Matthew J. Adams

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research · Administration

Geographic information systems (GIS) methods, combined with airborne remote sensing, enable collection of complex spatial datasets across broad regional areas. This article explores the use of GIS techniques for fast collection, processing and analysis of pedestrian survey data. This approach is used at Tell Abu Shusha, a multiperiod site in the Je...

Our understanding of geomagnetic field intensity prior to the era of direct instrumental measurements relies on paleointensity analysis of rocks and archaeological materials that serve as magnetic recorders. Only in rare cases are absolute paleointensity data sets continuous over millennial timescales, in sub‐centennial resolution, and directly dat...

The Early Bronze Age is considered to be the period when complex and hierarchical societies first developed in the southern Levant. The appearance of specialization and social complexity is manifested through different aspects of the production stages of animal economy. In this paper, we examine faunal assemblages from two interconnected contempora...

Brief report on the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition 2018 season. Six areas were excavated in the 2018 season (Fig. 1): Area H (the stratigraphic section in the northwest of the tell), where the excavation was brought to a close; and in Areas K (the stratigraphic section in the southeast of the tell), S (inside Area AA of the University of Ch...

In a recent article in this journal we presented the results of our 2018 excavations in the area of the six-chambered gate at Megiddo (Finkelstein et al. 2019). Ussishkin (2020) challenged our interpretation, reiterating his past theories regarding the Megiddo gates. Here we present data which negate his views.

A complete Latin funerary inscription was found during an infrastructure development excavation near the legionary base of the Legio VI Ferrata at Legio. This funerary epitaph for a miles of the VIth Legion is the only complete inscription of its kind from Legio and, therefore, is an important contribution to the history of the legion during its te...

Excavations carried out in the summer of 2018 shed new light on the entire system of four super-imposed Iron Age gates at Megiddo, including the celebrated ‘Solomonic gate’, which has played a pivotal role in biblical archaeology discussions since the 1930s. A fragmentary gate, earliest in the system (Gate 3165) dates to Stratum VIA in the late Iro...

A round limestone pillar mounted on a base with an Opus Sectile decoration was found during the excavation of the legionary base of the VIth Ferrata Legion at Legio, Israel. The pillar, which has no inscription, and the decorated base were found within the principia ex situ from their original location. This paper reviews the context of the find, r...

Four small ceramic juglets that had been used as containers for offerings in an elite Middle Bronze Age III (ca. 1650-1550 BCE) masonry tomb uncovered at Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, Israel were tested using organic residue analysis. Notably, residues of vanillin, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, and acetonvanillone were identified in three of the four...

Introductory remarks on this special issue. The second millennium BCE in the ancient Near East saw increased interactions and interconnections between Egypt and the regions of the southern Levant. Mobility and movement between and among these regions were key factors in the exchange of ideas, technologies, and values and, therefore, were essential...

The second millennium BCE in the ancient Near East saw increased interactions and interconnections between Egypt and the regions of the southern Levant. Mobility and movement between and among these regions were key factors in the exchange of ideas, technologies, and values and, therefore, were essential components of the evolution of both societie...

This article provides an initial archaeological and historical overview of the Lower Pool at the Pools of Solomon south of Bethlehem, Palestine.

Brief report on 2017 salvage excavation at Kibbutz Megiddo. Excavated material includes a 12th Century domestic midden with Frankish material culture (Area A) and a sequence of late Byzantine/Early Islamic settlement (Area B).

Conventional theory described two settlement waves in the Negev Highlands in the third millennium BCE—in the EB II and the Intermediate Bronze Age— and a period with no evidence for stone architecture between them in the EB III. Arad in the Beer-sheba Valley was presented as an EB I–II site, which lay deserted in the EB III. Old and new radiocarbon...

The Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP) is a long-term multidisciplinary project investigating human activity in the Jezreel Valley through all periods through the modern era. This research incorporates extensive and intensive archaeological survey and excavation at several spatial scales, and utilizes a number of methodological approaches to do...

In 1996, a cache of 16 Egyptianized ceramic vessels was excavated at Megiddo by the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition. Its stratigraphy was difficult to ascertain as the discovery was made early on in the renewed excavations, and the ceramic typology was difficult to assess due to the apparent specialized function of the vessels. This paper re...

The fragment of an Egyptian statue of Djehutihotep found at Megiddo by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (OI) has been long known. It was found with three uninscribed Egyptian statue fragments reused in the foundations of Temple 2048, attributed to Stratum VII, which was dated by them to the Late Bronze Age IIB, 13th–12th century...

Historical evidence and archaeological surveys conducted over several decades in the Legio-Megiddo region in the Jezreel Valley, Israel, have pointed to the long-term presence of the Roman VIth Ferrata Legion at the site of el-Manach Hill. In 2013, the Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP) conducted excavations on the northern side of the site. Ar...

We report results of palynological investigation of a core of sediments extracted from the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. The core was sampled at high resolution for both palynological analysis (a sample was taken c. every 40 years) and radiocarbon dating. The article focuses on the Early Bronze and Intermediate Bronze Ages, c. 3600–1950 BC. The res...

This paper reports on a study conducted on archaeological sediments from two sites in the Jezreel Valley, Israel: the Roman military camp of Legio, dating to the 2nd-3rd centuries CE, and the Bronze Age village of Tel Megiddo East, dating to Early Bronze I. The primary purpose of the study was to test the assumption that chronologically-specific me...

The Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP)1 is a long-term, multi-disciplinary survey and excavation project investigating the history of human activity in the Jezreel Valley from the Paleolithic through the Ottoman period. This project strives for a total history of the region using the tools and theoretical approaches of such disciplines as archa...

The Early Bronze (EB) Ib Temple of Megiddo Level J-4, with its complex architecture, marks an important threshold in the development of complex societies that characterized the Early Bronze Age of the Levant. The temple was abandoned at the end of the EB Ib, leaving behind few traces of the activities performed within—the primary remains being depo...

Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley of Israel has been the most cited type-site of the Early Bronze Age Levant since the excavations of the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. Through the efforts of the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition, the stratigraphic sequence of the Early Bronze Age has been significantly refined, and a new monume...

Tel Megiddo lies in the heart of the Jezreel Valley, Israel, a region vivified by its role as a hub of international roads (figs. 1-3). The east-west valley provides one of the easiest transits from the coastal areas to the interior mountains and valleys, and, consequently, links the international roads between Egypt and Syria, and beyond. Due to t...

In a recent study by Regev et al. (2012), the radiocarbon data of Southern Levant was reanalyzed, causing a revision of the traditional absolute chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. The new analysis demonstrated that the EB II was notably shorter than previously thought and that the EB III ended ca. 2500 BC, ca. 200-300 years...

Historical sources indicate that the Roman Sixth Legion Ferrata established a permanent camp in the Jezreel Valley (Israel) in the vicinity of the archaeological site currently known as Legio (el-Lajjun) near a historical Roman road junction to the south of Tel Megiddo. While archaeological surveys have demonstrated that indeed there was a strong R...

Final Publication of the Excavations in Area J at Tel Megiddo. Includes Early Bronze Age I-III cultic area and elite zone as well as MB-LB stratigraphy. Part I: Introduction (Adams) Part II: Lower J (Keinan) Part III: The Early Bronze Age Stratigraphy and Architecture 2004-2010 (Adams) Part IV: Upper J The Middle and Late Bronze Age Stratigraphy a...

This paper considers the identification of the kings in the epitomes of Manetho’s Twenty-third Dynasty and their function in the historiographical traditions of ancient Egypt. Despite the long-standing rejection of Manetho’s Twenty-third Dynasty as ahistorical, it is here argued that the names preserved in the Twenty-third Dynasty are part of an au...

This project presents a stratified archaeological sequence spanning the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom at Tell er-Rub’a, Mendes, in the eastern Egyptian Delta. This sequence, excavated between 1999 and 2005, has provided the longest stratified sequence from these periods in all of Egypt. Stratigraphic probes around the site indicate that fur...

The title xntj-S occurs from the Old Kingdom down into the 18th Dynasty. The title has enjoyed a few short treatises on its meaning. However, no one has yet brought all the evidence for these individuals together in one study. Moreover, previous studies have all used a restricted size of sample in their analyses. Compiled here is a prosopography of...