School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemAll the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites (Samuel 2:15-18)’ - An Up-to-Date Account of Minoan Connections with the Philistines(Ugarit-Verlag, 2018)The ethnonyms Cherethite and Pelethite, and associations of the Philistines with Caphtor in the Old Testament point to a Cretan origin for them in literary tradition. This tradition, combined with the well-known Philistine production of Mycenaean style pottery, has been criticized by those reluctant to simplistically associate pots with peoples. Additional categories of evidence indicating an Aegean origin for the Philistines are well rehearsed. This contribution reviews the current state of understanding of the specific links between the Aegean and Philistia with regard to recent research, and with special reference to Crete. I briefly discuss ritual action, contextual analysis, architecture, administrative practices, inscriptions, and methodology. Using a transcultural approach, it is proposed that some aspects of Minoan culture survived in Philistia, embedded among other cultural components associated with the Mycenaeans, Cypriots, Anatolians, and Canaanites.
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ItemTell it in Gath: Studies in the History and Archaeology of Israel: Essays in Honor of A.M. Maeir on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday(Ugarit-Verlag, 2018)Festschrift for Prof Aren M Maeir
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ItemPirates of the Crete-Aegean: Migration, Mobility, and Post-Palatial Realities at the End of the Bronze Age(Society of Cretan Historical Studies, 2018)Our recent research has used historical accounts of piracy to briefly examine pirate leadership, pirate culture and social organization, feasting activities, and studies of pirate geography to propose an interpretive framework for understanding the migration of the Sea Peoples as, inter alia, pirate tribes who plundered some of the great centers of the Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age. We suggest that as Mycenaean control over trade routes collapsed with the destruction and/or eventual abandonment of the Mycenaean palaces, Crete became particularly vulnerable to piracy, because of certain geographical and topographical features that characterized its coastlines. Unless defended, rocky coastlines, natural harbors, promontories, and river valleys were susceptible to piratical activity, as we shall discuss. Historical records indicate that piracy resulted in a desolation of coastlines, as coastal settlements and coastal plains might be attacked at night, with villages burnt and pillaged, and fields devastated. Inhabitants of such areas were motivated to move to defensible places further inland. Such abandonment and movement to defensible areas characterized early Iron Age Cretan settlements, such as Karphi, Kavousi, Kephala-Vasiliki, Chalasmenos, Monastiraki, Thronos-Kephala, and many others, which were relatively inaccessible from the surrounding landscape and represent only a fraction of the total. Our paper considers the role of piracy at the end of the Bronze Age in influencing migration, new realities, social practices, and changes in the cultural environment and social organization of post-palatial Crete. We also explore the idea that just as certain areas of Crete were geographically suitable for seeking refuge from pirates, other sites in Crete became similarly suitable hideouts for pirates.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAll the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites: A Current Assessment of the Evidence for the Minoan Connection with the Philistines(Cretan Histo, 2018)The co-occurrence of the ethnic designations Cherethite and Pelethite and the association of the Philistines with Caphtor in the Old Testament point to a specifically Cretan origin or affiliation for at least some of the Philistines in literary tradition. This identification, although bolstered by the discovery that the Philistines produced their own version of Mycenaean IIIC pottery, has rightly come under criticism from those reluctant to simplistically associate pots with peoples. However, additional categories of archaeological evidence indicating an Aegean origin for the Philistines are well-rehearsed and include the reel-style of loom weights, drinking habits, consumption of pork, Aegean-style cooking pots, use of hearths and bathtubs, temple architecture, and megaron-style buildings. Yet, in contrast to the strong identification of the Philistines with Crete in the literary tradition, these Aegean characteristics of Philistine culture point to Mycenaean Greece. This paper examines the current state (as of 2011) of our understanding of the specific connections between Crete and Philistia with regard to recent discoveries and interpretations of Philistine culture, with particular reference to the author’s excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath and study of other Philistine material in Israel. Among the categories of evidence examined in this paper are architectural features, particularly hearths, but also spatial syntax, plaster, and tool use; the spatial manipulation of artifacts such as the practice of curating animal head cups and seal use, ritual action, and recently discovered inscriptional evidence. It is argued that key features of Minoan culture survived in Philistine culture, embedded among other cultural practices that can be associated with the Mycenaeans, Cypriots, and Canaanites, and that they form an important record of the Cretan and Minoan contribution to human civilization.
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ItemVapheio-Palaiopyrgi Survey Project, 2017(The Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, 2018)Summary of the second season of the Vapheio-Palaiopyrgi Survey.
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ItemNew Insights into the Philistines in Light of Excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath(American Schools of Oriental Research, 2018-03-01)ABSTRACT The excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath have contributed to the formation of a unique collaboration of different area and scientific specialists, that have made it possible to formulate more detailed accounts of the Philistines. These accounts have been inspired by new discoveries which point to traditions associated with many different parts of the Mediterranean such as Cyprus, Greece, the Aegean islands, Anatolia, and Italy. These discoveries represent the globalized flow of information, people, technologies, and goods that characterized the Late Bronze Age. Such discoveries have led us to search for and develop new hypotheses for the emergence of the Sea Peoples that involve cultural entanglement and mixing, studies of regionalism, and cross-cultural comparison with other Iron Age cultures.
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ItemA Brief Contribution to the Philistine Pig Debate(Lockwood Press, 2017)An updated account of the role of pigs in dietary practices and taboos in the southern Levant and Mediterranean.
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ItemGender and Violence in Archaeology: Final Commentary(Oxbow, 2017)Uroš Matić and Bo Jensen have brought together a team of both young and senior researches from many different countries in this first volume that aims to explore the complex intersection between archaeology, gender and violence. Papers range from theoretical discussions on previous approaches to gender and violence and the ethical necessity to address these questions today, to case studies dealing on gender and violence from prehistoric to early medieval Europe, but also including studies on ancient Egypt, Persia and Peru. The contributors deal both with representations of violence and its gendered background in images and text, and with bioarchaeological evidence for violence and trauma with a gendered background. The volume is rich both in examples and approaches and includes opening and closing chapters by senior scholars in the field assesing the current state of work and addressing the scholarship to continue on the line of this volume.
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ItemHesperos and Phosphoros: How Research on Aegean-Eastern Interactions Can Inform Studies of the West(Peeters, 2017)Hesperos and Phosphoros: How Research on Aegean-Eastern Interactions Can Inform Studies of the West The extent of Aegean influence on its neighbors and of neighboring regions on it remains a contentious area of investigation that continues to generate enthusiastic scholarly interest and lively debate. This poster elaborates on the importance of current theoretical perspectives on Aegean interaction with the east because they may be conceptually useful to those studying similar interactions with central and western Europe. Aegean seafarers, traders, and crafters were engaged and entangled in cultural exchanges with the east and west on many scales, and artistic and cultural influence among these regions was multi-directional. Although the authors’ expertise lies in interactions and interconnections between the Aegean and the East (particularly Philistia and Cyprus) it is suggested that their theoretical and anthropological approaches to gift exchange, entanglement, transculturalism, transnationalism, and piracy may offer useful insights to those viewing the Aegean from a western perspective. The Aegean was drawn within the eastern sphere of influence in the late Early Bronze Age (ca. 2200 BCE) with the importation of raw materials from the Near East including copper, tin, gold, and ivory. Gold and ivory were used in the Aegean to manufacture items of elite regalia such as diadems and mace-heads, and other luxury items, particularly ivories (e.g. Maeir et al. 2015), that went on to assume transnational significance in the repertoire of the international style (e.g. Crowley 1989). Once the Minoans acquired the technology for deep-hulled ships with masts as noted by Broodbank (2002), Crete became a key player in Mediterranean trade interactions, which involved gift exchange and trade with the east, the dissemination of ceramic styles and motifs, and the transmittal of Aegean style consumption and feasting practices (Hitchcock et al. 2015). The results of such activities lay in cultural entanglements in the liminal zones of coastal and island regions of the Mediterranean. Our understanding of destruction and collapse that took place in the Aegean (ca. 1177 BCE, e.g. Cline 2014) has gone from simplistic models of migration v. mercantilism, to more sophisticated models of entanglement, transculturalism, transnational identity, limited migration, and piratical activity following the break down secure maritime routes (Hitchcock and Maeir 2014). As Aegean peoples and others from throughout the Mediterranean became entangled in the piratical cultures that resulted in the Sea Peoples phenomenon, a phenomenon that perhaps over emphasizes the biblically well-known Philistines, similar implications may exist for understanding cultural entanglements in the West. Likewise, as we prefer non-simplistic explanatory frameworks for the transformation processes which occurred in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition and beyond (with Aegean originating cultural influences playing a definite role in these mechanisms), so we believe similarly complex scenarios should be seen in the western Mediterranean as well. Finally, the comparison with Iron Age east-to-west (Phoenicians and Greeks going west) - and west to east (Greeks going eastward) - connections, may also provide interesting insights for understanding the Bronze Age westward connections of the Aegean cultures. The mixed character of these Iron Age connections – mercantile ventures, colonies, mercenaries and other aspects – led to very complex cultural connections and interactions (Maeir and Hitchcock in press). While there are substantial socio-cultural differences between the Bronze and Iron Age Aegean (and Mediterranean in general), the many aspects of continuity and the longue durée seen throughout Mediterranean history (e.g. Broodbank 2013), indicates that similarities and parallels – and for sure insights – can be gleaned from this. Louise A. HITCHCOCK Aren M. MAEIR Works Cited BROODBANK, C. (2002) An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -------. (2013). The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CLINE, E.H. (2014) 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. CROWLEY, J.L. (1989) The Aegean and the East: An Investigation into the Transference of Artistic Motifs between the Aegean, Egypt, and the Near East In the Bronze Age. (SIMA Pocket-book 51) Jonsered, Sweden: Paul Åströms Förlag. HITCHCOCK, L.A.; HORWITZ, L.K.; BOARETTO, E.; and MAEIR, A.M (2015). “One Philistine’s Trash is an Archaeologists Treasure,” Near Eastern Archaeology 78.1: 12-25. HITCHCOCK, L.A. and MAEIR, A.M. (2014) “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Seren’s Life for Me,” World Archaeology 46.4: 624-640. MAEIR, A.M. and HITCHCOCK, L.A. (In Press) “The Appearance, Formation and Transformation of Philistine Culture: New Perspective and New Finds,” in P.M. Fischer (ed) “The Sea-Peoples Up-To-Date. New Research on the Migration of Peoples in the 12th Century BCE.” Proceedings of the European Science Foundation Workshop, Vienna (Austria). Vienna: Austrian Academy of Science and Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology. MAEIR, A.M.; DAVIS, B.E.; HORWITZ, L.K.; and ASSCHER, Y.; and HITCHCOCK, L.A. (2015), “An Ivory Bowl from Early Iron Age Tell es-Safi/Gath (Israel) - Manufacture, Meaning and Memory,” World Archaeology 47: 1-28.
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ItemLike Dolmen, Like Dromos: Contextualizing the Solar Orientations of Some Mycenaean Tholoi(Peeters, 2017)It has been observed that the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae, the most famous Mycenaean tholos tomb, is oriented to the point on the horizon where the sun rises on the equinoxes (Reijs 2009). This example of the orientation of a Mycenaean tholos towards a significant solar event is now supplemented by the authors’ discovery that at least five other well-known Mycenaean tholoi are aligned to significant markers in the solar calendar. Specifically: the Vapheio tholos (LH IIB) is oriented to the summer solstice sunrise (Chapin et al. 2014); the Tomb of the Genii at Mycenae (LH IIB-IIIA1) is aligned to the summer solstice sunset; Tholos 1 at Tiryns and the tholos tomb at Dendra (both LH IIIA) point to the winter solstice sunset; and the Kato Phournos tholos at Mycenae (LH IIA) is sited toward sunset on the equinoxes. These alignments cannot all be accidental. On the contrary, they suggest that elite Mycenaean patrons and their architects had access to detailed knowledge of the solar calendar and intentionally incorporated this information into the placement of certain funerary monuments within their surrounding landscapes.
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