by
Damien F.
Mackey
O. Neugebauer, in
his article “The Chronology of the Hammurabi Age” ... ties up all together Khabur
ware, Shamsi-adad I and Hammurabi, and Alalakh level VII, which I have
previously accepted (following D. Courville) as the level of Iarim-Lim, who is
my biblical Hiram.
When
I had previously considered Cushan (so-called “Rishathaim”) of Judges 3:8 to
have been a ruler from the region of Upper Mesopotamia (from Aram Naharaim), his sway possibly extending to
Assyria, I was thinking in fairly large geographical terms for this king. Hence
I was impressed with Dr. John Osgood’s suggestion that the significant Khabur
ware of this approximate region was archaeological evidence for the period of
dominance by Cushan.
Dr. Osgood
had written on this in his typically excellent article:
The Times of the Judges—The Archaeology:
(b) Settlement and Apostasy
.... Amiram then, as
Albright, asserts a connection between the Khabur basin and the M IIA
pottery of Palestine—the same areas affected by the biblical narrative of
Chushan-Rishathaim. Is this imagined? Or coincidental? To be sure, this
connection has been disputed—most particularly by Jonathan Tubb.12 However,
in analysing his objections, we discover that he was criticising the hypothesis
of a cultural sequence from one area to the other, and this definitely cannot
be demonstrated. In fact, it is contradicted. Understandably Tubb then rejects
such a cultural connection (see Figure 4).
Figure
4. Diagram depicting two views on the relationship between
the Khabur ware and the MB IIA of Palestine.
What Tubb, however, does
not do is pay attention to the biblical model envisioned by the Chushan story,
which describes a brief but vital contact by conquestof Israel by
the forces of Aram-Naharaim. He cannot do this meaningfully because his
absolute chronology does not allow such a connection with the Israelite story
in the days of the Judges. This also would overthrow accepted thinking and
would mean a simple recognition of the Judges accounts as valid and simple
historical records, and not just tribal narratives as the ‘documentary
hypothesis’ demands, in current thinking. That there was such contact the Bible
asserts. That there were, in Palestine, in MB IIA (MB I Kenyon), signs of
Khabur influence at the same period that Khabur Ware was in vogue in Aram-Naharaim
is confirmed by Patty Gerstenblith.
“…the
appearance of both ‘Habur’ ware store jars and ‘Habur’-type decorations marks
the beginning of MB I period in the Levant … we see that the ‘Habur’ store jars
appear in quantity at Chagar Bazar, just before the end of MB I period in the
Levant … That it may have been present there at an earlier date and is only
missing at those sites excavated in northern Mesopotamia is perhaps shown by
its presence in quantity at the Baghouz cemetery, which probably corresponds
more closely to the Levant MB I than do the northern Mesopotamian sites, which
seem to postdate the MB I period.”13 (emphasis ours) (Note: MB
I Kenyon = MB IIA Albright)
In
other words, here in Palestine in the boundaries of ancient Israel is just the
cultural influence evident which we would expect from the biblical narrative,
taken at face value.
The
culture of the Khabur basin (Aram-Naharaim) is seen and at no other period. Its
appearance then in Palestine first corresponds to the initial appearance of
this ware in the Khabur region.
[End of quote]
But
I have recently had to drop that archaeological connection since coming to the different
conclusion that Cushan was, in fact, a king of Edom, a long way away from Aram Naharaim land:
Cushan
rishathaim was king of Edom
and:
Cushan
rishathaim was king of Edom. Part Two: Cushan reigned centuries before Hammurabi
Khabur
ware, instead - or part thereof, at least - seems to have been properly assigned
to the era of kings Shamsi-adad I and Hammurabi, conventionally dated to c.
1800 BC, but correctly (in my opinion, following D. Hickman) to be dated to the
time of kings David and Solomon of Israel.
See
e.g. my article:
O.
Neugebauer, in his article “The Chronology of the Hammurabi Age” (JAOS, 61, n. 1, March 1941), ties up all
together Khabur ware, Shamsi-adad I and Hammurabi, and Alalakh level VII, which
I have previously accepted (following D. Courville) as the level of Iarim-Lim, who is my biblical Hiram. See
my multi-part series:
commencing
with:
Neugebauer
writes (on p. 58) - with some unintended irony given the severe dislocation (in
relation to biblical history) of Hammurabi:
....
One of the most spectacular steps in the study of ancient chronology during
recent years is the correction, by not less than 275 years, of the date of one
of the most important and best known [sic] periods of oriental history, the
time of Hammurabi of Babylon.
The
drastic change became necessary when Thureau-dangin in 1937 recognized ... that
the archives from Mari (on the middle Euphrates) proved Hammurabi a contemporary
of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, thus opening the way for applying Assyrian
chronological material to the problem of dating the First Babylonian Dynasty. This
consequence was first noted by Albright in 1938, who placed ... Hammurabi’s
accession tentatively at “about 1870 B.C.” Two years later the same author gave
a more detailed report on the new chronology of Western Asia ... dating Hammurabi
still later, at 1800 B.C. The present monograph by Smith, written without the benefit
of Abright’s revised results, arrives at essentially the same date, proposing
for Hammurabi the years 1792-1750 B.C., and hence 1894-1595 for the First Babylonian
Dynasty.
....
The
evidence of pottery (Smith, 3-10) is regarded as basic. ... the palace of Level VII [Alalakh] belongs to the period of Shamshi-Adad I and Hammurabi and contains
Khabur ware as well as Chager- Bazar and Brak (p. 8). ....
