such as the tanged arrowheads and segmented denticulated sickle blades are similar to those of Neolithique Ancien Byblos, Tell Ramad III and other sites in the South Syrian group. Nonetheless the phase 1 industry differs in certain details from that of these sites: for example the arrowheads are mostly quite small, the large arrowheads of the Byblos and Amuq types being absent on most sites. On the other hand the small winged Palestinian arrowheads are rarely found further north.
The difference between the pottery of the Palestinian sites and those further north are more striking. There is a link between the grey, incised burnished pottery of the North Palestine group of sites and that of Kfar Giladi, then at a greater distance Tell Ramad III, Labweh and Neolithique Ancien Byblos. The painted pottery, particularly of the South Palestine group, is a local development not seen elsewhere in the Levant.
Certain unusual objects provide a cultural link with sites in the South Syrian group. These are the human pebble figurines of Shaar Hagolan and Munhatta which are found at Byblos and also the distinctive baked clay figurines which are matched at Tell Ramad III and Kfar Giladi. The sites in the Upper Jordan Valley, Kfar Giladi, Hagosherim, Tannur and the others, provide a cultural link between the sites in Palestine proper and those further north in the Bekaa, on the Lebanes coast and east of the Anti-Lebanon. Phase 1 in Palestine thus appears to be a distinctive local variant of Neolithic 3 in the rest of the Levant and is probably broadly contemporary with it
The question of chronology is of importance for another problem connected with the beginning of Neolithic 3 in Palestine. It will be apparent from my description of Palestine phase 1 or Neolithic 3 sites that the remains on most of them, their structures, flint industry and other finds, are different from those on Neolithic 2 sites in the region. The same is true of the settlement pattern since although a few Neolithic 2 sites were also occupied in Neolithic 3 most were not and the majority of Neolithic 3 sites are in different locations. There is thus apparently a cultural break and an abrupt change in settlement pattern between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine more complete than anything that took place in Syria. We may now ask how long did this cultural break last and was Palestine partly or completely abandoned during that period? I will discuss these questions now and consider the reasons for this cultural break and its implications for the economy and society of the inhabitants of the region later in the chapter.
The fact that there was a cultural break, hiatus or gap in the Palestinian sequence between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 has been accepted by most archaeologists for some time although views have differed on the degree of depopulation that this implied. When discussing the problem in my earlier article I could see no evidence of settlements in Palestine which followed on directly from those of Neolithic 2 and so reluctantly accepted that Palestine was completely abandoned. I argued then that this gap in occupation must have lasted at least 1000 and perhaps as many as 1500 years, that is from about 6000 BC to 5000 or 4500 BC. I arrived at these dates by comparing the Palestinian sequence of phases 1 and 2 with sites in Lebanon which were dated by C-14 determinations. The most important of these was Byblos with two determinations for theNeolithique Ancien phase.
There is now new evidence to take into account in discerning the question of chronology and we also know more about the cultural changes that took place at the end of the 7th and during the 6th millennia BC. Firstly as I mentioned earlier in the chapter following the definitive publication of the Byblos dates by the Groningen laboratory it now appears that Neolithique Ancien Byblos was settled about 5600 or 5700 BC, perhaps four centuries earlier than we had thought. I also think that the transition from Neolithique Ancien to Moyen at Byblos took place around 5000 or 4800 BC rather than 4500 BC as was once supposed. The two original C-14 determinations from which I have derived these dates were made long ago and so could be greatly in error. In any case it is unsatisfactory to have to rely on only two C-14 determinations for the chronology of Neolithic 3 not only in Lebanon but also in Palestine. Although this remains a serious difficulty fortunately we do not have to depend upon these dates alone. There is now a great deal of evidence from the material remains of the South Syrian group of sites to indicate that they were occupied approximately contemporaneously with those in the North Syrian group, that is during the 6th millennium, and with this my proposed dating for Byblos accords very well. Within the South Syrian group itself there is supporting evidence for this dating. Tell Ramad III was probably occupied soon after Ramad II or even as a continuatuion of it. The site was then inhabited until perhaps 5500 BC. The material from Ramad III has always seemed to be like that of Neolithique Ancien Byblos yet Byblos was believed to be so much later in date and so out of step in its cultural development. On the new dating which I am proposing the Neolithic 3 occupation at the two sites would be almost contemporary which fits the cultural sequence much better. We have seen that there are resemblances between the material remains on Neolithic 3 sites in Palestine, particularly those on the northern group, and those in the South Syrian group, especially Byblos. Neolithic 3 in Palestine probably began a little after the earliest developments in southern Syria and certainly well after the abandonment of late Neolithic 2 sites such as Munhatta in Palestine. Bearing in mind the new dates for Byblos I would now suggest with due caution that this might have happened about 5500 BC.
The second factor which needs to be considered when discussing the length of the gap in occupation between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine is the effect of calibration on the few C-14 determinations that we have. I have not calibrated the C-14 determinations discussed in this thesis since I do not believe that it is possible yet to do so, as I explain in the Appendix. Calibration would however alter the apparent length of the gap between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine so in this instance its effects should be considered. The published calibration curves, for example those at Switsur, Ralph et al and Clark, all extend back in time no further than the mid 5th millennium BC at which time the difference between the C-14 determinations and the corrected dates obtained from them is between 700 and 850 years. Although the graphs published so far extend no further back in time they do indicate that the difference between the C-14 determinations and the corrected dates is slightly reduced in the earlier 5th millennium. It is thought that this trend continues during the 6th and 7th millennia until a point is reached at which C-14 determinations are believed to give the approximately correct absolute dates. Thus there would still be a difference of several hundred years between a mid 6th millennium C-14 determination and the calibrated date but this difference would be a few centuries less in the 7th millennium. This means that the apparent difference between the Byblos date of 5410 +/- 70 BC GrN-1544 and the dates for middle and late Neolithic 2 sites in the 7th millennium would be greater before than after calibration perhaps by as much as two or three centuries. Thus an apparent gap of 500 years between the end of Neolithic 2 and the beginning of Neolithic 3 in Palestine would be significantly reduced if these figures were converted to absolute dates. Given the uncertainties surrounding the dates themselves it would not be helpful to attempt to give precise figures in absolute years for this gap except to say that it may have lasted no more than a few centuries.
Was Palestine completely abandoned during that time? Now that we know more about Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 it seems that there was some continuity of occupation though on a much reduced scale, a possibility that Perrot indicated some years ago using other evidence. It is clear that occupation continued on sites in the Upper Jordan Valley from late in Neolithic 2 well into Neolithic 3 though these sites belong within the Syrian zone both culturally and geographically. The chipped stone assemblage in the surface layer at Abu Gosh resembles that of the sites in the Upper Jordan Valley quite closely so it would seem that it was occupied very early in Neolithic 3 as they were even if we do not know for certain that Abu Gosh was inhabited continuously from late Neolithic 2. The presence of Amuq arrowheads, double-ended cores and even tranchet axes at Shaar Hagolan indicates that this site too was inhabited at the end of Neolithic 2 or the beginning of Neolithic 3. There was certainly a long gap in occupation between the Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 settlements at Munhatta but since the large flaked and polished axes found in Munhatta 2B2, though not in later phases, are similar to those at Abu Gosh and the Upper Jordan Valley sites it may be that this site too was occupied very early in Neolithic 3.
The evidence from these three sites; Abu Gosh, Shaar Hagolan and Munhatta, suggests that Palestine was not completely abandoned between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 but that the area continued to be inhabited albeit by much smaller groups. We can also see an element of typological continuity between the flint industries of Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine at these sites which means that the culture of Neolithic 3 could have developed locally, at least in part, and need not have been brought in completely from further north by new colonists. This helps us to explain the strictly local style of painted pottery made on sites in the South Palestine group and also some of the Palestinian idiosyncracies in the Neolithic 3 chipped stone industry.
I do not think there was a complete gap in occupation between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine but it remains true that there is very little archaeological evidence of any settlement in Palestine between about 6000 and perhaps 5500 BC on the carbon 14 chronology. Most sites were deserted during this period so that one must suppose there was a serious disruption in the way of life practiced in Neolithic 2. It should also be noted that relatively few sites were inhabited in Neolithic 3 and some of them only quite late in the period so that Palestine was not occupied so intensively as before ...
The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
Ancient Samaria (Hebrew Shomron)Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary -- Samaritans
2 Kings 17:24: And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof ...
instead of the original inhabitants whom Sargon (BC 721)had removed into captivity ... 2 Kings 18:9-12
18:9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
18:10 And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
18:11 And the king of Assyria (Sargon) did carry away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes:
18:12 Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded
and would not hear them nor do them ...
These strangers amalgamated with the Jews still remaining in the land and gradually abandoned their old idolatry and adopted partly the Jewish religion. After the return from the Captivity the Jews in Jerusalem refused to allow them to take part with them in rebuilding the temple and hence sprang up an open enmity between them. They erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim which was however destroyed by a Jewish king (BC 130). They then built another at Shechem. The bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans continued in the time of our Lord: the Jews had "no dealings with the Samaritans" ...Tel Sheva (Biblical Beersheba)
PDF Document: The Prehistoric Culture of Beersheba (654 KB) [JSTOR]
Jean Perrot -- Journal of Educational Sociology Volume 36:8:1963:371-376
A site in southern Palestine which formed one of the desert frontier outposts. The earliest occupation belongs to the 12th and 11th centuries BC but the first town belonged to the period of the United Monarchy (lOth century). The only phase which has been excavated on any scale is Stratum II of the 8th century BC. The town wall of this period was a casemate wall with a great gateway flanked by double guard chambers and external towers. A ring road 15 metres inside the wall divided the inner and outer towns. Beersheba may have been the adminstrative centre of the region and the storerooms may have contained the royal stores for the collection of taxes in kind: grain -- wine -- oil -- etcetera. The town was destroyed in the mid-7th century BC ...
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Donald Redford -- Princeton University (1992)
Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archaeology
Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums:
THE THREAT OF ASSYRIA
We have described earlier the long-standing national animosity that existed between the principality of Assyria, whose center lay in the city of Ashur(Toponym) on the upper Tigris, and the Hittite Empire whose perceived sphere of expansion was eastward into the plains of Mesopotamia. With the passage of the Sea Peoples [the Philistines being the most important historically] and the sudden demise of Hittite hegemony in Asia Minor, this Bronze Age contretemps became a thing of the past; but the weakened condition of Assyria at the time did not permit them to capitalize on the power vaccuum that had resulted. It was not until the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (circa 1115 - 1077 BC) that a sufficiently strong government emerged at Ashur to consider once again a major westward thrust.But now another ethnic group, by geopolitical posture also opposed to Assyria, had adopted the former Hittite goal, and was moving eastward into Mesopotamia, and this was the Arameans. Here was a force to be reckoned with, young and vibrant, and with all the vigor associated with a tribal state. Twenty eight times, so Tiglath-Pileser tells us, he was obliged to lead punitive campaigns against the encroaching Aramaeans, until finally he burst into Syria. The startled Phoenician cities of Sidon, Byblos, and Arvad followed time honored practice and "bought off" the newcomer with presents and facilitated his cutting of timber in the (Lebanon) Mountains. But Tiglath-Pileser's exploit proved ephemeral. His successors for over 150 years were wholly incapable of resisting Aramaean pressure; and by the third quarter of the tenth century BC, just as Sheshonq I was seating himself on the throne of Egypt, the invader's had reached the Tigris.
The Aramaeans themselves, however, found it difficult to sustain their own momentum, and once the disciplined military might of Assyria had been marshaled by an effective head of state, they gradually gave ground.
FOR EXACTLY THREE CENTURIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF ADAD-NIRARI II THE STORY OF ASSYRIA IS ONE OF ALMOST UNINTERRUPTED EXPANSION AS ASSYRIA TRANSFORMED ITSELF INTO THE SCOURGE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
(911 - 612 BC).
At its greatest extent its empire stretched from northeast Africa to the Caucasus, and from the Mediterranean to the mountains of Iran.
For Egypt and its clients and neighbors in the Levant, the moment of truth came during the reign of Shalmaneser III (858 - 824 BC). Shalmaneser crossed into North Syria and established himself in the captured principality of Bit-Adini; but when he turned south to advance up the Orontes River, he was met by formidable opposition. At last all Syria had been galvanized into action, and twelve independent states united under the leadership of Hada-Ezer of Damascus, including Hamath, Cilicia, Arvad, Israel, Musri, Ammon, and even an Arabian tribe. With nearly seventy thousand troops, the coalition met the Assyrians at Qarqar on the Orontes in 853 BC and fought them to a standstill. Repeated attacks by Shalmaneser in the years that followed failed to crack the unity of the Aramaean front.
The same pattern of indecisive confrontation between the Tigris based power of Assyria and the Mediterranean coastlands was to prolong itself for over one hundred years after the battle of Qarqar until a civil war in Assyria unseated the royal family and catapulted a general named (Biblical "Pul") known to history as Tiglath-Pileser III to the throne of the empire. This usurper proved to be an organizational genius and a master strategist. By relentless campaigning and indiscriminate use of mass deportation, he encompassed the destruction of Damascus and Israel and by 732 BC even threatened Egypt.
At the outset he faced formidable opponents. The upstart state of Urartu (Biblical Ararat) had expanded into North Syria and the northern Zagros, thus encircling the Assyrian heartland. Arpad in north Syria was Urartu's ally, and elsewhere in Syria no state felt obliged to offer "Pul" presents. Tiglath-Pileser's action was swift. By skillful campaigning he completely defeated Urartu in two years and repaired to Syria in 743 to receive tribute. The next year he laid siege to Arpad, which fell after a three year investment. The years 740 and 738 witnessed the sacking of Ullubu and Kullanu and it became evident that Tiglath-Pileser III aimed at nothing less then the liquidation of all states in the Levant to the border of Egypt.
One can imagine the panic that must have seized Damascus and Samaria as they saw the irresistible advance of the Assyrians. Their first impulse was to proffer a propetory tribute to Tiglath-Pileser in 738 BC. Again an attempt was made to revive the Syrian anti-Assyrian coalition under Damascene and Israelite leadership. Only Ahaz of Judah remained outside the group and Ahaz asked Tiglath-Pileser for help instead of joining the alliance.
Again Tiglath-pileser responded with a speed a determination that bewildered his enemies. Adopting a strategy of attacking the weaker, coastal allies and of driving a wedge between Israel and Damascus, he descended upon Phoenicia in the spring of 734 BC, capturing Sumur, Arka, and Byblos, and forcing Tyre to pay tribute and suffer partial deportation. Acco was assaulted and reduced to ashes, the territory of Naphtali annexed, and the Assyrians were able to march all the way through Philistia.
Two years later Damascus fell, its population was deported and the territory annexed as a province. This period also witnessed the annexation of Israel's territory in Galilee and TransJordan, and the reduction of the state to little more than the environs of Samaria.
None of the implications of this spectacular spread of Assyrian power could have been lost on the Egyptians. While from 732 to 725 BC the Assyrians were occupied elsewhere, it was but the calm before the storm. It may well have looked to observers on the Nile that Assyria considered expansion into Africa its "manifest destiny ...
Chapter 5: Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums
Megiddo was first inhabited towards the end of Neolithic 2 but was also occupied in the next stage. A layer of debris, designated Stratum XX, which contained a mixture of Neolithic and Chalcolithic material was found on the rock in Area BB on the northeast side of the mound. A number of post-holes and small pits, mostly about 1 metre in diameter had been cut in the rock here. Built on te rock were the fittings of a curved stone wall and also a mud-brick wall which may have been parts of dwellings originally.
There were no arrowheads among the flints from Stratum XX but there were a number of segmented sickle blades with fine or coarse denticulation. These are similar in type to the group of sickle blades found in Stratum XX. There were also two denticulated blades, an end-scraper on a blade, a piece of delicately retouched tabular flint and a fragment of obsidian. The sickle blades are the most dignostic type and these resmble examples from phases 1 and 2 at Jericho. One of the broad, segmented sickle blades with extensive retouch characteristic of phase 1 at Jericho was found on the surface at Megiddo in 1925 and is now in the Oriental Institute in Chicago. It probably originated in Stratum XX.
Both coarse and finer Neolithic pottery was found in Stratum XX at Megiddo. The most common vessel shapes were hole-mouth pots with knobs or lugs and collared jars with strap handles. Some of these pots had rounded bases. The fabric was tempered with white grit and straw. Some vessels were wiped over and their surfaces left rough but others were burnished. The pots were usually grey in colour on the surface. The finer vessels had thinner walls and were decorated with horizontal bands or rows of zigzag lines painted in red. The shapes of these vessels and the decoration of the finer ware resemble the pottery of Pottery Neolithic A at Jericho but the burnished grey finish of many of them is a northern feature found also at Kfar Giladi.
The similarities between the flints and pottery from Megiddo and material from Pottery Neolithic A Jericho and Kfar Giladi indicate that the site was occupied in phase 1. It is also fairly clear, despite the mixture of material in each stratum, that the phase 1 settlement of Stratum XX was inhabited not long after the Neolithic 2 occupation of Stratum XX. It is thus possible, though incapable of proof given the evidence we have, that Megiddo was continuously occupied from the end of Neolithic 2 into Neolithic 3.
Mallon found a Neolithic surface station at Sepphoris a little way north of Nazareth. He collected a number of flat flaked trapezoidal flint axes there on what seems to have been a workshop site used also in other periods. These axes are similar to some found at Abu Gosh, Tannur and Qat in Neolithic 3 so the flint at Sepphoris was probably worked then as well as at other times.
The great mound of Beth Shan was first occupied in this stage. The earliest habitations were large pits dug into the subsoil at the bottom of the site. Some simple pottery was found in these pits though very little was kept for later study. The sherds still in museum collections consist for the most part of a series of strap and other loop handles. One of these and several other sherds were painted with thin lines in chevron or criss-cross patterns. This pottery is quite like the phase 1 material from both Megiddo and Jericho in shape and decoration while the dwelling pits found at the site are another indication of Nelithic 3 occupation.
The site of Wadi Yabis is beside a spring on the west side of the road from Deir Alla to Khirbet Shuneh in the Jordan Valley. It was discovered when a cistern was made and all the material recovered came from this pit. No pottery was noticed but a number of flint and ground stone artifacts were recovered. The most diagnostic flints were denticulated, segmented sickle blades and a pressure-flaked tanged arrowhead though long nibbled blades, a burin on a a blade and several flake scrapers were also found. Most of the ground stone tools were made of basalt and the remainder of limestone. Among these were several hammers and pestles, a ring which may have been a weight and an axe with a stright edge and rounded butt.
The sickle blades indicate that the site was occupied in phase 1 but the arrowhead and nibbled blades taken together with the absence of pottery suggest that the site was occupied at the beginning of this phase, that is early in Neolithic 3. The ground stone tools would also fit such a context.
Munhatta was inhabited again in both Neolithic 3 and Neolithic 4. The deposits of these stages have been called phase 2. Phase 2 at Munhatta has been divided into a later sub-phase, 2A or the Wadi Rabah phase and two earlier sub-phases, 2B1 or the Munhatta phase and 2B2 or the Shaar Hagolan phase. The levels of 2A are later than the stage which we are considering in this chapter so it is only phase 2B which concerns us here.
In 2B2 the inhabitants seem to have lived in large pits 3 to 4 metres in diameter which contained paved areas, benches and hearths. There were also some bell-shaped pits about 1 metre deep which may have been used for storage. In 2B1 the large pits were replaced by hollow shallows which were as much as 10 or 12 metres in diameter. The floors of these hollows were pock-marked with smaller pits and depressions. One had a circular structure in the middle with walls of bun bricks on stone foundations.
The two principal flint tool types were segmented, denticulated sickle blades and tanged arrowheads. The sickle blades were quite abundant and included some relatively wide and flat ones like those found at Jericho. The tanged arrowheads were retouched by pressure-flaking and were mostly quite small. A few large flaked axes with rounded polished cutting edges were found in 2B2 but none in 2B1; they resemble examples from Abu Gosh and the sites in the Upper Jordan Valley. The only other stone tools were small flat basalt querns.
Some obsidian found in the phase 2 levels at Munhatta has been analysed. It may have come from the 2B settlement. Two pieces were from Ciftlik, one from Nemrut Dag and a fourth from near Lake Van.
The pottery of phase 2B was tempered with grit but relatively little straw compared with sites in the southern group. The shapes include collared jars with loop handles at the base of the neck, hole-mouth jars also with loop handles or lugs and handled cups. The pots were grey or buff in colour and their surfaces were scraped or wiped before firing. Some of the vessels were burnished. The fabric and surface finish of the vessels resemble the grey wares of Megiddo and Kfar Giladi. This pottery was decorated with incised designs or paint. The incised designs usually took the form of lines of herringbone incisions which ran around the vessel near the rim and in zigzag bands across the body. These designs were sometimes combined with areas of red wash. There were also many vessels painted with groups of lines with chevron patterns or bands of paint which formed simple patterns on the body. This painted decoration resembles that found at Jericho, Megiddo and Beth Shan in phase 1. The incised herringbone patterns are characteristic of phase 2 at Jericho and elsewhere but seem to have been used earlier on this northern group of sites. Several other kinds of objects were made of baked clay in Munhatta 2B2, among them rods with a conical end, animal and human figurines. The human figurines were females with pointed heads and eyes and ears made of applied pieces of clay, the eyes being shaped like coffe beans. These stylized figurines were made in the same way as those from Tell Ramad III and they are quite like the one from Kfar Giladi. It is also of interest that a number of pebbles were found in this level which had been marked with a few lines to represent human beings just like ones from Neolithique Ancien Byblos.
The large pit dwellings, the typology of the flint tools and pottery together with unusual objects found on other sites such as the human figurines in baked clay and on pebbles all indicate that Munhatta 2B was occupied in phase 1. There are changes in both the flint industry and the pottery as the settlement developed which imply that the site was occupied for longer than would seem to be the case on most of the sites I have discussed so far.
The site of Shaar Hagolan is situated about 3 kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee on the present course of the Yarkon River a little way upstream from its juction with the Jordan. It thus lies only 6 kilometres north of and across the valley from Munhatta. Additional material was collected in later years as more of the site was exposed when fishponds were made there. A little of the site has been tested in archaeological excavation but most of the considerable amount of material collected has been picked up from these other disturbances. The principal phase of occupation was in the Neolithic from which stage most of the artifacts date but the site was also inhabited in periods as late as the Bronze Age.
A wide variety of flint tools has been found on the site. The arrowheads were usually tanged or leaf-shaped and retouched by pressure-flaking. At least two Amuq points were collected and one arrowhead with a swollen tang, types familiar in Neolithic 3 contexts futher north, particularly on sites in the North Syrian group. The numerous sickle blades were segmented and most were narrow with coarse denticulation. The other tools included some burins, flake-scrapers and very many small flake borers. These tools were made on flakes and blades struck off prismatic, pyramidal and also double-ended, hump-backed cores.
A considerable number of core tools have also been found at Shaar Hagolan. Most of these were relatively small, often between 5 and 7 centimetres in length and flaked all over although a few had polished cutting edges. The principal types were axes, chisels and picks. These core tools are usually found on phase 1 and 2 sites though rarely in such quantities as at Shaar Hagolan.
The pottery at Shaar Hagolan consisted of collar jars with loop handles at the base of the neck and deep hole-mouth jars with lugs or loop handles at the rim; all had flat bases. The fabric of these vessels was relatively well levigated with grit and straw filler. Their surfaces were grey or brown in colour, hand smoothed or scraped and then burnished in some instances. Many of the collared jars and a few of the other vessels were decorated with incised or incised and painted decoration. The incised paterns were usually bands of oblique dashes or herringbones between parallel lines running horizontally or in zigzag fashion around the pots. The bands were sometimes outlined with red paint. A very few pieces were decorated with lines of red paint alone, occasionally on a cream slip.
The remaining artifacts from Shaar Hagolan included a range of bone borers and hafts, hollow querns and many small stone cups and dishes. There were also numerous incised pebbles, spindle whorls and a conical-ended rod like those from Munhatta. Many of these incised pebbles were stylised human beings similar to those from Munhatta and Byblos. Another link with Munhatta, Tell Ramad III and other sites was a group of clay figurines with pointed heads, coffee bean eyes and applied ears.
When discussing Shaar Hagolan in my earlier article I placed it in phase 2 because I thought the pottery with its characteristic herringbone patterns was contemporary with similar pottery found at Jericho at the phase 2 stage there, Neolithic Pottery B. I thought that certain typologically earlier elements in the flints, notably the Amuq and other tanged arrowheads and the double-ended cores, were evidence of an earlier Neolithic 2 occupation not recognized when the site was found. In reviewing the evidence I believe this interpretation should be modified. Firstly, most of the flints and pottery seem to form a homogeneous group with the exception of certain obvious Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and other elements not discussed here. Secondly this material is matched closely in the stratified deposits of Munhatta 2B and there are general parallels also for much of it in Byblos Neolithique Ancien, Tell Ramad III and at the Neolithic 3 sites at the head of the Jordan Valley and in the Bekaa. Thirdly, there is none of the fine red wash and red burnished ware at Shaar Hagolan typical of Pottery Neolithic B Jericho, Munhatta 2A and other phase 2 sites all over Palestine.
The presence of relatively early elements among the flint tools such as Amuq arrowheads and double-ended cores would indicate that the site was first settled early in Neolithic 3 at a time when Beisamun, Tannur, Qat and Abu Gosh were probably inhabited. The pottery resembles that from Munhatta 2B, Megiddo and Kfar Giladi though there is very little of the painted pottery found at Munhatta and Jericho in Pottery Neolithic A. It now appears to me that the grey incised pottery typical of Shaar Hagolan, Munhatta and other sites in the Northern Palestinian group came into use earlier there than at Jericho though it continued to be made well into phase 2 as the evidence of Pottery Neolithic B Jericho makes clear. Shaar Hagolan, then, was probably quite early in phase 1 on the evidence of the flints and may have been inhabited as late as phase 2 since its characteristic pottery was made in both phases.
One other phase 1 site has been excavated at Hamadiya east of Beth Shan on the edge of the Jordan Valley. Some pits, floors and hearths were found here and also a chipping floor on which sickle blades were made. These sickle blades were segmented and coarsely denticulated. The pottery was in general like that from Shaar Hagolan although there were some painted and coarse sherds more like those from Pottery Neolithic A Jericho. Among the other finds were baked clay spindle whorls and female figurines.
It will be clear from the descriptions I have given of phase 1 sites in Palestine that they form a distinct group somewhat different from Neolithic 3 sites further north. The only habitations found on most of them are pit dwellings and buildings of any sort are rare whereas further north the normal type of house is a rectilinear structure with several rooms. The phase 1 flint industry has much in common with sites further north since its core technique and several types of tools such as the tanged arrowheads and segmented denticulated sickle blades are similar to those of Neolithique Ancien Byblos, Tell Ramad III and other sites in the South Syrian group. Nonetheless the phase 1 industry differs in certain details from that of these sites: for example the arrowheads are mostly quite small, the large arrowheads of the Byblos and Amuq types being absent on most sites. On the other hand the small winged Palestinian arrowheads are rarely found further north.
The difference between the pottery of the Palestinian sites and those further north are more striking. There is a link between the grey, incised burnished pottery of the North Palestine group of sites and that of Kfar Giladi, then at a greater distance Tell Ramad III, Labweh and Neolithique Ancien Byblos. The painted pottery, particularly of the South Palestine group, is a local development not seen elsewhere in the Levant.
Certain unusual objects provide a cultural link with sites in the South Syrian group. These are the human pebble figurines of Shaar Hagolan and Munhatta which are found at Byblos and also the distinctive baked clay figurines which are matched at Tell Ramad III and Kfar Giladi. The sites in the Upper Jordan Valley, Kfar Giladi, Hagosherim, Tannur and the others, provide a cultural link between the sites in Palestine proper and those further north in the Bekaa, on the Lebanes coast and east of the Anti-Lebanon. Phase 1 in Palestine thus appears to be a distinctive local variant of Neolithic 3 in the rest of the Levant and is probably broadly contemporary with it
The question of chronology is of importance for another problem connected with the beginning of Neolithic 3 in Palestine. It will be apparent from my description of Palestine phase 1 or Neolithic 3 sites that the remains on most of them, their structures, flint industry and other finds, are different from those on Neolithic 2 sites in the region. The same is true of the settlement pattern since although a few Neolithic 2 sites were also occupied in Neolithic 3 most were not and the majority of Neolithic 3 sites are in different locations. There is thus apparently a cultural break and an abrupt change in settlement pattern between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine more complete than anything that took place in Syria. We may now ask how long did this cultural break last and was Palestine partly or completely abandoned during that period? I will discuss these questions now and consider the reasons for this cultural break and its implications for the economy and society of the inhabitants of the region later in the chapter.
The fact that there was a cultural break, hiatus or gap in the Palestinian sequence between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 has been accepted by most archaeologists for some time although views have differed on the degree of depopulation that this implied. When discussing the problem in my earlier article I could see no evidence of settlements in Palestine which followed on directly from those of Neolithic 2 and so reluctantly accepted that Palestine was completely abandoned. I argued then that this gap in occupation must have lasted at least 1000 and perhaps as many as 1500 years, that is from about 6000 BC to 5000 or 4500 BC. I arrived at these dates by comparing the Palestinian sequence of phases 1 and 2 with sites in Lebanon which were dated by C-14 determinations. The most important of these was Byblos with two determinations for theNeolithique Ancien phase.
There is now new evidence to take into account in discerning the question of chronology and we also know more about the cultural changes that took place at the end of the 7th and during the 6th millennia BC. Firstly as I mentioned earlier in the chapter following the definitive publication of the Byblos dates by the Groningen laboratory it now appears that Neolithique Ancien Byblos was settled about 5600 or 5700 BC, perhaps four centuries earlier than we had thought. I also think that the transition from Neolithique Ancien to Moyen at Byblos took place around 5000 or 4800 BC rather than 4500 BC as was once supposed. The two original C-14 determinations from which I have derived these dates were made long ago and so could be greatly in error. In any case it is unsatisfactory to have to rely on only two C-14 determinations for the chronology of Neolithic 3 not only in Lebanon but also in Palestine. Although this remains a serious difficulty fortunately we do not have to depend upon these dates alone. There is now a great deal of evidence from the material remains of the South Syrian group of sites to indicate that they were occupied approximately contemporaneously with those in the North Syrian group, that is during the 6th millennium, and with this my proposed dating for Byblos accords very well. Within the South Syrian group itself there is supporting evidence for this dating. Tell Ramad III was probably occupied soon after Ramad II or even as a continuatuion of it. The site was then inhabited until perhaps 5500 BC. The material from Ramad III has always seemed to be like that of Neolithique Ancien Byblos yet Byblos was believed to be so much later in date and so out of step in its cultural development. On the new dating which I am proposing the Neolithic 3 occupation at the two sites would be almost contemporary which fits the cultural sequence much better. We have seen that there are resemblances between the material remains on Neolithic 3 sites in Palestine, particularly those on the northern group, and those in the South Syrian group, especially Byblos. Neolithic 3 in Palestine probably began a little after the earliest developments in southern Syria and certainly well after the abandonment of late Neolithic 2 sites such as Munhatta in Palestine. Bearing in mind the new dates for Byblos I would now suggest with due caution that this might have happened about 5500 BC.
The second factor which needs to be considered when discussing the length of the gap in occupation between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine is the effect of calibration on the few C-14 determinations that we have. I have not calibrated the C-14 determinations discussed in this thesis since I do not believe that it is possible yet to do so, as I explain in the Appendix. Calibration would however alter the apparent length of the gap between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine so in this instance its effects should be considered. The published calibration curves, for example those at Switsur, Ralph et al and Clark, all extend back in time no further than the mid 5th millennium BC at which time the difference between the C-14 determinations and the corrected dates obtained from them is between 700 and 850 years. Although the graphs published so far extend no further back in time they do indicate that the difference between the C-14 determinations and the corrected dates is slightly reduced in the earlier 5th millennium. It is thought that this trend continues during the 6th and 7th millennia until a point is reached at which C-14 determinations are believed to give the approximately correct absolute dates. Thus there would still be a difference of several hundred years between a mid 6th millennium C-14 determination and the calibrated date but this difference would be a few centuries less in the 7th millennium. This means that the apparent difference between the Byblos date of 5410 +/- 70 BC GrN-1544 and the dates for middle and late Neolithic 2 sites in the 7th millennium would be greater before than after calibration perhaps by as much as two or three centuries. Thus an apparent gap of 500 years between the end of Neolithic 2 and the beginning of Neolithic 3 in Palestine would be significantly reduced if these figures were converted to absolute dates. Given the uncertainties surrounding the dates themselves it would not be helpful to attempt to give precise figures in absolute years for this gap except to say that it may have lasted no more than a few centuries.
Was Palestine completely abandoned during that time? Now that we know more about Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 it seems that there was some continuity of occupation though on a much reduced scale, a possibility that Perrot indicated some years ago using other evidence. It is clear that occupation continued on sites in the Upper Jordan Valley from late in Neolithic 2 well into Neolithic 3 though these sites belong within the Syrian zone both culturally and geographically. The chipped stone assemblage in the surface layer at Abu Gosh resembles that of the sites in the Upper Jordan Valley quite closely so it would seem that it was occupied very early in Neolithic 3 as they were even if we do not know for certain that Abu Gosh was inhabited continuously from late Neolithic 2. The presence of Amuq arrowheads, double-ended cores and even tranchet axes at Shaar Hagolan indicates that this site too was inhabited at the end of Neolithic 2 or the beginning of Neolithic 3. There was certainly a long gap in occupation between the Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 settlements at Munhatta but since the large flaked and polished axes found in Munhatta 2B2, though not in later phases, are similar to those at Abu Gosh and the Upper Jordan Valley sites it may be that this site too was occupied very early in Neolithic 3.
The evidence from these three sites; Abu Gosh, Shaar Hagolan and Munhatta, suggests that Palestine was not completely abandoned between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 but that the area continued to be inhabited albeit by much smaller groups. We can also see an element of typological continuity between the flint industries of Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine at these sites which means that the culture of Neolithic 3 could have developed locally, at least in part, and need not have been brought in completely from further north by new colonists. This helps us to explain the strictly local style of painted pottery made on sites in the South Palestine group and also some of the Palestinian idiosyncracies in the Neolithic 3 chipped stone industry.
I do not think there was a complete gap in occupation between Neolithic 2 and Neolithic 3 in Palestine but it remains true that there is very little archaeological evidence of any settlement in Palestine between about 6000 and perhaps 5500 BC on the carbon 14 chronology. Most sites were deserted during this period so that one must suppose there was a serious disruption in the way of life practiced in Neolithic 2. It should also be noted that relatively few sites were inhabited in Neolithic 3 and some of them only quite late in the period so that Palestine was not occupied so intensively as before ...
Canaan and Palestine
Called by the Egyptians Rhetenu or Kharu -- by the Syrians of the second millenium BC Canaan -- by the HebrewsIsrael -- and by the Greeks Romans and Saracens Palestina -- the Holy Land has remained over the centuries a land that displays no inherent unity or cultural autochthony ... (*)
Canaan: The fourth son of Ham ... Genesis 10:6
And the sons of Ham; Cush and Mizraim and Phut and Canaan
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
(Crosswalk Bible Study Tools)
His eldest son Zidon was the father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians. He had eleven sons who were the founders of as many tribes ... Genesis 10:15-18
10:15 And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn and Heth10:16 And the Jebusite and the Amorite and the Girgasite
10:17 And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite
10:18 And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite: and
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad ...
The area derived its name from the preceding. In the time of Moses and Joshua it denoted the land to the west of the Jordan and the Dead Sea ...10:17 And the Hivite and the Arkite and the Sinite
10:18 And the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite: and
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad ...
The land known as Canaan was situated in the territory of the southern Levant which today encompasses Israel -- the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- Jordan and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon. Throughout time many names have been given to this area including Palestine -- Eretz-Israel -- Bilad es-Shem -- Holy Land -- Djahy. The earliest known name for this area was Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan were never ethnically or politically unified as a single nation. They did however share sufficient similarities in language and culture to be described together as Canaanites.
Israel refers to both a people within Canaan and later to the political entity formed by those people. To the authors of the Bible Canaan is the land which the tribes of Israel conquered after an Exodus from Egypt and the Canaanites are the people they disposed from this land. The Old Testament of the Bible is principally concerned with the religious history of Israel in Canaan ...
Selected Excerpts on Canaan (Palestine)
(1) Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (2) The Neolithic of the Levant (A) Neolithic 2 Palestine (Page 211) (B) Neolithic 3 Palestine (Pages 359-360) (C) Neolithic 3 South Palestine (Pages 360-368)(D) Neolithic 3 North Palestine (Pages 368-380)
The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium
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