A.D. Riddle, Author at BiblePlaces.com

New Sculpture from Tell Tayinat (and the treaty tablet)

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

According to an online article at Hürriyet Daily News, excavations at Tell Tayinat unearthed the head of a large statue last month. The Tayinat Archaeological Project is directed by Timothy Harrison of the University of Toronto. The head is made of basalt with inlaid eyes, is about 5 feet tall (1.5 m) and weighs 1.5 tons. Some excerpts give a few details:

“It is a figure with a beard and long hair, and it seems to be holding a weapon…The rest of the sculpture has not been found, indicating that it may
well have been damaged. However, the upper part is in very good
condition…The sculpture has been sent to the Hatay Archeology Museum, where it
will be restored by a professional team…Harrison also showed that
there is writing that says ‘Suppiluliuma’ at the back of the sculpture.”

In related news, an Assyrian vassal treaty tablet was discovered at Tell Tayinat in 2009 (see here).

Two articles including the publication of the treaty tablet and a discussion of the archaeological context appear in the latest issue of Journal of Cuneiform Studies (pdf downloads available here).

Harrison, T.P. and Osborne J. F.
2012 “Building XVI and the Neo-Assyrian Sacred Precinct at Tell Tayinat.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 64: 125-143.

Lauinger, J.
2012 “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 64: 87-123.

For a number of years (or rather, decades), Kenneth Kitchen has been working on collecting all Ancient Near Eastern treaties, covenants, and law codes. The culmination of this work now appears in print as:

Kitchen, Kenneth A. and Paul J. N. Lawrence.
2012 Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East. 3 parts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

A detailed table of contents and introduction (pdf) can be downloaded at the publisher’s website. (I am counting on my library to get a copy, since I don’t have quite enough change in my pocket to cover the nearly €300 [= $370] price tag.) The introduction notes that this work includes 106 documents in 10 different languages. Parts 1 and 2 include the texts in transliteration and translation, with notes, indexes and color diagrams. Part 3 is a nearly 300 page commentary and synthesis of all this material. See here for a discussion of the significance of this study for the book of Deuteronomy in particular. (Deuteronomy and other biblical treaties and covenants are included in Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East, but the new Tayinat treaty tablet is not—it is probably too recent to have made it in.)

UPDATE (Jul 30, Mon): An official announcement concerning the new statue fragment was released this morning by the University of Toronto. It includes two more photos and states that the fragment was found underneath the paved surface of a monumental gateway leading to the Neo-Hittite citadel.

From the release:

The head and torso of the human figure, intact to just above its waist,
stands approximately 1.5 metres in height, suggesting a total body
length of 3.5 to four metres. The figure’s face is bearded, with
beautifully preserved inlaid eyes made of white and black stone, and its
hair has been coiffed in an elaborate series of curls aligned in linear
rows. Both arms are extended forward from the elbow, each with two arm
bracelets decorated with lion heads. The figure’s right hand holds a
spear, and in its left is a shaft of wheat. A crescent-shaped pectoral
adorns its chest. A lengthy Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription, carved in
raised relief across its back, records the campaigns and accomplishments
of Suppiluliuma, likely the same Patinean king who faced a Neo-Assyrian
onslaught of Shalmaneser III as part of a Syrian-Hittite coalition in
858 BC.

Tagged Discoveries, Resources, Turkey

Reports from the Philistines

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

This blog noted before that the final excavation reports for Ashkelon were being made available as free pdf downloads. Volume 3, published last year by Eisenbrauns and covering Ashkelon in the 7th century B.C., is now available for download.

And from Gath (Tell es-Safi), Aren Maeir gives a period-by-period summary of the 2012 season which concludes this week. Of particular interest is what appears to be a section of the Late Bronze city wall (photo here).

HT: Ancient World Online.

Tagged Philistines, Resources

King Taita’s Inscription at Aleppo

(Guest post by A.D. Riddle.)

Since 1996, Kay Kohlmeyer has conducted excavations at the storm-god temple atop the citadel of Aleppo.


Aleppo Storm-god Temple (Gonnella, Khayyata and Kohlmeyer 2005: 112).

In 2003, a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription was discovered in the temple which belonged to a king named Taita. We first mentioned the inscription last March. Now, full publication of the inscription by J. D. Hawkins has appeared in the latest issue of Anatolian Studies (vol. 61 [2011]: 35-54). The inscription is in the Hieroglyphic Luwian script and is designated ALEPPO 6 (there are other Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions from the temple, some also by Taita). The 11-line inscription is positioned behind a relief of Taita who faces the storm-god.

Relief of Taita with Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscription (Kohlmeyer 2009: 198).

The text of the inscription names Taita, the king of Palistin, and mentions his honoring the image of the storm-god of Aleppo. The majority of the inscription is given to ordering the kinds of offerings that should be brought, depending on whether (1) one is a king, prince, country-lord, or river-land lord, or (2) one is a lower-level ruler of some sort.

Drawing of ALEPPO 6 (Hawkins 2011: 42).

In our first post, there was a brief discussion of an article by Charles Steitler, in which he suggests identifying Taita with Toi/Tou, the king of Hamath mentioned in the Bible (2 Sam 8:9-11; 1 Chr. 18:9-11). At this time, there are three issues which make it hard to know for certain if Taita is Toi/Tou. First, it is hard to say why the additional -ta element at the end of Taita would have dropped off. Steitler identifies this element in other Hurrian personal names, but as far as I understand, it is not known for sure what it means, and if we do not know what it means, then we cannot explain why it would be lost. Second, Steitler suggests the shift in vowels from a to ō can be explained by the “Canaanite shift,” but this shift is thought to have taken place in the 14th century B.C., long before David, Toi/Tou, 2 Samuel or 1 Chronicles. (A friend has pointed me to an article by Joshua Fox [1996] which discusses a similar Phoenician vowel shift, but it is not clear to me how Phoenician would explain the change when moving from Luwian [or Hurrian] to Hebrew.) Third, Hawkins originally dated Taita to 900-700 B.C., and later adjusted this to sometime in the 11th and 10th centuries B.C., so pinning down the date is an issue for whether Taita could be Toi/Tou. But now, with the publication of ALEPPO 6, this last question concerning chronology has taken a new twist.

In the new article by Hawkins, he makes two modifications to his previous historical reconstruction.

First, he is more confident about dating Taita to ca. 1200 B.C. (11th century B.C.). This date is reached on the basis of (1) archaic features noted in the paleography of the ALEPPO 6 inscription, (2) radiocarbon dating of the storm-god temple phase associated with Taita, and (3) stylistic comparison of the sculptures from the Taita phase of the storm-god temple with the sculptures at the temple of ‘Ain Dara. Second, the archaic features in the ALEPPO 6 inscription indicate it is earlier than the other Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions connected with Taita which were found at Shaizar and Muhradah (about 13 miles northwest of Hamah, Syria). Hawkins suggests the possibility of two kings named Taita: Taita I and Taita II. But because the inscriptions of Aleppo, Shaizar, and Muhradah share many similarities—Taita’s name and title, and unique epigraphic features—Hawkins believes that Taita I and Taita II were separated by perhaps not more than a single generation, with Taita II possibly being the grandson of Taita I. Thus, Taita I who was responsible for the Aleppo inscription would have ruled in the 11th century B.C., and Taita II would have ruled in the early 10th century B.C.

It will be interesting to see how the historical picture continues to change as more information is obtained from excavations and studies, and then, what light this might shed on the time of David and our understanding of biblical history.

Image sources
Gonnella, Julia; Wahid Khayyata; and Kay Kohlmeyer.
2005 Die Zitadelle von Aleppo und der Tempel des Wettergottes: Neue Forschungen und Entdeckungen. Münster: Rhema.

Hawkins, J. D.
2011 “The inscriptions of the Aleppo temple.” Anatolian Studies 61: 35-54.

Kohlmeyer, Kay.
2009 “The Temple of the Storm God in Aleppo during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.” Near Eastern Archaeology 74/4: 190-202.

Tagged Syria

Museums and the Bible

(Guest post by A.D. Riddle)

In addition to taking a trip to Israel or attending a class, museums are another excellent way to learn about the world of the Bible, but sometimes you do not always know what to look for or how to connect it to the Bible.

Clyde Fant and Mitchell Reddish, noted before on this blog for their guidebook to biblical sites in Turkey and Greece, have produced a book (a few years ago) that will help with just that:

Clyde E. Fant and Mitchell G. Reddish, Lost Treasures of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

The subtitle of the book is more informative: “Understanding the Bible through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums.” The book’s contents are divided into eight sections that correspond to historical periods or to types of biblical literature.

Creation and Flood Stories
Israel’s Ancestral, Exodus, and Settlement Periods
The Period of the Monarchy
The Period of the Babylonian Exile
Poetry and Wisdom Literature
The Persian Period
The Hellenistic Period
The Roman Period

Two additional sections cover “Ancient Biblical Texts” and “Sensational Finds: Genuine or Forgery?”

The richest sections are “The Period of the Monarchy” and “The Roman Period.” Within these ten sections, the book contains 107 entries, with some entries covering a single museum object and other entries covering a group of related objects. Each entry is about four-five pages in length and nearly all of the entries include a black-and-white photograph of the museum object. Entries begin with a description of the object(s): dimensions, language (if inscribed), provenance, date, museum location and number. This is followed by a prose description of the discovery of the object and its historical context. The authors provide a satisfying amount of detail in this section and it seems to be well-researched. The final section for each entry discusses the “Biblical Significance” of the object. Some objects, of course, have a more direct biblical connection than others, but others will draw your attention to details of the Bible that maybe you have not noticed before. Where the biblical significance is (or has been) disputed by scholars, Fant and Reddish present the options in a fair-handed way. For example, it used to be argued that the creation account in Genesis directly depended on Mesopotamian creation accounts, but Fant and Reddish are careful to point out both the comparisons and the contrasts.

The book includes objects from about 30 museums in the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Turkey, Greece, and elsewhere. The book is made even more useful by including a scripture index, an index of museum numbers, and an index of objects organized by museum. So, for example, say you are going to visit the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago, you can look up the museum in the index and see a list of objects on display so that you have an idea of where you might want to concentrate your attention while you are there. Or, say you are studying Acts and want to show how Luke was quite accurate and precise in many of the details he gives, you can use the scripture index to look up relevant entries.

There are, of course, many more objects and other museums that could have been included, but Fant and Reddish give good coverage of the most important objects (and many less familiar ones) and the most important areas of connection with the Bible. I think you will be pleased and impressed with the level of detail and the quality of research.

A Hittite plaque made of ivory from Late Bronze Megiddo,
Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago.
Not included in Lost Treasures of the Bible.

Speculating on the Mysterious Marks in City of David

(Guest post by A.D. Riddle.)

At Urartian sites in northeast Anatolia, archaeologists have discovered geometric “rock signs” that were cut into bedrock. Some 134 signs have been found at 20 different sites (fortresses, canals, graves) in modern Turkey, Armenia, and Iran. The signs are circular, “U”-shaped, “V”-shaped, or sickle-shaped, and they are dated to the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. Regardless of location, the signs are all very similar in shape and dimensions to one another, with the signs from the later period being slightly smaller than the earlier ones.

Belli 2001: 365, fig. 2

Belli 2001: 367, fig. 7

It was originally thought the rock signs were used for grape presses, but this has been ruled out. Other ideas included quarries, hieroglyphs, or some religious function, but the conclusion is “there are no definite answers for now” (Belli 2001: 368).

In 2006, Erkan Konyar suggested that the rock signs were molds for shaping wooden chariot parts, and perhaps other wooden implements. (A pdf of his essay can be downloaded here.) He was able to identify the same component parts in depictions of chariots in Urartian and Assyrian reliefs, and the rock signs appear to correspond in shape and dimension to wheels, axle-braces, spokes, yokes, and hooks.

If he is correct, the “V”-shaped signs would have been molds for braces, spokes, and/or yokes.

Belli 2001: 367, fig. 8

The dimensions of the “V”-shaped signs are fairly close to the dimensions given for the “V” marks in the City of David (see here and here). The City of David marks are 5 cm deep and the Urartian rock signs are 4-10 cm deep. The City of David marks are 50 cm in length, and the Urartian “V” rock signs vary between 60 and 70 cm in length.

So, could the City of David marks be molds for shaping wooden implements? The wood would have to be softened in water first, and the marks appear to be conveniently located near Jerusalem’s water source. It would be irresponsible to suggest anything further at this point since we still have not heard many of the details about the marks from the City of David’s excavators, but the similarities with Urartian signs and the interpretation of them by Konyar are intriguing.

REFERENCES

Belli, Oktay.

2001 “Surveys of Monumental Urartian Rock Signs in East Anatolia.” Pp. 365-369 in İstanbul University’s Contributions to Archaeology in Turkey (1932-2000). Ed. O. Belli. Istanbul: İstanbul University Rectorate Research Fund.

Konyar, Erkan.

2006 “An Ethno-Archaeological Approach to the ‘Monumental Rock Signs’ in Eastern Anatolia.”
Colloquium Anatolicum 5: 113-126.

Metropolitan Museum Returns 19 Objects to Egypt

On Tuesday, August 2, nineteen small objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will arrive in Egypt. The agreement to return the objects was negotiated in November 2010 when Zahi Hawass was Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, a post now held by Mohamed Abdel Maksoud. The objects come from the tomb of Tutankhamun and were purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the early 20th century from the estate of Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb.

The story is being reported in several outlets, including here and here and here.

HT: Jack Sasson