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Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: the Middle Bronze Age: the Zenith of the Urban Canaanite Era Author(S): William G

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Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: the Middle Bronze Age: the Zenith of the Urban Canaanite Era Author(S): William G Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: The Middle Bronze Age: The Zenith of the Urban Canaanite Era Author(s): William G. Dever Source: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 148-177 Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210059 Accessed: 22-06-2016 19:39 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The American Schools of Oriental Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Biblical Archaeologist This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine The Middle Bronze Age The Zenith of the Urban Canaanite Era by William G. Dever Archaeological periods. Sometime was halted, and improved conditions sion of cultures in ancient around 2000 B.C.E. the long process soon set the stage for a sudden A brief Palestine look atmight the succes-almost of collapse in the southern Levant revival of urban life, ushering in convert us to a cyclical what is termed the Middle Bronze view of history. It seems that civili- Age (often abbreviated as MB). zations rose briefly, only to fall, then The Middle Bronze I-III termi- repeated the process over and over. Sometime around nology that has recently been sug- In this series for Biblical Archaeolo- gested (Dever 1980; Gerstenblith gist we have already surveyed the 1980, 1983: 2-3), and which is used first such cycle (Richard 1987), in 2000 B.C.E. the here, retains the conventional three which the initial urban phase in the long process of phases of Middle Bronze first dis- Early Bronze I-III periods (around tinguished in the 1920s by William 3400-2350/2300 B.C.E.) collapsed collapse in the E Albright at Tell Beit Mirsim in his toward the end of the third millen- Southern Levant Middle Bronze IIA-C. The changed nium B.C.E. This was followed by a numerical designation, however, is "dark age" of several centuries dura- was halted. A based on the current recognition tion in Early Bronze IV (around that Albright's Middle Bronze I is 2350/2300-2000 B.C.E.), a period sudden revival of not the first phase of the true Middle marked by a massive disruption and Bronze Age in the cultural sequence dislocation of population from the urban life ushered of Palestine; rather, it is the last urban centers and a reversion to a in the Middle phase of the Early Bronze Age (now pastoral nomadic life-style. But the generally termed Early Bronze IV- light was soon to dawn again, and Dever 1980; Richard 1987). Simply the archaeological record reflects it Bronze Age. abandoning the older term, though, brilliantly. would mean that the Middle Bronze Comparative Chronology Palestine Egypt Present Terms Other Terms Dates B.C.E. Albright Kenyon Israeli Middle Bronze I MB IIA MB I MB IIA 2000-1800 Middle Kingdom (Twelfth and Thirteenth Middle Bronze II MB IIB 1800-1650 Dynasties) MB II MB IIB Middle Bronze III MB IIC 1650-1500 Second Intermediate (Fourteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties) Biblical Archaeologist, September 1987 149 This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The great mound of Shechem, situated between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal in the Samaria hills, was the creation of Middle Bronze engineers. They put up enormous earthen embankments surrounded by mas- sive walls, thus transforming a low, vulner- able rise in the pass into a seemingly impreg- nable fortress. Shown here is an exterior view of wall A at Shechem. With its massive cyclopean masonry built in typical inward- sloping or "battered" construction, this was both a retaining wall and a first line of de- fense. Inside of it, leading up to the inner wall B, was a tamped chalk glaqis. The mound would have been an imposing sight. Despite its indomitable appearance, how- ever, Shechem has three layers of the ash of destruction-evidence of violence shared by many other Middle Bronze sites in Pales- tine. Unless otherwise noted, photographs and drawings of Shechem courtesy of William G. Dever. 148 Biblical Archaeologist, September 1987 This content downloaded from 141.211.4.224 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms sequence would begin, rather awk- wardly, with Middle Bronze II. Thus Kenyon (1973) and others have re- ferred to Albright's Middle Bronze The New Archaeology IIA as Middle Bronze I, and we carry this approach to its logical conclu- sion, adding Middle Bronze II and N ew archaeology is a term coined by several Americanist archaeologists Middle Bronze III. in the late sixties and early seventies for a new-and then highly con- The change in terminology is troversial-approach to New World archaeology. The new archaeology dif- thus partly a matter of newer percep- fered from the old largely in arguing for the substitution of an overall theo- tions of the transition between the retical framework that was in a sense less historical and more anthropological and scientific. Early Bronze and Middle Bronze The new school contended that the traditional approach, which was periods, as well as a means of keep- basically concerned with studying culture history, had proven deficient. It had ing the system of nomenclature been too preoccupied with the relative dating, comparison, and classification consistent and as convenient as pos- of regional archaeological assemblages. The principal tool employed was sible. It must be noted, however, that usually typology, the exhaustive cataloguing of artifact types and their distri- all terminologies agree on the essen- bution. The major goal was setting up a relative chronology of the develop- tial unity and continuity of the sev- ment of types, usually with the assumption that charting the diffusion of eral phases of the Middle Bronze artifacts could adequately account for cultural contact and change. But Age in Palestine as a historical the traditional approach, argued the new archaeologists, remained merely and cultural entity. Most Israeli descriptive; because of its narrow perspective it lacked true explanatory archaeologists even go so far as only potential. The ultimate goal of archaeology, in the new view, should be a science of cultural evolution. acknowledging two phases, arguing that there is still an insufficient The new archaeology demanded nothing less than a radical rethinking of the fundamental methods and objectives of archaeology. The debate, which stratigraphic and ceramic basis for continued into the early 1980s in Americanist circles, was marked initially by subdividing the second phase into a a bewildering variety of proposals and counterproposals, as well as by heated second and third phase (Kempinski polemics. The leading American journals and the programs of the annual 1983). American authorities, on meetings of professional organizations like the Society of American Archae- the other hand, generally retain ology reflected the trends. The proliferating literature gradually revealed, Albright's threefold division, basing however, despite some extremist positions, a growing consensus. their view on the fine-grained strati- Today, there is general agreement that the new archaeology is here to stay, graphic sequence produced by recent and the significant trends in theory and method may now be enumerated excavations, especially those con- somewhat as follows. As we shall see, several of these trends have had an ducted at Shechem and Gezer. impact on Old World archaeology as well. There is also broad agreement An ecological approach. This entails the study of sites in their total en- vironmental, as well as historical and cultural, settings. The fundamental on several other aspects of the peri- assumption is that culture is partly (though, of course, not exclusively) an od. First, the Middle Bronze Age adaptation to basic physical factors, such as geographical situation, climate represents not only a period of rapid and rainfall, natural resources, possibilities for exploiting plants and animals, recovery and reurbanization after access to natural trade routes, and the like. One may adopt here a version of the hiatus in Early Bronze IV but is, general systems theory, a theory first developed by economic geographers and in fact, the zenith of urban develop- currently employed in many of the natural and social sciences today. The ment in the long Bronze Age in Pales- fundamental principle of this theory is that any system, biological or social, is tine (about 3400-1200 B.C.E.). Second, the result of the complex interaction of many components, and the system Palestine was less isolated than it either grows or declines as a result of the changing balance (homeostasis) it is had been in Early Bronze; indeed, it able to maintain. Subsystems of a culture, such as agriculture and other economic strategies or population growth, will all preserve evidence to some was so much an integral part of Syria extent in the archaeological record and should be investigated as fully as pos- that it may be properly regarded sible. Central place theory may also be employed to study settlement patterns, as simply the southern portion of the relation of sites to each other, urban-rural dynamics, and the function of "Greater Canaan," whose existence marketing economics.
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