Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Founding Editor M.H.E. Weippert Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Stökl Editors Eckart Frahm W. Randall Garr B. Halpern Theo P.J. van den Hout Leslie Anne Warden Irene J. Winter Volume 119 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/chan Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age By Ido Koch LEIDEN | BOSTON Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Koch, Ido, author. | Koch, Ido. Tsilah shel Mitsrayim. Title: Colonial encounters in southwest Canaan during the late bronze age and the early iron age / by Ido Koch. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 1566–2055 ; volume 119 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020050090 (print) | LCCN 2020050091 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004432826 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004432833 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Palestine—Antiquities. | Canaanites—Antiquities. | Egypt—Antiquities. | Palestine—Relations—Egypt. | Egypt—Relations—Palestine. | Bronze age—Palestine. | Iron age—Palestine. | Excavations (Archaeology)—Palestine. | Israel—Antiquities. Classification: LCC DS111 .K63 2021 (print) | LCC DS111 (ebook) | DDC 933/.02—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050090 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050091 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1566-2055 ISBN 978-90-04-43282-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-43283-3 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Contents Acknowledgements vII List of Figures iX Introduction 1 1 Egyptian Colonialism and Canaan in Scholarship: An Overview 4 2 Notes on Nomenclature 8 3 Chronological Framework 9 1 Dawn 12 1 Decline and Revitalization of Settlements during the Late Bronze I 13 2 The Advent of Egyptian-style Objects 16 3 Reassessing the Levantine–Egyptian Interaction during the Late Bronze I 22 2 The Egyptian Network 25 1 Modeling the Egyptian Colonial Network 25 2 Egyptian and Local Centers 27 2.1 The Besor Region: Tell el-Ajjul, Gaza and Yurza 28 2.2 The Coastal Plain: Ashkelon and Muḫḫazu 33 2.3 The Shephelah: Gath, Lachish and Beyond 36 2.4 The Ayalon Valley: Gezer 39 2.5 The Yarkon Basin: Jaffa 40 3 Local Rulers and the Egyptian Court 43 3 Goddess in Translation: The Fosse Temple at Lachish 45 1 Introducing the Fosse Temple in Lachish 46 2 Assessing the Change 49 3 Hathor and Tiye 50 4 The Cult in the Fosse Temple in Context 52 4 Ambivalence 54 1 Building Deposits 55 2 Conspicuous Consumption 58 3 The Equestrian Goddess 61 4 Range of Reactions 67 Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access vi Contents 5 Collapse 71 1 Questioning the Philistine Paradigm 73 2 In Search of the Early Philistines 76 6 Regeneration 81 1 The Yarkon Basin 83 2 The Shephelah and the Coastal Plain 86 3 The Besor Basin, or: The Problem with Gaza 89 4 Retrospective 91 7 Reorientations 92 1 Animal-based Economy and Accumulation of Wealth 92 2 Pottery Production and Communal Feasting 95 3 Religion 97 4 Interpreting Reorientations 100 8 In the Eye of the Beholder 106 1 The Egyptian Connection 108 2 Canaanite Innovations 116 3 Local Glyptic Production during the Iron Age I–IIA 123 Summary: Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age 125 Appendix: Chronology of Egyptian Kings 131 Bibliography 133 Index of Place Names 192 Index of Historical Figures 195 Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Acknowledgements This book marks the end of the last phase, at least in the coming years, of my journey after the Levantine–Egyptian colonial encounters during the Late Bronze Age and their aftermath during the early Iron Age. Five years have passed since I submitted my PhD dissertation to Tel Aviv University and two years since the Hebrew book based on that PhD was published. Like the Hebrew volume, this revised English edition deals with the limited region between the Tel Aviv and Gaza metropolitan areas. However, it also includes scholarly works published since then and its structure was rearranged in a chronological order that includes additional case studies. Above all, it reflects my individual journey in the study of the effects of colonial rule on subjugated groups—on their structures, practices, and ideas. Such a journey could not have been possible without the support and advice of dear colleagues, friends, and family. Cordial thanks are extended to my teachers Prof. Nadav Na ʾaman and Prof. Oded Lipschits. Though our relations have grown, and today I might even be considered their colleague and friend, they remain my mentors, and I am grateful for the many years of inspiration, during which I learnt archaeology and history from two remarkable scholars, for whom I have a great deal of admiration. I thank them for their patience, their encouragement, and their sincere involvement in my professional and personal life. I am indebted to colleagues and friends from the Department of Archae- ology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. In this regard, I would like to thank Prof. Ran Barkay, Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, Prof. Shlomo Bunimovitz, Prof. Israel Finkelstein, Prof. Ze’ev Herzog, Ms. Nirit Kedem, Dr. Assaf Kleiman, Dr. Sabine Kleiman, Dr. Dafna Langgut, Ms. Noa Ranzer, Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen, Dr. Guy Stiebel, Ms. Alexandra Wrathall, Prof. Ran Zadok, and Mr. Omer Ze’evi-Berger. I would like to single out Ms. Helena Roth for her support and thoughtful critiques, Prof. Yuval Gadot, who taught me how to look at the multivocality of archaeology and the com- plexity of the past, and Dr. Omer Sergi, for countless hours of stimulating dis- cussions on anything and everything. During the years of writing and revising I had the good fortune to be a guest in two of the most beautiful cities in Europe. My thanks are extended to Prof. Christoph Uehlinger of the University of Zurich, who hosted me as a postdoc- toral fellow in 2015–2016 with the generous support of the Swiss Government Excellence Program. This year was a formative one for my academic skills, and for that I am grateful. Heartfelt gratitude is also extended to Prof. Thomas Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access viii Acknowledgements Römer of the Collège de France, who hosted me on several occasions, offering me sincere friendship and the kindest hospitality. Thanks to Ms. Miriam Feinberg-Vamosh who translated the major bulk of the text. It was a pleasure to work together. I am indebted to Ms. Myrna Pollak, Ms. Tsipi Kuper-Blau, and Ms. Alexandra Wrathall, who polished various sec- tions and contributed insightful comments and suggestions, who were willing to respond as soon as possible. Thanks to Dr. Jonathan Stökl, editor of Brill’s Culture and History of the Ancient Near East series, who invited me to publish the book in this respected platform. I am grateful to Erika Mandarino, Assistant Editor of Ancient Near East and Jewish Studies at Brill, who assisted in every step of the publication process. Thanks are also extended to the two anonymous reviewers who pro- vided essential critiques that helped me to refine the arguments in each chap- ter and in the book as a whole. Finally, I would like to thank my loving family—members of the Koch, Laron, Levitovitch, Cohen and Hoshen families. To Roy, my partner, for endless patience and understanding, long days and short nights, and infinite love. Last but not least, to my parents, Anat and David, to whom I owe so much. Thanks for instilling in me love of the country, for encouraging me to study the past, and for allowing me to talk incessantly since childhood. This book is dedicated to them. Ido Koch - 9789004432833 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:46:53PM via free access Figures 1 Southwest Canaan: location map 2 2 Scarabs and related artifacts from south Levantine Late Bronze Age I contexts classified according to place of manufacture 18 3 Scarabs from Late Bronze Age I Burials at Tell el-Ajjul classified according to place of manufacture 18 4 Scarabs and related artifacts from south Levantine Late Bronze Age I–IIA contexts classified according to place of manufacture 19 5 Motifs on Middle Bronze Age II local scarabs (nos. 1, 5, 9, 12) compared to motifs on early-mid-18th Dynasty scarabs (nos.