>>>> If I recall correctly travel distances for large groups of fully
> loaded infantry are about 25 km/day and can reach 100 km/day for
> small groups of light load elite infantry...
>>>Ariel.


During World War II in North Africa, infantry soldiers carrying field packs
marched at the official U.S. Army speed of two and a half miles (ca. four
km.) per hour.  In his memoirs, General L.K. Truscott wrote that he trained
his men to march at four, and even five, miles per hour.  But ambulances
followed the line of march to pick up soldiers exhausted by the rapid pace.
One New York City block in 45 seconds (four m.p.h.) is as fast as I can
move, without an ambulance.

Clark Whelton
New York

At 02:39 PM 6/3/2007, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:

>To put things in relief, an English soldier during the desert war (WW
>II) needed 25 litres of water a day, or so I have heard.

That's probably a gross figure. The net figure would be what was left
after the water was boiled to make tea ... :)

>Believe it
>after my fourteen litres in a day in Petra some years ago. Soldiers can
>also travel longer because they may carry their provision, including
>water, with them.
>
>But didn't this start as a discussion about whether or not Palmyra was
>on a main caravan route already in the MB age? I thing I never got an
>answer. And if we take nomadism before the introduction of the camel,
>water supplies should be enough to feed perhaps comprehensive flocks of
>animals, who also needed time to find food.
>
>It has been as if this discussion was aiming of refuting what most
>people working with nomadism have formerly agreed on.
>
>If I am not absolutely wrong, it is also interesting that Hebrew midbar
>"desert" may etymologically have to do with gazing land, steppe, and not
>desert in the Lawrence of Arabia fashion.
>
>By the way, Lawrence's tour via the Nefud (wadi Sirhan) to Aqaba is also
>indicating something.

What tour? The part of crossing the Nafud in the movie is indeed
impressive and I never tire of watching it again. But the story in
the book ("The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom") is different. I don't recall
if the Nafud part is very different in the book or is simply not
there at all. But I when I first read the book (which was after being
"imprinted" by the movie) I checked on the Nafud, feeling cheated by
the book :( Checking now quickly ... here:

  From http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/15.htm

"Three great deserts isolate Najd from north, east, and south as the
Red Sea escarpment does from the west. In the north, the An
Nafud--sometimes called the Great Nafud because An Nafud is the term
for desert--covers about 55,000 square kilometers at an elevation of
about 1,000 meters. Longitudinal dunes--scores of kilometers in
length and as much as ninety meters high, and separated by valleys as
much as sixteen kilometers wide--characterize the An Nafud. Iron
oxide gives the sand a red tint, particularly when the sun is low.
Within the area are several watering places, and winter rains bring
up short-lived but succulent grasses that permit nomadic herding
during the winter and spring."

I have no idea if the site above is reliable or not, but what it says
about the Nafud is consistent with what I found out back then - that
the Nafud is not as dry and deadly as the movie makes it to be.

And the term "nomadic" is a little too vague because you have
Bedouins, Mongols, Gypsies, etc - all of them "nomads". The one
culture that we know that has been living in these NE deserts for
centuries are better termed semi-nomads, and are
hunters/gatherers/herders/raiders - all at the same time.

I'm not trying to refute some agreed upon notions about ANE desert
nomadism, because I haven't come across such agreed upon notions.
I've seen everything from ideas even more romantic than in "Lawrence
of Arabia" (the movie) to ideas that use as much hard science as
possible. But it all comes back to the basic problem - there being
very little direct evidence of what, if at all, people were doing in
those deserts during ANE periods before, roughly, the middle of the 1st mbc.

And strange things do happen in deserts. I caught today another part
of that BBC documentary on the crocodiles. Apparently these
crocodiles in Mauritania have developed a unique survival strategy in
which they aestivate for nearly half a year in very deep burrows
(15-20 meters). Young crocodile hatchlings, instead of making their
first journey to the nearby river, cross parched land to the nearest
burrow. The crocs come out of those burrows only when the rains have
started and temporary shallow lakes are formed.

If anything, I think there shouldn't be "agreed upon" notions, or
"magical" numbers. Each case should be examined for its own merits -
what kind of group, what were they trying to accomplish, what do we
know about the conditions in that specific area at that specific period, etc.

And the importance of camels is exaggerated. I didn't check exact
percentages of surface area, but significant parts of the NE deserts
are rugged, hilly terrain where camels suck as transport animals.



Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...

>>That's probably a gross figure. The net figure would be what was left
after the water was boiled to make tea ... :)<<

Your problem Ari, is perhaps that you have seen too little of the
desert. The little trip of some 200 or 250 km from Amman to al-Azraq
would be an interesting experience.

We are not really talking about soldiers in the desert, although the
discussion was distorted in that direction. Modern soldiers, which also
include WW II, have planned for such stays and have branches sorting out
the logistics.

My guess is that fighting in the desert will demand something like 25
litres a day. This is possible not because of local wells, but because
of transportation over land by trucks. If you cannot live of the land,
you bring it yourself. I am quite sure that Israeli armies in 1956 and
1967 not to speak of 1973 did not rely on water found in the desert.

So we are talking about living conditions before 1000 BCE, without
camels, with flocks of say a 1000 sheep (this is not an uncommonly large
herd among Bedouins, rather it is a small one for not too wealthy
bedouins. The Shammar chiefs are recoded to have possessed flocks of a
100.000 sheep or more). You don't move into the desert with such flocks
unless you are pretty sure of the geography at exactly the time of the
travelling.

The desert is not a place to play with. Temperature is unforgiving. In
Palmyre, the many times I have been there, we normally had 45
centigrades in the shadow (if you could find one). It could beat Mari in
the summer of 2005, 55 centigrades in the shadow, but that was not the
desert.

I really don't know where this discussion is leading. In order to refute
historians of ancient time, relying on anthropology and such things,
have to put up a better case than crocodiles or panthers, or soldiers of
the present time. It would be more interesting to know how the French
passed Sinai in 1798-9. Although Sinai in the North is a short way to
walk. Napoleon was not afraid of riding a camel, but the ordinary
soldier? Her we are much closer than the case of the desert rats or the
Africa corps.

The Battle of Hattin is also a tragic example of what happens when there
is not enough water for the soldiers.

Niels Peter Lemche







>Believe it
>after my fourteen litres in a day in Petra some years ago. Soldiers can
>also travel longer because they may carry their provision, including
>water, with them.
>
>But didn't this start as a discussion about whether or not Palmyra was
>on a main caravan route already in the MB age? I thing I never got an
>answer. And if we take nomadism before the introduction of the camel,
>water supplies should be enough to feed perhaps comprehensive flocks of
>animals, who also needed time to find food.
>
>It has been as if this discussion was aiming of refuting what most
>people working with nomadism have formerly agreed on.
>
>If I am not absolutely wrong, it is also interesting that Hebrew midbar
>"desert" may etymologically have to do with gazing land, steppe, and
not
>desert in the Lawrence of Arabia fashion.
>
>By the way, Lawrence's tour via the Nefud (wadi Sirhan) to Aqaba is
also
>indicating something.

What tour? The part of crossing the Nafud in the movie is indeed
impressive and I never tire of watching it again. But the story in
the book ("The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom") is different. I don't recall
if the Nafud part is very different in the book or is simply not
there at all. But I when I first read the book (which was after being
"imprinted" by the movie) I checked on the Nafud, feeling cheated by
the book :( Checking now quickly ... here:

If I may put in my two bits: based on somewhat extensive personal
experience of walking long distances in the desert over many days,
one person needs 8-10 liters of water a day to meet, and replenish,
physiological needs. If one keeps up that figure, one can continue,
almost indefinitely (or until one's feet give out ...). The figure of
25 liters a day that NPL noted for British soldiers must take into
account personal hygiene needs as well (washing, brushing teeth,
shaving, etc.)-- something that was quite irrelevant in ancient
times. Without water supplies along the way, a person can walk with
up to 4 days of water on his back - not much more. If one travels
with pack animals (donkeys, or better-yet camels) much more can be
carried. If one plans route according to available natural water
supplies (springs, water holes, seasonal water pools, etc.), one can
travel farther.
This does include factors relating to required caloric intake, which,
once again, can be met either by carrying it on your back, on a pack
animal, or from "nature".

Aren Maeir
gath.wordpress.com

Dear List Members:
   I am very pleased to announce the appearance of a new publication.

'En Esur ('Ein Asawir) I. Excavations at a Protohistoric Site in the Coastal
Plain of Israel [IAA Reports, No. 31].
Eli Yannai, with contirubitons by Donald T Ariel, Israel Carmi, ZoharGrosinger,
Aharon Horowitz, Hamoudi Khalaily, Dorit Lazar-Shorer, Ofer Marder, Ianir
Milevski, Yorke M. Rowan, Dror Segal, Sariel Shalev and Flavia Sonntag.

Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Stratigraphy and Architecture of Area B
Chapter 3: The Stratigraphy and Architecture of Areas A,C,D,E, F, G and H.
Chapter 4: The Pottery Assemblages: E Yannai, D. Lazar-Shorer and Z. Grosinger
Chapter 5: The Flint Assemblages--I Milevski, O Marder, H Khalaily and F.
Sonntag
Chapter 6: The Groundstone Assemblages--Y. Rowan
Chapter 7: The Small Finds-Stone, Clay and Bone Objects
Chapter 8: The Metal Adze--Sariel Shalev
Chapter 9: Palynology at 'En Esur-The Advance of Marshes as a Possible Cause for
Settlement Desertion--A Horowitz
Chapter 10: Summary and Conclusions
References
Appendix 1: The Radiocarbon Dates--D. Segal and I. Carmi
Appendix 2: The Bronze Coins--D. T. Ariel
Appendix 3: List of Loci--Area B
Appendix 4: Lost of Loci--Areas A,C,D,E,F,G,H

I assume it is available from the IAA in Jerusalem and Eisenbrauns in N.
America. I'm not sure how it may be obtained in Europe.





Eliot Braun, Ph D
Ha-oren 12, Har Adar, Israel 90836
Tel. 972-2-5345687


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society (www.aias.org.uk) is happy
to announce the first UK lecture by Professor Ehud Netzer on Herod's
Tomb:

'Herod's Tomb Discovered:a 35-year quest'.
Monday, 25 June 2007 at the BP Lecture Theatre, Clore Education
Centre in The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1

Entry by ticket only: £10 non-members or £20 to include a year's
membership of the Society.  020 7691 1467; dianadavis@... or
application form can be downloaded from website.


Via Jack Sasson



--
Jim West, ThD

http://drjewest.googlepages.com/  -- Biblical Studies Resources
http://drjimwest.wordpress.com  -- Weblog

To: ANE-2
On: Tainter and Collapse
From: Bruce

What with library vacation schedules and so on, I have not yet had a look at
Tainter. What he says, and whether what he says is right, thus await a
direct inspection. I continue to be dubious that he says, or at any rate,
that it is true, that the collapse (this word awaiting definition, but
surely distinct from "decline") of a complex society leads to a complete
failure of its hinterland or rural segment. I think that the relation of
city to hinterland will often be found to be a one-way parasitism, not a
symbiosis in which either will perish if the other vanishes.

As for Tainter, the vile Wikipedia reports him as saying the following:

"For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population
increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this
problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses
(metals, grain, slaves, etc). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of
maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it.
Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as
invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more
territory. At that point, the empire fragmented into smaller units."
"We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for
everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational
preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off
(all but the elite, presumably). Archeological evidence from human bones
indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in
many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have
benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity
of empire."

Insofar as this is a true account of Tainter's views, Tainter does not seem
to say what he has recently been said to say. He seems, on this account, to
say something much more like what I recently suggested in opposition: that,
at least in some cases, the central government (urban component) is a burden
rather than a benefit for its rural component, and that "individuals,"
especially individuals distant from the complexity center, may well prosper
when the "elite" decline or suddenly vanish.

To this, let me add a tiny note from the Other Planet. It is this: that in
some cases apparently thought relevant by Tainter to his thesis, we are not
reduced to speculation or to bone measurements, which are the tools he is
quoted as using in the quotes available to me. Instead, we can directly
observe the mind of the culture in question. One of those cases is early
China. The dominant tendency was an expansion of the state. One might call
it a greater complexity of the state, though in China that complexity was
merely a precondition and consequence of a primary search for greater power.
That tendency affected all the more consequential states of the period. But
in opposition to it, there emerged, further down the social ladder, a
strongly articulated movement to rearrange society on the village model,
free of upward constraints, self-sufficient, happy, and virtuous. The place
where I live is speckled with the ruins of former Fourierist communities,
which, as I understand it, were animated in part by a not dissimilar
thought. Fourierists use the word Utopia. Students of early Chinese thought
have gotten into the habit of calling the corresponding movement
Primitivism. Both movements invariably posit an agricultural base. Chinese
primitivist theory also specifies a *lack* of integration with, or even
contact with, any other economic unit. Not only independent, but
solipsistic.

Among the more famous of the documents of this 03c Chinese tendency is
section 80 (as conventionally numbered) of the Dau/Dv Jing. If, as is
traditionally done, this text is dated to the 06th century, it simply makes
a hash of our data for economic history and theory in early China. The
actual date of this passage is somewhere around 0250, namely, more than two
and a half centuries later than that traditional dating. Read from that
perspective, and in that chronological context, DDJ 80 links up with, and
reinforces, a great deal of other writing, both by Primitivist theorists and
by those who opposed them, and contributes to a picture which we wish were
more complete, but which is very helpful as far as it goes.

Here is that passage, for those who may not be accustomed to spending time
off the planet. Notice that, clause by clause, it intentionally reverses the
big-power priorities that were prevalent at the time it was written. It
urges, not a policy of expansion, but one of contraction.

DDJ 80

"Make the country small; make the population few. Let there be implements
available for men in their tens and hundreds [abundance of daily utensils],
but let them not be used [in trade]. Let the people regard death as a
serious matter [not, as the warlike government wishes, a "light" matter, so
that they are willing to die for that government], and let them put far from
them the idea of service [in the far-ranging armies of the superstate].  Let
there be boats and carriages [the means of economic communication with other
population centers], but let no one ride in them. Let there be armor and
weapons, but let them not be set out on display. Let the people once again
knot strings and use them [in lieu of written records, the emblem of the
high culture]. Let them find their food sweet [and not seek foreign
delicacies], and their apparel handsome [and not trade for foreign
textiles]; let them rejoice in their own customs [and not import alien
fashions], and find comfort in their dwellings [and not ape alien
architecture]. Let the neighboring states be close enough to see, and let
the crowing of roosters and the barking of dogs in those states be audible,
but let the people grow old and die without ever going there."

Here, I should think, is economic disconnect at its most extreme. Neither
war nor enrichment through trade, the alternative success scenarios of the
big-state theorists, the competing ideologies of war vs peace, is accepted.
But that condition of disconnect is not represented by this author as a
"collapse," at least not as the collapse of anything he cares about. He
represents it as a liberation; as the right form of society, and as
possessing an abundance of all the goods it needs.

Not that he is necessarily right, but it may be worth having that opinion on
record, merely in the interest of documentation per se. Of course there is
*massive* documentation from the Empire, not just a little paragraph here
and there, on the question of enrichment vs power, and central power vs
local wealth, but this is Sunday, and presumably a short excerpt from the
Other Planet will sufficiently represent the category.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Regarding Northern Israel, or Judah for that matter, the question is whether
with the deportation of the elites and the collapse of the cites, did the
rural population stay or did they flee? It seems that the archaeology ought
to be able to answer that.

Liz Fried



   _____

From: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ANE-2@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of E
Bruce Brooks
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 3:01 PM
To: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com
Cc: WSW; Al Cohen
Subject: Re: [ANE-2] Re: Depopulation of Northern Israel (Tainter and
Collapse)



To: ANE-2
On: Tainter and Collapse
From: Bruce

What with library vacation schedules and so on, I have not yet had a look at

Tainter. What he says, and whether what he says is right, thus await a
direct inspection. I continue to be dubious that he says, or at any rate,
that it is true, that the collapse (this word awaiting definition, but
surely distinct from "decline") of a complex society leads to a complete
failure of its hinterland or rural segment. I think that the relation of
city to hinterland will often be found to be a one-way parasitism, not a
symbiosis in which either will perish if the other vanishes.

As for Tainter, the vile Wikipedia reports him as saying the following:

"For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population
increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this
problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses

(metals, grain, slaves, etc). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of
maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it.
Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as
invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more
territory. At that point, the empire fragmented into smaller units."
"We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe for

everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational

preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off

(all but the elite, presumably). Archeological evidence from human bones
indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in
many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have
benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome complexity
of empire."

Insofar as this is a true account of Tainter's views, Tainter does not seem
to say what he has recently been said to say. He seems, on this account, to
say something much more like what I recently suggested in opposition: that,
at least in some cases, the central government (urban component) is a burden

rather than a benefit for its rural component, and that "individuals,"
especially individuals distant from the complexity center, may well prosper
when the "elite" decline or suddenly vanish.

To this, let me add a tiny note from the Other Planet. It is this: that in
some cases apparently thought relevant by Tainter to his thesis, we are not
reduced to speculation or to bone measurements, which are the tools he is
quoted as using in the quotes available to me. Instead, we can directly
observe the mind of the culture in question. One of those cases is early
China. The dominant tendency was an expansion of the state. One might call
it a greater complexity of the state, though in China that complexity was
merely a precondition and consequence of a primary search for greater power.

That tendency affected all the more consequential states of the period. But
in opposition to it, there emerged, further down the social ladder, a
strongly articulated movement to rearrange society on the village model,
free of upward constraints, self-sufficient, happy, and virtuous. The place
where I live is speckled with the ruins of former Fourierist communities,
which, as I understand it, were animated in part by a not dissimilar
thought. Fourierists use the word Utopia. Students of early Chinese thought
have gotten into the habit of calling the corresponding movement
Primitivism. Both movements invariably posit an agricultural base. Chinese
primitivist theory also specifies a *lack* of integration with, or even
contact with, any other economic unit. Not only independent, but
solipsistic.

Among the more famous of the documents of this 03c Chinese tendency is
section 80 (as conventionally numbered) of the Dau/Dv Jing. If, as is
traditionally done, this text is dated to the 06th century, it simply makes
a hash of our data for economic history and theory in early China. The
actual date of this passage is somewhere around 0250, namely, more than two
and a half centuries later than that traditional dating. Read from that
perspective, and in that chronological context, DDJ 80 links up with, and
reinforces, a great deal of other writing, both by Primitivist theorists and

by those who opposed them, and contributes to a picture which we wish were
more complete, but which is very helpful as far as it goes.

Here is that passage, for those who may not be accustomed to spending time
off the planet. Notice that, clause by clause, it intentionally reverses the

big-power priorities that were prevalent at the time it was written. It
urges, not a policy of expansion, but one of contraction.

DDJ 80

"Make the country small; make the population few. Let there be implements
available for men in their tens and hundreds [abundance of daily utensils],
but let them not be used [in trade]. Let the people regard death as a
serious matter [not, as the warlike government wishes, a "light" matter, so
that they are willing to die for that government], and let them put far from

them the idea of service [in the far-ranging armies of the superstate]. Let
there be boats and carriages [the means of economic communication with other

population centers], but let no one ride in them. Let there be armor and
weapons, but let them not be set out on display. Let the people once again
knot strings and use them [in lieu of written records, the emblem of the
high culture]. Let them find their food sweet [and not seek foreign
delicacies], and their apparel handsome [and not trade for foreign
textiles]; let them rejoice in their own customs [and not import alien
fashions], and find comfort in their dwellings [and not ape alien
architecture]. Let the neighboring states be close enough to see, and let
the crowing of roosters and the barking of dogs in those states be audible,
but let the people grow old and die without ever going there."

Here, I should think, is economic disconnect at its most extreme. Neither
war nor enrichment through trade, the alternative success scenarios of the
big-state theorists, the competing ideologies of war vs peace, is accepted.
But that condition of disconnect is not represented by this author as a
"collapse," at least not as the collapse of anything he cares about. He
represents it as a liberation; as the right form of society, and as
possessing an abundance of all the goods it needs.

Not that he is necessarily right, but it may be worth having that opinion on

record, merely in the interest of documentation per se. Of course there is
*massive* documentation from the Empire, not just a little paragraph here
and there, on the question of enrichment vs power, and central power vs
local wealth, but this is Sunday, and presumably a short excerpt from the
Other Planet will sufficiently represent the category.

Bruce

E Bruce Brooks
Warring States Project, University of Massachusetts at Amherst





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Fame & glory (& tired fingers)
Trudy Kawami

________________________________

From: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com on behalf of Jim West
Sent: Sat 6/2/2007 2:40 PM
To: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [ANE-2] May message statistics



What do I win????? This is indeed a once in a lifetime accomplishment-
being on a list with such luminaries.... and on the top of it!

Robert M Whiting wrote:
> According to the logs, May generated the following
> message traffic (April numbers in parentheses):
>
>
> Top posters (double figures)
>
> Jim West 30 (13)
> Niels Peter Lemche 22 (21)
> Lisbeth S. Fried 19 (1)
> Joe Zias 12 (8)
> Yitzhak Sapir 12 (12)
> Victor Avigdor Hurowitz 12 (12)
> Dierk van den Berg 11 (12)
> Ariel L. Szczupak 10 (13)

--
Jim West, ThD

http://drjewest.googlepages.com/ <http://drjewest.googlepages.com/>  -- Biblical
Studies Resources
http://drjimwest.wordpress.com <http://drjimwest.wordpress.com/>  -- Weblog





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I am familiar with the prevalence of anthropomorphic lion-demons in Assyrian
art, but did not know that did (or might?) represent religious or magical
functionaries in lion-suits. Can someone provide bibliography on this
subject?

Thanks,

Bradley A. Skene

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard S. Ellis <rellis@...>
Date: Jun 3, 2007 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [ANE-2] Whips in the ANE
To: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com




Hi,

Some of Assurnasirpal II's charioteers are shown with whips
(Stommenger/Hirmer Mesopotamien, pl.202) *and the religious/magical
functionary who wears a lion suit is shown holding a whip in reliefs of
Assurnasirpal II and Tiglathpleser III (sorry, I can't find pictures in
the books I have at home).
*
Dick Ellis

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

They stayed, as archaeology has shown.

Richard.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried@...>
To: <ANE-2@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 1:51 PM
Subject: RE: [ANE-2] Re: Depopulation of Northern Israel (Tainter and
Collapse)


> Regarding Northern Israel, or Judah for that matter, the question is
> whether
> with the deportation of the elites and the collapse of the cites, did the
> rural population stay or did they flee? It seems that the archaeology
> ought
> to be able to answer that.
>
> Liz Fried
>
>
>
>  _____
>
> From: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ANE-2@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of E
> Bruce Brooks
> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 3:01 PM
> To: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: WSW; Al Cohen
> Subject: Re: [ANE-2] Re: Depopulation of Northern Israel (Tainter and
> Collapse)
>
>
>
> To: ANE-2
> On: Tainter and Collapse
> From: Bruce
>
> What with library vacation schedules and so on, I have not yet had a look
> at
>
> Tainter. What he says, and whether what he says is right, thus await a
> direct inspection. I continue to be dubious that he says, or at any rate,
> that it is true, that the collapse (this word awaiting definition, but
> surely distinct from "decline") of a complex society leads to a complete
> failure of its hinterland or rural segment. I think that the relation of
> city to hinterland will often be found to be a one-way parasitism, not a
> symbiosis in which either will perish if the other vanishes.
>
> As for Tainter, the vile Wikipedia reports him as saying the following:
>
> "For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population
> increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved"
> this
> problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy
> surpluses
>
> (metals, grain, slaves, etc). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of
> maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with
> it.
> Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as
> invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more
> territory. At that point, the empire fragmented into smaller units."
> "We often assume that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a catastrophe
> for
>
> everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very
> rational
>
> preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better
> off
>
> (all but the elite, presumably). Archeological evidence from human bones
> indicates that average nutrition actually improved after the collapse in
> many parts of the former Roman Empire. Average individuals may have
> benefited because they no longer had to invest in the burdensome
> complexity
> of empire."
>
> Insofar as this is a true account of Tainter's views, Tainter does not
> seem
> to say what he has recently been said to say. He seems, on this account,
> to
> say something much more like what I recently suggested in opposition:
> that,
> at least in some cases, the central government (urban component) is a
> burden
>
> rather than a benefit for its rural component, and that "individuals,"
> especially individuals distant from the complexity center, may well
> prosper
> when the "elite" decline or suddenly vanish.
>
> To this, let me add a tiny note from the Other Planet. It is this: that in
> some cases apparently thought relevant by Tainter to his thesis, we are
> not
> reduced to speculation or to bone measurements, which are the tools he is
> quoted as using in the quotes available to me. Instead, we can directly
> observe the mind of the culture in question. One of those cases is early
> China. The dominant tendency was an expansion of the state. One might call
> it a greater complexity of the state, though in China that complexity was
> merely a precondition and consequence of a primary search for greater
> power.
>
> That tendency affected all the more consequential states of the period.
> But
> in opposition to it, there emerged, further down the social ladder, a
> strongly articulated movement to rearrange society on the village model,
> free of upward constraints, self-sufficient, happy, and virtuous. The
> place
> where I live is speckled with the ruins of former Fourierist communities,
> which, as I understand it, were animated in part by a not dissimilar
> thought. Fourierists use the word Utopia. Students of early Chinese
> thought
> have gotten into the habit of calling the corresponding movement
> Primitivism. Both movements invariably posit an agricultural base. Chinese
> primitivist theory also specifies a *lack* of integration with, or even
> contact with, any other economic unit. Not only independent, but
> solipsistic.
>
> Among the more famous of the documents of this 03c Chinese tendency is
> section 80 (as conventionally numbered) of the Dau/Dv Jing. If, as is
> traditionally done, this text is dated to the 06th century, it simply
> makes
> a hash of our data for economic history and theory in early China. The
> actual date of this passage is somewhere around 0250, namely, more than
> two
> and a half centuries later than that traditional dating. Read from that
> perspective, and in that chronological context, DDJ 80 links up with, and
> reinforces, a great deal of other writing, both by Primitivist theorists
> and
>
> by those who opposed them, and contributes to a picture which we wish were
> more complete, but which is very helpful as far as it goes.
>
> Here is that passage, for those who may not be accustomed to spending time
> off the planet. Notice that, clause by clause, it intentionally reverses
> the
>
> big-power priorities that were prevalent at the time it was written. It
> urges, not a policy of expansion, but one of contraction.
>
> DDJ 80
>
> "Make the country small; make the population few. Let there be implements
> available for men in their tens and hundreds [abundance of daily
> utensils],
> but let them not be used [in trade]. Let the people regard death as a
> serious matter [not, as the warlike government wishes, a "light" matter,
> so
> that they are willing to die for that government], and let them put far
> from
>
> them the idea of service [in the far-ranging armies of the superstate].
> Let
> there be boats and carriages [the means of economic communication with
> other
>
> population centers], but let no one ride in them. Let there be armor and
> weapons, but let them not be set out on display. Let the people once again
> knot strings and use them [in lieu of written records, the emblem of the
> high culture]. Let them find their food sweet [and not seek foreign
> delicacies], and their apparel handsome [and not trade for foreign
> textiles]; let them rejoice in their own customs [and not import alien
> fashions], and find comfort in their dwellings [and not ape alien
> architecture]. Let the neighboring states be close enough to see, and let
> the crowing of roosters and the barking of dogs in those states be
> audible,
> but let the people grow old and die without ever going there."
>
> Here, I should think, is economic disconnect at its most extreme. Neither
> war nor enrichment through trade, the alternative success scenarios of the
> big-state theorists, the competing ideologies of war vs peace, is
> accepted.
> But that condition of disconnect is not represented by this author as a
> "collapse," at least not as the collapse of anything he cares about. He
> represents it as a liberation; as the right form of society, and as
> possessing an abundance of all the goods it needs.
>
> Not that he is necessarily right, but it may be worth having that opinion
> on
>
> record, merely in the interest of documentation per se. Of course there is
> *massive* documentation from the Empire, not just a little paragraph here
> and there, on the question of enrichment vs power, and central power vs
> local wealth, but this is Sunday, and presumably a short excerpt from the
> Other Planet will sufficiently represent the category.
>
> Bruce
>
> E Bruce Brooks
> Warring States Project, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.7/830 - Release Date: 6/3/2007
> 12:47 PM
>
>

> did the rural population stay or did they flee?
> It seems that the archaeology ought to be able to answer that.
> Liz Fried

Without some help from 2Kings & 2Chronicles, archaeology confuses the
matter.

Since David Ussishkin's renewed excavations at Lachish in the 1970s,
the consensus of scholars has tended to date jar handles with LMLK
seal impressions to a few years prior to Sennacherib's conquest of
Judah during the reign of Hezekiah.  Andrew Vaughn pushed for a wider
interpretation of these jars as a general economic build-up, but
still in the context of preparation for an Assyrian attack subsequent
to Northern Israel's downfall (on p. 14 of Vaughn's 1999 "Theology,
History, & Archaeology..." [Atlanta: Scholars Press], he states a
preference for Hezekiah's reign beginning in 715/714).

In Daniel Grolin's original question (message 5230), he
mentioned "the mass deportation of the entire Israelite population of
the Northern Kingdom under Shalmaneser V".

Previously believed to be strictly a Judean phenomenon, archaeology
has now revealed LMLKs in northwestern Israel at (at least) 4 sites.
Though none have been found in Galilee or Samaria, it does force one
to consider how thorough the "deportation" was.

It also forces one to consider the reliability of 2Chronicles 29-31
(the 1st year of Hezekiah's reign when he interacted with Northern
Israel), & its harmonization with 2Kings 18:1-12 (which places
Northern Israel's downfall distinctly prior to Sennacherib's attack
of Judah, but still within Hezekiah's 29-year reign).

That's what 1 unbiased artifact of archaeology has to say on the
matter.

If you were to ask me for my biased opinion (...I hear crickets
chirping...), I would mention that the designs on the northern
handles that have been published so far date to the period
immediately subsequent to Sennacherib's attack of Judah, which would
seem to suggest that some of the northern refugees returned to their
original territory afterwards.

So in answer to Ms. Fried, first the rural population fled, then they
returned shortly thereafter.

George M. Grena, II
Redondo Beach, CA

Dear Liz,
As the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles say that Salmaneser conquered
Samaria, whilst the inscriptions of Sargon II says that he himself was the
"conqueror of Samaria", some scholars suggest that Salmaneser V conquered
Samaria, but only Sargon II carried out the deportation.
Cfr. A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad, Göttingen 1994, p.
457-58.

Other matter: I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silbermann say that a torrent of
refugees came from Israel to Judah in the short period of time between 722
(Samaria's fall) and 701 (Sennacherib's campaign against Jerusalem). In
Finkelstein-Silbermann's view, in the late eighth cent. BCE Jerusalem grew
in size from c. 6 to c. 60 hectares. Cfr. I. Finkelstein, N.A. Silbermann,
Temple and Dynasty. Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the
Pan-Israelite Ideology, in JSOT 30, 2006, 259-285 (spec. 265-67).

Best wishes,
Paolo Merlo
PUL - Rome

------------
      Posted by:      "Lisbeth S. Fried"
        lizfried@...

        Thu May 31, 2007 6:30 am        (PST)


              Prof. Tadmor suggested (personal communication; I don’t know if
he wrote it

somewhere) that Shalmaneser V deported them, and that Sargon II took the

credit in his inscriptions.



But I don’t know how we’d verify that.



Liz Fried

_________________________________________________________________
Scarica Windows Live Messenger e chiama gratis in tutto il mondo!
http://www.messenger.it/connessione.html

It is quite obvious that Finkelstein and Silberman are quite conventional here.
It's an age old idea of, e.g., Albrecht Alt and the old explanation of the
presence of deuteronomism in the Old Testament.

Would be interesting to know if it is realy possible to date the expansion of
Jerusalem to 722-701 and not after 701 as a consequence of Sennacherib's
destruction of Hezekiah's kingdom, including the perhps formerly leading city of
Lachish.

It's a couple of yars ago since I read the first volume by Finkelstein and
Silberman, but I do not remember them presenting any special evidence for their
claim. Will check.

Niels Peter Lemche




-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ANE-2@yahoogroups.com] På vegne af paolo
merlo
Sendt: 4. juni 2007 11:56
Til: ANE-2@yahoogroups.com
Emne: [ANE-2] Re: Depopulation of Northern Israel


Dear Liz,
As the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles say that Salmaneser conquered
Samaria, whilst the inscriptions of Sargon II says that he himself was the
"conqueror of Samaria", some scholars suggest that Salmaneser V conquered
Samaria, but only Sargon II carried out the deportation.
Cfr. A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad, Göttingen 1994, p.
457-58.

Other matter: I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silbermann say that a torrent of
refugees came from Israel to Judah in the short period of time between 722
(Samaria's fall) and 701 (Sennacherib's campaign against Jerusalem). In
Finkelstein-Silbermann's view, in the late eighth cent. BCE Jerusalem grew
in size from c. 6 to c. 60 hectares. Cfr. I. Finkelstein, N.A. Silbermann,
Temple and Dynasty. Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the
Pan-Israelite Ideology, in JSOT 30, 2006, 259-285 (spec. 265-67).

Best wishes,
Paolo Merlo
PUL - Rome

------------
      Posted by:      "Lisbeth S. Fried"
        lizfried@...

        Thu May 31, 2007 6:30 am        (PST)


              Prof. Tadmor suggested (personal communication; I don't know if
he wrote it

somewhere) that Shalmaneser V deported them, and that Sargon II took the

credit in his inscriptions.



But I don't know how we'd verify that.



Liz Fried

_________________________________________________________________
Scarica Windows Live Messenger e chiama gratis in tutto il mondo!
http://www.messenger.it/connessione.html




Yahoo! Groups Links

You can see my article: Ellis, Richard S. 1977. "Lion-men" in Assyria.
In Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein.
ed. Maria deJ. Ellis, 67-78. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon.  Also, Black,
Jeremy A., and Anthony Green. 1992.  Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient
Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. London: British Museum Press,
under "La-tarak and Lulal," pp. 116-17; Wiggerman, Frans A. M. 1992.
Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts. Cuneiform Monographs,
1. Groningen: Styx, p. 216, index under "Latarak."

On the reliefs thatI am thinking of the creature is associated with
human musicians, and is clearly a man wearing a (real or artificial)
lion-skin.  I have the impression that you are thinking of the ugallu,
the creature with human body, leonine head, long ears, and bird's feet.

Dick Ellis

Bradley Skene wrote:

>I am familiar with the prevalence of anthropomorphic lion-demons in Assyrian
>art, but did not know that did (or might?) represent religious or magical
>functionaries in lion-suits. Can someone provide bibliography on this
>subject?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bradley A. Skene
>
>

FWIW, though I haven't found a discussion of what von Hagen, The Roads
that Led
to Rome (1967) p. 87 (unpersuasively?) captioned as

> "A roughly carved Punic relief discovered in the ruins of Carthage. The city
> was finally destroyed after the Third Punic War, which ended in 146 BC."

a review raised doubts about the reliability of the book. Can we be
sure of the
relief's provenance and date?

The review title: "Inextricabilis Error." Classical Review 18 (1968)
335-6, A.R.
Burn (available at jstor).

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

Yes I was. Thanks for the refernces.

Bradley A. Skene


On 6/4/07, Richard S. Ellis <rellis@...> wrote:
>
>
> You can see my article: Ellis, Richard S. 1977. "Lion-men" in Assyria.
> In Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein.
> ed. Maria deJ. Ellis, 67-78. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon. Also, Black,
> Jeremy A., and Anthony Green. 1992. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient
> Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. London: British Museum Press,
> under "La-tarak and Lulal," pp. 116-17; Wiggerman, Frans A. M. 1992.
> Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts. Cuneiform Monographs,
> 1. Groningen: Styx, p. 216, index under "Latarak."
>
> On the reliefs thatI am thinking of the creature is associated with
> human musicians, and is clearly a man wearing a (real or artificial)
> lion-skin. I have the impression that you are thinking of the ugallu,
> the creature with human body, leonine head, long ears, and bird's feet.
>
> Dick Ellis
>
> Bradley Skene wrote:
>
> >I am familiar with the prevalence of anthropomorphic lion-demons in
> Assyrian
> >art, but did not know that did (or might?) represent religious or magical
> >functionaries in lion-suits. Can someone provide bibliography on this
> >subject?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Bradley A. Skene
> >
> >
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 09:05 PM 6/3/2007, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:


> >>That's probably a gross figure. The net figure would be what was left
>after the water was boiled to make tea ... :)<<
>
>Your problem Ari,

Dear Niels,

First, Ari is a hypocorism of Arie, not of Ariel. Arik is more common
for Ariel, but I don't really care for it and I ask those who feel
they must express their affection to stay with Ariel and express said
affection otherwise.

Second, I hope you noticed the smiley in my comment above and
realized it was meant in jest.

Third, my recent desert/water messages were written under severe time
constraints, more sketches than fully developed points, and without
the possibility to back them up with anything more than the quickest
and shallowest of web searches. If the tone seemed hostile, or
confrontational, or disrespectful - I apologize as my only intent
was, and is, to bring to the discussion what I think can add to
clarifying the ANE desert/water situation, whatever it is.

>is perhaps that you have seen too little of the
>desert.

I agree that I haven't seen enough and I doubt there is an "enough"
when it comes to desert sunrises and sunsets. As for it being a
problem, if it is indeed a problem, it's somewhere way down on my too
long list of problems.

I do have feet-on and live-in desert experience from my youth (Israel
and to a lesser degree Sinai). And while my ANE interests are usually
focused on things like cognition and methodology, about 7-8 years ago
something came up which involved the desert survival issue and I
researched it, with the focus on the deserts around the Gulf of
Eilat/Aqaba (south Jordan, NW Saudi Arabia, Sinai and Israel). The
notes are in a box in a storage place outside Jerusalem, but I can
recall some of it. And that research surprised me, because when I
started it my beliefs were based more on the "Lawrence of
Arabia"-like myths than on my own personal experiences.

[Which is an interesting cognitive problem - why were my beliefs
affected more by the likes of a dramatic film than by my own
experiences, and by what I heard from Bedouins about their lives. But
that's off topic, both for the thread and for the list]

And I have a second source, my son (when I manage to catch him). He's
been in a scouts-like organization that focuses on field trips since
his early teens and has clocked thousands of desert miles in Israel,
Sinai & Jordan. And he has another type of relevant experience - he
was a field medic in an infantry unit and knows the safety guidelines
for distances per day, "water discipline", etc.

[...]

>My guess is that fighting in the desert will demand something like 25
>litres a day.

AM gave in his message figures for water needs in a long or
indefinite desert walk. For short (up to 4 days) treks, small trained
regular infantry units with standard personal equipment in normal
desert conditions will need 3.5 to 5 liters per day. "Normal
conditions" meaning average heat for that season (and not some
extreme temperature peak), relatively flat terrain (and not a path
that involves climbing up and down cliffs), etc. "Trained" is
important in meaning that the group doesn't include people with
physiological conditions that would prevent them from completing such
a trek successfully. Such water rations will result in partial
dehydration but will not affect the fighting abilities (and the
assumption is that there's water at the destination).

[...]

>So we are talking about living conditions before 1000 BCE, without
>camels, with flocks of say a 1000 sheep (this is not an uncommonly large
>herd among Bedouins, rather it is a small one for not too wealthy
>bedouins. The Shammar chiefs are recoded to have possessed flocks of a
>100.000 sheep or more).

That is again very dependent on local conditions. I visited many
Bedouin encampments in the Judean desert in the years following 67,
before modernization and politics started changing things. These were
mostly family encampments (there's a term for larger encampments of
several families, but I can't recall it), and family flocks were
typically less than 100 sheep or goats. The flocks of Bedouin
families in the Jordan valley (which by rainfall criteria is also a
desert) were significantly larger, but I'm not sure if it's hundreds
or thousands.

I tried to find refs in the web to the Shammar tribe having flocks of
100,000 sheep. The only references, non academic, I found concern the
Saudis/Wahabbis overpowering the Shammar/Mutair in the 18th century, e.g.

http://san.beck.org/1-11-Ottoman1730-1875.html

"In 1791 Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz gained some 100,000 sheep and goats and
thousands of camels raiding Mecca's allies Shammar and Mutair. Mecca
sharif Ghalib ibn Musaid fought back in 1795, but the Wahhabis routed
his force and gained twice as many livestock."

That however doesn't imply that 100,000 sheep were in one flock, in
one geographical location, and that such a flock was ever moved
across the desert.

And I'm not trying to contradict or refute you, just trying to
provide the context for such numbers, because while I don't know if
the Shammars had 100,000 heads in one flock, I do know that the
animal population of major oases can exceed such numbers.

http://www.the-saudi.net/saudi-arabia/alhasa/index.htm

[not an academic source, but consistent with what I recall finding back then]

"The largest oasis in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ahsa is an area that extends
from the Arabian Gulf to the Dahwa and Oman deserts, and forms the
border with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of
Oman. Covering an area of 2,500 kilometers in the southern part of
the Eastern Province, it is home to more than 600,000 people, who
mainly inhabit Al-Ahsa's four major cities: al-Hofuf, Al-Mobarraz,
Al-Oyoun, and Al-Oman. It also contains fifty scattered villages
which nestle among its palms. King Faisal University was established
in this area in 1974 91494H), and it contains a general hospital, a
number of government and private hospitals as well as a sports
complex. Its central oasis, Al-Ahsa, boasts two million palm trees.
The Ministry of Agriculture has set up a factory to process its rich
output of dates, amounting to five tons daily. There is varied
agricultural production in this area, including rice, corn, citrus
and other fruit. Springs and brooks that abound in the region serve
as an ample source of irrigation. There is also heavy livestock
activity here, with 200,000 head of sheep, 50,000 head of goats,
12,000 head of cattle and 15,000 head of camels. There are more than
15 extensive poultry farms that produce more than 100 million eggs
and 30 million table chickens annually."

This is of course the situation at the present, but even without
modernization it should be able to support large numbers of people
and animals. And if I recall correctly, there's evidence of
inhabitation that goes back to prehistory.

But the livestock in major oases like Al-Ahsa or Damascus wouldn't
have to be moved through the desert once its ancestors reached the
oasis. Even tiny oases like Ein Gedi can support livestock all year.
And while 100,000 heads can be assumed for the major oases, I doubt
if Ein Gedi can support more than a few thousands.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's no "nomads have flocks
that average 1000 heads" magic number that can be used for all cases.
The particular characteristics of each case will determine if it's
reasonable to assume less than 100 heads, or more than 100,000 heads,
or any other number in between.

>You don't move into the desert with such flocks
>unless you are pretty sure of the geography at exactly the time of the
>travelling.

You rarely move flocks through the desert, period. Flocks that are
not based in a specific oasis will usually be on the border of the
desert, moving in during winter and out in summer. And they won't be
marching into the desert or out of it - they'll be grazing their way
forward at a slow pace. The sheep in Haj or trade caravans are part
of the food supply, and few if any reach the final destination. The
stories of big migrations of people and livestock in the bible are
there because these are "man bites dog" stories - the dramatic
exceptions, not the norm.

But yes, in the rare occasions in which livestock has to be moved
through the desert, in summer, you'd better know what you're doing.
Best is to have a guide that knows the area, but having someone that
knows desert lore can also work.

And the point I've been trying to make on this is that except for
that one area (Rub' al-Khali), and if the conditions are not extreme,
marching livestock in NE deserts is doable. Risky, dangerous, and the
animals may reach the destination in poor condition, but doable.

>The desert is not a place to play with. Temperature is unforgiving. In
>Palmyre, the many times I have been there, we normally had 45
>centigrades in the shadow (if you could find one). It could beat Mari in
>the summer of 2005, 55 centigrades in the shadow, but that was not the
>desert.

I have no insights on Palmyra because I never experienced or
researched its specific conditions. I did spend most of July & August
of 1972 doing outdoors physical work in Eilat. Several hours each day
were spent scuba diving, but the rest of the day I worked to finance
the diving.

Average temperatures for Eilat - July 39.9, August 39.8.

http://www.israelweather.co.il/page3.asp?topic_id=76&topic2_id=73&page_id=61

Average temperatures for Palmyra - July 38.1, August 37.9

http://www.worldweather.org/099/c01264.htm

And yes, like you, the days I remember are those in which the
temperatures in Eilat were around 45 and I was surprised to see now
that the monthly average is below 40 :)

Another point I've been trying to make is that such present day
statistics or data are not to be used as is. The conditions in the
2nd or 3rd mbc could have been significantly different. We know that
the conditions were different in different periods, the question
being if those differences were significant to the issue of desert
survival. And a specific climatic change could have had significant
effects in one desert location, but insignificant ones in another. As
I mentioned there are geological, climatological, hydrological, etc,
"histories" of the region in general and of some specific locations.
And I suspect there are more now than there were 7-8 years ago. But
my notes are, as I mentioned, not handy (except for that geological
book on the Dead Sea and the Jordan river I'm so fond of quoting),
and most of the online research has restricted access.

For example (as an addendum to the JSTOR thread), McCance & al, "Have
the Bedouin a Special 'Desert' Physiology?":

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0080-4649(19740129)185%3A1079%3C263%3AHTBAS'%3E\
2.0.CO%3B2-J

or http://tinyurl.com/2bl7af

Back then the article was available online on some site, now it's
not. I looked it up because I recalled checking it back then and
wondered that no one has raised the question here. The answer, btw,
is "no", no special physiology.

Those interested may wish to check the links related to this paper at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=4\
149926&dopt=Abstract

or http://tinyurl.com/2vd5lq


>I really don't know where this discussion is leading. In order to refute
>historians of ancient time, relying on anthropology and such things,
>have to put up a better case than crocodiles or panthers,

I admit that I find this crocodile thing fascinating regardless of
the issue and I hope some ANErs found it interesting too.

But in general large predators are significant indicators. They are
at the very top of the food chain, and if they are present, so is the
food chain. That miserable panther ended up chasing a cat in a Sde
Boker house because whatever food chain that supported him at his
original, unknown, habitat stopped being sufficient.

The crocodiles were actually a counter example. The common assumption
is that if there's a food chain that can support large predators,
that food chain and the water it needs are there all year round, and
are not a seasonal phenomenon. If I understood correctly the
fragments of that documentary that I saw, in this specific case the
predators, and the food chain, and the water, are seasonal.



Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...

If you look back through the tread, it was already argued quite strongly
  that the relief is late Antique. But thanks for the reference

On 6/4/07, goranson@... <goranson@...> wrote:
>
>   FWIW, though I haven't found a discussion of what von Hagen, The Roads
> that Led
> to Rome (1967) p. 87 (unpersuasively?) captioned as
>
> > "A roughly carved Punic relief discovered in the ruins of Carthage. The
> city
> > was finally destroyed after the Third Punic War, which ended in 146 BC."
>
> a review raised doubts about the reliability of the book. Can we be
> sure of the
> relief's provenance and date?
>
> The review title: "Inextricabilis Error." Classical Review 18 (1968)
> 335-6, A.R.
> Burn (available at jstor).
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Aren's two bits may provide a useful summary for a thread that seems
to be winding down. No wonder spices were a preferred commodity on
some of the drier routes.

I do have one further question, suggested by the Mauritanian
crocodiles. Presumably they've been evolving since pre-dynastic times
when the Sahara dried out, but how about the climate in western Asia?
How wet or dry was Palmyra or the Arabian "desert" in the pre-camel
periods? Was it wetter than now, or did the major changes take place
before donkeys came into general use?

Susan Hussein
Classics and General Humanities
Montclair State University

Dear Ariel,

Excuse for the name mistake. Te Shammar reference hould be in Lothar
Stein, Die Shammar-Gerba. Berlin 1967. As usual I was perhaps mixing up
numbers. The supreme sheikh of the Sammar disposed in 1962 of 40.000
hectares of land (Stein p. 107). E. Wirth, Der Nomadismus in der
modernen Wekt des Orients, in Nomadismus als Entwicklungsproblem 1969,
pp. 93-106, gives the number of 50.000 sheep for some bedouin sheikhs.

40.000 hectares, that's quite a lot of land. 50.000 is not 100.000 but
still a lot.

Discussion of all of this, of nomadism, of climate and climate
developments as known by 1985, in my Early Israel, pp. 84-165.

Niels Peter Lemche

Goodness (or perhaps a lack thereof)  only knows how this ms made its way to the
Israel Museum.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/867003.html
Eliot Braun, Ph D
Ha-oren 12, Har Adar, Israel 90836
Tel. 972-2-5345687


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 08:29 PM 6/4/2007, Susan Hussein wrote:

>Aren's two bits may provide a useful summary for a thread that seems
>to be winding down. No wonder spices were a preferred commodity on
>some of the drier routes.
>
>I do have one further question, suggested by the Mauritanian
>crocodiles. Presumably they've been evolving since pre-dynastic times
>when the Sahara dried out, but how about the climate in western Asia?
>How wet or dry was Palmyra or the Arabian "desert" in the pre-camel
>periods? Was it wetter than now, or did the major changes take place
>before donkeys came into general use?

I think I mentioned that there was a major climatic change around
5000BC which ended a wet period of 5000 years (? I don't recall
exactly) and caused the final desertification of the Arabian peninsula.

Quick check ...

For those with JSTOR access I think a good bet would be Tosi, "The
Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia":

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0084-6570(1986)2%3A15%3C461%3ATEPOPA%3E2.0.CO%3\
B2-J

For a very popularized but colorful description, see:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198002/from.the.lakes.of.arabia.htm

The same climatic change should have affected also the Palmyra area,
but I never checked the details.



Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...

RE: How wet or dry was the ANE predynastic?

   Some wet patterns in parts of the Sahara, Arabian peninsula, and Israel were
from the most recent ice age that was ending about 11,000 years ago.  There was
a huge lake in the Sinai, grass lands in the Egyptian Sahara, and rock paintings
in the Algerian desert of sub-Saharan fauna.  There were glaciers in the Lebanon
Mtns.  The hardwood forests of modern Europe were boreal forests back then.  In
the Neolithic times the climate was warming.  During the EB it was yet wet
enough for the north-central Sinai and the Negev south of Beersheba (Nahal Zin)
to have settlements that dissappeared in the later bronze ages.

   Palynologists studied pollen.  By drilling into ancient lake sediments and
studying land sediments, they were able to read ancient floral assemblages
finding evidence of plant types that existed in prehistorical geological
periods.

   There is a type of sedimentary rock called a varve.  When in the summer there
was more organic material deposited into a lake sediment; the sediment was
colored dark brown by carbon deposits and then later a winter layer without
organic components wsa formed that was light colored.  By these varve marks
geological history was traced back thousands and thousands of years.  By varves,
C-14 dating, and pollen/fossil pollen grains, the prehistorical plant
assemblages were read.  If you found pollen from some species of reed or sedge
in a desert basin, then you might have known that there was once water in that
place.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varve

   David Q. Hall
   dqhall59@...


"Ariel L. Szczupak" <ane.als@...> wrote:
           At 08:29 PM 6/4/2007, Susan Hussein wrote:

>Aren's two bits may provide a useful summary for a thread that seems
>to be winding down. No wonder spices were a preferred commodity on
>some of the drier routes.
>
>I do have one further question, suggested by the Mauritanian
>crocodiles. Presumably they've been evolving since pre-dynastic times
>when the Sahara dried out, but how about the climate in western Asia?
>How wet or dry was Palmyra or the Arabian "desert" in the pre-camel
>periods? Was it wetter than now, or did the major changes take place
>before donkeys came into general use?

I think I mentioned that there was a major climatic change around
5000BC which ended a wet period of 5000 years (? I don't recall
exactly) and caused the final desertification of the Arabian peninsula.

Quick check ...

For those with JSTOR access I think a good bet would be Tosi, "The
Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia":

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0084-6570(1986)2%3A15%3C461%3ATEPOPA%3E2.0.CO%3\
B2-J

For a very popularized but colorful description, see:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198002/from.the.lakes.of.arabia.htm

The same climatic change should have affected also the Palmyra area,
but I never checked the details.

Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660 Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

It seems from some offlist messages that my laconic numbers spread
across several message didn't form a comprehensive picture. I'll try
to correct that.

First I should mention that the average numbers for walking distance
per hour or per day are not desert specific. They are average
numbers, and as such they average the conditions too. They depend
more on human physiology than on topography or climate.

Example: Walking a level path in central Sinai in July will be
significantly harder than walking a much less level path along the
top of the central mountain range in Canaan (e.g. Jerusalem to
Shechem or Hebron). The situation will be reversed in April - the
Sinai walk will be pleasant while the mountain walk will be through
thick spring vegetation (no paved roads before the Romans). And the
July walk in Sinai will be significantly easier than a July walk on a
level path from Tiberias to Dan, because while the temperatures will
be in the same range, the high humidity in the upper Jordan basin
will increase the "heat factor" significantly.

A normal person will average in non extreme conditions 5 km/h and
will be able to go on indefinitely walking at such a speed for 10
hours a day carrying a light load (I think the figure for the load is
up to 20 kg). So the expression "a day's distance" or "a day's walk"
usually means (when it doesn't have a defined meaning for a specific
context) about 50 km (roughly 30 miles).

It may seem strange that this average speed works for most climates.
It seems obvious that walking a level path in a very hot desert is
much harder than walking a similar path in e.g. Holland. But when you
walk in the desert you'll split the 10 hours to the morning and
afternoon-evening and rest in the middle of the day - you'll still
get the same 10 hours of walking.

A specific context for which there is another figure is a large
infantry force, meaning hundreds or thousands or people with heavy
loads. The figure, from various armies across various periods and
geographical areas, is around 25 km/day. The more people you have the
wider the fitness range will be and the slowest person determines the
overall speed. The load carried by each person is significantly
heavier. Unless the route conditions are extremely favorable, such a
group will proceed as a single file column and the overall time will
be from the moment the first person leaves until the moment the last
person arrives. Etc.

At the other end of the distance-per-day range are "elite" walkers,
e.g. commandos. They can reach 100km/day. They do it both by walking
slightly faster (averaging maybe 6-7 km/h) and especially by walking
more hours per day. 16 hours per day at 6km/h is 96 km. This however
is not a speed that can be maintained indefinitely.

When a walking party includes pack animals it slows down and the
figure is about 25 km/day. Again it's an average and a lot will
depend on which animals are used. Humans are much more adaptable to
various terrain and weather conditions than pack animals - a donkey
is not adapted to sandy dunes and a camel is not adapted to mountain
passes. Caravans will be slower, but they won't need more watering
spots than a group of only humans walking at 50 km/day. The pack
animals can carry significantly more water than a person so that both
people and animals can proceed with watering stops every two days.

So for people-only and for caravans the distance between watering
"pit stops" that determines if a desert can be crossed is about 50km.

[Again, it's an average figure, a general indicator, that has to be
adapted to the specifics of each case. It shouldn't be used as a
magic number. For example walking dune "waves" length-wise is within
normal walking conditions but crossing those same dunes, i.e.
climbing dunes up and down, would be extreme walking conditions. It's
the same terrain, but the direction in which it is crossed will
determine the distance per day. When you look at a map it will be
obvious if the path is along a mountain ridge or crosses it, but a
map might fool you to think that crossing a dune area will be done at
the same speed in any direction]

Pit stops that are 50km apart are a problem for a large infantry
group proceeding at 25 km/day. In order to drink and refill every
other day each person will need to carry the extra day's water. That
will be about 10 kg added to an already heavy load. That would either
slow the speed per day even more, or require recuperation days at pit
stops. Adding pack animals is a partial solution, but if you have
thousands of soldiers you'll need hundreds of animals and every pit
stop will have to provide a lot more water. And even when the pit
stops are nearer to each other, what may be an adequate pit stop for
a caravan may not have enough water for thousands of men. And an army
can't reach its destination and ask the enemy to wait patiently
several days for the exhausted soldiers to recuperate ...

All this should be familiar to ANErs - people and caravans have
routinely crossed the NE deserts in various paths, but military
forces had a much more difficult time and were limited in their
choice of routes. E.g. practically all military expeditions to and
from Egypt used the "sea route" along the northern part of the Sinai
because it has a lot of watering pit stops, because the terrain is
mostly flat, and because the proximity of the sea makes the climate
more clement. The trade route going through central Sinai is a
perfectly good route for caravans but is practically impossible for
large infantry forces.

With livestock herds the desert crossing strategy, in the rare cases
when such a crossing must be done, is to force march them between
several pit stops and make a long recuperating stop at an oasis where
they have both water and food.

I hope this made the picture somewhat clearer.



Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...

Quick additional notes ...

Until the climatic shift around 5000BC the north of the Arabian
peninsula was savannah-like, so if you wish to visualize it mentally
imagine scenes from Lawrence of Arabia in an African safari setting :)

And the 5000BC climatic change was the last major one (affecting also
the Sahara etc) but there have been minor ones with less dramatic and
more localized effects. E.g. climatic fluctuations in the MB period
with (probably) a large impact in the Levant but less in other ANE areas.

At 01:57 AM 6/5/2007, Ariel L. Szczupak wrote:
>At 08:29 PM 6/4/2007, Susan Hussein wrote:
>
>>Aren's two bits may provide a useful summary for a thread that seems
>>to be winding down. No wonder spices were a preferred commodity on
>>some of the drier routes.
>>
>>I do have one further question, suggested by the Mauritanian
>>crocodiles. Presumably they've been evolving since pre-dynastic times
>>when the Sahara dried out, but how about the climate in western Asia?
>>How wet or dry was Palmyra or the Arabian "desert" in the pre-camel
>>periods? Was it wetter than now, or did the major changes take place
>>before donkeys came into general use?
>
>I think I mentioned that there was a major climatic change around
>5000BC which ended a wet period of 5000 years (? I don't recall
>exactly) and caused the final desertification of the Arabian peninsula.
>
>Quick check ...
>
>For those with JSTOR access I think a good bet would be Tosi, "The
>Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia":
>
>http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0084-6570(1986)2%3A15%3C461%3ATEPOPA%3E2.0.CO%\
3B2-J
>
>For a very popularized but colorful description, see:
>
>http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198002/from.the.lakes.of.arabia.htm
>
>The same climatic change should have affected also the Palmyra area,
>but I never checked the details.
>
>
>Ariel.
>
>[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]
>
>---
>Ariel L. Szczupak
>AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
>POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
>Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
>ane.als@...

Ariel.

[100% bona fide dilettante ... delecto ergo sum!]

---
Ariel L. Szczupak
AMIS-JLM (Ricercar Ltd.)
POB 4707, Jerusalem, Israel 91401
Phone: +972-2-5619660  Fax: +972-2-5634203
ane.als@...

I am personally not familiar with this stela, but its execution, in registers
and its contents-- altar, priests, bull offering, etc.-- remind me of another
one from Siliana, Tunisia, called the Boglio Stela, dated to AD 175-200. It is
to be found in the Bardo Museum, Tunisia. This stela is published in P.
MacKendrick, The North African Stones Speak (1980), p. 72 and fig. 3.13 (I can't
find the primary reference to this stela). This latter stela goes with what a
previous writer stated, that it might be a Saturn stela, perhaps to be related
to the discussion found in Rives' book.

Hope this helps,

Sam Wolff
Jerusalem

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Greetings, all:
I really don't want to intrude into this conversation, but since several times
people have stressed the conventional viewpoint that refugees poured into
Jerusalem after the fall of Samaria and prior to Sennacherib's invasion, I
thought I'd recommend that y'all might at least consider the interesting
alternative argument by Axel Knauf.  So far as I know, this has not yet been
mentioned:

E. A. Knauf, "The Glorious Days of Manasseh," in L.L. Grabbe, editor, Good Kings
and Bad Kings (T&T Clark International, 2005), pp. 164-88.

Knauf suggests, based on examination of the archaeological record for Judah,
that the increase in Jerusalem population took place in the 7th century, not the
late 8th century.

Shalom,
K. L. Noll
Brandon University
Brandon, Manitoba

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- paolo merlo <paolo_merlo@...> wrote:

> Dear Liz,
> As the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles say that
> Salmaneser conquered
> Samaria, whilst the inscriptions of Sargon II says
> that he himself was the
> "conqueror of Samaria", some scholars suggest that
> Salmaneser V conquered
> Samaria, but only Sargon II carried out the
> deportation.
> Cfr. A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus
> Khorsabad, G�ttingen 1994, p.
> 457-58.

Just how certain is the reading of Samaria in
the Babylonian Chronicle? I know Tadmor
was certain of this, but is anyone aware of
dissenting opinion?

Tory Thorpe

Rare 7th-8th C. Scroll Fragment in First-Time Public Display
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=20468


Paul Smith
Lay Researcher