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Joint Publication of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (SAOC 59) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR Books, No. 5). The studies in this impressive volume of over 700 pages are presented in memory of Douglas L. Esse, an archaeologist and assistant professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago until his untimely death at the age of forty-two on October 13, 1992. Esse was one of the foremost authorities on the Early Bronze Age period in the Levant, which is reflected in the publication of his Oriental Institute doctoral dissertation entitled Subsistence, Trade, and Social Change in Early Bronze Age Palestine (SAOC 50, 1991). The majority of the thirty-four chapters in this volume are concerned with the study of the Early Bronze Age, and some chapters deal with periods and issues that pre-date and post-date the Early Bronze Age, as all of the forty-six authors selected to contribute to this volume were either colleagues or students of Esse and some were not primarily Early Bronze Age specialists. Chapter One includes three "Tributes" to Esse by L. E. Stager, A. Ben-Tor, and D. Saltz that assess the impact of Esse's scholarship, excellence in fieldwork, and the friendship he showed to all of those with whom he worked. Many of the chapters are concerned with ceramic studies from various historical periods, while other chapters deal with burial customs, cult, chronology, social organization, cylinder seal impressions, faunal studies, metrology, architecture, radiocarbon determinations, and maritime trade. The Israelite sites that figure prominently in these studies include Tel Maahaz, Tel Dor, Megiddo, Arad, Ai, Tel Yaqush, Nahal Tillah, Beit Yerah, Illin Tahtit, and Ashkelon. The geographical areas that are investigated include the Soreq Basin, the Akko Plain, the Jezreel Valley, the Dead Sea Plain, and the Carmel Coast and Ramat Menashe regions in Israel and Jordan; external studies are concerned with material from Egypt, the site of Alishar Höyük in Turkey, Tell el-Umeiri in Jordan as well as with pottery connections in Arabia. One chapter is concerned with the latest historical periods, which discusses the Persian and Muslim conquests in Palestinian archaeology. This volume should especially appeal to all of those who are interested in the archaeology and history of the Early Bronze Age period in Israel and its neighboring lands, but there is also much to contemplate about the origins of human settlement, the ceramics of fourth millennium Canaan, burial customs of the early second millennium, the Middle Bronze Age at Megiddo, the faunal evidence between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and regional aspects of some Iron Age pottery.

• Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 59
• Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2001
• ISBN 1-885923-15-5
• Pp. xviii + 704, 184 figures, 21 plates, 46 tables
• Paperbound 9 x 11.75 in / 23 x 30 cm
• $95.00

Contributors and Contributions:

Lawrence E. Stager "Remembering Doug Esse"

Amnon Ben-Tor "A Personal Note"

Daniella Saltz "Doug Esse, My Friend"

Guillermo Algaze and Daniel Fessler "A Reconsideration of the Origins of Human Settlement and Social Differentiation"

Ruth Amiran and Edwin C. M. van den Brink "A Comparative Study of the Egyptian Pottery from Tel Maahaz, Stratum I"

Eliot Braun, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Ram Gophna, and Yuval Goren "New Evidence for Egyptian Connections During a Late Phase of Early Bronze Age I from the Soreq Basin in South-Central Israel"

J. P. Dessel "The Relationship Between Ceramic Production and Sociopolitical Reconfiguration in Fourth Millennium Canaan"

William G. Dever "Iron Age Kernoi and the Israelite Cult"

Zvi Gal "Regional Aspects of the Iron Age Pottery in the Akko Plain and Its Vicinity"

Yosef Garfinkel "Warrior Burial Customs in the Levant During the Early Second Millennium B.C."

Ayelet Gilboa "The Significance of Iron Age "Wavy-Band" Pithoi along the Syro-Palestinian Littoral, With Reference to the Tel Dor Pithoi"

Ronald Gorny "An Unpublished Relief Sherd from Alishar Höyük'"

Raphael Greenberg "Early Bronze Age II-III Palestinian Cylinder Seal Impressions and the North Canaanite Metallic Ware Jar"

Rachel S. Hallote "Tombs, Cult, and Chronology: A Reexamination of the Middle Bronze Age Strata of Megiddo"

Timothy P. Harrison "Early Bronze Social Organization as Reflected in Burial Patterns from the Southern Levant"

Larry G. Herr "The History of the Collared Pithos at Tell el-Umeiri, Jordan"

Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish "Commodities and Cuisine: Animals in the Early Bronze Age of Northern Palestine"

Liora Kolska-Horwitz and Ianir Milevski "The Faunal Evidence for Socioeconomic Change Between the Middle and Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant"

David Ilan "The Riddle of Structure 5239 at Megiddo, Stratum IX"

Ornit Ilan "Household Archaeology at Arad and Ai in the Early Bronze Age II"

Alexander H. Joffe "Early Bronze Age Seal Impressions from the Jezreel Valley and the Problem of Sealing in the Southern Levant"

Ann E. Killebrew "The Collared Pithos in Context: A Typological, Technological, and Functional Reassessment"

Egon H. E. Lass "Chips and Shells: Flotation at Tel Yaqush"

Thomas E. Levy, David Alon, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Eric C. Kansa, and Yuval Yekutieli "The Protodynastic/Dynasty 1 Egyptian Presence in Southern Canaan: A Preliminary Report on the 1994 Excavations at Nahal Tillah, Israel"

Amihai Mazar "On the Significance of the Early Bronze III Granary Building at Beit Yerah"

Pierre de Miroschedji "Notes on Early Bronze Age Metrology and the Birth of Architecture in Ancient Palestine"

Avner Raban "Standardized Collared-Rim Pithoi and Short-Lived Settlements"

Walter E. Rast "Early Bronze Age State Formation in the Southeast Dead Sea Plain, Jordan"

Arlene M. Rosen and Steven A. Rosen "Determinist or Not Determinist?: Climate, Environment, and Archaeological Explanation in the Levant"

Dror Segal and Israel Carmi "A Series of Radiocarbon Dates from the Late Early Bronze Age I Site at Horvat Illin Tahtit"

Ilan Sharon "Philistine Bichrome Painted Pottery: Scholarly Ideology and Ceramic Typology"

Neil Asher Silberman "Thundering Hordes: The Image of the Persian and Muslim Conquests in Palestinian Archaeology"

Lawrence E. Stager "Port Power in the Early and the Middle Bronze Age: The Organization of Maritime Trade and Hinterland Production"

Anat Cohen-Weinberger and Samuel R. Wolff "Production Centers of Collared-Rim Pithoi from Sites in the Carmel Coast and Ramat Menashe Regions"

Yuval Yekutieli "The Early Bronze Age IA of Southwestern Canaan"

Jeffrey R. Zorn "Wedge- and Circle-Impressed Pottery: An Arabian Connection"

PUBLICATIONS OF DOUGLAS L. ESSE