Archaeological Sources For The History of Palestine - The Late Bronze Age

Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: The Late Bronze Age
Author(s): Albert Leonard, Jr.

Source: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 52, No. 1, The Late Bronze Age in Palestine (Mar.,
1989), pp. 4-39
Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210180
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Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine
Te ate Bronze ge
by Albert Leonard, Jr.

he Late Bronze Age in both events and help illuminate the will discuss each of the subphases of
Canaan began and ended more than three centuries of cul- the Late Bronze Age in Canaan-
with large-scale popula- tural development that took place in first in terms of the history revealed
tion shifts: the Egyptian Canaan between them. In fact, Syro- by Egyptian sources and then in
repulsion of the so-called Hyksos Palestine can be seen better against view of Canaan's ceramic, architec-
around 1550 B.C.E. and the incursion the backdrop of these Egyptian rec- tural, and funerary evidence. By this
of the multinational Sea Peoples just ords than at any other time in its juxtaposition of local archaeological
after 1200 B.C.E. Egyptian records prior history. data with contemporaneous Egyptian
from this period provide details of Thus, in the following pages I historical materials, I hope to show
4 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989
that the texture of Canaan's material
culture in the Late Bronze Age varied
in response to Egyptian political and
economic initiatives, which, iron-
ically, were often directed toward the
larger and more formidable states to
the north and east of Canaan.
Late Bronze IA
Late Bronze IA covered roughly one
hundred years. Its beginning corres-
ponded with the expulsion of the
Hyksos from Egypt by Amosis, first
pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty,1
and its end came with the attack of
Tuthmosis III, sixth pharaoh of the
dynasty, on the Canaanite fortress of
Megiddo. This is a very confusing
period in the archaeological record,
marked by destructions and partial
abandonments.
Egyptian Historical Evidence. For
the hundred years prior to 1550 B.C.E.
much of Egypt was ruled by a group
of foreigners. Later known as the
Hyksos and designated as the Fif-
teenth and Sixteenth Dynasties, this
group, probably Asiatics, had its
capital at Avaris (Tell ed-Dabca) in
the eastern Delta (Bietak 1986). It
was the Seventeenth Dynasty pha-
raoh, Kamose, or possibly his prede-
cessor Sekenenre, who first rebelled
against the Hyksos (Pritchard 1950:
232). An account of the Egyptian
attack on Avaris and its subsequent
destruction was found in the tomb
Above: Although small religious structures with a single cult focus appear to have been the norm during Late Bronze IB, a rambling religious
precinct in stratum IX at Beth Shan can now be dated to this period. Called the "T7thmose III Temple" by its excavators, the precinct, probably
dedicated to numerous deities, has yielded many steles, including this one. In the upper register a dog and a male lion of similar size wrestle
while standing on their back legs. In the bottom register a dog bites the hindquarters of a striding lion. It is doubtful that such a costly
monument was erected as a memorial to the hunting dog, but loftier interpretations have not been offered. From an artistic standpoint, the
stele is as good a piece of stone sculpture as anything from Late Bronze Syro-Palestine. Photograph courtesy of the Israel Department of
Antiquities and Museums. Left: "Seven times and seven times, I bow down on my back and belly," is one of the claims made in the Amarna
letters by Canaanite vassals expressing their subservience and loyalty to Egyptian rulers during Late Bronze IIA (el-Amarna letter 323; Mercer
1939: 771). On this relief from the Memphite tomb of Horemheb, last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a mixed group of foreigners seems to
be acting out their devotion before one of the pharaoh's servants. The group consists of five full-bearded Syrians, each wearing a long-sleeved
garment with a shoulder cape; an additional Syrian whose wavy hair is tied up like a hat and who wears a kilt with long tassels; two Libyans
distinguished by their sharp pointy beards and the feather protruding from their long straight hair; and a beardless figure, possibly that of an
African. Photograph courtesy of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.
Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 5
Dividing the Late Bronze Age
Albright Wright Amiran Weinstein Kenyon
The archaeological 1570 Pharaoh 1949 1965b 1970 1981 1973
record for the Amosis
1550
Late Bronze Age
in Palestine is A ,
Amenophis I
often uncertain.
Scholars have 1525
LB IA ? ,' ?
Tuthmosis I
offered varying
chronologies of Tuthmosis II LB IA
1500o ---------- - ,' B
its phases.
Hatshepsut
LB IA
L ess than forty

Albright (1949) years agofirst
made the William F.
intelli-
1475
gent attempts to synthesize our under-

standing of the late Bronze Age at more STuthmosis III
than one Palestinian site. At that time
there wasn't much material for the criti-
cal archaeologist to use. For instance, Late
1450 - -------- - LBIALBB
Bronze I was simply subdivided into an LB IB
early phase (Late Bronze IA), which Al-
bright saw as represented by level II at Tell
Amenophis II c
el-cAjjul and stratum IX at Megiddo, with
their characteristic elaborate Bichrome
Ware pottery. A second phase (Late Bronze1425 - ----------- -LBIB
IB) was considered "somewhat of a step- Tuthmosis IV
child" until the excavation of the lowest 7
stratum (Structure I) of the Fosse Temple
at Lachish provided Albright with what
he considered suitable archaeological 1400
deposits. Albright admitted that the sub- Amenophis III
division of Late Bronze II was difficult to
achieve with accuracy, but he offered an
LB IIA LB IIA
early subphase, Late Bronze IIA, which
roughly corresponded to the fourteenth S ---------LB IIA LB IIA Gap?
century B.C.E. (the Amarna period and the 1375 Amenophis IV
shift from the Eighteenth to the Nine- (Akhenaten)
teenth Dynasties), and a later subphase, Smenhare- - - - - - - - - -
Late Bronze IIB, which dated to the thir- AmenphisaIre
teenth century B.C.E. (the Ramesside The sequence of major Egyptian pharaohs of the New Kingdom and the ch
period). His rule of thumb for placing of the Late Bronze Age as proposed by William E Albright (1949), G. Ern
homogeneous deposits within this skele- Ruth Amiran (1970), and James M. Weinstein (1981). Dame Kathleen Ken
Bronze Age groups also are included. Absolute dates are those followed b
ton was overly reliant, however, on Myce- Ancient History. Conversion to the new dates proposed by K. A. Kitchen
naean Greek and Cypriot imports whose by consulting the reigns of specific pharaohs given in the text. When an

Albright Wright Amiran Weinstein Kenyon chron
1360 Pharaoh 1949 1965b 1970 1981 1973 becom
1987).
1350 Tutankhamun Gap? tinued
1350 w and most scholars follow at least a modi-
~ Ay
fied version of his chronology. Both G.
LB IIA LB IIA D Ernest Wright (1965b) and Ruth Amiran
(1970), for instance, have divided the peri-
Horemheb
,., Horemheb LB IIA LB IIA od into Late Bronze I, Late Bronze IIA, and
1325 - Late Bronze IIB.
The other major attempt to create a
Ramesses I chronological yardstick for the Late
Bronze Age material from Syro-Palestine
Sethos I was made by the British archaeologist
Dame Kathleen Kenyon, who devised a
1300 E
E system based on a reevaluation of the
excavated material from Megiddo, Hazor,
Lachish, and other sites (1973: 527-30).
Kenyon selected only those individual
deposits that she was convinced displayed
1275
sufficient archaeological (that is, strati-
Ramesses II graphical) integrity for chronological pur-
poses, and she arranged them into seven
groups (A through G). In Albright's terms
LBIIB LBIIB these groups can be summarized as Late
1250 LB
SF
IIB LB IIB Bronze IA (Groups A and B), Late Bronze
IB (Group C), Late Bronze IIA (latter part
of Group C, a gap, and Group D), and Late
Bronze IIB (Groups E, F, and G).
In spite of her keen eye for strati-
Merneptah
graphical detail and her implicit caveat
1225
against placing too much emphasis on
Amnenmesses sites that were poorly excavated during
Sethos II Gap? the infancy of the discipline, Kenyon's
Siptah system has not been widely accepted.
This is most probably the result of prac-
1200 Tewosret tical matters such as confusion over the
Sethnakhte relationship between Groups A and B, the
fifty-year hiatus between Groups C and D
(given the absolute dates with which she
was working, this gap covers almost the
e Ramesses III entire Amarna period), and another sub-
1175 0G G
stantial gap between Groups F and G at
- - - - - -
the end of the Late Bronze Age.
In 1981 James M. Weinstein produced
an important synthesis of the archae-
ological and literary material bearing on
absolute datethe chronology
that of the Late Bronze Age.
d
pharaoh's After reviewing the Egyptian
reign, the as well as
both a pharaoh's reig
the Syro-Palestinian evidence, Weinstein
this is most likely t
arrived at the relative chronology that is
approximation by th
used in this article.

The so-called Midgal Temple (number 2048) in area BB at Megiddo
had its origin in Middle Bronze (left) but continued in use during
Late Bronze IA (middle) and IIA (right). The final phase, however,
was much less impressive. With walls about half their original
thickness, the structure in stratum VIIA hardly deserves the use of
the epithet "migdal," meaning fortified. Drawing by Lois A. Kain.
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:--~-::i:?:*- ::--~-- i-iii~--ii- ixii:i:?i~ii iii:i~i il_.itiii- i:it-::-:~:::' :;:-::-- ?:::'''--::--::: ':-;::: :"::':' ~-i':i- -ai i-i D i-:
-: - ii:i~i :ii:sii-iiiis i-iiieii itiiii--iilii iiiiiiii?iisii~i iii~i iiiiiili -i-ii~i?i:i:mi?ii-iii~iii?i- :icai ii*ii?~iiiiii;i~-~-i?i?iii~i :..Z iii iii9:-:-- i~ii:-ii`i~ iiii~iiiiiiii~i :iii , i:i iiiai ii' :s ii i,~i ii isi . ~i-::- -:-r::j::?:: :: :::: :. -- :~:::-----i-~-'--_-i-i~i:--:i_.:-gi: :----L:? : ::;::- - ::~ i:: fi-i~~
of an Egyptian officer, Ahmose son emphasis on his prowess in maneu-

of Eben, at el-Kab in southern Egypt. vering the swift horse-drawn, spoke-
Small city-stateswheeled chariot. In Papyrus Anastasi
It was left to the next pharaoh,
Amosis,2 to complete the in Syro-Palestine
rebellion I, which dates to the Nineteenth
by leading a three-year siege against Dynasty, the royal scribe Hori taunts
bandedin
Sharuhen, the Hyksos stronghold together
his rival Amen-em-Opet: "Give me
southern Palestine. Thus,in
theLate
Hyk-Bronze(thy)
IA report in order that I may ...
sos were expelled from the Delta and speak proudly to others of thy desig-
to defend
ultimately driven back into Palestine them-
nation 'maryan.' "To which Hori
and then Syria (Dever 1987). replies: "I know how to hold the
The military career ofselves
Ahmose against reins more skillfully than thou,
son of Eben continued through the there is no warrior who is my equal"
what they saw
(Albright 1930-1931: 217; Pritchard
reign of pharaoh Amenophis I4 and
into that of Tuthmosis I,5 as awhom
bigger he 1950: 475-79).
claimed to have accompanied as far The Mitannian capital, Washu-
north into Syria as the greatthreat, bend
Egypt. in kanni, was located somewhere in
the Euphrates River. This does not the region of the headwaters of the
seem to have been an idle boast, for Habur River, but its exact location is
of Indo-Europeans
the later pharaoh Tuthmosis III ruling
re- a substra- still unknown and its suggested
tum of Hurrians
corded that his grandfather Tuth-(Merrillees 1986). association with Tell Fakhariyeh has
The chariot-owning
mosis I had erected a victory nobility
stele on who yet to be proven either by excavation
formedriver
the east bank of that great the upper (Prit-
crust of Mitanni or neutron-activation analysis of per-
were called
chard 1950: 239; see also mariyanna, a term al-
Spalinger tinent cuneiform tablets that were
most
1978). This would have broughtcertainly to bethe
equated with suspected to have been written in
Egyptians face to face the Indo-European
with word marya,
the king- Washukanni on local clays (McEwan
dom of Mitanni, a North which means
Syrian"young man" or "young 1958; Dobel, Asaro, and Michel
group made up of a smallwarrior"aristocracy
(Drower 1973: 420), with 1976). At this time Mitanni was the
only military threat to Egypt in the
region, but Tuthmosis I was appar-
ently not overly disturbed by the
fact; he ended his campaign relaxing
and hunting elephants in the Niya
Lands of the Orontes Valley.
A gap exists in our knowledge of Acco
Syro-Palestine during the reigns of
Tuthmosis 116 and Queen Hatshepsut7
Based on the subsequent actions of
Tuthmosis III when he became sole
ruler of Egypt, we can assume it was
a period in which small local city-
states were working out their differ-
ences and joining into alliances Mevorakh
against what they perceived as a
greater threat, Egypt. This situation
is surprising, since at this time the
Egyptians appear to have been rather
benevolent. Egypt displayed no de-
sire for permanent economic or
political/military control over the
area and was apparently content
with the occasional raid into the ter-
ritories to demonstrate its strength
(Weinstein 1981; but see also Rainey
1987 and Redford 1987).
Archaeological Evidence in Canaan.
The archaeological record is unclear
as to the manner in which the polit-
ical transition from the Middle
Bronze IIC/Middle Bronze III to Late
Bronze IA took place in Canaan. For
instance, did the city-states of Syro-
Palestine simply transfer their al-
legiance from the Hyksos to the
pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty
(the beginning of the so-called New
Kingdom), as Yohanan Aharoni sug-
gested (1967: 138), or do the destruc-
tions and partial abandonments
(Dever 1987; Weinstein 1981) indi-
cate a sharper, more hostile break,
described by Kathleen Kenyon (1979:
184) as a "considerable dislocation of
life in Palestine"?
Ceramic record. From the stand-
point of ceramics, the transition from
the Middle to the Late Bronze Age - tive enough to be used by archae- 1969): Base Ring Ware, a black or
if it can be seen at all - is marked by ologists as the type-fossils of the brownish gray fabric with raised
a surprising degree of continuity in Late Bronze IA. These are Bichrome decoration (designated BR I), which
most of the popular local forms and Ware, Black/Grey Lustrous Ware, and appeared almost exclusively in
fabrics. Many vessel types of the Chocolate on White Ware (for a de- closed forms such as the jug or the
Late Bronze I exhibit an ancestry tailed description of these, see the small distinctively shaped bilbil that
that can be traced to the very begin- accompanying sidebar). must have been traded for the sake
nings of the Middle Bronze. Three There also appeared during Late of its contents (perhaps opium, an
"new" fabric types appeared in the Bronze IA the first examples of two important painkiller in antiquity-
ceramic repertoire near the transi- handmade Cypriot fabrics that en- Merrillees 1962, 1986: 154); and
tion, however, and they are distinc- joyed a long history in Canaan (OrenWhite Slip Ware (WS I), which dur-
Bichrome Ware
Bichrome Ware
Bichrome Ware thought to be the product of a single artist number of workshops. Neutron activation
called the Tell el-cAjjul Painter (Heurtley analysis has shown that some of these
Production of this pottery, often called
Elaborate Bichrome Ware, may actually 1939). Subsequent study has suggested workshops were located in Cyprus (Artzy,
have begun at the very end of Middle that this might be too narrow an interpre- Perlman, and Asaro 1973), but at least a
Bronze IIC, since fragments of it have tation of the material, but the restricted portion of the Bichrome Ware vessels
been found in deposits dating to that range of mainstream forms-jug with found at Megiddo was made from local
period at Tell el-cAjjul and Megiddo (Wood shoulder handle, cylindrical juglet, one- clays (Artzy, Perlman, and Asaro 1978).
1982; Kassis 1973). It is still considered to handled juglet and krater-in concert
be a harbinger of Late Bronze IA, however. with its distinctive decoration suggest Black/Grey Lustrous Ware
Characterized by a limited repertoire that a limited number of workshops were Like the other IA speciality wares, Black/
of decorative motifs, such as birds, fish, engaged in producing this ware. Attempts Grey Lustrous Ware appeared on the cusp
Union Jacks, and the like, executed in red to attribute this pottery to a specific eth- of the transition from Middle Bronze IIC
and black paint on a pale buff slip, this nic group, such as the Hurrians, as pro- and Late Bronze IA, having been found in
pottery is so distinctive in both vessel- posed by Claire Epstein (1966), present the earlier deposits at Tell el-cAjjul and
form and the artistic quality of its decora- chronological problems that do not arise
Te11 el-Farcah (South) (Oren 1973: 77). Its
tion that when it was first "isolated" it was if we think of it as the product of a limited greatest popularity came in the years just
Bichrome Ware, Black/Grey Lustrous
Ware, and Chocolate on White Ware are
the type-fossils of Late Bronze IA.
ing this period was restricted to the hint can be gathered at some of the of the city's character. It has been
hemispherical, wishbone-handled larger sites where archaeologists claimed that area AA originated in
"milk bowl" that must have been have made substantial horizontal ex- the Middle Bronze; similar survivals
brought to Canaan as appealing posures. In area AA at the northern of town plans from the Middle Bronze
tableware and not as containers for end of Megiddo (Tell el-Mutesellim), into the Late Bronze I have been sug-
some luxury commodity. the city-gate of stratum IX (Loud gested at Tell el-Hesi ("Bliss City II")
Architectural evidence. As for 1948: 5) and a portion of the adjacentand Tell el-cAjjul (City I, Palace II),
the plan and appearance of the and contemporary "Palace" (Loud presenting us with a feeling of con-
Canaanite city-states in which this 1948: 16 and 33) were uncovered, buttinuity that is difficult to reconcile
pottery was used, we are unfortu- so much had been destroyed by later with the discontinuity apparent at
nately ignorant; only an occasional rebuildings that we are not certain so many other sites (see Weinstein
1981: 1-5).
Our knowledge of religious
architecture, however, seems to be
on much firmer ground (G. R. H.
Wright 1971, 1985; Gray 1964).
;e
Temple 2048 at Megiddo (stratum

VIIB), with its thick walls, single
x
r
long-room, and staired towers in
o
~ front, would have continued in use

during this period, as possibly would
~
a related structure, Fortress Temple

IB at Shechem (Tell Balatah; Wright
c,
1965a: 122 and following). At Hazor

c
Black/Grey (Tell el-Qedah), the only Palestinian
L
Lustrous Ware
-, site to offer a true paradigm for the
x
religious architecture of Late Bronze,

s continuity between the Middle
Bronze IIC and Late Bronze I is sug-
gested by the "Long Temple" in area
Chocolate on White Ware A (Yadin 1972: 103) and the "Ortho-
state Temple" in area H; the latter
before the reign of Tuthmosis III. The ex-were covered with a thick, cream-colored was constructed during Middle
amples we have are well constructed of aslip that was burnished to a light luster be- Bronze II but survived through Late
finely levigated (washed) grey clay coveredfore the geometric decoration was added Bronze IA and into Late Bronze II.
with a grey or black slip that was sub-in a shade of paint to the red side of At Tell Kittan a single-room temple
sequently polished, often to a luster. Thischocolate-brown. Also appearing just with at least two previous phases
fabric occurred in a single form: a globular-before the Late Bronze I period, Chocolate
from Middle Bronze (strata V and IV)
bodied, tall-necked juglet with handleon White Ware may have had its origins at was enlarged during Late Bronze I
from the shoulder to below the rim. The sites close to the Jordan River, since the
and rooms were added. The presence
petal-like appearance of the upper handlewhite katarrah marls could have been
of "chocolate ware" on the floors of
attachment is a hallmark of the form. used in the slip. At Kataret es-Samra, just
to the north of the Wadi Zerqa, I (1986: this latest building (stratum III) sug-
Chocolate on White Ware 167) have found, in secondary associationgested to the excavator that it had
Morphologically, vessels of this ware with Middle Bronze II, rolled-rim cookingbeen destroyed during one of the
echo the mainstream shapes of the period pots that appear to be "kiln-wasters" of campaigns of Tuthmosis III, when
but are technically superior to the stan- this ware. the Egyptians were beginning to
dard wares in almost every way. Surfaces tighten their control over the Beth
Shan valley (Eisenberg 1977). [Editor's
note: The author prefers the spelling as the keynote of the Late Bronze IB cover the northern and southern
"Beth Shan" as opposed to "Beth- period. approaches.
shean"-a preference he shares with That the Egyptian frontier in As described in the Egyptian
the authors of the major publica- Palestine had been coming increas- records, the Battle of Megiddo was a
tions of the Bronze Age strata at this ingly under outside pressure during rout, and the Egyptian forces quick-
site (Rowe 1930, 1940; James 1966; the reign of Hatshepsut is suggested ly began looting while the army of
Oren 1973).] by the speed with which Tuthmosis the Syrian confederation "fled head-
Funerary evidence. Most tombs III, provoked by news of the revolt of long to Megiddo with faces of fear.
of Late Bronze IA appear to have been a confederation of Syrian princes They abandoned their horses and
shaft tombs from earlier epochs (in gathered at Megiddo, moved out of their chariots of gold and silver, so
some cases as early as Early Bronze Egypt after her death. This affront to that someone might draw them up
IV/Middle Bronze I) that were par- Egyptian power, prestige, and nation- into this town by hoisting on their
tially cleared and reused. Their fune- al ego was led by the prince of Kadesh garments" (Pritchard 1950: 236). The
rary assemblages have been assigned (Tell Nebi Mend) in Syria and was pharaoh immediately surrounded
to this period largely on the presence aided and abetted by "individuals of Megiddo with a moat and a wall
or absence of the Late Bronze IA every foreign country, waiting in made of local timber. The city re-
ceramic type-fossils mentioned their chariots -330 princes [mar- mained enclosed for seven months
above. Rich examples have been yanna] every one of them having until "the princes . . . came on their
found in Tomb 1100 at Megiddo their army" (Pritchard 1950: 238; bellies to kiss the ground ... and to
(these are the hallmark of Kathleen Epstein 1963). Tuthmosis III went beg breath for their nostrils" (Prit-
Kenyon's Pottery Group A) and in forth at the head of an army claimed chard 1950: 237) or until "they came
Tomb 42 at Beth Shan. Unfortunately,to number more than 20,000, ad- out ... pleading to (his) majesty, say-
because of later disturbances suffered vancing across the Sinai at the in- ing: Give us breath, our Lord! The
by most of these tombs, it has been credible pace of 15 miles per day. countries of Retinue will never re-
impossible to recover any significant North of Gaza, to Yehem south of peat rebellion another time!" (Prit-
details about the funerary cult, or the Carmel range, the pace of the chard 1950: 238, Barkal stele). Even
cults, of the period. soldiers and their baggage train considering the hyperbole of the era
slowed to almost half this rate, per- the booty that the army of Tuth-
Late Bronze IB haps because they needed to forage mosis III brought back from Canaan,
Late Bronze IB lasted approximately and consolidate as they went or per- which was enumerated and described
75 years, its beginning marked by haps because of local opposition. at length on Egyptian steles and
the attack of Tuthmosis III on Upon reaching Yehem the Egyptian temple walls, was, in both kind and
Megiddo and its end corresponding army had three options: to head for quantity, simply staggering. In addi-
with the ascension of the pharaoh the coast and attack Megiddo from tion to mundane fare such as grain,
Amenophis III. Archaeologically, the the northwest, to come upon Megid- cattle, and sheep (Ahituv 1978;
period has often been considered do from the southeast via Taanach Na'aman 1981), they brought back
suspect, its very existence even ques- (Tell Tacannek), or to take the directabandoned horses, which were still
tioned (Weinstein 1981: 12). route through the exceedingly nar- relatively new to Egyptians, and
Egyptian Historical Evidence. In row Aruna Pass (Wadi cAra). The chariots worked with gold; bronze
Egypt the death of Queen Hatshep- pharaoh's field officers, who were coats of armor; inlaid furniture; and
sut brought Tuthmosis 1118 to the fearful of attempting the third option,intricately carved walking sticks. It
throne. Tuthmosis III was deter- pleaded with him not to take that should be noted that Tuthmosis III
mined to pursue a vigorous set of route but he would not be deterred never claimed to have destroyed the
policies in Canaan. His tremendous (Pritchard 1950: 235). Tuthmosis led city, a fact that accords well with the
achievement at the Battle of Megid- his forces through the pass and out archaeological evidence, but he did
do (1482 B.C.E.) and the major impact onto the Esdraelon Plain and sur- inflict a devastating defeat on those
that event had on Egypt's foreign prised the Syrian coalition, which who were walled up there, and the
policy toward Canaan could be seen had divided most of its forces to battle enabled him to dictate policy
After crushing a Syrian confederation
at Megiddo, Tuthmosis III was able to
dictate policy to the Canaanite princes.
to the Canaanite lords from a posi- Sumur, possibly Tell Kazel on the Sharon while returning from his first
tion of strength. He appointed new Syrian coast (Goetze 1975a: 2; Wein- Asiatic campaign he intercepted a
princes for each town-but not be- stein 1981: 12; Aharoni 1967: 152; messenger of the prince of Mitanni
fore each took a loyalty oath-and Muhammad 1959). Claire Epstein's "carrying a letter of clay at his throat"
Palestine soon became a giant store- (1963) reconsideration of the verso of(Pritchard 1950: 246). We can only
house for Egypt. Papyrus Hermitage 1116A, an officialguess what the subject matter of
Tuthmosis continued his mili- Egyptian document composed dur- this epistle was, but it must not have
tary campaigns, but with Palestine ing the reign of Amenophis II that had the Egyptians' best interests at
firmly under his control he concen- lists rations of beer and grain for heart because the messenger was
trated on Syria. During his sixth maryannu messengers from Djahy trotted southward at the side of the
campaign Kadesh-on-the-Orontes to Egypt (including specifically the king's own chariot.
was finally captured; with its defeat sites of Megiddo, Taanach, and The young pharaoh boasted of
a new administrative policy was Hazor), indicates that during the personal valor as none had done be-
enacted, the taking of royal hostages:reign of Tuthmosis III the collection fore, and with him Egyptian foreign
"Now the children of the princes and of tribute from western Asia was a policy took on a more severe mood.
their brothers were brought as hos- highly structured affair directly con- Whereas Tuthmosis III may have
tages to Egypt ... (and) ... whoevertrolled by the court. This system was "crushed all rebellious countries" in
of these princes died, his majesty apparently successful and remained Syro-Palestine, Amenophis II "trod
was accustomed to make his son go relatively intact for more than a Naharin, which his bow had crushed
to stand in his place" (Pritchard century, since it is still reflected in ... (and) ... cut off the heads of the
1950: 239). Such a policy not only the Amarna letters of the fourteenth attackers" (Pritchard 1950: 245).
assured the good behavior of rela- century B.C.E. Consider the plight of the town of
tives who were left behind, but also Brilliant general that he was, Shamash-edom, possibly to be iden-
provided an heir to the throne who Tuthmosis III also had a softer side tified with Qurn Hattin near the Sea
would be sympathetic at least to thethat often escapes notice; he took of Galilee (Aharoni 1960). Ameno-
correct, or Egyptian, way of doing interest in, and recorded, the strangephis II attacked it with "his face ...
things when the Egyptianized prince plants and animals he encountered terrible like that of Bastet, like Seth
returned to rule his own area. on his many military campaigns. A in his moment of raging. ... He
It appears that during the reign glimpse of the flora and fauna of hacked it up in a short moment like
of Tuthmosis III Egypt's attitude Canaan during the Late Bronze Age a lion fierce of face when he treads
toward the people of Syro-Palestine can be seen today, carved in low the foreign countries" (Pritchard
began to change as the Egyptians relief, on the walls of the Festival 1950: 245). Even more severe was the
came to appreciate the potential Hall he had built at the rear of the treatment of seven Syrian princes
economic benefits of annual Ca- Temple of Amon at Karnak. who were captured in the vicinity of
naanite contributions to the coffers Tuthmosis III died after a reign Damascus during the pharaoh's sec-
of the god Amon. For the bureau- of more than half a century and was ond Asiatic campaign. After killing
cratic purposes of collecting tribute, succeeded by his son Amenophis II."1 them with his mace, the pharaoh
Canaan was divided into three dis- A possible coregency with his father hung them upside down on the prow
tricts, each with its own administra- while the crown prince campaigned of his boat all the way to Thebes,
tive center strategically situated on in Asia creates problems with the where six of them were hanged on
or near the major highway in the numbering of his military cam- the city-walls; further upstream, in
region, the Via Maris (Aharoni 1967: paigns, but the general sequence of the land of Nubia, he hanged the
42). These centers, each of which them is clear (Rainey 1973; Yeivin seventh on the wall at Napata, all to
was the seat of an Egyptian overseer 1967). That the King ("Great One") of show "his majesty's victories forever
or commissioner,'0 were at Gaza, Naharin was continuing to involve and ever in all lands" (Pritchard
probably modern Gaza or Rapha in Egypt in Canaanite affairs has been 1950: 248; see also Rainey 1973: 72).
southern Palestine; Kumidu, Kamid shown by the fact that as Amenophis This more severe policy seems to
el-Loz in the Beqaca Valley; and II was passing through the Plain of have had the desired effect. When in
Smaller religious structures, evidently
with a single cult focus, apparently
were the norm in Late Bronze IB.
his seventh year of rule Amenophis ent gap in occupation at many im- (Mycenaean) II kylix from Fosse
II was conducting a military cam- portant Palestinian sites such as Temple I at Lachish, signaled what
paign against a revolt in Syria, the Megiddo, Taanach, Tell Beit Mirsim, would become a brisk trade in Aegean
peoples of the Niya lands came to goods during Late Bronze II.'a
and Tell el-Farcah (South). I believe
the walls of their towns to applaud this so-called gap in occupation can Architectural evidence. In spite
him (Drower 1973: 460), and when, be attributed as much to our lack of of the alleged gaps in occupation at
at last, he reached Kadesh, long a knowledge of the pertinent subtleties these sites, our understanding of
thorn in the side of his father, its in changes in the material culture as religious architecture in Late Bronze
prince "came out in peace to his to the radical depopulation of the IB is much better than that in Late
majesty ... (and was) made to take countryside. Bronze IA. The stratigraphy of the
the oath of fealty, and all their chil- Ceramic record. The three rambling religious precinct at level
dren as well" (Pritchard 1950: 246). ceramic type-fossils noted in the dis-IX at Beth Shan (Rowe 1930, 1940),
This new policy of cruel treatment cussion of Late Bronze IA appear to called the "Thutmose III Temple" by
of prisoners, obviously intended to have had their floruit during that its excavators, has been a source of
deter rebelliousness, was accom- period. Their presence in strange confusion for more than half a cen-
panied by a new concept of Canaan (late?), aberrant forms (for example tury (Albright 1938: 76-77), but
as a conquered land that was charac- at the Mevorakh XI temple), or theirthere is now evidence to support a
terized by an increase in political complete absence, is thought to Late Bronze IB date (McGovern 1985:
and economic control coupled with characterize deposits from the rest 13). This precinct housed a stele
occasional military force (Weinstein dedicated by the Egyptian architect
of the fifteenth century B.C.E.--that
1981: 12). is, Late Bronze IB. Kathleen Kenyon Amen-em-Opet and his son to "Mekal,
Amenophis II was succeeded by filled this period with her Pottery Lord of Beth Shan" (Thompson 1970).
Tuthmosis IV.12 The extent of his Group C, which consists exclusively The bearded god Mekal is pictured
military activity in Syro-Palestine is of material from Structure I of the sitting on a throne wearing a conical
debated (Malamat 1961; Weinstein Fosse Temple at Lachish. I don't be- headdress with horns in front and
1981: 13, with references), but at lieve, however, that this phase of theribbons in back and holding the
least one campaign can be inferred building is securely dated (since the Egyptian waz scepter and ankh,
from the mention of captives from dating is based on a single scarab of illustrating the hybridization of
Gezer on a stele from his mortuary Amenophis III), and it should not be Egypto-Canaanite religious themes
temple in Thebes. This may be the used to date Lachish itself, let alone (Pritchard 1950: 249; 1969: plate 487).
campaign represented on the dec- the entire region. With the exception of the temple
orated panels of his chariot; these Part of our uncertainty over the complex at Beth Shan (stratum IX),
show a divinely directed pharaoh development of pottery types duringsmaller religious structures, evident-
driving forth to "trample down all Late Bronze IB is the number of sites ly with a single cult focus, appear to
northern countries, difficult of at which a gap in occupation follow- have been the norm in the Late Bronze
approach" (Giveon 1969: 56). The ing the campaigns of Tuthmosis III IB and beyond. This is evident at
politics of his predecessors seem to has been recognized. One thing is Hazor where a two-room shrine (the
have been sufficient to control the certain, however: In the substratum "Orthostate Temple") in area H sur-
region, and the annual parades of nonspecialty wares a slow evolu- vived from Middle Bronze IIC with
through Canaan, which had charac- tion began in the fifteenth century only a slight modification of the cult
terized the early part of the dynasty, and continued into the fourteenth focus and an enlargement or regu-
became less and less necessary. The and thirteenth centuries. "Milk larization of the forecourt (Yadin
actual occupation of Canaan was bowls" from Cyprus painted with the 1972: 75-95). In Late Bronze IB this
still in the future. "newer," more schematic, patterns of court included an on-axis gateway
Archaeological Evidence in Canaan. White Slip II continued to be im- and a raised platform, perhaps an
As mentioned above, Late Bronze IB ported into Palestine, while the first altar. A bilobate pottery kiln con-
has often been considered suspect. relatively complete import from the taining around 20 miniature bowls
Such doubts are based on an appar- Aegean world, a Late Helladic suggests that the priests supplied
During Late Bronze IB, Ththmosis IV eighth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, probably led
at least one military campaign into Syro-Palestine. This campaign may be depicted on the
exterior of his wooden chariot. In the panel left the pharaoh is shown charging across the
battlefield with his bow drawn and the reigns of the lumbering eight-spoked chariot wrapped
securely around his waist. Below each panel is a frieze depicting his vanquished prisoners, all
of whom have the characteristic beards of Syro-Palestinians, bound together by a rope.
Photograph courtesy of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
During the Late Bronze IB a small extramural temple was built
at Lachish in the fill of a defensive ditch, or fosse, that had been
in use in the Middle Bronze Age. Structure I, the earliest phase of
the "Fosse Temple," contained a tripartite platform with a raised
altar for cult objects against the southern wall. The temple
increased in size in subsequent Structures II and III (shown here),
suggesting greater prosperity at the site, but it retained its original
orientation and the location of the cult focus against the
southern wall. Drawing by Lois A. Kain.
worshippers with some of the neces-

sary cult paraphernalia (Stager and
Wolff 1981: 97-98; Yadin 1972: 76).
That the forecourt was also used as
an important and integral part of the
sanctuary can be seen from the find- ? ..
ing there of clay liver models bear-
ing Akkadian inscriptions (Yadin
1972: 82-83). Archaeological evi-
dence for the practice of hepatoscopy
(divination through the inspection
of animal livers), a well-known cus-
tom in Mesopotamia, has also been
found in the maison du pretre at
Ugarit (Ras Shamra) in northern \, .::io} .iiii i-
Canaan (Courtois 1969).
At Lachish, in the fill of the Iiiij-I i ....~iis
Middle Bronze Age defensive ditch
(fosse), a small extramural temple
was discovered in the 1930s. Struc-
ture I, the earliest phase of the
"Fosse Temple," was a three-roomed
structure with an entrance from the
west that was hidden by a short
screen wall. The main room, a
north-south longroom, had as its
cult focus a tripartite platform built
against the southern wall.
Tell Mevorakh, near the coast,
was the site of a single-room temple.
The excavator dated the temple, in edge of funerary practices in Late Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, Ay, and
stratum XI to the Late Bronze I, Bronze IB is practically nonexistent,Horemheb, the final rulers of the
probably IB, a date strengthened by primarily because of our inability toEighteenth Dynasty. It was a period
the presence of three (late?) Bichrome date Late Bronze I deposits that do when Egypt lost much of its empire
vessels among a scree of pottery not include ceramic specialty wares in Syro-Palestine. In Canaan the ar-
found in situ on the floor of the from IA. Until we have a better chaeological record shows a decline
building (Stern 1977, 1984). Evident- understanding of the development of in local ceramics, but religious ar-
ly this temple had a long east-west the local domestic pottery we will chitecture is notable and funerary
axis, low benches along two of the be unable to identify burials from evidence is rich.
sides, and, as its focal point, a stepped this period with assurance or to de- Egyptian Historical Evidence. Tuth-
platform for cult objects. tect any patterns in the funerary cus- mosis IV was succeeded by his son
What is striking about all of toms of the fifteenth century B.C.E. Amenophis I,14 who used diplomacy
these Late Bronze IB temples is the as a powerful alternative, or adjunct,
amount of variety in size, plan, and Late Bronze IIA to military campaigns in keeping
orientation. Unfortunately, we are as Late Bronze IIA lasted more than the peace in Syro-Palestine. In his
yet unable to associate these differ- one hundred years and correspondedtenth year as pharaoh he strengthened
ences with specific cults or deities. roughly with the reigns of Ameno- the Egyptian alliance with Mitanni
Funerary evidence. Our knowl- phis III, Amenophis IV (Akhenaten), by marrying Gilu-Khepa, daughter of
This drawing of a wall-painting from a tomb in Thebes, probably dating to the time of Amenophis III in Late Bronze IIA,
shows several Canaanite ships docked in a congested Egyptian harbor. It thus suggests that the reign of this pharaoh was a
period of relative calm in Syro-Palestine, with fruitful economic exchange. In the bottom scene left, sailors are unloading their
cargo and bartering with the local merchants. The figure dressed in a long garment is a Canaanite. He offers the contents of a
heavy amphora while behind him sailors in short, Aegean-like kilts bring forth other ceramic containers, including, in the first
sailor's left hand, a pilgrim flask most likely filled with some costly scented oil. Scenes such as this give us an idea of the
international trade that flourished in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. Drawing courtesy of The
Committee of the Egypt Exploration Society
i~~i'-. .. . . .ia- . . .~--~i?i ~ -~i-~ iii
i~i~-ii --1-iii-i i~i iIN
:i :::::~SON,
r: : :::;: --AMC MN?: k
. . . . . . . . .. . . . . .......
Shutt tate the movement of trade, tribute the Aten" or perhaps "Glorified Spirit
empir and communications" (Weinstein of the Aten" (Redford 1987: 141), re-
Egypt 1981: 15). It also appears that during flecting the ardor of his new beliefs.
than 300 women. This could not this pharaoh's reign Egypt and Ugarit Akhenaten and his successors
have been considered an ordinary (Ras Shamra) first came into diplo- Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun, the
event, for it was proclaimed by the matic contact (Drower 1975: 475). Amarna pharaohs, reigned during
pharaoh and his Egyptian wife, Queen The son of Amenophis III and one of the most interesting periods
Tiy, on a large commemorative Queen Tiy is one of the most in- in the history of the Near East. They
wedding scarab, copies of which triguing and controversial figures in turned the barren piece of desert on
have been found in Palestine at Beth- history. Ruling after his father's death, which Akhetaten was built into a
shemesh (cAin Shems) and Gezer the new pharaoh Amenophis IV15 cosmopolitan center.
(Rowe 1936: 128, 538, and 539). Later gradually lost faith in the cult of the One of the most important ar-
in his reign Amenophis III acquired great god Amon and promulgated chaeological discoveries pertaining
the princess Tadu-Khepa, daughter instead the worship of the gleaming to the history of Syro-Palestine dur-
of the subsequent Mitannian king multirayed solar disk, the Aten. ing the Late Bronze Age was the
Tushratta (Goetze 1975a: 5) as well The pharaoh soon found life at the hoard of more than 300 tablets that
as the daughter of Kadashman-Enlil, Theban court too distracting for a was clandestinely excavated by the
the Kassite king of Babylon (el- man of religious fervor, so he moved local villagers of Tell el-Amarna in
Amarna letters 1-5; Mercer 1939: his beautiful Queen Nefertiti, their 1887. These texts, called the Amarna
2-17; Campbell 1964: 44-45). family, and the court northward to a tablets, are extant samples of actual
Amenophis III apparently did new capital called Akhetaten ("the diplomatic correspondence between
not feel the need to campaign in Horizon of the Aten") at the modern the pharaohs of the Amarna period
Asia. His reign was a period of rela- site of Tell el-Amarna, which is lo- and the rulers of the great powers of
tive calm in Syro-Palestine; the cated on the east bank of the Nile the day-Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni,
Egyptian garrisons "functioned large- River about 200 miles south of Cairo Arzawa, Alasia, and Hatti - as well
ly to halt intercity disputes, to keep (Aldred 1975). Amenophis IV also as the local vassal states of Syria and
troublesome groups such as the changed his name to Akhenaten, Palestine. The majority of these
cApiru under control, and to facili- which means "He who is useful to epistles date to the reigns of Akhe-
Late Bronze IIA was the time of Amenophis IV tenth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and one of the most intriguing and controversial
figures in Near Eastern history. Having lost faith in the traditional gods of Egypt, he promoted the exclusive worship of the gleaming solar disk,
the Aten. As part of this, he changed his name to Akhenaten (meaning, perhaps, "he who is useful to Aten") and moved the Egyptian capital
north of Thebes to a new capital, Akhetaten (meaning, "the horizon of the Aten"), at the site of modern Tell el-Amarna. On this fragment of a
balustrade (now in the Cairo Museum) from a temple ramp at Tell el-Amarna, Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti are shown presenting offerings
to the Aten. The strange deformities apparent here and in many depictions of this pharaoh have led to numerous speculations about his
physical and mental well-being, and his religious obsessions have been blamed for the loss of much of the northern part of Egypt's empire
during this period. Photograph from Pritchard (1969), courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
naten, Smenkhkare, and Tutankh-

amun (Campbell 1964), but some are
from the earlier correspondence of
Amenophis III and were brought
from Thebes to Akhetaten when
Akhenaten moved his court to the
new capital.
These letters describe, in inti-
mate detail, the so-called presents
and gifts that were constantly being
exchanged between these foreign
kings and their "brother" the pharaoh.
Horses, chariots, inlaid furniture,
lapis lazuli, and ivory objets d'art
were the most common items ex-
changed, but the most valuable and
most sought after commodity was
gold. That a tremendous quantity of
this costly mineral was available to
the Egyptians was never lost on their
allies to the north. In el-Amarna letter
16, Ashuruballit I of Assyria wrote
to Akhenaten that "gold is in thy
land like dust" (Mercer 1939: 59).16
There was also a serious diplo-
matic side to these exchanges. When
Burraburias II of Babylon was dis-
satisfied with the amount of gold he
had received from Akhenaten, he
wrote the pharaoh to remind him of
his country's past loyalty to Egypt,
recalling that when the Canaanites
wrote to his father Kurigalzu in an
attempt to involve him in an anti-
Egyptian coalition Kurigalzu had
told them to "cease making an alli-
ance with me; if you cherish hostility
against the King of Egypt, my broth-
er, and wish to ally yourself with
another shall I not come, and shall I
not plunder you, for he is in alliance
with me" (Mercer 1939: 131).
In contrast to the correspondence
between Egypt and the kings of the
powerful lands, letters to Canaan
reveal a vast gap between king and
vassal, especially in the formulaic
salutations. In el-Amarna letter 323,
Mycenaean "stirrup jar"
for example, Waida of Ashkelon does or false-necked amphora
not refer to himself as the pharaoh's
"brother" but as "thy servant and the pilgrim flask
dust of thy feet" (Mercer 1939: 771).
The subject matter of their let-
ters is also different. The lust for
gold, so much on the minds of the
pharaoh's "brothers," is replaced by a cooking pot with
concern for their personal safety as everted triangular rim
well as the safety of their villages.
carinated bowl
Such fears were not unfounded. To
the north the power of the Hittites
was expanding unchecked by the
40
Egyptian army. In Syria several of the
nominally loyal dynasts were be- ( 6-4
ginning to doubt the wisdom of an
allegiance to a pharaoh who was so 0
distant, and they sometimes tilted

their loyalty toward the Hittites, d.H
formed alliances with other princes
in the area, or simply struck out on
shaved dipper Cypriot bilbil
juglet footed bowl or "chalice"
their own policies of expansion, such
as that followed by Abdi Ashirta of
Amurru and his son Aziru. Concern- makers, they readilycountercharges allied them- of disloyalty, the
ing the latter, the citizens of Tunip selves with the less loyal scene presented
Egyptian in this correspon-
in Syria (Drower 1973: 427 and 453) vassals and threatened the staunch- dence repeats itself again and again,
wrote to the pharaoh in desperation:est supporters of a pharaoh who ap- with apparently little or no help
"But now Tunip, the city, weeps, andpears to have been disinterested in from the pharaoh.
her tears are running, and there is the concerns of the area. Word of The Amarna letters offer a great
not help for us. We have been sending their actions was common in the deal of insight into the daily events
to the king.., of Egypt for twenty Amarna correspondence. Abdi-Hepaof Canaan in the Late Bronze Age,
years; but not one word has come toof Jerusalem, described by Margaret but they unfortunately also call at-
us from our lord" (el-Amarna letter Drower (1973: 422) as a man who boretention to the fact that we lack other
59; Mercer 1939: 247). "a semitic name but was a devotee of documented material to corroborate
Complicating the situation in the Hurrian goddess," wrote several their revelations. As Kathleen Ken-
the south was the appearance, in in-letters bemoaning the turmoil the yon (1973: 556) noted, "the period of
creasing numbers and strength, of a Habiru were causing in the hill destruction associated with the
group of outlaws and outcasts called country of Palestine and pleading Khabiru [Habiru] in the Amarna
CApiru (or cAbiru, Hapiru/Habiru; with the pharaoh for military sup- letters does not seem to be reflected
in Sumerian, SA.GAZ). This group port: "The Habiru plunder all lands in the history of towns, though there
has sometimes been identified with of the King. If archers are here this may be some indication of this in a
the Hebrews (abri) of the Old Testa- year, then the lands of the King, my low level of material culture, as
ment (Miller and Hayes 1986: 65-67;Lord, will remain; but if archers are shown by buildings, pottery and evi-
Gottwald 1979: 396-409). The CApiru not here, then the lands of the King, dence of art." Rivka Gonen (1984:
were first encountered in Palestine my Lord, are lost" (el-Amarna letter 69-70) has posited that the majority
by Amenophis II, who claimed to 287; Mercer 1939: 709). of Palestinian sites, even those that
have captured 3,600 of them (Albright Amid protestations of loyalty were well defended in the Middle
1975: 115). Freebooters and trouble- and innocence, or charges and Bronze Age, were unfortified (that is,
Superior Aegean and Cypriot imports
helped bring about the demise of
Late Bronze IA specialty wares.
unwalled) during the Late Bronze (Gardiner 1953; Aldred 1975: 84; forms? Does it reflect a policy of
Age, possibly as a result of an Egyp- Weinstein 1981: 17; Pritchard 1950: laissez-faire in which individual
tian policy that restricted its vassals 250-51). Other supporting evidence Canaanite chieftains were allowed,
from accumulating military strength might be found on the side of a and possibly encouraged, to feud and
behind their city-walls. It is a per- small painted wooden trunk from fight with each other? Could it have
plexing situation (Several 1972). Tutankhamun's tomb where, in a been an intentional policy of divide-
How are we to know, for instance, manner that would be used to dec- and-rule? To what extent was the
whether the whining and doom- orate the massive gateways of the situation exacerbated by the south-
crying of the vassals really reflected great temples of the pharaohs in the ward expansion of the Hittites under
a dramatic change in daily events or Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, Suppiluliumas or by internal pres-
was merely the normal situation he is shown in his chariot leading sures supplied by the cApiru, the
couched in hyperbole aimed at the Egyptian army into a jumble of Shasu bedouin, or others (Weinstein
winning the pharaoh's attention? already vanquished Syrians. 1981: 15-16)? Whichever explanation
Answers to questions such as this Whether Tutankhamun actually one selects it is indisputable that
would give us a much better view of conducted such campaigns (compare during the Amarna period Egypt lost
what was happening and would help Weinstein 1981 with Schulman 1964) much of the northern part of its
us decide whether Late Bronze IIA or if his claims should be treated as Asiatic empire to the Hittites under
was a time of catastrophic loss of the "stylized recitations of cherished Suppiluliumas during his first Syrian
Egyptian control in Canaan, as schol-old formulae" (Wilson 1951: 236) can war. The degree of loss further south
ars have traditionally held, or simplybe debated, but whatever the young in Palestine is still a matter of debate.
a difficult period for the Egyptians, king tried to do his efforts were un- Archaeological Evidence in Canaan.
as some scholars now believe (Wein- successful. Tutankhamun's early In Canaan during Late Bronze IIA
stein 1981: 15-16). death caused his young wife Ankh- there was a decline in the quality of
There is no evidence to indicate esenamon to beg Suppiluliumas, local ceramics as imports from
that either Akhenaten or his succes- son of Tudhaliyas III, king of Hatti Cyprus and the Aegean increased.
sor Smenkhkare answered the calls (as the Hittites called their king- The architecture, exhibiting both
of their Canaanite vassals or led the dom), to send her one of his sons so continuity and discontinuity, in-
Egyptian army northward in their that he might marry her and become cluded good examples of Canaanite
defense. In fact, the only Amarna king over Egypt (Schulman 1979). religious structures. Some of the
pharaoh who may have conducted We can only wonder how the sub- most impressive funerary assem-
such a campaign was young Tutankh-sequent history of Canaan would blages from all of Late Bronze date to
amun, who claimed on his Restora- have evolved had this union suc- this period.
tion Stele that when he ascended ceeded, but it did not. The Hittite Ceramic evidence. The pottery
the throne everything was topsy- prince, Zannanzash, was intercepted by which we try to date the events of
turvy and that "if troops were sent toand murdered while passing through Late Bronze IIA can be seen more as
Djahi to extend the borders of Egypt,Palestine en route to Egypt (Aldred a degeneration than as a development.
their efforts came to naught" (Stein- 1975: 69). In the end the throne was With the demise of Late Bronze IA
dorf and Seele 1957: 224). He may assumed by Horemheb, commander- specialty wares came a decline in
actually have tried to do something in-chief of the Egyptian army (Redford fabric, form, and decoration, perhaps
about the shameful state of affairs 1973), whose reign brought the Eigh- stimulated by the ever-increasing
that existed in western Asia. His teenth Dynasty to a close, and with presence of Aegean and Cypriot im-
field marshal, Horemheb, claimed to it came the end of Late Bronze IIA. ports that were of superior technical
have brought back prisoners from The cause of the collapse of the quality and artistic merit.
Palestine (Steindorf and Seele 1957: relationship between Egypt and Plain or slipped bowls with a
247) and is spoken of in his Mem- Canaan is a matter controversy. Was strong carination and cooking pots
phite tomb as the "guardian of the it the result of a policy of benign with everted triangular rims were
footsteps of his lord on the battlefieldneglect attributable to Akhenaten's virtually ubiquitous during Late
on his day of smiting the Asiatics" preoccupation with his religious re- Bronze II, whereas footed cups, a
During the fourteenth century
B.C.E. the markets of the Canaanite
V.0
coast were flooded with pottery from
biconiical jug
Cyprus and the Aegean world. Typi-
cal of the Cypriot imports were the
Base Ring jug and bilbil, which were
introduced to the region during Late
Bronze IA. By the Late Bronze IIA
the raised decoration of Base Ring I
had given way to the white-painted,
linear patterns of Base Ring II that
may be associated, especially on the
bilbil, with marks that recorded the
scoring of the opium poppy (Merril-
lees 1968: 154). The White Slip Ware
"milk bowl" shape, also introduced
during Late Bronze IA, demonstrated
less carefully executed White Slip II
motifs during Late Bronze IIA but
continued to be popular.
Representative of the exports
Courtesy of The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
from the Mycenaean Greek world
(the land of the Keftiu) were the
Middle Bronze holdover, became onic metope patterns. Larger vessels, narrow-necked "stirrup jar," which
less common. The shape of a small plain and footed kraters, and one- was purposely designed and crafted
juglet sometimes reflected the Late handled biconical mugs presented to transport and dispense costly
Bronze IA Black/Grey Lustrous Ware the pot-painter with a broader canvas, specialty oils, and both the pyxis and
tradition, but the wider necked, and the larger metopes were often piriform jars, whose wide mouths
ring-based version had become the filled with more elaborate geometric and strategically placed handles sug-
norm. Dipper juglets whose graceful patterns. Occasionally, abstract ele- gest an easy-to-seal container for
Middle Bronze silhouettes were lost ments were combined to form more scented unguents. Contemporary
in the short, dumpy Late Bronze I representational subjects such as the Linear B texts from sites on the
forms tended either to remain squat Tree of Life with its central tree and Greek mainland indicate that rose
or return to the earlier, attenuated antithetic caprids, a motif that had or sage were primary ingredients in
shapes. The pilgrim flask may havebeen popular in the Near East for these popular olive oil-based prod-
had its inspiration in the Aegean millennia. A biconical jug found in ucts (Leonard 1981). What commodi-
world, but the most popular form in Tomb D912 at Megiddo goes far be- ties the Canaanites traded for these
Palestine, with a body constructed by yond the norm of the period, not only costly ingredients is unclear, but
joining two hemispherical bowls at in its scale but also in the number transport amphorae have been found
the rims, was strictly a local product. and natural depiction of creatures as far away as the Greek mainland
Flasks dating to (and diagnostic of) presented on it (Guy and Engberg: (Grace 1956; Akerstrom 1975; Bass
Late Bronze IIA had a petal-like at- 1938: plate 134). Quite rare was the 1987), and wall-paintings from Egyp-
tachment of the handles to the neck. depiction of the human form, such tian tombs picture similar jars on
The painted decoration of the as on two tiny fragments from Beth the decks of Canaanite merchant
period was usually restricted to Shan or the tankard from Ras Shamra ships whose crews include long-
groups of horizontal bands, either showing a bearded male, possibly haired sailors from Keftiu.
isolated or combined, with simple representing the Canaanite god Baal, Architectural evidence. The so-
vertical elements to produce embry- enthroned (Culican 1966: 121). called palace in stratum IX at Megiddo
The cosmopolitan character of the
age can be seen in the remarkable
wealth displayed at some burial sites.
was enlarged during this period, pro- plan that, in form and function, re-
about 25 centimeters in length
ducing a new version in stratum VIII sembled the Late Bronze IIB temple (Stern 1984: 33-35). On the basis of
with fewer, but more spacious, from stratum VII at Beth Shan (Us- this serpent, also known from cult-
rooms: a configuration that con- sishkin 1978: 10-25; Clamer and associated deposits at the Gezer
tinued through the end of the Late Ussishkin 1977). The small finds High Place, Hazor, and the Hathor
Bronze Age (Loud 1948). Although recovered from the Summit Temple Temple at Timna, the excavator has
we are uncertain about the function may give us a clue to the deity or suggested that the temple belonged
of individual rooms of the ground deities that were worshipped there, to cAshtoret (Ishtar) and Baal (Stern
floor, we know that a great deal of as a gold foil plaque found during 1984: 35). Pendants similar to the
attention was paid to water removal excavations depicts a nude goddess one from Mevorakh have been found
in the form of sumps, drains, basins, standing on a horse. The goddess at other Canaanite sites. Those from
and even a room paved with sea shells.wears a crown made of horns and Ras Shamra/Ugarit also have been
This building and the gateway en- vegetation and holds lotus flowers in interpreted as celestial emblems
joyed a special relationship, which each hand. Christa Clamer (1980) has (shapash-shebis; see Isaiah 3:18-19;
lasted through the end of the Late identified her as Qudshu (Astarte?). Schaeffer 1939a: 62).
Bronze Age. The complaints of Biri- A partner for this goddess may be At Hazor, area H continued to
diya of Megiddo recorded in the depicted on a large stone slab incised retain its sanctity. Although it was
Amarna correspondence do not pre- with the form of a male (Resheph?) rebuilt partially on the remains of
pare us for such a well-planned and who wears a tall conical hat with the Middle Bronze IIC/Late Bronze I
well-built city as shown in the pub- hanging streamers and who bran- structure, the temple from Late
lished remains of Megiddo VIII. dishes a long spear over his head in Bronze IIA was enlarged to three, on-
Late Bronze IIA provides us both hands (Ussishkin 1978: figure 4 axis broadrooms. A pair of basalt
with some of our best information and plate 7:1, 8). Clamer (1980: 161) blocks, each carved with a lion in
on Canaanite religious architecture compared his crown with that worn relief, greeted visitors as they entered
and, once again, there was both con- by the god on "the MKL stela from the temple. One of these orthostats
tinuity and discontinuity in temple Beth Shan." Architectural details of was found buried in a pit by the en-
plan. At Megiddo the last phase of this temple suggest Egyptian influ- trance to the shrine. The cult stele
Temple 2048 was a much less im- ences, and the large quantity of found in the later, Late Bronze IIB,
pressive structure with walls about Mycenaean IIIA and IIIB pottery phase of this building probably origi-
half their original thickness; the found on its floors accents its cos- nated in the Late Bronze IIA struc-
building hardly deserves the con- mopolitan nature, a nature that ture. A similar situation existed in
tinued use of the epithet "migdal," characterizes all of Canaan in the the small temple in area C at Hazor,
meaning fortified. Also less impres- Late Bronze Age (Ussishkin 1978: where original cult paraphernalia
sive during this period was the simi- 19-20). was found reused in the slightly re-
lar temple at Shechem (Fortress The Late Bronze IIA temple paired phase of the temple dating to
Temple 2a) whose main chamber from stratum X (1375-1300 B.C.E.) at Late Bronze IIB.
was changed from a longroom to a Tell Mevorakh also was rebuilt over Funerary evidence. Some of the
broadroom (Wright 1965a: 95-101). its predecessor from stratum XI. most impressive funerary assem-
The Fosse Temple at Lachish was Cult objects found in situ, on or as- blages of the Late Bronze Age can be
rebuilt and enlarged. Although the sociated with the cult platform, give assigned wholly or partially to its
plan of Structure II was closer to a an indication of the type of worship IIA period. These large, often reused,
broadroom sanctuary with offering that was practiced. In addition to sepulchers accommodated multiple
benches on three sides, the new pottery vessels, glass pendants, and burials accompanied by a remark-
"altar" was built against the south faience (Mitannian style) cylinder able display of material wealth that
wall directly over its predecessor, seals, the deposit included a group ofreflects the cosmopolitan character
emphasizing the sanctity associated important bronzes: knives, a pair of of the age. A good example is Cave
with the spot. In level VI on the tell cymbals, a circular pendant with a 10A at Gezer (Seger 1972). The cave
at Lachish the Summit Temple had a star design, and a snake measuring was probably dug as a cistern but
I,. y) Q )Q) Q
Ciirts~ oth Ori?na 1nttub _nvrit fChc
prus, it had a surprisingly wide dis- for a dozen other children. The last
tribution in Canaan, from Ugarit to burial in Cave 10A was that of a tall
female about 34 years of age (named Tell el-Farcah (South), and from the
Sarah by the excavation staff) who coast as far inland as Amman and
rl r?
??
was interred in the entrance passage. Sahab (Leonard 1987a; Hankey 1974;
r.r
Close to her hand lay one of the Ibrahim 1975).
?( tL~R ?.( i
r
r??. ~~1? ?~Z~Bd?;?

??
finest and earliest examples of
..
Egyptian glass vessels thus far found Late Bronze IIB

...
c.
..
..
.? ?? mtr~? ~? I\
r?
r, in Palestine. ??
?
Late Bronze IIB, a period characterized
Originally, not secondarily, by conflict, lasted approximately 120
r
_::?:::~::- -: ::~i::
;?:?:-? -
::::?? : :? :: :?::::: ;::~:: :
planned as a burial place, Tomb years. During this time both Egyp-
8144-8145 was cut into bedrock in tian and Syro-Palestinian rulers were
ii~~iii:_:iii~iiiiiiiDLiii ii-~:lii~:i~i:i:
_:- ::~; __:: i:: :- .:~- :-: _: --:-: ::: ::::

-:~::?:_- _:::::-:_:~: _i-i-i:i:.i-i i~
::_:;a :_:-~:?::::- ::: :: :~::::::: :a:
area F of the Lower City of Hazor. forced to defend their territories

-::-: -:::::--: ::'"`::- :ici-i d4' -_-i?ai'- -li-ii:i'-i--- .ii~--?
~:::::~:::::~i:::--;:-~::_:i::::l': ::::r~::_:i::-:~;::::::-_-i::::::i:::?::::~:::: ::::::::::_:~:::::-:i;::-:-::-;~::::
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~i:i :-:::~:--iii-i~:i--- --:: ::::-:::: ::,:.:: ,: : :,: ::i:::a

:::: ::::;: ::: ::~:::: :: =::
This fourteenth-century shaft tombagainst attacks by foreign intruders,

iii:ilii--:i i:~il . i:izii:i:i:i~i- -----:nli -i: -i~-- -: :~::- --
: --;::":::a::: ::: ~:- : -::_:-,:._i::::a- -- -::a:_:-:__i:ni:_ :: _:~::_:_:-__-r_-i
Ssi:~:i~iiixi~ia:i-~iii-ii-i:i-D::-i
-i:~i:i-i:i~r-i:--i:~-i-: -ii-~iiaiiii~iQ:i:%,ii-il'~?,:i~i:i;i::
.:P: i
i~:i: iii ::~:: :- :i~::- :-:--::o: :: ::I_: :- _:~:: :::i:: : : ::::::::~:
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contained an exceptional quantity ofmost notably the Sea Peoples. With

: _--i- ' :g: :: :~:_ __-- i-~-:- -:- .__~-- _-
_: ::i~:-: :: ::s:-? :
-:: -si: :-:-:-:::::::
iiiiia-i-i-ili~ii~ii~iii~ii~iii~i~ii-i:i
-''-:'-":i:~litijii . -i~ ii-i-iii~ii :.:8: i:i;i:~fi -iii:i~i -: :::~:-:-:.:-"-- :- -:-::- ~:: __: _ .".. ::::::~:: :: :::a::i:::::-: :: ::~::: :::
":: ::~:::
: :::::': :-: ':" ::::'::::~: ?::-i:::~:i??:i-
:". :- :i~- _i- ::~ii :~:- -:: iciiiiilii?iii-iiiiii:i~ii iiiiili~i -i: iili: _i-ii-~i: : :-:'--?- --- --, - ---::ii-i ii~iii ii ii9iiiiiii i~ii iii iii~iiiii iiili-iiiii
grave goods, including more than their passing the Bronze Age slowly
i::: :: :~-- -'
ii-i _iii:ii~?: i::::,: :::::?:: :-::?::::-::::?:: i:iii:~:i ii iii~ii iiiiii:iiiiii.iiiiii . -;: _:_i~B' -:li: :~-r '-: - '": : ": -::::-'~-- ii:-_-i9-:-:i 'riiiiiii:~ii i-i iii~i-iii i:~:ii:
::-:-_:_l-s:-:;_:-:-;~::::_:::?a:::-;-:- :::::~::::_
::::: I:::::':-i(i-i.~i:i::- :il~i-~-i:i~:-::-:-i i-~-i:i
i:i-i-~-i::-i:i-i-6ii-i:ii~.i:i -i-i~'i-i~i:i:si-i----ii~i:i-ii-ilJ:i -i:i-isi~.i- i-i:~-iii-i:i--ii-::~i:~ili .x. : iii~i _ a ii i~i iii-~i i-iii.~iii-i(::g:- i-i i~:i--ii-iili-:i_-?: ,::
i-i iifiiiili-.:-i:i ii: iiaiiiiiii iiiCi ii- -~-::: i?~- iii iii~i -i:i:iiE iiii iirii-ii:ii~i - -::
_e%- --- _-:~::: _::i~i::::::_:i~-:: :_~::--:- ::-:::~-::- i~- -:::s:i::: i~-:i i ~I .s. :g :i d. :i-i~i:ii:iii~ii: .:.j~:__.~
:::-"-:-::: -i~-i-i--iis ii i-i3iliii?iiiii-i -i--i:~ii-:- :i:'i'i-- :::~:-:::::?:
~~:-_::-:-:~-:---~i~~:il::ii8:::---::lr :::::::~::::-::::~:::::::::i
500 restorable vessels that demon- came to a close. Egypt, then in the
_:- _-:_:_:__:_-::: :: ii-::::: ::_~--:__:_-im:::: :::~:::-:-::- :~-:-;::::::~::::--:
::::__::::::::;-:-:-:--:::-:~::i:::-~::: ::i:~:::ii::-:6-?iiii~jiji-i:i~:i::::::~i:Bi- i:iii.3i-iiii?i~:i -i-ii-i:~ii-i : :9:i

:::: ::::1 -'"" :;:: ::::: :::- : ::;': :: ::-: -: ::~::_:- _:_::
strate the full range of Late Bronze early part of its Twentieth Dynasty,
;~:: ::: :::,: :: --:: -':--::~::::-::- -I-i ?i:ii-~-iii-iil :: -:-:- ::: :::~ ?:-- -::: i-: :: ::~-----i.-::~::: :::-:i:ai:
:-:::-:: i: O i-i:iiiHi:_ i:i?i:- :: -?:: ; -:'::~::::--:::: ::-::
-i~;:i::i~ii?i iii: _--:iiiiii.i:i ::~-i:--:::--:-:- i- -:~:-
:' :::"::
::" : ::': : :::':
:'::': : :
:'-: : -: ::::~:::: -i~?i- -i
_'-~-i:i:: -~_ :_-i ~:i-ii I::i-iiii~i ii-iiii~i i- _~::ii:?il:F::
i-i~ii : iii -.~i-ii-i- 'D.' -i e'
: ;:: :::'::-i::i:::?:::: ::::::--::':::?'::
IIA local ceramics as well as importswas entering what would be a long

::,: : : ii~ii i-i-~Eiii:i-i~i~ii~i-ii~iii:iii~iii-i:i- i-ri i--i-i--i , :::,:
i-id-i ili~i ---i-~ :.:.a: i--~-- -:-j-::---_-- - . -i;
from Cyprus and the Aegean (Myce- period of decline, and Syro-Palestine
was subsequently usednaean) forworldfunerary
(Yadin and others 1960: was about to begin the period that
purposes throughout most, 140-53, if159-60).
not all, archaeologists refer to as the Iron Age.
of the fifteenth century and The desire
part to be
of buried with an Egyptian Historical Evidence. Egyp-
the fourteenth century array of imported
B.C.E. if one isgoods can tian kings in the Nineteenth Dynasty
luxury
to judge from the more also than
be seen atoneTel Dan (Tell el-Qadi) considered themselves the legiti-
hundred complete vessels, where Tomb local
387, a and
structure built of mate successors of the great pre-
Cypriot, and other rich fieldstone,
gravecontained
goodsa melange of Amarna pharaohs of the Eighteenth
that it contained. Dating 45 interments
to Late of men, women, and Dynasty. Horemheb was succeeded
Bronze IIA or slightly children earlier isarray
and an a of funerary by Ramesses I,17 an elderly vizier
full-length coffin embellished offerings of gold, with
silver, bronze, and who ruled for a little over a year
rows of handles down the sides and ivory. The imported pottery included before his place was taken by his son
along the lid. Similar larnax-burials an exceptionally well-preserved Sethos I.18 In the manner of Amosis
are known from Crete in the Middle Mycenaean "chariot vase." This large, and Tuthmosis III, Sethos I wasted
to Late Minoan period (Buchholz well-made vessel is decorated with a no time in setting out for Canaan. In
and Karageorghis 1973: 82-83, parade of horse-drawn chariots and the first year of his reign, which he
number 1064), but this form is so far would have held a position of pride termed "the Renaissance," he had
unique in Palestine. This sarcopha- on the table - or in the tomb - of anyalready ventured into Palestine try-
gus was apparently intended for the member of the maryanna. Although ing to reestablish the old Egyptian
interment of an adult and child but the Mycenaean chariot krater has frontiers. No longer guided by the
subsequently served as an ossuary been found more frequently in Cy- more ephemeral and placid Aton

Right: A small single-room temple was built in area C at Hazor during the Late Bronze IIA
and was rebuilt during IIB. A section of that temple shows a full complement of cult furnishings.
The plan of the later phase shows the objects arranged in a slight arc before an oblong offering
table in a niche along the western wall. Below: A basalt statue of a sitting male deity with an
inverted, possibly lunar, crescent suspended from his neck was found among the objects. Also
found in the niche were ten masseboth, or standing stones, the central one of which was
carved with two hands reaching upward toward a crescent. These objects suggest that this
broadroom shrine was the focus of a lunar cult. Drawing of plan by Lois A. Kain. Drawing of
cult objects courtesy of J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen.
who "filled every land with ... (possibly Tell el-Hammeh) in league ses II,19 a younger son who pushed
beauty" (Pritchard 1590: 370), Sethoswith the people of Pella (Pahel, Tabaqataside his elder brother the crown prince
I proceeded northward guided and Fahel) in Transjordan. Sethos I and to become the longest ruling pharaoh
protected by the god Amon, whose his forces defeated the alliance in a (sixty-seven years) in Egyptian his-
"heart is satisfied at the sight of single day and set up a basalt stele at tory. For the first few years of his
blood ... (who) cuts off the heads ofBeth Shan to commemorate his reign Ramesses II - King Ozyman-
the perverse of heart ... (who) lovesachievements (Pritchard 1950: 253- dias of Percy Shelley's poetry- con-
an instant of trampling more than a 54). He then continued northward solidated his position at home. To
day of jubilation" (Pritchard 1950: through Kadesh, northwest of Lake the north, the Hittites consolidated
254). Although the ultimate goal of Huleh (Aharoni 1967: 166), through their power in northern Syria under
this ferocious pair was to confront the Lebanon Valley, and on to the King Muwatallis, who had moved the
the Hittites in northern Syria, the coast near Tyre where cedar was cut Hittite capital south to Tattashsha
Egyptian army had to begin fighting for the glory of the god Amon. Upon (Goetze 1975b: 129) to be nearer to
as close to home as the southern his return to Egypt the country his Syrian interests. (For a different
Sinai where the Shasu bedouin were turned out in celebration, for it had reason for the move, see Bittel 1970:
disrupting the smooth flow of travel-not seen such a victorious pharaoh 20-22.) In his fourth year, however,
ers and material along the approxi- in more than half a century. Sethos I'sRamesses II reached the Nahr el-Kalb
mately 120-mile roadway known as good start in regaining control over (Dog River) near Beirut and left his
the Way of Horus that led from Syro-Palestine was only a beginning inscription on the neighboring rock
Egypt to Gaza. for, as we have learned from a secondcliffs; in the following year he headed
Fighting continued as the army stele erected by Sethos I at Beth Shan,north to face the largest coalition of
moved northward through Palestine even the Habiru continued to be a Syrian forces that the Hittites had
to retake Beth Shan from a confeder- problem for the Egyptians. yet been able to muster.
ation led by the Prince of Hammath Sethos I was succeeded by Rames- Tension had been building be-
w***
and that the pharaoh's victory was at

best a draw.
i r i
In subsequent years Ramesses II

continued to find it neccessary to
campaign in Asia to keep the Egyp-
tian image strong (Cerny 1958;
6134 Giveon 1965; Kitchen 1964), not
only at distant Syrian sites such as
Qatna (Misrife) but also much closer
to home at Acco/Acre and even nearby
:........
Ashkelon when "it became wicked"
(Pritchard 1950: 256). New evidence
I MAIL~4 suggests, however, that the scene of
-4
the siege of Ashkelon in the temple
1 Is Mill WH
of Karnak, which is usually attrib-
MOP.,
uted to Ramesses II, may actually
WINE have belonged to his son Merneptah
(Yurco 1978 and quoted in Stager
1985). The endless warfare must
have taken a tremendous amount of
energy on both sides, and with Lib-
yan and Sherden pressure building
on Egypt's western flank, plus the
growing power of Assyria on the
Hittite's southern border, the stage
was finally set for a true peace be-
tween the two belligerents. Sixteen
years after the Battle of Kadesh a
tween the twothroughout superpowers
Egypt (Karnak, Luxor, for some
peace treaty between Ramesses II
time, but the real cause
Abu Simbel), of boast
but the pharaoh's the con-III, then king of the
and Hattusilis
flict was the defection of total, single-handed ofvictory
theseems Hittites,
king was inscribed
of on silver
Amurru from the Hittite to the to be somewhat overstated. Docu- tablets that bore the imprint of the
Egyptian side (Bittel 1970: 124). The ments from the Hittite capital of two royal seals. A cuneiform text of
two sides met at Kadesh-on-the- Hattusha (near modern Bogazk6y) the treaty was preserved in the ar-
Orontes where the Egyptian army, give another version: "At the time chives at Bogazk6y, and hieroglyphic
led by Ramesses II, was ambushed when king Muwatallis made war versions of it appear at the Temple of
by an estimated force of 17,000 sol- against the king of Egypt, when he Amon at Karnak and in the mortuary
diers who lay in wait for him on the defeated the king of Egypt, the Egyp- temple of Ramesses II (the "Rames-
northeastern side of the city. Accord- tian king went back to the country seum") on the opposite bank of the
ing to the Egyptian version, it was of Aba. But then king Muwatalli Nile (Pritchard 1950: 199-203; Lang-
the personal valor of Ramesses II defeated the country of Aba, then hedon and Gardiner 1920). Thirteen
that countered the Hittite treachery. marched back to the country of years after the treaty was signed it
"He cast them into the water like Hatti" (Bittel 1970: 125). If Ramesses was commemorated by the marriage
crocodiles, and he slew whomever was pressed as far south as Aba, just of Ramesses II to the daughter of
he desired" (Steindorf and Seele to the north of Damascus (Steindorf Hattusilis III who was personally
1957: 251). The events of the day are and Seele 1957: 251), it would seem escorted to Egypt during the rainy
depicted in surprisingly accurate that the Hittite version was the months of winter by her father the
topographical detail on temple walls more truthful of the two accounts Great King of Hatti (Bittel 1970: 127).
Some of the most impressive funerary assem-
blages of the Late Bronze Age can be assigned
to the IIA period. Below: This sarcophagus
from Cave 10OA at Gezer contains the remains
of a single adult and twelve young children.
Evidently the adult's coffin served as a pro-
tected repository for the remains of the chil-
dren in subsequent burials in the tomb.
Right: The last burial found in the entrance
tunnel to Cave 10OA at Gezer was that of a
tall female, about 34 years of age, named
Sarah by the excavation staff. The woman's
remains were found just inside the entryway.
Close to her head was a magnificent Egyptian
"sand core" glass vessel, one of the finest and
earliest examples of Egyptian glass found to
date in Palestine. Photographs by Theodore
A. Rosen, courtesy of Hebrew Union College,
Cincinnati.
Multiple burials were common during the Late Bronze IIA. At Gezer, for example, the scattered
skeletal remains of eighty-nine individuals were found in Cave IOA. Also found in situ was
this full-length coffin embellished with rows of handles down the sides and along the lid.
Although this sarcophagus is similar to larnax-burials from Minoan Crete, the form is unique in
Palestine. Photograph by Theodore A. Rosen, courtesy of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.
This event must have been impor-

tant to the pharaoh because he in-
cluded it among the scenes he had
carved on temples as far south as
Abu Simbel in Nubia.
Ramesses was succeeded by his
thirteenth son Merneptah,20 who
must have been older than 50 at the
time of his coronation. The major
threat to Egypt during his reign came
from the west where a large army
from Libya, abetted by an assortment
of future Sea Peoples was pressing
hard against his territories in the
western Delta. Merneptah was suc-
cessful in battle against these in-
truders during his fifth year, and to
celebrate he erected in his mortuary
temple at Thebes a stele inscribed
with a victory hymn that ended with
a song of triumph over his Asiatic
enemies. Some scholars contend
that the Victory Hymn of Merneptah,
also known as the Israel Stele, is the
earliest record identifying Israel as an
unsettled people in Palestine, since
of all the countries mentioned on
the stele Israel alone is written withthe word/term "Israel" for "Shasu"
the hieroglyphic determinative for abedouin. Such an interpretation
people rather than for a land (Millerwould suggest that whatever Israel
and Hayes 1986: 68-69). This stele is was at this time, it was not com-
important to biblical scholarship in pletely understood by the Egyptians.
any event because it is the only men- Within five years of this suspect
tion of Israel in Egyptian records. victory, Merneptah had died and
The text is full of examples of scrib-been buried in Thebes where his
al carelessness, however, and the mummy has survived. With his
reference to a "pacified" Hatti was death a disruption close to anarchy
simply not true, although under enveloped Egypt (Faulkner 1975:
Arnuwandash III the Hittites did ob-235-39; Cerny 1975). Kings Amen-
serve the treaty that existed between messes and Siptah left no apparent
the two nations. Donald B. Redford mark on western Asia, but the car-
(1986) has completely denied the
Yellow and white festoons decorate the neck of
veracity of Merneptah's boasts of an the blue-gray glass (unguent?) container found
Asiatic campaign during the early near Sarah's head in Cave 10OA at Gezer. Late
part of his reign, claiming that the Bronze IIA burials were often accompanied
by a remarkable display of wealth that re-
Victory Hymn was actually plagia- flects the cosmopolitan character of the age.
rized from an inscription of Ramesses Photograph by Theodore A. Rosen, courtesy
II at Karnak with the substitution of of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.
i: - I::-:~ '. :._: i-'-:ii--:iii:~:: _ ::_- ii--i :-: i:.-.
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~i ?i_~i i~iiii: iii~i ii iii~ i~i i ii~iiii iii~iiii C :: i9i-ii:i -i~_- -_ -----i i iiii~iii: _. : i-i:- :jiii~ :- ;- i - - - - ir:- -
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Ei : iiiiai i: i Dii i: ii~i . i-~ iii iii: : + --: ?: il;i -_ i:iia- i-i iisi ii
Right: This Mycenaean "chariot vase" from

:: ii~iiiii ii~iiii: im ii :i~:-: :_:-:--: ~-:: :: :::::::: ::":;:: ;::1: iiij~i-:i _i~:--::li~ _i '8ii-: iii:i ;
:.1~- ':F_ .~ - 3-i-i i-i~- ?-i-~ i?:iF :'-~i :;:1:~-' :ii~~:-:.:i, ::::: : Idri' :i:-- i
~n :::::*: 'ii-iil:i:::liii~- li:::~i:: :~:ili i ~? .
Tomb 387 at Tel Dan, decorated with a parade :i~:ii_ i?~iiii iii:;- - ii~i-i-?r:i~:i-, a,:: i~ii R
of horse-drawn chariots, would have held a

... ii~,-iiii~i - iii~i -i iii~ii:: :::~?-i;i-jii~
_iQ~lii iiaii:
=~
place of pride on the table-or in the tomb- ee,
=--?'-"--- -- --: i-----ii~ -i::i~i:i:i ii: i:i'~:iziii:i-iil::i:I: -::i';_i--:ii~-iiii ii-~:-ii::-~ ii ' ..:%. -: i-_-i- i
iiii:- - ii, - i, : r~
of any Canaanite prince or member of the .~cf r:

r i :: i?~iiiliiii~iii ~,,;,,.
maryanna (the chariot-owning nobility). ~ O:~:
8~~.8?
i-i
r~r
i:;-i--i--i:i:si-i:i
rj~
:iip ~
: : :: ::--:-: -~ - _-i:--:__::s_ _s::,a-_
Imported luxury goods are a common feature

?i~i-- iii~;i ii~iii iiic~: --- ::~-s-- :i~: :: ?:i~-----
of burials from the Late Bronze IIA. Drawing ii:iii

-::::
iiii:iii~:i
i:ii-i:~i-i- ii~i: i-i
-i si - i:i i i:i~--- i~ . i:mii-i- iii~-i-:i:i
from Biran (1970), courtesy of the Hebrew

Union College, Jerusalem. Below right: The
~qT: ~r
I
:~: : :~: ::- ::~ : :-- : ::,::: /A
Late Bronze IIB was a period of seemingly ;tr?ll~ :~:i: ii~iiii li~i . ii:i~i:i iii~i~i:i~- i-i.:l:~-i?5:
Zi-~-i?ii~:~i-':"-:
?~i - -:-
rv
-'-:-:-
?; o ::-
endless warfare as Egyptian rulers of the
Nineteenth Dynasty ventured into Syro- ?:.ei:?:?ri~;rLI'I~~?i?~~'iL
~:L __ clL~
rerrc i? ii-:i:i-i--i
i?i, i;-- : :
Q 3;i3r \?`f r
Palestine in an attempt to regain control of
areas that had been lost during the Amarna ~-ii cS ?~'
iBi-:i- O~ :"'7 ,t
P~ rr In-f i
period. In this drawing of a relief from the ?*~~ ; ;TC??- ?-P.. F. ~?? ~~ . .--
Temple of Ramesses II at Karnak, the coastal
iii-Pi.- ii:r.;-:iii~i--i iiiLii-: iiii~ii -ii-ii: i;
i-i--iiiiiiiiiL- :'''-'~"'- .- - '~: ~L'- j_~i_: ii~l : :;

:,i-ii-iifiiiiiiiibi:i i.~i-i:i-i-~-iii :a::: *j-_-: -E: i:jii::i_ i:---: _:::-_ -
i c: :-----_iiir:_i_ :i:iai-ii-i?i-i~ii a-i- iii~ii ii~i- iii~ii:s:i:uii -~_i ? : --
city of Ashkelon is being attacked and over-
taken by Egyptian forces. This victory scene
is usually attributed to Ramesses II, but new
data suggest that it should be dated to the
reign of his son Merneptah, fourth pharaoh of
the Nineteenth Dynasty. Drawing from
Stager (1985), courtesy of the Israel Explora-
tion Society
touche, or royal seal, of Sethos I121

has been found impressed on a pot-
sherd at Tell el Farcah (South) (Wein-
stein 1981: 22) and a faience vessel
bearing the name of Queen Tewosret22
was discovered at Deir cAlla in the
Transjordan (Franken 1961; Dorne- iii-B- ii ii
mann 1983: 20, 44; Faulkner 1975:

235-39; Yoyotte 1962). During this
period of uncertainty it appears that
a Syrian prince was actually able to
claim title to the throne of Egypt
(Pritchard 1950: 260). Putting an end
to this state of chaos, which bordered
on civil war, was Sethnakhte,23 a
man of uncertain origin who became
the first king of the Twentieth
Dynasty. Although he ruled for only
a year, Sethnakhte seems to have
placed the country back on track
before leaving the kingship to his
son Ramesses III.4
For the first few years of his reign
Ramesses III was faced with con-
tinued threats from the Libyans and
their allies in the western Delta,
similar to the situation that his
The Sea Peoples posed the greatest threat
to the region since the movements of the
Hyksos more than three centuries earlier.
predecessor Merneptah had faced. Brug 1985; Dothan 1982b; Barnett ranean since the movements of the
To the north and east of Egypt, how- 1975). In his eighth year Ramesses Hyksos more than three centuries
ever, trouble in the form of the SeaIII was forced to deploy the Egyptianearlier: "They were coming forward
Peoples was almost literally on the army and navy in an attempt to toward Egypt, while the flame was
horizon. This international coali- thwart the progress of the Sea Peo- prepared before them. Their con-
tion was quickly moving into the ples who represented the greatest federation was the Philistines, Tjeker,
Egyptian orb, bringing with them threat to the stability of the coun- Shekelesh, Denye[n], and Weshesh,
death and destruction (Sandars 1978;tries of the southeastern Mediter- lands united. They laid their hands
In the eighth year of his reign, during Late

Bronze IIB in Palestine, Ramesses III was
forced to deploy his army and navy to thwart
the eastward progress of the Sea Peoples, an
international confederation that represented
the greatest threat to the region since the
movements of the Hyksos more than three
centuries earlier. In the land battle shown
here, left, taken from the mortuary temple of
Ramesses III at Medinet Habu in Thebes,
confusion reigns as the pharaoh's forces,
assisted by Sherden mercenaries wearing
horned helmets (top row center), battle the
invaders' infantry somewhere along the Syro-
Palestinian coast. The Sea Peoples, some of
whom are characterized by tall, featherlike
helmets, must have been severely hampered
by the presence of their families and their
slow, ox-drawn wagons with heavy solid
wheels. In the naval scene below, also taken
from Medinet Habu, the lion-headed prows
on the Egyptian fleet bear down on the ships
of the Sea Peoples somewhere along the
eastern shore of the Nile Delta. The Sea
Peoples' ships have high, duck-headed prows
and sterns but no oars, the absence of which
might mean that the Egyptian fleet had caught
them by surprise. Sherden mercenaries are
depicted as fighting on both sides of the fray.
Drawings from Dothan (1982b), courtesy of
The Oriental Institute of The University of
Chicago.
Ramesses III defeated the Sea Peoples on
land and sea, but the victory depleted
Egypt of much of its revenue and resolve.
upon the lands as far as the circuit of victorious, but it must have been a the disruptions mentioned in the
the earth, their hearts confident and Pyrrhic victory at best. It so ex- kiln tablets with the eastern move-
trusting: 'Our plans will succeed!' " hausted the nation in both revenue ments of the Sea Peoples (compare,
(Dothan 1982b: 3). and resolve that Egypt entered into a however, Schaeffer's changing views:
Ramesses Il and his forces fought period of steep decline that lasted for 1939b: 45-46, 1968: 760-68).
this international confederation on centuries. Archaeological Evidence in Canaan.
two fronts. Somewhere along the At Ras Shamra (Ugarit) the The archaeological record for Late
coast of Palestine his army met the remarkable discovery of a kiln for Bronze IIB in Canaan is mixed. Local
infantry and chariotry of their land baking clay tablets that was filled pottery continued to decline; sur-
forces. The Egyptians were victoriouswith about 100 pieces of foreign cor- prisingly, the quality of Cypriot
over the invaders, who must surely respondence that had been translated imports also deteriorated, and even-
have been severely hampered by the into Ugaritic, a Semitic language tually these imports disappeared;
necessity of protecting their familiesclosely related to Phoenician and Mycenaean goods were still popular,
who accompanied them in slow ox- Biblical Hebrew, indicates that thisbut they were also less well made
drawn wagons with heavy solid area also faced impending danger, than before, perhaps produced out-
wheels: "Those who came on [land imminent doom. Before the ancient side the traditional Aegean produc-
were overthrown and killed]. Amon- scribes could return to remove these tion centers. In architecture, we are
Re was after them, destroying them. tablets, disaster struck the city, and beginning to learn more about the
Those who entered the river-mouths the palace was destroyed. Fortunate- administrative centers in the south,
were like birds ensnared in the ly, the tablets survived to tell their which possibly relate to an Egyptian
net. ... Their leaders were carried story (well summarized in Drower presence; cult architecture shows
off and slain. They were cast down 1975: 145-47; see also Astour 1965). continuity with the past; and we
and pinioned" (Dothan 1982b: 3). They tell how in parts of Great Hatti,know little of Canaanite domestic
Much closer to home, some- for example, famine was described architecture. Burial customs during
where off the eastern shores of the as being a "matter of life and death," the period were strange and varied.
Delta, a sea battle raged. Oar-drivencausing the Hittite king Suppilu- Ceramic record. The quality of
Egyptian ships with reefed sails, liumas II to call on his vassal in Late Bronze IIB pottery continued
often identified by their lion-headedUgarit to send a shipment of 2,000 the decline already noted in the pre-
prows, clashed with the ships of themeasures of grain to Cilicia. Pagan, ceding periods. The shapes of cari-
Sea Peoples, which were charac- ruler of Alasiya/Cyprus, also wrote nated bowls, cooking pots, kraters,
terized by high duck-headed prows to Ugarit requesting food supplies. and mugs remained about the same,
and sterns. The absence of any de- But how could Ugarit help? Its armybut a carelessness of execution and
piction of oars on the ships of thesehad already been sent northward to of decoration seems to have been the
intruders may indicate that they help the Hittites, and its navy had hallmark of Palestinian pottery in
were caught by surprise by the Egyp- been stationed off the Lycian (Lykka)the thirteenth century B.C.E.
tian fleet (Dothan 1982b: 7), but in coast; stripped of its defenses, it had The only morphological differ-
any case they were undoubtedly already been ravaged. As Ammurapi ences in the local repertoire, other
overwhelmed by the pharaoh's navy:of Ugarit responded to the Cypriot than size and proportion, were in the
"Those who came forward together request, "behold, the enemy's ships dipper juglet and flask. Dipper jug-
on the sea, the full flame was in came here; my cities(?) were burned,lets dating to this period often had a
front of them at the river mouths, and they did evil things in my coun- pinched lip and vertically shaved
while a stockade of lances surrounded try" (Astour 1965: 255). Marauders body. Shaved juglets became popular
them on the shore. They were dragged were everywhere. Soon the city of in Cyprus as well at this time; their
in, enclosed, and prostrated on the Ugarit was completely destroyed andfabric and distinctive manner of
beach, killed, and made into heaps its ruins "mined" for valuables. pushing the base of the handle
from tail to head. Their ships and Afterwards, a different, much less through the vessel wall pointed to
their goods were as if fallen into the sophisticated people settled on the their having been manufactured on
water" (Dothan 1982b: 3). Egypt was site. It is difficult not to associate the island. A similar technique was
This clay tablet contains the 30-character cuneiform alphabet of Ugaritic, a Semitic language
closely related to Phoenician and Biblical Hebrew. At Ras Shamra (Ugarit) a kiln for baking
clay tablets was found containing about 100 pieces of foreign correspondence that had been
translated into Ugaritic. These texts tell their own story of destruction at the hands of foreign
invaders. Although the kiln tablets do not mention the intruders by name, it is hard not to
associate the events recorded on them with the onslaught of the Sea Peoples into Syro-Palestine
during Late Bronze IIB. Photograph by Marwan Musselmany, courtesy of Ali Abou-Assaf,
director general of Antiquities and Museums, Damascus.
IY -
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The plans of these four buildings-from Aphek, Tell el-Farcah (South), Beth Shan, and Tell
esh-Sharicah - exemplify a distinctive type of well-built, mudbrick structure termed the
Governor's Residency. Because of the similarity of their plans and interior room arrangement,
both with suggested Egyptian affinities, these buildings are thought to have been the adminis-
trative centers through which Egypt exercised political control over Syro-Palestine in the Nine-
teenth and early Twentieth Dynasties. Drawings by Lois A. Kain.
similar circle and cross was carved

on his chest. This deity has been
identified as the storm-god Hadad,
and it is thought that the area H
temple was dedicated to him (Yadin on.-
1972: 95).
The small single-room temple
in area C, first noted in Late Bronze
IIA, was rebuilt in this period. The
cult focus of this broadroom shrine
was a niche in its western wall that '111l arah(SAlth11
contained a full complement of cult
Woo
furnishings arranged in a slight arc
before an offering table. In the niche
was a large basalt statue of a beard-
rR
less, seated male holding a cup or
bowl in his right hand; he wears no
identifying headdress, but an in-
verted (lunar?) crescent is suspended
from his neck. The niche also con-
tained ten basalt masseboth (stand-
ing stones), one of which has a carv-
ing on it of a pair of outstretched
human arms/hands apparently reach
ing toward a disc and crescent. WN4K:i
KTl--i~---
Yigael Yadin compared the motif on St MiiIN-Si:i-
this massebah (stone) with one on a R.~i i a
stele from Zinjirli inscribed with a :..u 4 g
dedication to Baal of Harran and

suggested that the area C shrine was
the focus of a lunar cult (Yadin and
others 1958: 89; Yadin 1970).
Although they were originally
constructed as early as the Middle
Bronze Age (Schaeffer 1936: 11), the
temples to Dagan and his son Baal at
Ras Shamra most probably survived
into the Late Bronze IIB period to ingly ric
Fune
judge from a Nineteenth Dynasty(?) and varied burial customs were
vessels (
stele of the Egyptian "royal scribe practiced during the LateTh
1974). Bronze IIB
and chief treasurer" Mami dedicated period has been demonstrated
ously ide at
to "Baal of the North," the great god cult,
many sites. Thehum
cemetery at Tell es-
of Ugarit, that was found just inside nants, bu
Sacidiyeh, which has been partially
his temple (Schaeffer 1939a: 24). dated by its Aegean imports,
(Herr 198 pro-
When the Amman airport in institutio
duced two tombs (Numbers 102,
Jordan was being expanded in 1955, a rites
117) in which theofdeceased were
stone building, square in plan, was possible
wrapped in cloth and subsequently
discovered and found to be exceed- to the nor
coated with bitumen, possibly in
This aerial view of a building at Tell es-Sacidiyeh in the Transjordan reveals the characteristic
plan of the Governor's Residency, with its square shape and rooms grouped around a small
central hall. Photograph courtesy of Jonathan N. Thbb, The British Museum.
by neutron activation analysis of

clay samples from the Deir el-Balah
sarcophagi (Perlman, Asaro, and
Dothan 1973). Although plain un-
decorated coffins have been found,
they are rare; on most sarcophagi the
face and/or upper torso of the de-
ceased has been modelled on the lid.
Painted accents also have been found.
The maker of the clay coffin found
in Tomb 570 at Lachish attempted to
paint a prayer in hieroglyphs along
with a representation of the goddess
Isis and her sister Nephtys, two of
the four female deities closely asso-
ciated with the rites of mummifica-
tion in Egypt. Funerary offerings
that were buried in these anthropoid
coffins, both in Canaan and Egypt,
were truly international, including
pottery and other artifacts from as far
away as Cyprus and the Aegean World.
Trude Dothan has identified
two main phases in which these
anthropoid sarcophagi were used. In
the first phase, which took place
during the late fourteenth and into
the thirteenth century B.C.E., they
appear to have been the choice of
high-ranking Egyptian officials,
imitation of, or as a substitute for, population. (For these tombs, see either civilian or military, who
more standard Egyptian rites of Pritchard 1964, 1965, 1980; also see served at Egyptian garrisons in
mummification. In a third tomb, Tubb 1988b for more intriguing Canaan. To this group might be
which was lined with mudbrick, the burials from the new excavations at added Egyptianized locals of similar
deceased was interred in a more nor- the site.) status and foreign mercenaries of
mal manner, but the wealth of the Another manifestation of the some rank. Coffins dating to this
individual was evidenced by the richdegree of Egyptian influence on the first phase have been uncovered at
supply of grave offerings; these burial practices of at least one Deir el-Balah, Beth Shan, Tell el-Farcah
items consisted of an assortment of segment of Canaanite society can (South), and, if it is correct to assign
bronzes including a wine set (laver, be seen in the use of anthropoid sar- Tomb 570 to stratum VI, at Lachish
bowl, strainer, and juglet) that was cophagi at sites such as Deir el- (see Dothan 1982b: 252-88). The
kept close at hand for use in the Balah (Dothan 1979, 1982a). These practice of using clay anthropoid
afterlife. Inasmuch as burial prac- large clay coffins represented a type coffins outlived the Late Bronze Age,
tices are a conservative part of one's of middle-class burial practiced in as seen in examples from Dothan's
personal and religious beliefs, the the Egyptian Delta during the New second phase of sarcophagi, which
mixture of such diverse burial types Kingdom, but their size and friability dates to the twelfth and eleventh
at Tell es-Sacidiyeh must indicate a suggest that those found in Palestine centuries B.C.E. after the groups of
similar diversity within the general were locally made, a fact supported vanquished Sea Peoples had settled-
Previously affluent Canaanites were
unable to maintain a high standard of
living at the end of the Late Bronze Age.
or had been settled - along the coast

of Canaan (Dothan, 1982b: 252-88).
Conclusion
The end of the Late Bronze Age in
Canaan came less with a bang than
with a whimper. Ramesses III had
stopped the Sea Peoples. Egypt and
its Asiatic empire were saved - for a
while. The pharaoh settled some of
the vanquished intruders along the
coast of southern Palestine, but
other survivors simply staked out
any relatively secure piece of land
and built new homes. The Bible
speaks of Philistines settling along
the southern coast, but in fact theyRight: Although originally constructed as
were probably a hybrid lot. They early as the Middle Bronze Age, the Temple of
could easily have included an admix- Baal at Ras Shamra (Ugarit) most probably
survived into the Late Bronze IIB period. The
ture of other Sea Peoples such as thetemple plan is strictly oriented along a north-
Sherden or the Tjeker who were south axis and an altar was placed in the
encountered by Wen Amun around courtyard, as it was in the "Seti I" temple in
stratum VI at Beth Shan. Drawing by Lois A.
1100 B.C.E. on his ill-fated trip to Kain. Above: One of the strange burial prac-
Byblos to purchase cedar wood (Prit-
tices found in Syro-Palestinian tombs dating
chard 1950: 25-29). The victim of to the Late Bronze IIB is the "double pithos"
burial, in which the deceased was placed
treachery and robbery, Wen Amun inside two large storage jars that had been
found that his position as "Senior ofbroken and joined at the shoulders to form a
the Forecourt of the House of Am- kind of coffin. The burial pictured here, grave
mon" had little influence on Zakar- 45 at Tell es-Sacidiyeh, illustrates a variant of
this burial type. Here the neck of a jar was
Baal, an eleventh-century prince of broken off to accept the head and upper torso
Byblos who forced him to camp on of the deceased while the lower torso was
the beach for almost a month while covered with large flat sherds from similar
pithoi. Photograph courtesy of Jonathan N.
sending him daily messages to "get Tubb, The British Museum.
out of my harbor!" It is difficult to
imagine a Canaanite prince respond-towns suffered one or more destruc-
ing in such a way to an Egyptian offi- tions in the second quarter of the
cial during the reign of Tuthmosis III,twelfth century B.C.E. (summarized
Ramesses II, or practically any otherby Fritz 1987) between the reigns of
non-Amarna pharaoh during the Ramesses III and Ramesses VI or
halcyon days of Egypt's Late Bronze possibly a little later. No single cul-chants were unable to maintain the
Age empire in Canaan. prit or culprits can be identified with
high standard of living they had
The archaeological record is oftencertainty, although the pharaohs, thecome to enjoy. No longer could they
uncertain and, at times, confusing Habiru, and/or the Sea Peoples/Phi-barter for the exotic products of dis-
tant lands or commission craftsmen
and difficult to read, but we get the listines, acting individually or in con-
impression that the lessening of cert, must share the blame for bring-to produce objets d'art whose eclec-
Egyptian control was a slow and ing the Late Bronze Age to a close. ticism and hybridization were the
gradual one (Weinstein 1981). Many Life became markedly different. very essence of the Late Bronze Age.
of the major Palestinian cities and Previously affluent Canaanite mer-A much different flavor began to
Left: This human male skeleton found in grave 251 at Tell es-Sacidiyeh shows distorted bone
displacement due to the tightness of the wrapping of the body. The bronze javelin head on the
chest of the skeleton preserved the imprint of two differently woven cloths, indicating that it
had been placed on the cloth-wrapped body of the deceased and then covered with a burial
shroud. Upper left: A fish-shaped ivory "cosmetic box" was found inside a bronze bowl that
had been placed over the pelvis of a man who was buried face down in grave 232 at Tell
es-Sacidiyeh. The significance of the fish theme is still a matter of speculation, but it apparently
had some meaning because a deposit of fish bones was placed on the back of the deceased's
skull at the time of interment, evidently as part of the funeral ceremony Upper right: Indica-
tive of the high standard of living that was attainable during the Late Bronze Age is this
bronze wine set, which was found at Tell es-Sacidiyeh in the burial of a wealthy individual.
Included in the set are a laver, juglet, and handled strainer. Photographs courtesy of Jonathan
N. Thbb, The British Museum.
fresh from their own island ports. It K. A. Kitchen (1987), which assigns an
would be almost a millennium, not accession date of 1479 B.C.E. for Tuth-
until the passing of the armies of mosis III and 1279 B.C.E. for Ramesses II.
Alexander the Great, before such an I also have accepted that the Sothic
international spirit would return to datum of the ninth year of Amenophis I,
these ancient shores. given in the Ebers Papyrus, was taken at
Thebes rather than at either Memphis or
Elephantine, thereby producing an initial
Notes date of 1550 B.C.E. for Amosis and the
pervade the cities and towns. Road- 'Absolute dates for the New Kingdombeginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
ways were empty of the pharaoh's Egyptian rulers (Eighteenth through For the sake of convenience, both the
Twentieth Dynasties) remain a matter of dates from the Cambridge Ancient His-
messengers, tinkers from Hatti, and
debate. Perhaps the most readily avail- tory (abbreviated as CAH) and Kitchen's
Cretan artisans enjoying the travels
able chronologies are those of the Cam-dates are presented here. Dates in both
of their trade. Things were quieter.
bridge Ancient History, but they are of these publications are given as "B.C.,"
The once prosperous seaports ceased based on views dating back to the 1950s as they are in the present author's origi-
to ring with the cacophany of ban- (see Hayes 1959) and much work has
nal manuscript. The use of "B.C.E." is the
tering Canaanite longshoremen, been done on the subject since then. Foreditorial policy of Biblical Archaeologist.
Cypriot sailors, and Aegean seamen better or worse, I have used the system of 2Kitchen: 1550-1525 B.C.E.; CAH:
1570-1546 B.C.E. 24Kitchen: 1184-1153 B.C.E.; CAH: New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
30r was it three successive campaigns 1198-1166 B.C.E.
Artzy, M., Perlman, I., and Asaro, E
against it? See James B. Pritchard (1950:
1973 The Origin of the "Palestinian"
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Archaeological Sources For The History of Palestine - The Late Bronze Age

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Archaeological Sources For The History of Palestine - The Late Bronze Age

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Archaeological Sources for the History of Palestine: The Late Bronze Age

Author(s): Albert Leonard, Jr.

The American Schools of Oriental Research is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

by Albert Leonard, Jr.

4 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 5

L ess than forty

gent attempts to synthesize our under-

6 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 7

:: :? : ,: : ~: :::i_~-::: :~- :: :: : _:::,--

i~:i.i-:i:~iii:ii -~i i;:,:i:~:-ii~i iiii

:":: : ':": -:i::~.:

4 ii L'iii L: iii iilii~i

:~-- ii i:i:b- . ii~:i::::::~-: :

of an Egyptian officer, Ahmose son emphasis on his prowess in maneu-

8 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 9

10 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Temple 2048 at Megiddo (stratum

~ front, would have continued in use

a related structure, Fortress Temple

1965a: 122 and following). At Hazor

religious architecture of Late Bronze,

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 11

12 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 13

14 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 15

worshippers with some of the neces-

16 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

i~~i'-. .. . . .ia- . . .~--~i?i ~ -~i-~ iii

i~i~-ii --1-iii-i i~i iIN

r: : :::;: --AMC MN?: k

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 17

naten, Smenkhkare, and Tutankh-

18 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

distant, and they sometimes tilted

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 19

20 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 21

22 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

r??. ~~1? ?~Z~Bd?;?

Egyptian glass vessels thus far found Late Bronze IIB

_:- ::~; __:: i:: :- .:~- :-: _: --:-: ::: ::::

area F of the Lower City of Hazor. forced to defend their territories

~i:i :-:::~:--iii-i~:i--- --:: ::::-:::: ::,:.:: ,: : :,: ::i:::a

This fourteenth-century shaft tombagainst attacks by foreign intruders,

contained an exceptional quantity ofmost notably the Sea Peoples. With

::::__::::::::;-:-:-:--:::-:~::i:::-~::: ::i:~:::ii::-:6-?iiii~jiji-i:i~:i::::::~i:Bi- i:iii.3i-iiii?i~:i -i-ii-i:~ii-i : :9:i

: ;:: :::'::-i::i:::?:::: ::::::--::':::?'::

IIA local ceramics as well as importswas entering what would be a long

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 23

24 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

and that the pharaoh's victory was at

In subsequent years Ramesses II

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 25

26 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989

This event must have been impor-

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1989 27

-.:- -i-;- -- :; ii ~ i~-i 4 i ~-i:- ;: ii i--l- _

,: -- :ii.i_-:i ~: g _1_ :, ii1:''iii:iiii--

Right: This Mycenaean "chariot vase" from