Fresh from the oven: two new articles on Early Bronze Age Megiddo just been published. Check them out:
Abstract: Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley of Israel has been the most cited type-site of the Early Bronze Age Levant since the excavations of the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. Through the efforts of the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition, the stratigraphic sequence of the Early Bronze Age has been significantly refined, and a new monumental temple dating to Early Bronze Age IB (ca. 3000 B.C.E.) has been discovered. This Great Temple has proven to be the most monumental structure of the period in the Levant. This discovery provides new evidence for the rise of social and political complexity in the region.
Abstract: From 1992 to 2010, the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition excavated an unprecedented monumental temple complex dating to the Early Bronze Age I, ca. 3000 B.C.E. This Great Temple has proved not only to be among the largest construction projects in the Levant in its day, but has revealed surprising new evidence for a society capable of monumental architecture, central planning, and significant control of resources in the Jezreel Valley, Israel, not hitherto expected for the place and time. Since 2010, the Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP) has been conducting archaeological research at the site of Tel Megiddo East, the nearby settlement responsible for the construction of the temple, and studying the broader landscape in order to elucidate how and why Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley witnessed an incredible leap forward in social, political, and architectural capabilities at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E. This essay elaborates on both the Great Temple and the recent discoveries and ongoing work by the JVRP at Tel Megiddo East that put the temple in context.
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