Megiddo 2008 Overview

Eliot Braun

The city as an institution has its roots in prehistoric societies and Megiddo (Tell Mutesselim) is arguably the largest and certainly one of the earliest urbanized settlements in the southern Levant. Although central to any discussion of the Early Bronze Age of the region, the 'East Slope' excavation of the University of Chicago's expedition (otherwise known as the 'Megiddo Stages') was published only in a cursory volume: Notes on the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Pottery of Megiddo by Engberg and Shipton (1934), with schematic illustrations. Lack of more complete information has unfortunately, allowed not a little misrepresentation of the archaeological record of the site. This project is aimed at completing the excavators' account based on their unpublished field data and a sizable collection of artifacts retained and deposited in Jerusalem and Chicago. By filling this lacuna in available information it will complement and integrate the 'East Slope' with contemporary levels excavated on the high mound, taking into account research by the late Douglas Esse and recent excavations by Tel Aviv University.

The report will further offer a reevaluation of the entire array of deposits encountered in the earliest levels at the site in light of contemporary scholarship with special attention paid to evidence for development of social complexity and a hierarchical social system at Megiddo that is arguably urban. That evidence will then be evaluated using models of prehistoric urbanism in the Ancient Near East in an effort to place this site, central to the southern Levant, within its nearer and greater chronological and regional contexts.