From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V2000 #230 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Saturday, August 12 2000 Volume 2000 : Number 230 Re: ane the Syrian goddess Hebat and the Iabesh (Jebusites ?) RE: ane Perizzites ane Arabian aridity Re: ane Arabian aridity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:52:07 +0200 From: Joachim Friedrich Quack Subject: Re: ane the Syrian goddess Hebat and the Iabesh (Jebusites ?) On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, Thérèse Ghembaza wrote: > Dear Friends, > > Recently Guenter Stienecke wrote on the goddess Hebat of North Syria, may I > propose a relationship of Hebat with the name of the Aamu heka khase > "Iabesh" transcripted by an Egytian scribe in Beni-hasan ? > > So much as Kurt oertel wrote : > >we have a major ethnic group called Yabasu, var. Yabusu who are a clan or > gayum of > >the Khanaeans in the Mari texts? > > And E. Adams wrote : > >"Yabasu is a well known clan and may probably be one of the most > >important among the Haneens". (and further developments on the ancester Knan) > > So may I suggest that the land of Kanaan (or Hanaan) could correspond to > the land of Se-qen-en-re, the father of king Ahmose of the Egyptian 17th > dynasty who, in my opinion, was a near relative of the Hyksos king > O-qen-en-re. > L.S., First of all, I do not see any connection between the asiatic name at Beni Hassan (written in the 12th dynastie) and Seqenen-Re (for whose relation to Aa-qenen-Re there is not the slightest proof). Besides, if you look at the original hieroglyphs and you know according to which correspondence set foreign names were transcribed in the Middle Kingdom, you realise that the correct correspondence for the name at Beni Hassan would be something like Abi-$arru. No connection with Yebusites or similar people. Dr. Joachim Friedrich Quack Aegyptologisches Seminar Altensteinstr. 33 D-14195 Berlin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 12:26:46 +0200 From: Niels Peter Lemche Subject: RE: ane Perizzites I think it was Gottwald's idea in his 'The Tribes of Yahweh' from 1979, just republished by Sheffield Academic Press. NPL -----Original Message----- From: George Athas [SMTP:gathas@mail.usyd.edu.au] Sent: Monday, 07 August, 2000 15:05 To: ANE Subject: Re: ane Perizzites Why can't "Perizzite" simply mean "rural peasant", derived from the Hebrew word for an unwalled village or hamlet (root PRZ)? Best regards, GEORGE ATHAS - Anglican Chaplaincy, UNSW; - Southern Cross College, Sydney, Australia ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Tel Dan Inscription Website http://members.xoom.com/gathas/teldan.htm ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:34:50 -0500 From: Tony Wilkinson Subject: ane Arabian aridity - --============_-1246118003==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 17:28:36 -0500 From: Jeff Blakely Subject: ane Green Bronze Age on Arabia again chris.cleutjens wrote: Nevertheless Arabia would have been "greener" than today...in 3rd (and2nd) >millennium.... There must have been a sudden shortage of water in the 3rd and 2nd >millennium in the Southern part of the Near East... >You don't need radiocarbon figures to believe that Arabia and the Near East >was "a lot greener" in 4th (and 3rd) millennium and then suddenly the >climate changed... No ... the climate, rainfall, and soils of the central or southern Arabian peninsula all changed and became much like today, dry, about 6000 BP, or, if calibrated, about 5000 BCE. All of the existing lakes dried up and the savannahs perished. No sudden 3rd/2nd millennium shortage of water, no Amorite ranchers, no Assyrian lion hunts in central or south Arabia. Granted there probably was an additional sudden water shortage about 2300 BCE, that simply made it worse than today! Jeff Blakely Regarding the discussion between Jeff Blakely and Chris Cleutjens. Certainly during a considerable part of the Neolithic atmospheric conditions were moister in much of Arabia. However, soil profiles from the Yemen highlands suggest that conditions continued to be somewhat moister than today into the 3rd millennium BC. In other words there was a slight time lag with conditions becoming progressively drier in the 3rd millennium BC. But it seems that at Hammat al Qa other 3rd and 2nd millennium BC sites in the Yemen highlands conditions were sufficiently moist for terraced fields to have been in use on slopes that today cannot be farmed because they are too dry. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC Indian Ocean cores suggest an input of dust around 2300-2200 BC, which I suspect results from a phase of wind blown dust, either from interior Arabia or from the Fertile Crescent. In parts of Upper Mesopotamia wadi systems appear to have become destabilized in or after the 3rd millennium BC and isotopic data from Lake Van and Soreq Cave in Israel do suggest that conditions were (as Jeff Blakely says) drier then formerly and perhaps comparable to those of today. What is interesting however, and rather under explored, is that areas of northern Syria that are arid and bleak today would have been more verdant even after the 3rd millennium BC. This is in part because abstraction of water from long canals (along the Balikh and Khabur rivers) would have decreased the discharge of rivers during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC and 1st millennia AD (but varying from place to place). Thus the riverine areas were probably rather green and verdant compared to today. In Oman arid areas (with ca. 100m, of rainfall pa) like the northern Hajar Mountains were sufficiently well wooded with acacia trees in the 1st millennium AD to power a massive Early Islamic copper smelting industry. I think that there is a contradiction in the literature because even with a modest rainfall, comparable to that of today, some areas would have been greener in the past. However, because of the massive human induced degradation that has occurred over the last few thousand years the vegetation and soils have become degraded. We should not however polarize the argument into climate-induced desiccation vs. human-induced degradation; rather what to me is really significant is that increasing human population combined with post 3rd millennium (and perhaps rather modest) desiccation will have led to an increasingly degraded and less verdant landscape through time. That is one must see the two processes taking place in tandem and interacting so that in some areas (such as the NE Khabur and NW Iraq, as well as perhaps the Yemeni highlands), population was increasing in the face of some degree of climatic drying. In such areas there would have been considerable degradation. Overall though, the outcome of such interactions is still a matter for debate. What is exciting about the new approach to palaeo-environmental studies is that by examining settlement and population change in association with the new isotopic records, plus local geomorphological sequences, we can start to see a more patchy mosaic of verdancy (is that a real word?) and aridity. There seem to be curious contradictions as well, with massive marshes being formed in southern Iraq during medieval dry periods (presumably as a result of the spillage of surplus irrigation water from various causes). Also lakes such as the Lake of Antioch form after the 3rd millennium BC (and probably in the 1st mill BC or AD). Such lakes and perhaps those in the Ghab formed verdant environments for the animal life that appear in the Roman Byzantine mosaics. I think that the complex outcome of the interaction between humans and their environment may account for some of the contradictions that are apparent in the literature and in discussions such as this. I have tried to wrestle with some of these issues in papers in: 1998 "Water and Human Settlement in the Balikh Valley, Syria: Investigations from 1992-1995" Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 63-87. 1997 "Holocene environments of the high plateau, Yemen. Recent geoarchaeological investigations", in Geoarchaeology 12, no.8: 833-64. 1999 "Holocene valley fills of southern Turkey and NW Syria. Recent geoarchaeological contributions", Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 555-572. 1999 T.J. Wilkinson Settlement, Soil Erosion and Terraced Agriculture in Highland Yemen: A Preliminary Statement. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 29: 183-91. I hope the above comments have sown just a little confusion, Tony Wilkinson T.J.Wilkinson, The Oriental Institute, 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 773-702-9552 Fax: 773-702-9853 t-wilkinson@uchicago.edu - --============_-1246118003==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 17:28:36 -0500 From: Jeff Blakely < Subject: ane Green Bronze Age on Arabia again chris.cleutjens wrote: Nevertheless Arabia would have been "greener" than today...in 3rd (and2nd) >millennium.... There must have been a sudden shortage of water in the 3rd and 2nd >millennium in the Southern part of the Near East... >You don't need radiocarbon figures to believe that Arabia and the Near East >was "a lot greener" in 4th (and 3rd) millennium and then suddenly the >climate changed... No ... the climate, rainfall, and soils of the central or southern Arabian peninsula all changed and became much like today, dry, about 6000 BP, or, if calibrated, about 5000 BCE. All of the existing lakes dried up and the savannahs perished. No sudden 3rd/2nd millennium shortage of water, no Amorite ranchers, no Assyrian lion hunts in central or south Arabia. Granted there probably was an additional sudden water shortage about 2300 BCE, that simply made it worse than today! Jeff Blakely TimesRegarding the discussion between Jeff Blakely and Chris Cleutjens. Certainly during a considerable part of the Neolithic atmospheric conditions were moister in much of Arabia. However, soil profiles from the Yemen highlands suggest that conditions continued to be somewhat moister than today into the 3rd millennium BC. In other words there was a slight time lag with conditions becoming progressively drier in the 3rd millennium BC. But it seems that at Hammat al Qa other 3rd and 2nd millennium BC sites in the Yemen highlands conditions were sufficiently moist for terraced fields to have been in use on slopes that today cannot be farmed because they are too dry. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC Indian Ocean cores suggest an input of dust around 2300-2200 BC, which I suspect results from a phase of wind blown dust, either from interior Arabia or from the Fertile Crescent. In parts of Upper Mesopotamia wadi systems appear to have become destabilized in or after the 3rd millennium BC and isotopic data from Lake Van and Soreq Cave in Israel do suggest that conditions were (as Jeff Blakely says) drier then formerly and perhaps comparable to those of today. What is interesting however, and rather under explored, is that areas of northern Syria that are arid and bleak today would have been more verdant even after the 3rd millennium BC. This is in part because abstraction of water from long canals (along the Balikh and Khabur rivers) would have decreased the discharge of rivers during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC and 1st millennia AD (but varying from place to place). Thus the riverine areas were probably rather green and verdant compared to today. In Oman arid areas (with ca. 100m, of rainfall pa) like the northern Hajar Mountains were sufficiently well wooded with acacia trees in the 1st millennium AD to power a massive Early Islamic copper smelting industry. I think that there is a contradiction in the literature because even with a modest rainfall, comparable to that of today, some areas would have been greener in the past. However, because of the massive human induced degradation that has occurred over the last few thousand years the vegetation and soils have become degraded. We should not however polarize the argument into climate-induced desiccation vs. human-induced degradation; rather what to me is really significant is that increasing human population combined with post 3rd millennium (and perhaps rather modest) desiccation will have led to an increasingly degraded and less verdant landscape through time. That is one must see the two processes taking place in tandem and interacting so that in some areas (such as the NE Khabur and NW Iraq, as well as perhaps the Yemeni highlands), population was increasing in the face of some degree of climatic drying. In such areas there would have been considerable degradation. Overall though, the outcome of such interactions is still a matter for debate. What is exciting about the new approach to palaeo-environmental studies is that by examining settlement and population change in association with the new isotopic records, plus local geomorphological sequences, we can start to see a more patchy mosaic of verdancy (is that a real word?) and aridity. There seem to be curious contradictions as well, with massive marshes being formed in southern Iraq during medieval dry periods (presumably as a result of the spillage of surplus irrigation water from various causes). Also lakes such as the Lake of Antioch form after the 3rd millennium BC (and probably in the 1st mill BC or AD). Such lakes and perhaps those in the Ghab formed verdant environments for the animal life that appear in the Roman Byzantine mosaics. I think that the complex outcome of the interaction between humans and their environment may account for some of the contradictions that are apparent in the literature and in discussions such as this. I have tried to wrestle with some of these issues in papers in: 1998 "Water and Human Settlement in the Balikh Valley, Syria: Investigations from 1992-1995" Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 63-87. 1997 "Holocene environments of the high plateau, Yemen. Recent geoarchaeological investigations", in Geoarchaeology 12, no.8: 833-64. 1999 "Holocene valley fills of southern Turkey and NW Syria. Recent geoarchaeological contributions", Quaternary Science Reviews 18: 555-572. 1999 T.J. Wilkinson Settlement, Soil Erosion and Terraced Agriculture in Highland Yemen: A Preliminary Statement. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 29: 183-91. I hope the above comments have sown just a little confusion, Tony Wilkinson T.J.Wilkinson, The Oriental Institute, 1155 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 773-702-9552 Fax: 773-702-9853 t-wilkinson@uchicago.edu - --============_-1246118003==_ma============-- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 01:36:51 +0200 From: "chris.cleutjens" Subject: Re: ane Arabian aridity Dear Tony, Jeff and List Thank you, no more confusion here... thanks to... wonderful sewing... Seriously, I am afraid for many the image of the ANE landscape is the cliché picture of an arid landscape resembling too much today's landscape. Probably caused by lack of climate info and data of these periods (4th, 3rd and 2nd millennium) combined with lack of sound imagination. Nevertheless, in H.J. Nissen's "Early History of the ANE - 9000-2000 B.C." I read... (quote)....the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C., was clearly one that witnessed considerable climatic changes. The evidence for this was provided partly by the findings of a voyage by the research ship 'Meteor' in the Gulf during the winter of 1964/65. Tests of the sediment that forms the floor of the Gulf, especially the discovery of the respective proportions of organic materials, revealed astonishing changes in its composition. With the help of individual carbon 14 measurements, it was possible to fix the points chronologically on a graph produced in this way (fig.17)... (end quote) Figure 17 on page 55 shows.. (from top to bottom) humid - - ca 500 dry - - ca 3500 very humid - - ca 5500 very dry Let us await more data on sudden climate changes in the ANE during periods here concerned and let us await findings in areas (Arabia?) where answers could be found for questions hanging around for too long now. Kind regards chris cleutjens ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V2000 #230 **************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html