West Semitic Seals and Seal Impressions

Meroitic language is one of the most controversial ancient languages but one of the few having advanced writing systems. Some classify it Asian, European, non-African, Semitic, or 'unclassified'. This paper contends Meroe, similar to their Cushitic friends, are left victims of preconceived ideas based on an entirely argument from silence, an hegemonic epistemology that elevates a single perspective and silences other(s). This paper, thus, comparatively analyzes Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical and grammatical items with corresponding Oromo, a Cushitic family which, many classical and contemporary philologists/linguists argue derives from a unique vocabulary possibly the Ancient language of the Nile Valley and/or Horn of Africa. Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical, grammatical and epigraphic data were collected from secondary sources by Meroitic researchers. Oromo corpora are obtained both from classical and modern descriptions and native-speakers. Results indicate Oromo lexemes show significant level of cognates with not only Meroitic and Old Nubian, but also with the Ancient Egyptian to their northern part.

A lot has been said and written about the so-called Ethiopic civilization said to have been built by unspecified white South Arabians into Black Africa, chiefly the Horn, in the 3 rd century Christian era. While such colonial mentality has gradually ebbed away in this (pot-)modern era, its vestige is yet thriving in Ethiosemitic circles. Scholars have hardly subjected this narrative to critical analysis. Only Ayele Bekerie has significantly destabilized this century-old phantasmagorical history. He explicated that it was but an hegemonic epistemology imposed upon African Ethiopians by few Indo-Semitic external paradigm that, in turn, continued to miseducate Abyssinian historians originating out of monastic education. Yet, Bekerie himself falls short of a paradigm-shifter role, since he, among other fallacies, could not make a break with the unexplained Ge'ez or Ethiopic speaking 'people'. This paper critically and multidisciplinarily analyzed both Bekerie's skeptic and Indo-Semitists' de-Africanizing discourses in the name of 'Ethiopic'. It showed that 'Ethiopic' was a colonial era conspiracy fabricated by means of dogmatic translation/transliteration and/or systematically distorted re-construction with the intention to misappropriate the autochthonous peoples' social epistemological texts, linguistic or non-linguistic, and ultimately left them physically, nationally and ideologically ever divided and 'historically' disoriented. This not only disrupted their civilization but also pulled them back to pre-classical times of 'nation-building'. This conspiracy is also partly responsible for unending tendencies of separationism, ethnocentrism, fundamentalism, and theocracticalautocratic-militarist totalitarian states and, consequently, unending and equal share of impecuniousness. This paper explicates how and why Ethiopic has neither been engineered by a social history of their own (Ethiosemites or Abyssinians) nor of by their South Arabic 'ancestors'. It also shades lights on how this miseducation is significant area of further critical inquiry for future young researchers on Ethiopian and Horn of African history from postcolonial, open-mind, deconstructivist and reconciliatory and peacebuilding perspective.

An overview of the current state of research on particular groups of Phoenician seal-amulets referring to Middle Bronze Age models demonstrates that previous geo-chronological approaches allowed postulating regional production centres, but that they are also expressions of a larger, archaizing style in the Levantine egyptianising glyptic of the 9th – 4th centuries BC. By comparing the different types, re-examining their sources of inspiration, adding new examples and including a recently defined Phoenician group into the discussion, this paper offers observations on the motives behind the predilection for archaizing features.

(Lippke 2010) GGG (Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole) im forschungsgeschichtlichen Kontext, zugleich ein Nachwort zur 6. Auflage, in: Keel, Othmar/Uehlinger Christoph, GGG – Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonogra-phischer Quellen, Fribourg 2010, 565-592 (=V.IRAT II-1)

Ziel der Publikation ist die Darstellung der Rezeptionsgeschichte des Standardwerkes von Keel/Uehlinger, sowie eine erste Aktualisierung und Kontextualisierung. Hierzu werden aktuelle Fragen aus dem Bereich der Palästina-Archäologie und der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft angeschnitten und konsequent weiterführende Literaturhinweise gegeben (mehr als 120).
Aus dem Inhalt
1. Ein Standardwerk
2. Ein Standardwerk mit Geschichte
3. GGG in „seinem“ Kontext
4. Die weiteren Entwicklungen
6. Exkurs: Archäologie und Ikonographie in Palästina/Israel



Zugleich ein Nachwort zur 6. Auflage des Werkes Keel, Othmar/Uehlinger Christoph, GGG – Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen

The aim of the publication is to present the history of reception of Keel/Uehlinger’s basic corpus, as well as to provide a first update and contextualization. For this purpose, current issues in the field of the Palestine Archaeology and Old Testament research are raised, consequently enriched with further reading-suggestions (bibliography, over 120 entries).

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Content:
1. A basic publication
2. A basic publication with its own history
3. GGG in its context
4. Further developments
6. Archaeology and iconography in Palestine/Israel

Kelly-Buccellati, M. 2010. “Uqnitum Und Tarᵓam-Agade. Patronage and Portraiture at Urkesh.” In Festschrift Für Gernot Wilhelm Anläßlich Seines 65. Geburtstagesam 28. Januar 2010, edited by J.C. Finke, 185–202. Dresden: ISLET. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8293907.

This article presents and discusses 7 seatings, representing 16 of the 22 inscribed seatings found in the Hellenistic Administrative Building excavated at Kedesh. These seatings comprise most of the nonprivate, official seatings discovered. The seatings derive from floor levels damaged and abandoned shortly after the middle of the second century B.C. E. The archive of documents to which these seatings were attached appears to have been in existence for roughly half a century. Some of the inscribed seatings refer to the Phoenician coastal cities ofTyre and Sidon, and one carries the name of the site itself