Tel Baleteh 1997 Overview

E. F Campbell, Jr, L. E.Toombs, and E. Rachman, Late Bronze Age Pottery of Tell Balatah (Shechem)

Between 1957 and 1968, the Drew-McCormick (Joint) Archaeological Expedition recovered LBA remains from nine of the eleven fields they excavated at Shechem (Bull et al., 1965; Bull & Campbell, 1968; Campbell, 1960b; Campbell et al., 1971; Seger, 1972; Toombs & Wright, 1961; Toombs & Wright, 1963). The majority of the LBA material recovered was drawn from Field XIII (a 13 x Urn area just northeast of the temple complex). Systematic excavation of that field revealed a tightly stratified sequence of LBA levels and produced an enticing assemblage of pottery for analysis. The analysis and publication of that pottery has not yet been completed. Nevertheless, all diagnostic sherds from Field XIII were registered and saved. Thus, there is still the potential for a detailed understanding of the development and relative chronology of this LBA assemblage. The publication of pottery from the tightly stratified sequence of LBA deposits at Shechem will provide an opportunity to broaden our understanding of ceramic developments during the LBA and to satisfy long-standing speculation about the character of the hill country occupation of that period.

Our understanding of LBA Canaan remains frustrated by a lack of specific, regionally focused evidence compounded by what Bunimovitz has described as "... a conspicuous scarcity of material culture studies explicitly concerned with sociocultural processes and change" (Bunimovitz, 1995:320). Despite this, many scholars maintain that some degree of cultural and economic discontinuity (both spatial and temporal) developed within Canaan during the LBA, as a response to fluctuations in Egyptian power over the area (e.g., Bienkowski, 1989; Bunimovitz, 1995:320; Gonen, 1992a; Gonen, 1992b; Knapp, 1989). Apparently, the inhabitants of LBA Canaan were affected differentially by Egypt's imperialism. It does seem reasonable to argue, on the basis of textual evidence and geography, that the inland areas of Canaan were less accessible and certainly more troublesome for the Egyptians than were the coastal plains. Furthermore, it is often concluded that Egyptian influence would have been degraded in those areas in which they had less control (e.g., Bienkowski, 1989). In fact, several scholars have recently suggested that a regional dichotomy existed in LBA Canaan as a result of such variation in Egyptian influence; they claim that differentiation is 'reflected' in regionalized settlement and burial patterns (Bunimovitz, 1995; Gonen, 1992a; Gonen, 1992b). Gonen has argued:

...the inhabitants of the hill regions were outside the scope of Egyptian interests and thus were free to maintain local cultural traditions (Gonen, 1992b:241). Nonetheless, in the same article, Gonen described pottery types of the whole period as "uniform throughout the country, with the exception of isolated cases of limited regional distribution" (Gonen, 1992b:232).

Such a disparity seems to recur in descriptions of LBA Canaan. At a 'low magnification' we are presented with generalized evaluations of a regional material culture, described as 'uniform' or 'continuous'. On a finer scale, however, we are given particularistic descriptions of dichotomies in material culture assemblages between different areas (e.g., highlands versus lowlands). At present there is no way to reconcile this apparent political and thematic discrepancy between the highland and lowland regions of Canaan with our limited and generalized evaluations of the material culture of this period. Of course, it is possible that the pottery styles of LBA Canaan were not affected by variations in Egyptian influence. However, if we are to believe that settlement patterns, burial practices, and other expressions of social of identity were regionally distinctive, we must evaluate the ceramic evidence of the period in more detail.

Variability in the archaeological record is diachronic as well as synchronic. However, currently we are not only ill-equipped to deal with 'contemporary' regional comparisons, but we are unable adequately to evaluate or characterize temporal variation in LBA material culture. A satisfactory relative chronology of pottery styles (regional or generalized) for the LBA of Canaan has not yet been established. Moreover, our understanding of LBA pottery is vague and too often dependent on cross-dating occurrences of imported pottery forms (see Gonen, 1992b:234).

The analysis and publication of the LBA pottery from Shechem will allow us to deepen our understanding of local developments in ceramics during the LBA. A secure sequence of pottery types from Shechem will enhance our understanding of trends in material culture throughout this period and will give us an opportunity to compare material evidence of the LBA occupation of the hill country with other regional assemblages. These tasks and their repercussions should prove essential in estimating the effect, variable or otherwise, that Egyptian policy had over the hill country and the whole of Canaan during the LBA.