Dialogues between Ancient near Eastern Texts and the Archaeological Record: Test Cases from Bronze Age Syria
Scholarship on the historical ancient Near East pursues two often independent approaches, epigraphic and archaeological. While the two approaches may meet when one requires confirmation from the other, especially when putting historical events into archaeological contexts, the two disciplines rarely...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The University of Chicago Press
1988
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| In: |
Bulletin of ASOR
Year: 1988, Volume: 270, Pages: 63-91 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Scholarship on the historical ancient Near East pursues two often independent approaches, epigraphic and archaeological. While the two approaches may meet when one requires confirmation from the other, especially when putting historical events into archaeological contexts, the two disciplines rarely are brought together on an equal footing to reconstruct those ancient cultures. Since the ancient Near East provides much written evidence to supplement the cultural material that represents its mute legacy, it is advantageous to utilize both sources of information, particularly to determine the function of common categories of artifacts that invoke no obvious interpretation and to identify functional contexts more securely. I will argue the virtues of a joint approach by considering the functions of several types of finds in light of textual references. The illustrations come from Bronze Age Syria, as follows: 1) ceramic commercial containers; a brewery at LB I Tell Hadidi; 2) nonceramic finds, including animal bones from Mari and Selenkahiye and metal annaku [tin?]; 3) architectural units, namely the function of Zimri-Lim palace at Mari. In all these exercises, considering texts and finds together provides a likely reconstruction, but separately they would produce little conclusive result. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-8062 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Schools of Oriental Research, Bulletin of ASOR
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1357005 |