Archaeology of the Levant

›Tracing transformations‹ explores the history and archaeology of the late Middle and early Late Bronze Age in the southern Levant. This period saw the demise of the Middle Bronze Age city-states, the end of the Hyksos Empire in Egypt, and the rising interest and involvement of the Pharaohs in the Levant, culminating in the military campaigns of the Thutmosid period and leading eventually to the ›International Age‹ of the Late Bronze Age Amarna period.

Ein el-Jarba (Israel) is an Early Chalcolithic settlement dating to the 6th millennium BC. Excavations conducted between 2013 and 2016 uncovered domestic architecture, burials, a rich assemblage of ceramic and lithic industry of the Wadi Rabah culture. Imported items such as obsidian and sherds of Halaf ware attest to a network of transregional connections of the site.

From 1897 until 1908 Ernst Sellin was Professor of Biblical Archaeology in Vienna and carried out excavations at first at Tell Ta’anakh, later also in Jericho and Sichem. For this research, he was able to attract public funding as well as private sponsors. ›Vienna in the Holy Land‹ reconstructs the archaeological investigations of Ernst Sellin, their reception in Austria, and his networks in Vienna.

At the end of the 4th millennium BC, the first urban centres emerged in the Southern Levant, while at the same time the Egyptian state developed in the Nile Valley. The following period (Early Bronze Age or Old Kingdom) was characterised by close trade relations between the two regions until the first cities of the Southern Levant were abandoned again at the end of the Early Bronze Age III. This period is critically examined on the basis of new radiocarbon dates.

Culture of Defeat examines the impact on, and responses by, the defeated parties in the aftermath of military conquest, as recorded in written sources and observed in the archaeological record. By tracing political, socio-demographic, economic and cultural transformations of the vanquished, the proposed project explores societal change caused by major traumatic events.

This pilot study investigates the potential for direct radiocarbon (14C) dating of straw-tempered Egyptian and Egyptian-style pottery that was locally produced or imported into the southern Levant during the Early and Late Bronze Ages. Since pottery is a dominant relative dating tool in the Near East and worldwide, the ability to directly date it would open the way for more secure comparisons and integration of traditional and scientific dating schemes.

TurtleChron aims to provide the proof of concept for a growth increment pattern chronology in tortoise carapaces, which could provide an unexplored climate and isotope archive independent of dendrochronology.