Levantine archaeology
[1] In addition, Classical archaeology may cover areas relevant to the Bible outside of the Levant (e.g., Egypt or Persia) and it takes into account the use and explanation of biblical texts, which Levantine archaeologist ignore.
[13] A lack of awareness of the importance of stratigraphy in dating objects led to digging long trenches through the middle of a site that made work by later archaeologists more difficult.
[13] Edward Robinson identified numerous sites from antiquity and published his findings with Eli Smith in a pivotal three-volume study entitled Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions: Journal of Travels in the Year 1838.
While the importance of stratigraphy, typology and balk grew in the mid-twentieth century, the continued tendency to ignore hard data in favour of subjective interpretations invited criticism.
Whole pots and richly decorated pottery are uncommon in the Levant and the plainer, less ornate ceramic artifacts of the region have served the analytical goals of archaeologists, much more than those of museum collectors.
[21] The ubiquity of pottery sherds and their long history of use in the region makes ceramics analysis a particularly useful sub-discipline of Levantine archaeology, used to address issues of terminology and periodization.
Without answers to these questions, the authors contend that research exploring the degree to which Phoenician art and symbolism penetrated into the different areas of Syria and Palestine will make little progress.
[27] Early archaeological pioneers in 1920s and 1930s included Nahman Avigad, Michael Avi-Yonah, Ruth Amiran, Immanuel Ben-Dor, Avraham Biran, Benjamin Mazar, E.L. Sukenik, and Shmuel Yeivin.
[28] Yigael Yadin, the pioneer of the Israeli School of archaeology, excavated some of the most important sites in the region, including the Qumran Caves, Masada, Hazor and Tel Megiddo.
Notable contemporary archaeologists include Eilat Mazar, Yoram Tsafrir, Ronny Reich, Ehud Netzer, Adam Zertal, Yohanan Aharoni, Eli Shukron, Gabriel Barkay, Israel Finkelstein, Yizhar Hirschfeld, and many more.
European archaeologists also continue to excavate and research in the region, with many of these projects centered in Arab countries, primary among them Jordan and Syria, and to a lesser extent in Lebanon.
The first joint project was conducted in Jericho and coordinated by Hamdan Taha, director of the Palestinian Antiquities Department and the University of Rome "La Sapienza", represented by Paolo Matthiae, the same archaeologist who discovered the site of Ebla in 1964.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the West Bank was annexed by Jordan (1950), and archaeological excavations in the region were carried out by its Department of Antiquities, as had been the case throughout the British Mandate in Palestine.
[39] Though the Hague Convention prohibits the removal of cultural property from militarily occupied areas, both foreign and Israeli archaeologists mounted extensive excavations that have been criticized as overstepping the bounds of legitimate work to protect endangered sites.
[39] Belameh, located a little over one mile (1.6 km) south of Jenin, is an important Bronze Age site identified with the ancient Ibleam, a Canaanite[41] city mentioned in the Egyptian Royal Archive that was conquered by Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE.
[50] Monuments in the city include "nine historic mosques (four built on Byzantine churches and five from the early Islamic period), an Ayyubid mausoleum, and a 17th-century church, but most buildings are Ottoman-era structures such as 2 major khans, 10 Turkish bath houses, 30 olive-oil soap factories (7 of which were functioning), 2850 historic houses and exceptional family palaces, 18 Islamic monuments and 17 sabeel (water fountains).
[50] Taha's claim was confirmed by a series of reports produced by UNESCO that noted that pursuant to military operations undertaken in April 2002, hundreds of buildings in the Old City were affected, sixty-four of which were severely damaged.
In the autumn of 2003, bulldozers preparing the ground for a section of the barrier that runs through Abu Dis in East Jerusalem damaged the remains of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine era monastery.
"[54] Gaza's main highway, the Salah al-Din Road, is one of the oldest in the world, and has been traversed by the chariots of the armies of the Pharaohs and Alexander the Great, the cavalry of the Crusaders, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Located five kilometers south of Gaza City, the site was discovered by chance in 1998 during construction for a new housing complex, and work was halted to allow archaeological soundings to be conducted.
[59] Rather than attempting to understand "the natural process of demolition, eradication, rebuilding, evasion, and ideological reinterpretation that has permitted ancient rulers and modern groups to claim exclusive possession," archaeologists have become active participants in the battle.
The Jordanian actions were described in a letter to the United Nations by Yosef Tekoa, Israel's permanent representative to the organization at the time, as a "policy of wanton vandalism, desecration and violation,"[61] which resulted in the destruction of all but one of 35 Jewish houses of worship.
[62] In the ancient historic Jewish graveyard on the Mount of Olives, tens of thousands of tombstones, some dating from as early as 1 BCE, were torn up, broken or used as flagstones, steps and building materials in Jordanian military installations.
"[64] Work carried out by the Islamic Waqf since the late 1990s to convert two ancient underground structures into a large new mosque on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif damaged archaeological artifacts in Solomon's Stables and Huldah Gates areas.
[69] For example, Dr. Eilat Mazar told Ynet news that the actions by the Waqf were linked to the routine denials of the existence of the Jerusalem Temples by senior officials of the Palestinian Authority.
[14] Important sites in Lebanon dating to the Neanderthal period include Adloun, Chekka Jdidé, El-Masloukh, Ksar Akil, Nahr Ibrahim and Naame.
[73] Byblos, as well as archaeological sites in Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon, and Tripoli, contain artifacts indicating the presence of libraries dating back to the period of Classical antiquity.
[14] Syria is often acknowledged to be a "crossroads of civilizations", "traversed by caravans and military expeditions moving between the economic and political poles of the Ancient Near Eastern world, from Egypt to Anatolia, from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia."
While there is significant geographical and cultural overlap with its neighbouring regions, Akkermans and Schwartz note that specialists in Syria itself, rarely use the term "Syro-Palestinian archaeology" to describe their inquiries in the field.
Syria can be seen as a distinct and autonomous geographical and cultural entity whose rainfall-farming plains could support larger scale populations, communities, and political units than those in Palestine and Lebanon.
