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Table of Contents for Near Eastern Archaeology 82.2 (June 2019)

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Pp. 67-74: “The Mainstream Media and the ‘Shocking Bad Art’ from Cyprus: 1870s New York Reacts to the Cesnola Collections,” by Ann-Marie Knoblauch

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art first opened the doors of its Fifth Avenue building on March 30, 1880, the majority of the exhibition space was occupied by Cypriot art purchased by the Met’s trustees from Luigi Palma di Cesnola in two lots, one in 1872 and another in 1876. The two collections amounted to around twenty thousand objects, all finds Cesnola had acquired while serving as US Consul on the island from 1865–1876. After the acquisition of the second collection, Cesnola left Cyprus to become the first director of the Metropolitan Museum, a position he held until his death in 1904. New Yorkers in the 1870s were most intriguing by the works of limestone sculptures from the sanctuary at Golgoi. In the 1880s these objects would become embroiled in a scandal because of the claim that Cesnola had performed intentionally misleading restorations, but before that disgrace and through much of the 1870s, New Yorkers were processing the arrival of an enormous volume of ancient Cypriot objects in a relatively short amount of time.

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Pp. 75-81: “Imagining Henenu,” by Carlos Gracia Zamacona

The Middle Kingdom Theban Project, begun in 2014 under the auspices of the Freie Universität Berlin, represents the resumption of the archaeological activities in the Middle Kingdom necropolis of Deir el-Bahari and Asasif. The site had previously been excavated under the auspices of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, initiated by Herbert Eustis Winlock in 1912 with survey activities followed by excavations from 1921–1922 until 1928 (Arnold 1996: 59). Winlock’s excavations had been preceded by Howard Carter’s in 1910–1911 (Morales et al. 2016: 258). The current excavations began in 2015, and have continued annually through 2018 (Morales et al. 2016, 2017, and 2018) under the auspices of the Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid, Spain), with a fifth season scheduled for October 2019.

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Pp. 82-88: “Two Punic Stelae Rediscovered in Philadelphia,” by Jean MacIntosh Turfa

In the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, two small, fragmentary Punic stelae were found in storage by Asian Section Keeper Stephen Lang.1 They were remnants from a large donation, made over a century ago, of part of the variegated collection of Maxwell Sommerville, perhaps best known for engraved gems of all kinds, and also much Asian material. Sommerville (1829–1904) was an affluent Philadelphia businessman who devoted his later life (and funds) to world travel and the collection of antiquities in Europe, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa as well as China, Japan, India, Burma, and Thailand. He published memoirs of his travels and catalogues and discussions of the gems and seals. His collection, originally exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1888–1891), was placed in the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (1891) and remained there upon his bequest (see Berges 2002: 11–19). Although Sommerville’s memoir Sands of Sahara (1901) describes some of his North African travels, there is no reference to his acquisition of the Punic artifacts.

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Pp. 90-101: “A New Jewelry Hoard from Eleventh-Century BCE Megiddo,” by Eran Arie, Elisabetta Boaretto, Mario A. S. Martin, Dvory Namdar, Orit Shamir, and Naama Yahalom-Mack

A magnificent new jewelry hoard was uncovered on July 11, 2010 in Area H of the northwestern sector of Tel Megiddo. This site in the Jezreel Valley (Israel) is one of the most important in the southern Levant thanks to four archaeological expeditions that have thoroughly excavated the mound and rapidly published the results of their digs (Ussishkin 2018). All expeditions unearthed hoards of different types from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (Hall 2016). This new hoard was unearthed in a destruction debris, securely dated to the Early Iron Age I, ca. 1070 BCE (local Level H-11, which equals University of Chicago’s Stratum VIIA). During this period, part of a building (remnants of two rooms and an inner courtyard surrounded by three large open courtyards) was found in this area (figs. 1–2; Finkelstein et al. 2017: 267–69). The building is positioned only about 30 m from Canaanite Palace 2041 of the city of Stratum VIIA. This article offers a preliminary publication of the hoard; a full report will soon be published in the Megiddo VI volume (Arie forthcoming a).

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Pp. 102-113: “Identifying a Dionysian Community in Ashkelon’s Eastern Cemetery,” by Davida Eisenberg-Degen, Ilan Peretz, and Eriola Jakoel

Ashkelon’s Eastern Cemetery was in continuous use for more than half a millennium, from the Hellenistic through Late Byzantine periods (fig. 1). Several excavations carried out in Ashkelon’s Eastern Cemetery reveal simple hewn graves alongside burial structures (Eisenberg-Degen 2017; Peretz 2017 and references listed there). Grave goods were found in several burials dating to the Roman period. Depositing funerary offerings was a common practice in the Roman era. Roughly a third of the excavated Eastern Cemetery (fig. 2, n=24) contained grave goods (Eisenberg-Degen 2017). Taking into account that some pilfering and plundering most likely took place, this figure is consistent with percentages noted in other Roman-period burials (Findlater et al. 2013: 69–80; Winter 2015: 82–87).

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Pp. 114-123: “Joseph’s Tomb: A Model of Traditional Islamic Shrines in Palestine,” by Loay Abu Alsaud and Amer Al-Qobbaj

Joseph’s Shrine is located on the outskirts of the eastern side of the city of Nablus (fig. 1), near Tell Balatah, the site of the Canaanite City of Shechem, and 300 m northwest of Jacob’s Well (Pummer 1993: 139; Bruce 1994: 102). Joseph’s tomb has been venerated throughout the ages by Samaritans (for whom it is the second-holiest site), Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The total area of Joseph’s Shrine is 661 m² and it is located in Block 5, parcel 10, according to early Islamic Immovable Property Records from the Department of Al Awqaf Al Islamyah (Jordanian Islamic Endowments), Nablus (fig. 2). Originally situated on an agricultural plain, it is now surrounded by buildings, due to expansion of housing and schools in central Balata.

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