This interdisciplinary volume is a ‘one-stop location’ for the most up-to-date scholarship on Southern Levantine figurines in the Iron Age. The essays address terracotta figurines attested in the Southern Levant from the Iron Age through the Persian Period (1200–333 BCE). The volume deals with the iconography, typology, and find context of female, male, animal, and furniture figurines and discusses their production, appearance, and provenance, including their identification and religious functions. While giving priority to figurines originating from Phoenicia, Philistia, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine, the volume explores the influences of Egyptian, Anatolian, Mesopotamian, and Mediterranean (particularly Cypriot) iconography on Levantine pictorial material.

Tell el-Hesi is located near the modern city of Qiryat Gat in the Southern District of Israel, 23 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. The site, which covers 35–40 acres, includes both an acropolis and a lower city. Occupation of the site began as early as the Neolithic period, and the city grew significantly during the Early Bronze Age before being abandoned until the Late Bronze Age. The latest phase of occupation occurred during the Hellenistic period. The acropolis was in use for almost two thousand years. This volume is the first in a new iteration of the Joint Archaeological Expedition to Tell el-Hesi series that builds on previously published volumes. It publishes a final report for part of one of Tell el-Hesi’s excavation fields; a reevaluation of the stratigraphic findings of the original 1891–1892 excavations on Tell el-Hesi, based on excavation work from the 1970s and 1980s; in-depth studies of groups of small finds from the tell; and zooarchaeological analyses that widen the investigative perspective to include the region around the tell. Paying tribute to the long excavation history at Tell el-Hesi, the contributors to this volume employ state-of-the-art scientific methods that honor the careful work and findings of a century of excavations. Hesi After 50 Years and 130 Years will be an important reference for scholars researching the history and culture of southern Palestine.

This volume presents a collection of studies by international experts on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society, economy, religion, language, culture, and history, synthesizing archaeological remains and integrating them with discussions of ancient Near Eastern and biblical texts. Driven by theoretically and methodologically informed discussions of the archaeology of the Iron Age Levant, the 47 chapters in The Ancient Israelite World provide foundational, accessible, and detailed studies in their respective topics. The volume considers the history of interpretation of ancient Israel, studies on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society and history, and avenues for present and future approaches to the ancient Israelite world. Accompanied by over 150 maps and figures, it allows the reader to gain an understanding of key issues that archaeologists, historians and biblical scholars have faced and are currently facing as they attempt to better understand ancient Israelite society. The Ancient Israelite World is an essential reference work for students and scholars of ancient Israel and its history, culture, and society, whether they are historians, archaeologists or biblical scholars.

A psychomagic journey to awaken lucid dream consciousness • Presents effective exercises and techniques, inspired by ancient texts, to deepen your personal awareness of the dream state and experiment with dreams for healing and divinatory purposes • Each initiatory chapter includes a psychodramatic narrative designed to generate the perfect dream for each stage in the initiation • Explains how dreaming has influenced cultural, religious, and spiritual thinking • Includes access to a seven-part hypnagogic guided journey recording Invoking Mnemosyne—Greek goddess of memory and eloquence, daughter of Heaven and Earth, mother of the Muses, and archetypal deity of the Asklepion dream temple tradition—this book initiates you into full dream consciousness, offering a lucid-dreaming ritual experience in the spirit of the Mystery Schools of antiquity. Sharing her more than a decade of research on Sleep Temples and Mystery Schools of the Esoteric Tradition, lucid-dreaming instructor Sarah Janes explores the evolution of imagination, memory, and consciousness throughout the ages and proposes that dreams have been fundamental in the creation and development of culture. Dreams play an important role in ancestor worship, afterlife beliefs, animism, religion, and wis­dom traditions. Explaining how a conscious dream life is essential for self-discovery, deep integration, and healing, Sarah presents exercises, techniques, initiations, and seven guided audio meditations to help you explore the inner depths of your psyche. Sarah reveals how dreams offer us an opportunity to remember and directly experience our divinity, to transcend the limitations of our mortality and enter timeless imaginal realms. These realms, accessible through dreams, can help you to form a better under­standing of who you are. Employing the power of story to affect the mind and lay down new neural pathways—as if one were really living the story—Sarah connects each initiatory chapter with a psychodramatic narrative as well as a guided audio meditation. Using symbolism and powerful imagery, these stories, combined with her meditations, help you generate the perfect dreams for each stage in the initiation. And by becoming a better dreamer, you can make better, more aware decisions in your waking life.

This study aims to highlight many of the present methodological problems of Iron Age archaeology in the Southern Levant. It starts with a historiography of Iron Age archaeology, showing how socio-political contexts have driven research, and how the Bible has influenced directions of study. Charlotte Whiting then takes the scholarly literature on the Edomites as a case study showing how assumptions based on Biblical scholarship have distorted interpretations of the archaeology, particularly with regards to conceptions of ethnicity and nationhood. She suggests new approaches going back to the archaeological record and includes new analysis of Edomite pottery.

In this volume, the theoretical and methodological approaches of household archaeology are applied to the rich data set of Bronze and Iron Age Israel, providing an innovative construct for interpreting material culture and inciting new avenues for future research.

Were there figurines in Yehud during the Achaemenid period, and in particular in Jerusalem? A positive answer to this question disproves the general consensus about the absence of figurines in Yehud, which is built on the assumption that the figurines excavated in Judah/Yehud are chronologically indicative for Iron Age II in this area (aside from a few typological exceptions). Ephraim Stern and others have taken this alleged absence of figurines as indicative of Jewish monotheism's rise. Izaak J. de Hulster refutes this `no figurines -> monotheism' paradigm by detailed study of the figurines from Yigal Shiloh's excavation in the 'City of David' (especially their contexts in Stratum 9), providing ample evidence for the presence of figurines in post-587/586 Jerusalem. The author further reflects on the paradigm's premises in archaeology, history, the history of religion, theology, and biblical studies, and particularly in coroplastics (figurine studies).