Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries

Tsafrir, Yoram; Foerster, Gideon

doi:10.2307/1291763

Cited by 67 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The 11 samples were recovered from excavation areas in which either residential or public structures were found. All of the sampled pieces from Beth Shean were recovered from excavations in the area of the Roman city centre, where public buildings (e.g., the temple with round cella and the Central Monument; Tsafrir and Foerster 1997) were unearthed. Remains of apparently residential buildings were uncovered below these public structures in a number of locations (B. Arubas, pers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Discovery of Anomalously High Silver Abundances in Pottery From Early Roman Excavation Contexts in Jerusalem*

2006

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This is the first study on the differential distribution and concentrations of silver in ceramics recovered from archaeological excavations. The chemical compositions of 1174 pottery vessels from 38 Roman-period sites in Israel have been determined. Unusually high and variable abundances of silver were discovered in pottery samples of all vessel types and chemical compositions from four distinct archaeological contexts dating to late first century BCE to 70 CE Jerusalem. The large majority of the Jerusalem vessels could be distinguished by their silver abundances from all analysed pottery pieces recovered at rural sites outside Jerusalem, even when the pottery types and chemical compositions, except for silver, of pottery found within and outside Jerusalem were indistinguishable. The evidence is suggestive of a human origin for the high and variable silver abundances, and dispersion of the silver by aqueous transport. The differential silver concentrations found in excavated pottery from Jerusalem and other urban and rural sites suggest that attention to the distribution of silver in pottery from excavated contexts may be helpful for evaluating the nature and function of archaeological remains and patterns of urban contamination. a detailed description of HPXRF and INAA sample preparation procedures and measurement methods, see Adan-Bayewitz et al . 2004, 2-3).The chemical compositions of 1174 pottery vessels from Roman Judaea/Palestine, including 221 examples from several locations in late Second Temple period Jerusalem (Fig. 2), were determined by HPXRF. Twenty-four per cent of the Jerusalem samples had Ag abundances above 2.0 ppm. A total of 11 samples from locations outside Jerusalem ( N = 718 and 221 samples, from rural and urban sites, respectively) were found to have Ag concentrations above this level, and all of them were from cities.Although the new INAA coincidence method could detect Ag below 0.10 ppm and the HPXRF method could generally detect Ag at the level of 1 ppm, the Ag anomalies discussed in most of this paper will be those greater than 2.0 ppm as measured by the HPXRF method. This limit is sufficiently higher than the HPXRF counting error for Ag of ∼ 0.5 ppm as to make convincing the assignment of an anomaly measured only by HPXRF. The Ag abundances obtained with INAA coincidence measurements for splits of many of the same samples also measured by HPXRF, as well as the HPXRF data, are discussed below. MATERIALS

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Discovery of Anomalously High Silver Abundances in Pottery From Early Roman Excavation Contexts in Jerusalem*

2006

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“…38 Its date towards the end of the Umayyad period may attest to the fact that the use of bronze weights of the Byzantine type, at least in Palestine and perhaps also in Syria, continued to the end of the Umayyad period. Support for this argument may be found in a number of weights (as yet unpublished) which were uncovered in the shops of the Umayyad su Ãq (Silvanus Street), 39 which display all the characteristic Byzantine signs such as crosses and Greek letters. The construction and use of these shops dates from the last part of the Umayyad period.…”

Section: Fig 1 Plan Of the Central Area Of Bet Shean ± Scythopolismentioning

confidence: 97%

A Bronze Weight of Saʿîd b. ʿAbd al-Malik from Bet Shean/Baysân

Khamis¹

2002

J.R. Asiat. Soc. G.B. Irel.

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This paper presents a unique bronze weight manufactured by the order of a little-known son of [ain]Abd al-Malik, who was governor of Jund Filastîn for a short period. The weight, of the Byzantine disc type, but bearing Arabic inscriptions, was found in the excavations carried out by the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1990. It is discussed here in the context of other metal weights of the period which bear Arabic inscriptions but are of Byzantine form, and which sometimes also bear Byzantine symbols and Greek inscriptions.

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“…The Byzantine agora, Palladius Street and the Sigma were abandoned. 14 This space was used in the second half of the seventh century as a large cemetery with c. 350 simple cist graves. 15 Other public buildings were left to decay and some were replaced by humble private dwellings, which filled also the porticos of the colonnaded streets.…”

Section: Beth Shean -Scythopolismentioning

confidence: 99%

“From Polis to Madina” Revisited – Urban Change in Byzantine and early Islamic Palestine

Avni

2011

JRAS

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The transformation of cities in the Byzantine and early Islamic Near East was discussed by a number of scholars in the last century. Many of them adopted a traditional approach, claiming that the Islamic conquest caused the total collapse of large classical cities, turning them into small medieval towns. The urban landscape was changed dramatically, with the large colonnaded streets of the classical Polis transformed into the narrow allies of the Islamic Madina.

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Urbanism at Scythopolis-Bet Shean in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries

Cited by 67 publications

References 0 publications

The Discovery of Anomalously High Silver Abundances in Pottery From Early Roman Excavation Contexts in Jerusalem*

The Discovery of Anomalously High Silver Abundances in Pottery From Early Roman Excavation Contexts in Jerusalem*

A Bronze Weight of Saʿîd b. ʿAbd al-Malik from Bet Shean/Baysân

“From Polis to Madina” Revisited – Urban Change in Byzantine and early Islamic Palestine

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