Metalworking in the Central Jordan Valley at the Transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age / חרושת המתכת במרכז בקעת הירדן במעבר מתקופת הברונזה לתקופת הברזל

• Published in: ארץ-ישראל: מחקרים בידיעת הארץ ועתיקותיה 1990-01, Vol.כא, p.212-225
• Main Authors: נגבי, אורה, Negbi, Ora
• Format: Article
• Language: Hebrew
• ISSN: 0071-108X

In a paper published in 1968, Pritchard demonstrated that Sea Peoples were responsible for the metallurgical activity that emerged in the central Jordan Valley in the late 13th and early 12th centuries BCE. Pritchard's suggestion has been strongly supported recently (1988) by Tubb, who maintains that substantial archaeological data indicate that early groups of Sea Peoples had already established themselves at Beth-Shean, Tell es-Saʾidiyeh and Tell Deir ʿAlla several decades before 1200 BCE. Reevaluation of both old and new data from these sites leads us to the following conclusions: a) There are no diagnostic data for the presence of intrusive Aegean elements in the central Jordan Valley at the close of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. On the other hand there are clear indications that at that time Egyptian strongholds expanded beyond the Beth-Shean Valley to include key sites in the Succoth Valley, such as Tell eṡ-Sayidiyeh and Tell Deir ʿAllah. b) The strong Egyptian affinities attested in the cemeteries of the residencies of Beth-Shean, and the temples of Beth-Shean and Tell Deir ʿAlla, seem to coincide with the intensification of Egyptian control in southern Canaan in the late 13th and early 12th centuries BCE. c) The population of Tell Deir ʿAlla and Tell eṡ-Saidiyeh at that date was substantially similar to that of other major Canaanite sites in the Beth-Shean and Jezreel Valleys. Archaeological remains indicate, however, that the local elite adopted Egyptian burial customs and used Egyptianized luxury goods. d) The rich assemblages of metal artifacts recorded from the cemeteries of Beth-Shean and Tell eṡ-Saidiyeh include Egyptian vessels and their Canaanite imitations, as well as distinctive types of stands and other luxury items that were produced in the major bronzeworking centres of the Levantine coast and Cyprus. e) The hiatus which followed the collapse of Egyptian domination in Canaan, does not necessarily imply that new ethnic elements were introduced into the central Jordan Valley in the mid-12th century BCE. It seems more likely that the semi-nomadic groups who used the smelting installations at Tell Deir ʿAlla in the late 12th and 11th centuries BCE, were the direct successors of local metalworking experts who had been employed by the Egyptians in the 13th and early 12th centuries BCE. Consequently, we cannot accept Tubb's claim that "It was surely these craftsmen, inheritors of bronze-working which was ultimately Sea Peo