Egypt, Israel, and the Ancient Mediterranean World: Studies in Honor of Donald B. Redford (Probleme der Agyptologie)

EGYPT, ISRAEL, AND THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD

PROBLEME .. DER AGYPTOLOGIE HER1\USGEGEBEN VON

WOLFGANG SCHENKEL UND

ANTONIO LOPRIENO ZWANZIGSTER BAND

EGYPT, ISRAEL, AND THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD Studies in Honor if Donald B. Re4ford

EDITED BY

GARY N. KNOPPERS

AND

ANTOINE HIRSCH

BRILL LEIDEN· BOSTON 2004

This book is printed on acid-free paper On the cover: Detail of an offering scene, Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el Bahari. (Courtesy of Dr.Jadwiga Lipinska, photograph by G.Johnson)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Egypt, Israel, and the ancient Mediterranean world: studies in honor of Donald B. Redford / edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Antoine Hirsch. p. cm. ~ (Probleme der Agyptologie, ISSN 0169-9601 ; 20. Bd.) Includes index. ISBN 90-04-13844-7 (alk. paper) 1. Egypt~History~ To 332 B.C. 2. Palestine~History~To 70 A.D. 3. Egypt-Relations-Middle East. 4. Middle East-Relations~Egypt. I. Redford, Donald B. II. Knoppers, Gary N., 1956- III. Hirsch, Antoine. Iv. Series. DT83.E33 2004 930' .09822--dc22 2004043506

ISSN 0 \69-960 \ ISBN 9004 13844 7 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklyke Brill NV, Ieiden, The Netherlands/ R. van der Molen All rights reserved. Jvo part qf this publicatirJt/ ma;y be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrievalsystfml, or transmitted in any.fimn or ~Y a'9-' means, electronic, medumiwl, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permissionfrom the publisher. Authorization to phot{)copy items for internal or pmonlll use is granted by Brill provided thllt the appropriate foes are paid direct!J to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, U5A. Fees are suiject to change. PRINTED IN TI-lE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS Introduction Gary N. Knoppers PART ONE EGYPTOLOGY The Tombs of the Pyramid Builders-The Tomb of the Artisan Petety and His Curse Zahi Hawass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

Egypt's Old Kingdom 'Empire' (?): A Case Study Focusing on South Sinai Sarah Parcak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

Archaeometry at Mendes: 1990-2002 Larry A. Pavlish . . . . . . . . . .

61

'East is East and West is West': A Note on Coffin Decoration at Asyut Edward Bleiberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

113

Aspects of Egyptian Foreign Policy in the 18th Dynasty in Western Asia and Nubia James K. Hoffmeier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

121

Double Entendre in the Stela of Suty and Hor Steven Blake Shubert . . . . . . . . . . .

143

V\'hat Wenamun Could Have Bought: The Value of his Stolen Goods Ronald J. Leprohon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167

Theological Responses to Amarna Jan Assmann . . . . . . . . . .

179

Dead as a Duck: A Royal Offering Scene? Earl L. Ertman . . . . . . . . . . . . .

193

Some Thoughts on Ritual Banquets at the Court of Akhenaten and in the Ancient Near East Lyn Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

203

VI

CONTENTS

Hatiay, Scribe du Temple d'Aton a Memphis Alain Zivie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

223

The Topsy-Turvy World Diane Flores . . . . .

233

A Grafitto of Amen-Re in Luxor Temple Restored by the High Priest Menkheperre Peter J. Brand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

257

A Preliminary Reconstruction of the Temple and Settlement at Tell Tebilla (East Delta) Gregory Mumford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

267

Two Images of Deified Ptolemies in the Temple Precinct of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak Richard A. Fazzini . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

287

A Wooden Stela in the Royal Ontario Museum N. B. Millet . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

303

PART TWO ISRAELITES, CANAANITES, AND EGYPTIANS IN THE LEVANT New Kingdom Egyptian-Style and Egyptian Pottery in Canaan: Implications for Egyptian Rule in Canaan during the 19th and Early 20th Dynasties Ann E. Killebrew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

309

Some Notes on Biblical and Egyptian Theology John Strange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

345

The Conception of Ham and His Sons in the Table of Nations (Gen 10:6-20) A. Malamat--Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

359

The Joseph Story~~Some Basic Observations John Van Seters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

361

lfzq, 11Jd, Qfh Lib: The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart in Exodus 4: 1-15:21 Seen Negatively in the Bible but Favorably in Egyptian Sources Nili Shupak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

389

CONTENTS

VII

Judaeans (and Phoenicians) in Egypt in the Late Seventh to Sixth Centuries B.C. John S. Holladay, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

405

Ezra's Reform and Bilateral Citizenship in Athens and the Mediterranean World Baruch Halpern. . . . . . . . .

439

Appendix: Intermarriage by family

453

Egypt and Phoenicia in the Persian Period: Partners in Trade and Rebellion John ,~. Betlyon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

455

"A traveler from an antique land": Sources, Context, and Dissemination of the Hagiography of Mary the Egyptian Paul B. Harvey Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

479

Donald Bruce Redford---Bibliography Prepared by Susan Redford

SO 1

Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . .

51 7

INTRODUCTION Gary N. Knoppers It is a delight to witness the publication of a Festschrift to honor Donald Bruce Redford in advance of his seventieth birthday. This volume of essays on topics related to Don's interests in Egyptian history, Israelite history, and the contacts between Egypt and the rest of the ancient Mediterranean world during the later periods (New Kingdom onward) is a token of our gratitude to Don for all of his many contributions to our respective fields. I As a true generalist, Don represents a rare and vanishing breed in Egyptological and ancient Near Eastern studies. His intellectual interests are not limited to a single discipline, nor is his scholarship confined to work on a single civilization. Don's training is historical, philological, epigraphic, and archaeological in nature. In keeping with his wide-ranging education, Don's publications have had a substantial impact in the fields of Egyptology, ancient Near Eastern history, archaeology, and biblical studies. 771e Career qf Donald B. Redford Before introducing the individual contributions of colleagues and former students to this collection, it seems appropriate to devote some space to honor the public career of the man to ,,,thorn this volume is dedicated. Don received his B.A., "M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. During the course of his training, Don also profited from his graduate studies at Brown University and from his work with Friedl Needler at the Royal Ontario "Museum. His dissertation, written under the direction of R.A. Caminos of Brown University and Ronald Williams of the University of Toronto, dealt with the chronology of the 18th Dynasty. This collection of seven studies was later published by the University of Toronto Press (1967) under the I In editing this volume, I want to acknowledge the helpful assistance of three graduate students in the History department at Penn State: Deirdre Fulton, Matthew Adams, and Eugene Shaw-Colyer.

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title, History and Chronology if the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty.2 For over three decades (1965 to 1997) Don taught in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto. Since 1997 Don has taught in the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. . While at the University of Toronto, Don directed a steady stream ofPh.D.s in Egyptology. Many of these students hold important positions at North American universities (e.g., the University of Toronto, Trinity University, Chicago House, the University of Chicago) and museums (e.g., the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Royal Ontario Museum). We are delighted that some of these former and current students were able to write essays for this .Festschrift and that one of these students is the work's co-editor. Since coming to Penn State seven years ago, Don has continued to attract a first-rate student clientele. A dedicated and versatile teacher, Don has volunteered to teach entry level courses, experimental courses, interdisciplinary thesis supervision, independent studies, graduate courses, language courses, and honors courses. He created a curriculum in Egyptology where practically none existed prior to his arrival. A number of our present ancient history graduate students and undergraduate majors in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies have come to Penn State to study with Don. In addition to exerting a positive influence on his students and colleagues, Don has exerted a positive influence on his field. Over the course of the past few decades, Don has developed a highly unified and productive research program in the areas of ancient history and archaeology. During this period, Don has become one of the most academically acclaimed and distinguished scholars of ancient Egypt in the world. He has won numerous academic awards and has been elected to a series of prestigious societal posts. He has been a trustee for the American Schools of Oriental Research, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a member of the board of governors for the Society for Mediterranean Studies, a member of the Near Eastern Seminar at Columbia University, a winner of Canada Council Killam awards, an editor of the Journal if the Society for the Study if Egyptian Antiquities, a president of the Toronto Oriental Club, a winner of major Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grants, and a president 2 For details on Don Redford's publications, see the chapter by Susan Redford in this volume.

INTRODUCTION

3

of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. But it is through research and publication, rather than through awards and editorships, that Don has had his greatest influence on the field. I will begin by mentioning some ofDon's work in epigraphy and archaeology and then move on to discuss some of his influential publications in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian history. Don began his archaeological field training during the mid-1960s in the British School's Jerusalem excavations headed by Dame Kathleen Kenyon. Since then he has been involved in a variety of projects. He served as a director of the joint SUNY Binghamton/Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities to the Temple of Osiris expedition in Luxor from 1970 to 1972. From 1972 onward, Don directed the Akhenaten Temple Prqject, co-sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Toronto. In 1998 the base for this project was moved to the Pennsylvania State University. During the 1970s Don became involved in an assortment of additional ventures. In 1975 he was appointed as the director of the East Karnak expedition in Luxor, Egypt, co-sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Toronto. From 1977 through 1985 Don was the epigrapher for the Tell el-Maskhuta excavations sponsored by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Tel Megiddo is another site at which Don has worked. He served as an epigrapher in the excavations at Megiddo cosponsored by Tel Aviv University and Penn State University in 1994. Participation in archaeological excavations is not an end in itself, but plays a larger role reconstructing the ancient past and in training future generations of Egyptologists. Don's leadership in running summer field schools in Egypt has afforded generations of students an opportunity to study and experience firsthand one of the world's richest ancient cultures. Given Don's keen interest in matters archaeological, it is no accident that many of the essays in this volume address the material remains from ancient Egypt. In Egypt, no less than in the Levant, official publication of the archaeological work carried out is extremely important. Excavation reports constitute the most important public record of archaeological campaigns for posterity. Because field directors run such operations, their direct involvement in publishing the finds is critical to the success of the excavations. One of Don's achievements has bcen to bring the work of his archaeological teams to official publication soon aftcr the completion of their work in the field. TIle AkJlenaten Temple Prqject, L TIle

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Initial Discoveries was published in 1977, while the second installment of this series, The Akhenaten Temple Prqject, II: Rwd-Mnw and Inscriptions, appeared in 1988. Both the third installment, The Akhenaten Temple Prqject, III: The Excavation if Kom el-Ahmar and Environs, and the fourth, The Akhenaten Temple Prqject, IV: The Tomb if Re'a (T T 201), were published in 1994. In recent decades Don has continued his research in the Luxor area by becoming the co-director of the Theban Tomb Survey. This work--of which Susan Redford is co-director~will continue for some years to come. Since moving to the hills of central Pennsylvania, Don has also established an Egyptian field school at Penn State. 3 This field school operates in alternating years at Tel Mendes and Tel Kedwa in the Delta region of Lower Egypt. Redford's forthcoming (edited) book, The Excavations at A1endes 1. The Royal Necropolis and the T emenos Walls, draws on the first years of his excavations at Tel Mendes to elucidate a tumultuous period in Egyptian history. In addition to providing a much-needed material analysis of this urban site~its public structures, inscriptions, and tombs~-this book provides pioneering insight into the destruction of the city by Persian forces in 343 BeE. A second edited volume, The Excavations at Mendes II: The Old Kingdom Temple, detailing the results of the more recent excavations, is nearly complete. The expert analysis of material remains and the reconstruction of their relation to literary remains is one impressive accomplishment of Professor Redford's work, but another is his research control over Egyptian history in its various phases. In other words, Redford is not only an excellent archaeologist but also an accomplished historian. Reviewers of his books have pointed to his mastery over his subject matter, his rigorous methodology, and his ability to tackle major historical problems as consistent traits of his scholarship. Space constraints do not allow the author to discuss each of the twelve books and approximately eighty articles written by Don. In what follows, I would like to mention a selection of his books. Don's versatility becomes quickly apparent, when one considers two of his works. In his A Stuqy if the Biblical Story if Joseph (1970), Don employs the tools of source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism to explore the original

3 The unstinting efforts of Professor Wilma Stem, the (then) Associate Head of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, should be mentioned in this context. She attended to the many details of moving this project from conception to reality in the university approval process.

INTRODUCTION

5

Israelite historical setting for this weU-knmVll tale. If Don's skills in biblical studies are apparent in his A Study qf the Biblical Story qfJoseph, his acute skills in historical investigation are apparent in his AkJzenaten, the Heretic King (1984). In this work, Don draws on a variety of kinds of evidence (art, inscriptions, archaeological remains) to draw an incisive portrait of this most enigmatic Egyptian king and his fascinating reign. Don's Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books (1986), which has not received the attention it deserves, manifests a combination of historical and literary interests. This work explores the nature and range of sources employed in ancient Egyptian historiography. Although Don has published in both biblical and Egyptological studies, he does not view Canaanite, Israelite, and Egyptian societies as parallel universes, untainted by contacts with each other. Two of his works merit discussion in this context. The first is a work co-edited by John Wevers, entitled Studies on the Ancient Palestinian World (1972), while the second is his more famous Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (1992). Both of these works illumine the complex Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian period connections among a variety of societies in the ancient Mediterranean world. In the context of this introduction, it may be useful to call attention to some ofDon's more recent publications and scholarly projects. The O>ifOrd Encyclopedia oj' Ancient Egypt, VOLL 1-3 (2001) of which Don was editor-in-chief, represents a major interdisciplinary attempt to synthesize what has been learned about the ancient past through art history, archaeology, historical geography, anthropology, and epigraphy for a broader scholarly audience. Seven years in the making and unprecedented in its scope, this highly successful work has been greeted with much critical acclaim, including the Dartmouth award, the highest award a reference work can receive in the United States. Oxford University Press has also recently published a volume edited by Don on ancient Egyptian religion, The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion Oargely culled from the O~ford EncycloJ)edia qfAncient Egypt). Two new scholarly monographs are forthcoming. His From Slave to Pharaoh: TIe Nubian Experience qf Ancient Egypt (The Johns Hopkins University Press) addresses a neglected, but highly complex and important aspect of ancient Egyptian social and diplomatic history. This work, covering tl1e relations between Egypt and Nubia from the Old Kingdom to 593 BCE and beyond, is nearing publication. His Ciry qf the Ram-Man: TIe Story qf Ancient Mendes draws heavily upon ongoing excavations to reconstruct the history of this one-time Egyptian capital city and its

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diplomatic and commercial relations with other sites in the ancient Mediterranean world. Yet another project recently completed (and published) is a fresh translation, edition, and analysis of the annals of one of Egypt's most famous monarchs, 7he Wars in Syria and Palestine qf7hutmosis III (CHANE 16; Leiden: Brill, 2003). Don's research productivity thus continues unabated. We wish him as much success in these current projects as he has enjoyed with past projects over the course of the past four decades. 7he Essays in this Volume Given the intercultural nature of Don Redford's research program, it seems appropriate that the chapters in this Festschrift are focused on Egyptian history (especially the New Kingdom onward), archaeology, Israelite history, biblical studies, and the contacts between Egypt and other societies in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Egyptology In his contribution, "The Tombs of the Pyramid Builders: The Tomb of the Artisan Petety (PUz) and His Curse," Zahi Hawass, Director of the Ministry of Culture, Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, publishes some of the intriguing results of his excavations, begun in 1990, of the upper cemetery in Giza. Hawass argues that the tombs contain the burials of workmen who moved the stones in the construction of the pyramids. The author's work focuses on one particularly interesting burial, the tomb of Petety, evincing three distinct architectural phases: an unfinished rock-cut burial chamber and large funerary chapel, a small mastaba faced with limestone, and a court with nine burial shafts. A study of the tomb's pottery indicates that the tomb should be dated to the 4th or 5th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom period. The sepulcher's excavation is important in a number of respects and adds significantly to the information previously available about the religious customs, burial practices, and economic status of artisans during this era. The article by Sarah Parcak of Cambridge University also deals with the Old Kingdom period, but Parcak is interested in larger historical questions. Her contribution entitled "Egypt's Old Kingdom 'Empire' (?): A Case Study Focusing on South Sinai" revisits the scholarly debate about whether Old Kingdom Egypt constituted an empire by drawing

INTRODUCTION

7

upon recent theories of empire building (Hobson, Mommsen, Schumpeter, Hobsbawm, et al.), historical and pictoral records, and the results of recent excavations in the South Sinai. Parcak argues that one can assert the existence of an Old Kingdom ideological and economic empire. Such an imperial domain was conceptualized and portrayed in royal iconography and sculpture as Pharaoh's domination of foreign lands and realized through Egypt's military expeditions abroad to populated, neighboring, foreign regions (in Sinai and elsewhere) to retrieve various economic resources, subdue local resistance, and expand trade. Parcak's paper focuses on the Old Kingdom exploitation of the South Sinai and its inhabitants as part of an economic empire that extended beyond the cultural boundaries of Egypt. The extensive and informative essay by Larry Pavlish, "Archaeometry at Mendes: 1990-2002," deals with a variety of periods at Tel Mendes, located in the northeastern Nile Delta, approximately 144 kilometers north of Cairo. Pavlish, who works at the Archaeometry Laboratory, IsoTrace Radiocarbon Facility of the University of Toronto, argues that Mendes is simultaneously one of the bestpreserved and one of the most-threatened sites in the Nile Delta. Pavlish's intensive research involves geoarchaeology (coring programs, geomorphological studies), archaeobotany (field samplings, flotation procedures, analyses of slag distributions), and geophysical surveys (employing remote sensing techniques) at each of the regions and sub-regions that make up the northern Korn of Tel el Rub'a. The results of his research support the view that the northern portions of Mendes are older than its southern sections. Among his suggestions is the theory that human occupation at the site was centered on a series of relic levees that sequentially moved to the south over a 5,000 year time-span. Section profile analyses show that the area was abandoned on at least nyo occasions fiJr periods probably not in excess of a century. The later abandonment predates the building of the great sand mound, while the earlier one may have occurred between 500 and 1,000 years earlier. The coring program indicates that the Hill of Bones (Korn el Adhem) was an applique on the outer harbor landscape and that it was constructed at about the same time as the Temple of Amasis (that is, around 530 B.C.). Attending to the relationship between text and archaeological context, a major point emphasized in the teachings and writings of Don Redford, is carefully applied in the essay of Edward Bleiberg of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. His work, "'East is East and West is

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GARY N. KNOPPERS

West': A Note on Coffin Decoration at Asyut," engages a series of enigmatic features of the back panel of a richly-decorated and inscribed Middle Kingdom coffin from Asyut dating to either late Dynasty 11 or early Dynasty 12. Bleiberg observes that standard coffins and Asyut coffins both demonstrate clear associations with the sky, the earth, and the compass points. Nevertheless, the scribe in this case wrote the name of the falcon god Horus-Sopdu, Lord of the East, in place of the expected falcon god Ha, Lord of the West, on this panel that was otherwise decorated as if it were the back (west or right) side of a coffin. Bleiberg argues that the key to understanding this and other puzzling features of the coffin's decoration resides in the recognition of the geographical location of Asyut (south of the river) and of the particular layout of its associated cemetery (farther south, in the mountains, facing the river). Since the entrance to the tombs at Asyut would be from the north and not from the east (as in the Memphis necropolis), the course of the sun from east to west would not be from the front to the back of the tomb (as in the Memphis necropolis). Although they were probably aware of Memphite traditions, the scribes at Asyut adjusted the inscriptions and decorations on locally-made coffins to accommodate the local situation. In the history of the modern study of ancient Egypt's relations with the Levant, one of the most fascinating and difficult areas of study has been the Hyksos era, the beginning of the New Kingdom, and the concomitant Middle Bronze-Late Bronze Age transition in Canaan. In his essay, "Aspects of Egyptian Foreign Policy in the 18th Dynasty in Western Asia and Nubia," James Hoffmeier of Trinity International University argues that Egypt's shifting diplomatic and military ventures in Western Asia can best be analyzed by comparing and contrasting them with Egypt's ventures in Nubia. Hoffmeier traces a pattern of aggressive Egyptian foreign interventions in Nubia. Troops, impressive fortifications, and a direct administrative presence were employed to protect Egypt's vital economic interests. In contrast, Egyptian foreign policy in the Levant from the time of Ahmose to Harshest followed earlier Middle Kingdom models. The Kadesh rebellion prompted Tuthmosis III to adopt a more aggressive policy, involving regular shows of military force, tighter control over local princes, the establishment of diplomatic treaties, and the creation of marriage alliances as needed. The failures of Amarna period diplomacy led to a further tightening of control through the establishment of Late Bronze Age

INTRODUCTION

9

II "residencies." In other words, the Egyptian leadership may have attempted over the course of time to implement a foreign policy in Western Asia more akin to their well-established foreign policy in Nubia. In the detailed and nuanced study of Steven Blake Shubert of the University of Toronto, "Double E.ntendre in the Stela of Suty and Hor," the author provides a new study of this 18th Dynasty stela (BM 826) known to Egyptologists since the nineteenth century. This artifact is well-known, because it contains material generally considered to anticipate (in concepts, phraseology, and imagery) the Great Hymn to the Aten. Shubert proposes to investigate the import of the solar hymns in the larger context of the stela. He argues that the relationship between Suty and Hor is the central organizing principle of the stela, "which represents two men who wished to be remembered for eternity together as two halves of a greater whole." The article takes issue with the common supposition that Suty and Hor were necessarily twin brothers. The author argues that the use of ambiguous . Iogy (e.g., .In, "equ, a l " " two, ""b rot·her, "" twIn, . ""half.- b rot.}ler, " termmo "nephew," "uncle") suggests a form of kinship that was deliberately left undefined. In Shubert's analysis, the different iconographic and literary elements of the stela, although intentionally arranged to present a duality of natures, affirm that this duality is ultimately a unity. In "What Wenamun Could Have Bought: The Value of His Stolen Goods," Ronald Leprohon of the University of Toronto takes issue with the recent assertion that Wenamun's stolen goods were of little value. Leprohon investigates what worth the precious golden and silver goods might have had at the time in which the story was written. One means to calculate their value is to convert the gold and silver into other commodities of the time, such as cereals, wages, meat, and wood. In each case, vVenamun's stolen goods turn out to be of enormous value. This raises a larger interpretive issue. Considering that the ancient Egyptian audience would also know the approximate worth of the pilfered goods, the entire incident takes on a larger significance. \Yenamun's tremendous loss at the beginning of the story creates a dramatic tension that informs the rest of the tale. Over the past decades, Don Redford andJan Assmann (of the University of Heidelberg) have shared a tremendous interest in the reign and reforms of Akhenaten in the New Kingdom period. Both have written extensively on this fascinating and important time in Egyptian

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history. In his chapter, "Theological Responses to Amarna," Assmann explores two main issues in New Kingdom historical discourse. The first deals with the Ba theology of Amun, which interprets the cosmos as the "body of a hidden god who animates it from within." The second issue involves the kind of personal piety that interprets not only cosmic life, but also individual life, including history and destiny, "as emanating from god's will who in this aspect acts as judge and saviour."

In his essay, "Dead as a Duck: A Royal Offering Scene?," Erl Ertman of the University of Akron studies in detail a fragment of a limestone relief, which Ertman dates to the Amarna period. Based on a comparative analysis, Ertman argues that this neglected relief, a talatat block containing a dead duck and parts of other birds, was part of a larger royal offering scene. The author believes that the relief stems in all likelihood from Akhetaten. The Amarna period is also the subject ofLyn Green's contribution, "Some Thoughts on Ritual Banquets at the Court of Akhenaten and in the Ancient Near East." Green (of the Royal Ontario Museum) explores the different uses to which ritual and ceremonial meals were put in the ancient Mediterranean world, pointing out that the social implications of similar actions could vary radically depending on the context. The Amarna period is highly unusual both for its explicit representations of the royal family eating and drinking and for its representations of the royal family dining in the company of subordinates. Green's interest in such activities is tied to the documented use of reversion offerings in royal banquets in other ancient societies. The authorized consumption of food offerings made to the deities by specified personnel was one way in which power relationships were institutionalized. In this case, the redistribution of offerings may have involved offerings from the altars of the Aten as well as those from the tables of that other god worshiped at Akhetaten: the king. If so, the double role of the king as intermediary for the Aten and as provider for his subjects would be institutionally ratified. Just as the Aten could be accessed through the king, so the god rewarded his subjects through his "son's" (re)distribution of temple largesse. At the beginning of his essay, Alain Zivie ofle Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris and la mission archeologique fran. Elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean world, commemorative activities involving the consumption of food and drink are also attested. For example, the drinking party was an institution in Mesopotamia and Greece, practised by both gods and mortals. 5 While there can be little doubt that Egyptian representations of feasting and drinking encode information the participants and the occasion outside the obvious, especially when the participants are royal. In assessing the possible symbolic meaning of the banquet scenes at Amarna, I found it helpful to employ theoretical models used by anthropologists studying the significance of food in various traditional and prehistoric cultures. Their basis for categorization is quite different from that used above, which is based on the occasion at which the meal took place, rather than its symbolic or social purpose. I would, of course, eventually like to examine all of the above categories of feast through these lenses, but for the purposes of this article, I will only deal with those which occur in the Amarna Period. A feast or banquet may be distinguished from day-to-day eating by quantity of food and drink offered, by quality or types of food or drink offered, the type of dishes ["prestige materials"] used to prepare or serve the food, and sometimes by the timing of the meal or the way in which it is served and consumed, the use of particular premises set aside for special events and "dramaturgical effects."6 The latter category includes music, dance and various types of performance art. 7 Anthropologists studying food and status in traditional societies, and archaeologists attempting to reconstruct the social interactions of prehistoric or ancient cultures, have noted that communal eating, especially in the form of public ceremonial meals, is a "highly con5 Jean Botero, "Boisson, banquet, et vie socia Ie en Mesopotamie," Drinking in ancient Societies: History and Culture I!f Drinks in the Ancient Near East (ed. Lucio Milano; Padua: Sargon, 1994) 3-13; Piotr Michalowski, "The Drinking Gods: Alcohol in Mesopotamian Ritual and Mythology," Drinking in ancient Societies, 27-44. G This list is compiled fi'om criteria given in: Michael Dietler, "Theorizing the Feast: Rituals of Consumption, Commensal Politics, and Power in Mrican Contexts," Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power (ed. Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden; Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001); idem, "Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy," Food and the Status Q,yest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (ed. Polly \'\Tiessner and Wulf Schiefenhovel; Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996) 98-99; idem Brian Hayden, "Digesting the Feast: Good to Eat, Good to Drink, Good to Think: An Introduction," Feasts; Hayden, "Feasting in Prehistoric and Traditional Societies," Food and the Status Q,yest, 127-47. 7 Dietler, "Feasts," 98-99.

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densed symbolic representation of social relations."8 They have also distinguished different categories of feasting, based on the purpose for which the meal is organized (as distinct from the event which they ostensibly commemorate). The definitions of feasts which are used is that they are public ritual events of communal or commensal eating and drinking9 or "any sharing between two or more people of special foods ... in a meal for a special purpose or occasion."lo Although, strictly speaking, the term commensal originally meant "sharing a table," it is used by these researchers of all forms of communal consumption of food and drink, II as it will be in this study. The terminology for the analysis and study of feasting is still in its developmental stage and other terms may be introduced in time. The chief difficulties in terminology lie in the culturally loaded nature of many possible names for aspects of ceremonial/ritual meals, which I (alone of those studying these events) use the terms "banquet" and "feast" interchangeably. Michael Dietler noted that many designations such as "symposium" have too many specific historical and cultural associations. 12 For example, he noted the etymology of the word "companion," which he rejected as a descriptor for the type of meals discussed, derives from "sharing bread."13 This association makes it unsuitable to describe a type of banquet in which the focus may be on some other consumable, such as drink. In some of the examples cited by Jack Sasson in his lecture, vassals shared food with their overlords without sharing a table, or occasionally even being present in the same location, in other words, not a truly commensal meal, although fitting all the other definitions of "feast." As will be seen, similar situations involving non-commensal sharing of food existed in the late Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian court. However, I have no doubt that the occasions discussed here also fit within the parameters of the definition "feast." In his analyses of commensal eating habits in various societies, Brian

B Dietler,

"Feasts," 89. Dietler, "Theorizing the Feast," 67, 69. 10 Brian Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts: A Prolegomenon to the Importance of Feasting," Feastl', 28 . . II Dieder, "Theorizing the Feast," 104-5, I1. I. 12 A perfect example of this is the wordpamsiwi, which underwent a significant evolution in meaning even in classical times from those participating at a ritual communal meal to an approximation of the modern meaning of "parasite," Zaidman, "Ritual Eating in Archaic Greece: Parasites and Paradroi," Food in Antiquity, 196-202. 13 Dictler, "Theorizing the Feast," 105, 11. 1. 9

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Hayden has compiled a list of nine of the most common beneficial results of hosting a feast. These might be summarized as: attracting labour; creation of cooperative relationships or alliances between specific groups; exclusion of some groups; attracting desirable mates; soliciting favours; compensation for "transgressions;" investing surpluses; "[creating] political power (control over resources and labour) through the creation of a network of reciprocal debts;" and extracting goods and resources from the general population for elite use. 14 In the highly stratified context of pharaonic society, the king and his "great ones" obviously have little need to create political power or assert their superiority over the general population. However, amongst tlleir peers and near-peers, such expressions of dominance would serve to stabilize their positions. It is noteworthy that various Egyptologists have commented upon Akhenaten's perhaps excessive use of reward to ensure the faithfulness of his high-ranking bureaucrats. 15 However, Akhenaten was certainly not the last,16 and, given the evidence from other Bronze Age cultures, probably not the first king of Egypt to use food and gifts to bolster their power. In the earlier studies by Brian Hayden and Michael Dietler, public commensal events were divided into broad categories such as: celebratory feasts, "reciprocal aid" feasts and commensal feasts. 17 Of these, commensal and celebratory feasts are the most relevant to Bronze Age Egypt. "Celebratory" feasts are often those which commemorate an individual's passage from one stage of life or one social status to another. Commensal feasts can be further divided into various categories, many of which are not applicable to this study, except for the category of "Diacritical Feasts." "Diacritical Feasts" are banquets at which social and political hierarchies are delineated or reinforced through positioning of the participants and sharing of food, drink and other special luxury items. However, many of the other types of

].I Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 29-30. I have not retained Hayden's order or the exact divisions of these benefits. 15 E.g., Nicholas Reeves, Akhenaten: E,!;ypt's f'all'e Prophet (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001) 163; Donald B. Redford, Akllenaten, the Heretic King (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 165-66. 16 For a brief history of the use of the "Window of Appearances" as a distribution point for rewards and special rations, see Barry J. Kemp, Ancient Agypt: Anatorrry rif a Civilization (London: Routledge, 1989, 1991) 211-13. 17 Hayden, "Feasting in Prehistoric and Traditional Societies," Food and the StatUJ Qyes!, fig. 8. I.

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commensal feasts involve the recruitment and control of labour, 18 or political support. 19 In other words, they also exist to cement social relationships. This could be analogous in larger terms of royal activities to the control of both allies and underlings, whose loyalty and services are ensured by public recognition and reward. Later studies by Hayden and Dietler distinguished types of feasts differently. Hayden developed more complex listings, which included three broad categories of feasts: Alliance and Cooperation Feasts; Economic Feasts; and Diacritical Feasts. 2o The subdivisions of the fIrst group included "Solidarity or (Friendship) Feasts," in which there might be minimal distinction from "normal" meals in terms of standard foods consumed and size of group involved and "Promotional Feasts"21 in which the intent of the host is to display wealth and attract support, with a concomitant increase in the amount of resources necessary. Dietler's categories differed and included "Empowering Feasts," "Patron-Role Feasts" and "Diacritical Feasts." "Empowering Feasts" are those that involve "a positive affirmation of the host and his/her group,"22 in a fashion similar to the "Solidarity Feasts" described by Hayden. "Diacritical Feasts" performed the same function, but the emphasis is on exclusion from an elite group, and institutionalization of inequality.23 "PatronRole" feasts use hospitality as a method of reinforcing "relations of unequal social power" and acceptance of these differences in status. 24 In the paper he gave before publication of Dietler and Hayden's collection of essays, Jack Sasson noted that solidarity and establishment of hierarchies were amongst the primary motivations for the banquets described in various ancient Near Eastern texts. As noted above, "Diacritical feasts" were intended for status display. Through "differentiated cuisine and styles of consumption,"25 social ranking is made explicit. They define membership in elite social groups and the ways in which individuals who aspire to belong in those groups express their social aspirations. In the ancient Near East, feasts serve

18

19

20

21

22

Hayden, "Feasting," fig. 8. I and 128-29. Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 30. Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 38, fig. 2. I. Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 38-39. DietIer, "Theorizing the Feast," 77; earlier discussions in idem, "Feasts," 89-

90. 23

24 25

DietIer, "Feasts," 98-99. DietIer, "Theorizing the Feast," 82-83; idem, "Feasts," 96-97. DietIer, "Feasts," 98.

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many similar functions to those described above. For example, at Mari and in other cities, shared meals or beverages could be used to seal legal or territorial agreements. 26 However, banquets did not need to be literally commensal in order to perform many of the functions in the ancient Levant. Portions of meat from sacrifices made by an overlord were sent to vassals for their consumption,27 a long-distance form of food sharing, which indicated their favoured status in the eyes of their overlord and bound them to him. If offering food and drink to a social inferior were concrete expressions of dominance or favour, the actions of the recipient were equally significant. Acceptance of food, drink or gifts indicated acceptance of the giver's dominant status and were expressions of fealty. In "The Teaching of Amenemhat," the king warns his son that "the one to whom I gave food opposed me."28 Similarly, acts of disloyalty or disrespect might also be expressed through the metaphor of the table. A letter from Mari speaks of a vassal who acted disloyally as having "defecated in the cup from which he had drunk," a cup which he had previously raised in honour of the same king and which the king may have given him.29 The king's favour is also indicated by gifts, of course, and the gift of clothing indicates both vassalage 30 and favour. Sasson's unpublished papers cites the letter noted above, from Huziri of Hazzikannum to ZimriLim, pointing out that the king has given his vassal garments and a wig or headdress, which might have been from his own wardrobe. He suggests that such items might have been considered to retain the king's scent and "participants [could] bolster the allegiance by recapturing his odor." The relief from the tomb of Ay at Amarna 31 in which the "God's Father" receives a pair of gloves

26 Sasson, "The King's table." This is also true in Early Dynastic Sumer; see Michalowski, "Drinking Gods," 35. 27 Sasson, "King's table." 28 Wol(iSang Heick, Der Text der 'Lehre Amenemhets I. fur seinen Sohn'," lCleine Agyptischen Texte (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1969). Reeves has noted the possible influence of this text and its warnings against the treachery of underlings on Akhenaten's internal policies, Akhenaten, 105-7. 29 Michalowski, "Drinking Gods," 35-36; the same letter was also cited by Prof Sasson. Representations of the king and a male figure who may possibly be a vassal or member of his entourage drinking together are discussed by Frances Pinnock, "Considerations on the 'Banquet Theme' in the figurative Art of Mesopotamia and Syria," DrinJcing in ancient Societies, 23, 25. 30 Michalowski, "Drinking Gods," 37. 31 Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs if El Amama, VI (Archaeological

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may be an unrecognized Egyptian example of such an occasion. As food and drink are the only forms of "symbolic capital" which literally become part of the recipient, it would be an even more potent symbol of connection with an overlord. The applicability of the customs at Mari and elsewhere in the Near East to banqueting in late Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt is borne out by the common practices, especially in regard to gift-giving, which are shared by the correspondents of the Amarna Letters. 32 At the Karnak temple of the Aten there are a number of scenes of feasting which feature the king and/or the queen. These banquet scenes seem to be associated with the Sed-festivaP3 However, other scenes depicting banquets were already known from the tombs at Amarna. There was, however, a significant difference between the representations of dining at the two locations. Since the Karnak scenes were apparently created earlier in the reign, and represent an earlier phase of royalist/ Atenist ideology, it is perhaps best to examine them first. Numerous blocks exist depicting very similar representations. 34 The most complete of these scenes consist of a lone royal figure, the king or queen, seated at a table, attended by servants and musicians, with rows of squatting figures nearby, presumably guests or privileged servants. 35 There are numerous reconstructed depictions of the guests. These banqueters sit on the ground with piles of food before them: bread and wine are the most easily identified items. They may reach out a hand towards the food, but they are not shown eating or drinking. 36 Some of these scenes are surrounded by undulating lines. 37 These perhaps

Survey of Egypt, 18th Memoir; London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1908) pI. xxix (closeup of Ay wearing gloves), pI. xxxii 32 Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook, "Conclusion: The Beginnings of International Relations," Amarna Diplomacy: TIze Beginnings qllnlemalumal Relations (cd. Raymond Cohen and Raymond Westbrook; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) 232. 33 Redford, Akherzat£n, 127-30. 34 Amongst the scenes reconstructed which deal with the feast accompanying the Sed-festival are TS 7944, TS 132,1'85564, TS 5473 and TS 5565. 35 E.g., TS 210, 3958, 132, 254 published in Ray Winfield Smith and Donald B. Redford, The AkherzaleTl Temple Project, I: The Initial Discoveries (Warminster: Aris and Philips, 1976) pis. 63, 66, 69.2, 70; Jocelyn Gohary, AkherzaleTl's sed~fostival at learnak (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1992) pIs. xxiv, xxvi. 36 TS 5560, 5473, 5665, published in Smith and Redford, Akhenaten Temple, 1, pIs. 64.1, 65.2, 82.4. 37 E.g., Gohary, AlrJzerzaleTl's sedftstivals, pis. xx"Vii, xxviii.

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show a tent 38 or other temporary banqueting hall, indicating that the ceremony did not take place within the palace. The use of temporary buildings or special accommodations, which Hayden lists as a common characteristic of all types of commensal feasting,39 are borne out by the archaeological remains of Malkata. There, a ceremonial lake and special palace were built, for the first Sed-Festival of Amenhotep III. Four years later this building was demolished and a new mud-brick palace was constructed for the next Sed.'Hl Some of the other reconstructed scenes show a room in the palace being prepared for a banquet. One or two throne-like chairs stand empty, with heaped tables before them. Flanking registers show rows of amphorae and servants moving stands for more wine containers. Sometimes the "Window of Appearance" is depicted nearby.41 These are also occasionally from reliefs of the Sed. 42 Very similar scenes may be found in the Memphite tomb of Horemheb, from the north wall of the court. Horemheb is depicted seated before a heaped table. The other banqueters squat or sit on the ground. 43 The status of the guests may is indicated by their elaborate clothing, and by the amount and type of food before them. Piles of bread and amphorae of wine are the most easily recognizable foods in the meal, which also included vegetables and beer, but cuts of meat, poultry and fish may also be distinguished. As Salima Ikram has noted, those who have cuts of meat and larger amounts of food, are also distinguished from one another by their clothing, jewellery, wigs and scented cones. 44 Many of them are shown actively eating and drinking what is before them, emphasizing, as Geoffrey Martin noted,4:> that this is not a symbolic funerary meal but a real feast which he suggests was held to celebrate military victories or a promotion. 38 Redford (Akhenaten, 120) refers to the banqueting rooms' "sinusoidal walling system." This could perhaps represent a tent or other temporary structure. 3') Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 40 (table 2.1). 4{) Table 2.1. 40; Kemp, Ancient E,.f!J'IJt, 216-1 7. 41 TS 3711, published in Smith and Redfcml, Akhenaten Temple, 1, pI. 61. t2 TS 7944 published in Smith and Redford, Akhenaten Temple, 1, pl. 67. 43 Geoffrey T. Martin, 17te A1emphite Tomb of /ioremheb, Commander-in-Clli~f of Tut£l1lkh 'amun, 1 (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1989) 38-40, scenes 18-20. Also published in Geoffrey T. Martin, 17ze Hidden Tombs if A1emphis: .New Discoveries from the Time rtf Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991) figs. 19, 20; Salima Ikram, Choice Cuts: lv1eat Produdwn in Ancient Egypt (0 LA 69; Leuven: Peeters, 1995) fig. 7. 44 Ikram, Choice Cuts, 205-6. 45 Martin, Hidden Tombs qf iHernphis, 55.

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The closest parallels to these scenes are from the Theban tomb of Userhet (TT56), which dates to the reign of Amenhotep II. In these, the occasion represented is not a feast attended by elaborately dressed nobles, but a meal enjoyed by army officers. 46 Some of these men squat on the earth with baskets of different types of breads in front of them and large vessels, presumably of beer, in front of them. Others, still squatting, at least have the comfort of mats, and are given amphorae of wine and additional dishes which seem to hold meat. On other parts of the same tomb walls, regular soldiers are shown receiving provisions and haircuts. One might assume then, as Sigrid Hodel-Hoenes does,47 that this scene shows the provisioning of the army. However, the presence of a servant offering wine to one of the seated officers makes it clear that the food is to be consumed there. This then is also a ceremonial or ritual commensal meal, probably celebratory. Similar representations can be found in the tomb of Rekhmire. 48 In that example, according to Jacques Vandier, the meal was arranged by Rekhmire on the occasion of his giving formal instructions to his subordinates,49 who are shown seated on the ground receiving wine. His hospitality reinforces his superior rank, while rewarding those who owe him obedience for their loyalty. In short, all three occasions would fall into one of the categories created by Dieder and Hayden under the general heading of "Alliance and Cooperation Feasts."50 The similarity of these earlier paintings to the Karnak talatat scenes and the reliefs from the tomb of Horemheb is striking. In each, the guests may sit or squat either on mats or directly on the ground. The feasters from the Karnak talatat seem to be distinguished by the types and amount of food they are given rather than by their placing. In "The King's table," Jack Sasson noted that "the possibilities for public humiliation were infinite" at similar affairs elsewhere in the Near East, since precedence and etiquette determined who would sit and who would squat, and where they would do so. Undoubtedly this would -16 Recent publication in Sigrid Hodel-Hoenes, Lift and Death in Ancient Egypt: Scenes from Private Tombs in .New Kingdom 'Thebes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000) fig. 42. -}7 Hodel-Hoenes, Lift and Deaih, 72_ 48 Norman de Garis Davies, The Tomb if Rekh-me-Re (Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Eh'YPtian Expedition, 11; New York: Plantin Press, 1943-44) pi. cxi and cxii.l, 66. 49 Jacques Vandier d'Abbadic, A1anuel d'arclziologie egyptienne, IV (Paris: Editions A. etJ. Picard ct Cic., 1964) 227-28. 50 Hayden, "Fabulous Feasts," 38 fig. 2.1.

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have been equally true of situations in Egypt. Although in military context, such as the occasion depicted in the tomb of Userhet, feasters would presumably have been ordered by rank, their position at such events would not have been a foregone conclusion. Commanders could have shown favour, announced promotions from the ranks or rewarded bravery by re-positioning feasters or merely by providing them with some delicacy. (Since high-protein foods such as fish and meat were the most prestigious, these were probably the items used to convey favour.) Probably all such gatherings were occasions for subtle re-alignments of status, as much as for reinforcing the status quo. At Amarna, the best-known royal banqueting scenes come from the tomb of Huya, steward of Queen Tiye. 51 They depict the queen eating with her son Akhenaten and daughter-in-law Nefertiti. Several princesses also share in the feast. Once again there are musicians and servitors in evidence, but no guests. 52 Another distinct contrast to the Karnak scenes is the enthusiasm with which members of the royal family attack their food and drink. Scenes in which the banqueters actually appear to be partaking of the food before them are somewhat rare, even in the Eighteenth Dynasty private tombs. 53 In the scene from the east side of the tomb's south wall, the king and queen do not merely touch the food, they lift it to their mouths, although the item that Tiye is shown lifting to her lips has not been preserved. In the parallel scene on the west side of the same wall, all three senior royals lift goblets of wine. Thus the banqueting at Akhenaten's Sed, and his father's Sed festivals as well, were "diacritical feasts" which served the purpose of establishing and making explicit the bond between vassal and overlord through the commensal consumption of food and drink. Hence, Kadashman-Enlil of Babylon was not invited to Amenhotep Ill's Sed, to his disgruntlement, because as an ally and equal of the Egyptian king he would not have a place at an event intended for the demonstration of the guests' subservient status. 54 In both scenes, junior women of the royal family receive a share of the food. In the scene from the east side of the wall, two daughters of Akhenaten are seated knee to knee by Nefertiti, passing choice mor51 Norman de Garis Davies, The Rock Tombs of El Amama, III (Archaeological Survey of Egypt, 15th Memoir; London: Egypt Exploration Society, 19(5) pis. iv and vi. 52 Davies, Amama, III, pis. v and vii. 53 For examples, see Vandier d'Abbadie, Manuel, IV, 216, 228-30, figs.96-98. 5'~ EA 3; WiUiam 1... Moran, The Amama Letters (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) 7-8.

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sels back and forth. Similarly, the "King's Daughter" Baketaten sits alongside Tiye and receives a tidbit from her. In the parallel relief, in a seemingly more infomlal episode, two different daughters 55 of Akhenaten and Nefertiti stand beside their mother's chair and help themselves to fruit. Baketaten is once again by the seat of the queenmother. Huya appears at the bottom of the scene on the east side of the wall, a small obsequious figure receiving food. He is depicted apparently accepting a roast bird from another small figure, who may be a servant of Akhenaten. In registers below the scene proper, he lifts a morsel of food to his mouth. \Vhether he is testing it for poison, as Davies thought,56 or receiving a special tidbit from the royal banquet as a mark of favour is impossible to determine. Certainly, it is impossible to view this scene without thinking of the gifts of food from the royal table mentioned in the Mari letters. Four other depictions of members of the royal family eating or drinking also survive from the tombs at Amama, although these are much less well known. A very similar scene to the banqueting reliefs from the tomb of Huya is illustrated in the tomb of Ahmes, "steward" of the royal householdY On the lower half of the west wall are the remains of a depiction of the royal family eating. Much of the inscriptional material which labelled the scene is missing, but traces of the queen's name and titles were copied by Norman and Nina de Garis Davies and clearly refer to Nefertiti. She is depicted seated before a small table heaped with food, a daughter on her lap. She raises a joint of meat to her lips while a servant offers wine. Two more princesses sit on stools beside her chair and share food. The king is feeding on a roast bird of some sort. This scene both parallels and reverses the themes seen in Huya's tomb, although Tiye is absent from the scenes. For example, the types of food eaten by the couple are reversed in Ahmes; here, it is Nefertiti who gnaws a large hunk of meat and Akhenaten who eats a whole bird. However, as in Huya's tomb, the princesses associate themselves exclusively with their mother. This is notable because elsewhere, in non-feast scenes, Akhenaten is depicted holding and kissing his children. A few musicians and attendants are 5', In the portion of the relief from the east side of the wall, the princesses named are Merytaten and Meketaten. On the west side, Ankhsenpaaten is depicted standing on her mother's footstool, while the other daughter stands by Nefertiti's chair. The name of the latter princess has not been preserved . .">6 Davies, Amama, III, 6. 57 Davies, Amama, III, pI. xxxiv.

RITUAL BANQUETS AT THE COURT OF AI See Lanny Bell, "Aspects of the Cult of the Deified Tutankhamun," in Melanges Camal &ldin Mokhtar I, Paule Posener-Krieger (ed.), (Cairo, 1985) 31-60. 36 Edward Brovarski et. aI., Egypt's Golden Age: The Art if Liuing in the New Kingdom 1558-1085 B.C. (Boston, 1982), cat. 410, 300-301. The fan does not represent the SlI-J'f or "shade" as an aspect of the individual's personality in a funeral context as Brovarski opines, but the shade of Amen-Re-Lord-of-Heaven resting upon the body of a living Ram (or a statue of the same) as the god's sacred animal which was in essence a living cult statue. Note two examples from Cairo, each with the open fans behind them and a table of offerings before, one of which is called "Amen lives," r'nb-lmn. Lacau, Steies du Nouvel Empire, 199-200, pI. 61. Edward Brovarski presents the contrary view, "An allegory of death," lEA. 63 (1977) 178. 31

32

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king,37 and sacred barques,38 Bell has shown that fans were commonly used as an iconographic device to represent the swt, "shadow," i.e., the spirit of the deity lying upon the mortal being or crafted image thereby indicating that it is inhabited by the god. 39 Although a fan was the normal iconic symbol used to express the notion of the god's shade, a linen veil could, perhaps, express the same concept. Unfortunately, this must remain mere speculation, because there is no textual evidence to support it. An alternate explanation may lie in the complex dichotomy between the hidden and revealed natures of Egyptian deities. The notion that the veil served to underline the hidden aspect of the god Amen in particular, is supported by texts. Hymn 200 of the Leiden Amen Hymn, says of the god that "he is too secretive for his incarnate form (~m) to be revealed."4o The cult statues of gods in processional barque shrines were ensconsed in closed cabin shrines further obscured by a linen pall. The Egyptian term for a sacred barque was ssm-bwi "protected image," and the veil, like the cabin shrine itself, guarded the god's statue from view. 41 At the same time, texts describing the processional and oracular activities of the barque make it clear that the god translated his intentions into actions not through the medium of the cult statue within the cabin shrine, but through the form of the barque itself. Karlshausen concludes that only ssm-bwi "protected images," such as the cult statue inside the barque shrine needed to be screened from view. Likewise, the figureheads of the barques themselves served as cult images, and fans were carried aloft above the barques to indicate this.

Brand, Alonuments qf Seti I, 153-154, 3.42, 3.43 with figs. 75, 78. So in numerous examples where the barque is carried in procession or resting in its shrine. See Bell in MilaTlges Moldztar, 33. 39 Ibid., 34. 40 Translation fromjan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: TIle Alemory qf Egypt in Western Monotheism, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997) 196. Assmann translates the word ~m as "majesty," but ~mclearly refers to the physical form of both kings and gods, and was commonly used in referenee to cult images. See, fundamentally, the long overlooked study of J. Spiegel, "Die Grundbedeutung des Stammes ~m," ZAs 75 (1939) 112-21, where he proves the meaning of the word ~m to be "incarnation/bodily form" beyond all doubt. In Middle English, the term majesty was used to refer to the physical person of the monarch, as well as to the greatness and splendor of the same. Since the end of the Tudor era, the former connotation of the word has largely . been forgotten by English speakers. 41 Christine Karlshausen, L'icoTlographie de la barque processioTlnelle divine en Egypte au Nouvel Empire (Ph.D. diss., Universitc Catholique de Louvain, 1997) 305-10. 37

38

266

PETER

1.

BRAND

Yet, despite the hidden aspect of Amen in particular, he did not always secret himself from the devout. Like other gods, he made bri, "appearances," in public during festivals. The same Leiden hymn draws attention to this dichotomy calling him "secret of transformations and sparkling of appearances."42 Some processional images, bnty, were highly visible including the cult statue of Amen-Kamutef, which was fully exposed to view during the procession of the Min Feast or the cult statue of the divine Amenhotep I at Deir el-Medina. 43 It is most likely, then, that the veils which screened images on the exterior walls of temples were occasionally set aside so that the god's image was exposed to popular worshipers. Perhaps these appearances coincided with the various festivals which punctuated the Theban calendar.

42 A~smann, 43

Moses the Egyptian, 196. Karlshausen, L'iconographie de La barque processionnelle, 333-42, esp. 341.

A PRELIMINARY RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE AND SETTLEMENT AT TELL TEBILLA (EAST DELTA).l Gregory Mumford The ancient settlement at Tell Tebilla 2 is located in the eastern delta, 12 kilometers to the north of Tell Rub'a (Mendes), along the now defunct Mendesian branch of the Nile. The site was occupied during the late Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period, 3 the Second Intermediate Period to early Dynasty 18,4 the Third Intermediate Period to the Roman period,5 and in recent times. 6 'fhe southern location I The Tell Tebilla project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (1999-2005), an American Research Center in Egypt cultural documentation grant (2000), and private donors from Los Angeles, and is supported by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Further thanks go to the officials of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo and el-Mansoura, the municipality of Dikirnis, the staff of the water flltration plant, the villagers at Tell Tebilla, and the in-field and Toronto project stan: for all their assistance and encouragement towards the success of the Tell Tebilla project. This writer drew figures I, 2: 1-3, 3: 1-6, 4: 1-3, 4:5-6, 4:8, and 5, incorporating the topographic map by L. Pavlish into figure I, while L. Chinery and C. Gilbert drew figures 2:4, 4:4, and 4:7. 2 For early work at Tell Tebilla, called Tell Balala elsewhere, and its location, see pp. 39 and 271 (map grid reCG3) in Porter. and Moss, 1934. A more recent summary and bibliography is provided in Malek, 1985. 3 The northeastern part of the water plant, beyond the northern end of the current mound, yielded fi'agments fi-om crude bread moulds and carinated bowls with red slip and burnishing, duplicating First Intermediate Period forms fi-om Mendes (Mumford forthcoming). -1 Project ceramicist, Rexine Hummel, noted up to a dozen sherds from black-rimmed bowls and two Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware sherds dating from the Second Intermediate Period to early Dynasty 18 (no later than the reig11 of Thutmose III) . .5 To date, the mound has produced very few Ptolemaic or Roman potsherds, with the majority of the pottery representing the Saite to Persian periods. This may accord well with the general destruction of delta settlements, ca. 342 B.C., by Artaxerxes Ill, who likely caused the major destruction (i.e., burn debris) visible across one of the last strata at Tebilla. In a brief visit to Tellc Billeh (Tebilla) in 1887, F.Il. Griffith noted numerous ancient shells (Ampullaria o1!ata) in the upper stratum. He suggested they indicated Roman occupation since this mollusc represented a favourite Roman food source and appeared in abundance at other sites, such as Naukratis (p. 70 in Griffith, 1890). 6 The modern village occupies an irregularly shaped, lower residual strip of the eastern side of the mound, raised 1-2 metres above the surrounding fields and covering an area of 100 metres cast-west by over 400 metres north-south.

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of the delta coastline precludes occupation at Tebilla during the Predynastic to Early Dynastic periods, while little evidence exists for activity at this site in the early Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, much of the New Kingdom, and the Byzantine to Islamic periods. Throughout its existence the Nile delta has experienced continuous changes, such as the northward extension of the coastline (in particular at the mouths of each delta river branch), fluctuations in the course of the Mendesian and other river courses, and the formation and disappearance of various river branches and coastal lagoons. 7 At some point prior to ca. 2200 B.C., and possibly owing to the northward movement of the Mediterranean coastline, the population of the Mendesian nome founded a coastal town 8 on a levee beside the mouth of the Mendesian river. It seems plausible that T ebilla initially functioned as a tiny maritime, satellite port-town for Mendes during periods in which the Mendesian river flowed past Tebilla. Over time, the northward expansion of deltaic lands provided Tebilla with its own economic hinterland 9 (i.e., the district of Ro-nefer), which contained, presumably, an increasing measure of economic, but not necessarily political, autonomy from Mendes. Despite the recent discovery at T ebilla of a wall block bearing the middle portion of two vertical cartouches of a Ramesside king,10 the site lacks pottery and other evidence for any occupation between early

7 For maps of the eastern delta in 8000 BP, 5000 BP, 3500 BP, and 1500 BP, see pp. 270-71, fig. I, in Coutellier, 1987, and Stanley, 1987; 2002. 8 After the Mediterranean coastline had advanced 12-13 km. north of Mendes, a small settlement was founded at the mouth of the Mendesian river, alleviating the inconvenience to fishermen, merchants, and others traveling between Mendes and the sea. The creation of this tovm coincides with and may reflect the Old Kingdom royal program, especially in Dynasty 5, of establishing new estates in previously sparsely populated areas of Egypt; for a general discussion and bibliography, see pp. 228 and 251 in Lehner, 1997. For more details, see pp. 88 (fig. 4.5), 91, 92 (section no. 2), and 94 (table 4.1), in Butzer pp. 83-97 in van den Brink and Levy 2002. 9 For a further discussion of the development of land use in the delta, see pp. 23-25, 36, and 93-96 in Butzer, 1976. Some local resources included alluvial clay, pleistocene sands and gravels, tamarisk and acacia trees, papyrus, reeds, bulrushes, lotus plants, maritime and riverine fish, marsh birds, wild and domestic cattle, wild animals (i.e., big game hunting), sheep, wheat and barley crops, orchards, vineyards, perfume (Mendesian nome), and various byproducts (e.g., papyri; leather; wool; linen; basketry; ropes; furniture; tools; pottery). [0 During a brief visit to Tebilla in 2002 (en-route to fieldwork in South Sinai), SCA inspector Said el-Talhawa drew my attention to Block no.360, a sarcophagus (no. 359), and a slab (no. 361), which had been found recently. Blocks 360-61 require a closer examination before providing a fmal transcription and reading of the texts.

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Dynasty 18 and the Third Intennediate Period. Hence, this block probably represents the reuse of an earlier architectural piece rather than indicating the existence of a Ramesside temple. The earliest known royal patron of Tebilla's temple is the Dynasty 22 ruler, Sheshonq I, who is best equated with a pre nomen on a limestone block found by Edgar at Tebilla in 1908. 11 The Toronto expedition discovered a granite block (reused as a naos; fig. 4:2) with traces of a text with the words " ... beloved of P[tah] , given life"-an epithet commonly associated with Sheshonq 1. 12 Ro-nefer is cited in the Pi(ankhy) Stela, 13 while both Ro-nefer and its temple (hwt-Khestt are mentioned in texts on private Saite and Late Period statuettes found at Tebilla or ascribed to this site. The continuation of the importance of the district of Ronefer is reflected through an allusion to it in a text mentioning the cult of Sobek and a similarly named region on an offering table of Nectanebo, and its appearance in the Pithom Stela of Ptolemy II, the geographical list of Ptolemy XI (Edfu Temple), papyri, and Ptolemaic texts from the temples at Denderah and Ombos. 15 The aforementioned Third Intennediate Period to Ptolemaic inscriptional and archaeological evidence reveal that Tebilla lay in the district of Ro-nefer, in Lower Egyptian Nome XVI, and contained a temple (hwt-Hzi; Hzz) with offering tables dedicated to Osiris (the prime deity of the district, called variously Osiris-Khes, Osiris-vVen-nefer, Osiris "the August Mummy", "Great God", and "Lord of Ro-nefer"), Isis ("The Great Divine Mother", "The Great Chan tress" , and "Mistress of Ro-nefer and all the Deities of hwt-Khes"), Horus, Sobek ("Lord of Ro-nefer"), Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef, Kebehseneuf, and Anubis ("He Who Is Before the Divine Booth").16 The references to RoFor an illustration of this block, see p. 275 in Edgar, 1914. Personal communication from Troy Sagrillo, who is studying the reign of Sheshonq I. If the block dates to Sheshonq I, it would have been re-cut into a naos at a later date, possibly during the Saite period or Dynasty 30. 13 For a bibliography concerning the Stela of Piye (Piankhy) and references to Ro-nefer, see pp. 66-68 and 78, and n. 39-40, 76, and 83, 011 pp. 82-83, ill Lichtheim, 1980. For the political status of Ro-nefer, see pp. 104, n. 102, and 366-68, n. 710, in Kitchen, 1995. !.} For inscriptions mentioning ra nqfir and ra nqfrit, sce p. 121 (tome III), and for hat Khas and khes{t), see pp. 121, 122, and 205 (tome IV) in Gauthier, 1975. 15 The sources containing references to ra nqfir and ra nqfrit are listed on p. 121 (tome III) in Gauthier, 1975. 16 For the pertinent texts, see p. 29 in Chaban, 191 ; pp. 81-84 in Daressy, 1930; pp. 87-94 in Lefebvre, 1933; p. 88 and Pis. xvi-xxvii in Montet, 1957; p. 180, no. 3, in Yoyotte, 1953. II

12

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nefer, and the quantity and nature of the monuments and inscriptions from Tebilla, reveal a temple complex containing multiplc, important, national deities, an affiuent, local priesthood, royal and elite patronage, and recognition throughout Egypt (espccially in the eastern delta). A portion of the temple's priesthood included the family and descendants of the sem-priest Ankh-pa-khered (otherwise named [PeJdi-pe-khered): His son, the sem-priest Hor-pen-Iset (Second Priest of Osiris), his son's wife, Hetepet (also called Heryt), who held a post as a temple musician, and his grandson, the sem-priest Si-IsetY Alongside the nine deities associated with the temple, the amulets and figurines discovered at Tebilla represent other deities such as Ptah, Ptah-Sokar, Thoth, Taweret, Bes, Bastet, Heh, Selket, and Renenutet. Although it is possible that Ptah and Thoth had subsidiary shrines within the temple enclosure at T ebilla, most of these deities probably remained objects of household cults or small shrines in the town. In the thousand years or more following the Ptolemaic-Roman period, the temple at TebiUa was quarried for its stone, covered by silt and clay, and gradually disappeared from sight and all but local awareness. It took the 1798 Napoleonic expedition's visit to Tebilla (Tell el-Debeleh; incorrectly equated with Mendes),18 and Burton's 1828 visit 19 and observation of granite blocks on the mound's surface, to re-awaken suspicion regarding the existence of a temple at this site. Although various travelers and scholars observed architectural pieces at Tebilla over the following century, the first archaeological investigation at Tebilla occurred in 1908, when Hossein Abdallah, and subsequently :Nlohammed Chaban and M.e.C. Edgar, initiated excavations in the necropolis area of the mound. 2o Their discoveries,

17 The minimum reconstructed size (18 by 35 metres) of Tebilla's temple, and the scanty information gleaned from the few texts mentioning several priests in hwt Klles, suggest that this temple was medium-sized. Based upon parallels, this temple may have accommodated six or more permanent priests and between fifty and eighty part time personnel, subdivided into four groups of eleven to twenty priests, serving for three months per year in a rotational sequence of one month in four. For more details, see pp. 53-54 in Sauneron, 1998. 18 See Tell el-DebeIeh (Mendes) on the map of Lower Egypt reprinted on pp. 572-73 in Benedikt Taschen, 1994. 19 Burton placed his observation of granite fragments on a map beside Tell elDebelch (Tebilla); see p. 81, fig. 3, in de rvfeulenaere and MacKay, 1976. 20 The excavation's findings included a limestone statuette (ofOsiris-nakht), burnt brick tombs containing mummies with terra cotta face masks, one mud brick tomb yielding scarabs with the prenomen of Thutmose III (Saite re-issues?), a bronze

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published in several brief reports, clarified the nature and designation of the temple through several inscribed statuettes and a wall block found on the mound's surface and in the necropolis area. Despite the expansion of agricultural fields and the removal of large portions of the mound over the past two centuries, the next archaeological interest in Tebilla took place in the last decade: The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), which was later joined in a co-operative venture by the University of Toronto (1999-2001),21 implemented salvage operations at Tebilla in response to the large-scale, municipal installation of a water filtration plant in the western half of Tell Tebilla (fig. I). Although the immediate requirements for the installation of the water plant precluded any delays to its construction, the municipal and local officials co-operated fully with the archaeological teams to salvage remains from the building site. The municipal removal of approximately 75,000 cubic metres of the western half of the mound for the foundations of the water plant has produced numerous artifacts and pieces of stone architecture and sarcophagi.22 To date (August 2002), a minimum of 367 stone pieces of varying sizes and forms have been catalogued 23 from Tebilla and its environs, enabling-in conjunction with assistance from the SCA--a preliminary hypothetical reconstruction of the minimum size and possible design parameters of the temple (hwt-Khes) of Ro-nefer (fig. 5). The 367 stone pieces number one alabaster item (0.3%), one black granite, thirty-nine pink granite pieces (10.9%), and 326 limestone remains (88.8 %). The granite pieces are generally larger, totaling box, a bronze axe, and several bronze statuettes of Osiris, and a large, broken and plundered limestone sarcophagus, which still held bone debris, two gilded bronze statuettes (Selket and Ranen), a gilded statuette of Osiris, pendants of gold, carnelian, and lapis lazuli, several small scarabs, pearl beads, and an earring. For details, see pp. 28-30 in Chaban. 1910. 21 For more details on the results of the 1999-2001 seasons, see Mumford, 2000; 200 I a; 200 I b; 2002a; 2002b. 22 Special thanks go to the SCA director of the El-Mansoura office, Naguib Noor, for providing access to the register of artifacts found at Tebilla during the 1990s, e.g., bronze figurines, jewellery (amulets; pendants; beads), and shawabtis from the sarcophagi, and a small statuette from the northwest part of the mound. 23 Further thanks to L. Pavlish and P. Carstens for cataloguing and photographing the stone pieces at Tell Tebilla and its environs, and to L. Chinery, C. Gilbert, Z. McQuinn, and S. Parcak, for their assistance in drawing various diagnostic architectural pieces. This writer collated and checked the photographs with each block entry in the final catalogue, incorporating an initial catalogue of 35 blocks (begun by T. Davidson and K. Meikle), and adding further observations from drawings and from personal examinations, records, and photographs of the diagnostic stone pieces.

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up to 23.65 cubic metres in volume (27%) in contrast to the overall 76.50 cubic metre volume (73%) of the limestone. 24 At least fourteen of the stone pieces did not originate from the temple, but consisted of seven to eight(?) sarcophagi (two of granite; six of limestone; fig. 2: 1-3), and five limestone pieces and a lid (fig. 2:4) from two of these sarcophagi.25 Nine limestone pieces may have originated from the temple and include a door socket, two basins (fig. 3: 1), two mortars (fig. 3:2-3),26 a fitting (possibly for a window or drain?; fig. 3:4), a Ushaped, horned altar(?) (fig. 3:5), and two anchor stones (fig. 3:6).27 The remaining 344 diagnostic stones and fragments consisted of one granite door jamb (fig. 4: 1) from a gateway or pylon? (with a 65 degree batter),28 three granite pylon? blocks (with identical slopes),

24 The groups of granite pieces and limestone blocks have approximate (total) weights of 63.4 tons and 203-218 tons, respectively. For lists providing the weight(s) of these types of stone, see p. 28 and table 2.1 in Arnold, 1991. 25 The sarcophagi can be subdivided into three main types: (1) Four bathtubstyle sarcophagi (nos. 149, 154, 162 and 361 oflimestone and granite) with one lid (no. 153), (2) a rectilinear limestone sarcophagus (no .224) with a rectilinear inset, a massive limestone block (no. 221), which may be similar to no. 224, and the 1908 massive limestone sarcophagus, which is not described, but may also resemble no. 224, and (3) one rectilinear black granite sarcophagus (no. 218) with an anthropoidshaped inset. All three sarcophagus types are found in private and royal burials in the Saite and Late Period, with good parallels illustrated on pp. 268-72, figs. 385-89, in Ikram and Dodson, 1998. 26 One mortar (no. 264; fig. 3:3) has two protruding handles and is similar to a Third Intermediate Period and Greco-Roman example shown on p. 158, figs. 200201, in Aston, 1994. 27 Both anchors from T ebilla are smail, measuring 40 by 26 by 15 cm. and 55 by 22 by 22 cm. They are similar to two slightly larger Late Bronze Age anchors from Cyprus, which appear on pp. 22 (table II: N9039), 23 (fig. 10:I.N9039 [64 x 24 x 15-20 cm.]) and 29 (fig. 15 no. 5) in McCaslin, 1980. For a fragmentary Tura limestone "anchor" in Mereruka's tomb at Saqqara, and a similarly shaped, but much larger anchor, from an Early Bronze Age temple in Bahrein, see pp. 142-43, fig. 2 left and fig. 2B, in Frost, 1979. Despite few good Bronze Age parallels (pp. 377-94, fig. I and PIs. I-II, in Frost, 1970), the limestone of the Tebilla anchors matches most of the blocks from the site, implying an Egyptian origin for the material, if not the style of the anchors (i.e., truncated, elongated triangles with a single perforation at the top). 28 This block (fig. 4: I) resembles the style of a gateway jamb, such as one in the ProMOJ entrance at Kom Ombo, illustrated on p. 99 in Arnold, 1992. A strong argument against the block's use in a pylon is the 65° angle of its face, which is much lower than the 80-81 0 angle (I: 7 horizontal to vertical ratio) found in Pylon I at Karnak Temple and in other temple pylons; see pp. 195-96 in Clarke and Engelbach, 1930. Of note, while most pyramid casings have inclinations between 48° to 55°, a few examples, such as the pyramids of Iuput I and Udjebten, reach 63 0 and 63°30', or sometimes exceed this angle; see pp. 461-65 (appendix I) in Verner, 1997. Other

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thirty-one granite wall blocks, two granite naos fragments (of different sizes; fig. 4:2-3), three limestone statuettes, one granite statuette, seven limestone column bases (fig. 4:4), a limestone papyrus capital (fig. 4:5), a limestone drainage channel (fig. 4:6), four decorated limestone wall blocks (fig. 4: 7), and 290 limestone blocks (from foundation courses, flooring, walls, and other elements; fig. 4:8). In regards to their context of discovery, 167 (45.5%) limestone pieces still lay within the water plant, twenty-seven (7.4%) limestone and granite blocks appeared in the excavated foundation area outside the water plant, seventy-one (19.3%) limestone and granite blocks and sarcophagi were found in a group at the southwest corner of the mound, six (1.6%) pieces were scattered sporadically along the southern end of the mound, twelve (3.3%) limestone and granite blocks were found across the eastern half of the mound, eleven (3%) granite blocks occurred in a pile at the northern end of the mound, forty-four (12%) blocks had been reused in the modern village on the eastern edge of the mound, nine (2.5%) blocks were located along the northern base of the mound, ten (2.7%) blocks lay in the fields to the north, and the remaining ten (2.7%) stone pieces had been discovered prior to the current survey at Tell Tebilla. The villagers noted that most of the granite pieces from the southwest pile had lain on the mound's surface for many decades, while the limestone pieces in this pile are attributed to the water plant's foundation area. In general, the pieces found scattered across the mound, in the village, and in the fields, represented smaller blocks and fragments than many of the pieces inside and beside the water plant's enclosure. The concentration of architectural pieces at Tell Tebilla's northwestern corner 29 provides strong evidence for the temple's location here. Of direct interest, an official supervising the municipality's earth removal operations reported that this area had contained the remnants of a 20 em thick layer of foundation sand, some limestone paving blocks, column bases, and a drainage channel. Although a plan of this area awaits release, local officials have indicated that only a small than postulating this block's unlikely use as a stairway balustrade, it may represent a door jamb for a gate in a mud brick enclosure wall: It is closer to several blocks with a 73° degree batter composing a Ramesside gate at Serape urn (located near Km. 91, south of Lake Timsah); see p. 58, fig. 3, in Bruyere, 1951. 29 For an early map showing the mound of Tell T ebilla, similar to the 1958 I: 50,000 map (Sheet 5687 III, based upon the 1930-50 Survey of Egypt 1:25,000 map), see p. 89 in Daressy, 1930.

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patch of paving had survived. Indeed, the evidence of both wedgeshaped quarry marks on various limestone and granite blocks and sarcophagi, and the re-dispersal of many blocks across the mound and its environs, attest to the large-scale and long-term dismantling of the temple, beginning at some point in the Roman period and continuing until recent times. Despite the ancient destruction of the temple, the quantity and nature of the extant remaining architectural pieces allows a preliminary and hypothetical reconstruction of the temple (fig. 5): It measured no less than 15-18 by 30-35 metres in size,30 enclosing at least three inner sanctuaries (and possibly up to nine sanctuaries), a pillared hall, an outer court with a drainage channel and pillared colonnade, and a pylon, and it lay within an enclosure wall that occupied at least 79.4 by 79.4 metres in area. Although more detailed, future analyses of block proportions, the chisel widths and types used in cutting each block, and other features, might allow blocks to be subdivided into different periods, the current study entails a preliminary reconstruction of the final form of the temple, based upon the extant remains. 31 It must be assumed that modifications were made to the structure throughout its history from Dynasty 22 through to Dynasty 30, and possibly into the Ptolemaic-Roman period. The following discussion will outline the evidence for each component in the suggested reconstruction. 32

30 The scarcity of Third Intermediate Period temples provides a limited number of contemporary examples for comparison, but Sheshonq 1'5 temple at EI-Hibe is similar in size (17.65 by 30 metres) to the minimum reconstructed temple size at Tebilla. See pp. 33-35, 33 fig. 5, in D. Arnold, 1999. 31 The 290 limestone blocks at Tebilla (excluding other diagnostic limestone pieces) represent mostly poorly dressed foundation and floor blocks; they lack uniform dimensions, which suggest that they are less likely to date to the Ptolemaic-Roman period in which many, albeit not all, temples adopted courses of stones with regular heights and other dimensions; see pp. 144 and 145 fig. 96 in Arnold, 1999. 109 block heights at Tebilla range broadly from 5 em to 62 em, with visible peaks at 9 em (4%),30 cm (7.2%), 34 cm (4.1 %),36 em (16.6%), and 40 em (5.5%). The remaining 181 blocks (62%) encompass virtually all other height ranges between 5 cm and 62 em, with concentrations at 8 em (2.4%), 12 cm (2.4%), 16 em (3%), 20 em (2.5%), 22 em (2.8°;')), 27 cm (3.1 %), 32 cm (3.4%), and 33 cm (2.8%); the lea~t represented heights (excluded from this list) have one to six blocks (0.3-2.1 %), while absent bloek heights include 11 cm, 49 cm, 53-56 em, and 59-61 em. 32 The evidence for the following reconstruction relics largely upon an examination of numerous temple plans and architectural features, including those published in Arnold, 1991; 1992; 1999 ; Badawy 1968; Clarke and Engelbach, 1930; Niederberger, 1999; Quirke 1997; Shafer 1997; Wilkinson, 2000.

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The reference to a main deity (Osiris) and eight other deities and their associated offering tables suggests the possibility of nine sanctuaries. Osiris, who formed the focal point of the temple, would most likely have received the largest naOJ and a sanctuary placed in a prominent position at the back of the temple. His consort Isis and the god Sobek are also major deities in Ro-nefer, and may have had slightly smaller sanctuaries. Horus and Anubis probably received their own sanctuaries as well, while the remaining four deities could have had much smaller sanctuaries, shared one sanctuary, or may simply have been represented in the sanctuary of one of the other deities. The suggestion of a prime sanctuary and smaller sanctuaries is supported by the presence of a corner fragment from the base of a large, granite naOJ (no. 180; fig. 4:2)33 and the side and back part of a smaller, granite naOJ (no. 191; fig. 4:2). The two naoi contained bases measuring at least 2.00 by 2.00 metres and 1.10 by 1.10 metres, respectively. Based upon parallels to similarly sized naoi at Nectanebo II's temple at Elephantine, it is likely that the two sizes of naoi at Tebilla reflect two sizes of sanctuaries with floor spaces measuring 3 by 3 metres and 4 by 7 metres. 34 With respect to the internal layout of the sanctuaries, the various temple plans for Dynas6es 22-30 suggest a central, main sanctuary surrounded by a corridor accessing smaller sanctuaries lining the temple's exterior back walls. 35 This corridor would have been no narrower than the 0.75 metre wide corridor at El-Hibe, and probably extended to 1.50 metres in width, closer to the corridor width around the central shrines at Elephantine. The inner, central sanctuary, which represented a new feature in the Third Intermediate Period, may have been constructed of hard stone like at EI-Hibe. Although some similarly sized stone temples had walls as narrow as 0.65 metres,36 the walls composing the EI-Hibe and Elephantine temples range from 1.20 metres to

33 The large naos fragment li'om Tcbilla conforms well with a 2.00 by 2.51 metre naos from Elephantine, displaying a similar size, sloping back wall, and wall thickness; see pp. 88-90 and 89 Abb. 53 in Niederberger, 1999. 34 For a plan of the llaoi and sanctuaries at Elephantine, sec p. 135, fig. 91, in Arnold, 1999. 35 These design features for multiple shlines appear in temples at EI-Hibe (Sheshonq I), Bubastis (Neetanebo II), and Elephantine (Nectanebo II); see pp. 33, fig. 5, 37 fig. lO, and J 35 fig. 91 in Arnold, 1999. 36 Ptolemy IV's Hathor Temple at Deir el-Medineh measured 15 by 24 metres and contained some walls as narrow as 0.65 metres; see pp. 175-76 and fig. 124 in Arnold, 1999.

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1.50 metres, and even 2.00 metres, in widthY In this reconstruction a wall width of 1.10 metre is attested by one decorated block (no. 199), which may have lain over a door. The presence of seven column bases (fig. 4:4)38 of two to three basic diameter ranges suggests an inner pillared hall, an outer pillared hall, and possibly part of a pillared pronaos later added onto the temple's facade. An examination of the placement of differently sized column bases within temples reveals that, in general, they occur in decreasing sizes from the exterior to the interior, allowing the standard decrease in ceiling height along the temple axis towards the innermost sanctuary. (In cases where temples included an hypostyle hall, the columns flanking the temple axis would be larger). At Tebilla, the top of the three smallest column bases measured 42 ern (no. 148), 44 ern (no. 237; fig. 4:4), and 44 ern (no. 240). They probably represent a transverse pillared hall with at least four columns that may have risen 2.80 metres in height39 with up to a three metre space separating each pillar from its neighbour. 40 Given the small size of the column bases, it seems plausible that this hallway did not exceed four metres in width. The two next largest column bases have diameters of 80 ern (no. 190)

See pp. 33, fig. 5 (EI-Hibe), and 135, fig. 91 (Elephantine), in Arnold, 1999. Although seven column bases are catalogued officially, in 1999 this writer observed a small, mostly buried column base along the southern edge of the mound, but it awaits re-location and cataloguing. In addition, several other "column bases" may occur amongst the limestone blocks, but require verification in future seasons. There may be at least ten column bases in total. 39 It is probable that such narrow column bases supported wooden columns. This suggestion is enhanced through the discovery of a small limestone papyrus capital (no.266; fig. 4:5), 23 em in diameter at the top and 10 cm at the base, with a 6 cm diameter vertical socket that could have secured the top of a tall, tapering wooden column. The papyrus capital is rather small and may have originated from a private house (a similar example appears in a priest's house at Karnak Temple). In postulating limestone columns measuring up to 40 em in diameter, their heights could reach 1.60 metres, 2.00 metres, or 2.80 metres, depending upon whether their ratios reflected the Ramesside 1:4 and 1:5 column width-height ratios or the Kushite 1:7 column width-height ratio; see pp. 44-45 in Arnold, 1999.The higher 1:7 ratio would make sense here if stone columns were used. 4D Wilkinson notes that limestone architraves and ceiling slabs did not generally exceed spans of three metres, while sandstone allowed spans of eight metres; see p. 65 in Wilkinson, 2000. Only three limestone blocks exceed 2 metres at Tebilla (excluding sarcophagi): Two measure 2.10 metres (nos. 168; 217) and the decorated block (no. 199) is 2.70 m. long; only the granite naos and sarcophagus exceed 2 m. This implies either no roofing blocks survived or that another material composed the temple's roof. 3i

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and 83 em (no. 65), and may reflect a small colonnade 41 with a set of two pillars each on either side of an open courtyard with a drainage channe1. 42 Since the column bases in the outer court were wider, they may have supported architraves spanning three metres, thereby allowing the outer court to measure nine metres in length. The remaining seventh column was larger (measuring 94 em in diameter) and may have formed part of a pronaos. The front of the temple may have contained a 4 metre wide pylon entry. This suggestion is based upon the presence of several granite foundation and lower wall blocks with a definite batter, and a granite door jamb base (fig. 4.1) with an identical sloping side. Although this form of pylon entry would not duplicate the entrance style adopted by Sheshonq I at EI-Hibe, pylon entries do continue throughout the Late Period and Ptolemaic-Roman era (e.g., Edfu Temple). The numerous granite blocks may also reflect the Saite and Dynasty 30 large-scale use of hard stone in embellishing existing and constructing new temples, especially in the northeast delta where Kings Nectanebo I and II built over a dozen new temples using hard stones. 43 The Saite and Dynasty 30's use of deep stone foundations for temples in the delta met the requirements of an environment that received more rainfall and needed to stabilize the heavier hard stone walls used during these periods.'14 41 Using the Ramesside and Kushite column width-height ratios, one could calculate potential heights of 2.80 m., 3.50 m., and 4.90 m., should the columns measure 0.70 m. in width and be constructed of stone. The absence of both stone column drums and blocks with a curved edge (reflecting multiple blocks composing a single course in a column) suggests that wooden pillars may have been used in the temple at Tebilla. Another possibility, is the use of square pillars, which may be represented by some i,rranite blocks (e.g., no. 241: 51 x 51 x 130 cm.; no. 204: 64 x 67 x 134 em.) and some limestone blocks (e.g., no. 186: 40 x 43 x 119 cm.; no. 187: 45 x 45 x 105 cm.). 42 One oflicial reported that a portion of pavement had survived with some column bases, paving stones, and a drainage channel. This fonns the basis for the reconstruction of a partly unroofed outer court with a drainage channel, lNhich is suggested here as running along the temple axis and out the entryway. Although similar drainage channels are attested in 1100rs (p. 114, fig. 4.6, in Arnold, 1991), the Roman period temple at Dakka has a similar water channel in the upper part of its colonnade (p. 160, fig. 183, in Clarke and Engelbach, 1930). 43 See pp. 65, 95, and 94 fig. 48 (map), in Arnold, 1999. For a discussion of Mammisi ("Birth Houses"), which are built within temple precincts in the Late Period (especially Dynasty 30) and continue into the Ptolemaic-Roman period, see pp. 94-95 and 285-87 in Arnold, 1999. 44 For a discussion of Saite and Dynasty 30 foundations, see pp. 66-67 and 97 in Arnold, 1999. See also pp. 69-77 in Clarke and Engelbach, 1930.

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Only a few decorated wall blocks survive from the temple, but what little exists indicates that at least a portion of the temple had received inscriptions and large scale depictions of the king and Osiris.45 One wall block (no.362) bears the prenomen of Sheshonq I and vertical columns of text beside an atef crown of Osiris (which would have surmounted a large figure of this deity). A figure of the king probably appeared to the left, beside his cartouche(s). A second limestone block (no. 199; fig. 4:7) bore the upper and lower parts of two registers with incised decoration. The upper register displayed the lower half of two kneeling figures facing each another and the legs of a third figure standing to the left, facing away from the kneeling figures. The lower register was badly worn and contained some traces of the tops of hieroglyphs. Similar scenes appear in the inner, pillared halls at Karnak Temple, suggesting that block 199 may have originated from an inner chamber at Tebilla. 46 The block (no.360) with a fragmentary, incised Ramesside cartouche is smaller (51.5 x 22.2 x 24.2 cm) than many of the limestone blocks, and probably reflects reuse within the foundations or elsewhere. An inscribed granite piece (no. 180; fig. 4:2) contains traces of an epithet (" ... given life, beloved of [pta]h"), written in 50 cm. high hieroglyphs, which suggests its original placement on a large pylon, or exterior wall face, before the block was re-cut into a naos. A fifth block (no.275) has traces ofa continuous row of narrow, vertical lines in sunken relic£: perhaps representing the lower part of an interior wall face. The remaining block (no.359) has faint traces of two vertical columns of text, but is a narrow slab (50 x 40 x 10-11 em.), and in its form, style, and condition, it may represent the reuse of a stela within the temple. Since only a portion of the temple's foundations, flooring, and lowest wall levels appear to have survived, one can estimate that the blocks at Tebilla reflect no more than 10%, and perhaps as little as 5 %, of the original stone work. The combined limestone and granite remains at Tebilla amount to 100.15 cubic metres, which translates into a cubic area measuring 4.64 m. in length, breadth, and height. Should this reflect only 5 % of the original stone, one could postulate that the building had contained 2,000 cubic metres'P of stone, which

See p. 277 in Edgar, 1914. block (fig. 4: 7) measures 1.10 metres in width and provides the basis for reconstructing the temple walls (fig. 5) at this measurement. 47 To place the building of Tebilla's temple in context with peak periods of con45

'16 Thi~

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reflects a cubic area of 12.6 metres in length, breadth, and height. Hence, the estimated stone would have been sufficient to construct a chamber-filled structure measuring 18 by 30 metres and containing flooring, roofing slabs, and deep foundations for a pylon, walls, and column bases. Having outlined the parameters for the temple's potential appearance, what can be said regarding the immediate environs of this structure? A perusal of Third Intermediate Period to Ptolemaic-Roman temple enclosure sizes and designs reveal that many temples had sacred precincts covering an area from two to ten times larger than the inner temple. In the case of a minimum 18 by 35 metre temple (630 square metres), the surrounding enclosure wall could have enclosed a 79.40 by 79.40 metre area (6,304 square metres). Such an enclosure would have safeguarded such features as housing for priests, storerooms, granaries, work.. (greater than) 0.2 mm, up to 0.25 mm, in both straight and undulose extinctions under crossed polars. Brownish Amphibole and Pyroxene: 0.05% each, grain size = 0.1; Opaques 2%, some bluish; Carbonates 12%: shells (spartic calcite) and calcite: .02 to 0.5; Chert 2%; Lumps 2%, Ferruginous silty lumps, Marly fossiliferous lumps: 0.04 to 0.8 mm; Voids 5%. The section reacted to dilute hydrochloric acid. (Franco-Nieto n.d.)

All but the organic inclusions (voids) would appear to be native to the marl itself, probably part of the widely exposed Mozah formation. While there are more than twenty other fragments field-classified as resembling the same general ware types as the above, and some may be remnants of other decanters, their analysis must await final preparation for publication.

Late Judaean Decanters Before proceeding further, we must review the Palestinian evidence. The "historical" reasons for the Judaean decanter's late recognition as a type are addressed in Albright (1932:82-83, pI. 59). Differences between the J udaean and Egyptian groups emerge when we compare the ware descriptions in table 1 (below) with the Egyptian marly examples, which involve "grayish-green" or "pale white to yellow" wares and never mention surface treatment (therefore, except for the Tebilla example, presumably lacking burnish). For convenience and ease of comparison, more detailed ware descriptions are presented in table 1.

Tell Beit Mirsim Tell Beit Mirsim's decanters, and, apparently, most of those known to Albright and Kelso up to 1943, were typically wheel-burnished below the handle, but, for obvious reasons, hand-burnished from the lower handle attachment up. We find only three descriptions involving color: "the most beautiful burnishing is done on a heavy buff pinkish slip with a rather narrow tool that leaves relatively deep furrows which overlap or nearly so." This generalizing description of five decanters, which conforms well to the present writer's knowledge of one group of the type, is contrasted with two other decanters. One is characterized as having "a thin dark grey slip [with] wider, lighter strokes of burnishing made with a flat tool." The other is a '"toy'''

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JR .

. . . covered with a rich deep red slip, but is unburnished . . . [In contrast to the usual carefully made, often wheel-folded, ring base,] it has a string-cut bottom, only roughly hand-smoothed" (Kelso in Albright 1943: 130).

Tell ed-Duweirl Lachish Although published in terms of "types," more late decanters are published in Tufnell (1953) than in any other fmal report volume. According to Tufnell, all of the decanters from Str. III and II were pink or brown. Stratum III forms sometimes had dark red or brown slips, with vertical hand burnishing early, and only becoming ringburnished in destruction materials of Str. III rooms. "The handles were oval in section, without ridges" (Tufnell 1953:292). Tufnell subdivides her Str. II examples (n=49) into seven types: 264 [n=2], 273 [n=l], 274 [n=7], 275 [n=25], 276 [n=11], 277 [n=2], and 278 [n=l], the last two probably being equivalent to Kelso's "toy" decanter. Types 277-278 also have string-cut bases. Type 665 seems to be another horizontally burnished red-slipped version of the general ridged ribbon-handled "Lachish II" type (1953, pI. 103.665). The majority (64%) of these, but none of the very large decanters, came from tombs. This statistic is, however, imperfect in that sherd materials were undervalued by excavators of the period. Tufnell (1953:292) says that these Str. II forms: were nearly all made of hard pink paste containing some grits, very unevenly fired, so that the surface varied in colour from cream [not mentioned in any description of the type examples] to deep red. The body was horizontally wheel bumished, with or without a slip, and the neck usually finished with vertical strokes. The ribbon handle displayed marked ridges. One example of type 276, found in the [area of] the courtyard of the Solar Shrine was made of hard pink ware with a thick cream slip, unbumished [cf. Jerusalem, Gezer, and Dever's inscribed decanter attributed to Khirbet (Kh.) el-Qam, below]. From its position about 50 cm below the floor it should belong to the underlying stratum, which has still to be equated with Levels III or II. The small decanters 277 and 278 seem to end the series at Tell ed-Duweir [apparently because they were poorly made and finished].

Beer-Sheba Twenty-three decanters were found (Lily Singer-Avitz 1999: 17) in Aharoni's excavations (1973) at Tell es-Seba/ancient Beersheba, all from Str. II, the terminal Iron II layer. Of these eight have been

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published: four, including one large unburnished non-standard type (pI. 62:99), [not really a 'judaean Decanter" in our opinion] with greenish exterior, a pink core, and white and grey small grits, came from Locus 221 in one of the "storehouses" [or stables]. The other three from that "storehouse" locus were, respectively, made of brown clay [62: I 00] or red clay [62: 101 and 102]. All were wheel-burnished. 61: 10 I has lost its rim and upper neck. It appears to have been neatly trimmed off for continued use. In the well-excavated houses of the "western quarter" (Beit Arieh), roughly similar vessels were found in Locus 75 (pI. 64: 17: brown-buff ware with a grey core) and in Locus 74 (pI. 74:17, 18, 19: brown-grey ware, red-brown ware, and redbrown ware). While Singer-Avitz publishes another one, from Locus 282, in her petrographic source analysis (utilizing Yuval Goren's petrographic determinations [1999: 13]) of materials found at Beersheba, this particular item seems to be included, without description, merely as a "known" Judaean type (1999: fig. 2, "Group of vessels with Judean' characteristics"). Tell el-Jum/Tel Goren/En-Cedi In the preliminary report of their excavations at Tel Goren/EnGedi, B. Mazar, T. Dothan, and I. Dunayevsky (1966) published five classically late Judaean decanters, all with strap handles and beaked rims (20:3 missing its rim), and all wheel-burnished (73: fig. 20: 1-5). Respectively, their wares were: 20: 1 "reddish-brown clay;" 20:2 "brown clay;" 20:3 "brown clay;" 20:4 "reddish-brown clay;" and 20:5 "grey clay." Given that 20:2 was brown outside and "grey" inside, it seems probable that 20:5 is a reduction-fired (or smoked) version of the same clay. The only "greenish-grey" or "yellowish-grey" wares illustrated belonged to two [imported] flat-bottomed wavy-sided mortaria (fig 16: 1, 2). Materials from the Clark collection, attributed to En-Gedi and probably stemming from tombs in that region, and therefore on the whole earlier and less homogeneous than pottery from destruction deposits (Holladay 1976:255-59), include three decanters: one with a more oval handle and two with strap handles. figure 31: 1 is made of brown clay, 31:2 is reddish-brown, and 31:3 is brown. No red slip is mentioned or indicated by hatching. No "greenish," "yellowish," or "white" wares (or surfaces) appeared among the Iron Age materials within the collection.

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JOHN S. HOLLADAY, JR.

Tell Q,asile While the early strata at Amihai Mazar's Tell Qasile were heavily Philistine in character, the terminal Iron II Str. VII appears almost entirely 'Judaean," particularly in contrast to Ashdod (below). Four typically Judaean decanters are illustrated (~lazar 1985; fig. 57: 1619). Respectively, they are made of brown, brown, reddish-brown, and brown clay. Nos. 16 and 19 have "orange-red horizontal[ly] burnish[ed]" slips, and no. 18 has a "brown-reddish grey continuous burnish." "Grey-yellowish" clays, or the like, appear in Str. VII only with respect to figs. 55:24 (possibly a misstanced imported mortarium), 27 (a flared-rim "Assyrian Bowl" type), and 56:6 (an imported mortarium). "White"-Slipped or "ll'hite"-Suifaced Decanters ]erusalem Tushingham published six fragmentary decanters from the Armenian Garden in Jerusalem (1985:290-91, 299, 354=fig. 2: 10-13, 362=fig. 3:30-31). "Vhere preserved, all had ribbon handles with ridges, and five could be characterized as beaked-rim, the sixth (p. 354, fig. 2: 12) having a broadly flared rim. All but 2: 10 were burnished. The wares were, respectively: 2: 10 "coarse, gritty grayish brown ware;" 2: II "pinkorange ware ... pink-orange slip, horizontally burnished on body, neck and rim;" 2: 12 "pink-orange ware pink-orange slip, wheel-burnished on top of rim and on neck below ridge" [misidentified hand-burnish, given the handle]. Three examples stood out because of their white slip (cf. also Gezer and the inscribed Kh. el-Qom decanter, below): 2: 13 "brown ware white slip outside and inside mouth, wheel-burnished on top of rim and above neck ridge [as above];" 10:30 "grayish brown ware creamy white slip, poorly preserved, traces of vertical burnish on neck;" and 10:31 "reddish brown ware white slip, traces of horizontal burnishing on rim and neck." Gezer While Gitin's publication (1990) of Field VII at Gezer yielded only one secure ribbon-handled decanter, it is white surfaced [slipped?]. A similarly surfaced beaked rim with a probably ridged handle came from another locus. The secure "decanter" is pI. 25: II, "paste 10YR red' 5/6 surface: (Int.) 10YR white' 8/2; (Ext.) as interior." The beaked rim and handle stub, pI. 25: 10, is "paste: 2.5 YR red' 5/6 surface: (Int.) 10YR white' 8/2; (Ext.) as interior." Although there may have

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been a gap in the recording process, neither of the above appears to have been burnished. Two other candidates may also lean in this direction; another beaked rim looks like a late decanter, though it is simply titled 'jug:" pI. 45: 1, "paste 2.5YR red' 4/8 surface: (Int.) 5YR pink' 7/3; (Ext.) lOYR white' 8/2 to lOR light red' 6/6 to 2.5YR red' 5/6; wheel burnish." pI. 45:3, "Decanter/Flask," mayor may not be a decanter: "paste: 2.5YR red' 4/8 surface: (Int.) 2.5YR light red' 6/8; (Ext.) 5 R pink' 7/4." Note, in three of the above four instances, that I OYR "white" 8/2 is very close to 2.5Y "white" 8/2, or 5Y "pale yellow" 8/4, which in turn are in the same general range as Bourriau's "light grey 5Y 7/2" surface on a "pale yellow 5Y 7/3" section. Note also the decanter "made of hard pink ware with a thick cream slip, unburnished" found beneath tlle Persian Solar Temple' at Lachish (above) and Dever's Kh. el-Q6m inscribed example (below). This characteristic sets these items apart, in terms of surface treatment, but not in terms of "wares," from all the other 'judaean" examples reviewed above.

Non-]udaean Sites

TIze j\;fixed ]udaean and Greek A1erchant Colony at A1ezad Hasha1!vahu So far, except for the non-standard (non-"decanter") example from Beersheba (Aharoni 1973, pI. 62:99) we have not yet encountered the sorts of marly clays that characterize the Egyptian exemplars. Naveh, the excavator of the late-seventh (to early sixth?) century B.C. small Greek merchant colony at Mezad Hashavyahu, published four classic 'judaean" decanter ware-forms, together with a good range of other late Judaean ware and a large quantity of Greek wares (Naveh 1962). One of the decanters was "greenish grey, white grits," that is, probably made of non-ferruginous marly clay, with a sharply ridged strap handle. Its rim was missing (Naveh 1962: fig. 5.14). fig. 5: 15 was red-slipped, to judge from the hatching and description: "red, yellow core, burnish", with a good beaked rim and too short a handle stub to show ridging. fig. 5: 16 was "yellow, grey core, white grits" with a strap handle and beaked rim, probably a candidate for being made either of marly clay or ferruginous marly clay. fig. 15: I 7, lacking a rim, was made of "reddish buff [clay with a] gTey core and yellow slip," possibly imitating marly exemplars (?).

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JOHN S. HOLLADAY, JR.

The Philistine Ciry of Ashdod Not unexpectedly, given the great differences between the seventh century pottery corpora of near-neighbors Lachish and Ashdod (M. Daviau n.d.), there were no examples of the 'Judaean" decanter published in Ashdod I (Dothan and Freedman 1967), and II-III (Dothan 1971 ). Phoenician Ijre and Sidon Trapezoidal jugs, all red-slipped and burnished, appear only in Str. II, III, and IV, which Bikai (1978:68) dates to "740-700 B.C." (II-II!), and "?760-740" (IV-V). None is close to the judaean form. Where drawn, the handles are oval to round, the necks, where preserved, are swollen and the only preserved rim is emphatically "mushroom" in character (1978: PIs. V.19-23, all "Str. III;" VI.4-5, both "Str. II"). The wares are uniformly various shades of "reddish yellow," with one case (V1.5) of "light reddish brown." In all, 21 fragments of this form, 'Jug 5," were found in materials attributed to Str. II-IV, with this particular form representing .27 % of the total diagnostics from Str. II, .38% from III, and .05% from IV. It seems to have been extremely rare or absent at Sarepta (Anderson 1988:203, nn. 352, 355; see also the jug type-series on pI. 49), which probably says something about the degree of cultural (and economic?) independence of the great Phoenician port-cities. Interim Conclusions Given the above, particularly the data on "wares," it seems almost certain that the light grey-green etc., "Egyptian" decanters were made in Upper Egypt, in accord with Bourriau and Aston's conclusions. Neutron activation and petrographic analyses would be helpful, but probably unnecessary. Since those "Egyptian" versions are, materials and surface decoration aside, exact duplicates of the late judaean Decanters, the simplest explanation (since "local" copies of foreign ware rarely approach the level of the originals) is that Judaean potters were actually mantifacturing these vessels either somewhere in the viciniry of Q§na or of Q§na clays transported to some other manufacturing center. Bearing in mind the judaean military garrison in Elephantine (which, however, may not have been established at the time), my colleague Taber james, a student of military history and familiar with both Egyptian and Roman-British archaeology, reminded me that when a military detachment (or, for that matter, an archaeological mission

JUDAEANS (AND PHOENICIANS) IN EGYPT

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or a diaspora) finds itself on extended duty in a foreign location, one of the first things it does is to arrange with a local supplier for things wanted or needed. Given that the original J udaean decanters were important with regard to some aspect of the soldiers' or other Judaeans' lives (below), they could either have given an example to a local potter for duplication, or, given the high degree of faithfulness to the original design, delegated that duty to a craftsman potter or potters within their own expatriate community. That conclusion does not, however, explain why a few of the latest (?) Palestinian finds shift from "red" slips to "white" slips or surfaces. Nor does it shed any light upon why these highly characteristic vessels should be showing up in very low numbers across a good deal of the eastern Nile delta and lower Nile valley. In what follows I will address only the last of these questions.

Further Data: Function qf the "Judaean Decanter" and its Northern Analogues 1. Based upon a wide range of data, these distinctively styled and carefully made vessels, together with another small jug of the same general date, seem: (a) specifically to have been designated as personal property to a greater degree than any other Judaean vessels (wine-jars might be a close second) and (b), where instanced, to have contained wine. Both characteristics are exemplified in a decanter published by Nachman Avigad (1972: 1-9). Probably robbed from a tomb in the vicinity of Kh. el-Q6m, it bore on its shoulder a carefully chiseled inscription: 'm;:, r~ ';"l~rn~' "Belonging to al:zzryahu, wine of kl;.l followed by an "enigmatic symbol." For the otherwise unknown place-name "kI;.il," Demsky (1972:234) quickly suggested reading the descriptor "dark" (from the root kl;.l or &kl; cf. Akk. ekelu) , that is, "dark wine." Other inscribed decanters had already been published. One, probably also from the looted tombs in the vicinity of Kh. el-Q6m and Idnah, and truer to type, though with a "Cream" slip, was published by Dever (1969-1970:169-172, fig. 13, pl. VIII; for description cf. table 1, below). On its shoulder was the inscription 'on~' "Belonging to 'YIpnf' (Dever 1969-1970: 169). Although the photograph is poorly reproduced, the inscription would appear to be of the 'judahite" rocker-chiseled technique first described by Avigad (1972). Since then a large number of similarly executed late-Iron Age inscriptions on sherds or vessels have appeared from late Judaean sites (refs. in Ariel 2000; refs. and catalogue in Nadelman 1990), and particularly from

r

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JOHN S. HOLLADAY,

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the City of David excavations at Jerusalem (Ariel 2000). Another, with a curious triply cross-slashed ridged strap handle, came from Arad. Awkwardly rocker-chiseled on its shoulder was: "Belonging to Zadoq" (Pi~'; Aharoni and Naveh 1981: 107). From Beersheba, a shoulder and sidewall body sherd inscribed, on the shoulder, in the same technique: "Belonging to ST' ('~'; Aharoni 1973:74, fig. 5, pI. 33.2). One, a small round jug, not a decanter, from the Area A cave at Jerusalem published by Kenyon (1968:97-111, pI. xxxvi:C), read li1"~', "belonging to Eliyahu." It was rocker-chiseled inscribed in large letters along its horizontal midline. The ware was not described; no scale was provided. It has a rounded handle, with a rim similar to the late Judaean decanters' beaked rims. Two other inscriptions upon decanters come from Ussishkin's excavations (1978:83-84, 88) at Lachish. First, on the shoulder of a large complete Str. II decanter, one finds: 1~1' 1", "\'\line of 'A"han" (1978:83) or, according to Demsky (1979:163), "Smoked (or tasting of smoke) wine." Ussishkin notes: "A layer of white lime covers the interior of the vessel up to its neck" (1978:83; see also below). Second, on the shoulder of a broken, but restorable, decanter, just below the handle, one finds: nin~, "§brt", probably a personal name according to Lemaire (1978:81), although the two middle letters are "partly obliterated" [understandably, the drawn traces seem to support the reading], since the personal name "§br" appeared on a seal impression from the same excavations. "The decanter has a ridged neck and a double-ridged handle. The clay is grey with white grits, and on the outside the vessel is covered with a pinkish-beige slip [that is, a "white" slip]. Remains of a layer of white lime can be seen on the inside" (Lemaire 1978:88; see also below). Two other decanters, presumably robbed from tombs in the Kh. el-Qt)m area, were published separately by Lemaire (re(". in Nadelman 1990:40). Support for these vessels specifically being wine decanters may come from the (also) late J udaean rosette-stamped jar handles that replaced the earlier "LMLK" handles on similar large four-handled jars during the last years of the Judaean monarchy. Both sets are considered to be wine-jars by the majority of scholars. The rosette stamp probably was introduced in the reign of Jehoiakim (609/608-598/597 B.C.), although some authorities would opt for the time of his father Josiah (ca. 640-609 B.C.). With variations, it continued until the destruction of Jerusalem in 587/586 B.C. (Cahill 2000:98-99). Out of the 86 stamped handles found at Jerusalem, and those from 25 different sites in Judah

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and the Transjordan, all but one came from large four-handled jars. Only two of the rosette stamps appeared on any other pottery form, both on decanters: one unpublished (notice in Cahill 2000: 10 I), and one, impressed at the bottom of the doubly-ridged strap handle of a large decanter ("pinkish gray in color. .. contain[ing] many small, medium and large white and black inclusions"), published by Cahill (2000: 10 1, R 16). 2. In southern Palestine, decanters often form part of the funerary offerings in tomb contexts (cf. Tufnell's discussion of her '}.8" type: 1953: vol. 1:292; vol. II: pI. 87: 264, 273-279, 281). This is not the simple matter it appears. Some pottery types rarely appear in "standard" tomb contexts, while others appear only in anomalous tombs featuring other finds (Holladay n.d.). One of the "Egyptian" decanters came from a tomb group at Kafr Ammar, and the Tell Tebilla specimen may have come from a disturbed mortuary context (G. Mumford, personal communication). The fact that all the other "Egyptian" decanters excepting the Tell el-Maskhuta and Migdol fragments seem to have been either intact or essentially restorable may point in a similar direction. 3. Given that these items are widely spaced across the eastern delta and upper Nile valley, their find-spots, if known, might prove useful for further thinking. Aside from one certain inclusion in a tomb, and another possibly from a burial context (out of only 8 exemplars), we can say something about the two decanter fragments already cited from Tell el-Maskhuta and, somewhat more inferentially, their wider social environment: (a) The fossiliferous marly clay sidewall fragment M81.12.324B.85 was found in Area L2, in basal riverine sands disturbed by the building of a wall (2009/2027) of the "601 B.C. House," the first building in the excavated area within the enclosed settlement (Holladay 1982: plan on p. 158). That settlement's massive wall represents a radical departure from the original town plan, occasioned by a rapidly deteriorating Egyptian situation in the Levant vis-a-vis Babylonia associated with the Egyptian campaigns of 610, 609, and 605 B.C. It was constructed toward the end of the seventh century B.C., probably around 605-604 B.C. (Holladay 1982: 19-20 revised in accord with an oral communication of Grant Frame). That house, whose highest preserved wall height ("Reduced Level" [RLJ) was 9.99m, was massively destroyed

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during Nebuchadrezzar's fIrst campaign in 601 B.C. (Holladay 1982: 17-18,21-22). (b) The rim-to-shoulder fragment M81.L3.443.55A was found in Locus 3202: broken bricks and decomposed plaster of second-floor walls, roof- and second story floor-makeup collapsed, as a result of deliberate destruction, into a short-lived room bounded on four sides by walls in Field L, Area 2, adjacent to the massive western enclosure wall. This part of the "586 B.C." house (highest surviving wall RL=10.76) was built on the debris of the previous 601 B.C. destruction (1982:21). Its destruction, then (there is some, but not much, difference in the material culture complex), must be attributed to the second Egyptian campaign of Nebuchadrezzar in 568 B.C. (Holladay 1982:22; Grayson 1975: 101). At least ten broken vessels lay smashed, caught at various levels, as it were, in situ during the collapse, although neither the mudand-brush roof nor the second-story floor (possibly represented by wood fragments and a "whitish coloring in bricky [collapse]") could be distinguished from the rest of the detritus. These materials were characterized by a large quantity of bones: cow, fIsh, and bird. In the NE quadrant at RL 1O.47m there was one smashed pot (others at or just below 1O.56m) and at 1O.52-10.39m there was "broken bone and pottery charcoal. Small bird bones-everywhere!!. .. No coherent skeletons." The fIrst-story floor appeared in the SE corner at RL 10.38: "None of the pottery found [and saved to that pottery basket] was ... on that floor." Elsewhere there was very little pottery on the floor, and no restorable material, and no bone, until the clearance reached the NE corner, where there was "much pottery and some bone," as if some of it had rained down here when the floor above began to give way. All the pottery readings from this operation were consistent and characteristic of one pottery "horizon" (Holladay 1976:259), that is, the above-mentioned destruction level. (c) That same restricted neighborhood, in this case Field 12 (which included the eastern portion of House 2009), was later characterized by the presence of, at a slightly higher level, a small, narrow broadroom mudbrick and limestone shrine with, almost surely, a bent-axis entryway, Locus 12035D (fIg. 4, above). Except for its mid-room "altar rail" and lack of benches, this building is closely similar to Pritchard's "Shrine 1" at Sarepta (1975: fIgs. 2, 33-34) also oriented E-W, with the focal point (the top section of a Phoenician trade-amphora versus Sarepta's "offering-table" and incense stand [?]) being to the east, as opposed to the Sarepta shrine's westward orientation.

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(d) Within the small shrine we found the mutilated remains of one of the characteristically Phoenician "Seated Pregnant Goddess" figurines (Cullican 1969; Pritchard 1975:30-37; 1988:50-55). See figs. 5-7. Thus, it seems reasonable to suggest that this is that portion of the settlement in which "foreigners" lived. Cf. Herodotus' "Camp of the Phoenicians" at Memphis, and Petrie's comments (1888:67), cited above, regarding the find-spot of Defenneh no. 44. Note also that of the "42 catalogued examples" of the seated pregnant goddess from Sarepta, all but two were found in, or in the immediate vicinity of, the two shrines (Pritchard 1988:50). Versions of these figurines, of which ours was a crudely hand-modeled version (although originally gessoed and painted: figs. 4-6) over against the beautiful hollow-cast Sarepta exemplars, have been found at numerous coastal and overland transit (trade-related) sites throughout Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus. In addition to the Palestinian seated Pregnant Goddess statuettes listed by Pritchard (1988), see also the atypical enthroned/seated starkly nude pregnant statuette from the Persian Period at Tell Mevorakh (Stern 1993: 1034). Pritchard lists, for Lebanon, in addition to Sarafand/ Sarepta: Kharayeb, near Sarafand, one from Byblos, and two in the Louvre. From Palestine he list~: Tel Sippor, Tell Abu Hawam, Makmish, Tell es-Safi, Beth-Shan, Achzib, and Tell es-Saidiyeh (1988:51). That is, these figurines or small statues may reasonably be interpreted as direct evidence for the presence of locally-settled members of the eastern Mediterranean Phoenician diaspora. About the date, Pritchard (1988:51) says: "Although these figurines have generally been assigned to the Persian period, none has corne from a context [presumably even including Sarepta] which can be dated precisely." Within the usual limits of archaeological evidence, Tell el-Maskhuta does provide a date, although, pending more data, the figurine type may well be considered to have had a reasonably long lifespan. On the negative side of the dating process, our few pottery readings from the structure's thin soil overburden pointed to parallels with our 486 B.C. destruction phase (the rebellion associated with the deliberate blockage of the Persian stone-lined well). On further analysis, those readings of (hardly definitive) materials would seem to have been either incorrect, or ba~ed on inadequate material (as was the case), or representative of later phases' infilling and rebuilding programs. Two more robust lines of evidence may be pursued: (1) dating the associated Phoenician amphora, and (2) dating the shrine itself on the basis of (a) its level relative to other structures in the immediate area

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or (b) on the basis of a macro-analysis of the stratigraphic column in this particular sector. (1) According to Patricia Paice, who, for this period, bases herself on the extensive stratified series from Tell el-Maskhuta (which, however, lacks major break-points between the Neo-Babylonian invasion of 568 B.C. and the Persian invasion of 525 B.C., or between 525 B.C. and the 486 B.C. rebellion), the shrine's amphora segment, M79 LI2.24.2A, its most characteristic portion, should not date before the second half of the sixth century B.C. (verbal communication). It is, however, typologically earlier than Phoenician amphorae from the blocked well (Holladay 1982: 130-31, pI. 27: 1-4), and it is closely similar to the most typical examples from the 525 B.C. Persian invasion (1982: lO4-5, pI. 14:5, 7), when this sector of the town site was massively destroyed (1982:24-25). (Note: in light of the above, we should probably reassess the "525 B.C." Locus L2130, with its distinctive rim and shoulder [Holladay 1982, pI. 14:61, which is completely indistinguishable fi"om items from the 486 B.C. blocked well [1982, pI. 27: 1-3].) (2) The first point to be made in this context is that preserved wall heights for the "525 B.C. House" average RL II.32m (n=2), with the best-preserved wall being RL 11. 3 7. Floor levels average RL 10.66m (n=2). There is only one RL (presumably the high point of a wall) listed for the Phoenician shrine: RL 11.15, which, given the lighter nature of the shrine's walls, places it reasonably on a par with the "525 B.C. House." Second, it should be observed that the highest preserved wall remnants for our three superimposed phases in the immediate area were 60 I B.c.=9.99m, 586 B.C.= 10.76. and 525 B.C.= 11.37, making the average stratigraphic increment of a major destruction in this area 0.69m. Hence, we arrive at much the same conclusion as the above. If the Phoenician shrine were earlier, it should be in one of the lower ranges (-10m, or -10. 70m). Similarly, if it were one destruction phase later, it should be somewhere in the range of 12m. At 11.15, liS. a theoretical" 11.39," with something ofT for lighter wall-construction, it fits neatly into place as the third member of a local series. And, since it was massively destroyed, with its "amphora installation" neatly in place and its defiled cult-statue lying within the ruined structure, it should have been destroyed at the same time as its nearest neighbor, the L2 "525 B.C. House", with its hidden "Isis and Horus" bronze figurine (Holladay 1982, pI. XX: 29, 30)

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and its closely similar Phoenician amphorae rowed up against its southern wall (1982:156, pI. 44; XIX: 27, cf. also 28). In Syro-Palestinian archaeological circles in general, the NeoBabylonian period is regularly subsumed under the heading "Persian." Such a dating would fall within Pritchard's intended range, even if not literally within the Egyptian "Persian Period" per se. Thus, the shrine is indicative of the presence of settled Phoenicians in this sector somewhere during the period 568-525 B.C., but not necessarily earlier, whereas theJudaean presence, with original 'Judaean" decanters, is witnessed from the period prior to 601 B.C. down to at least 568 according to thif one particular ethnic "marker." After that, we have no reason to doubt that J udaeans are still resident; but, pending working through a reasonably large body of field-typed 'Judaean decanter" sherds (ca. two dozen), or finding some other "marker," we have no direct evidence. Dl~fcuJJion

and Tentative Conclusions

From the above, it would appear reasonably clear that, in Egypt, we seem to be dealing with a scattered Judaean diaspora, presumably isolated small groups or families. That is, the refugees from "the poorest of the land ... vinedressers and plowmen" (2 Kgs 25: 12, RSV) left in the land together with Transjordanian refugees Ger 40:6-13) after "the rest of the people who were left in the [ruined] city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude [were carried into exile by] N ebuzaradan the captain of the guard ..... " (2 Kgs 25:11, RSV). From 2 Kgs 25: 22-23 and Jer 40:6-13 it would appear that a substantial number of people other than "vinedressers and plowmen" actually survived the war and escaped exile. These bound themselves to the Babylonian governor Gedaliah. Predictably, however: In the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men, and attacked and killed Gedaliah and the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. Then all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces arose, and went to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. (2 Kgs 25: 22-26, RSV; d., at greater length, .Jer 40: 13-44-:30.)

InJer 43: 13-44: 1, Heliopolis/Tell I:Ii~n is mentioned, although without reference to Judaeans, while the cities initially sheltering Judaeans

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are listed as "Migdol" [Tell Qedwah or Tell el-Heir?], "Tahpanhes" (Daphnae/Tell Defenneh), "Noph" (Memphis/Mit Rahneh), and "the land of Pathros" (Upper Egypt, including, given the later Aramaic papyri, Elephantine?). How many Judaeans actually descended into Egypt is unknowable. But given thatJer 52:30b, considered by King and Stager (200 I :256) to have a more authentic ring to it than the parallel account in 2 Kings, lists only 745 Judaeans carried captive in the third wave of deportations by Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, the figure would most probably be in the hundreds, rather than in the thousands. In this connection, we might note that the Egyptian diaspora plays no part in the accounts of the Restoration, although, contrary to general opinion, at least some editorial activity took place on the basis ofJudaean experience of the topography and "archaeology" of the eastern Delta (Holladay 1988:6-8). From another perspective, these refugees almost certainly were not the firstJudaeans ever to move to Egypt. In fact, it is far more probable thatJudaean trading entities were already in place in Egypt and known to theJerusalemite andJudahite community as friends, family, co-religionists, and, in many cases, as the "Egyptian" end (better, ends) of an already extant trading entity / diaspora (better, entities/ diasporas, since individual diasporas, or individual strands within colonies and along trade routes within a broader diaspora, seem to have specialized fairly narrowly). Although inferable from first principles, this scenario is, in fact, attested by the find-spot of our earliest decanter fragment, in sterile (Pleistocene) riverine sands disturbed by the earliest building program, somewhere around 605 B.C., within the newly-fortified site of Tell el-Maskhuta/Pithom (above). What is of considerable historical interest is that in these happenings we are seeing the raw beginnings of the Egyptian diaspora, which eventually became a great intellectual and economic force in Alexandria. In itself, this attests to the fact that the diaspora persisted in Egypt, since the Septuagint was translated for that community probably beginning already somewhere within the third century B.C., as witnessed by numerous papyri of the early second through first centuries B.C. (conveniently, Peters 1992: 1094). In opposition to most of the earlier trade diasporas (Cohen 1971; Curtin 1984: 1-14), which retained strong links with their land of origin, after 582 B.C. these Judaeans, like Jews after 71 A.D., had no "home territory" to which to relate. But they had skills, such as the capability, for at least some of them, to write in Aramaic, the lingua .franca of the late Syro-

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Palestinian Iron age, a necessity to survive, preferably as a people, in a strange land, and a long-term acquaintance with international and middle-range trade. Curtin's description of what was typical in diasporas is instructive: Commercial specialists Uudaean refugees had the option of either becoming economic clients/servants or remaining independent by developing professional, commercial, or craft specializations, not unlike economic migrants the world around] [removed] physically from their home community and Oived] as aliens in another town lbecoming] important in the life of the host community. There, the stranger merchants [and craftsmen] could settle down and learn the language, the customs, and the commercial ways of their hosts. They could then serve as cross-cultural brokers, helping and encouraging trade between the host society and people of their own origin who moved along the trade route. [In this pursuit, they] tended to set up a whole series of trade settlements in alien towns an interrelated net of commercial communities forming a trade network, or trade diaspora a term that comes £l'om the Greek word for scattering, as in the sowing of grain. (Cohen 1971; Curtin 1984:2, my insertions.)

And: Professional traders were necessarily a minority in preindustrial societies. Since they were not, in any very obvious way, a productive class, they tended to earn the suspicion of others [who played a useful role in society]. .. [and], if people tend to be suspicious of merchants, they are even more suspicious of foreigners. In any case, long-distance trade required someone to go abroad and become a foreigner. (1984:5-6; my insertions, Curtin's emphasis.)

Being a perpetual "outsider" required adherence to a number of ingroup traits and disciplines: By virtue qf maintaining their ethnic identiry, language and religion, they were able to survive for generations, in some cases for scores and hundreds of generations. In anyone port, colony, or residential quarter, one group generally had the upper hand, although in smaller settings groups often worked closely together. In the large colonies or ports [e.g., later Alexandria, or Renaissance Europe], a diaspora generally was highly specialized and stratified, from merchant princes, rich bankers and ship owners down to craftspeople and on down to rough caravaneers and market traders. Elsewhere, there might be only one or two families at any particular node of an extended trading network sueh as the jewelry, dry-goods, restaurant, rug and grocery trades in

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small-town North America. In my boyhood [in the midwestern United States] these businesses were dominated respectively by Jewish, Greek and Chinese, Armenian, and Syrian families. [As "outsiders" ourselves (my father was a minister, a former missionary, and, during \Yorld War II, an Office of Strategic Services Brevet tvfajor serving underground in Japanese-occupied Thailand) we had close connections across many of these "divides."] These few families [and ours], however, would know other families across a network of connections covering many states and ofIt?ring many Ireligious], marriage, financing, distributing, and partnership opportunities, and these are what gave substance to each diaspora or sub-diaspora and made it viable through time. Business often was conducted on a handshake' basis. They governed themselves through specialized councils, which helped to ensure [their acceptability] to their host community and that trade and quality standards were maintained. They always maintained their own language and specialized traders' dialect [and] their own defining and fencing customs, keeping 'kosher' being a prime example, and were all of one religious community, with their own special protective deity or saint. This deity was often regarded as a trickster' by the locals, who mistrusted people who made their living buying and selling, rather than through honest work.' This same mistrust, of course, left the field to the diaspora merchants. (An expanded version of Holladay 2001: 142, with major indebtedness to Curtin 1984, emphasis added.)

Decanters and the Early Judaean Diaspora Phenomena such as the religiously oriented "Deuteronomistic History," the foundational "document" of 1-2 Kings, and a renewed interest in the newly-discovered or rediscovered "book of the law" (2 Kgs 22:8-23:25) witness a religious reformation in late seventh-century Judah (Cogan 1998:258-61). At the same time, this religious fervor gave rise to the greatest effiorescence of religiously affective images (female pillar figurines, "horse-and-rider figurines," etc.) in the history of either Israel or Judah (Holladay 1987:276-81; Dever 1984; 1994; 1999), a schism carried over into the descent of the Judean diaspora into Egypt (Jer 44: 11-30), and, presumably, into Babylonia, where many of these images were more at home. Religiosity, whether turning back to an idealized past or outward toward a "world view," is a frequent accompaniment of desperate times, and wears many faces. What faced the refugee community was the twin problem of separating itself from the highly religious and suffocatingly all-encompassing Egyptian communities in which it was forced to dwell and earn its

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living (the Greeks and Romans simply joined the crowd), and being simultaneously forced if it was not to be assimilated to bind itself together with positive symbols and ceremonies. Much of those had been stripped away inJosiah's refc)rms and offering temple sacrifices or observing the great annual feasts, a genuine possibility for tiny seventh.:century Judah, was impossible because (a) the highest forms of orthodox worship had been centered in the Jerusalem temple, though smaller sanctuaries and shrines still existed in places like Arad (and at one time or another a true "subsidiary" temple was built in Elephantine, and, probably, at Tell el- Yehudiyeh, so the notion was not antithetical to at least some branches ofYahwism) and, (b) the temple was completely destroyed, and (c) it is unlikely that particularly given the history of the Elephantine temple that the new settlers' Egyptian hosts would long have tolerated a prominent imageless, monotheistic, animal-sacrificing local "temple" serving, for example, the highly suspect foreign scribes, peddlers, weavers, and craftsmen. In any case, the high holy days were lacking in suflicient regularity to nourish a true sense of belonging. What was wantcd was something simple that could be performed behind normally closed doors. In its full form, the Synagogue was probably far in the future, although it might already have been forming in guise of the, probably all male, local communities' specialized councils. There was, however, the weekly Sabbath observance, newly reinforced by the "book of the law" (Miller 2000: 70, 141, 14-3, and especially 247, n. 132), and with it, the possibility of a sacred bonding rite: the Sabbath Meal, at which, when we do know something about it, the father of the household pours the wine and blesses the cup, and the family and all their guests partake. It is a moving and embracing ceremony, requires no priests or Levites, and probably would not invoke the wrath of even the most fanatical devotee of Amon-Re, the Persians, or, in the case of Elephantine, Khnum, the Ram-god. To my knowledge, we know absolutely nothing about the historical origins of this meal. It may be mentioned, though not by name, in the New Testament (Hasel 1992:855b), but not explicitly in the Hebrew scriptures. See, however, Exod 16:25-30, credited to the early 'T' source by S. R. Driver (1897; 1956 edition: 30-31), which deals proscriptively with the provision of food for Sabbath days of rest. A quick scan suggests that Karel van der Toorn did not consider the topic in his recent study (1996). 'J'he Sabbath meal was, and is, a simple, regularly repeated ceremony binding the family and its friends

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into one household of faith and faithfulness to tradition and practice within sacred time. It was not for public display. Yet the eillorescence of inscribed wine decanters and personal names upon those decanters during the late seventh century and the early sixth century B.C., together with the interment of those inscribed and uninscribed wine decanters in the familial burial vaults of Kh. el-Qom and its vicinity and in the larger tombs of Lachish conceivably with the death of each head of an observant family, strongly suggest that not only was it in place during the years of the Josianic Reform, but also that it had already evolved into something of a prototype of the meal as observed in traditionally religious households of the Jewish diaspora wherever we can observe them. If the above is a correct reading of the data, this ceremony was already available for the smallJudaean diaspora community spread so thinly and precariously amidst the splendors of late Egyptian templeoriented and popular religion over the breadth of the Egyptian delta and up the length of the Nile. Where and why were the "Egyptian" decanters themselves made? Given the wares, we must look to the south. Perhaps even to Elephantine, remembering the Jewish Temple there (not destroyed until 410 B.C.), and the "Passover Papyrus" of 419 B.C. (Pritchard 1955:491), together with the community'S later claims to the temple's antiquity stretching back into the time of the Egyptian monarchs (1955:491-92; texts: Sachau 1-2,3,4; Ungnad 1, 2, 3,4; Cowley 30, 31, 32, 33). We have, however, no assurance that the colony was established this early (nor evidence that it was not). Nor, as far as I know, have any 'judaean Decanters" have ever been identified at or published from Elephantine (there are none in Aston 1999), but it would be interesting to see if any unpublished examples or fragments exist among the remains excavated in the areas in which the Aramaic papyri were found. Among those families who practiced the further worship of "the Host of Heaven", including the goddess represented by the Judaean pillar-based figurines and the menageries of horses-and-riders, flying doves, various quadrupeds, and tiny lamps caught up in the limbs of modeled trees with lopped-off branches (a model treelike "Asherah"?), these ceremonies were also familial household events Oer 7: 17 -18; 44: 1-25), and possibly sufficiently understandable to most Egyptians as to cause no offense. On the other hand, someone took it upon himself to mutilate the Phoenician Seated Pregnant Goddess. Given that human babies and infant lambs were offered to Tanit through the fire, the

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person may well have been a Persian. Suffice it to say that various female figurines, some clearly "Egyptian," and others less clearly so, and horse- and rider figurines, etc., also appeared in some quantity in Field L. As I remember, all were broken. But that must be another story, to be told only when we have progressed more nearly toward final publication. REFERENCES

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JR.

Kenyon, K. M. 1968-Excavations in Jerusalem, 1967. Palestine Exploratwn OJtarterty 100:97-111. King, P. and L. E. Stager 2001-LifC iii Biblical Israel. Library czfAncient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Larsen, M. T. 1976~~ The Old As.ryrian Cil:J-State and its Colonies: Mesopotamia. Copenhagen Studies in Assyriology, 4. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Lemaire, A. 1978-Les BeneJacob: Essai d'interpretation historique d'une tradition patriarcale. Revue Biblique 85:321-37. Macalister, R. A. S. 19l2~-The Excavation if Gezer: 1902-1905 and 1907-1909: Vol 1-2 Text, Vol. 3 plates. London: Murray. Mazar, A. et al. 1985-~Excavations at Tell Qasile: Part Two, The Philistine Sanctuary: Various Finds, the Pottery, ConciusioTLf, Appendixes. Q§dem 20. Jerusalem: the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University ofJerusalem.

Mazar, B., T. Dothan, and I. Dunayevsky 1966-~En-Gedi: The First and Second Seasons ifEtcavations 1961-1962. Atiqot VJerusalem: Department of Antiquities and Museums in the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Department of Archaeology, Hebrew University, the Israel Exploration Society. Miller, P. D. 2000- The Religion czfAncient brael. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Mumford, G. 2001 - Concerning the 2000 season at Tell Tebilla (Mendesian Nome). The Akhenaten Temple Project Newsletter. 1. Nadelman, Y. 199O--~ "Chiselled" Inscriptions and Markings on Pottery Vessels from the Iron Age II. Israel Exploration Journal 40: 31-41. Naveh,j. 1962-The Excavations at Mezad Hashavyahu: Preliminary Report. brael Exploration Journal 12:89-113. Oppenheim, A. L. 1957~A Birds-Eye View of Mesopotamian Economic History. pp. 27-37 in Trade and Market in the Earty Empires, ed. K. Polanyi, C.M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson. Glencoe: Free Press. 1967 -Ancient Mesopotamia (completed by Erica Reiner). Revised Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Oren, E. D. 1984-Migdol: a New Fortress on the Edge of the Eastern Delta. BASOR 256: 7-44.

JUDAEANS (AND PHOENICIANS) IN EGYPT

433

Peters, M. 1992-Septuagint. pp. 1093-1104 in 17le Anchor Bible Dictionary 5, ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Petrie, W. M. Flinders, Sir, 1886--Naukratis; Part I., 1884-5; ltrith chapters ~y Cecil Smith; Ernest Gardner, and BarclO)' V. Head. Third Memoir if the Egypt Exploration Fund. London: Triibner. 1888-Tanis; Part II: Nebesheh (AM) and Difenneh (Ta/tpanhes), with chapters by A. S. Murray and F. Ll. Griffith. Memoirs if the Egypt Exploration Fund; nos. 2, 4. London: Triibner. 189(}--/(i'lhun, Gurob, and Hawara; with chapters by F. 11. Griffith and Percy E. Ncwben-y. London: K. Paul, Trench, Triibncr. 1891-Tell ef He~ (Lachish). London: Palestine Exploration Fund. 1928-Gerar. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Petrie, W. M. Hinders, Sir, and E. Mackay, 1915-Heliopolis, Kqfr Ammar and Shurafa. Publications if the E.1,.'Yptian Research Account, 43. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Polanyi, K. 1957-Marketless Trading in Hammurabi's Time. Pp. 12-26 in Trade and Market in the Early Empires, cd. Karl Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson. Glencoe: Free Press. 197 I-Primitive, Archaic and Modem Economics. EssO)!s if Karl Po/a1!yi, cd. George Dalton. Boston: Beacon Press. 1975-Traders and Trade. Pp. 133-54 in Ancient Civilization and Trade, ed.Jeremy A. Sabloff and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky. School of American Research. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Polanyi, K., C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson (cd.) 1957-Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Glencoe: Free Press. Pritchard,]. B. (cd.) 1955----Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1975-Sarepta: A Preliminary Report on the Iron Age. Excavations if the Universiry Museum if the Universiry if Pennsylvania, 1970-72. Museum Monographs. Philadelphia. The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. 1988-Sarepta IV: The Olljects from Area II, X. 17le Universiry Museum if the Universiry if Pennsylvania excavations at Sarqfand, Lebanon. Publications de l'Universite Libanaise, Section des Etudes Archeologiques II. Beyrouth. Sabloff,]. A. and C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (cd.) 1975--Ancient Civilization and Trade. School of American Research. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Singer-Avitz, Lily I 999--Beershcba-A Gateway Community in Southern Arabian Long Distance Trade in the Eighth Century B.C.E. Tel Aviv 26:3-74. Stern, E. 1993-Tell Mevorakh. Pp. 1031-34 in The Nez£) Enryclopedia if Archaeolflgical Excavations in the Holy Land 3, ed. E. Stern, A. Lewinson-Gilboa, andJ. Aviranl. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

434

JOHN S. HOLLADAY,

JR.

van der Toom, K. 1996-Famiry Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious life. Studies in tile History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, 7. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Tufnell, O. et aI. 1938-Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir): Volume II: The Fosse Temple. Text and plates; Volume III: The Iron Age. Text and plates (1953); Volume IV: The Bronze Age. Texts and plates (1958). Wellcome-Marston Archaeological Research Expedition to the Near East, 2-4. London: Oxford University Press. Tushingham, A. Douglas 1985-Excavations in Jerusalem, 1961-1967, I. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum. Ussishkin, D. 1978-Excavations at Tel Lachish 1973-1977, Preliminary Report: F. Selected Finds and Problems. Tel Aviv 5:74-93. Veenhof, K. R. I 995-Kanesh: An Assyrian Colony in Anatolia. Pp. 859-71 in Cilnlizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. J. M. Sasson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Judaea.

Table 1 Slip

Burnish

Burnished Pink Buff Buff Red

(Burnished) Ring Burnished Ring Burnished Ring Burnished Burnished

Brown

Hand Burnished

Red Red

Ring Burnished Irreg. Horiz. Bur.

Site, Volume

Plate

No

nExx

Ware

87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 103

264 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 665

2

II

Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish III Lachish 111

Bro\Vn Buff Pink Bro\\\liquot V

74

19

Red-brown \Vith light-grey core, sm grey & white grits Reddish-brown, sm grey & white grit>

Wheel Burnished Wh(,el Burnished

21 22 23

En-Gedi, 'Atiquot V En-Gedi, ~\tiquot V En-Gedi, ;>\tiquot V En-Gedi, 'Atiquot V

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

2

Brown outside, grey inside, Ig & sm grey grits Brown, thick grey core, sm grey & white grits Reddish-brown, Ig & sm white grits Grey, Ig & sm grey grits

Wheel Wheel Wheel Wheel

Sort I

2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

24

Fig. 20

20 20 20 20

3

4 5

I

7 25 II

2 I

2 9 8

Firing

Comments

H

M M H H H H H H H M

Wheel Burnished Wbecl Burnished

Burnished Burnished Burnished Burnished

Rim, neck & handle only Biform: similar to a large decanter, not like type Applied or turned ring base Applied or turned ring base \Vheel-folded? ring base Turned? ring base Applied or turned ring base Turned disc base Applied or turned ring base Applied ring base Applied dng base Applied ring base Wheel-folded ringba~e

Table I. Cont. Plate

No

nExx

Sort

Site, Volume

25 26

Clark Collection, Clark Collection,

~tiquot

~tiquot

V V

Fig. 31 Fig. 31

I 2

Brown clay with grey core, white sm & Ig grit Reddish-brown clay, white sm & Ig grit

27

Clark Collection,

~tiquot

V

Fig. 31

3

Brown clay, white sm & Ig grit

28

Tell d-Qasilc II

57

16

Brown, dk, grey core, white grits

29

Tell el-Qasile II

57

17

Brown, grey core, white grits

30

Tell d-Qasile II

57

18

31

Tell el-Qasile II

57

32

Jerusalem (1985)

33

Jerusalem (1985)

Ware

Firing Slip

Burnish Horiz. Bur. Horiz. Bur., Vert. Hnd-Bur. Horiz. Bur., Vert. Hnd-Bur.

Orange-red

Horiz. Bur.

Reddish-brown, grey core

Brn-reddish

Continuous Bur.

19

Brown, dk, grey core, white grits

Orange-red

Horiz. Bur.

Fig. 2

10

Fig. 2

II

Coarse gritty gry-brn; sm, med, Ig WI, med. bm. gry grits Pink-orange, many sm, med white & dk gry grits

None Self-slipped Pink-orange

Horiz. Bur.

34 35

Jerusalem (1985) Jerusalem (1985)

Fig. 2 Fig. 2

12 13

Pink-orange, sm, med, 19 white grits Brown, sm and med white and grey grits

Pink-orange ""'hite

Wheel Burnished

36

Jerusalem (1985)

Fig. 10

30

Gry-brown, med & 19 white grits

Vertical Bur. Neck

37 38

Jerusalem (1985) Gezer 1Il

Fig. 10 25

31 10

Reddish-brown, med & Ig white grits 5YR"pink"7/3; few vsm crystal, SIn wadi gravel & lime; no core; Surface: IOYR"white"8/2 H

Creamy White White

39

Gezer III

25

II

10YR"lt red"5/6; very many vs-med lime, few sm Ig "ceramic" [hematite nodules?]: Surf.IOR"lt red"6/8

40

GezerIII

45

H

2.5YR"red"4/8:mny sm, few med-Ig lime, few sm wadi H gravel; core5YR"reddish-yellow"616; Ext. Surf. IOYR''white 8/2 ... to ... 2.5YR "red" 5/6

""'heel Burnished

CODl.Dlents

Vertical Hand Burnish [!] on neck Rim, neck & handle only Rim, neck & handle only Rim, neck & handle only Wheel-folded (and turned?) ring base Inner surface very pitted Burnished on rim, neck and body Rim to neck-ridge Rim, neck very short handle stub Rim to lower handle attachment Rim and neck only Rim, short handle stub, 2-ridged handle Neck-ridge to mid-body, 2 ridged handle Rim and upper third of neck

Table 1. Coot. Sort 41

Site, VolUBle

Plate

No

Gezer III

45

2 (?)

oExx

Ware

Firing Slip

IOYR"very pale brn"8/3; mny sm-med wadi gravel, few sm organic, few Ig ceramic [hematite nodules?], lime & crystal; no core; Surf (Ext) IOYR''-white''8/2

H

H

42

Gezer III

45

3 (?)

43

M. Hashavyahu IE] 12:2

Fig. 5

14

2.5YR"red"4/8; some sm-med lime, many vs crystal, few sm organic; gry core; Surf (Ext) YR"pink"i 14 Greenish-grey, white grits

44

M. Hashavyahu IE] 12:2

Fig. 5

15

Red, yellow core

45

M. Hashavyahu IE] 12:2

Fig. 5

16

Yellow, grey core whie grits

46

M. Hashavyahu I~J 12:2

Fig. 5

17

Reddish buff, grey core

47

Kh. el-Qom, Dever

Fig. 13

N/A I

2.5 YR "light red" 6/8

Burnish

COlDD1ents

Rim to shoulder, rounded "hogback"handle"

Rim and neck only

Burnished

Yellow

VeryH

Cream

Wheel Burnished body, below handle to tun of belly

Neck to mid-body, 2 ridged handle Rim to neck strap handle (stub only) Rim to top of body, 2 ridged handle Neck-ridge to top 2/3rds of body, 2-ridged handle Entire, inscribed, Ridged strap handle

EZRA'S REFORM AND BILATERAL CITIZENSHIP IN ATHENS AND THE rvlEDITERRANEAN WORLD Baruch Halpern In the fifth century BGE, Judah underwent an important transition. Sometime in the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably between 458 and 444, the authorities in the Persian province ofJudah (Yehud) introduced a new system of genealogical reckoning. Formerly, children ofJudahite fathers had been reckoned asJudahites. Furthermore, male coresidence over a number of years or perhaps generations apparently conien'ed citizenship on children, quite possibly by adoption into the cognate line. In the late seventh century, Deuteronomy introduced an interdiction on the incorporation into the sacral community of the ofl:.,pring of Ammonite and Moabite fathers (Deut 23:4). But it equally permitted membership to the grandchildren of transplanted Edomites and Egyptians. Thus, in the world of the authors of Deuteronomy, adoption or matrilocal coresidence sufficed for eventual incorporation into the state-defined community. I At least some change, then, was probably underway at the time of Deuteronomy. Correspondingly, the Deuteronomistic History and P (Num 33:50-56) both emphasize an interdiction against intermarriage with (long-dead) indigenous Canaanites: they blame these elements--specifically, reciprocal exchange of women with them--{or the introduction of Canaanite cult practice into Israel, as though the aboriginal populations programmed Israelite popular religion (note that, atypically, it is exchange, not just population import, that creates the problem). P also furnishes a polemic about miscegenation with Moabites (Num 25: 1) that indicates an extension of the alleged taboo to contemporary cultures, as in Deuteronomy. The seventh-century cases, focused on isolating Israelites fl'om the theoretically indigenous peoples of Canaan, may have had earlier anteI Cf.J. Milgrom, "Religious Conversion and the Revolt Model for the Formation of Israel" ]BL 101 (1982) 169- 176. Milgrom supposes that this situation held fClr the entire pre-exilic period, which is possible but unlikely. A less restrictive rq,>i.men for foreit,'l1 males is suggested by the incorporation of Gittites, Ammonites and others into David's staff.

440

BARUCH HALPERN

cedents. Certainly, Deut 7:3-5, Deut 29: 15-28,Josh 23: 13,Judges 1-3 and 1 Kgs 11: 1-6, as well as the account of his reform, reflect authorship fromJosiah's time;2 still, the religious xenophobia directed against Jezebel and parts of the polemic of 2 Kgs 17:7ff. may have earlier origins, as perhaps does Exod 23:32-33: the theme of the extinction of the Amorites, after all, already characterizes Amos 2:9-10. Thus, there was a progression in the Iron Age. To become Israelites, males had to be adopted or matrilocal. That is, in any such cases, foreign males were paid to detach themselves from their families. Whether they could, in the first generation, participate in sacral rites is unclear, but seems probable, given the cases of Shechem, Joseph's wife, Jethro and Moses's wife in E, and given P's inclusion of circumcised gerim in the ritual of the Pesah. 3 This may have been the rule until Deuteronomy prohibited ritual access in the case of the nations descended from Lot, and limited it intergenerationally for Edomites and Egyptians. Notably, at more or less the same time, P, like Deuteronomy, prescribes a regimen of legal beneficence toward the resident alien. 4 P (Num 33:50-56), Deuteronomy and the Deuter-

2 For Judges 1-3 and I Kings II, see Halpern, The First Historians: TIe Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988; University Park: Penn State Press, 1996) 134-137, 150-57,220-28. 3 For E, Cen 34; 41:45, 50; Exod 18; Num 12. For P, Exod 12:19,48; P also includes Joseph's Egyptian wife in Cen 46:20. For the alien in other ritual and legal contexts, in H, see Lev 17:8-16; 18:26; 20:2; 22:18; 24:15-16. The general principle is articulated in Lev 24:22. The gnfm in P are by defInition not (yet) adoptees, and need not be Israelite (as the Israelites were gnfm in Egypt; see also Lev 25:35, reading "like a get", with LXX). Lev 25:47(MT)- 54 even prescribes redemption of debt-slaves of descendants of gmm, whereas Lev 25:35-46 prescribe periodic release of Israelite slaves (on a diflerent schedule, of course, from the Deuteronomic law), but permit perpetual maintenance of foreign slaves. Neither gmm nor 18§abfm in P hold land, at least in perpetuity (Lev 25:23), although it is probable that the latter are formal clients of some sort, in that one need not make provision against their indigence. Outside H, in Num 9:14; 15:14-16,26-30; 19:10; 35:15, the same relation of the gerfm to ritual and regulation holds. Whereas P calls the Israelites in Egypt gmm, however, D calls them "slaves", and D allows gerfm, but not widows or orphans, to eat impure flesh (14:21), in contradistinction to P's insistence on uniform cocies for all. (Deut 24: 14 also indicates the view that gmm are aliens.) Still, Deut 29:10 includes gmm in the covenantal community. 4 See Peter Schmidt, "De Vreemdeling in Israel," Collationes 23 (1993) 227-240; cf. C. Bultmann, Der Fremde im antiken Juda: eine Untersuchung zum so::;ialen Tjpenbegriff ''ger'' und seinen Bedeutungswandel in der alttestamentlichen Gesetzgebung (FRLANT 153; Cottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992). On the date of P, aside from arguments as to its relative priority to Ezekiel developed mainly by Avi Hurvitz, note that most of its legislation reflects the milieu immediately following Josiah's reform, and preceding

EZRA'S REFORM AND BILATERAL CITIZENSHIP

441

onomistic History, on the other hand, begin the process of focusing on intermarriage with foreign females, who might mediate worship of gods other than Yhwh to the Israelites (and who are blamed for the traditional Israelite cult). In the seventh century, of course, the argument against intermarriage with foreign females is relatively restricted-the issue is the cultic outcome of such marriages. But in the fifth century, there was a change. With the reforms of Ezra and perhaps Nehemiah, citizen mothers as well as citizen fathers defined membership in the Jerusalem community. Ezra arrived in Judah (Persian Yehud), according to Ezra 7:7-8, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (I), 458 BCE. Ezra 7: 12-26 stipulate that he was to commandeer materials for sacrifices, and to subject the population of Syria-Palestine to the law of his god and of the Persian king. Scholars, naturally, have debated whether the subordination to the law was to extend only to Judaeans, or was to embrace a larger group, such as the denizens of Samaria or even the general population in the vicinity ofJudaea. Minimally, Ezra was appointed with broad powers of oversight in Jerusalem--according to one very attractive proposal, the equivalent of an Athenian episkopos, in terms of the semantic content of his charge as well as in terms of his mandate. 5 Further, it is rarely doubted that Ezra led a contingent to Jerusalem with a large quantity of silver and gold; some of his escort were priests, and others Levites and other cultic personnel, in addition to elements of the laity (Ezra 8). The importance of Ezra's mission is in evidence from the quantity of rare earths that he brought with him. And this in turn sheds light on the nature of the reform: the Persian authorities were invested in the mission. One therefore has to ask whether the implementation of the reform did not reflect a concern with a broader horizon than Judah alone. In fact, scholars have argued that the not dissimilar mission of Udjahorresnet in Egypt-aimed in part at establishing cultic purity and shrines-furnishes a context for Ezra's reform that involves the

Jeremiah, who cites it. Note that P's insistence on the inclusion ofgerim in ritual (above, n. 3) does not comport with a date contemporary with or after Ezra and Nehemiah, unless one supposes P to be a Samaritan or pro-Samaritan source. sR. C. Steiner, "The mbqr at Qumran, the episkopos in the Athenian Empire, and the Meaning of lbqr' in Ezra 7: 14: On the Relation of Ezra's Mission to the Persian Legal Project," ]BL 120 (2001) 623-46.

442

BARUCH HALPERN

reestablishment oflocallaw, particularly religious law, in the provinces of the Persian empire. 6 The account in Ezra concentrates on the maintenance and regulation of worship at the Jerusalem temple. But scholars have puzzled over the nature of Ezra's citizenship reform. According to Ezra 9, local officials complained to him that "the people of Israel, priests and Levites" had not been divided (bdO from the peoples of the lands: Canaanite, Hittite, Perizzite,Jebusite, Ammonite, Moabite, Egyptian and Amorite/Edomite (probably, Edomite).7 The issue was that the 10caiJudahite males took foreign women as wives, and mixed "sacred seed" with the peoples of the lands; naturally, officials and the upper echelons of the elite were the first to do so. The list of foreigners consists of some of the peoples named in Exod 34: 11-16, Deut 7: 1 and Deut 23:4-9. The first two of those passages prohibit marriage to aboriginal females (Deut 7: 1 prohibits female Israelites from marrying aliens as well). The third passage limits access for children of (male) aliens into the sacral community. But Ezra's reform embraces females. Deuteronomy 23 in fact allows access to Edomites and Egyptians, for descendants of males in the third generation of co-residence. The news of miscegenation, reputedly, devastated Ezra. All the god-fearers (literally, the word-of-god-of-Israel-fearers) gathered. Ezra announced that, having shamed Israel for its sins, ynwh had now given it a ;ViilM, or stake, in his holy place, and influenced the king of Persia to raise the temple, restore the ruins ofJerusalem (a reference to the fortification wall, probably), and "give us a giider (cf: epigraphic Gibeon gdr/" in Judah andJcrusalem." In consequence, Ezra argued, it would be an elemental error to revert to the practice of intermarriage with local inhabitants, the "peoples of the lands" with their "abominations" (9: 11-12). The text evinces heavy reliance on Deuteronomy and the 6 See J. Blenkinsopp, "The rvIission of Udjahorresnet and Those of Ezra and Nehemiah",JBL 106 (1987) 409- 21; Steiner, "Ezra's Mission and the Persian Legal Project," 634ff.; cf. L. L. Grabbe, "What Was Ezra's Mission?" in Second Temple Studies 2. Temple Communify in the Persian Pen'od (cd. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards; JSOT'Sup 175; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 286-99. 7 The list's order, in terms of the aboriginal populations, is identical, with omissions, to the order in Exod 3:8, 17; 33:2; 34: 11; Josh 3: 10; II :3; Nehemiah 9:8 and, signifIcantly, Judges 3:5. See below, and conveniently, T. Ishida, Histor), and Historical Writing in Ancient lrrael: Studies in Biblical H£,toriography (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Ncar East, 16; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999) 8-36. B See J. B. Pritchard, HebTe1v Inscriptions and Stamps-ji-om Gibeon (Museum Monographs; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1959) 1-7.

EZRA'S REFORM AND BILATERAL CITIZENSHIP

443

Deuteronomistic History.9 It nevertheless applies specific prohibitions in Deuteronomy (7: 1; 23:4-9) to a contemporary situation in the fifth century, willfully misinterpreting the source to apply even to children, in each generation, of Edomite and Egyptian females. In response to the revelation 0) that citizens of Yehud were miscegenating with foreign e1ements---the list including long-gone aboriginal elements mainly in an effort to stigmatize other foreign alliances-- Ezra prayed at the temple, where elements "from Israel" allegedly gathered to him in support. Shechanya ben-Yehiel suggested expelling foreign wives along with their children. So Ezra made them all swear to do so,10 and went to the office ofJohanan son of Elyashib to fast. Meanwhile, Ezra summoned all members of the Golah community throughout Judah to a three-day congress in Jerusalem, on pain of losing their property and being expelled from the sacral assembly (qh~ of the Golah (cf. 2 Chr 15: 13). So, on the twentieth day of the ninth month, they convened in the square of the temple. Ezra demanded a separation (bd~ from foreign women, to which all agreed. But as it was the rainy season, officials, all of them with foreign \vives, were to come to Jerusalem at appointed times with the elders of each town (Ezra 10:7-14). In the following narrative (Ezra 10:15-44), priests, Levites and the non-priestly members of the Golah comply. Ezra and the lineage heads investigated from the first day of the tenth month until New Year's Day. Priests with foreign wives included sons ofJeshua ben-Yozadaq and his brothers-that is, the high priestly line. These expelled their wives, and paid shame offerings. Various Levite clans, temple singers and gatekeepers, and clans in "Israel" were also found to have taken foreign wives. Related to, and perhaps to be interweaved Mth, this account are

<j Note 9: II: the Israelites violated Yhwh's prophets' command, namely: thc land you are entering to inherit her (pI. you = Deut 4:5; In'th stems from Deuteronomy and dependent literature, possibly excepting Gen 15:7, but it looks identical: you [sg.] entering land to inherit it, roughly, Deut 7:1; 11:10,29; 23:21; 28:21, 63; 30: 16) is a ndh land (female impure, mainly Pl. Ezra 9: 12 cites an injunctioIl against the exchange of daughters with the aborigines, and an enjoinder to eat the good of the land (Ier 2:7!), so future generations will inherit. Ezra 9: 13-14 then express the sentiment, "Can we now again abrogate your commands, marry in these peoples of abominations, won't you finish us?" The whole complex accepts the argument of Judges 1-3 that intermarriage with the aborigines was the cause of the corruption of Israelite religion and, ultimately, of the exiles. 10 Ezra 10:1-5. Note the pun on "foreign" wives (nkrywt) and "making" (nkn) a covenant to be riel of them.

444

BARUCH HALPERN

Nehemiah 7-10, which form a background for Nehemiah 13. 11 In these chapters, after a repetition of Ezra 2-3: 1, Ezra presides over a ceremonial renewal oflsrael's relation with Yhwh (Ezra 7-10; Nehemiah 7-10 tend to use the term, Israel, for the sacral community focused on Jerusalem, whereas Nehemiah elsewhere prefers the term,Judah). This takes place at New Year (as Ezra 10 culminates there), and involves a proclamation of (probably) the Pentateuch during Sukkot. Immediately after the festival, on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month, the assembly mourned, "and the seed of Israel were separated (nbdlw) from all the sons of aliens (bny nkr)": this rubric, in Nehemiah 9: 1-2, describes the ceremony that follows in Nehemiah 9-10. The ceremony consists of a lengthy recitation detailing Israel's ingratitude to Yhwh, followed by the sealing of a contract, cementing a community of "every one who was separated (hnbd~ from the peoples of the lands", including their wives, sons and daughters. These committed themselves to cultic observance, but first and foremost neither to give their daughters to "the peoples of the lands" nor to take those peoples' daughters. They also agreed to regularize the sabbatical year, possibly including internal debt release, although it looks as though debt-slavery was abolished in the (sequentially) earlier release in Nehemiah 5. 12 In Nehemiah 13, finally, there is renewed enforcement of the injunction against foreign wives, based more strictly on the injunctions of Deuteronomy 23 (Neh 13: 1-3). The emphasis on Ashdodite, Ammonite and Moabite wives, with the inclusion of San ballat (NehI3: 23-30), recapitulates for the most part the list of enemies found in Nehemiah 4: 1, but introduces an element of linguistic nationalism, railing against the introduction of Ashdodite. This almost surely reflects II For scholarship on the relationship of the chapters to the account in Ezra, see H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary; Waco: Word, 1985) 284-86 and ad loe. 12 A ban on debt slavery had earlier been enacted in Athens together with a "shaking off of obligations" by Solon in 594 or so: Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 2.4; 6.1; Plutarch, Solon 15.3; 15.5-note the descriptions of reforms in Ath. Pol. 5-12; Plutarch, Solon 15-25. For the regularization of debt release in Judah in the 7th century, see R. Westbrook, "Codification and Canonization" in La Codification des Lois dans L'Antiquiti. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 27-29 novembre 1997 (ed. E. Lev)'; Travaux du Centre de Recherche sur Ie Proch-Orient et la Grece Antiques, 16; Strasbourg: de Boccard, 2000) 33-47, esp. pp. 42-43. The issue here is that P seems to envision generalized debt release only in the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25). 13 Inscriptional evidence, especially from Ashdod's southern neighbor, Ashkelon, indicates that the coastal dialect of the Persian period was southern Phoenician. This

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the adoption of Phoenician dialect among elite elements (13:24).13 And the interpretation of Deuteronomy 23 is different from that in the account of Ezra's reform, inasmuch as it does not cite the cases of Edomites and Egyptians. Noteworthy, too, is the fact that there is no effective interdiction on the introduction of males to the community: did adoption of foreign males remain a possibility? The most common response to the stigmatization of miscegenation, and perhaps the most compelling in the literature, has been that theJudahite returnees represented by Ezra were' xenophobic or even "racist." 14 More fully expressed, the view has been thatJudahite culture would be "watered down" by neighboring peoples, and that, practically speaking, land holdings might be compromised by the marriages of returnees to non:Judahite women. IS Note that this view presupposes inheritance by wives (further below). This traditional view is certainly justified in theory. And yet, two questions arise. The first is why, suddenly, marriage in a patrilocal society was somehow threatening, when previously it never had been. This is particularly puzzling in that the highest ratios of intermarriage to numbers of males who returned in 538-522 BCE are found among a limited number of clans, concentrating particularly in the elite (Levites), and, as the text of Ezra says, among the leading families of the other lineages. 16 To be "racist" in motivation, rather than in pretext, the reform needs to have been directed against foreign women. Yet these women were among the elite, and evidence squares with the political data from KAI 14: 18-19 indicating domination by Sidon down to Jaffa and with Greek sources identif)1.ng Ashke\on with the Tyrians (Pseudo-Scylax in M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews andJudaism Oemsalem: Israel Academy, 1984] 10; see also Pausanias 1.14.7). See on the Phoenician presence L. E. Stager, "'Vhy Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at Ashkelon?" in Ashkelon Discovered. From CaJlaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems (ed. idem; Washington: BAS, 1991) 22-36. For a review of contrary positions, see Williamson, Azra, NehemiaJl, 397. I'~ Joel Weinberg, The Citizen- Temple Communiry aSOTSup 151; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992). 15 For a particularly enlightened example, see Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 160. 16 See Ezra 9:2. For a rough guide to the ratios, tile following will serve, remembering that those who returned with Ezra (chap. 8) will not have had time (or the inclination or daring, probably) to intermarry. The numbers probably reflect geographical as well as social location, with Ncbo, for example, being on the border of Moab, whereas Pahat Moab and Par'osh seem to have resisted intermarriage, possibly on the basis of the ideological grounds that lead a member of the lineage of Elam (Ezra 10:2) to urge the reform. Note that not all the returning lineages are named in this apparently comprehensive list, so that we are entitled to presuppose either that they were not intermarried or that they were victims of the reform (see table in the Appendix).

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presumably could have called on the political protection afforded by status and wealth as easily as their opponents could do. Moreover, there is no emphasis on prohibiting the adoption of foreigners, though one may argue that this is implied afortiori (see below). The second question is why, at roughly the same time, Athens also made it a condition of citizenship that mothers as well as fathers be Athenian citizens, or, rather, the daughters of Athenian citizens (see below). As Jerusalem and Athens are the two city-states of the era on the vicissitudes of whose governance we are best informed, it is possible that the same phenomenon was also taking place elsewhere. The two nearly contemporary events, at any rate, permit mutual illumination. The amount of wealth that Ezra carried from Mesopotamia to Israel makes a change in the direction of bilateral citizenship logical. Sometime betvveen 458 and 444, Ezra forbade intermarriage in Judah; around 432, Nehemiah reinforced the prohibition. The evidence would seem to suggest that the enforcement of this new regimen was directly linked to the importation of wealth and the development of enterprise in the new center. In other words, the representation of the text that Ezra undertook this reform in the year of his arrival rings true, although the phenomenon of antedating and chronological distortion in Ezra should give us pause about a final verdict: Ezra 1-6 actually present two disparate chronologies, silently recognizing that only chapter 1 refers to 538 BCE, whereas the rest of the segment to 6: 14 refers to events in 522-520, after the second return under Zerubbabel; at the same time, by changing means for dating events and creating a misleading impression especially in chapter 4 of linear sequence, it implies that the temple construction started in 538, and was impeded by the opposition of neighboring communities. In fact, this opposition is documented starting only in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, with respect to the refortification of Jerusalem. It may have had much to do with the citizenship reform. 17

17 On the chronolof.,rical issues, sec Halpern, "A Historiographic Commentary on Ezra 1-6. Achronological NaITative and Dual Chronology in Israelite Historiography," in TIe Hebrew Bible and its Interpreters (cd. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern and D. N. Freedman; Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego, 1; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 81-142. Further, S. Talmon, "'Exile' and 'Restoration' in the Conceptual World of Ancient Judaism" in Restoration. Old Testament, }mish, and Ch,irtwn PersjJedives OSJSuP 72; Leiden: E..J. Brill, 2001) 107-146, esp. pp. 132-33, to the origins of the conflict with the Samaritans.

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The contemporary international situation also casts light on this development. Probably, when Ezra was installed in Jerusalem, Megabyzus was en route to suppressing a revolt in Egypt, under Inaros (458). The suggestion has the merit of explaining why Ezra was in no need of a military escort. 18 Both Inaros's revolt and Ezra's trip, perhaps in the wake of an army, came at a time when the Athenian threat to the coastlands was at its height, and Athens was implicated in the Inaros revolt as well. In fact, Dor appears in the Athenian tribute list for 454. As Dor was formally a dependency of Sidon, at the time, and Athens was in conflict with Persia's proxies in Phoenicia and Cyprus, this suggests a signal Athenian success, either military or diplomatic, and most probably both-quite possibly in or shortly before 458. 19

]ewish Communities after Ezra Could Arjjust A1embership Onry According to the Father's Origin Two facts correlate with the international situation. First, Jerusalem was granted permission to rebuild its fortification walls roughly at this time, despite the opposition of neighboring polities. Second, the prohibition of intermarriage, and indeed of holiday commerce with foreigners, which is the second emphasis of these passages, creates a break with neighboring communities. That is, the policy that Ezra implemented was an isolationist one, and was bound to trigger reciprocal isolation on its borders. One might even say that the policy Ezra put into play was calculated to erect boundaries that prevented political collaboration, certainly in the short term. In fact, it recapitulates the agenda underlying Cyrus's original repatriation of deportee elites, an agenda of division and conquest. It evinces an imperial stamp reflecting calculation on the part of the Persian chancellery based on the local nature of xenophobia. Indeed, the repatriation and the policy of respecting local law were in that sense 18 Thucydides 1.109. See Christopher Oves, Diodonls and 'fllUcydides: Another Look at the Hi,loriograpky and C'llronology of the Pentek()ll/aetia (1V1.A. thesis) Pennsylvania State University) 2000). Oves speculates that Megabyzus actually installed Ezra on his way to suppress the revolt. C[ M. Noth) The hll.lJS ill the Pentateuch alld Other ElSl?Ys (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd) 1966) 76-78. 19 That is, it might well coincide with the Cyprian expedition ofThucydides 1.104·, involving 200 ships, which was cut short in order to sail to Inaros's aid in the Delta. See for Dor, B. D. Merritt, H. T. Wade-Gel), and M. F. McGregor, 771eAthenian Trihut.e Lists (Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1939-1953).

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merely deportation in reverse, achieving the same aim by ostensibly more beneficent means. The crucial difference was this: the Assyrians, and probably the Babylonians, attempted to erase ethnic loyalties and create a homogeneous international culture, certainly at an elite level; by contrast, the Persians cultivated and counted heavily on those loyalties as an engine of pacification. They adopted an overarching strategy of harnessing the ethnic mosaic rather than fighting that mosaic with a melting pot. 20 Review of the reform in Athens adds further perspective. In 451-450 (the year of Antidotus's archonship), Pericles sponsored a law making citizenship bilateral; he simultaneously abolished the institution of bride-price. The law, according to Aristotle, restricted citizenship to sons of citizen mothers and citizen fathers because there were simply too many citizens. Plutarch relates that the cause of the reform was that the Egyptian king (which is to say, presumably, Inaros) shipped grain to Athens to be distributed among the citizenry. Pericles therefore arranged to strike five thousand of these off the rolls as false. The five thousand were sold into slavery, their estates confiscated, leaving 14,040 citizens. 21 The resemblance to Ezra's reform is close, and the arrival of treasure from Persia makes a plausible reason for the community to adopt what was, contemporaneously, a Periclean policy. It bears incidental note that this reform is probably the origin of the tradition that children of a Jewish mother are Jews. Significantly, Aristotle reports that some democracies confer full citizenship, which implies eligibility for office, on children of citizen-mothers, or even on those of slaves. He opines that when numbers of citizens are higher, the state strips citizenship first from children of slaves, then from those of citizen-mothers, and fmally even from those of citizen-fathers whose wives are not citizens. Whether or not Aristotle's analysis of motivation is accurate, it has two implications. It reiterates and perhaps inspires Plutarch's analysis of Pericles's motivation. And, it attests, through direct or indirect observation, the conferral of citizenship on citizen-

20 For a similar view with regard to Persian Yehud a~ a counterweight to the neighboring Philistine powers, and for Assyrian antecedents, see E. A. Knauf, ""''ho Destroyed Beersheba II?" in Keil! Landfor .rich allein. Studien zum Kulturlwntalct in Kanaan, Israeli Paliistina und EbimO.rifor Marifred Weippert zum 65. Geburstag (ed. U. Hubner and E.A. Knauf; OBO 186; Freiburg: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2(02) 181-95, esp. p. 190 and 11. 58. 21 Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 26.3; Plutarch, Pericles 37.3. See Herodotus 6.130131 for an example of the earlier practice of tracing citizenship patrilaterally.

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mothers' children. The latter probably implies co-resident children, that is, cases in which foreign males relocated to the mother's polity, in effect becoming adoptive members of her elite (by definition) family. Thus the lack of emphasis in Nehemiah on co-resident fathers may reflect the continuing practice of adoption in Judah, despite a silence on the subject that permeates both Biblical and post-Biblical texts. 22 In Judah, as in Athens, the real issue was the number of citizens entitled to shares of inducements coming from abroad. And the Athenian citizenship reform suggests that Ezra's was meant to reduce the number of citizens; perhaps those excluded from the community were also sold into slavery, in part explaining Nehemiah 5. But why did Athens adopt what appears to have been a Persian policy of encouraging nativism? Could it be that it was a reaction to Athenians serving abroad in colonies and taking local brides, as Ernst Badian has speculated? Studies in the social embedment of resistance to intermarriage argue that it is a mechanism for increasing solidarity or resisting external domination and assimilation. 23 Yet perhaps part of the logic here was also nationalistic: Athens, certainly, was gearing up to fight both Persia and Sparta in 451, though it temporarily enjoyed a truce (the Five Years' Truce, probably 454-449) with the latter. In 451, too, Cimon was leading his final campaign to Cyprus. The peace of Callias with Persia came only later, perhaps in 449; likewise, the Thirty Years' Truce with Sparta was a product of the 440's. So, in 451, Athens was actively competing for a foothold in western Asia, and fearful of a Spartan strike on its flank. Is the citizenship reform, then, an articulation of nativism, as it is typically understood to have been in Ezra? The coincidence with Ezra's reform and reduction of the citizenship rolls in Jerusalem suggests that none of these explanations holds, though they may have been invoked as means to persuade the populations of Jerusalem and Athens. Rather, there were social and economic 22 See D. Daube, Sons and Strangen (Boston: Institute ofJewish Law, Boston University School of Law, 1984) 47-48. 23 For these interpretations, respectively, E. Badian, "The Peace of Callia~, JHS 107 (1987) 1-39; From Ptataea '£I Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography if the Pentacontaetia (BaltinlOre: Johns Hopkins, 1993) 1- 72; R. K. Merton, "Intermarriage and the Social Structure: Fact and TheOly" Psychiatry 9 (1941) 361-74; E. L. CerroniLong, "Marrying Out: Socio-Cultural and Psychological Implications of Intermarriage" Journal if Comparative Famiry Studies 15 (1984) 25-46. The sociological literature, of course, responds principally to individual articulations of motivation, rather than the motivations of a leadership interested in mobilizing popular support.

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dimensions of reform. First, because those with foreign wives were likely members of the wealthiest class to begin with, the confiscation of their estates also offered an incentive-parallel to the Sybarite law stripping the city's five hundred wealthiest citizens of their assets (Diodorus Siculus 12.9.2-3): those families sold into slavery in Athens, and deprived of property in Jerusalem, no doubt had their lands, goods and persons redistributed to the remaining citizens. And there are indications that the lawmakers anticipated additional ramifications as well. In Athens, the abolition of bride-price was a formal trade-off of political concessions: what would otherwise have become a form of fiscal monopoly, the market in domestic brides, was theoretically reduced to a monopoly on social capital. Clearly, Pericles recognized that the introduction of bilateral citizenship would so escalate prices for women as to make the innovation intolerable economically and potentially redistributive. Arguably, in fact, the impact of bilateral citizenship would be to rein in demand for and expenditure on the most desirable families' daughters, at home and abroad, for the benefit of the many, since domestic prices would rise high enough to create a positive inducement for Athenians' sons to look abroad for their WIves. In theory, thus, the abolition of bride-price is a form of protectionism for native daughters! And it did usher in a change of attitude: Aristotle could speak of the practice of purchasing brides as barbaric (Pol. 1268b). Still, bride-price probably just assumed new forms, including that of wedding gifts, although these could in theory not be contractually guaranteed. And it is easy to imagine that the rising price of Athenian daughters made the prospect of wealthy, paying foreign sons-in-law attractive. This is also why Ezra and Nehemiah were at pains to prohibit the export of native daughters: their form of protectionism was to try to ensure that domestic supply sufliced to meet demand. Jerusalem applied a supply-side, Athens a demand-side solution to the problem bilateral citizenship presented. One other element merits consideration in this regard. The rise in the status of women in Deuteronomy, in theJudahite Reformation of the seventh century, wa