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[German Version] (DEI; German Protestant Institute for the Study of the Holy Land in Antiquity). After, among others, the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (German Society for the Study of Palestine) was founded in 1877, the École Biblique (The Bible school) in 1893, and the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society) in 1898 (Excavati…

[German Version] (Tell Deir ʿAllā) lies in the central Jordan rift, 5 km to the east of the Jordan River and 1.5 km north of the Jabbok, and was a junction of of important north-south and east-west routes. Excavations by the University of Leiden (Hendricus Jacobus Franken, Gerrit van der Kooij) and the University of Irbid (Moawiyah M. Ibrahim, Zaidan Kafafi), …

[German Version] I. Archaeology – II. Art History I. Archaeology The term “crafts” refers to the production of objects and implements of all kinds – in other words, what are now usually called the “practical arts.” In the ancient Near East, there was no terminology for crafts, nor were there explicit theories concerning art. Sometimes mythology attributed crafts to culture heroes (Gen 4:22; 6; cf. Philo of Byblos) or some deity or patron like the later figures of Joseph, the …

[German Version] I. Antiquity – II. Early Church – III. Middle Ages to the Present I. Antiquity Devotional objects can be understood as objects of private piety and religiosity common in all ancient cultures (cf. Epict., Dissertationes II 8.12), where they were in demand, especially in daily life for magical/apotropaic or energetic/sacramental purposes, and were traded commercially (Philostr. Vita ap. 5.20). The term is modern, so there are no ancient equivalents; comparable Greco-Roman terms include, for example εὐλογία/ eulogía (blessing; Lat. benedictio), ϕυλακτήριον/ ph…

[German Version] The toponym Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, “the great (city) of Ammon” (Josh 13:25; 2 Sam 11:1; 12:26, 29; Ezek 25:5; etc.) is a shorter form for רַבַּתבְּנֵיעַמּוֹן/ rabbat bĕnêʿammôn (Deut 3:11; 2 Sam 12:26; etc.); it can be identified with the citadel and portions of the lower city of modern ʿAmmān. Settled since prehistoric times, Rabbah developed into a city state during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. According to 2 Sam 8:12; 10:1ff.; etc., Rabbah was conquered by David. Arab traditions speak of Lot as the r…

[German Version] I. Archaeology – II. Religious Studies – III. House Church (in Early Christianity) – IV. Sociology I. Archaeology Functionally, the house was a building which, in contrast to a palace, served as a private dwelling. While circular structures have been identified in prehistoric Palestine, from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age the broad-room type of house dominated, that is, a one-room and one-floor structure with a single entrance on the long side. In addition, there were sometimes apsidi…

[German Version] Madaba, an ancient town located approx. 30 km southwest of ʿAmman. Settled at the latest by Early Bronze Age I (with interruptions), Madaba was disputed between Israel and Moab in the mid-9th century bce (cf. Num 21:30; Josh 13:9, 16), until Mesha of Moab finally conquered the city (Mesha Stone). Madaba was part of the Babylonian Empire from the 6th century bce onward (Isa 15:2). Controlled by ¶ Arabs (Nabateans or Banu ʿAmirat) in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods (CIS 2.1, 196; 1 Macc 9:36; cf. Jos. Ant. XIII 11, 18) and temporarily occupied by Maccabees (Jos. Ant. XII…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. History I. Religious Studies In the history of civilization, music has played a role in many spheres. It accompanies work, provides entertainment, facilitates dancing (Dance), features in religious ceremonies and other forms of religious expression, and can be used for therapeutic purposes. Music for its own sake as an art form is a secondary development. Speech and song are not always clearly separate but depend on the language involved; production of words at various ¶ pitches and vocal registers can represent a form of music, s…

[German Version] I. Definition Numismatics is the historical science of money and coinage. The name derives from the Greek and Latin words for “coin”: νόμισμα/ nómisma, nummus. Following some pioneering work in the Renaissance, numismatics has established itself as a modern science at least since Johann Hilarius Eckhel (1737–1798), with its own methodological tools. II. Importance 1. Archaeology. As usually authorized official documents, coins with their epigraphic and iconographic information are of great value as sources for the history of civilizati…

[German Version] I. Geography – II. History – III. Religion I. Geography The name of the Ammonite tribe or people is derived from a legendary hero named Ammon. The name, used both by themselves and others, defines them as “the children of Ammon” (בְּנֵי עַמוֹן/ bnê ʿaammôn). Their capital city, Rabbath-Ammon, the citadel of today's ʿAmmān, lay on the central Transjordan plateau. Ammon shared a border to the south or south-west with …

[German Version] (Bronze Age to Late Antiquity). Power-radiating objects, such as scepters or ceremonial weapons, or implements needed to perform cultic procedures, such as libations and incense offerings, but in which there is no inherent magical power, can be designated cultic objects. As such, they have been attested in Palestine since pre-historic times and found use in the official and the private cult, were made of the most varied materials, and mostly preserved …

[German Version] (Tell es-Saʿīdīyeh). Pritchard’s excavations between 1964 and 1967 and Tubb’s since 1985 show that occupation of this site in the central Jordan valley began in the Early Bronze period at the latest; at the end of the Late Bronze period and in the early Iron Age it experienced an urban florescence, probably as the residence of an Egyptian governor. The unique water supply system consisted of a roofed staircase leading to a spring outside the walls. After an occupation gap, the cit…

[German Version] I. General – II. Eastern Mediterranean – III. Palestine – IV. Realm of the Early Church I. General The development of the discipline of archaeology relates closely to the development of archaeological techniques. Archaeology serves the controlled investigation of the material evidence of past societies. The fundamental idea of the science of archaeology consists in the fact that ancient objects attain full significance chiefly in their original context. Function, da…

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Geography – III. Archaeology – IV. History and Society – V. History of Religions I. Terminology The area settled by the Philistines, referred to collectively in Akkadian by such names as palaštu after their conquest by Assyria, probably provided the basis for the Greek ( Sýria hḗ) Palaistínē, first found in Herodotus (1.105; 2.104, 106; 3.5, 91; 4.39; 7.89), even though the hypothetical intermediate Aramaic expression of the Persian period, the likely basis of the Greek form, is still unattested. To the exten…

[German Version] I. Cultural History The Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga identified play as a fundamental cultural phenomenon and thus a defining feature of human life. His thesis of homo ludens supplements the anthropological theories of homo sapiens and homo faber and other explanations of culture grounded in reason and fabrication (Labor). Huizinga posits the following definition: “Play is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules that are freely accepted …

[German Version] (German Society for the Study of Palestine; in short: Deutscher Palästina-Verein [DPV]), was founded in 1877 in Wiesbaden by Carl Ferdinand Zimmermann (Basel), Albert Socin (Tübingen), and E. Kautzsch ¶ (Basel). The goal and objective of the DPV is the scientific study of the history and culture of Palestine, especially its ancient past, by promoting and publishing archaeological, topographical, ethnological, philological-epigraphical-literary, history-of-religions, and natural studies. Since 1878, the DPV has published an annual journal ( Zeitschrift de…

[German Version] (east of the Jordan) in the Wādī ṣ-Ṣīr approx. 25 km west of ʿAmmān is identical with Tyros (Sourabitta and Tauros). In the 3rd century bce, Tyros was in the possession of a branch of the Jerusalemite Tobiads, who acted in Tyros as commanders of a semi-autonomous military colony in the service of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Following disputes with the Oniad family, the Tobiad Hyrcanus ben Joseph retreated to Tyros (2 Macc 3:11; Jos. Ant. XII 186–236; cf. CIJ 868). It is uncertain whether the half-Judahite or – Ammonite Tobyah mentioned in Nehemiah 2–4; 6; 13 ¶ (5th cent. bce) was an…

[German Version] I. General – II. Biblical Archaeology – III. Christian Archaeology I. General In an earlier period, the term “archaeology” referred primarily to Greco-Roman antiquity, above all to works of art. Today, archaeology embraces all scientific efforts to derive information from the material remains of ancient civilizations in an attempt to understand them. For periods with written records…

[German Version] (Heb. גֶזֶר “separate area” [?]; in hieroglyphics Q٤̲r and in cuneiform Gazri, etc.), one of the largest ancient Near Eastern sites in Palestine, lies on the northwestern sands of the Shephalah near the intersection of the Via Maris and the Jaffa-Jerusalem road. It was first identified with Tell Ğazarī by Charles Clermont-Ganneau in 1871, and excavated by R.A. Stewart Macalister 1902–1909, Alan Rowe 1934 and by G.E.Wright, William G. Dever and Joe D. Seger 1964–1974, 1984 and 1990.…