Description
Book SynopsisWith its unique geographic diversity and abundant archaeological and textual data, the southern Levant is an excellent “laboratory” for studying how Assyrian domination operated. This collection of essays explains how Neo-Assyrian rule influenced the demographics, economy, and culture of the region.
A systematic study of Assyrian rule in the west that integrates archaeological and textual perspectives and reconsiders the “Assyrian Peace” paradigm has long been needed. Building on the unparalleled archaeological and textual information available from the Land of Israel and its surroundings, the studies in this book address various aspects of Assyrian rule, including life under Assyrian hegemony and the consequences of the Assyrian conquests. It includes a broad overview of the vast archaeological data from both the provinces and client kingdoms in the Land of Israel in the Assyrian period, as well as a systematic and chronological survey of Assyrian texts that mention the region or sites therein. The contributors employ widely divergent approaches to topics such as the description of Assyrian encroachment in biblical texts, the Judean experience of Assyrian control, the political structure of the Coastal Plain, and the architecture of hospitality, among others. Integrating various sources of information to reconstruct the demography, economy, architecture, and intellectual life of the southern Levant, the articles in this volume are important not only for the study of Assyrian rule but also for research on empires writ large.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Amitai Baruchi-Unna, Yigal Bloch, Alexander Fantalkin, Wayne Horowitz, David Kertai, Lily Singer-Avitz, and Peter Zilberg.
Trade Review“With regard to Assyrian involvement in the southern Levant, this volume provides both broad overviews of the data as well as in-depth studies on particular topics. Although each essay has its own merits, a strength of the book is the diversity of approaches employed in analyzing the various data in order to reconstruct Assyrian domination.”
—Anthony P. SooHoo Orientalia
“With differing nuances and stressing the variability of policy across time and space, these studies confirm recent claims, programmatically expressed here by Faust, that only areas outside direct Assyrian control prospered in the southern Levant because Assyria’s primary goal was resource extraction by manipulating the economy along the Levantine coast with minimum infrastructural investments.”
—Thomas Renz Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 The Southern Levant under Assyrian Domination: An Introduction
Avraham Faust and Shawn Zelig Aster
2 The Assyrian Century in the Southern Levant: An Overview of the Reality on the Ground
Avraham Faust
3 The Assyrian Provinces of the Southern Levant: Sources, Administration, and Control
Peter Zilberg
4 Treaty and Prophecy: A Survey of Biblical Reactions to Neo-Assyrian Political Thought
Shawn Zelig Aster
5 “Your Servant and Son I Am”: Aspects of the Assyrian Imperial Experience of Judah
Amitai Baruchi-Unna
6 The Assyrian Influence on the Architecture of Hospitality in the Southern Levant
David Kertai
7 Neo-Assyrian Involvement in the Southern Coastal Plain of Israel: Old Concepts and New Interpretations
Alexander Fantalkin
8 On Phoeniciaʼs Trade Relations with Philistia and Judah under the Assyrian Hegemony: The Ceramic Evidence
Lily Singer-Avitz
9 The Beirut Decree and Mesopotamian Imperial Policy toward the Levant
Yigal Bloch
10 The Last Days of Cuneiform in Canaan: Speculations on the Coins from Samaria
Wayne Horowitz
Indexes
