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Featured researches published by Raphael Greenberg.


Public Archaeology | 2009

Towards an Inclusive Archaeology in Jerusalem: The Case of Silwan/The City of David

Raphael Greenberg

Abstract The village of Silwan, in East Jerusalem, contains the remains of most ancient Jerusalem, often termed “The City of David”. In recent years the excavation and presentation of the archaeology of Silwan has been placed in the hands of a Jewish settler non-governmental organization. Their incorporation of this site into the Jewish-Israeli narrative is multifaceted — mixing religious nationalism with theme-park tourism. As a result, conflict with local Palestinians occurs at the very basic level of existence, where the past is used to disenfranchise and displace people in the present. The volatile mix of history, religion and politics in the City of David/Silwan threatens any future reconciliation in Jerusalem, which must be based on the empowerment of local people and the adoption of a proactive inclusive archaeological stance in which the many voices of the past are heard.


Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research | 1996

A third millennium levantine pottery production center : Typology, petrography, and provenance of the Metallic Ware of northern Israel and adjacent regions

Raphael Greenberg; Naomi Porat

Although long considered a hallmark of the EB II-III of northern Canaan, Metallic Ware (sometimes termed Abydos Ware, Combed Ware) has eluded systematic characterization. Defined by its highly fired fabric, Metallic Ware comprises a full range of household forms, excluding cooking pots. It is widely distributed between Taʿanakh in the south and Tyre in the north, and from Khirbet ez-Zeraqun in the east to the Mediterranean coast. Wherever found, it exhibits a unity of typology, chronology (floruit in EB II, decline in EB III), and fabric. Sherds from eight sites were analyzed petrographically, revealing a similar geological provenance: Lower Cretaceous formations that crop out mainly in the Hermon massif and north, in Lebanon. In view of its stylistic affinity to contemporary Canaanite pottery, it is proposed that Metallic Ware was produced in workshops centered around the upper Jordan Valley and distributed from there, in large quantities, to sites as far away as 100 km. Its pattern of distribution reflects a highly integrated, perhaps centralized, economy in EB II in northern Canaan and adjacent regions.


Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research | 2004

Revealed in their cups: Syrian drinking customs in Intermediate Bronze Age Canaan

Shlomo Bunimovitz; Raphael Greenberg

Proponents of EB III-IV continuity have downplayed cultural changes following the urban collapse in Canaan. Questioning this trend, we argue for a significant ceramic shift, highlighted by the introduction of the teapot and cup/chalice. This reflects a change from status definition through feasting in the Early Bronze Age to drinking in the Intermediate Bronze Age. As the expression of status through drink was prevalent in contemporary urban Syria, mobile groups from the urban periphery could have introduced drinking paraphernalia into northern Canaan in emulation of the Syrian elite. Farther south, a secondary emulation occurred, reflected in the creation of a local drinking repertoire.


Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research | 1987

New Light on the Early Iron Age at Tell Beit Mirsim

Raphael Greenberg

Tell Beit Mirsim was continuously, albeit sparsely, settled during the 13th-11th centuries B. C., and may provide a key to the understanding of this period in the southern Shephelah. Albright, identifying the site with Debir, suggested a Canaanite-Israelite-Philistine sequence for Strata C2-B1-B2. The stratigraphic and ceramic evidence, some of it previously unpublished, is here reexamined. We show that the spatial organization and architecture of the Iron I strata do not resemble those of sites identified as Israelite or Philistine, and that the pottery of these strata is fundamentally in the Canaanite tradition. Within this tradition, an influx of new forms and techniques is observed in Stratum B2. These are closely associated with Lachish Stratum VI, and it is suggested that Tell Beit Mirsim may have served as a haven for bearers of the Lachish pottery-making tradition, after that site was destroyed around 1150 B. C.


Near Eastern Archaeology | 2012

TEL BET YERAH: Hub of the Early Bronze Age Levant

Raphael Greenberg; Sarit Paz; David Wengrow; M Isserlis

During more than one thousand years at the dawn of written history, ancient Bet Yerah emerged and grew to be a focal point of Early Bronze Age interaction. Established as a large village circa 3500 b.c.e., Bet Yerah was to become the prime city of the Jordan Valley, with massive fortifications, paved streets, and trade connections extending across the Levant and to Dynastic Egypt. One of the most ambitious buildings of the ancient Levant, the Circles Building or Granary, was founded near the summit of the mound. Partial abandonments in the early third millennium signify a local crisis that corresponded with the influx of immigrants from the distant north; they introduced the Khirbet Kerak culture to the site. After centuries of shifting fortunes, Bet Yerah finally succumbed and was only sporadically inhabited in later times, as Hellenistic Philoteria and Umayyad al-Sinnabra. In our times it has become a heritage site associated with labor Zionism and the birth of the Kibbutz. This article tells the story of the Bronze Age city, based on extensive excavations since the 1930s, including new research and excavations since 2003.


Tel Aviv: Journal of The Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University | 2009

Introduction: Migrating Technologies at the Cusp of the Early Bronze Age III

Raphael Greenberg; Yuval Goren

Abstract Khirbet Kerak Ware has long been a magnet to students of late Levantine prehistory, offering insights into the long-distance connections at the edges of the Fertile Crescent. Despite a long history of study, the basic issues at stake—how technologies migrate and did the people who employed them migrate as well—remain unresolved. The approaches taken in a series of new studies published in this issue are introduced.


Archive | 2015

Ethics in Action: A Viewpoint from Israel/Palestine

Raphael Greenberg

This chapter begins with a biographical illustration of the author’s progression from “neutral” to “critical” archaeology. This is followed by a consideration of extant ethical codes and an attempt to re-define archaeology itself as an independent field with a potentially emancipatory role. As every society recruits the past to support diverse visions of the present and future, archaeologists’ interventions always entail discussion and negotiation. Where intercommunal conflict exists, archaeology will often be recruited to support rival, often mutually exclusive, concepts of collective identity. It can hence easily become implicated in violence. In three brief case-studies from Israel/Palestine I attempt to show how archaeology becomes political, either in the sense of community organization (Rogem Gannim), as agent provocateur in a society where collective memory is suppressed (Lod), or as resistance to oppression (Silwan). These cases should not be viewed as exceptional; it seems reasonable to expect that ethical practice will eventually reinvent the discipline of archaeology.


Archive | 2014

Corridors and Colonies: Comparing Fourth–Third Millennia BC Interactions in Southeast Anatolia and the Levant

Raphael Greenberg; Giulio Palumbi

This study addresses what appear to be similar modes of external interaction experienced by societies of the Anatolian Euphrates valley and the northwestern Levant on the one hand, and on the other the southern Levant during the fourth and third millennia BC. During the fourth millennium BC, both regions were the target of expansion by neighboring literate cultures, Uruk in the north and Egypt in the south. Both regions were significantly affected by the withdrawal of colonizers associated with these expansions, and both saw the arrival of a vastly different third-millennium BC spread of people and ideas derived from the Kura-Araks cultures of eastern Anatolia and the southern Caucasus. In our discussion, we introduce cultural and sociopolitical developments in each region, and then compare them. To what extent are the Uruk and Egyptian ventures colonial in intent and in impact? What occurs in their aftermath? What brought ‘Kura-Araks people’ southward, and what cultural markers did they preserve in the farthest reaches of their expansion? What links together the various regions that they inhabited? This cross-regional consideration summarizes the present state of inquiry and initiates a dialogue on the significance of long-range interaction at the periphery of the core civilizations at the dawn of the Bronze Age.


Tel Aviv | 2013

The Earliest Occupation at Tel Bet Yerah

Raphael Greenberg; Yael Rotem; Sarit Paz

Abstract The 2007 sounding in the northern part of Tel Bet Yerah yielded a stratigraphic sequence spanning the initial sequence of occupation on the mound, from EB IA to EB II. A robust ceramic assemblage, supported by radiocarbon dates, highlights the earliest part of the sequence. Comprising highly localized industries (including a little-known painted tradition) as well as regional ones (including Gray Burnished Ware), the Tel Bet Yerah assemblage provides a yardstick for ceramic evolution in the northern Jordan Valley between the end of the Chalcolithic and the mature EB I, offering a definition of two ceramic phases within an extended EB IA.


Levant | 2005

The Early Bronze Age Fortifications of Tel Bet Yerah

Raphael Greenberg; Yitzhak Paz

Abstract Throughout much of its history, Early Bronze Age Bet Yerah (Khirbat al-Karak) was massively fortified. Using previously unpublished data, three superimposed fortification systems are described: the earliest (Fortification A), dated EB II (and possibly late EB I) is a massive mudbrick fortification including a paved direct-entry gateway and gate shrine; the latest (Fortification C), dated to late EB III, is an extraordinary stone and brick system furnished with numerous round and square towers. Between the two lies a rather poorly preserved, though by no means insubstantial, stone and mudbrick wall (Fortification B), also ascribed to EB III. Each of the fortification systems both reflected and reinforced important trends in the urbanization of Tel Bet Yerah and of the southern Levant throughout much of the third millennium BCE.

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David Wengrow

University College London

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