Dating the Iron Age Iib Archaeological Horizon in Israel and Judah

The present study deals with a number of chronological markers which contribute to the fine-tuning of Iron Age IIB-chronology of ancient Israel and Judah. The selected markers derive primarily from a corpus of late 'Assyrian-style' and/or Assyrianising objects, indicative of the international impact of the Neo-Assyrian Empire on the Southern Levant during the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. While the manufacture of 'Assyrian-style' objects in the Southern Levant reached its cultural zenith during the heyday of the Assyrian empire (the so-called Pax Assyriaca), this volume lists several items which in the traditional framework largely predate the Assyrian hegemony over the region, sometimes by several decades. These include: seals (in particular the famous Shema seal found at Megiddo) and bullae, pottery imports and imitations, bronze vessels, lmlk jars and other Judaean storage jars partly stamped with Assyrian-period royal insignia. The arguments that have been presented in this volume may therefore indicate where chronological studies of late Iron Age Israel and Jordan may lead us in the years ahead, if these chronologies are no longer dictated by 'tentative' historical fix-points.