<p>Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with Syria-Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian domination and exploitation during this period, a position that also influenced the city’s international relations.</p><p>Methodologically the thesis examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence. Cultic influences are also considered.</p><p>Various origin and find contexts of the imported and culturally influenced material can be recognized, which imply three concepts in the field of interaction studies found within the framework of a modified World Systems Theory and also according to C. Renfrew’s Peer Polity Interaction model:</p><p>1) The northern influenced material at Hazor should be understood in the context of cultural identity. It continues from earlier periods and is maintained through external trade and the regional interaction between Canaanite city-states in the north, resulting in certain cultural homogeneity.</p><p>2) A core-periphery approach is used to explain the special unequal relation between Canaan and Egypt, in which Hazor might have possessed an integrating semi-peripheral role, a kind of diplomatic position between Egypt and its northern enemies. The city’s loyalty to Egypt is hinted at in documents and in the increasing evidences of emulation in elite contexts appearing on the site.</p><p>3) A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’ describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content. The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan. Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that established networks along the main trade routes. The thesis suggests that Hazor possessed a node position in such a network.</p><p>Keywords: Hazor, Canaan, Eastern Mediterranean, Late Bronze Age, contacts, trade, temple architecture, Mycenaean pottery, Cypriote pottery, interregional interaction networks, emulation, peer polity interaction, centre-periphery approach.</p>

Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with Syria-Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian domination and exploitation during this period, a position that also influenced the city’s international relations. Methodologically the thesis examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence. Cultic influences are also considered. Various origin and find contexts of the imported and culturally influenced material can be recognized, which imply three concepts in the field of interaction studies found within the framework of a modified World Systems Theory and also according to C. Renfrew’s Peer Polity Interaction model: 1) The northern influenced material at Hazor should be understood in the context of cultural identity. It continues from earlier periods and is maintained through external trade and the regional interaction between Canaanite city-states in the north, resulting in certain cultural homogeneity. 2) A core-periphery approach is used to explain the special unequal relation between Canaan and Egypt, in which Hazor might have possessed an integrating semi-peripheral role, a kind of diplomatic position between Egypt and its northern enemies. The city’s loyalty to Egypt is hinted at in documents and in the increasing evidences of emulation in elite contexts appearing on the site. 3) A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’ describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content. The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan. Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that established networks along the main trade routes. The thesis suggests that Hazor possessed a node position in such a network. Keywords: Hazor, Canaan, Eastern Mediterranean, Late Bronze Age, contacts, trade, temple architecture, Mycenaean pottery, Cypriote pottery, interregional interaction networks, emulation, peer polity interaction, centre-periphery approach.

This dissertation explores the changing role of material culture in the expression of identity, using the Philistine settlement at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Iron I (12th-10th centuries BCE) as a test case. A diachronic analysis documenting strategies of maintenance and adaptation points to the transformation of materials from domestic tools to symbols of social status, which were used to define social boundaries and promote a distinct identity. This occurred in conjunction with the increasing strength of the Philistine presence in the southern Levant.My dissertation focuses on one excavation area, described as the 'elite' zone. I outlined two areas of investigation: the organization of space, and a spatial distribution of the artifact assemblage. Through this analysis, I reconstruct Buildings 351 and 350 as elite residences, and Buildings 353 and 354 as the loci of crafts activities. Furthermore, I suggest that activities associated with Buildings 351 and 350 included elite sponsored feasting, and argue that the interconnected construction of these buildings with Buildings 353 and 354 implies an integrated function.In the final part of my analysis, I interpret change over time by contextualizing the foreign, i.e. Philistine and local, i.e. Canaanite material culture assemblages as a means to investigate diachronic variation. My research demonstrates that the traditional focus on foreign origins has obscured our understanding of these objects by removing them from their local contexts. Developments included a shift in the role played by the Philistine pottery, from a domestic assemblage associated with an immigrant populations' adjustment of traditional methods of daily practices, to a fine-ware assemblage, where it was used to express a concept of elite identity. The model I propose views change as a reflexive process involving both group and individual interactions.

Yes / In this paper we consider the making, daily use and deposition of ornaments in the Halaf period. We seek to move beyond rigid ‘craft production’ interpretive frameworks intersecting symbolism, complexity and social inequality. Instead, we seek different ways of knowing prehistoric ornaments, through their materiality, assemblage and visuality as evidence of ambiguous mutable person-object relationships and experiences. Making and decoration of/with ornaments offers insights into social concepts of embodiment, personhood, identity and belonging, and should be interpreted as having ambiguous, multiple uses and meanings. Using six case studies of ornament types from excavated assemblages, we critically examine existing methods of small finds’ presentation and suggest more dynamic ways of artefact analysis, interpretation and publication. We present this interpretative model as a methodology applicable broadly to small find studies in all archaeological contexts. In our analysis we re-orient towards considering assemblages of dynamic communities of makers, users and identities embedded in these objects’ life histories.

Located in today’s southern Israel, Tell el Hesi provides archaeologists with important clues to political and social changes in the ancient Near East. Zooarchaeological and stable isotopic analyses were conducted to evaluate shifts in animal husbandry practices during changing socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions in the southern Levant. During the Early Bronze Age, Tell el Hesi thrived as an agricultural grain producing center for the southern Levant. The acropolis served as both a storage and redistribution center for the inhabitants of Tell el Hesi. Coinciding with the collapse of the southern Levant, Tell el Hesi was abandoned throughout the Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age. Socioeconomic relations collapsed between the southern and northern Levant as foreign cultures swept into the region. The Iron Age and Persian Period represented constant sociopolitical change as Assyrian and Persian armies battled against Egypt for territory and natural resources, using Tell el Hesi as a military outpost and storage facility for soldiers and equipment. Unsystematic excavations at the site make it difficult to interpret how animals were used at Tell el Hesi over time. Zooarchaeological analysis suggests, however, that amidst constant societal changes at Tell el Hesi, the inhabitants of the site used animals in similar ways throughout time. Statistically, there seems to be little difference in the quantity of animal species represented during the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian Period. This suggests that the once common specialized pastoralism found in the Early Bronze Age survived into the Persian Period at Tell el Hesi and was an effective herd management strategy for small populations living in ever changing societies. Future excavation and analysis would be able to further assess this hypothesis. The stable isotope results suggest that domesticated animals at Tell el Hesi were consuming both C3 domesticated grain along with C4 wild grasses. Economically significant animals appear to have been foddered within the city boundaries of Tell el Hesi but predominantly grazed in the surrounding foothill area. Wild animals such as deer, gazelle and antelope share similar δ13C values with the domesticated animals at the site.