2018 - 2019

0671-1120-01
  Finds and Texts From the Iron Age                                                                    
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Omer SergiGilman-humanities282Tue1200-1400 Sem  2
 
 
University credit hours:  2.0

Course description

The Iron Age (ca. 1150–550 BCE) is characterized by the rise and fall of territorial kingdoms throughout the Levant. This period saw the emergence of kingdoms and peoples who are well known from the Hebrew Bible, among which are the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel along with ethnic groups like the Philistines, the Phoenicians and the Aramaeans. The formation of such social and political entities was accompanied by the development of the Alphabetic script and the consolidation of local writing systems (like the Old Hebrew script or the Old Aramaic script) which were utilized for writing local languages and dialects, that were previously only vernacular. The Iron Age came to an end with the rise of the Mesopotamian Empires – the Neo-Assyrians and the Neo-Babylonians, that conquered the entire Levant and brought the end to the independent territorial kingdoms whose territories were annexed to the empire. The fact that the historiographic books in the bible (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) relate to this period is the main reason for the extensive scholarly interest in it. It is therefore impossible to discuss the Iron Age disregarding one of its most important literary sources – the Hebrew Bible. Considering that, the aim of this course is to present the material culture and epigraphic finds attributed to this period and to discuss their socio-historical meaning. This will include, among other things, settlement patterns and oscillations; material remains from rural context versus those representing the urban context reconstructing different social modes of life; state formation and its archaeological aspects; administrative finds; the archaeological impact of the empire and many more. These subjects will be discussed in light of methodological and theoretical consideration such as the relations between material remains and ethnic/social identity or the use of archaeological remains for historical reconstruction. In addition to that, we shall also discuss the main epigraphic finds (which include, royal inscriptions, ostraca, plaster inscriptions and stamp impressions) which shed further light on the historical, religious, social and cultural life during the Iron Age in the Land of Israel.

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