Abstract: This article examines the trends in archaeological research and the state of conservation of archaeological sites in Judea and Samaria between 1993 and 2022. The absence of Palestinian-Israeli cooperation resulted in the establishment of two parallel bodies that have been responsible for the issue, with no connection between them. In the Israeli-controlled territory, academic involvement declined with only a handful of new excavations. In the Palestinian-controlled territory, many new studies were conducted with foreign assistance, primarily to strengthen Palestinian national identity. An assessment of the state of conservation indicates significant damage as a result of development and antiquities theft. In this region, where the future remains uncertain, relics of the past and the research of these relics appear to have sustained irreversible damage.

Abstract: Hiding complexes are among the well-attested archaeological remains of Roman-period Jewish settlement sites. Found chiefly in the Judean Lowlands and Lower Galilee, they consist of rock-cut subterranean facilities that are linked by an intricate network of narrow passageways and burrows, creating a sort of labyrinth beneath the settlement. In this article I propose a phenomenon that has not previously been addressed in the literature: namely, the association of hiding complexes with fortified settlements and forts from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The most conspicuous feature of these systems is that they permit movement underground from a fortified built-up area to the outskirts of the settlement or the open land beyond it. On the basis of an examination of the features, territorial extent and geographical distribution of the most prominent examples, and a comparison with the tunnels at Herodium, I propose that they were an important and planned defensive element of Bar Kokhba's military strategy.

Abstract: This chapter considers ancient Jewish ritual and practice through the lens of material culture. Its focus is on three areas of inquiry: the archaeology of Jewish pilgrimage; the archaeology of bodily practice, including purification, eating practices, and mortuary customs; and the archaeology of the communal gathering at the synagogue. The material remains drawn upon for the discussion derive primarily, though not exclusively, from Israel-Palestine of the Roman and Byzantine periods, namely the first century BCE through the sixth century CE. The chapter seeks to shed light on the embodied, sensory, and experiential elements of early Judaism, subjects at the intersection of materiality and religious studies. It is also indebted to a reframing of ritual studies toward approaches emphasizing the lived experience of ritual agents.

Abstract: Twenty ceramic ring-shaped stands came to light during the archaeological excavation of Khirbet el-Maqatir in the central highlands of Israel. The ring stands functioned as pedestals for round or conical vessels. Four of the twenty stands remained mostly intact and contained inscriptions. One of these stands included an inscribed word, two stands preserved a letter of the Hebrew or Aramaic alphabet, and another stand featured an incision. The stands dated to the early Roman period. At that time, ritually observant Jews occupied Khirbet el-Maqatir, a fortified village 16 kilometers north of Jerusalem. Khirbet el-Maqatir fell to the Romans in approximately 69 CE, during the First Jewish Revolt.

Abstract: The Antiquities Ordinance (Law) of 1920 was instrumental for the archaeology of Palestine in the British Mandate period. It was highly successful in having significant influence, for many years, on the antiquities legislation of Jordan and Israel after 1948. This law has hardly been studied so far, except for one detail—the setting of the year 1700 CE for defining antiquities. Based on many as yet unpublished documents from several archives, I discuss in this article the complex origins of the 1920 Antiquities Law. Contrary to the current scholarly consensus, it was created by many agents (historians, archaeologists, legal experts, politicians, military men), working since 1918 in Egypt, Palestine, Britain, and the international peace conferences held after World War I. The law was a compromise between the desire to facilitate the excavation, trade, and export of finds (for the benefit of Western institutions) and the wish to protect sites and keep finds in Palestine (for the benefit of local populations). The year 1700 CE was not a measure taken against protecting the area’s (late) Ottoman heritage, but a reasonable choice at a time when the discipline of historical archaeology did not exist yet.

Abstract: This article examines the factors that influenced the trends in archaeological excavations in Judea and Samaria during the decade attending the 1967 Six-Day War. Examination reveals a close connection between the political trends in Israel as they pertained to Judea and Samaria and the archaeological excavations undertaken in this region. When a prime minister appeared to consider Judea and Samaria an inseparable part of the state of Israel archaeologists followed (Meir). But when prime ministers regarded Judea and Samaria as territory that would be returned to the Jordanians (Eshkol and Rabin), the archaeologists stopped excavating in the region.

Abstract: A stone vessel industry existed in early Roman Palestine (first century CE), and many of these utensils were either hand-carved or made on a lathe. The stone vessels were part of the tableware within Jewish households from different socio-economic levels of society in cities and villages. This research indicates that stone vessels were not as “common” in Jewish settlements of that time as has previously been thought. The article’s purpose is to sum up the new archaeological data on the subject. It deals with manufacturing processes, morphological aspects. This article also offers a refined chronological scheme for stone vessels (late first century BCE–mid-second century CE) in Judea, and it incorporates hitherto unpublished data from the excavation of a quarry-cave manufacturing site at Tel el-Ful, as well as providing detailed information on the typological frequency of stone vessels from sites at Jerusalem, notably at Mount Zion.

Abstract: This contribution offers a framework for studying the deportations to and from the southern Levant during the Age of the Mesopotamian empires. It begins with a brief sketch of the importance of deportations as an Assyrian colonial means: the interests of the empire in both the imperial heartland and the southern Levant. The second part is dedicated to an overview of the various available sources, written and material alike, on the lives of the deportees, focusing mainly on their interaction with the hosting society. Concluding this contribution are musings on the fate of the deportees following the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and the destructive Babylonian conquest of the southern Levant.

Abstract: The origins and early history of the pentateuchal prohibition against eating finless and scaleless aquatic species (Lev 11:9–12; Deut 14:9–10) has yet to merit a detailed investigation. The present study is an initiatory attempt to attend to this lacuna by analysing 56 zooarchaeological assemblages of fish remains from 30 sites throughout the southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age through to the end of the Byzantine period (ca. 1550 BCE to 640 CE). A central conclusion of the study is that consumption of scaleless fish— especially catfish—was not uncommon at Judean sites throughout the Iron Age and Persian periods. Unlike the pentateuchal prohibitions against eating pork, the ban against finless and scaleless aquatic species apparently deviated from longstanding Judean dietary habits. The pentateuchal writers appear to have legislated this dietary restriction despite the lack of an old and widespread dietary tradition at its root. This conclusion should encourage us to rethink commonly held assumptions that other pentateuchal dietary proscriptions emerged out of earlier dietary ‘taboos’.

Abstract: In 2002–2005, salvage excavations were conducted at the site located in the central and southern parts of Moshav Kerem Maharal, on the southwestern slopes of the Carmel range (Fig. 1). From the Arab village Ijzim on the summit of the northern hill survived the remains of a two-story building (Sheikh’s house), which according to its style was built in the Ottoman period (probably the seventeenth century CE); it still incorporates some ancient architectural elements (Figs. 2–4).On the northern hill, two squares were excavated in each lot designated for construction (Areas A–E, H, I, K, L; Fig. 5; Table 1); in some areas the excavation reached the bedrock at a depth of 3.5 m below surface, cutting eight occupation layers. About 10% of the summit of the northern hill (15–20 dunams) was excavated. The excavations on the southern hill were conducted only in the lots and on the road connecting them (c. 35 dunams; Areas F1–23; Fig. 5), only where archaeological remains were detected in preliminary test trenches dug mechanically. In most of the area of the southern hill, bedrock was reached close to the surface (up to a depth of 0.5 m).The excavations revealed agricultural installations, quarries, rock-cuttings, cisterns, tombs, including a burial cave, and cup marks from 12 occupation layers (ten periods; Figs. 6–21; Plans 1–25; Appendix 1): Stratum XII, the Geometric Kebaran period (fourteenth–thirteenth millennia BP; see Marder, this volume); Strata XI–X, the Persian–early Hellenistic periods (sixth–fourth centuries BCE); Stratum IX, the Roman period (late first–early second century CE); Strata VIII–VII, the Byzantine period (fifth–seventh centuries CE); Stratum VI, the late Byzantine–beginning of the Early Islamic periods (seventh–eighth centuries CE); Stratum V, eleventh century CE; Stratum IV, twelfth–thirteenth centuries CE; Stratum III, the Mamluk period (late thirteenth–fifteenth centuries CE); Stratum II, the Ottoman and British Mandate periodS (until 1948); Stratum I, the modern era (after 1948). The pottery, glass and numismatic finds from these strata are discussed by Gendelman and Sai’d, this volume; Cytryn-Silverman, this volume; Katsnelson, this volume; and Kool, this volume. Additional periods are represented at the site by pottery alone: the Chalcolithic period, Late Bronze Age II and Iron Age II (tenth–seventh centuries BCE), the Hellenistic period (fourth–third centuries BCE; see Gendelman and Sa’id, this volume), and from the Early Islamic period (ninth–tenth centuries CE; see Cytryn-Silverman, this volume).The results of the excavations attest that Moshav Kerem Maharal is a multi-period site, occupied almost continuously from the Byzantine period to the modern era. During periods, there was also some activity to the north, east and west of the excavated areas. The Kerem Maharal site was an important rural site in Lower Carmel, and perhaps in the entire Carmel region during these periods.From the findings it can be deduced that in prehistoric and protohistoric times—the Geometric Kebaran and the Chalcolithic period—the site was located mainly on the southern hill, although similar cup marks were also discovered in the southern part of the northern hill. During the Persian period, and perhaps also at the beginning of the Hellenistic period, the settlement extended over most of the eastern slope of the northern hill. The settlement from the Roman period was exposed in the same area, but it seems to have been limited, and it is possible that it was mostly licated in the center of the site (Areas B–H). During these periods, the settlement’s cemetery was located on the southern hill, possibly also on the hill to the east of the site.During the Byzantine period, the settlement reached its peak. The northern hill was densely inhabited and according to the architectural remains, it appears that at the top of the hill (Areas F and F2) stood a large public building. The southern hill served as an industrial area, which included winepresses (one of which was a complex winepress), quarries and other installations whose function was not clear. In the Early Islamic period, the settlement at the site diminished in size and its remains were found only on the eastern slope, north of Area H.During the Mamluk period, the site flourished once again, and it extended over the entire northern hill and in several locations on the southern hill. The construction quality in this period was poorer than that of the Byzantine period, apart from the large structure that stood on the hill summit.In the Late Ottoman period, and possibly even in its earlier stages, the settlement extended over both hills, where dwellings were built. The large extent of this settlement is further attested by the location of the cemetery (Area F23) in the middle of the settlement, indicating its expansion beyond its previous boundaries. The oil press in Area C attests to the cultivation of olives and the production of olive oil during the Ottoman period. The crushing basin was probably reused, perhaps from the Byzantine period; therefore, it is probable that this economic branch had also existed during this period.The settlement at the site was rural in nature. It seems that throughout the periods the residents engaged in agriculture, as can be seen from the vast agricultural installations that were exposed. The large number of winepresses indicates the extensive cultivation of vines and wine production. The agricultural activities continued into the sixteenth century CE and later. Based on the ceramic finds and the petrographic analyses, it seems that the inhabitants of the site maintained close ties mainly with their immediate surroundings.The excavations at Kerem Maharal were the first to reveal a large-scale multi-period site in the Carmel range, as opposed to other nearby sites, such as ‘Usfiyya and Daliyat el-Karmel, where only a few excavations were conducted in limited areas, and the remains were poorly preserved.

Abstract: In July 2011, an excavation was conducted in the southwestern part of the city of Yehud, c. 300 m north of Road 461, in an area known as Ashkenazi Market (Fig. 1). Several archaeological excavations have been undertaken nearby, revealing construction remains, installations and tombs from the Chalcolithic to the Ottoman periods. In the present excavation, 85 squares were opened, and remains from several periods (Plans 1–3) were discovered.The remains from the Chalcolithic period included two wide and deep shafts that contained pottery vessels and flint artifacts chracteristic of the Late Chalcolithic period (see Lupu, this volume; Fig. 2). Such shafts were previously documented in Yehud and Tel Aviv, and they were reused as refuse pits. So far, no settlement remains from the Chalcolithic period have been unearthed at Yehud. Based on the distribution of the pits and shafts at Yehud, it can be concluded that this area was the periphery of a large settlement, where waste dumping and possibly industrial activities were carried out.Finds from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, and from the Persian and Hellenistic periods, are scarce (Fig. 11). No architectural remains survived, and the ceramic assemblage is small. From the Early Roman period, pottery, glass and stone vessels were exposed, indicating activity at the site (Fig. 12; see Gorin-Rosen, this volume). The finds dating from the period between the two Jewish revolts and later in the second century CE reflect continuity, although no architectural remains could be attributed to this phase.In the Middle–Late Roman period (second–third centuries CE), an industrial area operated at the site, mainly for the production of pottery. Five pottery kilns were found in two areas (L633, L635, L725, L761, L771; Plan 3; Figs. 3–6), and another kiln was probably used in the metal industry (L808; Fig. 7). The pottery kilns are of the round type, with a central pillar from which arches emerge (Plan 2). The kilns produced household vessels, such as bowls, cooking pots, jugs and juglets (Figs. 12, 13). The remains of glass industry might point to the existence of a glass workshop at the site (see Gorin-Rosen, this volume). Between the pottery kilns were the remains of a structure that was probably related to the operation of the kilns, or for storage (Fig. 8). The fills in and above the structure included animal bones (see Agha, this volume).In the Byzantine period, the kilns were filled in, sealed and leveled with a plaster floor. Buildings that probably served as dwellings (Fig. 9) were exposed at the site, alongside pottery vessels (Figs. 14–16) and contemporary coins (studied by Donald T. Ariel), and refuse pits. Despite the poor preservation, overall planning is evident in the mostly east–west orientation of the architectural remains. Next to the Byzantine buildings were the scanty remains of an Early Islamic settlement, dated by the pottery finds (Fig. 17).The site was resettled in the Late Ottoman period. The remains included buildings, refuse pits and cesspits (Fig. 10) of the Arab village el-Yehudiya (Abbasia). Pottery (Fig. 18), pipes (studied by Lior Rauchberger; Fig. 19), metal objects and jewelry (Fig. 20), were found from this phase.