2018 ASOR Abstract Book Plenary Address Hélène Sader (American University of Beirut), “Between Looters, Private Collectors, and Warlords: Does Archaeology Stand a Chance?” Endangered archaeology is not a modern phenomenon: archaeological sites and monuments have suffered from looting and destruction since earliest antiquity. Looking back at the past we witness recurrent destructions and burning of cities, looting of treasures, violations of tombs, and more. However, the danger seems more acute and the destructions more shocking today. Endangered archaeology has become a major concern of both states and individuals because of the awareness people have developed of the importance of the past and the need to preserve it. The role of the media in informing and raising public awareness cannot be overstated. In spite of this, archaeology continues to be endangered and the causes of the threats have not changed. As an observer who witnessed and accompanied all the vicissitudes of Lebanese archaeology before, during, and after the civil strife, Hélène Sader will address the endemic causes of this phenomenon from the Lebanese perspective. She will discuss what was, what was not, and what should have been done to remedy the situation and preserve archaeological heritage. There may still be a chance to save archaeology. 1A. Ancient Inscriptions I CHAIRS: Michael Langlois (University of Strasbourg) and Anat Mendel-Geberovich (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Israel Antiquities Authority) Aren Wilson-Wright (University of Zurich), “Semitic Letter Names in Group Writing: A Reevaluation of the Halaḥam-Ostracon from TT99” In 2015, Ben Haring published an Egyptian ostracon from an early New Kingdom tomb (TT99), containing the remains of seven lines of hieratic text on the verso and five on the recto. Each line consists of two parts: a short text in group-writing and additional, left- justified determinative. Haring argued that the verso contains a sequence of Egyptian words arranged according to the halaḥam alphabetic sequence and highlighted the importance of the ostracon for the study of the alphabet. It is the earliest known example of the halaḥam order. Subsequently, Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert and Manfred Krebernik have argued that the verso records Semitic letter names arranged in the halaḥam sequence. They also have identified the entries on the recto as Semitic letter names, but are unable to reconcile their arrangement with the halaḥam order. Furthermore, Fischer- Elfert and Krebernik must postulate several previously unknown letter names, such as gūr ‘dove’ for g (traditionally gaml ‘throw-stick’) and zīr ‘pot’ for z (traditionally zayn ‘ax’) in order to fit the Egyptian text. In this presentation, by contrast, I will argue that the ostracon contains—for the most part—known Semitic letter names along with a few additional grammatical elements, which may form part of a mnemonic verse. I will also argue that the recto features a series of letters from near the end of the ḥalaham sequence. The ostracon thus constitutes an important witness to the antiquity of both the traditional Semitic letter names and halaḥam alphabetic order. Jean-Philippe Delorme (University of Toronto), “A Place Among the Baals/Lords? A New Reading of the Sarcophagus Inscription of Aḫirōm, King of Byblos (KAI 1:1)” In 1923, a landslide on the slope of the tell of Djebeil/Byblos led the French expedition of P. Montet to discover the royal necropolis. In total, nine tombs dated to the second millennium B.C.E. were uncovered. Tomb V contained the remains of three sarcophagi, one of which was engraved with what would prove to be the oldest known Phoenician inscription. The text was quickly published by R. Dussaud and led to extensive discussions that continue to this day. Among the difficulties presented by this inscription, the reading at the end of the first line (kšth•b‘lm) remains a crux interpretum. Scholars usually propose to emend the verb into a noun (kšbth) or to hypothesize an abbreviation for bt ‘lm. Both options have been shown to be untenable. The present paper proposes a new reading for the ending of line 1 in light of royal mortuary practices. This approach allows two possible scenarios: 1) Aḫirōm was installed in the netherworld among his deceased predecessors, here called b‘lm. Dead kings (rp’u and rĕpā’îm) are often linked to the god Baal (KTU 1.22) and the root b‘l is occasionally used to describe their rule (e.g. Isa 26:13–14); 2) Aḫirōm was placed with the other lords of the city. Textual evidence uncovered in tombs II and IV demonstrate that the kings of Byblos often took the Egyptian title of prince or count. B‘lm would be the Phoenician translation of one constituent of the local royal titulary. Andrew Burlingame (University of Chicago), “The Head and Pectoral Inscriptions of Eshmunazor’s Sarcophagus (AO 4806 = KAI 14)” The inscription found on the head of the sarcophagus of Eshmunazor II of Sidon has been known almost since the sarcophagus was discovered in 1855, but the relationship between this inscription and that appearing on the pectoral surface has remained the subject of ongoing discussion. Based on an epigraphic study of these inscriptions, I offer new readings and show that the traditional view, according to which the head inscription was abandoned due to a high incidence of errors and recopied on the pectoral surface, must be rejected in favor of other alternatives. The merit of recent historical proposals regarding the manufacture of these inscriptions is evaluated in epigraphic and palaeographic terms as well. Shirly Ben Dor Evian (Israel Museum), “Sheshonq at Megiddo: A New Interpretation” The limestone fragment carved with the royal names of Sheshonq I at Megiddo was found among the excavation dumps on the tell during the season of 1926. Since its discovery, the piece was recognized as part of a large royal stela, erected by the monarch at the site as a sign of Egyptian patrimony. A recent reexamination of the original fragment by the author reveals several anomalies in comparison to the known corpus of Egyptian stelae. Among these is the fragment’s unusual thickness, more than 50 cm wide, and the absence of any smoothed edges on either of its sides. A comparison to contemporary (early 22nd Dynasty) material from both Egypt and the Levant suggests that the fragment was part of an architectural element rather than a stela. The significance of such an interpretation relates directly to Egypt’s involvement in the Northern Valleys. Erecting a stela in a faraway land may have had little or no effect on the local population and cannot attest to continual Egyptian claims on the site. However, a royal inscription on local architecture reflects, at the very least, aspirations of hegemony. Establishing core/periphery relations through the implementation of royal Egyptian institutions was a well-known strategy of the previous Egyptian empire in the Levant, an empire that Sheshonq’s regime was eager to recreate. The role of Egyptian monuments in the early Iron Age Levant will therefore be examined through similar models of core/periphery and imperial influence. Fokelien Kootstra (Leiden University), “Analyzing Variation: Statistical Methods and Dadanitic Epigraphy” Dadanitic is the name of the script used to carve inscriptions in and around the ancient oasis of Dadan (modern-day al-‘Ulā), located in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula. These inscriptions were produced between the sixth and first centuries B.C.E. One of the most persistent questions about this corpus concerns the variation attested in all layers of the inscriptions, both linguistically and in their physical aspects. While previous scholars have described the variation (e.g., Sima 1999), no comprehensive explanation exists for it to date. This paper uses statistical methods common in corpus linguistics to identify significant correlations between variables, i.e., to see which variables co-occur within the same inscription more often than can plausibly be explained by chance. The analysis considers the execution, language, and function of each inscription, thus giving both the text and the object due consideration. This approach reveals two main driving forces behind the variation: language change and the use of different registers. More generally, this methodology will open the door to a better understanding of linguistic variation underlying the written record of pre-Islamic Arabia, thus increasing our insight into its diverse linguistic landscape. Additionally, it casts new light on the interplay between written standard and spoken language in the different Arabian epigraphic corpora. 1B. Archaeology and Biblical Studies I CHAIR: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Gratz College) PRESENTERS: Erez Ben-Yosef (Tel Aviv University), “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: On a Prevailing Methodological Flaw in the Treatment of Nomads in Current Biblical Archaeology” The aim of this paper is to highlight a methodological flaw in current biblical archaeology, one which became apparent as a result of recent research in the Aravah’s Iron Age copper production centers. In essence, this flaw, which cuts across all schools of biblical archaeology, is the prevailing, simplistic approach applied to the identification and interpretation of nomadic elements in biblical-era societies. These elements have been typically described as representing only one form of social organization, which is simple and almost negligible in historical reconstructions. However, the unique case of the Aravah demonstrates that the role of nomads in shaping the history of the region has been underestimated and downplayed in the research of the region, and that the total reliance on stone-built archaeological features in the identification of social complexity in the vast majority of recent studies has resulted in skewed historical reconstructions. Recognizing this “architectural bias” and understanding its sources have important implications on the study of core topics in biblical archaeology today, as both “minimalists” and “maximalists” have been using stone-built architectural remains as the key to solving debated issues related to the genesis of ancient Israel and neighboring polities (e.g., “high” vs.