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The t , Biblical Archaeologist Publishedby TheAmericanSchoolsof OrientalResearch 126InmanStreet, Cambridge,Mass. 02139

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Volume37

No. 1

March,1974

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

2

Vol. 37,

is published quarterly (March, May, September, December) The Biblical Archaeologist by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to provide readable, non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable accounts of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the Bible. Authors wishing to submit unsolicited articles should write the editors for style and format instructions before submitting manuscripts. Editors: Edward F. Campbell, Jr. and H. Darrell Lance, with the assistance of Floyd V. Filson in New Testament matters. Editorial correspondence should be sent to the editors at 800 West Belden Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Art Editor: Robert H. Johnston, Rochester Institute of Technology. Editorial Board: G. Ernest Wright, Harvard University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University; William G. Dever, Jerusalem; John S. Holladay, Jr., University of Toronto. $5.00 per year, payable to the American Schools of Oriental Research, Subscriptions: 126 Inman Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. Associate members of ASOR receive the BA automatically. Ten or more subscriptions for group use, mailed and billed to one address, $3.50 per year apiece. Subscriptions in England are available through B. H. Blackwell, Ltd., Broad Street, Oxford. Back Numbers: $1.50 per issue, 1960 to present: $1.75 per issue, 1950-59; $2.00 per issue before 1950. Please remit with order, to the ASOR office. The journal is indexed in Art Index, Index to Religious Periodical Literature, Christian Periodical Index, and at the end of every fifth volume of the journal itself. Second class postage PAID at Cambridge, Massachusetts and additional offices. Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1974 PRINTED

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PETERBOROUGH, N. H.

Contents The Horned Altar of Beer-sheba, by Yohanan Aharoni .... .............. Life in the Diaspora: Jews at Nippur in the Fifth Century B.C., by Michael D. Coogan ...................................................... The Works of Amminadab, by Henry O. Thompson and Fawzi Zayadine .......... "Biblical Archaeology": An Onomastic Perplexity, by D. L. Holland ..............19

2 6 13

.23 From the Editor's Desk: A Note of Gratitude and an Announcement ........... Cover: A horned incense altar from Megiddo. Photo courtesy of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

The Horned Altar of Beer-sheba YOHANAN AHARONI Tel Aviv University

Until now, the altar of the Arad temple was the only altar for burnt offerings of the First Temple period discovered by archaeologists; it was described in The Biblical Archaeologist six years ago (Vol. 31 [1968], 1921 and Fig. 14). It was a square structure of five cubits, standing three cubits high (cf. Exod. 27:1), built of clay and small undressed stones, in accordance with the biblical law (Exod. 20:25, etc.). On its surface was a large flint slab surrounded by two plastered runnels, and there were no traces of horns at its corners. However, the Arad altar was covered by a white plaster which was not preserved at the corners. It is possible, therefore, that the altar originally had horns made of clay and plaster, which were broken off with its destruction and burial. This theory now becomes plausible with the discovery of the stones of a large horned altar in the 1973 season at Tel Beer-sheba. Unlike the Arad altar, this one was not preserved in situ but its stones were found

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1974, 1)

3

re-used as part of a repaired wall of the storehouse complex of Stratum II, belonging to the 8th century. This section of the wall (see Fig. 3) was rebuilt with well-smoothed ashlar blocks of calcareous sandstone, a harder substance than the common limestone used in the Beer-sheba buildings.

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Le/

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Fig.

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1. The horned altar from Beer-sheba as reconstructed; some members are missing, but the height is correct.

The four altar horns were found arranged one beside the other in the wall, three intact and the fourth with its top knocked off. Their interpretation as altar horns is assured by their similarity to the horns of the small incense altars found in Megiddo (cover). Other similarly worked ashlar blocks were found above these horns in the same wall, as well as in the area nearby, one of them on the slope outside the gate. After the stones were reassembled, it was apparent that, except for all four horns, only about half of the altar stones had been discovered. Their arrangement, shown in the figure above, is unlikely to be the original one, but we were able to reconstruct its height with certainty. There are stones of two different sizes, indicating that the altar was constructed of three layers; from this we may conclude that its height was about 157 cm. (ca. 63 inches), measuring to the top of the horns. This is the measurement of exactly three large (royal) cubits, similar to the height of the altars at Arad, the Tabernacle (Exod. 27:1) and probably the original altar of the Solomonic temple (2 Chron. 6:13).

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

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Vol. 37,

Unfortunately, the width of the altar cannot be reconstructed with certainty. The combination of two horns constitutes approximately the same measurement as its height, i.e. a square of three cubits. This is the minimum size, however, because additional stones may have been between the horns. It is therefore possible that its size was a square of five cubits, like the altars at Arad and those described in the biblical references just mentioned.

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~:~ "'A

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.44 Mw,

Fig.

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2. Engraved decoration of a twisting snake on one of the altar stones.

All stones are well-smoothedashlar masonry,which seems to stand in contradiction to the biblical law that the altar should be built "of unhewn stones, upon which no man has lifted an iron tool" (Josh. 8:31, etc.). This ancient tradition evidently was disregardedat Beer-sheba; alternatively,we could suppose that the law was taken literally and the dressingwas done with tools of bronze or stone instead of the common iron. One stone has a deeply engraved decorationof a twisting snake (see Fig. 2), an ancient symbol of fertility widely dispersedthroughout the Near East.The symbolof a snakewas veneratedin Israelfrom Moses' times (Num. 21:8-9) and the bronze serpent was worshippedin the Jerusalemtemple until the days of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). The horned altar is frequentlymentioned in the Bible. Though the meaning of the horns is nowhere explained (some scholarsbelieve that they were substituted for original massebotstanding on the corners of

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1974, 1)

5

the altar), they were considered to be the holiest part of the altar. They are mentioned as the first item in its construction (Exod. 27:2; 38:2); on them the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled (Exod. 29:12; Num. 9:9; etc); to cut them off desecrated the altar (Amos 3:14). Twice we hear that when a refugee "caught hold of the horns of the altar" he obtained the right to asylum (1 Kings 1:50; 2:28).

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.... ..... COW~

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Fig.

3. Stones of the altar as found, re-used in a wall of a store-house from the last years of the 8th century B.C.

Sometimes, incense altars were equipped with horns (Exod. 30:2), the best examples having been found at Megiddo. It is now clear that the shape of their horns is an imitation of the shape of those of the large altar for burnt offerings, which was the central edifice in the courtyard of a temple. Discovering the altar at Beer-sheba was a highlight of the excavation, but no great surprise for us. In my essay on the Arad temple, I developed the hypothesis that there was an institution of royal border sanctuaries, and, consequently, that the most promising site for the discovery of another Israelite temple would be the tell of biblical Beer-sheba (BA, 31 [1968], 32). It took us five years to find it, but now with the discovery of the altar we have confirmation of a temple's existence. The goal of the coming season will be to locate the temple's place in the city plan. The beautiful altar indicates that the temple must have been a far more elaborate structure than the simple shrine at Arad.

6

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Vol. 37,

One other factor, the demolition of the altar, is of much interest. The storehouse in which the altar stones had been re-used was destroyed at the end of the 8th century B.C.E. (Stratum II), probably during Sennacherib's campaign in 701. It appears that the repair of the building and the concomitant dismantling of the altar took place in the reign of Hezekiah. This is a most dramatic corroboration of the religious reform carried out by him, as expressed in the harsh accusations of Rabshakeh in 2 Kings 18:22: "But if you say to me, 'We rely on the Lord our God,' is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem'?"

Life in the Diaspora Jews at Nippur in the Fifth Century B.C. MICHAEL DAVID COOGAN St. Jerome's College, The University of Waterloo

In 594 B.C., some three years after the deportation of King Jehoiakin and several thousand craftsmen and military and court officials to Babylonia, Jeremiah advised the exiles: "Build houses to live in, and plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters.... Multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the peace of the city to which I have sent you, and pray for it to Yahweh, for in its peace you will have peace" (Jer. 29:4-7). Apart from the fragmentary cuneiform records listing rations provided to Jehoiakin in Babylon,' little is known of the life of the deportees of 597 and 587 B.C. But they and their descendants must have followed Jeremiah's advice, to judge from a remarkable collection of documents dating from the following century in which Jewish names frequently occur. This collection, the most important single source for our knowledge of the Babylonian Diaspora during the Persian period, was found in 1893 during the excavations at ancient Nippur by the University of Pennsylvania.2 It is a corpus of some seven hundred and thirty tablets dating from the reigns of Artaxerxes I (464-424 B.C.) and Darius II (424-404 B.C.). Known as the Murashu documents, after the head of the banking family whose records they were, these tablets, although prosaic in content, have proven to be of considerable interest for orientalists. In the follow1. See WV.F. Albright, BA, 5 (1942), 49-55. 2. For a brief account of the discovery of the tablets, see H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible lands During the 19th Century (1903), pp. 408-12. Most of the tablets were edited by Hilprecht and A. T. Clay, and were published as Vols. IX and X of The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A (1898 and 1904), and as Vol. II, Part I of Publica-

tions

of the Babylonian

Section

of the Museum

of the University

forth we shall cite these volumes as IX, X, and UM, respectively.

of Pennsylvania

(1912).

Hence-

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1974, 1)

7

ing pages we will examine some of the documents in which Jews are mentioned in order to sketch the life of the exiles in Nippur. The Murashu documents are written in Akkadian cuneiform. On many of them a brief inscription written in Aramaic with ink has also been preserved. Called dockets or endorsements, these inscriptions usually contain a brief summary of a document and the name of the person with whom the banking firm was doing business; they served as filing labels. (The practice of enclosing a tablet in a clay envelope inscribed with a duplicate contract had been discontinued by the Neo-Babylonian period.) Most of the tablets also have seal impressions (or occasionally fingernail marks) of one or more of the principals and witnesses (see Fig. 4).

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Fig.

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4. Seals of two of the witnesses on the left edge of UM 148. (Photograph courtesy of Dr. A. Sjoberg, Curator of the Tablet Collections, University Museum, The University of Pennsylvania.)

The names of the principals and witnesses in the various contracts show that Nippur was a cosmopolitan city under Persian rule. Apart from the large number of individuals with Babylonian names there were also many Persians, Medes, Egyptians and West Semites; the last group included Jews with biblical names such as Hanani, Shabbatai and Jonathan.3 An initial problem is to isolate those individuals and families which were Jewish. The fact that a name which occurs in the Murashu documents is also attested in the Bible is not significant, for many of the names in use in Jewish communities at various periods are not exclusively or identifiably Jewish. As we shall see, many of the Jews at Nippur had names which we can identify linguistically as Aramaic or Babylonian; but such names were naturally not restricted to Jews. Notorious biblical examples of this practice are Esther and Mordecai, whose names are derived from the Babylonian deities Ishtar and Marduk; further exam3. In one of the Aramaic endorsements this name is written in alphabetic script as ylzwntn;

its cuneiform

spelling

was ya-(a)-hu-!-na-ta(n)-nu.

8

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

Vol. 37,

ples of this kind of religious syncretism are discussed below. In addition, because of the close relationship between Aramaic and Hebrew, it is often impossible to identify the language of a name more precisely than to say that it is West Semitic. This is especially true in the case of nicknames and abbreviated names, generally called hypocoristica. Despite such ambiguities, however, we can isolate with certainty several Jewish families in the Murashu documents by combining linguistic and genealogical data. One example is the family of Tob-yaw. The only published contract in which it occurs is X.118, unfortunately too fragmentary to translate here (see Fig. 6); from what remains of the tablet we can establish the membership of this family as follows: Tob-yaw Bana-yaw

Bil)iya

Zabad-yaw

Zalina

Hanani

Minahhim (?) Ba'l-yaw Four of these names, Tob-yaw, Bana-yaw, Zabad-yaw and Ba'l-yaw, have the form of the divine name Yahweli used as their second element -yawz,, in final position in personal names at Nippur in this period (and elsewhere in other periods, notably in the Samaria ostraca some three centuries earlier); these individuals were certainly Jews. The biblical equivalents of their names are Tobiah, Benaiah, Zebadiah, and Bealiah. It is thus reasonable to assume that the rest of the family was Jewish as well. Of the remaining names, Hanani is a common hypocoristicon of names such as Hananiah; Minahhim is the equivalent of biblical Menahem; Zabina is Aramaic, but was used by Jews, for it is one of the names of the returning exiles (Ezra 10:43); and Bibiya is an Akkadian name meaning "baby" which occurs in the form Bebai in Ezra 2:11. In IX.454 several Jewish principals have jointly made a contract with the sons of Murashu: Yadi'-yaw, the son of Bana-'el; Yahu-natan, Shama'on and Ahi-yaw, the sons of Yadi'-yaw; Satur, the son of Shabbatai; Baniya, the son of Amel-nana; Yigdal-yaw, the son of Nanaiddin; Abda, the son of Apla; Nattun, the son of Shillim; and all their partners in Bit-gira; spoke freely to Ellil-shum-iddin, the son of Murashu, as follows: "Rent to us for three years the Mares' Canal, from its inlet up to its outlet, and the tithed field was found 4. This tablet, along with twenty-four others, most of them previously unpublished, wife after her death, and was re-edited by Oluf Krtickin a trunk belonging to II. V. Hilprecht's into Eng'ish may be found in J. B. mann in 1933. Other translations of the Murashu documents Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (1969), p. 221, and in Pritchard, Ancient D. W. Thomas, Documents from Old Testament Times (1961), pp. 95-6. The most complete study of the tablets is G. Cardascia, Les archives des Mura~su (1951).

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL. ARCHAEOLOGIST

9

which is on this canal, andl the field which is to the left of the Milidu Canal, and the three marshes which are to the right of the Milidu Canal, except the field which drinks (its) waters from the Ellil Canal; and we will give you annually 700 kur of barley according to the standard measure of Ellil-shum-iddin, and, as an annual gift, 2 grazing bulls and 20 grazing rams." The rest of this typical contract quotes Ellil--shum-iddin's acceptance of the terms, describes the mutual responsibilities of the lessees, and concludes with the usual list of witnesses and the date formula (year 36 of Artaxerxes, or 428 B.C.). By combining the data of this tablet with those found in another tablet, IX.25, we can reconstruct the following genealogy: Bana-'el Yadi'-yaw Shama'on Yahu-natan Ahi-yaw Pada-yaw Four of the names of the members of this family are Yaliwistic, and all have close biblical parallels from the post-exilic period (as do most of the Jewish names in the Murashu documents): compare, respectively, Benaiah, Jedaiah and Jediael, Ahijah, Jehonathan, Pedaiah and Shimeon. Of the other principals in the contract, Yigdal-yaw is certainly Jewish; his name, like its biblical parallel Igdaliah, means "Yaliweh is great". It is interesting to note that his father, Nana-iddin, has a Babylonian name. Nattun and Satur may be Jewish, but the genealogical and linguistic evidence is not conclusive. In this document Yadi'-yaw, his sons and his partners have agreed to lease certain properties with irrigation rights from the Murashu firm for three years at a rate of 700 kur of barley per year plus a small surcharge (the bulls and the rams). Since money was not generally used for local transactions in Nippur, payment in kind was the ordinary medium of exchange used by tenant farmers such as Yadi'-yaw and his group. A kur was about four bushels, so they were renting a sizeable acreage. The land was not owned by the Murashu firm itself, but belonged to absentee landlords who invested their property with the firm in exchange for a guaranteed rate; the firm was thus primarily a middleman. Neither in this tablet nor in any of the others which mention identifiable Jewish individuals is there any hint of discrimination or of restriction on religious or ethnic grounds;5 Jews are engaged in the same 5. It is worthy noting, however, that none of the scribes of the more than 500 published name. This is doubtless due to the indigenous tablets has a non-Babylonian character of the scribal schools, as well as to the difficulty of acquiring fluency in the Neo-Babylonian syllabary.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

10

Vol. 37,

types of contractual relationships, at the same interest rates, as their non-Jewish contemporaries at Nippur. Thus, MIan-dan-yaw, the son of Shulum-babil (UM 148), was a sheep and goat herder; 'Aqab-yaw,,the son of Bau-etir (UM 27 and 89), was a date-grower; Zabad-yaw, the son of Hinni-bel (UM 208), was a fisherman. Another (?) Zabad-yaw was a

partner of Abi-yaw, the son of Shabbatai (UM 218), in the cultivation of "bow-land" (bit qashti); this was a type of fief originally granted to military colonists of the Persian Empire who had to provide an archer and/or his equipment to the army in exchange for the grant of land. (Similar fiefs were called "horse-land", "chariot-land", etc.) :::::::j::::: ?::xS:i

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5. X.65, which the son of Pilli-yaw mentions on lines 9 and 14 of the Yishrih-yaw, obverse (left). occur amnong the witnesses on line 4 Shabbllatai andl his brother \linyamin of the reverse (right). courtesy of l)r. A. Sjiirberg, Curator of the Tablet (lPhotograph Collections, '11'he IIni\versity of Pennsylvania.) UIniersity •1useuLIn,

At least two Jews had relatively imnportant positions. In UM 121 El-yadin, the son of Yadi'-yaw, is associated with Rimut-ninurta, a member of the Murasihu firm, as co-creditor in a transaction. The reason for this association is not clear; since tile tablet was not written at Nippur but at Sin-belslltlun, it is possible that El-yadin was tile representative of tile firm in tlhat (unidentified) locality. Secondly, in X.65 (see Fig. 5) and UMA205, Yishlril)-yaw, tile son of 1Pilli-yaw, is mentioned; the former tablet speaks of him as the: clief officer (shak/u) of the serfs of the royal or rotating position, since the latter treasury, apparently a temlporary tablet, written tile following year, ascril)es tile same title to a certain Ismun. As we have observed, not a few of the Jewislh exiles mentioned in the Muraslhu documents have non-Yahlwistic names. Since tlhey occur in legally binding documents, they must Ilave been tile names actually used by their bearers, at least in public. Both extra-biblical and ibiblical sources

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

11

suggest that after the exile the use of Babylonian names by Jews became more and more common not only in Babylonia but in Judah as well. One group upon whom pressure to adopt foreign names must have been strong was the remnant of the royal house of Judah; three members of this family who figure prominently among the first returnees in 538 B.C. have Babylonian names: Shealtiel and his son Zerubbabel, and the latter's uncle Sheshbazzar (assuming that Sheshbazzar [Ezra 1:8; 5:14] and Senazzar [I Chron. 3:18] are identical). Others with Babylonian names among the exiles returning to Judah include Bilshan, Hattush, Mordecai and Nekoda. (We should also allow for the possibility that some of the Jews in exile had two names: one Babylonian, used for legal purposes, and a specifically Jewish name as well. Knowledge of such a practice is attested in the story of Esther, who is introduced in Esther 2:7 as Hadassah, and also in Daniel 1:7.) In the Murashu documents, Jewish individuals with names containing a Babylonian deity include Shamesh-ladin, the son of Yadi'-yaw (X. 94), Bau-etir, the father of 'Aqab-yaw (UMI 27, 89), and Bel-uballit, the father of Mattan-yaw (UMI 53). Other examples could be listed, especially of Jews whose fathers had more neutral types of Babylonian names, but those we have seen prove our point: it was not considered a serious compromise of one's Jewish identity to give a child a name which was not Yahwistic, nor even of Hebrew or Aramaic linguistic stock. In fact, there is some evidence which suggests that at least a few fathers deliberately gave their sons names which were intentionally ambiguous: to a Jew they would sound Jewish, but to a Babylonian they would seem to be Babylonian. One example is derived from the West Semitic root 'qb, "to guard, to protect." While well-attested in personal names of the second millennium (as in the name Jacob) , this root was generally restricted during the first millennium to milieus in which Aramaic was the spoken language; it was especially popular at Nippur, where it is used in the names of eighteen individuals in the Murashu documents. This popularity may be explained by the frequency with which the similar sounding (but unrelated) Akkadian verb qaba is used in personal names of the Neo-Babylonian period. With this background it is striking to note a sudden increase of the root in biblical names of the exilic period, especially in the name Aqqub (borne by six individuals in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah) . It seems that Jews in Babylonia started to use the root in naming their children, and that the practice spread from Babylon to Judah with the returning exiles. A similar influence on the biblical onomasticon may be observed in the increased use of the divine element '"l in personal names during the

12

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

Vol. 37,

latter half of the first millennium. Although used frequently during the second millennium, 'Hl occurs only sporadically in names of individuals who lived during the time of the Israelite and Judean monarchies, and undergoes a sudden increase in popularity after the exile. This revival of an older style, while not unrelated to the general renewal of interest in Israel's past which characterizes much of the post-exilic literature, may also have been due to a conscious intent to be ambiguous. Since the Hebrew word 'Hl was almost identical in sound to its Akkadian cognate il (u), its use by the post-exilic community in Judah in their children's names may reflect a tendency to assimilation to the Babylonians with whom they had frequent contact. This hypothesis is strengthened by a comparison of the contemporary communities at Nippur and at Elephantine in Egypt the island far up the Nile, from which Aramaic papyri belonging to a Jewish military colony of the 5th century have come. While the element 'el is used frequently in the names of individuals in the Murashu documents, it occurs only once in names found in the Elephantine papyri; at Elephantine, of course, the potential for capitalizing on similar-sounding name-elements we have described would not have been available. Finally, the frequency with which the Hebrw root gkn, "to live, to dwell", occurs in post-exilic sources may also have been influenced in part by Babylonian contacts. Its use was in harmony with the developing priestly theology of the presence of God,6 but may also have been affected by ambiguity with the common Akkadian verb vakanzu.The name Shekeniah, borne by six individuals in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, should be compared with the name Shikin-'el in the Murashu documents. Other influences, especially syntactic ones, of the experience of the Babylonian Diaspora upon Israelite namegiving could be added, but the point has been sufficiently made. Names are only clues to beliefs and customs, to social pressure and language. Although they are neither great literature nor important historical sources, the Murashu documents do provide a significant glimpse into the social and commercial life of a Babylonian city under Persian rule, and thus help to augment our knowledge of the onomastic practices, occupations and circumstances of the Diaspora. Like their contemporaries at Elephantine, by the fifth century B.C. the exiles at Nippur had become fully integrated into the economic life of their society, fulfilling the injunctions of Jeremiah 29:5ff. perhaps even more thoroughly than the prophet had intended! 6. See M. Noth, Die israelitisclien in Rahmen der gemneinsemitischen Personennamen Tamengebung (1928), pp. 194, 215; and F. IM. Cross, BA, 10 (1947), 65-68, reprinted in BA Reader

(1961),

pp. 224-227.

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

13

The Works of Amminadab HENRY O. THOMPSON AND FAWZI ZAYADINE Amman, Jordan

The third year students majoring in archaeology at the University of Jordan are required to do 100 hours in field work. Fulfilling this requirement, they made a strong contribution to the staff of Tell Hesban in 1971 and to Dornemann's excavation on the Amman Citadel in 1968. In considering their assignment for 1972, Dr. Adnan Hadidi of the University's Department of History and Archaeology suggested we look at Tell Siran on the University grounds. This tell appears on an antiquities map in Arabic and on a 1932 road map of Jordan. A surface survey netted sherds from five periods: Mameluke, Umayyid, Byzantine, Hellenistic, and Iron II (7th/6th centuries B.C.) . All five periods need additional archaeological information in the East Jordan area and when you have student excavators to train, a tell on campus is about as convenient a site as one can find! The excavation ran from April 17 to May 16, 1972. The students gained practice in all facets of the work. They received training in site layout, stratigraphic excavation, and the washing, recording and drawing of artifacts. Unfortunately, only two loci were Umayyid (7th-8th cents. A.D.) and all the others were Mameluke (post-Crusader), so apart from quantities of sherds, they did not experience the excavation of the five different periods of which the surface sherds gave promise. We hope these can be found elsewhere on the mound. The Mlameluke remains, especially the cisterns and underground rooms, are interesting in themselves and give ample reward to the excavators; a report on the excavations will appear soon in the Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Among the artifacts was a bronze, bottle-shaped object about four inches or ten centimeters long. When it was discovered on April 27, it excited curiosity, but its heavily corroded surface gave no hint of what was to come. When the metal objects were cleaned at the end of the excavation, the bottle turned out to be inscribed (see Fig. 8)! Dr. Fawzi Zayadine made the initial translation of what proves to be the first complete Ammonite inscription ever discovered. Its eight lines of text contain 25 words and 92 letters; this compares with the 93 letters of the Amman Citadel inscription,' so the Siran inscription ranks as one of the longest as well. The fourth line runs the longest; its last word bends around the bottom of the bottle (see Fig. 9). This bending slightly distorts the last 1. S. II. Lorn,

BASOR,

No. 193 (Feb.,

1969),

pp. 2-13.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

14

Vol. 37,

three letters, which can probablly be identified as t, h1,and r, though with some lquestion remaining. Apart from these three, all the letters are clearly legible. In fact, they are so clear that several have asked if the inscription is really ancient. Since major museums are being fooled by fakes, one hesitates to be absolute about this. However, most copies or modern forgeries imitate or repeat known inscriptions. So far at least, there is nothing comparable to thle Siran writing, though we will observe some standard formulae when we get to the translation below. Further, forgeries tend to mix letter forms of various periods. The forms of the Siran

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:i:::: ::':~I a; :~:;;;;?~;ag~;~ir'~Ra9asPI%~B~?l?:?lr;~: Ii~P% ~apl~A -~i~!u~~~e~~:~~~j~jq~id~C~i~i-:--:: .:~?:.?:

-*ars~ana~n~nr~?-#aRIR~~~p??wAl?aC~IDha~

-

I

--

I

I

?

--

I

::::8: ~5:??:?:?:: rr:;t:~:-g::c:?:??:?;'?::::'~c?;;: ::::" :.?.-.?.'"`'?'''?'?~'~ ~~'~'?"" ?:f? ~~~'~''~'':':':' r~~~::... ..:i::::?::::::-:?::: :''''::~:~::::cWiZ~~t?:?: :~?":':'~':'''''~''~';::::'?--:'::?~':?

Fig.

6. The inscribed bottle from Tell Siran; lines 7 and 8 are clearly the Department of Antiquities, Amman, Jordan.

visible.

Photo

courtesy

of

letters cluster in a fairly narrow period, centering around 700 B.C., judging from our paleographic analysis, about 100 years later according to Frank Cross. Historical considerations place the (late of tile inscription ca. 600 B.C., but official records often archaized in the way letters were formed. The figure of 700 is based on comparison with Aramaic, the script which is closest to our Siran inscription, but there may have been some cultural lag between developments in Syria and the impact of that development in the area of Amman; indeed, the only sure way to draw chronological conclusions from the study of writing is to have a good deal of datable material from the same general region and belonging to tlhe same language. In comparing an inscription with other writings, one begins with the etlinic group at hand, which in this case is the Ammonites. Most of the known Ammonite inscriptions are short names or phrases found on seals. They in turn have often been dated in relation to a king of the Ammonites named Amminadab, whose name appears on two seals from Amman, the seals of Adoni-Nur and Adonipelet.2 This Amminadab is often equated with the king of the same name mentioned by Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, about 667 B.C. We will return to this shortly, but here we can say that since Siran now gives us two Amminadabs as kings 2. C. C. Torrey, AASOR, 2-3 (1931-2), 103-8; G. L. Harding, Quarterly 11 (1944), of Palestine, of Antiquities 67-74, and G. R. Driver, ibid., pp.

of the Department 81f.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

1974, 1)

15

of the Ammonites, we must ask which one is referred to on the seals or could each be represented by one of them? In any case, this means that no Ammonite inscription is dated to an absolute year; we can only date the Theater inscription,3 the Citadel inscription mentioned above, and the others, relative to one another.

C,

L

~9

T19 %7

'7

+ T)'-t"1'4~

uqgo~y

)wty9 T"y vv0

Fig.

7. The inscription figure is exactly

on the at size.

Tell

Siran

bottle,

drawn

by Bert

Devries,

July

4,

1973.

The

For the time being, then, we have to go outside of the Ammonite corpus. There are comparisons to bIe found with Moabite, Edomite, Hebrew and Phoenician scripts, 1butthe closest comparisons are found in materials written in Aramaic.4 Let us give only a few examples to show

what we mean. Ten of the eleven b's in the Siran inscription have a head which is open, so that the letter looks like the English "y"; a good example is the fifth letter from the left of the first line in Figure 7. Now 65ff. 3. R. W. Dajani, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 12-13 (1967-68), 4. J. Naveh, Israel Exploration 17 (1967), Journal, 256-8, and Proceediings of tire Israel Franz Rosenthal, and Ilumanities of Sciences 5, No. 1 (1970); D)ie aratmaistische Academy B. L. laines, A Paleographic Forschung, Leiden, 1939, Schrifttafel; Study of Aramaic Inscriptions 500 B.C., an unpublished dissertation for the doctoral program of llarvard Ulniversity, Antedating 1966. On the Ammonite Cambridge, material, see especially F. AI. Cross, BASOR, No. 193 (Feb., materials in an un1969), pp. 13-19. Dr. James A. Sauer has collected many of tle Ammonite which he has kindly made avai',able to this study. published paper, "Ammonite Inscriptions," This has been extremely and his assistance is gratefully We also owe a helpful acknow!edged. debt of gratitude to Frank M. Cross for several proposals credited to him in the course of the

study of the text.

16

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

Vol. 37,

in the Aramaic script, the change from the closed head to the open one took place about 700-675 B.C. Just the opposite is the case with d; on the Siran bottle it is virtually closed - see the fourth and eighth letters from the right on line one of Figure 7; in Aramaic script it opened up between 700 and 675. Another example: the hard "h"-sound (h) is shaped like a ladder with two bars, as in the fourth letter from the right of line 5. This two-bar form appears in Ammonite and Moabite around 850 B.C.; in Aramaic script it appears about 750, but moves rapidly to a one-bar form about 700 B.C. Similar examples could be drawn from eleven other letter forms in the inscription, all pointing to around 700 B.C., if comparison to Aramaic scripts is the indicator.5 As we have noted, such comparison has its perils, whether we think in terms of cultural lag or think instead that any script in relative isolation can develop its own peculiarities at its own pace. As we shall see, the attempt to date the kings named on the Siran bottle will point toward a later date. The Words

The first word of the inscription is m'bd which is derived from the verb "to do or make." The noun is probably in the construct state so it means here, "the works of." The "works" are those of Amminadab, king of the Ammonites. Note the frequent appearance of this name in the Bible (Exod. 6:23; Ruth 4:19f.; etc.) and its assumed meaning "my kinsman is generous (or noble)." A south semitic deity is named 'Armm, which raises the possibility that the name means "my (god) 'Amm is generous." The name could be applied to the people of Ammon. Their god is usually called 'Milcom but this could be a royal title while the personal name, 'Amm, has been lost to view. Thus the "sons of 'Ammon" may have thought of themselves as "sons" of the God 'Amm. The second line tells us that Amminadab was the son of Hissal-'El - the reading was proposed to us by Cross - who was also king of the Ammonites. He in turn was the son of another Amminadab, king of the Ammonites. Hissal-'El may mean "El delivers or protects." The works of the first Amminadab include a vineyard and gardens and something called 'thr and cisterns. In Isaiah 5, God is described as planting a vineyard. While the work of a farmer is not normally considered royal or divine in today's world, it was apparently an activity worthy of ancient kings and deities. The author of Ecclesiastes claims I made great works (m'sy); I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. (Eccles. 2:4, RSV) 5. A more complete paleographic study is published in a forthcoming issue of the Annual of the Departiment of Antiquities of jordan.

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

17

Our word 'thr is probably a new semitic root - so Cross. A South Arabic word for throne dais is 'thn. If the final r is a badly misshapen n, or if we have Aramaic influence here with an original n changed to r (as bn for "son" changed to br - a proposal made by Mr. Christian Robin), we have an attractive translation for our word. A throne dais in the midst of the king's garden would be an attractive place to hold court. However, the term is quite different from the other three "works" and the Aramaic did not influence a change of bn to br in the first three lines of the Siran inscription. Another possibility is the hollow verb hr, "to be white or hollow," with a derived noun meaning hole or hiding place. The hole(s) may have been storage places for the fruit or additional water. The word for cisterns, '"ht, is interesting because it appears in the singular in the MIeshaStone from Dhiban. This famous Moabite inscription dates from about 850 B.C. The term probably derives from the root for "sink down;" hence a reservoir or cistern as sunk in the rock. Line six expresses a joyous wish for Amminadab: "May he (or, let him) rejoice and be glad." The phrase occurs several times in the Bible, for example in Psalms 31:7 and 118:24. Lines 7 and 8 close with the hope that Amminadab will have a life of "many days and long years." The inscription as a whole can be translated: The works of Amminadab, king of the Ammonites, the son of Hissal-'El, king of the Ammonites, the son of Amminadab, king of the Ammonites, a vineyard and gardens and the 'thr and cisterns. May he rejoice and be glad for many days and long years. The Kings of Ammon

The Ammonite kings between 750 and 580 B.C. are known from Assyrian and biblical soures as follows: Shanipu (733 B.C.), Bod-'El (700), Amminadab (667), (620), Ba'lys (580). Shanipu paid tribute to the Assyrian king, H.anan-'El Tiglath-pileser. He may also be the Ammonite king who rebelled againt Jotham when Israel was ruling the area, according to 2 Chronicles 27:5. A prism of Sennacherib (704-681) refers to his third campaign and a king named Buduili. A fragmentary text of Esarhaddon (680-669) mentions Puduil as king of Beth-Ammon. The Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-627) refers to Bod-'El as king of the Ammonites. All three of these references are thought to be to the same king. This is crucial to the historical dating of the Siran inscription. Ashurbanipal's Cylinder C inscription refers to "Ammi-nadbi" as king of Ammon about 667. Thus one would assume that Bod-'El was already old

18

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

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when Ashurbanipal started as king and Amminadab succeeded him within a year. He was probal)ly, althougth not certainly, the son of Bod-'El. The Hanan-'El in tle above list is found on an Ammonite seal and lie is assumed king partly by analogy with the older name Hanun (990 B.C.). Ba'lys was the king who plotted withllIshmael to kill Gedaliah, the governor of what the Babylonians left of the kingdom of Judali (Jer. 40:14). Working backward lhere, we can note the interesting theory of Sauer, in his unpul)lished paper, citedl in note 5, that the Theater fragment refers to Ba'lys, the son of Amminadab. If this is correct, this would (late the Theater inscription to about 580 and give us an Amminadab about 600. This fits superbly with Cross' date of 600 B.C. for the Siran inscription, based on his analysis of tile paleographic evidence. It is an extremely attractive theory and for the present can be accepted. Thus the Amminadab of line 1 of Siran can be dated around 600, and identified with the king on the Theater fragment, which has an open b and an open 'ayin as does the Siran inscription. This presumably makes the Amminadab of line 3 the Amminadab of about 667 in Asliurbanipal's Cylinder C and the son or successor of Bod-'El. This has the advantage of maintaining the accepted placement of the seals of Adoni-Nur and Adonipelet about 667. They are clearly earlier than the Siran inscription, by paleographic comparisons. Hissal-'El is a completely new addition to otur knowledge of Ammonite kings. If the list on the Siran bottle is complete, he would eliminate Hanan'el as a king, perhap)smaking the latter a government official. However, if one assumes that the Siran listing, like other lists of ancient kings, is not complete, Hanan-'El could still be considered a king of Ammon. The Siran list may simply jumjp from Amminadab's father to an ancestor Amminadab, rather than to the immediate biological "grandfather" Amminadab. We need to note, however, that the Theater fragment hias no r or d, two good diagnostic letter forms, so its chronological equality with the Siran inscription has that much of an open question about it. While the Assyrian references to Bod-'El seem to make him the father and/or predecessor of Amminadab, we know that the Assyrians were not always up to (late on their identifications. Th'leycredit Jellu with being of the house of Omri, thoughl Jelhu had slautghtered the whole family of Omri. The comparison with Aramaic of al)ott 700-650 B.C. might b)e taken as more definitive, pushing the Siran inscription furtller back. Thus the Amminadab of line 1 becomes the 667 Amminadab and his grandfather becomes an earlier Amminadab, giving us two, and following Sauer with the Theater fragment, three Amminadabs. The Amminadab of the seals

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

19

would still be the one in Siran line 3 but dated prior to 667, anywhere from one to fifteen years earlier, which is not at all impossible considering the very short reign of some ancient kings. However, this last hlypotlhesisdoes crowd things a bit, compared to the hypothesis of tile later period. This, plus the attractive speculation b)y Sauer on the Theater inscription, makes the first scheme we sketched the more acceptable for the present. Thus the earlier form of the letters is ascribed to cultural lag and deliberate archaizing, or simply to separate development in Ammonite. Summary

The addition of the Siran bottle inscription to the Amman Citadel and Theater inscriptions, and possibly the Deir 'Alla writings, as well as the continuing contributions of the seals and other inscriptions, means that we are gradually filling out our knowledge of the ancient Ammonite language. In the meanwhile, excavations such as those at Hesban, Khirbet el-Hajjar, Rujm, el-Malfuf South, Rujm el-Mekheizen, Sahab, and Amman, fill out our picture of their material remains. Archaeology is once more living up to its purpose in making ancient people come alive in the pages of history.

"Biblical Archaeology": An Onomastic Perplexity D. L. HOLLAND Marquette

University

The conversations among some archaeologists recently concerning the propriety of continuing to use the term "biblical archaeology" have surfaced in an interesting format in Frank M. Cross' short article, "W. F. Albright's View of Biblical Archaeology and its Methodology."' As one who has thus far entertained a merely peripheral interest in this discussion, I should like now to enter the fray with a few comments upon what appear to me to be some confusions latent in the whole debate. There are moments in the life of every discipline when a degree of self-examination is both appropriate and useful. One thinks of the arguments in various seminaries and divinity schools in the 50's concerning the nomenclature of professors whose task was to train seminarians to nurture their future congregations in the faith. Were they professors of Religious Education? Or of Christian Education? The various resolutions of those debates depended in large measure upon the presuppositions of the incumbents of the chairs involved, but presumably the goal was 1. BA, 36 (1973), 2-5.

20

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

Vol. 37,

descriptive accuracy for the discipline or, perhaps more accurately, for what the discipline aspired to be. These are healthy, if not crucially important, debates. We all look at the world through the idiosyncratic prescriptions of our own glasses, and, even though we are all more interested in looking through rather than at our glasses, it is helpful to examine them, check them for adequacy, and polish them up occasionally. With respect to "biblical" archaeology, it would seem appropriate to ask what would be gained either by retaining or by abandoning the descriptive adjective. If the analysis of Cross' article is accepted and the discipline is confronted with choosing between W. F. Albright's delineation of biblical archaeology and the views of those who would reduce the field to Palestinian or Syro-Palcstinian archaeology controlled by full-time field archaeologists, we are all losers. If we hope to achieve an accurate description of the discipline and thereby enable greater communication, especially with other related disciplines, neither option looks very promising. To begin with Prof. Albrighlt's position, a number of comments are required. One cannot responsibly argue against the intent of Albright's definition as cited by Cross. Cross quotes Albright as defining the geographical and temporal scope of biblical archaeology thus: " 'all Biblical lands, from India to Spain and from southern Russia to South Arabia, and to the whole history of those lands from about 10,000 B.C. or even earlier, to the present time.' " Archaeology must be carried on in the broadest possible historical context appropriate to its enterprise. No one current with the field needs to have rehearsed here the preposterous "results" whichl upon occasion hlave been claimed by and for the shoddy and myopic efforts of those who have worked in Palestine without competent training in history, linguistics, numismatics, ceramics, palaeoanthropology, osteology, and so fortli. We are all aware, now that the insights of those disciplines have been applied to field archaeology, that responsible excavation requires teams of experts of various sorts. That is now the iame of the game, and, altlhougthwe do not all manage always to meet these stafndardsas well as we sliould, we all aspire to (doso. And few would out the horizons as far as we can get them discotira~gepuslhing to go geogrlaphically and temporally. There are, for instance, fewer and fewer archaeologists now whose interests in ancient Israel allow them to do a shabby job with the Arabic, Byzantine, and Roman remains which they used to shunt aside in order to get at the "important stuff." The synthetic, interdisciplinary work implicit in Albright's definition and demanded by Cross' essay is essential. Neither biblical studies nor archae-

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

21

ology can be allowed to become turned in upon themselves. Both must be kept in close contact with each other and with a variety of ancillary disciplines. But how does "biblical" modifying "archaeology" help here? Surely in common parlance the term biblical does not contain Albright's special meanings for it. Whether correctly or not and whether adequately or not, the term biblical normally has precisely the restrictive senses both Albright and Cross combat. And while it is useful, I think, to have Cross' reminder that when Albright spoke of biblical archaeology, he, at least, meant something much broader than others usually mean, that reminder serves primarily to help us read Albright intelligently, not to communicate with our colleagues in other disciplines and not to provide a responsible description of the discipline called archaeology. With the rise to prominence of a number of Israeli archaeologists and with the increasing recognition of the work done in Palestine by those whom we have sometimes pejoratively called "classical" archaeologists, we are confronting a changed situation. We are dealing with men who know of the work of Albright, but who feel no filial obligation to adopt what they can only regard to be his esoteric definition of "biblical." For scientific discourse, "biblical" is a term which, if it is not somehow offensive, is at least not always very helpful. For many, it focusses on the wrong - precisely because too narrow - point. Too many adjectives of this sort (e.g., "biblical", "church", "New Testament"), which often enough have their sources in religious piety, have obfuscated communication with those who do not share the piety and to whom they have seemed - unwarrantedly, perhaps - to baptize various disciplines into some holy realm beyond critical and scientific scrutiny. 'Moreover, few people will correct their notion of "biblical" to encompass the geography "from India to Spain and from southern Russia to South Arabia" and to include the time-span "from 10,000 B.C. or even earlier, to the present time." And have those of us who understand biblical archaeology with the broad scope of an Albright in mind the right to impose that special meaning on others? Or to argue that we are abused by other disciplines' lack of total respect for us when we persist in using a label which they can scarcely avoid misunderstanding? The second option offered by Cross strikes me as being something of a straw man. There are, to be sure, those who argue for describing the archaeological work (lone in Palestine as either Palestinian or SyroPalestinian archaeology and for its being controlled by professional arch-

22

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

Vol. 37,

aeologists.2 But it is not clear that they would recognize themselves in Cross' description. There seem to me two issues here: one is the use of geographical labels; the other is the matter of professionalism in the conduct of archaeology. To take the latter first, I think it is worth asking those who advocate this view how they understand "professional." It need not mean, as Cross seems to assume, one whose sole preoccupation is archaeology. The job market for such people and the exigencies of funding such positions preclude that as a viable option. But if that term means that such archaeology as is done adheres to the highest professional standards for such work and precludes the untrained, but enthusiastic, bumbler, is professionalism not something we all want? In other words, "professional" need not mean "full-time" or "field" or even "dirt" archaeologist exclusively, and to treat it so avoids the impact of an important call for truly professional work in archaeology. The former issue, that of using geographical labels in place of "biblical," seems to me, at least, not necessarily to require the onus of overly narrow specialization. But should anyone argue for it under that rubric, I would join Cross in opposition. MIypoint is simply that I think no one is really arguing for quite this second option Cross has articulated. No one is calling for narrowly specialized and geographically restricted archaeology done exclusively by full-time professionals. Hence the options set up for us are not very helpful. If we raise the question of nomenclature more generally, with the goals of descriptive accuracy and facilitation of communication across disciplinary boundaries in mind, it seems to me that we shall be most likely to deal adequately with it if we first modify our understanding of "archaeology." If we could agree that the requirements of acceptable archaeology include openness to the greatest possible historical and geographical contexts and an inter-disciplinary team approach to the work, we would have approximated the essence of Albright's insight. Then we could freely recognize the possibility that our nomenclature is, perhaps, no longer wholly adequate, entertain the possibility of bidding a fond and reluctant adieu to the adjective "biblical," and look for other, perhaps less esoteric, ways of delineating what sort of concern in archaeology a particular project represents. In that eventuality, the geographical labels would probably recommend themselves highly. No one would fail to or 'The Archae2. For example, the article of William G. Dever, " 'Biblical Archaeology' 21-22. There is surely an News from Israel, 21 (1971), Christian ology of Syro-Palestine'?", in Dever's describing the secular orientation of some ncw schools element of forensic overstatement of archaeology as "entirely divorced" from biblical concerns and the wvork which they do as "often to biblical studies, but he does not go on himself to advocate severing relationquite unrelated" And, it might be added, it is refreshing to have his ships between biblical studies and archaeology. of the between the tasks of historian and theologian raised in recognition important differences the context of this discussion of the "biblical archaeology" nomenclature.

1974, 1)

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST

23

understand that Palestine, for example, had intercourse both historically and geographically with other areas. And those whose interests are not oriented primarily on the Bible would be able also to accommodate themselves comfortably to the label. To adopt this mode of speaking would not mean we should utterly abandon the time-honored phrase "biblical archaeology" - or even consider changing the name of our journal! The term is endowed with a rich and respected tradition and is part of our common vocabulary, even if we understand it differently from others with whom we must now work. But it can be left behind in much the same way as the Roman Catholic tradition seems to be leaving behind the term transsubstantiatio for more adequate terminology. And when all is finally said and done, to change our label at this point might even be said better to emulate the generous spirit of W. F. Albright himself! When new data appeared or old data were newly understood, he was always ready to alter his theories. Should we be prepared to do less? If we can achieve greater descriptive accuracy and enhance inter-disciplinary discourse by altering our nomenclature, should we not do it? From the Editor's Desk

For some time, we have owed a debt of gratitude to the Fairchild Foundation of New York City. During 1973, and continuing into 1974, a grant from this foundation made possible continued improvements in our format and underwrote a portion of our publication expense. As a result of this grant, funds could be freed to conduct a modest advertising campaign to attract new subscribers - with some success; we now are over 4000 strong. Our thanks to the Fairchild Directors, and, since we are on the subject, we encourage our readers to continue calling our journal to the attention of potential new subscribers! Instructions for subscribing are in the masthead. To our subscribers in Australia and New Zealand: ASOR publications are now available to you direct from The Australian Institute of Archaeological Research 174 Collins Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia

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