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Rising from the Ashes an Archaeological Study of the Land of “Palistin” and the Early Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean

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Rising from the Ashes an Archaeological Study of the Land of “Palistin” and the Early Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean Rising from the Ashes An Archaeological Study of the Land of “Palistin” and the Early Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean by Rachel Bisaro B.A in Archaeology, May 2011, Boston University B.A. in Anthropology, May 2011, Boston University A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in partial fulfillment with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 19, 2013 Thesis directed by Eric Cline Professor of Classics and Anthropology © Copyright 2013 by Rachel Bisaro All Rights Reserved ii Dedication To Mom, for always encouraging me to do what I love and supporting me no matter what. To Dad and Debbie, for never doubting that I could do exactly what I wanted and always inspiring me to do more. To Mat and Tina, for beating into me the dogged determination and resilience I rely on every day. To David, for supporting me throughout this process, putting up with my geekiness, and keeping me grounded in reality. Without all of you, none of this would have been possible. Thank you! iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Eric Cline, for his help and guidance in the research for and writing of this thesis. In addition, many thanks go to my reader, Dr. Jeffrey Blomster, for helping me to discover that archaeological theory is not something to be afraid of, as well as his perspective and comments. The efforts of both were invaluable to the final product that is this thesis; it would be a much poorer work without them. I would also like to thank my family and friends for being fantastic and supportive of me throughout this entire process. Without your edits, de-stressing talks, sanity breaks, and happy events, this would have been a much less enjoyable process. Special thanks go out to my sister Tina Bisaro for helping me edit, Vieshnavi Rattehalli for numerous Gilmore-times, David Cornett for keeping me sane, and Hedges. Finally, I’d like to thank Dr. Mike Danti for inspiring me to be the scholar I am today. Taking me to the field and teaching me about the region and time that I love has only made me a happier, more focused person. iv Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................................ iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Late Bronze Age .......................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 3: Pottery ........................................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 4: Iron Age Sites ............................................................................................................. 29 Chapter 5: Tell Ta’yinat ............................................................................................................... 54 Chapter 6: Analysis and Conclusions .......................................................................................... 57 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 62 v List of Figures Figure 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2 .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Figure 3 ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Figure 4 ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Figure 5 ........................................................................................................................................ 17 Figure 6 ........................................................................................................................................ 22 Figure 7 ........................................................................................................................................ 30 Figure 8 ........................................................................................................................................ 32 Figure 9 ........................................................................................................................................ 34 Figure 10 ...................................................................................................................................... 41 Figure 11 ...................................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 12 ...................................................................................................................................... 45 Figure 13 ...................................................................................................................................... 46 Figure 14 ...................................................................................................................................... 48 Figure 15 ...................................................................................................................................... 50 Figure 16 ...................................................................................................................................... 52 Figure 17 ...................................................................................................................................... 54 Figure 18 ...................................................................................................................................... 56 vi Chapter 1: Introduction The end of the Late Bronze Age has long been classified as a period of violent, damaging upheaval, made all the more mysterious by the lack of recognizable agents of destruction and the following Dark Age that engulfed the entire region at the beginning of the Iron Age, circa 1200 BC (Dothan and Dothan 1992, Drews 1993, Sandars 1985, Yasur-Landau 2010). Speculation has run rampant within the field about both the identity of the attackers and the nature of the destruction; much debate has been centered around whether or not the destruction of a number of Late Bronze Age towns was the result of an attack and not attributable to a natural phenomenon. The general consensus of most contemporary scholars is that the Sea Peoples, blamed in the Medinet Habu inscriptions of Ramsses III for two attacks on Egypt, settled in Canaan and included the people that history and the Bible know as the Philistines (Cline forthcoming, Dothan and Dothan 1992, Drews 1993, Sandars 1985, Yasur-Landau 2010). Many of these biblical Philistine sites demonstrate very distinctive pottery assemblages following the Bronze Age collapse, the study of which allows a more detailed cultural examination of sites along the eastern Mediterranean coast. This paper focuses not only on those cities destroyed at the end of the Late Bronze Age but also those that were not destroyed yet still show intrusive pottery levels. Both types aid in the quest to discover more about the Philistines, their general location of origin, and where they settled in the Iron Age. More than in just the Levant, intrusive pottery can be found all the way into Anatolia, most importantly at Tell Ta’yinat, on the Amuq Plain in Turkey, which has revealed and been mentioned in Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions as being ruled by “Taita, King of Palistin” (Hawkins 2009, 2011, Harrison 2009, 2010). Further examination of Ta’yinat in comparison with Philistine sites could elucidate a connection between the two regions and 1 perhaps determine whether Taita’s Palistin is the same as Philistia, found in southern Canaan, or is its own separate entity. The processes of trade play a pivotal role in the examination of not only the time period, but also the entire region studied here. Following Renfrew (1979), there are several important factors of interregional interaction that must be explored to truly understand the mechanism at work between Canaan and the Aegean. The Eastern Mediterranean demonstrates, more than most regions, a great deal of supposition that the cultural change that characterizes the Early Iron Age was set in motion as a result of an invasion. Though this conclusion has been largely taken for granted for many decades, the heedless devotion to the idea of a Sea Peoples as a militant force, the type of idea of which Renfrew himself classifies as “outdated and inadequate” (1979:23), is beginning to weaken as a greater number of scholars examine the more subtle nature of the Aegean influence on the area. In the midst of further examining the processes of trade, the importance attached to long distance acquisition (Helms 1993), clearly present in the importation of Mycenaean wares to the Levant, can be used as both an indicator of the relationship between the two regions and a sign of migration instead
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