Shlomit Bechar

Dear Friends and Colleagues, On the morning of October 7, ca. 2000 HAMAS terrorists launched a brutal attack on civilians in Israeli kibbutzim, moshavim and towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip. They went from house to house to burn, torture, mutilate, and kill Jewish families. They gunned down hundreds of young people at an outdoor music festival that turned into a scene of rape and massacre. Not only did they kill parents in front of children, raped women and children, murdered children and soldiers still asleep in their beds, but also beheaded babies that were sleeping in their cribs.

This article assesses the distribution of storage vessels, pithoi and jars in an effort to evaluate surplus management strategies connected to political and environmental conditions in the southern Levant in the second millennium BCE. We examined 27 ceramic assemblages from four Middle Bronze–Late Bronze sites in northern Israel: two rural sites (Tel Qashish and Tel Yoqneʾam) and two urban centres (Tel Hazor and Tel Beth-Shean). We then examined how variability in storage activity relates to major historical, political and climate changes recorded in the Levant within the chronological framework of the study. Our results suggest that the relative frequency of storage vessels varies according to type of settlement, is somewhat impacted by political events, and is weakly related to climatic events. This highlights the potential importance of focusing upon datasets that quantify the response of societies to political and climatic change as a measure of the latter’s effect on the past. The results also allow us to suggest a change in the distribution system of Bronze Age urban centres.

Tel Hazor is one of only a few sites in Israel where remains of the Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA) in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC were found on top of Early Bronze III (EB III) city remains. A probe excavation was held at Hazor in 2017 to explore the chronological relation between the EB III and the IBA occupation. The radiocarbon (14C) absolute dates generated from this probe excavation show that following the EB III city demise, the site was abandoned for up to a few hundred years before it was resettled in the IBA. 14C dates obtained from the last level of the EB III city are well before 2500 BCE, fully aligned with the recent “High Chronology” for the EBA in the southern Levant. The excavation also produced dates associated with IBA “Black Wheel-Made Ware” vessels, which were found in large numbers at Hazor.

Abstract The paper focuses on the distribution, typology and technology of Black Wheel-Made Ware (also known as “Megiddo Ware”) and presents a discussion of its origin and date. In the second half of the third millennium BCE the southern Levant witnessed a radical change in settlement pattern, nature of sites and material-culture assemblages. One of the features defining this period was the regionalism in the ceramic repertoire. Despite varying opinions regarding the division of the pottery groups, it is agreed that one of these groups-the Black Wheel-Made Ware-was limited to northern Israel.

ABSTRACT The temporal and spatial distribution of metal production remains from Hazor was used in this study to sketch the development of metalworking (bronze, iron and silver) at this important site. The remains attest to a long sequence of metalworking at Hazor, from the Middle Bronze Age through to the Iron Age, and significantly highlight the transition from bronze to iron production and the mode of bronze production after the transition had been completed.

in the area, especially the Rosh-Pina map survey, further corroborate this observation (Stepansky 1999, 89–91, figs. 38, 49). During EBII, mainly smaller sites are known in this area, while EBIII witnessed a disappearance of most of these small sites around Hazor. Monumental architecture identified at both Tel Dan (Greenberg 2002, 31–35 and fig. 5.4) and Hazor testifies to the development of social and political hierarchy during EBIII. If the identification of the monumental structure on the acropolis of Hazor as an EBIII palace is accepted, it can be added to the only two other public structures attributed to this period within the context of the southern Levant: Building 3177 at Megiddo and Palace B1 at Yarmuth (respectively, Herzog 1997, 79–85; Miroschedji 2006). Despite the fragmentary nature of its material remains, Hazor of the third millennium b.c.e. should be considered a central urban site featuring monumental public architecture, large-scale professional pottery production, hints of a complex administration, and far-reaching cultural interactions with neighboring areas. The strategic location of the site, on one of the main routes leading from southern Canaan to the northern Levant, was no doubt a crucial factor in the initial rise and floruit of the Early Bronze Age city. If this is, indeed, the Hazor the Egyptian Execration Texts reference, then its political power and regional centrality in the third millennium b.c.e. precede, albeit on a smaller scale, the special status of “Greater Hazor” in the second millennium b.c.e.

The Hula Valley, a gateway from Syria and Lebanon to the southern Levant, was dominated in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages by the city-state of Hazor. Following the desolation of the latter in the 13th century BCE, it seems that Abel Beth Maacah became the leading polity in the region, showing a remarkable sequence of Iron Age I architecture. We examine this regional power shift using a zooarchaeological sequence from Abel Beth Maacah, which suggests the economic impact of pastoral nomads on the region during the Middle Bronze Age, and a reversion to traditional, extensive agro-pastoralism in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.

Israel where remains of the Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA) in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC were found on top of Early Bronze III (EB III) city remains. A probe excavation was held at Hazor in 2017 to explore the chronological relation between the EB III and the IBA occupation. The radiocarbon (14 C) absolute dates generated from this probe excavation show that following the EB III city demise, the site was abandoned for up to a few hundred years before it was resettled in the IBA. 14 C dates obtained from the last level of the EB III city are well before 2500 BCE, fully aligned with the recent "High Chronology" for the EBA in the southern Levant. The excavation also produced dates associated with IBA "Black Wheel-Made Ware" vessels, which were found in large numbers at Hazor.

The paper focuses on the distribution, typology and technology of Black Wheel-Made Ware (also known as 'Megiddo Ware') and presents a discussion of its origin and date. In the second half of the third millennium BCE the southern Levant witnessed a radical change in settlement pattern, nature of sites and material-culture assemblages. One of the features defining this period was the regionalism in the ceramic repertoire. Despite varying opinions regarding the division of the pottery groups, it is agreed that one of these groups—the Black Wheel-Made Ware—was limited to northern Israel. In the second half of the third millennium BCE the southern Levant witnessed a drastic change. The cities of the EB III collapsed and were abandoned. The revival of the urban culture in this area would not begin until the second millennium BCE, in the Middle Bronze Age. The Intermediate Bronze Age, 1 the time between these two urban periods, is an important phase for understanding the social and cultural processes that shaped the Canaanite culture of the Bronze Age. Some of the typical sites for this period in northern

The paper focuses on the distribution, typology and technology of Black Wheel-Made Ware (also known as ‘Megiddo Ware’) and presents a discussion of its origin and date. In the second half of the third millennium BCE the southern Levant witnessed a radical change in settlement pattern, nature of sites and material-culture assemblages. One of the features defining this period was the regionalism in the ceramic repertoire. Despite varying opinions regarding the division of the pottery groups, it is agreed that one of these groups—the Black Wheel-Made Ware—was limited to
northern Israel.