Barako Review of the Sea Peoples and Their World, 2004

The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment by Eliezer D. OrenReview by: Tristan J. BarakoAmerican Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Jul., 2004), pp. 453-455Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40025766 .

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2004] BOOK REVIEWS 453

are outside the period covered by the book but the former bears witness to Archestratus of Gela (discussed by Col- lin-Bouffier) and the latter declares that all the Greeks eat land snails every day.

Philippe Columeau, "Sacrifice et viande dans les sanc- tuaires grecs et chypriotes (Vile, s.- ler s. av. J.-C.) et l'apport de l'habitat de Kassope," surveys the remains of a number of animals at sites on Cyprus, Epirus, Crete, and elsewhere. There are variations in the species, age, and particular bones found in different places at different times. These fascinating data suggest much variation in sacrifice according to time and place. Columeau concludes from the evidence not that practice changed but that wealth and expectations changed during the period and that in some places it was possible to sacrifice more young cattle than had been possible before and that people had a taste for it. More results are promised from these data.

Martine Leguilloux, "L'alimentation carnee au ler millenaire avant J.-C. en Grece continentale et dans les Cyclades: premiers resultats archeozoologiques," explores the difficult evidence for meat eating in the period and new methods that might be used to evaluate new practices, traditional practices, and regional and environmental influences.

Dusanka Kucan, "Rapport synthetique sur les recher- ches archeobotaniques dans le sanctuaire d'Hera de l'ile de Samos," reviews the foods eaten and offered at the temple of Hera and brings together religious and cultural practice in relation to plants.

Valeria Meirano, "Mets et vegetaux en grande Grece," presents clay models of foods such as poppies, cucumbers, honeycombs, and even cheese, that were found at sites in southern Italy, in particular at Hipponium and Epizephy- rian Locri. The offerings attest cultic links between these foods and Persephone and chthonic deities. To this evidence for the symbolic values of certain foods can be added evidence toward the identification of certain species in antiquity - cucumber and lettuce, for example. The clay offering is a finely made imperishable representation of certain foods known to us only from the uncertain testimony of certain authors (cf. Kroll, above).

Philippe Marinval, "Agriculture et structuration du pay- sage agricole a Marseille grec et dans les societes indigenes aux Premier et Second Ages du Fer," nuances the relations between new arrivals in southern France - Greeks and Phoenicians in particular - and indigenous populations. He finds much variation according to species of food plant and much earlier evidence for olives and vines (for example) in the region than is usually thought. Greek influ- ence is only part of the picture, and it is probably not Greeks who introduced the vine. This kind of valuable regional study of intercultural relations needs to be repro- duced throughout the Greek Mediterranean.

The final chapter by A. Peignard-Giros is entitled "Hab- itudes alimentaires grecques et romaines a Delos a l'epoque hellenistique: le temoinage de la ceramique." She reviews changes in the shape of dishes and of wine vessels that resemble changes found in Hellenistic Ath- ens, with the addition that the shapes found in Delos are distinctly Italian. A number of conclusions drawn here move us closer to the project of Athenaeus, which was to review Greek eating under the Roman empire. Intercul-

tural influences seen in Delos occurred throughout the Roman empire at the end of the period under review. Again, this suggestive chapter has important implications for the whole Mediterranean area at the end of the period. M.-C. Amouretti sums up some of these connections in her conclusion to the volume.

This book compels us to reexamine precisely what we mean by Greek, Roman, and "barbarian" and by "cultural" and "ritual." The detailed evidence collected here often demonstrates that the complex world of the ancient Mediterranean is no more susceptible to neat cultural divisions at meal times than at many other social and cultural activities.

John Wilkins

department of classics & ancient history queen's building the queen's drive university of exeter EXETER EX4 4QH UNITED KINGDOM

[email protected]

The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassess- ment, edited by Eliezer D. Oren. (University Mu- seum Monograph 108; University Museum Sym- posium Series 11.) Pp. xx + 360, figs. 146, tables 5. The University Museum, Philadelphia 2000. $59. ISBN 0-924171-80-4 (cloth). The volume under review is the result of an interna-

tional seminar organized by Eliezer Oren and held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology during the spring of 1995. Guest scholars delivered papers on a range of topics pertaining to the Sea Peoples and their world, which, for the purposes of the seminar, corresponded mainly to the eastern Mediterranean region. Most of the data presented and discussed are archaeological in nature; however, a few papers are concerned with ancient texts (i.e., Egyptian, Hittite, Akkadian, Ugaritic, biblical) and iconography (primarily the Medinet Habu reliefs). The appearance of this volume is timely given recently com- pleted (Tel Miqne-Ekron) and ongoing excavations (Ashkelon, Tell es-Safi/Gath) at major sites inhabited by the Philistines, the best understood and most famous of the Sea Peoples. The steady generation of new evidence makes it all the more unfortunate that five years separated the seminar from its publication. Dur- ing this interval there appeared the proceedings of Med- iterranean Peoples in Transition (see AJA 104 [2000] 609- 10), an international symposium held in honor of the doyenne of Philistine studies, Trude Dothan, which su- persedes the present volume in certain respects. For example, nearly half the authors represented in The Sea Peoples and Their World also contributed (in most cases, a very similar article) to Mediterranean Peoples. It is worth noting in this regard that another volume ded- icated to the Sea Peoples is forthcoming ( The Philistines and Other "Sea Peoples" in Text and Archaeology [Atlanta] edited by A.E. Killebrew, G. Lehman, and M. Artzy).



454 BOOK REVIEWS [AJA108

Despite the absence of a well defined structure, the chapters of The Sea Peoples and Their World may be grouped loosely according to the following geographic regions: (1) Egypt (Redford, O'Connor, Wachsmann); (2) the northern Levant and Anatolia (Singer, Caubet, Voigt, and Henrickson); (3) the southern Levant (Dothan, Finkel- stein, Tubb, Stern, Mazar, Killebrew); and (4) Cyprus and the Aegean (Karageorghis, Kling, Betancourt). In addition, there are chapters on the Hebrew Bible (Machinist) and the western Mediterranean region (Vagnetti). Many of these leading scholars survey the data pertinent to the subject of the Sea Peoples within their respective area of expertise. Herein lies the volume's greatest value. Its most conspicuous shortcoming, on the other hand, is the rela- tively poor coverage of the Aegean region, the possible homeland of the majority of the Sea Peoples. Because it is not feasible to review here each chapter in detail, most of the comments that follow are general in nature.

All too often nonspecialists interpret out of context the inscriptions and reliefs at Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Ramesses III that contains the primary sources of information contemporaneous to the Sea Peoples. Thus, the explication of these texts and scenes by two preeminent Egyptologists (Redford, O'Connor) in terms of literary genre and conceptual framework is especially welcome. Their consensus, that historical information can be "teased out" of the formulaic language and con- ventional scenes, is heartening. Wachsmann focuses on the depiction of the naval battle between Ramesses Ill's forces and the Sea Peoples. In searching for the origins of the latter, he seizes upon the bird-head devices on the bow and stern of the Sea Peoples' ships, which he traces back to the Urnfield culture of central Europe. Such a proposal is unconvincing in light of the following obser- vations: (1) bird-head devices appear in ship iconography at least a couple centuries earlier in the Aegean region than they do in central Europe (as the author notes, 121-2; see also Genz, JNES62 [2003] 31); and (2) numerous traits of the Philistine material culture assem- blage are clearly derived from the Aegean region, where- as none can be attributed to the Urnfield culture.

By virtue of his command of texts from the kingdoms of Ugarit and Hatti, Singer is uniquely positioned to as- sess the political situation at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the northern Levant and Anatolia, both regions reportedly destroyed by the Sea Peoples en route to Egypt. Intriguing here is the suggestion that behind Suppiluli- uma II's campaign in Tarhuntassa, as described in the Siidburg inscription, was an attack against the Sea Peo- ples, who had already established a foothold along the southern coast of Anatolia (27) . Caubet presents a useful archaeological overview of Ras Shamra/Ugarit on the eve of its destruction ca. 1190 B.C.E. Unfortunately, there is no discussion of Ras Ibn Hani, a nearby palace site that was destroyed at approximately the same time and, un- like Ras Shamra, resettled soon thereafter. Significant quantities of locally made Mycenaean IIIC:lb pottery, the oft-cited hallmark of the Sea Peoples, characterized the early Iron Age settlement at Ras Ibn Hani. The chapter on Gordion is pertinent to the subject of the Sea Peoples only insofar as it offers a comparable case study for the detection of an early Iron Age migration (i.e.,

the Phrygians) based on a combination of textual and archaeological evidence (Voigt and Henrickson). A report on excavations at a site located along the Ionian coast (another possible homeland of the Sea Peoples), such as Miletus, would have been more appropriate.

The Philistine settlement in southern coastal Canaan and later expansion into neighboring areas provide the subject matter for the majority of chapters. Dothan's and Killebrew's contributions are noteworthy for their pre- sentation of locally made Myc IIIC:lb and related pottery from Tel Miqne-Ekron, which is now the typesite for Philistine ceramics for the entire Iron Age. Finkelstein offers a valuable demographic analysis of the southern coastal plain and Shephelah before and after the arrival of the Philistines; however, his chronological revision of their settlement is flawed. Based on the erroneous as- sumption that there must be material culture exchange between two distinct and proximate groups (i.e., Philis- tines and Egyptians), he lowers the date of the Philistine settlement by approximately 50 years. On various grounds, several scholars (e.g., Mazar in Levant 29 [1997] 157-67; Bunimovitz and Faust in BASOR 322 [2001] 1-10) have successfully challenged this minority opinion. Machinist provides an insightful synthesis of the diverse group of biblical texts pertaining to the Philistines, focusing on those books that correspond to the Iron I period. By viewing the Philistines as the "other," as did the Israel- ites when describing their archrivals, these narratives take on a clearer meaning.

Tubb's main thesis, that double-pithos burials at Tell es-Sacidiyeh in the Jordan Valley contained the bodies of Sea Peoples serving as bronzeworkers at an Egyptian gar- rison, has attracted little support. Most scholars look in- stead to the Hittite world for the origins of this mortuary practice (e.g., Negbi in Tel Aviv 18 [1991] 205-43). In any event, there is no other solid evidence for a Sea Peoples presence at the site. Stern surveys the evidence for a Sea Peoples presence at Tel Dor (where he directed excavations), along the Carmel coast, in the Akko Plain, and throughout the Jezreel and Jordan Valleys. Given that Dor is referred to as "a town of the Tjeker" (or "Sikil," one of the Sea Peoples) in the 11th-century Egyptian Tale ofWenamun, it is surprising that more Philistine-style material culture was not found at the site. Mazar's overview of Philistine cult focuses on the series of temples at Tell Qasile, where he codirected excavations. Unfortu- nately, much of the cultic architecture and paraphernalia surveyed derives from sites (including Tell Qasile) outside the area of the initial Philistine settlement. Here Canaanite styles tended to dilute the original Aegean character of the Philistine material culture.

Two chapters are devoted to the material culture of Cyprus during the time of the proposed Sea Peoples settlement (LC IIIA) . Karageorghis summarizes the various material culture traits, especially bathtubs, that have been associated with their arrival; and Kling reviews the history of scholarship pertaining to Myc IIIC:lb, long regard- ed as proof for Sea Peoples' presence on the island. The Aegean region proper is represented by a short contribution by Betancourt, who reconstructs a "systems collapse" scenario triggered by a regional disruption of agriculture to explain the decline of LH IIIC Greece. As noted above,



2004] BOOK REVIEWS 455

the coverage of the various regions of the Mycenaean cultural ambit (e.g., Greek mainland, Dodecanese, Crete) is poor or altogether lacking in this volume. This shortcoming is made more significant by the fact that relative chronologies for Myc IIIC:lb on Cyprus and in the Le- vant are pegged to ceramic sequences from Greece; thus a report by a leading specialist on recent developments in Mycenaean pottery chronology would have been most welcome.

The burgeoning amount of archaeological data gener- ated recently that is pertinent to the subject of the Sea Peoples necessitated a monograph such as the present volume. It was eclipsed, however, in many respects by the appearance two years prior by the more comprehensive Mediterranean Peoples. (A notable exception is the treat- ment of ancient texts, which is considerably more thor- ough in The Sea Peoples and Their World [e.g., Redford, Singer, Machinist].) Notwithstanding, the volume under review is still essential reading for anyone interested in the eastern Mediterranean region during this crucial period of upheaval, against the backdrop of which the Sea Peoples clearly played a major role.

Tristan J. Barako

HISTORY DEPARTMENT SALEM STATE COLLEGE

352 LAFAYETTE STREET, ROOM IO5B SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS OI97O [email protected]

Egypt and the Levant: Interrelations from the 4th through the early 3rd millennium BCE, edited by Edwin CM. van den Brink and Thomas Levy. Pp. xxi + 547, figs. 260, tables 40. Leicester University Press, London 2001. $385. ISBN: 0-7185-0262-0. When I was in graduate school some 20 years ago,

those of us interested in the Levantine Early Bronze Age had to begin at the beginning. Albright's pioneer- ing ceramic typology from Tell Beit Mirsim, Marquet- Krause's excavations at cAi, and Garstang's at Jericho were the starting places, followed up by the newly published work on Arad, cAi, and Sinai sites. Kenyon's Jericho tombs seemed to be neat typological packages, and the already hopelessly labeled Jericho tell excavations were still mostly unpublished. Hennessey's book presented some Jericho material and provided a far-ranging framework of seeming parallels. And the impossible Byblos reports still vexed and confused us, despite the lifesaving work of Muntaha Saghieh. It was a medium-sized and fairly concise body of data, and during the 1980s the main analytical concerns were chronology, typology, and, in- creasingly, the social basis of processes such as urbaniza- tion and craft specialization.

It is a measure of how far study of the Levantine Early Bronze Age has come, and how far it needs to go, that these same questions are being asked in the 21st century, only of a vastly larger and more complex data set. The present volume is a data-heavy contribution that comple- ments a number of other recent works on the Levantine

Early Bronze Age, notably the edited volume Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant (Sheffield 2000), the numerous papers in the Douglas Esse memorial volume, the Ram Gophna festschrift, and books by Raphael Greenberg and Herman Genz on settlement patterns and ceramics, respectively.

The present volume originated as a conference in Jerusalem in 1998, attended by most of the field's spe- cialists, and supplemented by additional chapters. The primary focus on a single dimension of the Levantine EBA, the relationship with Egypt, indicates just how much data have accumulated. The volume's 33 chapters consist of two types of contributions, theoretical and data, some- times the latter in the guise of the former. It is of course impossible to address them all in a single review. Some of the chapters present data excavated some time ago, such as the Egyptian ceramics from Tell Ma'ahaz (Amiran and van den Brink), Small Tell Malhata (Ilan), or the Metal- lic Ware jug with hieroglyphic inscription from Beth Yer- ah (Greenberg and Eisenberg). There are also new data, such as the Egyptian pottery from Tell Lod (van den Brink), and new typological, metallurgical, and petro- graphic analyses, such as the ceramics from the Halif Terrace/Nahal Tillah (Kansa and Levy), and the Kfar Monash Hoard (Tadmor). The massive collations of foreign imports in Egyptian tombs (Hendrickx and Bavay) and Nile Valley settlement and cemetery sites (Hendrickx and van den Brink) are especially important contributions that point out just how much data are available in Egypt.

Among the most eye-opening results are the petro- graphic analyses of Porat and Goren on the Naqada Ilia pottery from Abydos Tomb U-j. They suggest the majority of these "Canaanite" vessels, whose presence has been pointed to as evidence of royal power, bulk trade, or even world systems, were probably made in the Wadi Qena only a few dozen kilometers from Abydos. One can only smile in amusement; Porat and Goren suggest (contra Hartung's contribution to the volume), the potters were either Egyptians being coached by a Canaanite consult- ant, or Canaanite expatriates, like Japanese chefs mak- ing sushi in your local supermarket. Either way the occu- pant of Tomb U-j seems to have put one over on his friends and neighbors, although of course one cannot dismiss the possibility that everyone was in on the joke.

Equally startling are two chapters by Kaplony, one dis- cussing the Beth Yerah jar inscription and the other the cEn Besor seal inscriptions. The short jar inscription of Hemkhasti "The Servant of the Mountain God" from Beth Yerah becomes an avenue for Kaplony to "revise," as he puts it, "the foreign policy of the First Dynasty vis-a- vis 'Asia'." The three mountain hieroglyph Khasti was the birth-name of king Dewen, and may have later be- come identical with Sopdu, "the Lord of the Mountain Countries." Four other texts mention Dewen 's campaigns in Asia, and some of the king's career may be recreated from these and other sources, such as evidence related to the famous official Hemaka. The new inscription gives support for Dewen 's campaigns against Qatna. It also de- notes the transferal of the term "City of the Asiatics" to Qatna, which in Narmer's time designated a labor camp for captives and a trading post in or near Egypt.



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Barako Review of the Sea Peoples and Their World, 2004