¹ For details, see William G. Dever, The “Middle Bronze I Period” in Syria and Palestine, in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Twentieth Century, Sanders, J. A., ed. (New York, 1970), 132-63Google Scholar (hereafter Middle Bronze I). In the interest of brief citation here, references will be made wherever possible to this article. On sites published since, see Gophna, R., A Middle Bronze Age I Tomb with Fenes-trated Axe at Ma'abarot, IEJ 19 (1969), 174-77Google Scholar; id A Middle Bronze Age Tomb at Barqai, 'Atiqot 5 (1969; Hebrew Series), 1–13Google Scholar; Wright, Kay, The 1959 Deep Sounding at Harran in Turkey, Levant II (1970), 63–94Google Scholar.

² Publications of the Jerusalem School, Archaeology, Vol. IV (New Haven, 1966Google Scholar; hereafter Mirzbâneh Tombs). Although the following discussion takes issue with the central thesis of this volume, it also acknowledge Prof. Lapp's mastery of MB I studies. He came to the field only after excavating the Mirzbâneh and Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh materials in 1963 (cf. n. 14) and some MB I tombs at Bâb edh-Dhrâ’ in 1965–66; for his latest views, including a response to those of the writer, see nn. 28 and 58 below.

³ See, for instance, Albright, W. F., From the Stone Age to Christianity (New York, 1957), 162–66Google Scholar; id., Abram the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation, Basor 163 (1961), 36–54Google Scholar; Vaux, R. De, Les patriarches hébreux et l'histoire, RB LXXII (1965), 5–28Google Scholar; Kenyon, K., in Posener, G., Bottéro, J., and Kenyon, K., Syria and Palestine, c. 2160–1780 B.C., CAH², Vol. I, Chap. XXI (Fasc. 29 [1965Google Scholar]), 38–61 (hereafter Syria and Palestine); Wright, G. E., The Archaeology of Palestine, in The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Wright, G. E., ed. (New York, 1961), 86–88Google Scholar.

⁴ Kenyon, , Excavations at Jericho, 1953, PEQ 86 (1953), 92Google Scholar, 93; PEQ 87 (1954), 117; see her expansion of this view in subsequent studies, Tombs of the Intermediate Early Bronze — Middle Bronze Age at Tell “Ajjul, ADAJ III (1956), 41–55; Jericho I (London, 1960Google Scholar), 180–82; Jericho II (London, 1965), 33–37Google Scholar; in Syria and Palestine, 41–44.

⁵ Ruth Amiran, The Pottery of the Middle Bronze I Age in Palestine, IEJ 10 (1960), 204–24 (henceforth Pottery of Middle Bronze I).

⁶ The excellent pioneer study of Amiran (n. 5) suffers from confining itself to pottery. What is more important, the division of the pottery is done initially along strict typological lines, and geographical distribution is considered only later. Since the universal forms are included along with the properly “diagnostic” regional forms in each of her “Families,” some features of each “Family” have a distribution throughout the country. Furthermore, because the general criteria for denning them are too vague, these “Families” overlap: identical forms are assigned to more than one “Family,” while vessels from the same tomb are split up between two “Families.” For a similar critique, see Lapp, Mirzbâneh Tombs, 82, 83. For a critique of Amiran's Syrian and Mesopotamian comparisons, see Dever, Middle Bronze I, 144, 145.

⁷ The details will be found in a forthcoming monograph, based on the writer's dissertation, where there is an exhaustive analysis of all the ceramic, copper, and tomb types, along with the comparative material.

⁸ Our “Families” are necessarily denned by ceramic groups to a large extent, but we are well aware that such groups in themselves do not constitute “cultures.” Nevertheless, as Robert W. Ehrich has said, a pottery style “is our most sensitive medium for perceiving shared aesthetic traditions in the sense that they define ethnic groups, for recognizing contact and culture change, and for following migration and trade patterns.” See Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, Ehrich, Robert W., ed. (Chicago, 1965Google Scholar), vii, viii.

⁹ Space prohibits citing or illustrating the material, but it may be consulted by referring to Dever, Middle Bronze I, 132–38, 150, where the MB I material from nearly all the published sites is listed and references are given; see also the chronological chart in Fig. 2, 143. The sites mentioned in the present discussion but not in this treatment (or added in n. 1 above) have become known since 1969 and are unpublished (nn. 10, 11, 41).

¹⁰ On the sites in Lebanon, see n. 32. Our Family N corresponds roughly to Amiran's “Family B” (mostly Ma'ayan Barukh), although it contains some of the Syrian “Caliciform” of her “Family C.” For the latter, we may call attention to a rich shaft-tomb recently discovered at Kedesh with some 200 vessels, among them many painted teapots and goblets identical to those in the shaft-tombs at Megiddo and again obviously direct imports. For permission to study and mention this material, I am indebted to Mrs. Miriam Tadmor, who will publish the collection shortly. For additional MB I sites discovered in Upper Galilee, mostly at sites unoccupied in EB, see Aharoni, Y., The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Upper Galilee (Jerusalem, 1957Google Scholar; Hebrew), 18–24.

¹¹ Our Family NC includes Amiran's “Family C,” which she denned in 1960 largely by the painted and red-slipped wares in the Megiddo and el-Ḥuṣn tombs. Material accumulated since then adds the sites mentioned here and also makes it clear that this family is not only broader in scope but is much earlier, i.e., not the latest, as Amiran thought, but among the earliest. This was quickly pointed out by Albright and was provisionally accepted by Amiran (personal communication); but note that in her latest treatment she still dates “Family C” after her “Families A” and “B,” cf. The Pottery of the Middle Bronze Age I (Hebrew), Qadmoniot 11:2 (1969), 47, 48. It cannot be stressed too strongly that the most distinctive wares of this family — the Syrian “Caliciform” wares in the Megiddo shaft-tombs, at Bîr el-Gharbî, Hazor, and now at Kedesh (n. 10)—provide the “peg” on which much of our chronology for the period hangs. The best parallels are found in Hama J2-J5, dated by Radio Carbon 14 analysis to post ca. 2200 B.C.; see Dever, Middle Bronze I, 137, 142. The site of Jaba is mentioned in connection with this family by courtesy of Mrs. Amiran, who will publish it shortly.

¹² Although Jericho I with the tombs excavated in 1952–54 had appeared and was cited by Amiran in 1960, she included the Jericho tombs along with the tell material in her “Family A.” (In her latest treatment she still does not distinguish a Jordan Valley/Jericho family, although she does add our Family CH [her “Family D”; cf. n. 15 below], which we think derives from Family J and requires it for explanation.) However, the tombs are generally earlier than the tell material, and they help to define a separate family. The stratified sites published subsequently and noted here and Glueck's materials are probably even earlier than the Jericho tombs and represent a continuous occupational phase from EB IV into early MB I; see Dever, Middle Bronze I, n. 87, and nn. 28, 33 below. It should be cautioned that these Transjordanian sites are as yet poorly known, but they seem to exhibit two phases, with a curious mixture of Family J and Family S traits; the later phase, like the Jericho tell, may in time come to be classed with Family S in cultural terms.

¹³ Our Family S corresponds very closely to Amiran's “Family A,” but note that we divide her family into “Early A” and “Late A” and assign the delicate wheel-made cups and other material of Megiddo XV-XIIIB, the Lachish “1500 Area,” etc., to the former, the “band-combed” wares to the latter; see Dever, Middle Bronze I, 139, 145. Amiran was the first to point out material of this family as far north as the mound at Megiddo, although she did not draw from it the conclusions advanced here; see Amiran, Pottery of Middle Bronze I, 209, 213, 217. The clue seems to be that both at Megiddo and Jericho, where material from the mound and that from the tombs is noticeably different, we have to allow for a chronological as well as a cultural distinction. At both sites the shaft-tombs appear t o us to be earlier and to belong to Family NC and J, respectively, while the stratified material is clearly Family S. Cf. Dever, Middle Bronze I, Fig. 2, 143, and n. 10.

¹⁴ The MB I material from Cave II in the Wâdī ed-Dâliyeh (Fig. I) was excavated in 1963–64 by Paul W. Lapp and has been kindly entrusted to the writer for publication by Mrs. Nancy Lapp (to appear in a forthcoming Annual of the ASOR on the Daliyeh material). It consists of some 20 whole pieces and 90 partial forms; all are paralleled either at the Central Hill sites and/or the Jericho tombs, except large “hole-mouth” cooking pots which are like those in exclusive use at Kh. Iskander, Jebel Qa'aqīr, Har Yeruham, and other Family J and S sites (see Dever, Middle Bronze I, Fig. 4:11–14, n. 65).

¹⁵ The writer actually distinguished this Family as long ago as 1966 and assembled material from private collections for publication — small squat jars or bottles from 'Ain es-Sâmiyeh, “Bethel,” “er-Ram,” and Olivet (Jerusalem). Before it could be published, Lapp's Mirzbâneh Tombs appeared (1966), calling attention to some of these same collections (pp. 5, 6, 66, 67) and presenting enough excavated material to make full publication unnecessary. This material will be published in very abbreviated form along with new material from ‘Ain es-Sâmiyeh in a forthcoming issue of IEJ under the title “MB I Cemeteries at Mirzbaneh and 'Ain es-Sâmiyeh.” Note that Amiran had remarked on certain “nuances” of the sites in the Central Hills as long ago as i960, and now she has added this group to her original classification as “Family D”; see Amiran, Pottery of Middle Bronze I, n. 52; Middle Bronze Age I (n. 11 above), 48.

¹⁶ This tomb group consists of several lug-handled amphoriskoi, some squat jars or “bottles” of Gibeon-Mirzbâneh-Jericho type, and a fine collection of daggers, javelins and pikes. The group will be published in a forthcoming issue of the PEQ.

¹⁷ The writer has seen this material through the courtesy of Mr. Y. Shapira. A few pieces have been published by Amiran; see Pottery of Middle Bronze I, Fig. 2:3. 5, 13, 18–20.

¹⁸ R. Gophna, Fenestrated Axe at Ma'abarot (n. 1), 174–77; id., A Middle Bronze Age I Cemetery at Ma'abarot (in Hebrew), Qadmoniot II:2 (1969), 50, 51. The squat one-handled jugs or pitchers (IEJ 19, Fig. 3:7) are very typical of tombs at Hazorea and Megiddo. The rare javelins with very long blade and curled tang (Qadmoniot 11:2, 50) are paralleled only at Tiberias in another tomb recently discovered, and in a tomb at Barqai, south of Megiddo; see V. Tzaferis, A Middle Bronze Age I Cemetery in Tiberias, IEJ 18 (1968), Pl. 1:A, 115–19; R. Gophna, Barqai (n. 1), Pl. II, 4. Typologically, these latter are not “daggers” to be compared with the usual daggers with riveted butt, as Tzaferis thinks (op. cit., 19), but are rather the first occurrences of a distinctive northern variant of the more common javelins with curled tang, found in Families J, CH, and S.

¹⁹ This is done in the work cited in n. 7 above. The summary given here is vastly oversimplified and is not documented at most points; it is intended mainly as a starting point in the search for comparisons in Part C below.

²⁰ This is probably a generous estimate for most settlements. At Jebel Qa'aqir we have excavated two caves that were occupied, and we know of perhaps a dozen more in the entire area within the enclosure wall. The main settlement of Har Yeruham has an area of only about one acre inside the boundary wall; there are a few huts and small enclosures (probably for sheep), and one or two house complexes with perhaps 10 rooms in all (see M. Kochavi, The Middle Bronze Age I [The Intermediate Bronze Age] in Eretz-Israel [Hebrew], Qadmoniot 11:2 [1969], 41). Most sites elsewhere in the Negev have less than a dozen crude structures, though there are a very few, such as Naḥal Niṣṣanah and Be'er Resisim, that have up to a hundred.

²¹ Kenyon has attempted to date the megaron temples of Megiddo XV to MB I, but see Dever, Middle Bronze I, n. 62, for an opposing view. More recently, Thomas L. Thompson has shown that Temple 4040 is probably MB IIA; see The Dating of the Megiddo Temples in Strata XV-XIV, ZDPV 86 (1970), 46–49. However, Thompson's dating of the other two temples to MB I (45, 46) is unconvincing. Wright now dates all three temples to EB; see The Significance of ‘Ai in the Third Millennium B.C., in Archäoologie und Altes Testament, Kuschke, A. and Kutsch, E., eds. (Tübingen, 1970), 311Google Scholar, 312.

²² See Dever, Pottery of Middle Bronze I, 147.

²³ Kh. Kirmil, eight miles S/SE of Hebron, is an example of a remote cemetery with no settlement nearby; the site was discovered by the writer and ‘Ali Musa Abu Argoub of the Department of Antiquities, who together counted more than 400 robbed tombs. Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘, on the Lisan, is another example, as is the enormous cemetery complex at Mirzbâneh/‘Ain es-Sâmiyeh — both in extremely isolated areas. For cemeteries at deserted tells (though with little EB, mostly MB and later occupation), cf. Gibeon and Tell el-‘Ajjûl.

²⁴ This observation seems to have been made first by Kenyon, on the basis of the Jericho evidence; see Digging Up Jericho (London, 1957), 192; Jericho I, 180–83. The phenomenon is striking also at Megiddo, as Amiran has pointed out; see n. 13 above. At Jebel Qa'aqīr, the occupational deposits in the caves appear to be roughly contemporary with Cemeteries C and F, but Cemetery B is certainly later and may not even overlap.

²⁵ At Jebel Qa'aqīr we cleared one group of 39 tombs of the same type, adjacent to each other; the entire area surrounding them was dug to bedrock and left open. It was evident from the way they were systematically laid out along five terraces and evenly spaced about 2.00–3.00 m. apart that they had been dug simultaneously. In no case did a tomb cut into another, which would certainly have happened had previous tombs been used and the shafts filled and concealed as carefully as these proved to have been. Close observations of the fresh tool marks when the shafts were first cleared, and comparisons of the severe weathering of the soft chalk after only one winter's exposure, prove that the shafts were dug and refilled between the winter rains. It is perhaps significant that the earlier cemeteries (Cemeteries C, D, and F) are much smaller and less homogeneous; there tombs are haphazardly laid out and in some instances overlap.

²⁶ This phenomenon was first recognized as significant by Kenyon; see references in n. 4 above. Since then it has been recognized elsewhere, particularly by Lapp at Mirzbâneh; see Mirzbâneh Tombs, 40–49. At Jebel Qa'aqīr, in the several dozen tombs excavated there is not a single instance of an articulated burial, and rarely are even two or three bones in articulation. We are convinced that Kenyon's hypothesis that these represent secondary burials by semi-nomadic peoples is the only serious explanation offered thus far for a remarkable burial practice largely confined to this period in Palestine (though known earlier at Bâb edh-Dhrâ‘). Cf. n. 46.

²⁷ For instance, the square-shaft single-chambered Tomb VI at Ma'ayan Barukh is paralleled perfectly by Tomb II at Tell ’As; cf. Amiran, ‘Atiqot III (1961), Fig. 4; Du Mesnil du Buisson, Syria XIII (1932), Pl. XL. The round-shaft, five-chambered tombs with central chamber and bench at Megiddo (Tomb 1120) and Tiberias (Tomb 1) are nearly identical to each other and quite close in plan to the famous Tomb IV at Qatna; cf. P. L. O. Guy and R. M. Engberg, Megiddo Tombs (Chicago, 1938), Fig. 48; V. Tzaferis, Middle Bronze Age I Cemetery, Fig. 4; Du Mesnil du Buisson, Le Site Archéologique de Mishifé-Qatna (Paris, 1935), Pl. XXXVIII. For Mesopotamia, note for instance the 19 Erdgräber at Asshur — shaft-tombs with a lateral chamber, dated securely to the Akkadian and Ur III periods by cylinder seals and other comparisons; see W. Andrae, Die archaischen Ischtar-Tempel in Assur (Leipzig, 1922), 6.

²⁸ Kenyon and Amiran both insist on a rather sharp break between the EB pottery and that of MB I, while Wright recognizes (correctly, in our opinion) that there is considerable continuity; for references, see Dever, Middle Bronze I Period, 147, and especially nn. 64, 72, 83–85. The most common MB I forms -the endless varieties of flat-based ovoid jars; small amphoriskoi; the use of ledge-and lug-handles; “hole-mouth” cooking pots; one-handled jugs and pitchers; deep bowls with ledge-handles — all are unmistakably EB and all die out with this tradition at the end of the MB I period. (On ceramic degeneration in general in MB I, see Dever, Vestigial Features in MB I: An Illustration of Some Principles of Ceramic Typology, BASOR 200 [1970].) Doubtless the failure of most scholars to see the continuity is due to the fact that the important link in EB IV is missing, since this period is so poorly known. But it is significant that Lapp, who excavated a mass of EB IV and earlier material at Bâb edh-Dhrâ’, came to precisely the opinion that we had formed independently on typological grounds. At Bâb edh-Dhrâ' EB III/IV pottery — especially the inverted rilled-rim bowls, four-spouted lamps with incipient spouts, and the use of degenerate red slip and burnish — provides perfect prototypes for early MB I types. Lapp, in fact, thinks that one can trace the EB IV/MB I pottery all the way back to EB I; see Palestine in the Early Bronze Age (in Sanders, op. cit., n. 1; hereafter Early Bronze Age), 115, 116; also Mirzbâneh Tombs, 62, and references there.

²⁹ The bibliography is extensive, but references will be found conveniently in the chapters by Watson, Mellink, and Porada in Robert W. Ehrich, op. cit., (n. 8), especially 79–81, 117, 166–67. It is significant that the Palestinian copper types show the same mixture we have noted in the ceramic types: the simple daggers and flat axes go back to local prototypes as early as EB I, and the fenestrated axes go back to EB III or IV; but the pikes, javelins, and toggle-pins appear for the first time and are obviously imports or imitations of Syrian and Mesopotamian prototypes.

³⁰ Lapp, Early Bronze Age, 115, 116.

³¹ Dever, Middle Bronze I, nn. 13, 87. Cf. nn. 28, 33 here.

³² At present, the sites in the extreme north of Palestine seem to constitute a small enclave (see Fig. 1). In Israel we have only a few unpublished tombs from Rosh ha-Niqra’, Shelom, Ḥanita, and Kedesh on the Lebanese border (mentioned above); and Ma'ayan Barukh on the border with Syria. Only at Kedesh (n. 10) have definite Syrian imports been found. Tracing this material northward along the coast does not provide a satisfactory explanation for its origins; at present the only connections known are with several unpublished tomb groups at Sidon (see Lapp, Mirzbâneh Tombs, 80; the pottery is said to be very close to Ma'ayan Barukh, which would class it as our Family N). Farther north along the coast, it has been observed by several scholars that the material from Byblos, Ras Shamra, and other sites is not as closely related to inland Syria as might be expected and is more remote still from Palestinian MB I (see, for instance, Kenyon, in Syria and Palestine, 53–61; Lapp, Mirzbâneh Tombs, 90). Nor will it do to posit a major influx of Syrian elements via the Orontes Valley. Kay Wright Prag, who excavated the settlement at Ikhtenu and knows the Palestinian material well, recently sought to trace parallels in a survey of some 24 sites in the Beqa'. She found no comparable materials whatsoever in the Litani gorge or northward, although these sites were occupied during the MB I period. See the brief report in Saideh, R., Archaeological Surveys, Berytus XVIII (1969), 141Google Scholar, 142. The virtual blank on the map to the north of our Family N raises the possibility that this Family (including Sidon) did not arrive from the north at all, but via Transjordan directly or even secondarily via the Jezreel Valley (see Fig. 1). There is certainly an overlap in the pottery of Families N and NC (cf. the imported Syrian “Caliciform” in both), but at present we cannot be certain whether the movement of influence between these Families is from north to south or vice versa.

³³ The transitional EB IV/MB I sites in Transjordan (Bâb edh-Dhrâ', Ader, Kh. Iskander, ‘Arô'er, etc.) have some red slip and burnish. Among the very few published red-slipped vessels from Palestine proper in MB I south of the Jezreel Valley area is a teapot from Tomb M12 at Jericho — of the “Composite” type, where other mixtures of influences are evident; see Kenyon, Jericho II, 143, 144, Fig. 86:5. Note that the Jezreel Valley also marks the southernmost occurrence of the imported Syrian wares; cf. n. 11. There is some slight evidence of early attempts at settlement at Jebel Qa'aqīr, Lachish, and Tell Beit Mirsim (wheel-made carinated cups with lug-handles, inverted rilled-rim bowls, occasional red slip, etc.), but most of the southern “band-combed” ware is relatively late and is clearly several steps removed from the Syrian “Caliciform.” For details, see n. 34 and Dever, Middle Bronze I, 144, 145.

³⁴ As an example of technique and decoration, the “band-combing” of Palestine s i undoubtedly derived from the incised and “reserved-slip” wares of Syria, as Albright, Amiran, and others have pointed out; but esthetically and technically it is several steps removed. Or take the forms that are most closely comparable, the wheel-ribbed cups of Megiddo, Lachish, Tell Beit Mirsim, and Jebel Qa'aqīr, and the delicate corrugated goblets of Syria; there the same clear but distant connections are seen. The point is reinforced if the ceramic repertoire is compared as a whole, as indeed it must be. Note the rich variety of forms at Hama J, for instance; for every one that does occur in Palestine (i.e., flat-based storejars, four-spouted lamps, etc.), there are a dozen that do not. The same is true if one consults the other Orontes sites - Qatna, Tell ‘As, Tell Mardikh. Links with the coastal sites are more tenuous; and with Til Barsip and sites on the Upper Euphrates, the connections are still more distant. See also Lapp, as cited in n. 35.

³⁵ Lapp is virtually the only scholar who has sensed the impossibility of comparing the Syrian and Palestinian pottery directly (Mirzbâneh Tombs, 89, 90, 113), but he overlooked the obvious explanation advanced here.

³⁶ On ceramic degeneration in general in MB I, see Dever, Vestigial Features in MB I (n. 28).

³⁷ For the central Negev sites surveyed initially by Glueck and later by Aharoni and Kochavi, see Dever, Middle Bronze I, nn. 3, 5, 6 and references there. Note also Fig. 1 here. A few MB I sites have been discovered in the Arabah and the southern Negev as far almost as Eilat; see Rothenberg, B., Zefunot Negev (Jerusalem, 1967Google Scholar; Hebrew), 138, 139; Rothenberg and E. Cohen, An Archaeological Survey of the Eloth District and the Southernmost Negev, Bulletin of the Ha-Aretz Museum 10 (1968), 25–35Google Scholar. For the expansion into Sinai, see n. 39.

³⁸ Cf. n. 33.

³⁹ Rothenberg, B., God's Wilderness: Discoveries in Sinai (London, 1961), 33–46Google Scholar; and Y. Aharoni, loc. cit., 182, Pl. 89. Albright has long argued that Palestinian MB I pottery influenced the ceramic of the “Second Intermediate Period” in Egypt (ca. 1785), especially at Qau and Badari (allowing for a considerable lag as this pottery moves southward); see BASOR 163 (1961), 39, n. 12 and references. The ceramic comparisons based on the material as published are not persuasive, and in any case the necessary lag seems much too long. (However, the writer has seen some material from this general era in the Egyptian collections of the Oriental Institute with “band-combing,” courtesy of Dr. Gustavus Swift and others.) The evidence is conflicting. On the one side there is the witness of the Egyptian texts to the severe threat posed by Asiatics infiltrating the Delta in the “First Intermediate”; see G. Posener in Syria and Palestine, 3–8. On the other hand, “First Intermediate” graves have produced “no unmistakably foreign types of objects”; H. Kantor, in Robert Ehrich, op. cit. (n. 8), 19. Lapp thinks that considerable numbers of EB IV people were absorbed into Egypt during the “First Intermediate,” which would have paved the way for MB I peoples later; see Mirzbâneh Tombs, 97–100; Early Bronze Age, 123. Cf. nn. 59, 64.

⁴⁰ The repeated emphasis of Albright, Amiran, Aharoni, and others on the “homogeneity” of the MB I pottery is misleading. Their judgment is based largely on the latest pottery of Family S, which was the best known until recently and does indeed appear homogeneous. But what must be noted is the regional character of the early northern groups, mostly from tombs. Recent discoveries at Ma'abarot, Tiberias, Gal'ed, Kedesh, and other cemeteries have turned up surprising local variants alongside the more predictable forms, both in ceramic and copper types (n. 18). Kedesh (n. 10) is a case in point, with unique everted-rim cooking pots and single-spouted lamps on a high pedestal.

⁴¹ The goblet is certainly imported, whether of Mesopotamian or North Syrian manufacture. It is to be published shortly by Mr. Ze'ev Yeivin, to whom I am indebted for permission to study it and mention it here.

⁴² See M. Liverani, Per una considerazione storica del problema Amorreo, Oriens Antiquus IX (1970), 5–27. Liverani rightly emphasizes the urban character of inland Syria and thinks that some of the Amorites may have been urbanized, despite the Mesopotamian description of them as “barbarians.” His phrase “dimorphic” is borrowed from Rowton, cited in n. 45.

⁴³ J. Bottéro, in Syria and Palestine, 30–33; and especially G. Buccellati, Amorites of the Ur III Period (Naples, 1966), 235–47.

⁴⁴ Cited in n. 3.

⁴⁵ The bibliography on the Amorites is vast, but the following are among the important recent treatments and give references to earlier works. Edzard, D. O., Die “zweite Zwisckenzeit” Babyloniens (Wiesbaden, 1957Google Scholar); Kupper, J.-R., Les Nomades en Mésopotamie au temps des rois de Mart (Paris, 1957CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Huffmon, H. B., Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts (Baltimore, 1965Google Scholar); G. Buccellati, Amorites (n. 43). Add now Rowton, M. B., The Physical Environment and the Problem of the Nomads, in La civilisation de Mari (Paris, 1967Google Scholar); Klengel, H., Halbnomadischer Bodenbau im Königreich von Mari: Das Verhältnis von Bodenbauern und Viehzuchtern in historischer Sicht (Berlin, 1968Google Scholar); Gelb, I. J., An Old Babylonian List of Amorites, JAOS 88 (1968), 39–46Google Scholar; Lieberman, S. J., An Ur III Text from Drehem Recording “Booty from the Land of Mardu,” JCS 22 (1968–1969), 53–62Google Scholar; WILCKE, C., Zur Geschichte der Amurriter in der Ur III Zeit, WDO 5:1 (1969Google Scholar); M. Liverani (n. 42). Prof. James Ross has called to my attention an unpublished dissertation (which, however, I have not been able to consult) by J. Tracy Luke, Pastoralism and Politics in the Mari Period (University of Michigan, 1965). See Prof. Ross' article Prophecy in Hamath, Israel, and Mari, HTR 63 (1970), nn. 86, 92 for additional bibliography on nomadism in this period.

⁴⁶ Cf. J. Bottéro, in Syria and Palestine, 34, 35. This is a composíte of a number of texts, most of which will be found conveniently in Buccellati, Amorites, 330–32. Kenyon and others have connected the texts mentioning that the Amorites do not bury with the disarticulated burials in Palestine. Lapp objects on the grounds that the MB I people of Palestine had by contrast a very strong tradition of inhumation (Mirzbâneh Tombs, 114). But this seems to miss the point that the shaft-tombs usually contain secondary burials; the Amorite custom was probably precisely that of transporting the dead for later burial, as among modern Beduin, which would naturally have appeared to the Mesopotamian city-dweller as failure to bury the dead properly.

⁴⁷ This process is extensively documented in Buccellati, Amorites, 337–40, 355–60; see also Bottéro, in Syria and Palestine, 37, and references there; C. J. Gadd, Babylonia c. 2x20–1800 B.C., CAH², Vol. I, Ch. XXII (Fasc. 28, 1965), 33–35.

⁴⁸ J.-R. Kupper, Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, CAH², Vol. II, Ch. 1 (Fasc. 14, 1963), 3–5, 18–24; C. J. Gadd, Babylonia, 33–38.

⁴⁹ Cf. Gadd, Babylonia, 38, who says that “it cannot be observed that any new art was invented or any old one discarded by the Amorite kingdoms, if compared with the Early Dynastic cities of Sumer.” This reinforces our previous point about the lack of previous ceramic and architectural traditions among the early Amorites. It would also explain why later waves of Amorites coming to Palestine (in MB IIA) appeared to be markedly more sophisticated (see below, Section 7:c).

⁵⁰ See Kupper, Northern Mesopotamia, 12, 13, 26, 27. Compare this an d the evidence of the references in nn. 47 an d 48 above with the skepticism of Lapp in n. 58. One should note that as recently as the 19th cent. A.D. Beduin periodically overran large areas of settled and cultivated land; see D. H. K. Amiran, The Pattern of Settlement in Palestine, IEJ 3 (1953), 68–72, 202–08, 257–60.

⁵¹ Buccellati, Amorites, 239–41; Kupper, Northern Mesopotamia, 26, 27; Bottéro, in Syria and Palestine, 34, 35.

⁵² Lapp admitted that he changed his mind during the writing of this monograph (Preface, v). After arguing strenuously for a “Western Mediterranean” origin for the MB I peoples and postulating a sea route (101–11), he conceded that the proposal was “dubious.” The two pages then given to the trans-Caucasus origins (111, 112) suggest that this was something of an afterthought. Note that Lapp originally was not aware of Gimbutas' work (n. 54 below), but later he seized upon her “Kurgan” theories for support; see Lapp, Bâb edh-Dhrâ' Tomb 76 and Early Bronze I in Palestine, BASOR 189 (1968), 29, n. 22; Early Bronze Age, 120, n. 142.

⁵³ Kochavi worked independently of Lapp, basing himself on his excavation of the important settlement at Har Yeruham in the Negev in 1963 (see IEJ 13 [1962], 141, 142; The Excavations at Har Yeruham, Yediot 27 [1963; Hebrew], 284–92) and his subsequent study of the period, The Settlement of the Negev in the Middle Bronze (Canaanite) I Age (unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Hebrew University, 1967; Hebrew). Unlike Lapp, he did utilize the works of Gimbutas, and he cited additional (though not numerous) parallels. More recently Kochavi quotes Lapp in support of his Indo-European theories; see The Middle Bronze Age I, (n. 20), 44. I am indebted to Kochavt for going over his material with me and providing me with a copy of his unpublished dissertation.

⁵⁴ For Gimbutas' development of the “Kurgan” theory before she came to apply it to Palestine, see principally The Prehistory of Eastern Europe, Part I: Meso-lithic, Neolithic and Copper Age Cultures in Russia and the Baltic Area (Cambridge, 1956Google Scholar); Notes on the Chronology and Expansion of the Pit-grave Kurgan Culture, in L'Europe à la fin de l'âge de la pierre (Prague, 1961), 193–200Google Scholar; The Indo-Europeans: Archaeological Problems, American Anthropologist 65 (1963), 815–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bronze Age Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe (The Hague, 1965Google Scholar); The Relative Chronology of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Cultures in Eastern Europe North of the Balkan Peninsula and the Black Sea, in Ehrich, op. cit., (n. 8), 459–94; Die Indo-europäer: Archäologische Probleme, in Die Urheimat der Indo-germanen (1968), 548–61. It may be of interest to record here how Gimbutas became involved with the “Amorite question” in Palestine. The writer had begun to connect the Amorites with her “Kurgan” peoples in 1965 and had written to Gimbutas to enlist her aid in applying for a grant from the American Philosophical Society for study in Eastern Europe. (This was received and the research done in 1966; see Dever, Ethnic Movements in East Central Europe and the Near East, ca. 2300–1800 B.C., Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society for 1067 [Philadelphia, 1968], 500–03; see n. 56 below.) Gimbutas replied in a letter of January 6, 1966 that she had just returned from Israel and had looked at the material; she concluded that “this ‘Amorite’ theory seems to me to be simply a myth.” Somewhat later Kochavi had written his thesis (n. 53), quoting her published works. By 1967 Lapp had corresponded with her and elicited her support for his originally independent views in Mirzbâneh Tombs; see Lapp, BASOR 189 (1968), 29, n. 22, quoting her comments in a letter concerning the EB IV cairns at Bâb edh-Dhrâ': “My intuition says that very probably these tombs, as well as many others in Israel, can be connected with the Kurgan invaders from the North through the Caucasus.” While recognizing Gimbutas' unparalleled authority in her own field, we are not inclined to give these comments equal weight.

⁵⁵ Note that the entire evidence cited for Lapp consists of a few cairn-burials from Fergana, near Samarkand; Mirzbâneh Tombs, 111, 112. The burials contain iron implements, and they are dated by the excavators to the Roman period. A close study of the pottery shows some general similarities, but it is far from convincing as an explanation of the source of the Palestinian material. Kochavi in his dissertation was able to cite only a few tomb groups from Beshtasheni (Central Georgia) and Vadjalik (Persia). How specious these comparisons are si to be seen simply by browsing through the voluminous Figures in Schaeffer's, C. F. A.Stratigraphie Comparée et Chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale (London, 1948Google Scholar; which was obviously used by both Lapp and Kochavi), where comparisons for individual items of Palestinian MB I can be found all over the Near East and the Caucasus, dating from the third to the first millennium B.C. This proves nothing.

⁵⁶ One of the results of the writer's study of materials in museums all over Eastern Europe (n. 54) was the recognition that many of the alleged parallels with Near Eastern materials, especially in metal implements, are dated as much as several centuries later in Europe, apparently correctly so. There may indeed be a relationship, bu t the presumed prototypes in the Near East are invariably earlier. Some of the best prototypes are from the “Royal Tombs “at Ur, Early Dynastic III, ca. 2600–2400 B.C.; see Watson, in Ehrich, op. cit. (n. 8), 79. This suggests to us that the European material, if related at all, is derived from the Near Eastern, not vice versa. See also Dever, Middle Bronze I, 141.

⁵⁷ Lapp, Mirzbâneh Tombs, 89, 90, and especially 113.

⁵⁸ Lapp, Bâb edh-Dhrâ', Perizzites and Emim, in Jerusalem Through the Ages, J. Aviram, ed. (Jerusalem, 1968), 16, 17. Note, however, that in the very next sentence Lapp says that “it is required to point to an area for the origins of these (the MB I) people with conditions similar to those on the fringe of the Syrian Desert.” Quite so! And why not the fringe of the Syrian desert itself?

⁵⁹ The textual evidence for nomadic incursions into Egypt is almost as impressive as that for Mesopotamia; see Posener, in Syria and Palestine, 3–29; also n. 39 above. Note especially the well-known “Instruction of Merykare” (ca. 2100 B.C.), warning against Asiatics invading the Delta; and the “Wall of the Prince,” built by Amenemhet I (ca. 1991–1862 B.C.) to keep the Asiatics at bay. The threat was apparently real enough, but on whether the Asiatics actually penetrated in large numbers, see n. 39. Lapp had earlier expressed doubts that these “Asiatics” are to be equated with the Amorites of the Mesopotamian texts, but in his latest statement he acknowledges that “perhaps the Asiatics entering Egypt were Amorites”; Early Bronze Age, 123. This would, of course, place the Amorites in Palestine, since they could hardly have come in any other way except overland. Lapp at one time held out for a sea route (Mirzbâneh Tombs, 62, 84, 112), but later virtually abandoned this view (Early Bronze Age, 120).

⁶⁰ Lapp, Mirzbâneh Tombs, 94, 114; Early Bronze Age, 116, 117 (where he specifically questions the writer's equation, on this ground); Kochavi, Middle Bronze Age I, 44.

⁶¹ See references in n. 47.

⁶² See nn. 48, 49, and references there. Buccellati observes that while the Amorites as a whole continued to be regarded as “barbarians” — undoubtedly because of the threat they posed — individual Amorites in the texts appear to be “as urbane as the bureaucratic organization to which we owe the record of their existence”; Amorites, 337.

⁶³ For the probability of a cultural lag, with the beginning of MB IIA in Syria ca. 2000 B.C. but only ca. 1900–1875 B.C. in Palestine, see Dever, Middle Bronze I, 142–44, especially nn. 37, 38. There the effort was largely to resist Albright's lowering of the end of MB I to ca. 1800 B.C. and was probably too conservative; we would now propose ca. 1950–1900 B.C. for the MB I/MB IIA transition in Palestine (while recognizing that the MB I culture in the southern Negev and Sinai may have lasted somewhat longer). The essential point is the correlation between the XII Dynasty in Egypt and the rapid expansion of its influence in Asia (ca. 1991), and the fall of Ur III and the ascendancy of the Amorites in Mesopotamia (ca. 1950). All this must be connected with rapid reurbanization and the establishment of the vigorous MB IIA culture in Syria and Palestine. This cannot have begun much later than ca. 2000 B.C. in Syria, and even allowing for the expected lag for cultural influences in reaching Palestine, we cannot come down much past 1950 B.C. for the beginning of MB IIA there. We are aware of the problem created by expanding the MB IIA period, but we expect to treat that in a forthcoming work.

⁶⁴ There is no evidence whatsoever for a “destruction” at the end of MB I, as claimed by Glueck. It seems doubtful that the MB I people all migrated into Egypt (nn. 39, 59). It is inconceivable that they simply disappeared, even allowing for a drought, plague, or the like. Since the sites that we know are simply abandoned, it seems best to suppose that these people, with so little ceramic or architectural traditions of their own, were simply absorbed by the people of MB IIA — not at all unlikely if both were of West Semitic (or specifically Amorite) stock. Here we must enter a serious objection against the “Intermediate” terminology and its implication that this period is completely disjunctive. The MB I culture is not really “alien” (as Kochavi thinks), either in terms of natural conditions in Palestine or what we know of its basic racial stock. It represents a pastoral way of life that has always been followed by Semitic peoples of the area, conspicuous in this period only because it temporarily eclipsed urban life. Nor is this culture artificially imposed by invaders from afar (as Lapp thinks), so that to account for its rather sudden disappearance we have to posit a total replacement of the population in MB IIA. Our understanding of the MB I period enables us to integrate it far more naturally into the cultural history of the country.

⁶⁵ Neither Lapp nor Kochavi suggests that Hurrians are involved in their “Proto Indo-Europeans,” though they would seem to be the best candidates if any Indo-European peoples are to be allowed. They appear in the texts known to us at present only ca. 1800 B.C., but it would not be surprising to find evidence of them somewhat earlier, at least in small numbers; see Kupper, Northern Mesopotamia, 24–26. Some of the earliest written evidence in Palestine comes from a fragment of a cuneiform text from the I7th/i6th cent. B.C. at Gezer; see Aaron Shaffer, in W. G. Dever, H. Darrell Lance, and G. E. Wright, Gezer I: Preliminary Report of the 1964–66 Seasons (Jerusalem, 1970), 110–13.

⁶⁶ Lapp infers from the writer's equation of the Amorites with MB I that he places the “Patriarchs” in the MB I period (Early Bronze Age, 117). But we have deliberately left the Biblical Patriarchs out of consideration, since strictly speaking this is a separate question and one that is likely to prejudice the discussion of MB I. However, from the archaeological point of view, we should caution that our present understanding of the MB I culture cannot be easily reconciled with the milieu apparently required for the Patriarchal period. Kochavi's study of the Negev (n. 53) has shown that the MB I settlements are mostly well away from the caravan routes; and around Beersheba, which is associated prominently with the Patriarchs, sites of this period are conspicuously absent. In this connection, we need only to comment on Albright's view of the Patriarchs as “donkey caravaneers” in the Negev (n. 3) that all the impressive evidence he has gathered pertains to the 19th cent. B.C. Since it seems impossible to date the end of MB I after the 20th cent. B.C. (n. 63), the connection of the Patriarchs with caravanning activity would inevitably place them in MB IIA and not in our period at all. However, to date not a single MB IIA site is known anywhere in the Negev.

⁶⁷ Since our primary concern has been the MB I period, we have not dealt with the question of whether earlier Amorites destroyed the EB III sites and were responsible for the EB IV culture. But our reconstruction of close affinities between MB I and EB IV (nn. 28, 31) would be compatible with a view linking EB IV to Amorite incursions. Texts mentioning the Amorites occur as early as the time of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 2350 B.C.). However, seeing Amorites as early as the end of EB II, or involved in massive invasions of the heartland of Palestine, poses difficulties. Until the publication of Bab edh-Dhra' and other sites, EB IV will likely remain even more of a “Dark Age” than MB I has been.