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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 wer…

[German Version] I. Antiquity – II. Early Church – III. Middle Ages to the Present I. Antiquity Devoti…

[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 …

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[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, pro…

[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. …

[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, an…

[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 sp…

[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 extent that wri…

[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 but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy and the consciousness that it is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life’ ” (Huizinga, 28). Using this definition, he cites early cultural evidence t…

[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 …

[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 ce…

[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.…