Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan.

• Author: Routledge, Bruce
• Position: Book Review

Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan. Edited by AMIHAI MAZAR. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, vol. 331. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS. Pp. 335, illustrations. $85.

This book has its origins in a colloquium held at University College, London in 1996, a fact that I must admit put me on my guard. So often books born of conferences constitute little more than disparate collections of papers linked by loose coincidences of geography or chronology. Indeed, an initial glance at the table of contents seemed to confirm my worst fears. However, on settling down to read the contributions my fears were instantly dispelled. Yes, this is a disparate collection of papers, but they happen to be good ones, and that makes all the difference.

The papers are divided into three sections. The first is entitled "Settlement Patterns and Landscape Archaeology," and includes papers by Avi Ofer on the Judean Highlands, Adam Zertal on Samaria, Gunnar Lehmann on the hinterland of Akko, and Shimon Gibson on agricultural terraces. The second section is entitled "Temple, Cult and Iconography," and includes papers by Avraham Biran on Dan, Ze'ev Herzog on Arad, Raz Kletter on pillar-based figurines, Kay Prag on figurines from Jerusalem, Tallay Ornan on the depiction of Ishtar in Iron Age Israel, and Norma Franklin on descriptions and depictions of the southern Levant in Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad. The final section, entitled "Aspects of Material Culture," contains papers by Maragreet Steiner on Jerusalem in the tenth to seventh centuries, Amihai Mazar on Beth Shean in Iron II, and Piotr Bienkowski and Leonie Sedman on the finds of 'Ein Haseva and Horvat Qitmit compared with those of Busayra.

Perhaps if there is a theme to this book it is the celebration of the virtue of innovation cloaked in the guise of tradition. Most of the papers break new ground, either empirically or methodologically, yet each does so from within projects framed in very familiar terms. Perhaps the best example is offered in the chapter by Avi Ofer. Here Ofer develops a distinct analytical approach to the sherd data from his intensive archaeological survey of the West Bank south of Jerusalem. In particular, he proposes a series of quantitative "weightings" that account for differences in the density and length of occupation when comparing settlement patterns by time period. This explicit confrontation of problems logically inherent in...