Sharon Zuckerman

Bio: Sharon Zuckerman is an academic researcher from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The author has contributed to research in topics: Bronze Age & Pottery. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 15 publications receiving 265 citations.

Anatomy of a Destruction: Crisis Architecture, Termination Rituals and the Fall of Canaanite Hazor

Abstract: Destruction levels, a recurring feature in ancient Near Eastern tell sites, are too often treated as isolated events. Recent scholarship on the formation processes of the archaeological record stresses the need to understand site destructions as part of long-term processes, rather than as isolated and unique events. This paper offers a model for studying destruction based on the concepts of the materialization of ritual and royal ideology. The identification of crisis architecture and termination rituals is used to shed new light on the activities taking place at the site prior to its final destruction and abandonment. This model is applied to the destruction of Canaanite Hazor at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and provides an alternative view of this event as a result of social, political, cultural and ideological circumstances rather than as an isolated event, stressing the role of internal socio-economic and ideological factors rather than external agents.

'.. Slaying oxen and Killing Sheep, Eating Flesh and Drinking Wine ..': Feasting in Late Bronze Age Hazor

Abstract: Communal feasts, events of ritual activity that involve shared food and drink consumption and display in religious and secular elite contexts, received considerable attention in anthropological and archaeological literature in recent years. In those studies, the focus was on the identification of feasting in the material record of ancient societies, and an attempt was made to decipher the complex social and political meanings inherent in such contexts. In this study, the aim is to identify and interpret traces of feasting activities in the context of Canaanite society of the 14th–13th century BCE. The site of Hazor, the largest Canaanite kingdom, serves as a case study for this discussion. Archaeological correlates of commensal feasts, uncovered in the extensive excavations of the site, are presented and discussed within the general picture of the Canaanite palatial system.

Taphonomic and Ecologic Information Form Bone Weathering

Abstract: Bones of recent mammals in the Amboseli Basin, southern Kenya, exhibit distinctive weathering characteristics that can be related to the time since death and to the local conditions of temperature, humidity and soil chemistry. A categorization of weathering characteristics into six stages, recognizable on descriptive criteria, provides a basis for investigation of weathering rates and processes. The time necessary to achieve each successive weathering stage has been calibrated using known-age carcasses. Most bones decompose beyond recognition in 10 to 15 yr. Bones of animals under 100 kg and juveniles appear to weather more rapidly than bones of large animals or adults. Small-scale rather than widespread environmental factors seem to have greatest influence on weathering characteristics and rates. Bone weathering is potentially valuable as evidence for the period of time represented in recent or fossil bone assemblages, in- cluding those on archeological sites, and may also be an important tool in censusing populations of animals in modern ecosystems.

The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History

Abstract: (2000). The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 139-139.

シナゴ-グ〔Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 4,1978より〕 (シナゴ-グ考古学ノ-ト-1-)

Abstract: This revised and updated edition of the classic in its field is an essential reference tool for all students of Christianity. Listing archaeological sites vital to an accurate understanding of the origins and developments of the great western religions, it also contains app. 100 pages on ancient Churches and Monasteries. Organised alphabetically and in four volumes this comprehensive work contains over 400 articles prepared by more than 150 scholars around the world. Lavishly illustrated with more than 2000 maps, plans, charts and drawings.

Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse: New Evidence from the Southern Levant

Abstract: A core drilled from the Sea of Galilee was subjected to high resolution pollen analysis for the Bronze and Iron Ages. The detailed pollen diagram (sample/~40 yrs) was used to reconstruct past climate changes and human impact on the vegetation of the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating of short-lived terrestrial organic material. The results indicate that the driest event throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages occurred ~1250–1100 BCE—at the end of the Late Bronze Age. This arid phase was identified based on a significant decrease in Mediterranean tree values, denoting a reduction in precipitation and the shrinkage of the Mediterranean forest/maquis. The Late Bronze dry event was followed by dramatic recovery in the Iron I, evident in the increased percentages of both Mediterranean trees and cultivated olive trees.Archaeology indicates that the crisis in the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age took place during the sa...