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UNCOVERING The Western Gawler Craton Margins
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... (d) CSSL Lachish 33; (e) Keel;Uehlinger 1998, Fig. 49 Um tipo importante é a chamada "deusa-árvore" ou "deusa dos ramos". Árvores artificiais ou naturais são cultuadas desde o final do quarto milênio aEC até hoje no sul do Levante (KEEL, 1998;ZIFFER, 2010). Assim, desde muito cedo elas foram associadas a deusas cujo domínios abrangiam terra, sexualidade, vegetação e reprodução. ...
O artigo apresenta um panorama dos padrões de representação iconográfica de deusas sul levantinas do Período do Ferro I-III, i.e., a região atualmente ocupada pelos estados modernos de Israel, Jordânia e Palestina no período de, aproximadamente,1130—520 aEC. Destarte, após discutir questões metodológicas na utilização de fontes visuais dessa região e período, o artigo discute duas das principais tensões hermenêuticas do estudo de deusas, especificamente, a conceituação do “feminino”, geralmente essencializado, e do “divino”, geralmente “monolatrizado” na história e arqueologia da religião sul levantina antiga. A partir da discussão conceitual, cinco complexos de ideias advindos da iconografia são discutidos, demonstrando a onipresença e ação multifacetada de deusas em diversos domínios da vida social e privada.
... 113 Bietak 1996a, 36, Tf. 14;Bietak 2016a, 248, Fig. 8;Bestimmung durch Friedrich Bachmayer, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. 114 Auswahl aus einer reichen Literatur : Bernhardt 1967;de Moor 1974;Day 1986;Olyan 1988;Binger 1997;Keel 1998;Hadley 2000;Wiggins 2007;Cornelius 2004;Ackerman 2008;Rich 2012;Ziffer 2010. 115 Rahmouni 2008Rich 2012. ...
Since my article about the Kingdom of ʿꜣ-zḥ-Rʿ Neḥesi, research in the last decades has revealed much more about the obscure 14th Dynasty than one could read in Egyptological treaties and textbooks. This is an attempt to give a short account on this subject as an excavator of Tell el-Dab‘a/Avaris in the years 1966-2009 and 2011. Monuments of this king were found scattered in Tanis, Tell el-Muqdam, Tell Hebwa and in Tell el-Dab‘a. The monuments at the first two sites were dislocated, while at Tell Hebwa and at Avaris they most probably originated from local installations of this king. According to Donald Redford and Kim Ryholt, the 14th Dynasty represents the first Asiatic series of rulers in Egypt. They reigned independently from the 13th Dynasty in the north-eastern Nile Delta. Neḥesi seems to have been one of the first of these ephemeral kings, showing up probably at the second position of the 14th Dynasty in the Royal Canon of Turin. Although he reigned for less than a year, Neḥesi is one of two of the 14th Dynasty rulers who has left monuments behind. Despite his name “The Nubian”, popular among the Egyptians for a long time, he presents himself on a logogram accompanying his name on an obelisk, found in Tanis, as a Near Eastern monarch with the prototypical high pointed crown which is an attribute of kings and gods in the Levant (Abb. 1). It seems that his mother had a Western Semitic name. Two door blocks carrying his name were found in secondary contexts at Tell el-Dab‘a c. 70 m apart within a spacious sacred precinct which dates precisely to the period of the 14th Dynasty (Phases F-E/2). It is highly likely that they originate from the main temple, which was one of the biggest Near Eastern broad-room shrines of the Middle Bronze Age. The best parallels for this building are those dedicated to the Syrian storm god in Aleppo, Alalakh and Hazor. Next to the broad-room was a bent-axis temple which is also a typical Near Eastern shrine, mostly dedicated to female goddesses. Tree pits and acorns indicate a shrine holy to Asherah. Both the storm god and Asherah controlled the sea and these kinds of divinities are fitting for an important harbour town, which Avaris had been since its inception in the Middle Kingdom. Another temple (V) of Egyptian design, just east of and parallel to the main temple, but endowed with a burnt offering altar in front as also Temples II and III, could have been dedicated to Hathor, perhaps even to Hathor of Byblos (?) - another divinity with affiliation to harbours. Another major monument was a palace just under the Near Eastern type of palace of the Hyksos Period at Tell el-Dab‘a, situated c. 500 m to the west of the sacred precinct. The pre-Hyksos palace, which also seems to be of Near-Eastern concept, ended in a conflagration - a sign that the transition from the 14th to the 15th Dynasty probably did not end peacefully. A seal impression found in the pre-Hyksos palace, belonging to a “Ruler of Retjenu” indicates by its personal name and its titles a close relationship to the rulers of Byblos. Also, according to Dominique Collon, the type of seal points to Byblos but the seal impression was made on local clay from the Delta. All evidence seems to indicate a residence of the ‘Ruler of Retjenu’ at Avaris. The connection between Avaris and Byblos is an eye opener regarding the fact that the precious boxes and obsidian vessels with the names of kings of the 12th Dynasty in the Byblos royal tombs date, according to a recent study by Karin Kopetzky, precisely to the time of the 14th Dynasty. As tombs of the 14th Dynasty in Tell el-Dab‘a contain an obsidian vessel and gold jewellery of the style known from the princesses’ tombs in Dahshur and Lisht, this fosters the suspicion that it was the rulers of the 14th Dynasty who entertained the looting of elite necropoleis in the Memphite area. The more so as in the underground serdab of the Pyramid of Sesostris III graffiti of Asiatic men with their typical mushroom coiffure show that these people had been at this sensitive spot at that time. In the pyramid of Amenemhat III at Dahshur they had even left behind their Near Eastern pottery containers, dating to the time of the MB I-II transition as Phase F in Tell el-Dab‘a. The appropriation of jewellery and precious items and their dissemination to Byblos and the northern Levant explains the quick boom of imports from the Levant to Tell el- Dab‘a in Phase F which started to recede soon afterwards when the potential objects of looting were exhausted. This may have weakened the economy of the 14th Dynasty and possibly brought about the advent of another Asiatic dynasty - the Hyksos.
... On a contemporary goblet from Lachish, caprids (associated with animal potency) flank pubic triangles between wavy lines representing water streams ( Supplementary Fig. S15). As suggested by Ruth Hestrin (Hestrin 1987), the tree was a manifestation of the goddess (Ziffer 2010;Sugimoto 16 The Song of Songs (7:9) compares the beloved's breasts to date clusters. The biblical name Tamar (Genesis 38:6, 2 Samuel 13:1) exclusively a woman's name (as the Akkadian fresh date Suluppa, CAD S: 377) though the Hebrew palm-tree tamar is male. ...
The following contribution focuses on Assyrian stone reliefs depicting winged figures holding a bucket and reaching a cone-shaped object toward a stylized tree. Ever since the discovery of the reliefs, the cone-shaped object was considered as either a conifer cone or a date palm male inflorescence used in the symbolic pollination of the stylized tree, derived from the date palm. Utilizing the visual material combined with textual evidence and based on the importance of the date palm as economic resource that gave rise to a plethora of meanings, religious, royal and popular, I shall argue that the scene refers to the artificial pollination of the tree.
... Determining the meaning of the tree flanked by horned animals is not an easy task. This complex, age-old motif is generally considered as a substitute for a goddess (Ziffer 2010), and has often been associated with the second-millennium Levantine goddess Ashera (Hestrin 1987;Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 215, 217;Hadley 2000: 152-154). However, it is unlikely that the ibex tree in the first millennium was a stand-in for Ashera, as her very existence as a goddess in contemporary West Semitic sources is highly speculative (Aḥituv, Eshel and Meshel 2012: 131-132;Sass 2014). ...
This study examines the role of the pithoi drawings and wall paintings of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud. The author suggests that the pithoi drawings were sketches made in preparation for the wall paintings. Therefore, the repeated attempts to find meaning in the layout of the drawings on the pithoi, or to trace links between them and the inscriptions seem futile. She argues that only an investigation of the pottery drawings and the wall paintings as one assemblage reveals the thematic program of the buildings’ decor, which is comprised of two groups: one depicts subject matters related to the king and his activities, the second presents beneficial motifs. The combination of these themes typifies state-run official buildings in the first millennium throughout the ancient Near East and does not support the suggestion that Kuntillet ‘Ajrud served as a ‘religious’ building or centre, although the state sponsored site at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud included a small cultic architectural space.
... As at Neve-Yam, the engraving portrays an anthropomorphic image defined by eyes and a triangle, i.e. pubis. In the space between the eyes and pubis there is an engraving of a quadruped, identified by the excavator as an antelope that is grazing on a plant/ tree identified by Ziffer (2010) and Getzov (2011) as a palm tree. The latter is made up of three frondsone central and two side branches. ...
... The Mari stele Ziffer (2010) and Getzov (2011) pointed out the remarkable similarity between the images found on the Hagosherim bone figurine, and so to those from Ein Zippori and Neve-Yam, to those from a later stele, from about 5000 years ago, found in a temple in Mari (Syria) dedicated to the Sumerian goddess Ninhursag ( Figure 6; Fortin 1999, 234, 284: no. 295). ...
... In view of the preservation of the composition of motifs from the Neve-Yam and Hagosherim artifacts in the stele from Mari, it is appropriate that we review some of the research devoted to this item. In a study of the Mari stele and the Hagosherim bone figurine, Ziffer (2010) focused on the palm frond/tree/ear of wheat image and its representation as what she called a tree goddess. Her interpretation rests on what she suggests is the first appearance of a tree in the iconography of the Near East. ...
The motifs appearing on an incised bone artifact retrieved from the underwater site of Neve-Yam, dating to the sixth–fifth millennium BC and associated with the Pottery Neolithic/early Chalcolithic, Wadi Rabah culture, are subjected to systematic analysis using a methodology for research into symbolic subjects which tracks iconographic survival, focusing on the fusion and renewal of symbols. Mythical and historical evidence is assembled and assessed and art history sources are drawn upon, to provide a more comprehensive explanatory approach for the diverse lines of evidence. Iconographic links between motifs on the bone figurines with later Sumerian mythology require a re-evaluation of the chronological dispersion of symbolic graphemes; the application of new research on the relationship between art and writing suggests that narrative-making rather than evocation can be identified in this material. Such narratives reveal Neolithic precursors of ancient cosmological concepts and bring to light a tantalizing set of features which help to illuminate pre-literate, aniconic narratives of an early pantheon in the Neolithic period of the Near East.
Painted representations of schematic human figures and birds, identified as ostriches, are one of the hallmarks of the Qurayyah Pottery. This paper studies possible parallels with human and avian iconography in the pottery, rock art and reliefs of the southern Levant, Arabia and northeastern Africa. It is concluded that the Qurayyah Pottery iconography represents an amalgamation of motives found in the wider cultural area of Arabia and northeastern Africa, supplemented with Levantine themes and Eastern Mediterranean cultural elements. It is hypothesised that the human figures evoke local chiefs or sorcerers in scenes related to hunting, an iconography fitting well into the predominantly tribal societies of the southern margins of the Levant in the late second millennium BCE, with emerging elites eager to connect themselves with the "civilisation" centres of the time, particularly Egypt. The ostriches could be seen as tribal symbols of war, hunting and power related to emergent local rulers.
This article presents three plaque gurines from Level VII (13th century BCE) and one silver pendant from Level VI (1200–1130 BCE), which were uncovered during the renewed excavations at Tel Lachish