Material, Method, and Meaning

This volume is a collection of studies dedicated to Ilan Sharon, Professor of Biblical Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the longtime co-director of the Tel Dor Archaeological Project. The volume is divided into four sections reflecting the main avenues in his scholarly career.

The articles of the first section discuss a wide range of methodological and epistemological themes related to archaeological field practices, analyses and interpretations.

The second section of the volume is dedicated to Tel Dor, the archeological site so identified with Ilan Sharon, and deals with a wide range of finds and themes from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. Most of the articles are devoted to the first millennium BCE, the timespan for which Tel Dor serves as one of the key sites in studying the cultural trajectory of the Levantine coast and intercultural contacts in the Eastern Mediterranean basin.

These contacts, which form a major module in the scholarship of the Phoenician world, constitute the subject of the third part of the volume, devoted to the cultural connections between the coastal region of

southern Phoenicia, and Dor specifically, and inland regions of the Levant.

The fourth and final part of the volume is devoted to studies in the archeology and history of the Iron Age Levant.

List of Contributors

Davidovich / Yahalom-Mack / Мatskevich: Preface

List of Publications - Ilan Sharon

Gilboa: Professor Ilan Sharon, A Comprehensively Biased Introduction

Part I: Archaeological Methods and Epistemologies

Maran: Archaeological Cultures, Fabricated Ethnicities and DNA Research: “Minoans” and “Mycenaeans” as Case Examples

Greenberg: Redundancy, Plurality, and the Digital Archaeological Record

Wachtel: Archaeological Predictive Modeling for the Mountainous Upper Galilee

Streit: Disentangling a Confusion of Tongues—On Chronological Schemes, Terminologies, and Radiocarbon Dating in the Eastern Mediterranean

Tamberino / Levy: Applications of Drone Photogrammetry at Tel Dor, Israel

Münger / Weinblum: The Archaeological Documentation System DANA (Digital Archaeology and National Archives): A View from the Field

Part II: Dor

Martin / Shalev: The Reoccupation of Southern Phoenicia in the Persian Period: Rethinking the Evidence

Sapir-Hen / Shalev: Animal Rituals from the Persian Period at Tel Dor

Monnickendam-Givon: In Search of “Ptolemaic” Dor

Nitschke: A Hellenistic Glass Pendant of a Child Deity (Harpokrates) from Tel Dor

Broers: A Late Bronze Age Gold Bull Head Pendant from Tel Dor

Yasur-Landau / Shalev: The Date of the Tel Dor Well and Its Contribution to the Study of Sea-Level Changes

Part III: Phoenician Connections

Maeir: Between Philistia, Phoenicia, and Beyond: A View from Tell es-Safi/Gath

Mazar: On the Relations between Phoenicia and the Beth-Shean Valley in the Iron Age

Katz: Phoenician Presence in the Upper Galilee during Iron Age II

Panitz-Cohen: An Iron Age IIA Phoenician Bichrome Jar from Tel Abel Beth Maacah

Brandl / Yahalom-Mack: A Clay Pendant with an Impression of a Phoenician Seagoing Ship from Tel Abel Beth Maacah

Part IV: Iron Age History and Archaeology

Shalvi / Gilboa: The Last Four-Room House in Israel: Stratum 10 at Tel Shiqmona in Context

Bonfil / Zarzecki-Peleg: “The iron which the king, my lord, gave to the smiths for work”: Aspects of Authority and Prestige in the City Plan of Hazor Stratum VIII

Zorn: Standing on Hole-y Ground: The Storage Pits at Tell en-Naṣbeh and the Role of the State

Kletter: Farewell, King Arawna: The Threshing Floor of the Ark (2 Sam. 24)

Garfinkel: The Border of Gezer and the Border of Gath: Elite Control of Land in Ancient Near Eastern Cities

Kranot / Neuman: Epilogue: “When in doubt, open a new locus; when not so in doubt, Twilight-Zone it”: The Educational Legacy of Ilan Sharon—An Associative-Multidisciplinary Archaeologist

Color Plates