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On the Constitution and Transformation of P hilistine Identity
Author(s) -
Maeir Aren M.,
Hitchcock Louise A.,
Horwitz Liora Kolska
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
oxford journal of archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.382
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1468-0092
pISSN - 0262-5253
DOI - 10.1111/ojoa.12000
Subject(s) - eleventh , ninth , identity (music) , kingdom , history , constitution , pottery , style (visual arts) , ancient history , archaeology , art , political science , law , aesthetics , paleontology , biology , physics , acoustics
Summary Recent discussion of the formation and alteration of P hilistine identity in the L evantine I ron A ge continues to reference primarily pottery styles and dietary practices. Such traditional narratives propose that the P hilistines comprised one group of the ‘Sea Peoples’ and that the cultural boundary markers that distinguished their society in the I ron A ge I (twelfth–eleventh century BC ) diminished in importance and disappeared suddenly in the early I ron A ge IIA (tenth century BC ), with the ascendancy of the Judahite kingdom. Based on data from the Levant (especially P hilistia), the A egean and Cyprus, we argue for a more complex understanding of the P hilistines who came to the region with an identity that drew on, and continued to engage with, a broad range of foreign artefact styles and cultural practices with non‐Levantine connections. Concurrently they incorporated local cultural attributes, at least until the late ninth century BC , a feature that we argue was unrelated to the supposed tenth century expansion of the Judahite kingdom.