Table of Contents for听Bulletin of ASOR听392 (November 2024)
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Pp. 1-20:听鈥淭erra-cotta Roof Tiles in the Ancient Synagogues of Judaea/Palaestina,鈥� by Mechael Osband
Terra-cotta roof tiles are some of the most common and volume-intensive finds in the excavation of ancient synagogues, but their significance has received only minor consideration. This article reviews the evidence for terra-cotta roof tiles, which were the preferred roofing used in ancient synagogues in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. A change took place from non-tiled roofs in Early Roman synagogues to the common use of terra-cotta roof tiles in the later synagogues. It will be suggested that this shift in roofing style was not merely a functional one, but part of the broader developments in synagogue-building, from a place of gathering in the Early Roman period, with an unassuming flat roof, to a more ornate and monumental structure (both internally and externally) with a prominent high tiled roof in plain view.
Pp. 21-54:听鈥淩econstructing Late Prehistoric Occupation in the Southern Levant: Irbid as a Case Study for Settlements and Funerary Patterns,鈥� by Antoine Caminada, Tara Steimer-Herbet, Lamia Al-Khoury, and Marie Besse
The region of Irbid (Jordan) in the southern Levant has been known for its megalithic structures since the end of the 19th century. But despite hundreds of dolmens inventoried, it has never been the subject of an in-depth study. This article contributes to a better understanding of human occupation in the area during the 4th and 3rd millennium B.C.E., based on unpublished data collected in September 2005 by a co-directed Jordanian and French mission (University of Yarmouk and the French Institute of the Middle East鈥揑nstitut fran莽ais du Proche-Orient Damascus). Data acquisition analysis was realized thanks to a Geographic Information System (GIS) allowing the authors to map and study the spatial relationships between the various elements, with an emphasis on the relationship between the funerary and domestic spheres. By placing the dolmen necropoleis and settlement sites (both double-apsed and rectangular houses) of the north Jordanian Plateau within the general context of the southern Levant, the authors question the 鈥渃lassic鈥� model linking nomadism and megalithism, and bring forward a more sedentary perspective.
Pp. 55-82:听鈥淭he Tepe Gawra Lower Town Survey 2022,鈥� by听Khaled Abu Jayyab, Ira Schwartz, Abbas Al-Hussainy, Stephen Batiuk, Arno Glasser, and Hossam Hadi
Tepe Gawra has long been seen as an essential site for late prehistoric and early historic periods, not only in Iraq but for the entirety of northern Mesopotamia. This importance stems from its long sequence, and its implications for understanding the development of societal complexity. Despite its small size, Tepe Gawra has produced evidence of highly specialized practices that overshadowed farming. This has led to the suggestion that the site was a 鈥渃enter鈥� at the top of an administered network. Some scholars have challenged this assertion and suggested that the site had a lower town, which acted as the source of agriculture goods for the site. Since the area had been closed off to archaeological work this debate has not been resolved. Through recent survey work around Tepe Gawra, the authors show that there was an extensive lower town dating to the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age stages of occupation. These findings show that Tepe Gawra was a large self-sustaining settlement exploiting its own agricultural hinterland.
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Pp. 83-110:听鈥淏iography of a Neo-Assyrian Relief Fragment from Nineveh,鈥� by听Irene Bald Romano, Kelly Ann Moss, and Gina Watkinson
This article presents the biography of a Neo-Assyrian gypsum relief fragment from Ashurbanipal鈥檚 7th century b.c.e. North Palace at Nineveh, now in the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona. Its discovery by British explorers in late 1853 or early 1854, its journey to the United States, probably in the mid-19th century through missionaries in Ottoman Mesopotamia, its connection with the circus impresario P. T. Barnum and Tufts College, and its acquisition in 1959 by the Arizona State Museum are discussed, along with the changing uses and meaning of the object in its various contexts. The fragment depicts fat-tailed sheep being led in procession by a royal eunuch. It is related to a larger relief fragment in the British Museum that was positioned to the right of this fragment, allowing some conclusions about its probable location within the North Palace and interpretations concerning its iconography.
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Pp. 111-137:听鈥淭he Parthian Manor House of Sarab-e Murt in the Context of the Iranian Architectural Tradition,鈥� by Yousef Moradi
This article presents the results of archaeological field excavations at the site of Sarab-e Murt, located on the outskirts of the town of Gilan-e Gharb in the Kermanshah province of Iran. The investigations, conducted in 2007 and 2008, brought to light an extraordinary royal residence dating back to the Late Parthian period. The aim of this article is to contextualize the architectural design and layout of the Sarab-e Murt building within the broader landscape of palatial architecture in the Iranian world, with historical roots extending as far back as the Achaemenid period. By examining the development of the plans of palatial houses, we gain valuable insights into the dynamics of change across both time and space. Furthermore, this article seeks to advance hypotheses concerning the origins of Parthian听ayvan-style houses plans within the larger context of the Iranian cultural sphere.
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Pp. 139-149:听鈥淭he Lost Look: A Human Neolithic Figurine from Horbat Sasay (Israel),鈥� by Ianir Milevski and Alla Nagorsky
A human figurine carved on a large limestone cobble was found in the excavations of Horbat Sasay, conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. It schematically portrays eyes and a mouth and, like other types of human head representations found in the region, it is suggested that it belongs to the southern Levantine Neolithic period. Together with the description of the figurine, comparisons are presented to other known figurines depicting the human face from the Levant and other nearby regions, as well as an interpretation of these human faces and their expressions in relation to the drastic changes that occurred in these regions during the so-called Neolithic revolution and the social organization of the late prehistoric communities of the Levant.
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Pp. 151-177: 鈥�Defending the Vedi River Valley of Armenia: The Fortification and Refortification of a Flatland-Mountain Interface,鈥� by Peter J. Cobb, Elvan Cobb, Hayk Azizbekyan, Artur Petrosyan, and Boris Gasparyan
The mountainous topography of the Armenian Highlands and the South Caucasus accentuates the importance of valleys as areas of habitation and as conduits among these interspersed settlement areas. The Vedi River Valley of Armenia, located along the southeastern edge of the Ararat Plateau (Plain), serves as one such important transportation route in and through these highland areas. At the center of the mouth of this valley sits the prominent Vedi Fortress, ideally situated for defense of this route and landscape. The site was first fortified during the Late Bronze Age, perhaps during the centralization of power by a local polity contained within the valley. Burned down and abandoned at the end of the Iron Age I, the fortress would then see varied reuse through several later periods given its prominent location and proximity to other local power centers. Of particular importance is its refortification during the Early Medieval (Late Antique) period, when Armenia was under Sasanian Persian suzerainty. This article presents the results of archaeological fieldwork in this valley and at the fortress, followed by a discussion of the landscape鈥檚 fortification and refortification during these two periods. The Vedi River Valley provides a case study for examining control, mobility, and the negotiation of local and remote power within the specific contained landscape of a river valley in mountainous terrain.
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Pp. 179-205: 鈥淩evisiting Late Iron Age En-Gedi: A Stratigraphic Reassessment of Stratum V at Tel Goren,鈥� by Avraham Mashiach and Uri Davidovich
The oasis of En-Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, served during the late Iron Age as a regional hub for the Judahite activity in the Judean Desert. The main Iron Age site in En-Gedi is Tel Goren, a small mound in the oasis plain, excavated in the 1960s by Benjamin Mazar and Immanuel Dunayevsky. The exposed Iron Age remains, attributed to the lowermost occupation (Stratum V), yielded substantial material assemblages associated with a thick destruction layer dated to the early 6th century b.c.e. The excavators interpreted the site as an unfortified, short-lived agricultural estate dedicated to the production of high-valued commodities. Drawing on a critical reassessment of past excavations, coupled with new evidence gathered in small-scale excavations conducted in 2020, it is suggested that the development of late Iron Age Tel Goren was a gradual process that involved at least two major phases, as well as the construction of a fortified compound on the summit of the hill. The implications of this suggestion are further examined within the broader regional and historical context, shedding new light on the multiphase trajectory of Judah鈥檚 expansion into its eastern fringe during the late monarchic period.
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Pp. 207-237: 鈥淒ine and Worship: The Roman Complex in Front of the Pan Grotto in Paneas/Caesarea Philippi,鈥� by Adi Erlich and Ron Lavi
Paneas, situated at the foot of mount Hermon, is where the Hermon River emerges from a spring at the foot of a cliff with a natural cave. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the cave and nearby terrace served mainly for the cult of Pan. Herod the Great built in Paneas a temple to Augustus, and his son erected there his capital, Caesarea Philippi. A salvage excavation was recently conducted in front of the cave in the area that formerly was identified as Herod鈥檚 Augusteum. The new excavations have proven that during the Roman period, the place was unroofed and open to the cave, which was full of water. The water flowed out through a large aqueduct, water installations were constructed in the courtyard, and niches flanked on the west and east. The complex is dated to the last third of the 1st century c.e. and is attributed to Agrippa II, who built there a nymphaeum-triclinium facing a grotto in Italian style. Afterward, the courtyard was used as a cult place to Pan, and hydromantic rituals were performed in the cave. The sources for this complex will be discussed, as well as the changes that took place there through time.
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Rachel Bernstein joined 17吃瓜on October 1 as Communications Manager. She has a Ph.D. in Desert Studies and Archaeology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, as well as an M.A. in Desert Studies from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a B.A. in English from Goucher College.
In the past three decades, curators, educators, and scholars have been actively moving archaeological materials and data beyond the physical limitations of sites and museums into the virtual space. These transitions to new media have allowed archaeologists, researchers, and students unprecedented access to the archaeological record, particularly with regard to far away, at-risk, or vanished heritage. Each of the presenters in this webinar has been successful in implementing VR and other digital media in innovative ways in order to bridge the gap between physical and virtual and to educate the public. The first presentation (Dr. Michael Zimmerman, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bridgewater State University) focuses on the creation of two virtual environments鈥攖he Virtual Museum of Archaeology of South Caucasus (VMASC) and a virtual reconstruction of a Late Bronze Age archaeological site from the Shiraki Plain in the country of Georgia. The second presentation (Dr. Sarah Beckmann, Assistant Professor of Classics, UCLA and Deidre Brin, Director of the Digital Archaeology Lab, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology) presents a digital escape room based on Homer鈥檚 Odyssey听that was created by university students for a K-12 audience. The third presentation (Dr. Adam Aja, Chief Curator, Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East) will introduce guests to some of HMANE鈥檚 freely accessed digital assets, including its virtual gallery tours, 3D artifact scans, and the most recent addition, a Snapchat app-experience that allows the visitor to 鈥渟tep back in time鈥� in a journey to the Assyrian palace of Ashurbanipal. To unite these three presentations, speakers will demonstrate how they creatively used their archaeological knowledge to develop digital tools and educate the public, including how these tools are making real-world impacts in museums, classrooms, and other settings. This webinar will be moderated by Dr. Tine Rassalle (Independent Scholar) and Dr. Debra Trusty (Associate Professor of Instruction, University of Iowa), both of whom strive to facilitate the implementation of new technologies in the study of the ancient world.
In 2019, an NSF IRES grant (#1854153) was awarded to Bridgewater State University, Ilia State University, and the Cyberarchaeology Lab at UC San Diego to engage students in interdisciplinary research of human-environmental interactions in the Shiraki Plateau in the country of Georgia. One of the key elements in this project was the creation of two virtual environments by Misha Elashvili and Giorgi Datenashvili鈥攖he Virtual Museum of Archaeology of South Caucasus (VMASC), an interactive virtual collection of artifacts from archaeological sites in Shiraki; and a virtual reconstruction of Late Bronze Age Didnauri. We hope to demonstrate future applications of this and other VR environments for archaeology.
Michael Zimmerman is an archaeologist with a PhD from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, and a member of the Archaeogaming Collective, Archaeological Institute of America, American Society of Overseas Research, Northeastern Anthropological Association, Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, the Save Ancient Studies Alliance, and the Society of Historical Archaeology. He holds an MA in Classical Languages from the University of Florida. He has worked extensively on archaeological surveys and excavations in public archaeology in Massachusetts, as well as in Israel, Jordan, and Georgia, where he is a co-principal investigator for the NSF-funded Shiraki International Multidisciplinary Research project and the U.S. Embassy Democracy Commission grant funded Crossroads Virtual Museum Project. He also serves on the Executive Board of the Northeastern Anthropological Association and the Curation and Collections Committee of the Society for Historical Archaeology. His research interests include archaeogaming and virtual technology in pedagogical contexts, antiquities trafficking, cultural heritage law and public policy, and collections-based research, and he 
In winter 2024, UCLA students, faculty, and the Digital Archaeology Lab worked to create a digital escape room based on Homer鈥檚 Odyssey. The obstacles faced by Odysseus and his crew, we decided, were excellent fodder for an immersive web-based application: an escape room brings the vividness of the text to life and introduces contemporary students to ancient Greek culture using modern technologies. Despite facing many obstacles in the course of this work (the Cyclops room in particular!), our project offers a model for how other archaeologists and educators might leverage digital applications in the classroom. Thus our talk will survey development of this project and our future goals: 1) outreach beyond the University classroom using this escape room; and 2) the development of a reusable platform so that those without programming experience can design their own escape room.
Deidre Brin is the director of the Digital Archaeology Lab at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and leads the development of DIG, an archaeological data publishing initiative at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. Her experience managing data while working on archaeological projects coupled with the foundation in information science and technology, support her current research on the preservation, dissemination, and reuse of cultural heritage datasets.
Sarah Beckmann is a Roman archaeologist and Assistant Professor of Classics at UCLA. Her research interests include domestic art and archaeology broadly in the early Roman empire and the late antique period. She is currently at work on her first monograph, which examines the Roman villa in late antiquity (mid-3rd 鈥� 5th c. CE). Other interests represented by recent publications include statuary collecting in late antiquity, Roman portraiture in provincial contexts, and representations of subaltern groups (e.g. women, enslaved children) in luxury domestic arts.
While physical exhibition space remains limited within the walls of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE), the digital realm provides virtually unlimited opportunities to display and explore its rich archaeological collections. Chief Curator Adam J. Aja will introduce guests to some of the museum鈥檚 freely accessed digital assets, including its virtual gallery tours, 3D artifact scans, and the most recent addition, a Snapchat app-experience that allows the visitor to 鈥渟tep back in time鈥� in a journey to the Assyrian palace of Ashurbanipal.
Adam J. Aja is an archaeologist and museum curator with a background in the creative arts. Since 2009, he has managed the collection of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (formerly the Harvard Semitic Museum), where he redesigned the storage facilities, implemented new exhibits, and created replicas for display. Dr. Aja started working on archaeological field projects in 1992 and has enjoyed numerous discoveries in the years since, including the Iron Age cemetery of the Philistines at Ashkelon. He is currently the Chief Stratigrapher at the Tel Shimron Excavations. Dr. Aja鈥檚 creative projects, combining his love of archaeology and art, have included a full-scale reproduction of the monument discovered between the paws of the Great Sphinx and the creation of an augmented reality app that animates Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs.
鈥淵ou come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel鈥︹�� declares David. Having previously rebuffed the loan of King Saul鈥檚 armor, David advances against Goliath armed only with a sling shot and five smooth stones. Goliath, on the other hand, is in full battle gear. His armament is described in meticulous detail: bronze helmet, coat of mail and greaves, a javelin between his shoulders, and a spear, whose 鈥渟haft鈥� was like a weaver鈥檚 beam鈥� and whose head 鈥渨eighed six hundred shekels of iron鈥︹�� (I Sam 17:7).
Alternatively, Prof. Mazow proposes that Goliath鈥檚 sword was an Aegean or Anatolian long sword, a 鈥渃ut-and-thrust鈥� tool that could be used to both pierce Goliath鈥檚 armor and cut off his head. The narrator, describing an instrument unknown in the Israelite weapons inventory, compared Goliath鈥檚 sword to a weaver鈥檚 sword: a blade-shaped tool used to beat in the weft. Eventually neither the weaver鈥檚 tool nor the Philistine鈥檚 weapon could be conceived, and the description comes down to us as a spear-like weapon with a shaft that resembled a type of weaving tool, a broken simile that no longer described the shape and size of the foreign object.
