Middle Bronze Age Lebanon

This paper presents the study of 17 socketed spearheads found in MB I contexts in Byblos. The study focuses mainly on the technological aspect of several types of spearheads. By using metallographic observation and chemical analysis the fabrication techniques of the concerned weapons were identified. These results improve our understanding of the MB I copper alloy metallurgy in the Levant.

This is a pre-publication of an in-depth review article of a new study of Anna-Latifa Mourad on the Hyksos. The review has appeared in the meantime.
Abstract:
Originating from a thesis at the Macquarie University in Sydney, Anna-Latifa Mourad presents the most thorough survey of sites of the hybrid Middle Bronze Age Culture in Egypt and reviews pertinent places in the Levant alike in order to assess the phenomenon of the domination of Egypt by Western Asiatic rulers, known as the Hyksos. On top of it she also reviews all relevant inscriptions, stelae and tomb representations of Asiatic people living in Egypt during the time of the Middle Kingdom. She assembles from all this scattered evidence a picture of the foreigners who dominated Egypt in the 17th and 16th century BC. According to her analysis these settlers came from the northern Levant and contributed substantially to the culture and policy of the New Kingdom. It is one of the best books on the Hyksos ever written. The research of the author will have an impact on the above described project on the Enigmatic Dynasty of the Hyksos.

The transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in Kamid el-Loz, ancient Kumidi, has challenged both the urban landscape and the established political system. The architectural as well as functional history of iconic places inside the urban layout of the largest known city in the southern Beqaa suggest political changes that – eventually – had been overcome or have even lead into the transformation that we call Late Bronze Age. In this vein, the archaeological findings of palace and temple shed light on the assumed intersection between Middle and Late Bronze Age. The tight chronostratigraphic sequence allows to closely monitor the lifespan of distinct pottery types and findings. This, in turn, enables us to establish and discuss possible relations between changes in material culture and political establishment. Therefore, and in search for the integration of Kamid el-Loz into the economic and political interrelations to both the southern and northern Levant, the paper takes a diachronic view focusing on the chronostratigraphic presentation of the pottery findings and their architectural contexts during this important transitional period.

As the first comprehensive study of fortification systems and defensive strategies in the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900 to 1500 B.C.E.), Walled up to Heaven is an indispensable contribution to the study of this period and of early warfare in the ancient Near East. Although archaeologists and ancient historians alike have discussed a variety of theories regarding the origin and cultural significance of the construction of earthen ramparts during the Middle Bronze Age, only this work addresses these questions in detail. In a tour de force, Burke traces the diachronic evolution and geographic distribution of the architectural features and settlement strategies connected with the emergence of Middle Bronze Age defenses in the Levant. By synthesizing historical and archaeological data from Mesopotamia and Egypt as well as the Levant, he reveals the interconnectedness of the Near Eastern world during the first half of the second millennium to an extent not recently considered. The result is a detailed employment of cognitive, social, and dirt archaeology to reconstruct the political, social, military, and cultural implications of the construction of monumental defenses and the development of defensive networks during the period of Amorite hegemony in the Levant.

Based on author's Ph.D. dissertation: The Architecture of Defense: Fortified Settlements of the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age (2004). Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.

A catalogue record for this book is avaiable from the British Library Front cover: Model of a scribe from shaft 16L25/1C (2710/144) at Deir el-Bersheh, compare colour plate XIII All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as

This paper constitutes a synthesis of a technological investigation on copper base alloy weapons from Byblos. Most of the weapons are typical of the Middle Bronze Age in the Levant. Methods such as metallographic examination and chemical analyses by EDS were used to identify the different stages of the chaîne opératoire used in the making of these weapons. The results reveal precise information regarding the production of several types of weapons such as the type and performance of the molds used for casting and the deformation process. Furthermore, these results highlight the contribution of economical and cultural factors in the choice of components in a copper alloy recipe. Finally, the use of silver-copper brazes for joining copper base alloy objects is recorded for the first time for the concerned period and region.

Il est superflu de rappeler, au premier abord, que l’usage du terme « Phéniciens », qui nous a été légué par les Grecs, est conventionnel. Il est utilisé pour désigner la population qui habitait la côte levantine entre la ville d’Arwad au nord, dans l’actuel État de Syrie, et la ville d’Acre au sud, dans l’actuel État d’Israël. Cette population a pu, en effet, élaboré, peu avant la fin du deuxième millénaire avant notre ère, et grâce à certaines circonstances géopolitiques, quelques caractéristiques communes (Abou-Abdallah 2018 : XXIV-XLIII). En fait, les villes situées au pied du Mont-Liban n’ont pas été affectées par les invasions de Peuple de la mer. Ceux-ci, après leur défaite contre Ramsès III vers 1175 près de la ville de Simirra (Lipiński 2015 : 4 ; Lipiński 2006 : 33-34), furent dans l’impossibilité de poursuivre leur marche via la route du littoral. D’autant plus que ces villes ne servaient plus d’arènes aux rivalités entre les grandes puissances en raison de la disparition de l’Empire hittite en 1180 (Wiener 2014 : 52), du repli des Assyriens (Villard 2001 : 88-90) après la brève incursion de Tiglath-Phalazar Ier (1144-1076) (Grayson 1991 : 20), et du retrait du Levant d’une Égypte autrefois puissante (Niwiński 1995 : 330).

The Hyksos phenomenon is one of the most enigmatic, but provocative episodes in the history of the 2nd millennium eastern Mediterranean: a Levantine population settles gradually within the deltaic realm of the powerful Egyptian Middle Kingdom and, while still maintaining cultural and economic relations with its region of origin, assimilates and penetrates the Egyptian social, economic and political milieu, culminating in a Canaano-Egyptian hybrid population that ascends to dominate Egypt after only a little over a century. Numerous models have sought to explain this immigrant success story, which lasted several hundred years. However, most of our evidence, both textual and material, comes from  Egypt and the Egyptians, which after successfully expelling these  illegitimate foreigner usurpers left behind a biased record that continues to taint historiography. In this article the role of trade as a factor in the  success and demise of the so-called Hyksos is explored, placing their  settlement within a larger phenomenon of Middle Bronze Age maritime  coastal settlement and trade. This paper will examine the current state of research, and present the approach and proxies that may be employed in reconstructing patterns of trade in this period and their relevance to the  Hyksos question.

The ancient city of Kumidi (present-day Kamid al-Loz) was one of the major centres in the Lebanese Biqa'a Valley during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. The German excavations have yielded a number of foreign goods, reflecting the town’s position on the crossroads of important routes between the Lebanese coast, inner Syria and northern Palestine. This contribution focuses on Egyptian imports and egyptianising artefacts, particularly on glyptic evidence. It seeks to reconstruct their distribution pattern within the city through a re-assessment of the objects and their archaeological contexts, offering new insights into the interregional and intraregional relations by which these imports arrived at Kamid al-Loz.

A detailed pollen record for the time interval of $2500-500 BCE, which covers the time period of the Intermediate Bronze Age (Early Bronze Age IV) into the Iron Ages in the Levant, is presented. The study was conducted in the Ze'elim Gully, which drains the southern Judean Highlands into the Dead Sea. During the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Judean Highlands exhibited dramatic settlement fluctuations. To better understand these oscillations, highresolution fossil pollen data were combined with a recent pollen data set, lithological features, radiocarbon dating and palaeohydrological information derived from the Dead Sea levels. Due to the occurrence of hiatuses in this fluvial environment, we used a composite profile which was based on two palynological-sedimentological profiles. This integrated information enabled us to reconstruct in great detail for the first time the environmental conditions in relation to the picture derived from archaeological field-work in the Judean Highlands. Evidence for drier climate conditions at the end of the Late Bronze Age may account for the dramatic changes in the settlement pattern which include the destruction of a large number of urban centres and shrinkage of other major sites, not only in the Judean Highlands but in the entire southern Levant. This arid phase may have been one of the reasons for the collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the mid-thirteenth and twelfth centuries BCE. The improved conditions in the Judean highlands during the Iron Age I (evident by the increasing percentages of both Mediterranean elements and agricultural taxa, e.g. olive and cereals) enabled the recovery of settlement activity, which is the backdrop for the rise of ancient Israel.

CLICHÉS INÉDITS DE QUELQUES PORTS LIBANAIS
Les cas des ports de Tyr, Sidon et Byblos au Liban permettent d’illustrer la richesse de ce fonds ancien en ce qui concerne les paysages urbains des ports antiques du Liban, tels qu’ils pouvaient être observés à la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle.

Beads are the most common decorative element of jewelry found in excavations. They are commonly
used as components of chains and bracelets, whether as individual items or concentrated in small numbers.
The earliest beads are known from the Neolithic period, coupled with the development of various
industries related to jewelry production (see Bar-Yosef Mayer 2005; Sherr 2009). Over time, craftsmen
developed various technological changes in order to create more elaborate beads with special decorations,
using a variety of different raw materials.

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This report presents three more scarabs from the 2012 campaign and three that have been found in 2013 at Sidon College site, Lebanon. Some are Egyptian Middle Kingdom imports whereas others belong to the Canaanite production of the Middle Bronze Age II-III.

Contents
I. The Site
II. The Topographic Survey of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida
III. Preliminary Geological Report
IV. Terminology, Recording System, and Methodology
V. Stratigraphy
VI. The Pottery
VII. The Small Finds
VIII. Radiocarbon Dates
IX. Plant Remains
X. Faunal Remains
XI. Physical Anthropology
XII. The Phosphorus Data from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida
XIII. A Lithic Site to the Southeast of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: Preliminary Observations
XIV. Conclusions

"Contents I. The Site II. The Topographic Survey of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida III. Preliminary Geological Report IV. Terminology, Recording System, and Methodology V. Stratigraphy VI. The Pottery VII. The Small Finds VIII. Radiocarbon Dates IX. Plant Remains X. Faunal Remains XI. Physical Anthropology XII. The Phosphorus Data from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida XIII. A Lithic Site to the Southeast of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: Preliminary Observations XIV. Conclusions "

Ifpo is organizing a series of thematic workshops for 2019 on « Ceramic Studies in Lebanon », aimed at creating a scientific dynamic around archaeological projects involving a ceramic dimension. The objective is to bring together researchers working on material culture, and more particularly on ceramic assemblages in Lebanon, by tracing thematic paths that will make it possible to tackle, on the one hand, the typological and chronological analysis of finds from archaeological context, but also to create a debate on the state of the art and research perspectives. The first of these workshops focuses on the Beqaa Valley, « Ceramic Studies in the Beqaa Valley: A Regional Perspective ». It brings together experts working on ceramic materials from different periods. The ceramic assemblages will be placed in their regional context but also treated in relation to extra-regional connections. Moreover, this workshop aims at encouraging the scientific debate on future perspectives of ceramic studies in this region of Lebanon and to reveal strong and weak points of research potential.

Excavated by French Egyptologist P. Montet in the 1920s, Royal Tomb II at Byblos (Bronze Age Gubla) yielded a significant number of Egyptian objects of the Middle Kingdom. Among these finds is a stone vessel with lid that carries the cartouche of a king named Amenemhat, often believed to be Amenemhat IV of the late Middle Kingdom. Hitherto unnoticed by the scholarly community, however, are two Egyptian measure capacity signs on the stone vessel itself. Since measure capacity signs on stone vessels dating to the Middle Kingdom are only rarely attested even in Egypt, the signs on the stone vessel from Royal Tomb II at Byblos therefore contribute considerably to our understanding of the use and application of such signs. The article deals with the examination of these signs and tries to correlate them with the actual capacity of the vessel.

The Hyksos phenomenon is one of the most enigmatic, but provocative episodes in the history of the 2nd millennium eastern Mediterranean: a Levantine population settles gradually within the deltaic realm of the powerful Egyptian Middle Kingdom and, while still maintaining cultural and economic relations with its region of origin, assimilates and penetrates the Egyptian social, economic and political milieu, culminating in a Canaano-Egyptian hybrid population that ascends to dominate Egypt after only a little over a century. Numerous models have sought to explain this immigrant success story, which lasted several hundred years. However, most of our evidence, both textual and material, comes from Egypt and the Egyptians, which after successfully expelling these illegitimate foreigner usurpers left behind a biased record that continues to taint historiography. In this article the role of trade as a factor in the success and demise of the so-called Hyksos is explored, placing their settlement within a larger phenomenon of Middle Bronze Age maritime coastal settlement and trade. This paper will examine the current state of research, and present the approach and proxies that may be employed in reconstructing patterns of trade in this period and their relevance to the Hyksos question.

From the exchange of artefacts uncovered in Sidon and Tell el-Dab‘a respectively, the close ties that existed between these two ancient centres of civilization are irrefutably well established. This paper sums up the range of contacts between the two cities which encompassed commercial ties, transmission of ideas, beliefs and concepts as well as examining how the spatial organisation of each city compared to the other. In Sidon during the Middle Bronze Age, the evolution between the MB IIA and the MB IIB manifested itself in the arrangement of human internments and the architecture surrounding them. Two main units, each with a different function, were encountered at Sidon: one for cultic purposes and the other for housing the dead. This type of arrangement, with a separate special area for the dead, was also found in Tell el-Dab‘a where it was known as “Totenhäuser”. A further link between the two was the fact that this practice ended in both cities during the same time period (Sidon str. 6, Tell el-Dab‘a E/2–1.)

The excavation of a monumental mud-brick building and revetment wall dating to the Middle Bronze Age at Tell el-Burak have yielded a large assemblage of ceramics. This article gives a summary of the Middle Bronze Age ceramic types found at Tell el-Burak through the 2010 season of excavations and associates them with new carbon 14 evidence to provide an understanding of their chronological, functional, and regional context.

... 300 BC, greatly enhanced the possibilities of harbor engineering (Oleson et al., 2004). ... Xestoleberis spp., Loxoconcha spp.) ostracod taxa attest to a first closed-harbor phase ... The presence of secondary assemblages from the coastal and marine domains is consistent with inputs ...