Excavator · Scholar
Amihai Mazar
b. 1942 · Israel
Israeli excavator of Tell Qasile and Tel Rehov, whose dated Levantine contexts and Philistine temples are used to compare and date Cypriot Iron Age and Late Bronze Age pottery and buildings.
Biography
Amihai Mazar excavated the Philistine sanctuary at Tell Qasile, and a volume on Cypriot studies notes that analogies for the temples he uncovered there occur at Late Cypriot III Kition11. He was born in Haifa on 19 November 194212.
The Tell Qasile excavation was published in two volumes in the Qedem series: Excavations at Tell Qasile, Part 1 (Qedem 12, 1980) and Part 2 (Qedem 20, 1985)1,2. Trude Dothan's book on the Philistines draws on his Tell Qasile material3.
He later directed the Hebrew University excavations at Tel Rehov in the Jordan valley, which were under way by 1997 and 19985. Nicola Schreiber studied the Cypro-Phoenician Black-on-Red pottery from the first two seasons, and Mazar passed her unpublished material from the site for her corpus5. Killebrew discusses his re-examination of Building 1500 at Beth-Shean6. In 2015 Fantalkin, Finkelstein and Piasetzky used his Beth Shean stratigraphy and dates in a radiocarbon study of the Aegean and Cypriot chronologies8.
Life and work
- 19 November 1942Born in Haifa.
- 1980–1985Published the Philistine sanctuary and pottery from his Tell Qasile excavations (Qedem 12, 1980; Qedem 20, 1985); his temples, with their Aegean affinities and analogies at Late Cypriot III Kition, are discussed in Cypriot and Aegean scholarship.
Tell QasileMazar 1980Mazar 1985Archaia Kypriake grammateia 5:…
- 1982Dothan's Philistines book credits Mazar as excavator and publisher of the Tell Qasile material.
- 1997–1998Tel Rehov, in the Jordan valley, was under excavation under his direction for the Hebrew University; Schreiber examined its Black-on-Red pottery after the first two seasons (1997 and 1998) and cites the preliminary report Mazar 1999.
Tel RehovSchreiber 2003
- 2003Provided Schreiber with unpublished Tel Rehov material for her corpus of Cypro-Phoenician pottery.
- 2005Killebrew discusses his re-examination of Beth-Shean Building 1500.
- 2015His Beth Shean stratigraphy and dates are used in the radiocarbon discussion of Aegean and Cypriot chronologies; Naeh (2015) discusses his excavation and interpretation of the Rehov statuette.
Connections
2 peopleColleagues & contacts
- Worked with Nicola Schreiber
- Worked with Trude Dothanpossibly
Discussed in documents
- Dothan (1982). The Philistines and Their Material CultureExcavated and published Tell Qasile
- Burdajewicz (1990). The Aegean Sea Peoples and Religious Architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean at the Close of the Late Bronze AgeExcavator and interpreter of Tell Qasile
- Killebrew (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 B.C.E.Reexamined Beth-shean Building 1500
- Naeh (2015). In search of identity: The contribution of recent finds to our understanding of Iron Age ivory objects in the material culture of the southern LevantExcavated and interpreted the Rəhov statuette
Sources
- 1.A. Mazar (1980). Excavations at Tell Qasile. Part 1: The Philistine Sanctuary. Jerusalem.
- 2.A. Mazar (1985). Excavations at Tell Qasile. Part 2: The Philistine Sanctuary: Various Finds, The Pottery, Conclusions, Appendixes. Jerusalem.
- 3.T. Dothan (1982). The Philistines and Their Material Culture.
- 4.M. Burdajewicz (1990). The Aegean Sea Peoples and Religious Architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean at the Close of the Late Bronze Age.
- 5.Nicola Schreiber (2003). The Cypro-Phoenician Pottery of the Iron Age. Leiden, Brill.
- 6.A. E. Killebrew (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 B.C.E..
- 7.A. Yasur-Landau (2010). The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- 8.A. Fantalkin, I. Finkelstein, E. Piasetzky (2015). “Late Helladic to Middle Geometric Aegean and Contemporary Cypriot Chronologies: A Radiocarbon View from the Levant”. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373, 25-48.
- 9.L. Naeh (2015). “In Search of Identity: The Contribution of Recent Finds to Our Understanding of Iron Age Ivory Objects in the Material Culture of the Southern Levant”.
- 10.D. Noy, H. Bloedhorn (2004). Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, Volume III: Syria and Cyprus. Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck.
- 11.“Archaia Kypriake grammateia 5: Philosophia, Zenon ho Kitieus”.
- 12.Wikidata/GND authority record: Amihai Mazar. Online