Sunday, January 26, 2025
Emergence of the Israelites: Transition From a Village Perspective
J.P. Dessel
This presentation will review the evidence for rural elites in Iron Age I and the implications that has for understanding the emergence of the Israelites.
Our understanding of the rural hinterland in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of Israel is poor, at best. It is assumed that rural villages are closely tied to nearby urban city-state and had little agency or impact on events like the emergence of ancient Israel.
Unfortunately, due to the limited excavation of village sites, archaeological traces of rural elites have been very elusive.
Based on the excavation of sites like Tell ‘Ein Zippori and Tell el-Wawiyat, in the Lower Galilee, however, such multi-period villages offer compelling evidence for a deeply rooted rural population with its own potentially independent social and political organization. In particular, Tell ‘Ein Zippori displays an unforeseen sense of rural complexity that suggest the presence of rural elites, a group known from textual sources such as the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts.
J.P. Dessel is the Steinfeld Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
This event will take place at:
Yayla Bistro
2201 N. Westmoreland / Arlington, VA 22213
Luncheon at 2 pm; lecture at 3 pm
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