Tell el-Hesi: The Site and the Expedition.

• Author: Liebowitz, Harold A.

This summary volume of the first four seasons of renewed excavation at Tell el-Hesi is divided into four major parts. Part I deals with the site and includes chapters on the physical environment of the site and work at the site conducted by previous excavation teams. Part II deals with the formative influences on work at the site: evolution of a holistic approach, methodology of the New Archaeology, and a report on the volunteer program. Part III, "The Expedition's Work in Phase I," summarizes the results of the first four seasons and research conducted between seasons; and contains an extensive chapter on the stratigraphy of the site. Part IV is a collection of unrelated, miscellaneous reports.

In chapter I (pp. 5-36), Frank Koucy provides the reader with an informative discussion of the present and past physical environment of the site, focusing upon its geographic location, regional climate, geological history, paleoclimate, and soil. However, while his discussion of the regional soils is fully developed, his discussion of the climate and its impact is comparatively brief. In chapter II (pp. 37-67), entitled "Excavations by the Palestine Exploration Fund at Tell el-Hesi," John Matthers surveys the work of Petrie and Bliss at Tell el-Hesi, which serves as a background to work at the site and provides us with a heretofore unpublished drawing by Petrie (p. 45, fig. 6). However, I question the value of information about Petrie's difficulties in dealing with his foreman (p. 47).

Chapter III, "Formative Influences on the Expedition" (pp. 68-71), opens part II. Here, John Worrell briefly discusses the evolution of the holistic approach of the first phase of the excavation. In chapter IV, "The Methodology of the New Archaeology and its Influence on the Joint Expedition to Tell el-Hesi" (pp. 72-87), D. Glen Rose summarizes the goals and methods of the "New Archaeology" and its change in focus from Biblical history, or even the cultural history of Syria-Palestine to the "total history and life of the people and their activity considered from a regional environment position" (p. 77). A shift of this nature actually accords with changes of traditional historiography from political history to the lives of ordinary people drawing upon such mundane artifacts as laundry lists.

Chapter V, "The Volunteer and Education Program" (pp. 88-96), by H. Thomas Frank and Fred Horton Jr., is a detailed report of the program, including lists of names of all the...