In Pursuit of Visibility

In Pursuit of Visibility honors the distinguished career of a scholar of Canaan and ancient Israel, Beth Alpert Nakhai. In fifteen diverse essays, Professor Nakhai’s students and colleagues celebrate her important contributions to the field of Near Eastern Archaeology, including her research into gender, household, and cult in the Bronze and Iron Age southern Levant, and her tireless efforts to acknowledge and support women in the profession. These essays reflect Professor Nakhai’s commitment to combining archaeology and text to reconstruct aspects of ancient life and make those who are marginalized visible in both the past and the present

In Pursuit of Visibility

In Pursuit of Visibility honors the distinguished career of a scholar of Canaan and ancient Israel, Beth Alpert Nakhai. In fifteen diverse essays, Professor Nakhai’s students and colleagues celebrate her important contributions to the field of Near Eastern Archaeology, including her research into gender, household, and cult in the Bronze and Iron Age southern Levant, and her tireless efforts to acknowledge and support women in the profession. These essays reflect Professor Nakhai’s commitment to combining archaeology and text to reconstruct aspects of ancient life and make those who are marginalized visible in both the past and the present

Raw material variability as archaeological tools: Preliminary results from a geochemical study of the basalt vessel workshop at Iron Age Tel Hazor, Israel

The discovery of a basalt vessel workshop at Tel Hazor, one of the most important Iron Age sites in the Near East, marks a turning point in our understanding of stone artifact production and distribution during the1st millennium BCE. It offers a rare opportunity to characterize ancient raw material sources, production sites, and study production, trade and distribution systems. The basalt vessel workshop, the only one of its kind in the Levant, produced large quantities of bowl preforms and production waste. To better understand the production and distribution systems behind this specialized production center, in 2011 we initiated a focused geochemical project that concentrated on the products of this unique workshop.  We measured the major and trace element composition of 44 unfinished basalt vessels from the workshop and other contexts at Hazor, and can demonstrate that the majority of these objects were derived from one specific, geochemically well-constrained, basaltic rock source. Only a few bowls clearly deviate from this geochemical composition and were produced using raw material from other sources. Thus, we believe that one major quarry existed that supplied the Hazor workshop with the majority of the basaltic raw material. The products from this specific extraction site provide us with a “Hazor reference group” that can be used to test whether or not finished vessels from Hazor and contemporary sites were produced in the Hazor workshop

Utilitarian objects in sacred spaces: Ground stone tools in Middle and Late Bronze Age temples in the southern Levant

The goal of this dissertation is to identify and reconstruct activity areas in Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BCE) temples and sanctuaries in the southern Levant by analyzing the ground stone artifacts found in them. Chapter 1 reviews the history of research of Middle and Late Bronze Age temples in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, and briefly describes the physical remains of the Canaanite cult and other activities associated with temples and sanctuaries. The history of ground stone tools from prehistory through the Iron Age is the focus of Chapter 2, which emphasizes the ritual character of certain stone tool types from the fifth-fourth millennium BCE in this region. Stone tools from temple complexes excavated at Hazor, Tel Nami, Megiddo, Tel Mevorakh, Tell Kittan, Bet Shean, Tell el-Hayyat, Deir 'Alla and Lachish are included in the typology and catalogue presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 provides an analysis of each temple complex and the reconstruction of some of the activities associated with the ground stone artifacts found in them. Evidence for the presentation of offerings, ritual disposal of cultic equipment, use of liquids, food and pigment processing and other activities is summarized in the conclusion in Chapter 5

Women's lives in biblical times

Londonxiii, 172 p.: bibl., index; 20 c

Archaelogy and history of eighth-century Judah

Resumen: Ensayos de un grupo internacional de expertos sobre el antiguo Cercano Oriente y la Biblia hebrea que honran el trabajo pionero de Oded Borowski en la arqueología y la historia del antiguo Israel y Judá. Los colaboradores abordan la cuestión de lo que sabemos del Judá del siglo VIII desde múltiples ángulos, incluyendo un estudio de los vecinos de Judá, la tierra de Judá y sus ciudades, la vida diaria y la cultura material, las creencias y prácticas religiosas, y las primeras formas de lo que ahora son los textos bíblicos. Entre los colaboradores se encuentran Rami Arav, Shawn Zelig Aster, Assaf Avraham, Jeffrey A. Blakely, Sandra Blakely, Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Efrat Bocher, Erin Darby, Jennie Ebeling, Zev I. Farber, Avraham Faust, Daniel E. Fleming, Yuval Gadot, Kristine Garroway, Seymour Gitin, James W. Hardin, Gilad Itach, Hayah Katz, Reinhard G. Kratz, Joel M. LeMon, Shani Libi, Oded Lipschits, Donald Redford, Christopher Rollston, Bruce Routledge, Yair Sapir, Konrad Schmid, Cynthia Shafer-Elliott, Brent A. Strawn, Andy Vaughn, Jacob L. Wright, y K. Lawson Younger Jr. Características: - Énfasis en la influencia de Asiria en las culturas políticas, religiosas y materiales de Judá; Múltiples modelos para las primeras etapas de la escritura y composición bíblica; Información actualizada sobre tipologías de cerámica

Genome-wide physical activity interactions in adiposity:a meta-analysis of 200,452 adults

Abstract Physical activity (PA) may modify the genetic effects that give rise to increased risk of obesity. To identify adiposity loci whose effects are modified by PA, we performed genome-wide interaction meta-analyses of BMI and BMI-adjusted waist circumference and waist-hip ratio from up to 200,452 adults of European (n = 180,423) or other ancestry (n = 20,029). We standardized PA by categorizing it into a dichotomous variable where, on average, 23% of participants were categorized as inactive and 77% as physically active. While we replicate the interaction with PA for the strongest known obesity-risk locus in the FTO gene, of which the effect is attenuated by ~30% in physically active individuals compared to inactive individuals, we do not identify additional loci that are sensitive to PA. In additional genome-wide meta-analyses adjusting for PA and interaction with PA, we identify 11 novel adiposity loci, suggesting that accounting for PA or other environmental factors that contribute to variation in adiposity may facilitate gene discovery

Novel loci achieving genome-wide significance (P<5x10^-8) in meta-analyses for PA-adjusted SNP main effect (P_adjPA) or the joint test of SNP main effect and SNP-PA interaction (P_joint).

<p>Novel loci achieving genome-wide significance (P<5x10^-8) in meta-analyses for PA-adjusted SNP main effect (P_adjPA) or the joint test of SNP main effect and SNP-PA interaction (P_joint).</p

Genes of biological interest within 500 kb of lead SNPs associated with WC_adjBMI or WHR_adjBMI.

<p>Genes of biological interest within 500 kb of lead SNPs associated with WC_adjBMI or WHR_adjBMI.</p