Lost in Translation: Settlement Organization in Postpalatial Crete—A View from the East

This contribution will consider problems and issues related to understanding architecture and urbanism in postpalatial Crete in its larger Mediterranean context, with reference particularly to Philistia but also to Cyprus and mainland Greece (Fig. 13.1). Comparisons with Philistia and Cyprus are relevant because many scholars have argued for a migration to these regions in the form of large scale colonization, and they have attempted to identify Aegean influences and even direct architectural transfers in these regions (as outlined in sections 13.2 and 13.4). This paper takes a more moderate or minimalist position: that any migration to these regions from the Aegean was limited and entangled, taking the form of what Knapp (2008: 266–8, 289, 292, 356; see also Hitchcock and Maeir 2013) has termed a ‘hybridization process’. However, a comparative approach among the Mediterranean regions has value regardless of where one positions oneself on the issue of migration, cross-cultural influence, and/or interconnections (see now Knapp and Manning 2016). The value lies in cross-cultural patterning that may be identified based on common postpalatial changes in social organization, structures, and practices; levels of technology; climate; and geography. It is the search for such patterning that typifies the approach to studying culture in cultural anthropology (e.g. Haviland et al. 2011). The benefit in identifying architectural patterns and differences across IIIC pottery-producing cultures can help to identify both common social practices and regional differences. Furthermore, we will argue that understanding architecture on multiple scales (urbanism, curation, design, and technique) in this era should emphasize IIIC commonalities, rather than past studies that have privileged and over-emphasized continuities with the palatial Bronze Age. While such continuities are interesting and worth drawing attention to, emphasizing them minimizes the significance of the breakdown and diminishing of official architectural styles. In addition, given that the data base for architecture is much smaller than for ceramic studies, a comparative approach can bring new insights gained by using different methods—as in Driessen’s study of complementarity in the different use of similar spaces by males and females as indicated by different types of artefact patterning in each space (see chapter 5).</p

Rethinking the Philistines: A 2017 Perspective

This article discusses how new discoveries and new interpretive and collaborative frameworks are changing our picture of the Philistines

Fifteen Men on a Dead Seren’s Chest: Yo Ho Ho and a Krater of Wine

Recent research by the authors using accounts of pirate culture in historical times and studies of pirate geography, proposed an interpretive framework for understanding the Sea Peoples as pirates who plundered some of the great centres of the Bronze Age, before settling in various parts of the Mediterranean. Furthermore we have suggested that at least some of their leaders assumed the title seren, derived from the Indo-European title tarwanis, meaning warlord or military leader. As in historical eras, we suggested that the tribes of the Sea Peoples were made up of individuals from ethnically and culturally mixed backgrounds that coalesced around particular Aegean symbols in order to form a cohesive identity. Here, we build on that research to further elaborate the role of the tarwanis as military leader of the Sea Peoples and practices of feasting and social drinking to solidify their identity.

The Appearance, Formation and Transformation of Philistine Culture: New Perspectives and New Finds

In the early/mid-12th century BCE, the social and cultural milieu in the Southern Levant went through deep changes (e.g., WARD and JOUKOWSKY 1992; GITIN et al. 1998; KILLEBREW 2005; YASUR-LANDAU 2010; CLINE 2014). This is manifested in various ways, including: 1. the gradual waning of the Egyptian control of Canaan; 2. a drawn-out process of destruction and/or depopulation of many of the Canaanite city states; 3. the appearance of “new groups” in the region, in the inland (identified by most scholars as the precursors of the “Israelites”, Aramaeans, and others) and along some of the coastal regions; and 4., the primary focus of this article, the advent of so-called Sea Peoples, and the most notable among them, the Peleset, in the southern Coastal Plain of Canaan (e.g., HITCHCOCK and MAEIR 2014; MAEIR et al. 2013)

Hesperos and Phosphoros: How Research on Aegean-Eastern Interactions Can Inform Studies of the West

Hesperos and Phosphoros: How Research on Aegean-Eastern Interactions Can Inform Studies of the West The extent of Aegean influence on its neighbors and of neighboring regions on it remains a contentious area of investigation that continues to generate enthusiastic scholarly interest and lively debate. This poster elaborates on the importance of current theoretical perspectives on Aegean interaction with the east because they may be conceptually useful to those studying similar interactions with central and western Europe. Aegean seafarers, traders, and crafters were engaged and entangled in cultural exchanges with the east and west on many scales, and artistic and cultural influence among these regions was multi-directional. Although the authors’ expertise lies in interactions and interconnections between the Aegean and the East (particularly Philistia and Cyprus) it is suggested that their theoretical and anthropological approaches to gift exchange, entanglement, transculturalism, transnationalism, and piracy may offer useful insights to those viewing the Aegean from a western perspective. The Aegean was drawn within the eastern sphere of influence in the late Early Bronze Age (ca. 2200 BCE) with the importation of raw materials from the Near East including copper, tin, gold, and ivory. Gold and ivory were used in the Aegean to manufacture items of elite regalia such as diadems and mace-heads, and other luxury items, particularly ivories (e.g. Maeir et al. 2015), that went on to assume transnational significance in the repertoire of the international style (e.g. Crowley 1989). Once the Minoans acquired the technology for deep-hulled ships with masts as noted by Broodbank (2002), Crete became a key player in Mediterranean trade interactions, which involved gift exchange and trade with the east, the dissemination of ceramic styles and motifs, and the transmittal of Aegean style consumption and feasting practices (Hitchcock et al. 2015). The results of such activities lay in cultural entanglements in the liminal zones of coastal and island regions of the Mediterranean. Our understanding of destruction and collapse that took place in the Aegean (ca. 1177 BCE, e.g. Cline 2014) has gone from simplistic models of migration v. mercantilism, to more sophisticated models of entanglement, transculturalism, transnational identity, limited migration, and piratical activity following the break down secure maritime routes (Hitchcock and Maeir 2014). As Aegean peoples and others from throughout the Mediterranean became entangled in the piratical cultures that resulted in the Sea Peoples phenomenon, a phenomenon that perhaps over emphasizes the biblically well-known Philistines, similar implications may exist for understanding cultural entanglements in the West. Likewise, as we prefer non-simplistic explanatory frameworks for the transformation processes which occurred in the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition and beyond (with Aegean originating cultural influences playing a definite role in these mechanisms), so we believe similarly complex scenarios should be seen in the western Mediterranean as well. Finally, the comparison with Iron Age east-to-west (Phoenicians and Greeks going west) - and west to east (Greeks going eastward) - connections, may also provide interesting insights for understanding the Bronze Age westward connections of the Aegean cultures. The mixed character of these Iron Age connections – mercantile ventures, colonies, mercenaries and other aspects – led to very complex cultural connections and interactions (Maeir and Hitchcock in press). While there are substantial socio-cultural differences between the Bronze and Iron Age Aegean (and Mediterranean in general), the many aspects of continuity and the longue durée seen throughout Mediterranean history (e.g. Broodbank 2013), indicates that similarities and parallels – and for sure insights – can be gleaned from this. Louise A. HITCHCOCK Aren M. MAEIR Works Cited BROODBANK, C. (2002) An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -------. (2013). The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CLINE, E.H. (2014) 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. CROWLEY, J.L. (1989) The Aegean and the East: An Investigation into the Transference of Artistic Motifs between the Aegean, Egypt, and the Near East In the Bronze Age. (SIMA Pocket-book 51) Jonsered, Sweden: Paul Åströms Förlag. HITCHCOCK, L.A.; HORWITZ, L.K.; BOARETTO, E.; and MAEIR, A.M (2015). “One Philistine’s Trash is an Archaeologists Treasure,” Near Eastern Archaeology 78.1: 12-25. HITCHCOCK, L.A. and MAEIR, A.M. (2014) “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Seren’s Life for Me,” World Archaeology 46.4: 624-640. MAEIR, A.M. and HITCHCOCK, L.A. (In Press) “The Appearance, Formation and Transformation of Philistine Culture: New Perspective and New Finds,” in P.M. Fischer (ed) “The Sea-Peoples Up-To-Date. New Research on the Migration of Peoples in the 12th Century BCE.” Proceedings of the European Science Foundation Workshop, Vienna (Austria). Vienna: Austrian Academy of Science and Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology. MAEIR, A.M.; DAVIS, B.E.; HORWITZ, L.K.; and ASSCHER, Y.; and HITCHCOCK, L.A. (2015), “An Ivory Bowl from Early Iron Age Tell es-Safi/Gath (Israel) - Manufacture, Meaning and Memory,” World Archaeology 47: 1-28

Pulp Fiction: The Sea Peoples and the Study of ‘Mycenaean’ Archaeology in Philistia

In this paper we review and consider the relationship between Mycenaean and Philistine archaeology, outlining the historical and recent treatment of this relationship. We conclude that the polarized views that the Philistines were Mycenaean colonists, or alternatively had no connection with the Mycenaeans, still reifies long held, polarized narratives, while also mirroring the interaction (or in many cases, lack thereof) between archaeologists working in Philistia and in the Aegean. With a handful of notable exceptions, many archaeologists work in one place or the other and remain immersed in the literature of one place or the other. In addition, scholars working in their respective areas tend to find what they are looking for. We suggest that the pathway out of these extreme models, one which over-simplifies the Aegean evidence and the other which treats it as meaningless, can be achieved by conceiving of the different tribes of “Sea Peoples” as already mixed and entangled cultural entities that had preexisting connections with various parts of the Mediterranean and shared an affinity for particular Mycenaean symbols. Understanding the complex relationship between Mycenaean and Philistine archaeology requires a broad familiarity with Mediterranean archaeology, scholarly collaboration, methods situated in the study of transcultural and transnational identities, attention to context — looking closely at how the objects were used — and a healthy dose skepticism about what one is looking for in order to separate fact from fiction

New Insights into the Philistines in Light of Excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath

ABSTRACT The excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath have contributed to the formation of a unique collaboration of different area and scientific specialists, that have made it possible to formulate more detailed accounts of the Philistines. These accounts have been inspired by new discoveries which point to traditions associated with many different parts of the Mediterranean such as Cyprus, Greece, the Aegean islands, Anatolia, and Italy. These discoveries represent the globalized flow of information, people, technologies, and goods that characterized the Late Bronze Age. Such discoveries have led us to search for and develop new hypotheses for the emergence of the Sea Peoples that involve cultural entanglement and mixing, studies of regionalism, and cross-cultural comparison with other Iron Age cultures

Philistine Names and Terms Once Again: A Recent Perspective

In the last decade or so, new data and interpretations on the onomastics of Iron Age Philistia have appeared. In this article, we review, discuss, and suggest some insights regarding some of these Philistine personal names (e.g., Goliath), names of deities (e.g., PTGYH), and terms (e.g., seren). We assess them from linguistic, cultural, anthropological, and historical points of view. We then propose how they can be understood within the wider socio-cultural context(s) of Iron Age Philistia specifically and the wider eastern Mediterranean in general, and how they can be incorporated into efforts to understand the origins, development, and transformation of the Philistines and their culture(s)