Ayelet Gilboa (Haifa, Israel) ‘The rise of Ancient Israel, another view: luxury trade and the state’.

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Abstract:

Traditional views, ancient and modern, have usually linked the control and trade of ‘luxuries’ with ruling administrations. Regarding the Iron Age Levant, some sort of maritime cooperation between Hiram, King of Phoenician Tyre and King Solomon of Israel is often envisaged to have launched far-flung expeditions to the west (legendary Tarshish) and east (no-less-legendary Ofir), obtaining all manner of coveted merchandise. This perception is mainly based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible and less so on archaeological information. In the last two decades, the study of two sites on Israel’s Carmel coast—Tel Dor and Tel Shiqmona—have generated new analytical data regarding the provenance of silver, spices, purple dye and ivory in the Iron Age, all of them inexorably linked by scholarship with Phoenician trade. Coupled with high-resolution chronology this provides new insights into the perceived role of Iron Age kingdoms and elites in long-distance trade.