33 AMORITES AND CANAANITES Memory, Tradition, and Legacy in Ancient Israel and Judah Aaron A. Burke Introduction One important aspect of the Hebrew Bible is its preservation of Israelite but more so Judean, cultural memories and worldviews.1 Various groups mentioned in the Bible, like the Amorites and Canaanites, fall into a traditional category as Israel’s most ancient enemies and purveyors of archaic indigenous traditions, foremost of which were their unorthodox cult practices. The challenge in addressing their historical and cultural significance for Israel, Judah, and their neighbors is, however, the need to disambiguate predominantly pejorative biblical characterizations of Amorites dated to the late Iron Age from their referents, while seeking to understand how such perceptions may have evolved. If one does not simply conclude, for example, that a later collective identity relates to an earlier one in name only, which is almost never the case, then a framework must be articulated that explains the historical relationship between them. This chapter, therefore, seeks to apply such a framework for the consideration of the importance of Amorite and Canaanite traditions to both the biblical narrative and the archaeological record of the southern Levant. Several considerations frame this enterprise. First, in order to avoid catchall approaches to collective identities that often freight later references with earlier meanings, biblical references, first and foremost, must be contextualized in their Iron Age historical setting. Contemporaneous use of these names in ancient Near Eastern sources during the Iron Age must take precedence over earlier uses, of which biblical writers were most often likely to be unaware. Underlying this, to the extent that we can determine, we must ask: what did the group label mean at the time of writing a specific book? Related to this, how was this label applied in this period outside of the southern Levant? Second, it is necessary to consider the actual associations biblical writers are likely to have assumed between groups and particular cultural traditions, and how that informed their references to these groups. Finally, it is then possible to consider the ways in which earlier cultural traditions like those of Amorites and Canaanites influenced those of Israel, Judah, and their neighbors apart from the issue of biblical characterizations of these groups. In so doing it is necessary to remain aware that later groups were themselves not necessarily cognizant—and many were likely entirely unaware—of the actual influence of specific groups upon many of their own traditions. Although on the surface this seems a straightforward even traditional approach, the DOI: 10.4324/9780367815691-39 523 Aaron A. Burke perspective offered in this essay departs significantly from previous discussions of Amorites and Canaanites by reconciling a synchronic Near Eastern view of Amorites during the Iron Age with an understanding of the cultural, often material, legacy of Bronze Age traditions that can be traced back to Middle and Late Bronze Age Amorite traditions. This approach makes it more likely that we can understand diachronic changes in the application of the terms Amorite and Canaanite across the world of ancient Israel. Consequently, it is possible to identify both a coherent understanding of Iron Age biblical traditions concerning Amorites and Canaanites and a material legacy that can be attributed to them in the archaeological record of the southern Levant during the Iron Age. In what follows, I argue that the term “Canaanite” in the Bible serves, first and foremost, as simply a demonym for the population of the southern Levant while eliding many of the cultural traits of various pre-Israelite populations. By comparison, “Amorite” was deployed in reference to a specific, culturally-bounded group, which is largely consistent with earlier Bronze Age traditions and resulted from the maintenance of distinct cultural memories of the Amorites across the ancient Near East. This approach, therefore, brings together the contributions of Amorite culture and its institutions during the second millennium, a broader understanding of the reception of Amorite traditions during the first millennium, and the manner in which Judah viewed itself within this cultural and historical legacy during the late Iron Age. Canaanites and the Bible In this section, the basis for recognizing Canaanites as a demonym (a term referencing a population of a space, principally a region) rather than an ethnonym (an ethnic construct) is outlined to illustrate the functional contrast that existed between it and the usually more meaningful deployment of identities like Amorites. The reason for this distinction is that, despite biblical references qualifying Canaan as the “land of the Canaanites,” there is much less evidence to suggest that “Canaanite” was employed as an ethnonym within the Levant, specifically outside of the biblical imagination. As a label for a population rather than a region, it is remarkably rare among second-millennium sources. In almost every one of the attested uses of Canaan, it points principally to a geographic area (i.e., “land of Canaan”; see Rainey 1996), which can be no more precisely defined than it is in the Bible. To press the geographic label further is to ask limited references among sources from Mari, Alalakh, Ugarit, Mitanni, and Egypt (including the Amarna letters) to do what they cannot, and risks constructing a definition far narrower than the evidence warrants.2 As attested in Akkadian and Egyptian sources for the Bronze Age, town names comprised the most common basis for individual identification and, consequently, the generation of ethnonyms, a tradition that is well in evidence in the Bible. As a result of this, it seems reasonably clear that from the Middle Bronze Age on Canaan was at best a local term for the geographic region that more or less encompassed an area identified today as the southern Levant. That Canaan represents an ill-defined toponym that was elevated to a status as a demonymcum-ethnonym in the writing of the Hebrew Bible is nowhere clearer than in the so-called Table of Nations in Gen 10. Alongside references to Canaanites and Amorites among Israel’s traditional enemies, which usually appear among Deuteronomic texts (e.g., Deut 7:1), Canaan’s inclusion here serves to articulate the conceptual relationship between Canaanites and Amorites from a late Judean perspective, which may date as late as the 5th century BCE. 15 Canaan sired Sidon, his firstborn, as well as Heth (i.e., the Hittites),16 the Jebusites, the Amorites (Heb. ʾemorī), the Girgashites,17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,18 the 524 Amorites and Canaanites Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. (Thereafter the Canaanite clans were dispersed.19 The territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon toward Gerar until Gaza, and toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.) Gen 10:15–19 (author’s translation) Canaan’s stature within this genealogy is in parallel to those of Cush (10:8) and Egypt (10:13),3 each of which seems to function principally to identify geographic regions, which were inhabited by various groups that are identified as their progeny. In this arrangement, Amorites were also residents in Canaan (10:15), along with many of Israel’s other traditional enemies, the Hittites, Jebusites, Girgashites, and Hivites (10:16–17). Yet, Sidon and Arvad, famous cities of the Iron Age Phoenician heartland, were also reckoned a part of Canaan.4 Whatever the final verdict may be on the dating of this tradition, 5 there is considerable accordance throughout the Bible regarding Canaan’s territorial breadth. Furthermore, by contrast with Amorites and Hittites, no named individual is ever identified as “the Canaanite” in the Hebrew Bible,6 and more general uses of it do not commend them as an ethnonym, despite scholars’ persistence in employing it as a “catchall” term for Canaan’s Late Bronze Age population. As a label, Canaanite had no notable emic value and for this reason it is of little use to scholarly discussions. In sum, as indicated by isolated inscriptions on Hellenistic coins from Beirut, which point to the emergence of an imagined “Canaanite” identity in the face of intensifying contacts with the Greek world, there is no evidence for an earlier self-ascription as “Canaanite.” Thus, there are no early sources upon which we may expect biblical authors to have drawn for an articulation of Canaanites as an ethnic or cultural group, and the respective terms therefore assume a role in establishing the “other” during the Iron Age. During the Iron Age, with respect to its geographic identification, the situation is analogous to that for Amorites, namely that Amurru like Canaan was understood principally as a toponym from which the demonym was revived. However, as will be clarified later, a significant difference between these terms is that while Canaan is not attested among Neo-Assyrian toponyms—and may thus not have been remembered outside the Levant—the toponym Amurru continued in use outside the Levant during the Iron Age. Amorites and Iron Age Traditions While in the Bible Canaan functioned principally as a geographic label from which the cultural label Canaanite was derived and then ascribed to its diverse populations and their traditions, the term Amorite was employed in more specific ways that are seemingly reflective of the broader use and prevalence of the term during the Iron Age, as especially witnessed among Neo-Assyrian sources. Among Neo-Assyrian sources, Amurru can be identified as a relatively specific geographic region in the northern Levant (Bryce 2009), and the “land of Amurru” (KUR MAR.TU.KI) was a somewhat amorphous region that seems to have been roughly equivalent to the northern Levant and was bounded by the upper or western sea (i.e., the Mediterranean).7 This continued the use inaugurated already in the inscriptions of Middle Assyrian kings from as early as the reign of Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076 BC), when Amurru evidently included the Phoenician coast.8 This meaning seems to have expanded upon the location of the earlier kingdom of Amurru, which is mentioned during the Late Bronze Age in the Amarna letters and still earlier in the Mari letters of the Middle Bronze Age. No extrabiblical sources refer to Amurru further south during the Iron Age. As such, this toponym may have been somewhat familiar to Israelites and Judeans, certainly to the 525 Aaron A. Burke courts of both nations, not the least because of their participation in military alliances against Shalmaneser III in the mid-9th century, as recorded on the Kurkh Monolith,9 and Assyrian expansion that persisted for more than a century until the eventual conquest of Samaria. Of interest to the question of what Amorite identity may have signified during the Iron Age are several other references to Amorites among Neo-Assyrian sources. These include copies of Assyrian King Lists from Nineveh and Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) where Amorites of the early second millennium BCE were reckoned ancestors in the line of Assyrian kings (COS 1.135). Among them are tallied 17 kings who together are described as “kings who lived in tents.” In addition to this, there are copies of Assyrian proverbs from the library of Ashurbanipal (ca. 630 BCE) of uncertain meaning but which, nevertheless, appear to continue to propagate literary stereotypes of Amorites, notably the suggestion of role-swapping between husband and wife, which it may be argued was intended to impugn Amorite social mores (Lambert 1960, 225). Although it is unclear if this was part of a wider circulation of traditions associated with Amorites, it seems significant that this particular proverb even appears to have been preserved more than 2000 years later in a series of pronouncements against the “ways of the Amorite” that are found in the Talmud (Shabbat 67b:2).10 Together these references may point to a cultural-historical familiarity associated with reference to Amorites as an ethnos of hoary past since no contemporary individual or group is identified as an Amorite among Neo-Assyrian or other sources. Analogous to the pattern suggested for Neo-Assyrian references to the location of a place known as Amurru, a geographically-centered understanding of Amorite identity also appears to have served as the principal basis for the reanimation of “Amorite” as an ethnonym by biblical authors during the Iron Age. The expression “land of the Amorites” occurs four times, though exclusively in reference to the territory of Sihon east of the Jordan (e.g., Num 21:31; Josh 24:8). Joshua 10:5 refers more generally to “Amorite kings” of “the hill country” in Cisjordan (i.e., at Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon), but also evidently included the inhabitants of Gibeon who, during the reign of David, were also identified as Amorites (2 Sam 21:2). Sihon king of Heshbon (Num 21:21) and Mamre of Hebron (Gen 14:13) are the only two named individuals remembered as “Amorite” in biblical tradition (though also perhaps Og of Bashan by association with Sihon, Deut 3:8–11). Almost all other references to Amorites were applied in an inclusive and vague manner alongside Israel’s traditional enemies; of 27 occurrences of such lists, Canaanites appear in all but two and Amorites appear in all but four (Ishida 1979). Indeed, here it is notable that although emphasis is often placed in biblical tradition on the Israelite conquest of the “land of the Canaanites” (Exod 13:11), in such instances this seems to be only a shortened form of fuller variants that qualify the populations of Canaan as “the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,” who were the inhabitants of “a land flowing with milk and honey,” as in Exod 3:17 (also 3:8).11 Otherwise, the far more common expression “the land of Canaan” seems to have been intended most often as a geographic term (e.g., Gen 11:31 passim) and should not be read a priori as equivalent to references to “Canaanites” as a population. This geographical understanding, which is also in evidence as early as the 8th century among the prophets, was later represented in the Judean political geography, which was articulated in Genesis 10, as discussed earlier. There the Amorites are recounted as descendants of Canaan, the personified son of Ham, who was one of Noah’s sons (Gen 10:6). The 8th century prophets make mostly passing references to the Amorites (Isa 17:9), though they were evidently legendary enemies of Israel of exceeding physical size who possessed the land (Amos 2:9).12 Ezekiel’s declaration in the 6th century concerning Jerusalem’s cultural 526 Amorites and Canaanites pedigree can be read as a stinging indictment of the perception of Judah’s embrace of archaic practices associated with Canaan’s indigenous communities. Thus says the lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: “Your origin and your birth are in the land of the Canaanites; your father was the Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” Ezek 16:3 (author’s translation) Alongside the repudiation of Canaanite cult practices, Amorite cultic practices (e.g., Gen 15:16; 1 Kgs 21:26; 2 Kgs 21:11) and their gods (e.g., Josh 24:15) were also singled out to be rejected by Yahwists. Despite biblical assertions of Amorites as early inhabitants of Canaan (e.g., 1 Sam 7:14; 2 Sam 21:2), the primary deployment of these group names center on the geographic realities of Judah in the late Iron Age. In light of the context for the biblical use of the labels Canaan/Canaanite(s) and Amorite(s) during the Iron Age, it is worthwhile to reconsider the implications of a more nuanced understanding of these two terms that are afforded by extrabiblical traditions. The limited utility of the term Canaanite in archaeological analyses have been noted, owing largely to its general application as a moniker for all of Canaan’s inhabitants during the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Killebrew 2005: 94). Thus, it emerges that rather than an ethnonym or even a social identity, the label “Canaanite” in such contexts is better identified as a demonym, in this case as a term that references the entire population of Canaan. Various occurrences of the term “Amorite” among biblical texts, as discussed earlier, suggest that in some instances it too functioned as a demonym. However, references to specific individuals and other groups as Amorite, in a manner that qualifies subsets of Canaan’s population suggests it was used in a more restricted sense (e.g., of the highlands in biblical tradition or Gibeon’s population) and thus employed as a term with a more specific meaning.13 For such an understanding, we find evidence not only among Neo-Assyrian references to a region called Amurru but also among Iron Age references both within and outside of biblical tradition that reveal extant cultural memories of Amorites, which correlate with historical contexts that predated Israel’s existence. Indeed, as discussed below, a legacy of Amorite traditions dating back to the Middle Bronze Age contributed to Canaan’s cultural mosaic beyond the end of the Late Bronze Age and, thereby, played a formative role in the construction of Israel’s identity. Reconsidering the Place of Amorites in Biblical Studies Since the mid-20th century, Amorites and Canaanites have often been discussed in similar contexts and often treated as veritable synonyms in biblical literature. In Amorites and Canaanites, Kathleen Kenyon (1966) made explicit the basis for her retrojection of the label “Canaanite” from biblical references to the population of pre-Israelite Canaan of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550–1100 BCE) and back into the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1550 BCE). She did so on the grounds of the cultural continuity identified in the archaeological records of the Middle and Late Bronze ages (Kenyon 1966: 1–5). This view reflected the consensus of scholars like William F. Albright in which “Canaanite” was generally recognized as a geographically derived term that could be applied inclusively, therefore, to refer to the population of Canaan (i.e., as a demonym). This was done, however, under the assumption that so-called Canaanite traditions of the Late Bronze Age persisted from the Middle Bronze Age, a period associated with Amorite cultural traditions. While this understanding 527 Aaron A. Burke can be said to be generally well reasoned, it required more explanation than could be offered at the time, and it is not clear that most scholars since then have fully considered the interpretive implications associated with identifying Canaan’s Late Bronze Age population as ethnically Canaanite (see critique in Lemche 1991). As a result of inheriting this reasoning, biblical scholarship has addressed the Amorites in a rather schizophrenic fashion. On the one hand, biblical scholars in the 20th century regularly sought to establish direct connections between biblical references to Amorites (and other appellations associated with Amorite groups in the Bible) and the early history of Israel, especially within the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. Much has been written, for example, seeking to identify Abram’s departure from Mesopotamia as a broad reflection of Amorite origins with attendant reconstructions of the cultural and historical contexts as well as the chronology of the patriarchal narratives. Unsurprisingly, these were among the earliest efforts of biblical archaeology to be widely challenged, largely for sidestepping the relevant contributions made by textual criticism during the prior century (Thompson 1974; Van Seters 1975). Overlooked were not only anachronisms throughout these narratives but also the overriding, often forced, etiological character of these texts, which in more recent scholarship has been appropriately framed as cultural memories or myths, which are recognized to serve an important role in articulating both Israel’s and Judah’s prehistory (Hendel 2005: 2010). Still, owing to the frequency of references to Amorites and their location as one of Canaan’s inhabitants before Israel, they continue to be included in broad treatments of the peoples of the Bible (Liverani 1973; Fleming 2016). On the other hand, biblical scholars with firm groundings in ancient Near Eastern studies also recognize that Amorites, who in their own right played an outsized role in the ancient Near East in the second millennium (Burke 2021a), likely played some role in shaping the cultural landscape of Israel and Judah during the first millennium. The emphasis, until recently at least, has been principally on how tribalism and pastoralism among Amorite groups of the early second millennium at Mari contribute to our understanding of these phenomena in ancient Israel (see Fleming 2012: 202–19 and bibliography therein). This effort is an outgrowth of previous work to understand the biblical patriarchs as pastoralists and the patriarchal age as tribal—more so than during the monarchic period, for example—based on readings of the patriarchal narratives, despite that they too were products of the late Iron Age. Although the extensive exploration of these subjects has borne much fruit (see Fleming 2016 and bibliography therein), it has resulted in the all-too-frequent elision of pastoralism, tribalism, and Amorite identity that has pervaded Near Eastern studies (e.g., Porter 2012). This is understandable considering the sheer size and scope of the Mari corpus that has become, effectively, the backbone of Amorite studies. However, such efforts have too often propagated comparisons of Israel’s agropastoral economy and that of the highly specialized, large-scale pastoralist economies of the Mesopotamian steppe as they are known from the Mari archive. In this context, these comparisons result from the assumption that the patriarchal narratives accurately represent Israel’s Iron Age economy, rather than an idealization of Israel’s origins. This also fails to account for the fact that the etiological purpose of Genesis engenders no confidence in it as a historical source and as a result, it becomes an unreliable source by which to reconstruct a historical picture of the region’s society and economy before the late Iron Age. Such efforts, for example, have mistakenly retrojected the environmental conditions of the highlands during the late Ottoman period—when the region was deforested and covered to a large extent by grassy terraces on which only small herds from nearby villages and farmsteads could be sustained (though to the peril of reforestation)14 —as representative of the highlands during the Iron Age. However, the highlands until the early Iron 528 Amorites and Canaanites Age probably consisted of a traditional Mediterranean forested landscape that also typified the Middle Bronze Age, which was increasingly employed for horticulture and viticulture.15 In short, what we know of the Iron Age highlands, and certainly that of any earlier period, is not commensurate with a highland open to extensive grazing as would be required for sustaining a Mari-like, pastoralist economy. Concerning comparisons between the Israelite economy and that of Amorite communities, reliance on Mari has reified the association between pastoralists and Amorites that typified Mesopotamian studies during the 20th century (Burke 2021a: 90–91). As such, stereotypes, often derived from tropes occurring among select texts, have been adopted as representations of pastoralists (see discussion in Porter 2012). Further, Mari’s pastoralist economy was likely rather unique even within the Near East (Arbuckle and Hammer 2018: 420–24). Yet, were we to consider the Amorite communities closer in time to that of Israel, like Late Bronze Age Ugarit (Buck 2020), we find arguably broader and more diverse economies that serve as a better point of comparison. These were village-based economies reliant on rainfed agriculture and supplemented by small-scale, mostly local pastoralism, now commonly referred to as agropastoral. As a result, many scholarly efforts to relate Amorites to the biblical tradition have reified the characterization of Israelite and Amorite economies as principally pastoralist, which they have assumed is further supported by a related vocabulary for social structures and customs. However, both economies are fundamentally agropastoralist, varying only in the extent to which they engaged in these two broad sectors of their economies. With respect to the question of tribal social structure, what we know of Amorite social organization is only a useful frame of reference insofar as the Mari texts provide an unparalleled and extensively documented example of traditional, rural tribal society in the West Semitic tradition. It is worth keeping in mind that outside of the Hebrew Bible we possess no Iron Age sources from the Levant (i.e., not from any of Israel’s or Judah’s neighbors) with which to compare our reconstruction of Israelite society as portrayed in the Bible. Was it also radically different than the third-millennium societies that preceded it in the Levant or those of the Late Bronze Age, like Ugarit? Not likely. While there remain useful and important points of comparison (for a detailed discussion, see Fleming 2004: 24–103), these are more general in character and owe more to the wider cultural milieu out of which Israel emerged at the end of the second millennium BCE. Rather, these comparisons do suggest that Israel, Judah, and neighboring groups can be seen to owe something to second-millennium traditions that preceded their own, which can be identified with Amorites (Fleming 2012). In this context, explorations of groups like the Arameans, for example, might also be revisited for the observations they may afford concerning an analogous, first-millennium group that would also have shared in this Amorite “cultural stream.”16 Nevertheless, up to the present these approaches, while touching upon relevant strands for fleshing out any relationship between Israel of the Iron Age and the Amorites of antiquity, largely fail to account for the precise manners by which references to Amorites entered biblical tradition. This is in part due to a lack of consensus on so many aspects of the textualization of Israelite tradition in biblical scholarship, but also because of a lack of familiarity with the archaeological and broader cultural history of the ancient Near East that makes possible a more nuanced approach for understanding how Amorites factored into both ancient Israel’s cultural memory and may have impacted Israelite traditions. If one thing is clear from this brief survey, it is that by the Iron Age the term Amurru no longer possessed any particular association with either pastoralism or tribalism, as had been the emphasis of earlier biblical scholarship. In sum, biblical references to Amorites as among 529 Aaron A. Burke the remaining inhabitants of parts of Canaan by the Late Bronze Age seem most often to have rendered a known geographic label as a demonym. Less frequently, the Bible referenced specific groups identified as Amorites, who were listed as one of several groups inhabiting Canaan before the Israelites. It is perhaps this observation that warrants consideration of the broader cultural context that is the tangible, material contribution of Amorites to the world of ancient Israel, quite apart from, and in spite of, the portrayal of Amorites in biblical literature. An Amorite Legacy and Its Reception While an Iron Age context for the reading of references to Amorites in the Hebrew Bible clarifies many issues, consideration of the cultural trajectory of Israel, Judah, and their neighbors during the Iron Age reveals that they were also heirs to a significant cultural legacy that is to be attributed to the Levant’s Bronze Age inhabitants. Much of this legacy reveals a discernible antiquity that traces back to the early second millennium BCE (e.g., Burke 2021b), exposing a variety of Israelite traditions as part of a cultural koine or “cultural stream” that took shape during a period of Amorite patronage in the Middle Bronze Age (Burke 2014). Of great importance to this situation is that these were the prevailing circumstances whether or not the Iron Age inhabitants of the Levant were aware of this prehistory and its implications. As the earlier quote from Amos suggests, there may have been a vague sense of such a heritage that was attributed to Amorites and other cultural groups. However, as illustrated with respect to religious traditions, Amorites were almost exclusively painted in a negative light by biblical authors. Even so, various other unacknowledged traditions within Israelite and Judean societies were also arguably influenced by Amorite cultural institutions, which were most conspicuous at the peak of Amorite social power during the late Middle Bronze Age, as exemplified among a range of monuments large and small (Burke 2021a: 257–344). Consequently, this Amorite koine, like a painting’s canvas, contributed indelibly to the cultural palimpsest of first-millennium Levantine communities. To the extent that the Levant’s inhabitants were aware of the origins of these traditions, their engagement with them varied significantly. They could appropriate and modify these traditions, reject them, or be entirely indifferent to them if often only because they were entirely unaware of the influences of these early traditions upon what they would likely have myopically identified as core elements of their own traditions.17 In the absence of a longue durée perspective concerning the customs and traditions of these Iron Age populations, the contributions of Amorites to the shaping of Levantine traditions too often have been overlooked, misattributed, or minimized. Yet, whether considering the realm of kingship, jurisprudence, cult, or burial customs, for instance, Amorite customs extensively shaped Levantine cultural traditions by the end of the Bronze Age. This is not to say, of course, that other distinct influences are not also evident from neighboring regions such as Egypt, Anatolia, or Mesopotamia, nor that other local traditions did not persist. Rather, such influences on ancient Israel and its neighbors largely occurred sporadically and mostly in the wake of a significant Amorite cultural stream, which arguably shaped many of the most identifiable substrates of Levantine cultural traditions during the first millennium BCE. In what follows, attention is given to a variety of Amorite-style monuments that persisted during the Iron Age in the southern Levant: royal inscriptions, direct-axis temples, stelae, and royal burial traditions. Iron Age royal inscriptions are likely among the most conspicuous monuments of royal patronage within an Amorite tradition. The accomplishments they record find their echo in 530 Amorites and Canaanites documents like one proclaiming the deeds of Yahdun-Lim, written on a foundation tablet at Mari (COS 2.111).18 Among the accomplishments attributed to him, and mirrored among other Old Babylonian inscriptions associated with Amorite rulers, were canal excavation, fortification construction, the erection of stelae, the conduct of expeditions, the subjugation of enemy lands, and temple construction. While all of these do not possess easily discernible archaeological correlates, they are prominent in the Hebrew Bible especially in association with, for example, the founders of the Judean and Omride dynasties. Among the imagery with strong associations with earlier Amorite rule is, for example, the identification of the king as a shepherd to his people (Burke 2021a: 194; e.g., 2 Sam 5:2). While no monumental stelae recording the deeds of Israelite or Judean kings have been identified yet, that the genre of royal inscriptions extolling kingly deeds was likely an inherited archetype is illustrated both by biblical literature and in the most famous example of a stele so far identified, namely the stele of Mesha from the 9th century BCE. Despite the absence of examples of such inscriptions for Judean kings, efforts were made to remember similar accomplishments, as evidenced in the book of Kings (1 Kgs 9:15–22). Much like the inscription of Yahdun-Lim, this dedicatory inscription memorializes Mesha’s kingship, his lineage, his patron god, the military defeats of his enemies, his construction of cities, restoration of water systems, and various other monumental building programs (COS 2.23). There is ample evidence for a genre of royal Iron Age Levantine inscriptions, whether or not inscribed on stelae identical to that of Mesha, like the 9th century Aramaic inscription of Hazael from Tel Dan (COS 2.39), as well as fragments of other Moabite inscriptions (COS 4.19 and 4.20). Aside from commemorative stele and plaques, the concept of legal traditions inscribed on stelae that could be publicly consulted also originated in the early second millennium when collections of laws were frequently erected in public spaces by rulers (Burke 2021a: 319–22). The idea of laws inscribed on stelae seems to underlie the portrayal of the reception of Israelite law in the Sinai narrative within which Israelite laws were inscribed on stone “tablets” (Exod 24:12; 31:18; 34:1). Although there is little consensus on the exact antiquity of Israelite law as presented in the Bible, law collections associated with various Amorite rulers—Hammurabi foremost among them—were copied and recopied for a millennium thereafter, with copies appearing in the library of Ashurbanipal (Roth 1995). Although Middle Assyrian laws likely played a role in Neo-Assyrian legal practices, it is curious that no Neo-Assyrian law collections or copies of them have ever been identified (Radner 2003). Consequently, one is inclined to see the influence of Old Babylonian legal traditions, which were known widely within Neo-Assyrian scribal circles, as significant to biblical legal tradition as well, whether they were transmitted through Levantine circles or, perhaps more likely, canonized during the Iron Age with a certain awareness of Old Babylonian traditions. The most conspicuous monuments of an Amorite legacy were direct-axis temples, which demonstrate a direct evolution from the Middle Bronze Age through the Iron Age (Figure 33.1). The most famous Iron Age example is, of course, the temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem that was constructed by Solomon that is described in 1 Kgs 6. While the temple of Yahweh certainly possessed analogs among Iron II temples like those at Arad and Moza, its forebears are actually to be found among Middle and Late Bronze Age temples in the Levant, which are variously referred to as belonging to the “migdol” (i.e., tower) or Syrian type (Mazar 1992, see esp. figure 3). By the Middle Bronze Age, the type was widespread in the Levant and Mesopotamia (Burke 2021a: 302–17), having originated during the third millennium, as most clearly demonstrated at Ebla (d’Andrea 2019: 20–24). Iron Age examples of this temple type in the Levant (see Mazzoni 2002) include those at Tell Ta‘yinat (Haines 1971: 53–55), ‘Ain Dara (Abou Assaf 1990), the Aleppo citadel (Kohlmeyer 2000), 531 Aaron A. Burke Figure 33.1 Middle Bronze Age temples in the Levant (after Burke 2021: figure 5:10) Tell Mastuma (Nishiyama 2012), Karkemish (Woolley and Barnett 1952: 167–75, 210–14), Arad (Aharoni 1993: 83–84), and Tel Moza’ (Kisilevitz 2015). In keeping with Levantine prototypes, the Solomonic temple is described as possessing an open precinct in front and like the Late Bronze Age temple at Hazor also featured a large altar for sacrifices (Lev-Tov and McGeough 2007). From the Middle Bronze Age onward, standing stones (Akk. sikkanu) were popular monuments in many Amorite cultic contexts (Durand 2005). This also was the case in the Levant during the same period, likely due to the ready availability of such natural elements. Although these were anepigraphic, they often appear in temple contexts, sometimes even propped against their facades (Burke 2021a: 137). Although the employment of these stelae during the period of the Judean monarchy (Heb. maṣṣebôt) was derided by Yahwists (2 Kgs 18:4; 23:14) because of their specific associations with deities like Baal (2 Kgs 3:2), they were remarkably persistent elements in cultic contexts throughout Israel and Judah during the Iron Age. Such stelae even appear in the “holy of holies” of the Judean temple at Arad (Aharoni 1993: 83–84) and have been identified at Tel Moza, and many more examples are known from a wide variety of cult installations throughout the southern Levant during the Iron Age (Bloch-Smith 2015 and bibliography therein). It is unclear, though, if the pillars (Heb. amudîm) located in the portico of Solomon’s temple, which were named Boaz and 532 Amorites and Canaanites Jachin (1 Kgs 7:21), are also to be identified as maṣṣebôt since a different Hebrew term is used to describe them, or if they were structural as attested in the Bronze Age temple at Hazor (Figure 33.1). Nevertheless, standing stones, mostly aniconic, were an enduring element in ritual activities for various deities, as had been the case with the Amorite pagrû rite associated with the god Dagon, which persisted at Ugarit until the end of the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Pardee 2002: 123–25). Other practices such as the intramural burial of royalty, like the kings of Judah (e.g., 1 Kgs 2:10) who were presumably buried under the palace in the City of David, may likewise be suggested to originate in a second-millennium milieu (Zorn 2006). Although continuity is often said to dominate burial practices in Canaan, intramural residential funerary chambers first appeared only in the early Middle Bronze Age (Gonen 1992) in the Levant, likley owing their influence to Amorite social groups (Burke 2021a: 289–93, 322–27). Even though they exhibit some variation, from sub-floor inhumations to corbel-vaulted hypogea, this period across much of the Near East witnessed a new and distinct emphasis on residential burials especially among elites (Laneri 2014; Valentini 2016), even as extramural, communal burial chambers were also employed, as in the Levant. Nevertheless, many of the extramural burials of the late Iron Age outside Jerusalem, for example, actually exhibit greater affinity to Middle and Late Bronze Age burial practices than they do to earlier Iron Age burial traditions, especially with respect to their plan, approach, kinship, and function.19 Despite the relative ease with which earlier traditions like those mentioned above can be identified, other influences of Amorite tradition are only preserved in biblical narratives. Indeed, while the seeming ubiquity of some of these traditions has sometimes led to their qualification as generally ancient Near Eastern in character, this is a rather useless classification that stops short of actually seeking the cultural and historical origins of these traditions, which are of importance to the work of text critics, biblical historians, and archaeologists alike. Recognizing the late Iron Age to Persian Period contexts for the writing of the Hebrew Bible, various allusions to practices often discussed in connection with Amorites in earlier periods are notable. Among these are the occurrence of Middle Bronze Age personal names with Yahwistic elements (Finet 1993b: 20), the esteem given to the donkey in Levantine society and economy from the late third millennium on (Lafont 2000; Way 2010), the place of donkey sacrifice in ritual among Amorite and biblical traditions (Finet 1993a), and arguably even lion imagery as associated with Yahweh (Burke 2021a: 195; cf. Strawn 2009). The above examples suffice to illustrate some of the more conspicuous and tangible elements of the influence of an Amorite legacy and to underscore that much more research into these individual traditions is warranted, with the hope that they will improve our understandings of certain elements among biblical traditions. Conclusions Despite early and overly optimistic scholarly efforts to identify the biblical patriarchs as historical figures among Amorite communities of the Middle Bronze Age, there remains a legitimate basis for seeking to identify early cultural influences that shaped first-millennium Levantine societies. While there is a long-accepted tradition of identifying aspects of cultural continuity across the archaeological records of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant and the ancient Near Eastern character of many biblical traditions, it is necessary to further consider the specific manner in which each of these traditions came to be preserved in the Bible. In some cases, there are reasons to suggest that cultural memories associated with Amorites circulated widely during the Iron Age and that these were assimilated by 533 Aaron A. Burke biblical writers. In other cases, cultural practices persisted that suggest a cultural legacy owed by first-millennium Levantine societies to an Amorite oikoumene that prevailed during the first half of the second millennium. Outside of a limited number of biblical references, however, the challenge remains to discern to what extent the Levant’s Iron Age inhabitants could attribute particular practices to specific groups like the Amorites. Notes 1 I would like to thank Adam Miglio, Jeremy Smoak, and Kyle Keimer for helpful remarks on an early draft of this work. Any errors herein remain my own. 2 For Mari, see A.3552 (COS 4.50). 3 Put’s descendants are omitted. 4 The absence of a reference to Tyre here or elsewhere in Genesis, points to its relative unimportance from the Achaemenid period onward when Sidon ascended politically and received control of Dor and Jaffa to its south in the 5th century BCE (COS 2.57), when it also seems to have exerted influence over this coast, as perhaps reflected in Gen 10:19. 5 The reflection of the relationship of Ham vis-à-vis Canaan, his progeny, is almost certainly a memory of Egypt’s short-lived control of Canaan during the late 7th century BCE under the Saite Dynasty, which was quickly replaced by the Babylonian empire (Redford 1992: 430–69). 6 By contrast, there are references to named Hittites (e.g., Ephron the Hittite in Gen 23:10) and Amorites. 7 For Neo-Assyrian period references to “Amurru” from reign of Shalmanesser III on, see RIMA 3 and RINAP volumes. At least one reference to the “army of Amurru” in the reign of Adad-nirari (RIMA 0.104.2011) likely references a coalition of kingdoms in this region. 8 RIMA 0.87.3; 0.87.10. 9 RIMA 0.102.2. 10 Concerning the “ways of the Amorite” criticized in the Talmud, see Tosefta Shabbat 67a and 67b. 11 Of these various “land of ethnonym” constructs, the “land of the Hittites” occurs four times and is located north and associated with Hatti of the Neo-Assyrian period and not in Anatolia (e.g., Josh 1:4), while the “land of the Perizzites” occurs only once ( Josh 17:15). 12 The identification of former, largely dispossessed populations of Canaan, including the Amorites, as giants is an important theme in biblical tradition (Hendel 2021). 13 This would also be the case for Hittites, Hivites, Girgashites, and Jebusites within the biblical text, quite irrespective of the accuracy of these labels or historical reality of these identities. Whether imagined or not, various of these groups were identified with more specific geographic areas within Canaan. 14 See Kark and Levin (2013). 15 See Finkelstein and Langgut (2014, 2018) and Langgut et al. (2014), among other studies. 16 See Fleming (2016: 27–28), now also Younger (2017: 35–107). Concerning the use of the term “cultural stream,” see Fleming (2012: 202–19). 17 As invoked here, the “logic of demand, rejection, or indifference” is articulated by Michael Dietler (2010: 66–74). 18 See also RIME 4.6.8.2. 19 It is certainly likely that extramural burial chambers of the Middle Bronze Age, which were analogous to their intramural counterparts and cannot be distinguished by their contents, were in many cases simply the result of the limits of space experienced by tell-based communities seeking to bury their dead. Bibliography Abou Assaf, Ali. 1990. Der Temple von ‘Ain Dara. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. Aharoni, Miriam. 1993. “Arad: Israelite Citadels.” Pages 82–87 in vol. 1 of NEAEHL. Edited by E. Stern. New York: Simon and Schuster. Arbuckle, Benjamin S., and Emily L. Hammer. 2018. “The Rise of Pastoralism in the Ancient Near East.” JAR 27: 391–449. 534 Amorites and Canaanites Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth. 2015. “Massebot Standing for Yhwh: The Fall of a Yhwistic Cult Symbol.” Pages 99–115 in Worship, Women and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch. Edited by John J. Collins, T. M. Lemos and Saul M. Olyan. Providence: Brown University. Bryce, Trevor R. 2009. “Amurru.” Pages 41–42 in The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia: From the Early Bronze Age to the Fall of the Persian Empire. Edited by Trevor R. Bryce. London: Routledge. Buck, Mary Ellen. 2020. The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit: Historical Implications of Linguistic and Archaeological Parallels. Leiden: Brill. Burke, Aaron A. 2014. “Entanglement, the Amorite koiné, and Amorite Cultures in the Levant.” ARAM 26: 357–73. ———. 2021a. The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ———. 2021b. “Toward the Reconstruction of a Sacred Landscape of the Judean Highlands.” JANER 21:1–41. doi: 10.1163/15692124-12341317. d’Andrea, Marta. 2019. “Before the Cultural Koinè: Contextualising Interculturality in the ‘Greater Levant’ during the Late Early Bronze Age and the Early Middle Bronze Age.” Pages 13–45 in The Enigma of the Hyksos I: ASOR Conference Boston 2017−ICAANE Conference Munich 2018—Collected Papers. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Silvia Prell. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Dietler, Michael. 2010. Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France. Berkeley: University of California Press. Durand, Jean-Marie. 2005. Le culte des pierres et les monuments commémoratifs en Syrie amorrite. Paris: SEPOA. Finet, André. 1993a. “Le sacrifice de l’âne en Mésopotamie.” Pages 135–42 in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East. Edited by J. Quaegebeur. Leuven: Peeters. ———. 1993b. “Yahve au royaume Mari.” Pages 15–22 in Circulations des monnaies, des merchandises et des biens. Edited by Y. Mansef. Bures-sur-Yvette: Groupe pour l’étude de la civilisation du Moyen-orient. Finkelstein, Israel, and Dafna Langgut. 2014. “Dry Climate in the Middle Bronze I and Its Impact on Settlement Patterns in the Levant and Beyond: New Pollen Evidence.” JNES 73:219–34. ———. 2018. “Climate, Settlement History, and Olive Cultivation in the Iron Age Southern Levant.” BASOR 379:153–69. Fleming, Daniel E. 2004. Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors: Mari and Early Collective Governance. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. The Legacy of Israel in Judah’s Bible: History, Politics, and the Reinscribing of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2016. “The Amorites.” Pages.1–30 in The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Gonen, Rivka. 1992. “Structural Tombs in the Second Millennium B.C.” Pages 151–60 in The Architecture of Ancient Israel: From the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods. Edited by Aharon Kempinski and Ronny Reich. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Haines, Richard C. 1971. Excavations in the Plain of Antioch II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hendel, Ronald S. 2005. Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. “Cultural Memory.” Pages 28–46 in Reading Genesis: Ten Methods. Edited by Ronald S. Hendel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2021. “The Landscape of Memory: Giants and the Conquest of Canaan.” Pages 263–88 in Collective Identity and Collective Memory: Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Their Context. Edited by Johannes U. Ro and Diana Edelman. Berlin: De Gruyter. Ishida, Tomoo. 1979. “The Structure and Historical Implications of the Lists of Pre-Israelite Nations.” Biblica 60:461–90. Kark, Ruth, and Noam Levin. 2013. “The Environment in Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, 1798–1918.” Pages 1–28 in Between Ruin and Restoration: An Environmental History of Israel. Edited by Daniel E. Orenstein, Alon Tal and Char Miller. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kenyon, Kathleen M. 1966. Amorites and Canaanites, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Killebrew, Ann E. 2005. Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel 1300–1100 B.C.E. Atlanta: SBL. 535 Aaron A. Burke Kisilevitz, Shua. 2015. “The Iron IIA Judahite Temple at Tel Moza.” TA 42:147–64. Kohlmeyer, Kay. 2000. Der Tempel des Wettergottes von Aleppo. Münster: Rhema. Lafont, Bertrand. 2000. “Cheval, âne, onagre et mule dans la haute historire mésopotamienne: quelques données nouvelles.” TopoiSupp 2:207–21. Lambert, Wilfred G. 1996. Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon, 1960. Repr., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Laneri, Nicola. 2014. “Locating the Social Memory of the Ancestors: Residential Funerary Chambers as Locales of Social Remembrance in Mesopotamia during the Late Third and Early Second Millennia BC.” Pages 3–10 in Contextualising Grave Inventories in the Ancient Near East. Edited by Peter Pfälzner, Herbert Niehr, Ernst Pernicka, Sarah Lange and Tina Köster. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Langgut, Dafna, Frank Harald Neumann, Mordechai Stein, Allon Wagner, Elisa Joy Kagan, Elisabetta Boaretto, and Israel Finkelstein. 2014. “Dead Sea Pollen Record and History of Human Activity in the Judean Highlands (Israel) from the Intermediate Bronze into the Iron Ages (∼2500–500 BCE).” Palynology 38:280–302. Lemche, Niels Peter. 1991. The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites. Edited by David J. A. Clines and Philip R. Davies. Sheffield: JSOT. Lev-Tov, Justin, and Kevin McGeough. 2007. “Examining Feasting in Late Bronze Age Syro-Palestine through Ancient Texts and Bones.” Pages 85–111 in The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Edited by Katheryn C. Twiss. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Liverani, Mario. 1973. “The Amorites.” Pages 100–33 in Peoples of Old Testament Times. Edited by Donald J. Wiseman. Oxford: Clarendon. Mazar, Amihai. 1992. “Temples of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and the Iron Age.” Pages 161–87 in The Architecture of Ancient Israel: From the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods. Edited by Aharon Kempinski and Ronny Reich. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Mazzoni, Stefania. 2002. “Temples in the City and Countryside: New Trends in Iron Age Syria.” DamM 13:89–99. Nishiyama, Shin’ichi. 2012. “A Local Temple in the Iron Age Village? Reassessing a Building Complex at Tell Mastuma in the Northern Levant.” Orient 47: 91–123. Pardee, Dennis. 2002. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Edited by Simon B. Parker. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Porter, Anne. 2012. Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Radner, Karen. 2003. “Neo-Assyrian Period.” Pages 883–910 in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law. Edited by Raymond Westbrook and Gary M. Beckman. Leiden: Brill. Rainey, Anson F. 1996. “Who Is a Canaanite? A Review of the Textual Evidence.” BASOR 304:1–15. Redford, Donald B. 1992. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Roth, Martha T. 1995. “Mesopotamian Legal Traditions and the Laws of Hammurabi.” Chicago-Kent Law Review 71: 13–39. Strawn, Brent A. 2009. “Whence Leonine Yahweh? Iconography and the History of Israelite Religion.” Pages 51–85 in Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean. Edited by Martti Nissinen and Charles E. Carter. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Thompson, Thomas L. 1974. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham. Berlin: De Gruyter. Valentini, Stefano. 2016. “Vaulted Hypogea during the Middle Bronze Age: A Perfect Example of the Intra-Muros Multiple Tomb in Mesopotamia.” Pages 217–40 in How to Cope with Death: Mourning and Funerary Practices in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the International Workshop, Firenze, 5th6th December 2013. Edited by Candida Felli. Florence: ETS. Van Seters, John. 1975. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University. Way, Kenneth C. 2010. “Assessing Sacred Asses: Bronze Age Donkey Burials in the Near East.” Levant 42: 210–25. Woolley, Charles Leonard, and Richard D. Barnett. 1952. Carchemish: Report on the Excavations at Djerabis, Part III, The Excavations in the Inner Town; The Hittite Inscriptions. London: Trustees of the British Museum. Zorn, Jeffrey R. 2006. “The Burials of the Judean Kings: Sociohistorical Considerations and Suggestions.” Pages 801–20 in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Edited by Aren M. Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. 536 THE ANCIENT ISRAELITE WORLD This volume presents a collection of studies by international experts on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society, economy, religion, language, culture, and history, synthesizing archaeological remains and integrating them with discussions of ancient Near Eastern and biblical texts. Driven by theoretically and methodologically informed discussions of the archaeology of the Iron Age Levant, the 47 chapters in The Ancient Israelite World provide foundational, accessible, and detailed studies in their respective topics. The volume considers the history of interpretation of ancient Israel, studies on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society and history, and avenues for present and future approaches to the ancient Israelite world. Accompanied by over 150 maps and figures, it allows the reader to gain an understanding of key issues that archaeologists, historians, and biblical scholars have faced and are currently facing as they attempt to better understand ancient Israelite society. The Ancient Israelite World is an essential reference work for students and scholars of ancient Israel and its history, culture, and society, whether they are historians, archaeologists, or biblical scholars. Kyle H. Keimer is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Archaeology, History, and Language of Ancient Israel at Macquarie University, Australia. He co-edited Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East: Getting the Message Across and is co-editing “See the Whole Land is Before You”: New Directions in the Historical Geography of the Ancient Near East. His research focuses on integrating the archaeology of ancient Israel and the biblical texts. He also co-directed excavations at Khirbet el-Ra‘i, Israel. George A. Pierce is Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, USA. He recently co-edited “To Explore the Land of Canaan:” Studies in Honor of Jeffrey R. Chadwick. His research interests include environmental reconstruction, regional settlement patterns, and digital application in archaeology. He is the supervisor of the GIS team for the Tel Shimron excavations, Israel. TH E ROUTLEDGE WOR LDS THE TOKUGAWA WORLD Edited by Gary P. Leupp and De-min Tao THE INUIT WORLD Edited by Pamela Stern THE ARTHURIAN WORLD Edited by Miriam Edlich-Muth, Renée Ward, and Victoria Coldham-Fussell THE MONGOL WORLD Edited by Timothy May and Michael Hope THE SÁMI WORLD Edited by Sanna Valkonen, Áile Aikio, Saara Alakorva, and Sigga-Marja Magga THE WORLD OF THE ANCIENT SILK ROAD Edited by Xinru Liu with the assistance of Pia Brancaccio THE WORLD OF THE BAHÁ'Í FAITH Edited By Robert H. Stockman THE QUAKER WORLD Edited by C. Wess Daniels and Rhiannon Grant THE ANCIENT ISRAELITE WORLD Edited by Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Worlds/book-series/WORLDS THE ANCIENT ISRAELITE WORLD Edited by Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce Cover image: Zev Radovan, BibleLandPictures.com First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Keimer, Kyle H., editor. | Pierce, George A., editor. Title: The ancient Israelite world / edited by Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge worlds | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022021077 (print) | LCCN 2022021078 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367406844 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032349732 (paperback) | ISBN 9780367815691 (ebook) Subjects: CYAC: Palestine-Civilivation. | Jews-History-To 70 A.D. Classification: LCC DS121.3 .A53 2023 (print) | LCC DS121.3 (ebook) | DDC 933/.4-dc23/eng/20220511 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022021077 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022021078 ISBN: 978-0-367-40684-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34973-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-81569-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367815691 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra To Elizabeth, Cayley, Annabelle, and Hannah. I love you guys in a circle. KHK To Krystal,Victoria, and Geo. I love you guys four-square. GAP CONTENTS List of figures List of tables List of contributors Abbreviations Preface xii xix xx xxv xxx 1 An Introduction to the Ancient Israelite World: The State of the Field and Future Directions Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce 1 PART I Backgrounds and Methodological Considerations 13 2 The Historical Geography of Ancient Israel: The Amalekite Spoil List (1 Sam 30:27–31) as a Case Study Chris McKinny 15 3 Competing Chronologies, Competing Histories: Ancient Israel and the Chronology of the Southern Levant ca. 1200–587 BCE Koert van Bekkum 34 4 The Historian and the Assemblage: On the Interpretation of Texts and Artifacts for the History of Ancient Israel Daniel Pioske 54 5 Between the Biblical Story and History: Writing an Archaeological History of Ancient Israel Avraham Faust 67 vii Contents 6 Texts, Archaeology, and Ethnicity: Identifying Ancient Israel William G. Dever 83 PART II Material Culture 99 7 A Technological and Sociological Perspective on Ancient Israelite Pottery 101 Nava Panitz-Cohen 8 Domestic Architecture, the Household, and Daily Life in Iron Age Israel Jeffrey R. Zorn 9 Monuments, Monumental Architecture, and Monumentality in Ancient Israel Kyle H. Keimer 10 Stone Volutes: United by a Common Motif not by a Common Function Norma Franklin 119 142 156 11 From Urban Centers into Mounds of Ruins: The Destruction of Cities during the Iron Age Igor Kreimerman 175 12 Regional Continuity and Change in Ancient Israel: An Analysis of Iron Age Settlement Patterns and Systems George A. Pierce 189 PART III Society and Economy 207 13 Ancient Israel’s Social Structure(s) Gunnar Lehmann 209 14 Tribal Kingdoms and the Tribal Element in Southern Levantine Iron Age Polities Øystein S. LaBianca and Jeffrey P. Hudon 224 15 Israel’s Political and Administrative Structures in the Pre-Monarchic and Monarchic Periods Zachary Thomas 236 viii Contents 16 The Judahite Economy in First Temple Times: Remodeling the House of David—A Case Study from Tell en-Naṣbeh Aaron Brody 251 17 The Socioeconomics of Food and Feasting in Pre-Exilic Israel and Judah Rebekah Welton 263 18 Gender in Ancient Israel Jennie Ebeling 277 19 Children in Ancient Israel Kristine Henriksen Garroway 291 20 Social Issues in the Establishment of Biblical Law in the Iron Age Eckart Otto 305 21 Warfare and Intelligence Gathering in Ancient Israel Charlie Trimm 317 PART IV Language 333 22 Literacy and Scribalism in Israel during the Iron Age (ca. 1200/1150–586 BCE) Matthieu Richelle 335 23 More than the Sum of Their Parts: Multimodality and the Study of Iron Age Inscriptions Alice Mandell 348 24 Socio-political Gleanings from Northwest Semitic Paleography: The Inscriptions from Tel Reḥov, as a Test Case Nathaniel E. Greene 363 25 Language in Israel and Judah: A Sociolinguistic Reappraisal Timothy Hogue 26 The Composition of the Hebrew Bible: Process in the Production of Israelite Literature Joel S. Baden ix 384 404 Contents PART V Religion 419 27 Religion in the House in Ancient Israel Jeremy D. Smoak 421 28 Visual Culture and Religion in Ancient Israel and Judah Christoph Uehlinger 434 29 The Archaeology of Israelite Cult: Yahwisms across Space and Time George A. Pierce and Kyle H. Keimer 464 30 The Role of Ritual in Biblical Narrative Dan Belnap 480 31 Israelite Prophecy from Its Origins to the Exile Shawn Zelig Aster 494 32 Death and Afterlife Christopher B. Hays 505 PART VI Israel Among the Nations 521 33 Amorites and Canaanites: Memory, Tradition, and Legacy in Ancient Israel and Judah Aaron A. Burke 523 34 New Kingdom Egypt and Early Israel: Entangled Identities Aaron A. Burke 537 35 Philistines and Israelites/Judahites: Antagonism and Interaction Aren M. Maeir 549 36 Early Interactions between the Arameans and Israelites Scott W. Booth 565 3 7 Phoenicians and Ancient Israel Ilan Sharon 582 38 Ammonites in the World of Israel Randall W. Younker 600 x Contents 39 The Invention of Ancient Moab Benjamin W. Porter 619 40 Edom and Southern Jordan in the Iron Age Juan Manuel Tebes 639 41 Egypt and the Levant in the Third Intermediate Period (Iron IB–IIIA): Fragmentation, Foreignness, and Fungibility Krystal V. L. Pierce 658 42 Reconstructing the Kushite Royal House: The Chronology of Egypt’s 25th Dynasty and Its Relation to Judah Jeremy Pope 675 43 Israel and Assyria, Judah and Assyria Ido Koch 693 44 Babylon and Israel: Cultural Contact and Cultural Impact Laurie E. Pearce 713 PART VII The Legacy and Future of Ancient Israel 729 45 The Future of Studying Ancient Israel: Insights from the Archaeological Sciences with a Focus on Food and Society Lidar Sapir-Hen 731 46 Cyber-Archaeology and the Study of Ancient Edom and Israel Matthew D. Howland and Thomas E. Levy 741 47 Israel, Ancient and Modern: Representations and Misrepresentations of the Past in Dialogue with the Present Rachel Hallote 756 Index 777 xi