RELG 433 - Biblical Archaeology
Course Notes
Module 1 - Introduction
Notes
You may be wondering why, in a course on Biblical Archaeology, we spend time dealing with periods which pre-date the time of the Patriarchs, and why we spend time looking at cultures which flourished in Mesopotamia, Turkey, or Greece. This is because the development of cultures in Israel/Palestine was influenced by those of surrounding lands. In future weeks you will learn that the Philistines probably originated in the Aegean, the Hittite homeland was in Turkey; and that when Abraham was called to leave his "father's house" and follow where God led him, Abraham was not leaving some primitive pastoralist or nomadic society, but left a culture which had been developing for thousands of years, and which had reached a high level of sophistication.
Pronunciation and Spelling - Many of the words encountered in the Middle East are difficult for westerners to pronounce. The languages often have glottal stops and guttural sounds (made at the back of the throat) which do not occur in western languages. The apostrophes and ' marks which you may see in some names, for example 'Ubaid, indicate a glottal stop or one of the sounds for which we do not have a letter. In such cases, do not worry about the sound, or try to pronounce it, just miss it out or make a brief pause in the word.
Similarly, the cedilla Ç, and umlauts ü of Çatal Hüyük indicate sounds in the Turkish language which differ from those in English. The name is probably best pronounced "kha-TAHL hoo-YUK"
The languages of the Middle East are written with other alphabets than the western Latin version with which westerners are familiar. Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Arabic often do not show vowels - the speaker just has to know how a word is pronounced. That is why you may encounter variations in spelling, and why, for instance, some of the names of people may differ. eg. Pharaoh Merneptah's name can also be written "Merenptah" - we are not sure quite where the vowels were to be put.
Note on restoration of jewelry, skulls, etc - photographs of artefacts such as jewelry may give the impression that the photo shows the artefact as it was found. In actual fact, what was found might be a group of scattered beads, which the archaeologists have strung together to show what the artefact probably looked like when it was in use.
To get an idea of how shattered some remains can be, see some of the web pages which show pottery, jewelry, or other objects before, during, and after excavation and restoration.
Similarly, buildings are often rebuilt by putting fallen stones back into their probable places. In Israel, the archaeologists often put a layer of black pitch between the original wall as it was found, and the stones replaced above, to make it clear as to what is original and what has been restored. In some cases, a whole building may be moved and rebuilt in another location, so that archaeologists may continue the excavation to earlier levels.
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Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
