CASTING TIAMAT INTO ANOTHER SPHERE: SOURCES FOR THE 'AIN SAMIYA GOBLET

Abstract

Among the finds from the extensive late third millennium necropolis of Dhahr Mirzbaneh and 'Ain Samiya, north-west of Jericho, was an exceptional silver goblet with repoussé decoration which generated a series of articles one decade age. It was discovered in an undisturbed chamber tomb whose other gifts–16 jars, 2 four-spouted saucer lamps, and 3 copper or bronze weapons-unequivocally date to the end of Albright's Middle Bronze I, now better defined as the last part of Palestinian Early Bronze IV, C. 2100–2000 B.C. This period is currently understood as a phase during which a pastoral economy took the fore at the expense of the preceding Early Bronze urban organization in Palestine. Nomadic tribes dealing in aninlals, trade and perhaps metallurgy were establishing permanent settlements only for their dead. These tribes are at present no longer identified as invaders from that perennial source of restless peoples, the North; rather, these EB IV nomads would appear to spring from the native unstable element within the Early Bronze Palestinian populace. By the beginning of the second millennium, they were once again induced into following the example set by their Syrian neighbours, and readapted themselves to a predominantly urban structure.

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