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Old 05-09-2007, 03:48 PM   #31
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Originally Posted by 3DJay View Post
"In all the areas excavated, there is considerable evidence of the use of timber. The wood itself survives only when it is burnt...." (Kenyon, page 183)

"Archaeologists find evidence ofancient wooden objects and structures, all the freakin time." ~ Me
It's important to note that wood was a valuable commodity. When Naram-Sin put an end to MB Ebla, he carted off all the wood he could find there, eg the beams used to hold up the second floor of the palace. This was rare use and showed Ebla to have been an important city of the time which could afford such a luxury.

The reason why much later the crusader castles were superb stone structures was because there was so little wood available for construction. It changed the way the Europeans who went to Palestine built castles.

The notion of the walls of a city in Palestine being built of wood is plain ridiculous. It was simply too valuable to waste on something that could have been constructed by use of masonry. The common use was for much smaller things, especially considering the sort of wood available in the area.


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Old 05-09-2007, 07:50 PM   #32
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Originally Posted by spin View Post
It's important to note that wood was a valuable commodity. When Naram-Sin put an end to MB Ebla, he carted off all the wood he could find there, eg the beams used to hold up the second floor of the palace. This was rare use and showed Ebla to have been an important city of the time which could afford such a luxury.

The reason why much later the crusader castles were superb stone structures was because there was so little wood available for construction. It changed the way the Europeans who went to Palestine built castles.

The notion of the walls of a city in Palestine being built of wood is plain ridiculous. It was simply too valuable to waste on something that could have been constructed by use of masonry. The common use was for much smaller things, especially considering the sort of wood available in the area.


spin

Hi Spin. You know, I think I would agree with you here, fundamentally, except at least two cities, Jericho and Ai seem to have all but disappeared for this time period. I can't help wonder if they fortified the walls in some other than the traditional manner. Ai was a "dependent" city of Bethel along with some others. I'm presuming when under major attack, the people from these smaller towns ran into the fortified city made of stone. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe there was a period of reforestation in the region and so wooden walls protected by trenches or moats? was the practice, especially for what seems to be an important but smaller city than in earlier times. Same with Ai, a smaller "town" where a wooden wall was practical.

I'm not sure whether Jericho is mentioned in any Amarna texts either. whereas other Canaanite cities were. This might attest to its smallnest as well, though I think the city certainly was under Egyptian influence as evidenced by the cartouches found in some of the tombs. Perhaps correspondence simply didn't survive from this vassal city.

LG47
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Old 05-09-2007, 08:09 PM   #33
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Hi Spin. You know, I think I would agree with you here, fundamentally, except at least two cities, Jericho and Ai seem to have all but disappeared for this time period. I can't help wonder if they fortified the walls in some other than the traditional manner. Ai was a "dependent" city of Bethel along with some others. I'm presuming when under major attack, the people from these smaller towns ran into the fortified city made of stone. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe there was a period of reforestation in the region and so wooden walls protected by trenches or moats? was the practice, especially for what seems to be an important but smaller city than in earlier times. Same with Ai, a smaller "town" where a wooden wall was practical.
Spin made a very good point, and you counter with "reforestation"?

Do you just not read Hex's posts, or what?

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According to The Natufian Culture and the Origin of the Neolithic in the Levant, by O. Bar-Yosef; F. Valla, Current Anthropology, pp 433-436 © 1990, the forested areas in the Levant peaked areound 11,500 BP, and tended toward becoming wetter (and less good for trees) by 10,000 BP. But, as explained in Prehistory of the Levant, by O. Bar-Yosef, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 9. (1980), pp. 101-133. and A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic, ca. 8500-3750 B. C., by Andrew M. T. Moore, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 246. (Spring, 1982), pp. 1-34., somewhere around 6000 BC, the forests were practically gone, due to use of the lands for agriculture and pastoralism and the continued trend toward a drier Levant. So your 'earlier times' ar far earlier than the 1300's date you want to use this justification for.
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I'm not sure whether Jericho is mentioned in any Amarna texts either. whereas other Canaanite cities were. This might attest to its smallnest as well, though I think the city certainly was under Egyptian influence as evidenced by the cartouches found in some of the tombs. Perhaps correspondence simply didn't survive from this vassal city.
They had taken on Pharaoh...they had taken on the armies of the Amorites...

Why would such a big deal be made over a wooden walled village?
Why would they need God's help, to take down a wooden walled village?

Wood does leave evidence.
Reforestation would leave evidence.

You're making no sense.


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Old 05-09-2007, 08:30 PM   #34
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houses are built shallowly and usually have foundations on the surface or at most a foot below surface, we do actually find such houses in Late bronze age Jericho.

Defensive walls are built very differently, and have substantial underground portions. In the case of a wooden stockade one needs to build a trench to bury at least 5 ft of the wood, or the wall has very little defensive use, and no one would go through the trouble of building it(even a total novice can figure this out quite fast). This means that a huge trench much deeper than 5ft is dug because you also have to properly prepare the ground below the wood, and also make sure you have good solid fill around the wood. This leaves a fairly massive archaeological presence below ground.

If one can find some remains of shallowly built houses, then not finding any remains of a probably 7ft or more deep trench that encircled the whole city, means that no such structure existed. Besides the fact that such a trench would be going into the Middle Bronze Age levels, which are nicely intact.
I would agree. But nothing is left hardly at all of the LBIIA city, it being nearly completely eroded. If there was some kind of artificial mound and moat or whatever, then it might explain why that entire level quickly eroded way. Like when a dam breaks. So absolutely I agree with you, but there are other circumstances to consider. If the walls were somehow also supporting a builtup area of great height behind the wall, then once the wall fell down with little now to support the build up, it just washed away completely. We can't presume what was behind the wall was ground level. Maybe that's why burning the wall didn't make sense either, it wouldn't have been effective. Rahab's house may have been built on top of the wall but her home still may have been only a few levels above city level in the city. The wall was still effective as long as around the outside was several stories lower. But again, once those walls fell down and alot of the fill with it, after it was abandoned, the unsupported fill would definitely wash completely away. Maybe all that is left is that part which was built just above the foundation of the older city?

I'm probably dreaming here, but just some thoughts that might explain both the massive erosion and the lack of lots of stones or other evidence from the LBIIA period.


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Old 05-09-2007, 08:31 PM   #35
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Wood that is left out does what, Lars? It rots, right? And you know what that becomes? Part of an A-Horizon, or occupation layer. Guess what's in those post-molds? Rotten wood that's gone to soil. So, even if we can't carbon date it, it is darker, richer, and has a different mineral content from the soils surrounding it. Such post molds are what you get for "considerable evidence of the use of timber" when your wood hasn't been otherwise preserved.
I agree. But post holes in the earth that is washed away mixes with everything else, dries up and blows away sometimes. The problem is, there is not enough of this level to establish whether there were lots of previous post holes or not.


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Note: Being buried in the ground, underwater, in a bog with lots of tannins, in permafrost, or being desicated in an arid environment can -all- preserve wood.
Good, let's start looking!


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Now, the Levant area did have a different ecosystem in the past. At times it has been swampy in places, had grasslands and had forests (with lots of oak). So you needn't say apparently, but that doesn't 'get you out of the woods' on it yet.
Thanks for these details. Very helpful!! Appreciated. :notworthy:

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<snip> So your 'earlier times' ar far earlier than the 1300's date you want to use this justification for.
Irrelevant. Lots of timbre was found in the MB Period, so...

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And, when talking about Jericho, recognize that there are occupations that go back to pre 9000 BC. Might have been plenty of trees then, but by 2000 BC maybe not so much, huh?
LOTS of timber was found on the MB Period 1600-1500 BCE.

L
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ars, if aspects of the LBIIA occupation layer exist on the site, then there should be at least some reminant of the post molds for a fortification wall.
No. That's what I'm saying. The only thing left from this level is one confirmed house. That's all. There was found an LBII pot that was dropped on the floor in the kitchen. Nothing else remains. The archaeological confirmation has been scant but primarily from the tombs, not the city itself.

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And think of how much wood that would require! And if they were replacing the wall destroyed in 1550 BC, where would the wood come from?
I don't know, but my guess is Home Depot. Actually, again, as the successive layers built on top of one another, the city got smaller and smaller, so the final city would have been smaller and perhaps over an area where a wooden wall would work. I'm thinking if there was say some deep trenches built or even a moat that that is what aided in the complete erosion of the city once that structure broke down, etc.

Quote:
And sometimes I think -you- expect too much of archaeologists. They work with the data they have. And where they have data, they explain what's going on. But, where they don't have data (Jericho's eroision layer, for example), they can extrapolate. They can say 'IF there were people here during this time period, this is probably how they would have lived and what their tools would have looked like'. How could they say that? They look to the -rest- of the archaeological record to give them information from similar times, places, situations, cultures, what have you. Does that make any sense? :huh:
You are right and Kenyon did just that for her scenario of what happened at Jericho at the one site they found a structure intact from the LBIIA period:

Page 261: "To the south of this wall, a small irregular area of contemporary floor survives. In the photograph it can be seen clearly how to the south and east the modern surface is below the level of this floor. On the floor is a small mud oven, just like those still used by peasant women in Palestine today. Beside the oven, a single dipper juglet was lying on the floor. This juglet is the only Late Bronze Age vessel we have found in situ on the tell. It's date is 14th century, and fits in well with the more precisely datable finds in the tombs made by Professor Garstang.

...The evidence seems to me to be that the small fragment of a building which we have found is part of the kitchen of a Canaanite woman, who may have dropped the juglet bside the oven and fled at the sound of the trumpets of Joshua's men."

That's the picture archaeologist Kenyon is seeing here, based on the sparse evidence.

Quote:
The particulars about the Jericho site don't have that great significance to archaeologists overall. It's a neat city due to the walls, and due to the Natufian occupation and the insights into the origins of agriculture. The stuff you're trying to prove hardly comes up on any archaeologist's radar ...
Right, and my primary interest is the CHRONOLOGY anyway, not the details of confirming the remains of any wall.

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Oh, I don't think -anoyone- here debnates your ability to imagine. But some of us use our brains rationally, not on spiritual pipe-dreams ...
Yeah, pipe dreams that spaum cloud photographs. Got it.

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And as for the Kenyon quote from pg 177 above, what occupation level does that come from, by the way?
The great fire was from the Middle Bronze occupation.


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*sigh* Okay. I was going to go through the rest, but ... I think this addresses the major points needed for disproving Lars' posit.
You mean your attempt to try to disprove... The fat lady has yet to do her solo.

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If anyone wants me to hit on something specific, let me know ..

Thanks fo rthe eco data on on the Levant, I was wondering if there was anything observed and published about that.
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Old 05-09-2007, 08:35 PM   #36
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Originally Posted by 3DJay View Post

Wood does leave evidence.
Reforestation would leave evidence.

You're making no sense.


Peace
Kenyon confirms that the MB city used lots and lots of timber, which was my reference to imply that there was wood available during that period. You can't say no wood existed in the region and thus everything was made of stone when we have evidence of lots of timber being used in the city. It had to come from somewhere. I just surmised perhaps by then, since the deforestation was due to local habitation that after a hundred years the forrests had regrown by the time of LBIIA and was readily available, even if only in a small area around Jericho. So they got the timber from some place... Use of timber in the city itself disproves there was absolutely no timber readily available.

Thanks for your comments, though, appreciated. I'm just trying to narrow down the options with what we can find out at this point.

LG47
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Old 05-10-2007, 03:55 AM   #37
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Originally Posted by Larsguy47 View Post
Yes, normally, but this level of the city has all but completely eroded. There is nothing there. So post holes wouldn't be expected in this case.

LG47

It appears that you have very little knowledge or experience in archaeology.
As Yummyfur has already stated we would be talking about post holes several feet deep (The depth being dependent on the height of the "wooden walls " and the actual type of earth into which they are dug) these post holes regardless of any "erosion" are easily identifiable ,in most cases just by the naked eye as the "infill" tends to be a compleletly different consistency & colour to the surrounding "natural(earth)".
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Old 05-10-2007, 04:34 AM   #38
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It appears that you have very little knowledge or experience in archaeology.
As Yummyfur has already stated we would be talking about post holes several feet deep (The depth being dependent on the height of the "wooden walls " and the actual type of earth into which they are dug) these post holes regardless of any "erosion" are easily identifiable ,in most cases just by the naked eye as the "infill" tends to be a compleletly different consistency & colour to the surrounding "natural(earth)".

I wasn't talking about the wood itself being rotted away but the earth being eroded away.

Page 261 "The houses of the Late Bronze Age Jericho have thereore almost entirely disappeared. We have already seen that over most of the summit of the tell even the houses of the certainly populous Middle Bronze Age town have vanished, and only levels of the Early Bronze Age remain. We have also seen how the process of erosion was washing away the Middle Bronze Age houses on the east slope..."

LG47
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Old 05-10-2007, 04:46 AM   #39
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How deep are we to imagine the trench\moat to have been?

Since the post holes have eroded away, it's hard to imagine the trench\moat as well
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Old 05-10-2007, 06:57 AM   #40
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While waiting and going back in time, I thought of something else Larsguy57, how tall should I try to imagine the wood walls to be?

I am asking because since you are so amazed by my artwork I've decided to do some "artists renderings" of your scenerio, seriously. Since it's your scenerio I want it to be to your specifications of course.

I've looked around for some other photospaintings of what Jericho might look like:

I found this

Which obviously shows stonewall see if you can find him in the picture Be warned! It's a lot harder than the other one you posted to find!

I like this one better

It almost looks like wood walls [look how freakin' big the trees are! That helps the lumber question!] To the right looks like maybe a sharks fin or a clam], this supports the trench\moat scenerio.
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