Samaria 2005 Overview

Ivories from Samaria:
Complete Catalogue, Stylistic Classification,
Iconographical Analysis, Cultural-Historical Evaluation
Claudia E.Suter

This grant is for the completion and publication of The Ivories from Samaria: Complete Catalogue, Stylistic Classification, Iconographical Analysis, Cultural-Historical Evaluation. The Swiss National Science Foundation from 2002-2005 has subsidized this research project. Their funding, however, cannot be extended for budgetary reasons.

Ca. 12’000 pieces of polished or carved ivory were excavated at Samaria, Israel, between 1908 and 1935. They came from the area of the Iron Age palace and can be dated to the 9th to 8th centuries BCE. Today they are stored in seven different institutions in Jerusalem, London, and Cambridge, MA. For the most part, they are panels or parts of panels that decorated luxury furniture made of wood. These panels were mounted either with dowels or glue, in which case their backs show various types of striation. The images are carved in different techniques and styles. They show a variety of figural and floral motifs many of which were shared among the Eastern Mediterranean elite of the time. Some pieces have alphabetic inscriptions, including personal names and letters that served as fitters’ marks.

Only 197 of the ca. 12’000 pieces have yet been published in a monograph from 1938. In this publication, the excavators did not adequately report the total number of ivory objects found; no more than 500 pieces are still assumed in current literature. It was only in the course of research already accomplished by this project that the entire extent of the ivory collection from Samaria came to light. The publication from 1938 neither includes information on the back of the pieces, nor a proper catalogue with field numbers and find-spot indications. What’s more, under the influence of Biblical bias, the entire collection has been attributed to Phoenician workmanship and was until recently disqualified from further discussion on Aramean and Israelite art of the Iron Age.

Despite being in a rather fragmentary state of preservation, the ivories from Samaria are of great significance for the cultural history of Israel, as well as for the still problematic classification of first millennium BCE Levantine ivory carvings. Their attribution to particular kingdoms is difficult, because the vast majority of the production was not found where it was made, but at Nimrud, the Assyrian capital at that time, where to it came as war booty or tribute. The collection from Samaria is the largest after that from Nimrud, and the only substantial one from a Levantine site. Even on very small fragments, motif and engraving technique can usually be identified and stylistically classified. While some style groups known from Nimrud are not represented at Samaria, Samaria shows stylistic varieties that are not present at Nimrud. A comparison of these two collections together with finds from other sites will contribute to a refinement in the classification of Levantine ivory carving. Moreover, there are several indications that Samaria itself entertained a workshop, and this will add support to the recently instigated reassessment of Iron Age Israel. A number of carvings exhibit letters and inscriptions that can be identified as Hebrew. Finally, the images carved in ivory on prestigious royal furniture reveal with what ideologies the Israelite kings chose to identify and thus contribute to the reconstruction of ancient Israel’s cultural history.

At present, a detailed catalogue of all pieces with color photographs of their front and back made by the applicant is complete in digital form. It includes relevant information from the unpublished field records, as well as observations based on personal inspection. Preliminary work toward the stylistic classification of the material as well as for the edition of the inscriptions has been done. These chapters have to be written as well the chapter on the meaning of the imagery and the function of the objects it decorated, and the final synthesis on the significance of the ivories for the history of Israel. A formatted version of all chapters and the digital catalogue that will be appended to the book will be ready for the publisher in two years from the time the grant begins. The book will be published in the series Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis. Permissions to publish the ivories are here enclosed.