spin

If we are talking of Danite sites near the coast, that's where Philistine and other sea peoples sites were aplenty.

What's the problem with Jdg 5:17?

(Oh and what do you make of the form Dan-jaan in 2 Sam 24:6, DNH Y`N? which doesn't make much sense in Hebrew.)

If you mean Arbeitman, no, but I've read two articles by him, one being in a Hungarian philological and archaeological journal.

How would you necessarily make a distinction between one group of sea peoples and another?

Catch me if you can. I'm going awol in just a few days. Won't have an email account for a while. So you birds will have to fly solo.


spin

Celsus

Ok, see the problem here is that Dan "migrates" in Judges 17-18, finally settling down in Dan/Laish. I don't know how we can ascribe anything as "Danite" elsewhere, especially not prior to the settlement at Laish. But Laish should still have some sort of residual Myc III pottery, perhaps similar to late Philistine bichrome ware. Is there? I don't know actually. On the other hand, we still say the Sikils arrived at Tel Dor even though (AFAIK) there haven't been any discoveries of Myc III pottery.

But I would note that around Stratum VI (c.1150), after the overthrow of Egyptian holding there are collared-rim pithoi which would point to an arrival of people from central Palestine instead. So I don't really know how we can talk about Danite sites on the coast, unless these Danites were different from Biblical Danites, and then there's no problems. What do you have in mind?
Actually, it's probably me who doesn't make much sense. I'm no Hebraist, nor do I even have any Hebrew bibles with me. So the only clue is that both Asher and Dan are by their ships, which really depends on rwg (do I have that right?) and its usual meaning is as you say, but does not force a connection with Sea peoples, other than perhaps occupationally. The main point is a central Palestine migration or from the coast? I'll go with central Palestine. As for Dan-jaan, I had no idea. Something to ponder over I suppose--could it just be conflation of historical/mythic elements?
Good question. One source is via their sea routes and locations (different imported ware, perhaps?), another via their cultic practices (difficult), and another via their ancient histories, though I doubt very much that we can confidently state anything. There are conflations in types (again, using the example from Dor, their pottery type is often identified as Philistine) that mean we're generally reliant on histories that say where each one was (like the Bible, but not with confidence).
It's in June. You'll be back by then right?

Joel

Toto

The side discussion on Dan has been split off from here. If I missed anything, PM me.

spin

I don't see that that is a problem. There is an ancient tradition that has survived regarding the Danites remaining on ships and dwelling some place radically different, ie down among the Philistines. The ships reference is certain not to be a creation (or development) within the Hebrew culture. What the relationship is with the Dan of the Waters of Dan region is hard to say, for when was that tradition first handed down?

Shekelesh are probably the same as the Tjekker. This is partially a problem of Egyptian phonetics -- they didn't make a difference between l/r. The voyage of Wen-Amun is translated to usually talk of the Tjekker at Dor. Then we have the Philistines further south, but there were five different peoples nominated by the Egyptians in this movement. Where did the other three settle after being repulsed from the Egyptian border? Of course there were probably more than five, for when displacements started on the Aegean coasts either cultures were destroyed or pushed along and joined. (In the 1960s Anatolian Studied had a few articles by Wainright regarding the homelands of the various sea peoples and none of them came from Mycenae.)

How long did it take for "Philistine" culture to become assimilated by the local culture, for the Aegean wars to stop being produced on the coast, for Phoenician inscriptions to start being produced by the new arrivals? I don't know the connection between the Danites of the ships and the Danites of Laish. I do know that the Hebrew traditions related to this era are generally confused and untrustworthy. Among the "Canaanite" tribes the Hebrews annihilated, were the Perizzites and the Hivites. Gen 34:30 and Jdg 1:4 talk of the Canaanites and the Perizzites as separate groups. The name "Perizzite", PRZY, should be seen in relation to the PL$TY, Egyptian, as I said, didn't distinguish between l/r and the difference between s/z is one of voicing ("s" uses no voice), so linguistically the Perizzites and the Philistines are closely related. The name Hivite, XWY, also shows similarities between the sea people mentioned by the Hittites, axiyyawa, or the Achaeans as we write it from the Greek tradition. Another name that needs to be considered is that of Issachar, Y$$KR, or perhaps some form of 'Y$ $KR, men of the $KR, Sheker, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Sikil, Sicel. Preserved in a very confused manner in the Hebrew are numerous names identifiable with the sea peoples. Our problem is that the Hebrew tradition takes form after the arrival of the sea peoples for the tradition is totally unaware of their arrival, so it must be long after 1170 BCE, so that anachronisms can be made with Philistines being in Canaan absurdly early, such as Abrahamic times.

The text says nothing of Asher being in ships (but then perhaps there is no Asher in the text at all: the relative pronoun '$R, "that", and the tribe name '$R, rendered "Asher" in English, have the same orthographic manifestation and if our '$R is the former then the verse seems to make slightly better sense with the ships which sat by the sea shore and in the creeks).

An attempt to deal with conflicting traditions. Dan in two places.

On distinguishing various sea peoples who may have stayed on the coast:
If they travelled together wouldn't they have shared parts of their culture and connections as well? Dor is usually related to the Tjekker, not the Philistines, so perhaps one cannot tell the differences between Tjekker and Philistine. Or the Greek Danoi?

36 hours left. No, I won't be back then.

Lemche is quite an open-ended thinker and open-minded scholar. Hassle him. He goes for a Hellenistic period development of texts. Don't let the xians run the show trying to get him to go backwards to earlier times. He'll abandon most traditional ideas and even question the significance of the exile as we understand it, saying things like there were numerous exiles. Just pretend to be ultra-minimalist. He's really sharp and you can get a lot of useful thought out of him, if somewhat criptic at times.


spin

Celsus

Hi Spin,

I've probably missed you, but hopefully you'll have a look back on this thread when you return.
Heh. I'm not going there.
Fascinating stuff. I'll have to look into this properly--do you have a reference on this? A name will probably do. On the Tjekker/Sikil, I understand these to be different peoples though--one thought: If writings of the time preserved only consonants, then linguistically, the evolution of those would be much more conservative than vowels. So while we may see that the common consonantal root may be exceedingly similar, on what basis do we identify them, especially given the nature of conflation (shades of Eisenman, this)? If we do equate certain consonants (for even the best reasons), we can end up seeing patterns where none exist (though peleset is probably associated with Philistine, I agree).
Dammit spin, I'm going to have to coax more of these things out of you, more often. Thanks!
I was thinking about Lemche's assertion of the Philistine arrival as something of a stabilising influence actually. I don't like his periphery-centre dichotomy at all (too neo-Marxian, for a start), but I think he may be on to something--by the introduction of a new power in Palestine, the chaos of the Amarna period could come to an end. However, the circumstances between their arrival and the events leading to assimilation (whatever those may be) make me cautious about asserting too much continuity between the periods.

Anyway, now I've thoroughly confused myself, and I forgot what I wanted to say, but look forward to your return.

Joel

Ted Hoffman

Me too.