Canaanites (Peoples of the Past).

Canaanites (Peoples of the Past). JONATHAN N. TUBB. 160 pages, 18 colour, 106 black-and-whiteillustrations. 1998. London: British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. Press; 0-7141-2089-8hardback [pounds]20. What or who was a Canaanite? In recent years there has beenconsiderable debate over the definition of Canaan in the Late BronzeAge Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the , but there is no doubt that in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (c.1950-1200 BC) it was a political-territorial name for Palestine andsouthern Syria. Strictly speaking Adv. 1. strictly speaking - in actual fact; "properly speaking, they are not husband and wife"properly speaking, to be precise , according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. the evidence,'Canaanite' applies to those periods only. In this popularbook, Jonathan Tubb makes a wider definition of the Canaanites, which headmits is an assumption, as the indigenous population of the Levant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. fromearliest times at least until the end of the Iron Age. Essentially thisbook therefore becomes a brief guide to the archaeology of the Levant,arranged chronologically from the Neolithic to Persian periods, with afinal look at the legacy of the Canaanites to the peoples who followed.Throughout, Tubb inserts considerable detail - and nearly half of allthe illustrations - from his own excavations at Tell as-Sa'idiyehin the Jordan Valley Jordan Valley may refer to: Jordan Valley in the Middle East. Jordan Valley in New Kowloon, Hong Kong, near Ngau Tau Kok. Jordan Valley, Oregon in the United States. . The intention was to help readers understand howarchaeological evidence is used to reconstruct history - and hedescribes how interpretations changed from season to season - butoccasionally the book reads like an overview of the excavations in awider context. Continuity is the theme that runs through the whole book, as Tubbcontinually reasserts his view of the essential cultural continuity ofCanaanite civilization from at least the 4th millennium SC, if notearlier, to the mid 1st millennium BC. His definition of'Canaan' is unnecessarily tortuous: the Egyptian and Ugaritic(and biblical) texts agree on a fairly precise definition of Canaan inthe Late Bronze Age as consisting of the entire Levant south of Ugarit.It is quite clear that Ugarit was not regarded as part of Canaan. Whilehis introduction correctly acknowledges this, later Tubb refers toUgarit as a 'major Canaanite centre' outside the Late BronzeAge Egyptian empire and incorrectly uses this as evidence that Egypt didnot control all of Canaan - despite quoting Ugaritic texts showing thatits population did not consider themselves as Canaanites. It becomes increasingly hard to accept the thesis of continuitywhen he refers to distinct Iron Age peoples - Israelites, Ammonites This list of ammonites is an attempt to create a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the subclass Ammonoidea, excluding purely vernacular terms. ,Moabites, Edomites - as all ethnically Canaanites, although it has to beacknowledged that the terms 'Canaan' or 'Canaanite'survived long after the demise of the socio-political entity itself, inconnection with the Phoenicians: a 2nd-century BC coin fromBerytus/Laodicea refers to its locality as 'Canaan', whileAugustine reports that in the 5th century AD North Africans ofCarthaginian stock, descended from Phoenician settlers, still referredto themselves as 'Chanani'. (The Phoenicians are the subjectof a forthcoming book in the same series by Glenn Markoe.) Covering such a huge chronological range in a relatively short bookmeans that the author is highly selective in his choice of topics, andoccasionally he does not take into account the latest evidence or give abalanced view. It is not entirely unfair to state that he focuses ontopics relating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acchis theme of continuity and to his excavations atTell es-Sa'idiyeh. Unfortunately, he makes sweeping statements ofapparent fact that are often only one possible interpretation - andsometimes no longer the generally accepted interpretation - and this maymislead the general reader who may not realize that alternativeexplanations exist. There are omissions which are difficult to understand. Tubbconcludes that during the Early Bronze Age the nature of contact betweenPalestine and Egypt was commercial, but fails to cite substantialevidence of actual Egyptian presence in southern Palestine which manynow believe points to Egyptian settlement and even an 'empire'during Early Bronze I. This omission contrasts with a whole chapterdevoted to expounding his own speculative theory of Sea Peoples'involvement in iron-working at Late Bronze Age Tell es-Sa'idiyeh. The outdated view that the Early Bronze IV period is known mostlyfrom tombs takes no account of ever-increasing evidence for settlement,particularly from Iktanu or Khirbat Iskander in Jordan, the majorexcavated sites of the period. Indeed, surveys indicate that over 50% ofEarly Bronze III sites in parts of Jordan continued to be occupied inEarly Bronze IV. For the late Iron Age and Persian periods, he provides only asketch of history and a description of archaeological remains at Lachishand Tell es-Sa'idiyeh. This is very thin and unbalanced as adescription of the period, and scarcely fits well into the theme ofCanaanites. Quite clearly this is a different period with a differentpeople, and it would have been better if he had stopped at the end ofthe Late Bronze Age with the rise of the Israelites, Philistines and theTransjordanian kingdoms. Liverpool Museum PiotrB@compuserve.com