Urbanism and Socio-Political Complexity: Ethno-Historical Observations on the Southern Levant during the Iron Age II

EMANUEL PFOH

Ramat Gan

Conferencia; Urbanism in the Iron Age Levant and Beyond: Archaeological, textual and comparative perspectives; 2022

Bar-Ilan University

The aim of this paper is to argue that, while a general feature like urbanism has more than often been closely related to state formation processes in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age II, another factor should instead take precedence to figure out the key dynamics of the socio-political complexity assumed (if we consider, for instance, some biblical images and depictions) or evidenced (if we consider, for instance, a variety of anthropological-archaeological models) in the region. This factor refers to performed socio-political conceptions, i.e., a certain political ontology put into practice through particular actions, reactions, expectations and behaviours. This is, of course, not always directly reflected in the archaeological record, although at times it can be partially recovered or correlated after a careful reading of the epigraphic record. A heuristic tool may in fact be provided by a third kind of record which will supplement the previous two, potentially enhancing our interpretations: the ethnographic, or better the ethno-historical record from different periods of the region. Indeed, a critical ethno-historical comparison may provide us with an alternative interpretation of the role urbanism has played in this period in the Southern Levant. Two (now classical, if not passé) examples will be reconsidered here to make the point: the site of Samaria for the kingdom of Israel and the site of Jerusalem for the kingdom of Judah, both in comparison with contemporary Aramaean and Transjordanian socio-political and historical trajectories. In conclusion, this communication will attempt to show that a state model, used for understanding the socio-political configuration of these polities, becomes in fact less relevant than commonly expected when the interpretative focus is on the attested socio-political performances, rather than on urbanism (and its typological derivations, like monumentality) itself.