Table Of ContentT HE O X F O RD E N C Y C L O P E D IA OF
ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NEAR EAST
EDITORS
William G. Dever Carol L. Meyers James D. Muhly
Dennis Pardee James A. Sauer
CONSULTING EDITOR
Paul Corby Finney
ASSISTANT EDITOR
John S. Jorgensen
ASOR CONSULTANTS
Pierre M. Bikai Seymour Gitin Stuart Swiny
ADVISERS
David E. Aune Ofer Bar-Yosef Ghazi Bisheh Giorgio Buccellati
Annie Caubet Trude Dothan Oleg Grabar William W. Hallo
William D. Kingery Siegfried Mittmann P. R. S. Moorey
Ernst Pernicka Donald B. Redford David Stronach
Javier Teixidor Richard L. Zettler
THE OXFORD
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
ARCHAEOLOGY
IN THE NEAR EAST
PREPARED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
Eric M. Meyers
EDITOR IN CHIEF
VOLUME 1
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1997
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Oxford encyclopedia of archaeology in the Near East / prepared
under die auspices of the American Schools of Oriental Research;
Eric M. Meyers, editor in chief,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Middle East—Antiquities—Encyclopedias. 2. Africa, North—Antiquities—
Encyclopedias. I, Meyers, Eric M. II. American Schools of Oriental Research.
DS56.09 1996 96-17152 939'4—dc20 CIP
ISBN 0-19-506512-3 (set)
ISBN 0-19-511215-6 (vol. 1)
Many photographs and line drawings used herein were supplied by contributors to the work. Others
were drawn from the archives of the American Schools of Oriental Research, from commercial
photographic archives, and from the holdings of major musettms and cultural institutions.
The publisher has made every effort to ascertain that necessary permissions to reprint
materials have been secured. Sources of all photographs and line drawings
are given in the captions to illustrations.
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND TECHNICAL RESEARCHERS: Stephen Goranson,
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CONTENTS
Editorial Board
vol. 1 p. vii
3
Preface
ix
Abbreviations
XV
THE OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NEAR EAST
Appendix i: Egyptian Aramaic Texts
vol. 5, p. 393
Appendix 2: Chronologies
411
Appendix 3: Maps
417
Directory of Contributors
431
Synoptic Outline of Contents
45i
Index
461
EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITOR IN CHIEF Ofer Bar-Yosef
McCurdy Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, Peabody Museum,
Eric M. Meyers
Harvard University
Professor of Religion and Archaeology, Duke University
Ghazi Bisheh
EDITORS
Director-General, Department of Antiquities of Jordan
William G. Dever
Giorgio Buccellati
Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology, University of
Arizona Professor Emeritus of the Ancient Near East and of History, University of
California, Los Angeles
Carol L. Meyers
Annie Caubet
Professor of Biblical Studies and Archaeology, Duke University
Keeper, Departemenl des Antiquitis Orientates, Musee du Louvre, Paris
James D. Muhly
Trude Dothan
Professor of Ancient Histoiy, University of Pennsylvania; and Director-
elect, American School of Classical Studies, Athens Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor Emerita of Archaeology, Hebrew University
Dennis Pardee of Jerusalem
Oleg Grabar
Professor of Northwest Semitic Philology, University of Chicago
Professor, School of Historical Studies, Institute of Advanced Study; and
James A. Sauer
Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art, Harvard University
Research Associate, Semitic Museum, Harvard University
William W. Hallo
William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature,
CONSULTING EDITOR
and Curator, Babylonian Collection, Yale University
Paul Corby Finney
William D. Kingery
Associate Professor of Histoiy and History of Art, University of Missouri,
St. Louis Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology of Technology and Production
Systems, University of Arizona
ASSISTANT EDITOR Siegfried Mittmann
John S. Jorgensen
Professor of Biblical Archaeology, Eberhard-Karls-Universitdt Tubingen
Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Instructor, Department of Religion,
Duke University P. R. S. Moorey
Keeper of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ASOR CONSULTANTS
Ernst Pernicka
Pierre M. Bikai
Senior Researcher in Analytical Geochemistry and Archaeometry, Max-
Director, American Center of Oriental Research, Amman
Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik, Heidelberg; and Professor of Analytical
Seymour Gitin Geochemistry, Universitdt Heidelberg
Dorot Director and Professor of Archaeology, W. F. Albright Institute of Donald B. Redford
Archaeological Research, Jerusalem Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director, Akhenaten Temple
Stuart Swiny Project, University of Toronto
Past Director, Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, David Stronach
Nicosia
Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley
ADVISERS Javier Teixidor
David E. Aune
Professor of Semitic Studies, College de France
Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Loyola University,
Chicago Richard L. Zettler
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pemnylvania
vii
PREFACE
The genesis of this work was in 1988 when the American Schools of Oriental Research
(ASOR) moved its headquarters from Philadelphia to the campus of the Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore. As first vice president for publications I was encouraged by the
ASOR Board of Trustees to establish a closer working relationship with the Johns Hopkins
University Press. In that context I developed a project entitled The ASOR Handbook of
Biblical Archaeology, which was to be an authoritative one-volume reference work on all
aspects of the material culture of the lands of the Bible in antiquity. The geographical
region to be covered was Syria-Palestine, or the modern territories of Israel, Jordan, Syria,
and Lebanon. The chronological range was to have been the Early Bronze Age to the
Byzantine period. The idea was to make available and easily accessible the results of
modern archaeological scholarship to readers interested in the ancient Near East and bib
lical studies. A major motivating factor was the absence of such a work in the existing
literature.
The model for the ASOR handbook was a German classic in the field, Kurt Galling's
Biblisches Reallexikon, largely unavailable to English readers and long ago out of print.
From the outset, the ASOR handbook was to have endeavored to bring together the results
of archaeological fieldwork, epigraphy, and literary-historical studies. Archaeological field-
work was also understood as something more than site reports. Rather, it was viewed as
a means of securing data that would lead to a better understanding of aspects of everyday
life such as agriculture, family life, medicine and public health, clothing, diet, and archi
tecture; it was a way of examining how different sorts of material culture shaped and were
shaped by the environment. Similarly, a major concern was to have been the economy of
the peoples of the Levant; their industries, such as the production of agricultural com
modities, glassmaking, shipbuilding, metallurgy, and so forth, were to be considered. The
more familiar quest to determine the social world as well as the political setting of the
peoples and cultures of the ancient Near East remained a basic aim from the outset. In
addition, true to the tradition of W. F. Albright—preeminent archaeologist and orientalist,
former professor of Near Eastern Studies at the Johns Hopkins University and long-term
director of ASOR's Jerusalem school—the handbook would deal with the full range of
written materials that have survived from Syria-Palestine, from the origins of alphabetic
writing to the development of elaborate scribal practices and varied literatures. Finally,
the project would embrace the challenge of explaining archaeological techniques/theory,
methods, and practice including all matters pertaining to science and archaeology.
It soon became apparent to me and my counterparts at the Johns Hopkins University
Press that such an undertaking was far too ambitious for ASOR and Hopkins and that
what I envisioned fell squarely into the area of encyclopedic reference works. It was then,
in seeking a publisher with a strong reference department, that ASOR and Oxford Uni
versity Press came together.
After a few consultations with members of the reference department it became abun
dantly clear that there were many conceptual issues to be resolved before such a project
could commence. The first issue to be considered was that of length. After several meetings
I was convinced that the 'only way that the wide variety of issues to be covered could be
properly accommodated was through a multivolume approach. The idea of bringing texts
ix
X PREFACE
into dialogue with archaeological realia was appealing to all of us. No less important was
the hope that this project would bring scholars from all countries of the region into dialogue
with one another for the first time. Given the reality, at that time, of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, which separated Israel from the rest of the Arab world, this was to be one of the
greatest challenges but one that ASOR, with its historic position of neutrality in political
matters and with research centers in both worlds, and Oxford University Press were par
ticularly capable of meeting.
In organizing the editorial board I was mindful of all of these concerns. The inclusion
of James A. Sauer, with his long experience in Jordan and the rest of the Arab world and
knowledge of the sites there, was intended to ensure the participation of scholars from
those countries where Americans have had only limited experience and even less famil
iarity with the data uncovered. The combination of William G. Dever's extensive field
experience in Israel with my own work there as well as mat of Carol Meyers was designed
to attract our distinguished Israeli colleagues. James Muhly's expertise in several important
areas—ancient history, the archaeology of the Aegean, and aspects of scientific approaches
to the discipline—was deemed valuable to the project. Dennis Pardee seemed uniquely
qualified to handle matters concerning ancient Near Eastern languages and literatures,
especially Semitics, linguistics, and epigraphy. Carol Meyers's participation was enlisted
in addition to her work in Israel, for her particular interest in methodology, theory, and
social science aspects of the archaeological enterprise. My own focus on the classical
periods and on the history of the discipline were considered beneficial and sufficient to
guide us through those areas.
When the editorial board first met, we were of course aware that work was proceeding
on the Israel Exploration Society's New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the
Holy Land; indeed, those of us who had contributed to the society's previous encyclopedia,
published in English in 1975-1978, had been asked to revise and update our articles. The
anticipated publication of their project was hardly a deterrent to us in our planning because
theirs was to be strictly an encyclopedia of sites, virtually all of which are in Israel. As the
development of our table of contents progressed, we learned that another multivolume
work, titled Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, was being planned. Although compre
hensive in its intended coverage of the region and its ancient cultures, the work was to be
a collection of about two hundred lengthy and somewhat idiosyncratic topical essays,
thematically organized, which would make it far less useful as a reference work than a
standard encyclopedia, with its more specific, alphabetically arranged articles. Both works
eventually were published, the former in 1993 (English edition) and the latter in 1995.
As the editorial team began the serious work of laying out a general plan, it became clear
that we did not want to limit our geographical locations to the Levant. Rather, we were
interested in the archaeology of the entire Near East, from the eastern Mediterranean to
Iran, from Anatolia to the Arabian Peninsula; we also wanted to include Egypt, Cyprus,
and parts of North and East Africa. Because of ASOR's particular role in the archaeology
of Cyprus there was hardly any argument there. What soon became a very real problem
for all of us was the classical world and the question of sites relating to the New Testament.
In thinking about the Hellenistic world or the Roman Empire it became very difficult to
limit our scope to the territories associated with the Near East. What would we do with
Rome or Athens, the Italian Peninsula and Greece? If we would deal only with sites relating
to the New Testament world how would that section stand up vis-a-vis the other concep
tual categories in the encyclopedia?
In the end, we opted for the geographical principle and added places such as Malta and
Sardinia where Semitic culture had been strong since antiquity, the Aegean world, and
North Africa as far as Morocco. Anatolia would be our northern boundary, Iran our
eastern boundary, and Ethiopia and the Arabian Peninsula our southern limits. In a way
we adopted Albright's inclusive geographical view of the ancient Near East and decided
to employ a broader chronological range as well. Since so much important new archaeo-
