The Millennium Shrimp

Word Geek Examiner: City of Sodom in the Bronze Age — or is the Iron Age?

Posted using Word Geek Examiner: City of Sodom in the Bronze Age — or is the Iron Age?

Just some responses to Word Geek’s critique of the press release for Tall al Hammam.

(a) Tall versus Tell - “Tell” is generally considered the “Israeli” transliteration of the word. “Tall” is the preferred transliteration in Jordanian archaeology. Just like Hebrew uses “el” and arabic uses “al” as a definitive article.

(b) neolithic is an English word, the same as television. It is, of course, a long hallowed tradition of English-speaking academics to coin new words out of their Greek and Latin roots. That doesn’t make them “Greek” or “Latin” words.

(c) the intermediate Bronze age - these “ages” do not refer to chronological periods per se, but to cultural assemblages - i.e., clusters of artifacts that are consistently found together, and generally in a certain progression. In other words, the Early Bronze Age IV refers to an assemblage of pottery styles that are consistently found together. We know the pottery from the Bronze Age IV is younger than the pottery from the Bronze Age III, because it’s generally found higher up in the stratigraphy of a mound. The term “intermediate bronze age” is used because there are sites or strata within sites where we find artifacts that are typical both of the later Early Bronze phases and the earlier Middle Bronze Age. Basically these strata represent periods of continuous occupation from the Early Bronze Age through the Middle Bronze Age. Think of walking into a house that has a mixture of furniture from the 1960s through 1980s.

(d) Jordan disk - this is a rather uncommon rendering of the Hebrew phrase “kikkar hayyarden” which is a specific area of the Jordan river where the River Valley widens into a circle when viewed from the air. According to this biblicalarchaeology.org web page it is the arabah or “plains” of Moab. I agree, however, this is an obscure term that the writer could clarify better.

I’ll write some more about the significance of the site’s identification as “Sodom” in a later post. Read the rest of her article.

Archaeologists Discover Temple That Sheds Light On So-called Dark Age

ScienceDaily (2009-04-16) — The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved monumental temple in Turkey — thought to be constructed during the time of King Solomon in the 10th/9th-centuries BCE — sheds light on the so-called Dark Age.

Looks quite interesting. One of a number of sites that provide contrary evidence to the assertion that the late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition was disruptive. The site has evidence of cultural links to the Aegean world and the “Sea Peoples” (aka the Philistines that the ancient Israelites loved so much).

Interesting article in the Dead-Tree-based Medium of Record:

Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: July 6, 2008
The writing on an ancient stone may contribute to a re-evaluation of popular and scholarly views of Jesus.

Traditional Christology has emphasized the novelty of Jesus as a suffering messiah - in contrast to the dominant Jewish view of the Messiah as a triumphant King of the line of David. Back in 2000, Israel Knohl, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem argued that the motif of the “suffering messiah” - the idea that the Messiah would die and be resurrected as a necessary step towards the national salvation of Israel - existed within Judaism prior to Jesus. Such a view would seat place Jesus - and the Christian beliefs about his death and ressurection, firmly within at least one stream of Jewish Eschatology. The main problem, however, was that he didn’t have any actual textual sources referencing a suffering messiah prior to the emergence of early Christian documents.

Until now.
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Dating to the period AD33-70, the underground chapel would have served as both a place of worship and a home.

The cave was found under the historical Church of St. Georgeous in Rihab (northern Jordan). The director of the Rihab Centre for Archaeological studies, a Dr Abdul Qader Al-Hassan, believes that the cave shows evidence of Christian cultic artifacts predating the ancient Church building above it. (Cultic in the technical sense of referring to material culture remains that would have been used in worship rituals.

More here:

Update

From National Geographic:

Ghazi Bisheh, former director general of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, dismissed the claim as “ridiculous,” saying the archaeologist behind them “has a tendency to sensationalize discoveries” and offered no evidence to back his recent assertion.

Bisheh thinks that the site is much younger than what the excavator is claiming, that stylistically it is consistent with cave Churches that were present in the 700s, when the area was a province of the Christian eastern Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople. I’ll have to ask Susanne what she thinks about it, she just got back from Amman last week.

Brotherly love in the City of Peace:

Israeli police had to break up a fist fight that erupted between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergymen at one of Christianity’s holiest sites.

Evidently the Armenian priest felt that the Greek priest was hogging the alter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Yep, they were fighting in the church built over the reputed tomb of Jesus. Remember to show God’s love by picking a fight with someone of a slightly different branch of Christianity today!

Went to see the last event in the Modern Slavery Awareness week at Malone College Tuesday evening with people from my small group. It touched some on child soldiers in African countries - children who are kidnapped and forced to serve as soldiers in rebel armies.

Ran across this story from Yemen yesterday:

Yemeni girl, 8, gets divorce after forced marriage

SANAA (AFP) — A Yemeni court on Tuesday granted a divorce to an eight-year-old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage this year, saying he feared she might be kidnapped.

“I am happy that I am divorced now. I will be able to go back to school,” Nojud Mohammed Ali said, after a public hearing in Sanaa’s court of first instance.

…Dressed in traditional black, Nojud said she would now go to live in the home of her maternal uncle and did not want to see her father.

The BBC also has an article on it today.

European Archaeology
Ancient Roman throne found
Archaeologists today announced the discovery of a wood and ivory throne in the villa thought to belong to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus (the father-in-law of Julius Caesar). Caesoninus’ villa, known to archaeologists as the Villa of the Papyri because of the thousands of scrolls found there during excavations, was preserved along with the rest of Herculaneum when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 and buried the area under meters of volcanic ash. Only the back and legs of the throne were preserved and feature bas-relief carvings depicting mythological figures such as Attis and Dionysis. The throne was found 25 m below the present ground surface, which illustrates how deeply the city was buried (the chair would have been on the surface when the eruption began).

Wire story in Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071204.wthrone1204/BNStory/Science/home

Pictures from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7128553.stm

Grotto of Roman legend revealed
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