CONTENTS 1 DAVID USSISHKIN: Tel Shechem/Tell Balatah: The Rampart of Wall A and the Character of the Middle Bronze IIC Compound 20 SEUNG HO BANG and ODED BOROWSKI: An Iron Age ‘Steamer’ from Tel Ḥalif 40 HILLEL GEVA, IRIT YEZERSKI and OREN GUTFELD: A Composite Ceramic Iron Age II Figurine from the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter Excavations 54 DAVID S. VANDERHOOFT, MADADH RICHEY and ODED LIPSCHITS: A New Type of Yehud Stamp Impression: yhwd / gdlyh 60 REUVEN FRIEDMAN and AVNER ECKER: Provenance and Political Borders: A Phoenician Inscription of the Hellenistic Period ‘Strays’ across Modern Borders 73 ROI SABAR: A Rock-Cut Tomb from the Early Roman and Byzantine Periods in Naḥal Aviv, Eastern Upper Galilee 98 BENJAMIN ADAM SAIDEL, DAN GAZIT and TALI ERICKSON-GINI: Al-ʿObeidat Structures in the Western Negev: An Example of Bedouin Architecture from the British Mandate Period in Israel VARIA 116 ISRAEL EPHʿAL: A Note on the Tel Mikhmoret Sale Contract 119 WILLY CLARYSSE: Notes on Some Ostraca from the Maresha Excavations 122 REVIEWS 125 BOOKS RECEIVED — 2018 IEJ Vol. 69/1 CONTENTS 1 DAVID USSISHKIN: Tel Shechem/Tell Balatah: The Rampart of Wall A and the Character of the Middle Bronze IIC Compound ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the Middle Bronze IIC compound at Tel Shechem/Tell Balatah. First, it discusses Wall A (the Cyclopean Wall) and presents new data supporting the view that it was a core-wall incorporated in the earthen fills of the compound and not a massive fortification wall. Second, it discusses the character of the compound, arguing that it was an unfortified, sacred compound centred on the Tower Temple. 20 SEUNG HO BANG and ODED BOROWSKI: An Iron Age ‘Steamer’ from Tel Ḥalif ABSTRACT: In 2016, a food preparation area in an Iron Age II pillared house in Field V at Tel Ḥalif yielded a vessel fragment with a chalice-like shape. The uniqueness of the vessel lies in a pipe-like hollow protrusion inside the body itself and a downward extension forming a hollow foot with both sides open. A utilitarian function of the upper protrusion is a determining factor of the vessel’s identification. We suggest that the vessel was placed on top of a cooking pot that was then exposed to fire. In this setting, the most probable function of the protrusion was to transport steam from a lower water-filled cooking pot to the upper chamber in the vessel. Therefore, the Ḥalif vessel could be identified as a steamer. If this is the case, this vessel presents direct evidence suggesting that the ancient Judahites used steam cookery as early as the end of the eighth century BCE. 40 HILLEL GEVA, IRIT YEZERSKI and OREN GUTFELD: A Composite Ceramic Iron Age II Figurine from the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter Excavations ABSTRACT: During the 2003 season of excavations at the Hurva Synagogue (Area X-9) in the Jewish Quarter, a fragment of the lower part of a unique ceramic figurine was uncovered. The figurine is made of clay similar to that of the Judahite pillar figurines of the end of the Iron Age. The fragment presents the lower part of the exposed legs, attached to the figurine’s back, which protrudes slightly out on both sides. The figurine’s base is rounded and concave. The upper part of the figurine is mouldmade, whereas the base was shaped by hand. The figurine is important as it reflects the transition from the plaque figurines, which were very popular in the Late Bronze Age and continued, albeit less frequently, until the end of the Iron Age II, to the pillar figurines, which replaced them in Judaea and Jerusalem at the end of the Iron Age. The figurine in question was produced in Jerusalem sometime in the late ninth– eighth century BCE, when settlement began on the Southwestern Hill. 54 DAVID S. VANDERHOOFT, MADADH RICHEY and ODED LIPSCHITS: A New Type of Yehud Stamp Impression: Yhwd / Gdlyh ABSTRACT: This article presents a single seal impression on a jar handle recovered in 2011 from the so-called ‘Babylonian-Persian pit’ at Ramat Raḥel. The seal was incised in the positive and the impression reads, in reverse, yhwd / gdlyh, ‘Yĕhûd Gĕdalyāh’, showing that it clearly belongs in the Yehud stamp impression corpus. It displays similarities to type 11 impressions, which were also incised in the positive, and read, in two lines, gdlyh. Without making a definitive identification of the individual named in the two different seal types, we recognize several similarities with the type 11 stamp impressions (now labeled ‘type 11a’) and label the new seal ‘type 11b’. Palaeographical, archaeological and typological characteristics suggest that the new seal is among the last of the so-called early types and should probably be dated to the latter half of the fifth century BCE. 60 REUVEN FRIEDMAN and AVNER ECKER: Provenance and Political Borders: A Phoenician Inscription of the Hellenistic Period ‘Strays’ across Modern Borders ABSTRACT: A Phoenician temple inscription (222/221 BCE), owned and exhibited by the Louvre Museum, was originally acquired by the museum in the late nineteenth century. The artefact is incorrectly attributed by the Louvre to Maʿachouq, a suburb of ancient Tyre in modern Lebanon. The archives of the French national museums and the original reports of the artefact clearly place the provenance at Kh. Maʿṣub in the Upper Galilee of modern Israel, at the gateway of an ancient strategic mountain pass between Akko and Tyre. The correct provenance of the artefact suggests a system of Phoenician temple complexes serving travellers at each end of the hazardous mountain route. 73 ROI SABAR: A Rock-Cut Tomb from the Early Roman and Byzantine Periods in Naḥal Aviv, Eastern Upper Galilee ABSTRACT: This article describes the findings from a recent excavation in a rock-cut tomb at Naḥal Aviv, where scholars previously suggested a border line between Jewish and pagan (Tyrian) populations. The finds from the tomb indicate two distinct burial phases, dated to the late first–early second century CE and to the fourth–sixth centuries CE. While the second burial phase can be easily ascribed to a Christian community lived in the vicinity of the tomb, its original phase demonstrates a more complex case for ethnic identification of deceased. The article is followed by two appendices, presenting significant finds: a ‘holy rider’ amulet by Nancy Benovitz and an MB scarab by Baruch Brandl. 98 BENJAMIN ADAM SAIDEL, DAN GAZIT and TALI ERICKSON-GINI: Al-ʿObeidat Structures in the Western Negev: An Example of Bedouin Architecture from the British Mandate Period in Israel ABSTRACT: This survey report describes two well-preserved built Bedouin structures located near Ṣeʾelim in the western Negev (map 129). The condition of both structures provides information on their height, construction and the features located inside. Ethnographic data collected by Gazit indicates that the Tarabin built these structures in the 1930s when they were beginning to sedentarize. The construction of these buildings also coincides with the occupants’ cultivation of cash crops. Both buildings provide data for the study of the Negev Bedouin and the Mandate period from an archaeological perspective. VARIA 116 ISRAEL EPHʿAL: A Note on the Tel Mikhmoret Sale Contract ABSTRACT: This note contains linguistic and mathematical questions that should be addressed before drawing conclusions about the monetary and political significance of the Tel Mikhmoret document. 119 WILLY CLARYSSE: Notes on Some Ostraca from the Maresha Excavations ABSTRACT: Text-critical notes on several ostraca found during the excavations of the site of Maresha. They contain some interesting personal names and a date in year 12 according to the Ptolemaic system. 122 REVIEWS 125 BOOKS RECEIVED — 2018