So that those of you who regularly read the blog should not be totally depressed from the last entry about the vandalism on the tell, here is some more positive news.
Yesterday, I heard two very interesting talks.
In the morning, Oren Ackermann, the Safi project geoarchaeologist, gave a very interesting talk about the “geomorphological markers,” as part of the bi-weekly lab talks at the lab. Oren, who has been conducting geoarchaeological and environmental archaeological work at the site (and other sites as well) for more than a decade, and has published quite a few article on this (see, for example, here and here and here), spoke about examples in which unique geological, geomorphological and environmental features leave marks on the human remains, that if you are aware of them, can help you “read” the ancient human environment. He gave examples for this such as differential landuse in relationship to agricultural terraces in different environments, appearance of certain types of installations (such as wine presses, oil presses, etc.) on certain types of rock formations, etc. This was a very interesting talk which stressed how one must be very much aware of the need for recreating a holistic (as possible) picture of the relationship between ancient activities and sites, and the environment surrounding them.
Here is Oren giving the talk
Later on the in the afternoon, I went to Tel Aviv University and heard a talk given by Prof. P. Kyle McCarter (Johns Hopkins - well known for his excellent commentaries on I-II Samuel in the Anchor Bible Series) on the paleography of the Tel Zayit abecedary. Prof. McCarter stressed the unique features of the inscription, and in particular, notes how it related to other, more or less contemporary inscriptions (such as Gezer), and that in his opinion one cannot yet call either the Zayit or Gezer inscriptions as Hebrew inscriptions, since they are both yet missing unique features that ones find in the “Hebrew National Script” (no relation to the hot dogs …) of the 9th through 6 centuries.
Aren
Posted in Miscellaneous
