This map shows the eastern coastal cities of ancient Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) and its natural resources. These ancient cities were loosely connected and politically independent, but they shared a common Canaanite culture. During the Iron Age (1200–600 BCE), the Phoenicians amassed great wealth from seafaring trade, including cedar, glass, wine, cloth, and a famous purple dye from the Murex sea snail, native to the coastal waters. With a booming economy, they began to establish colonies across the Mediterranean, most important of which was Carthage in North Africa. Over time, Phoenician society dissolved with successive waves of invasions by the Babylonians, Persians, and then Greeks. This led to a shift in the center of Phoenician culture towards Carthage, until Rome vanquished the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War (146 BCE). Both the origin and demise of the Phoenicians is debated, but they seem to have assimilated with Greeks and Romans.
Persian Divisions of Israel/Palestine: Map
This maps shows the Persian divisions (also known as provinces, or pahva in Persian) of Israel/Palestine: Samaria, Judah, Idumaea, Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
After the decree of the Persian King Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from Babylon (ca. 538 BCE), they began to rebuild the city. Seen here are a few of the remains of that building project, which was executed over the following 200 years. The square-cornered tower at the upper left (below Nos. 1 and 2) were erected over the rubble of the 7th century BCE houses. The stepped structure immediately north of the tower (No. 3) goes back to early Israelite times, but its upper portion was reused as a post-Exilic fortification and was supplemented by additional new wall elements farther north (to the right of No. 3).
This aerial photograph looking north at Mt. Gerizim, which is located in the northern part of the Central Hill, shows the remains of the Samaritan Temple. The city of Shechem sat in the valley below (a portion of which can be seen on the right and side). Shechem's name was changed to Neapolis ('New City') in the late 1st century CE, and that name is still preserved in the modern Arabic name of the city, Nablus.
These two toy-sized ceramic horses with riders are known from the Persian period. They are usually found in a favissa (a repository at a shrine used for objects that had gained sanctity by use in cult ritual and could not, therefore, be returned to a non-sacred setting).
When the Persian king Cyrus II (557-529 BCE) conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, he had this ten-inch-long clay barrel made and inscribed in the Babylonian language. In the text he says that his victory was made possibly by support of Marduk, the god of Babylon, and he accuses Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, of neglecting the gods of Babylon and oppressing its people. According to the cylinder, Marduk scoured the lands for a righteous ruler and chose Cyrus because of his good deeds and just heart. Scholars have long noted parallels between this text and Isaiah 40-55, a section of the Bible that was composed at about the same time, in which the biblical prophet Isaiah announces the fall of Babylon (though he says that it is because Yahweh, not Marduk, who chose Cyrus). Cyrus' acceptance and reinstitution of the local religion of Babylon presaged Persian imperial policy that allowed the Jews to return from exile and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. See also Ezra 1:2-4; 6:1-5 and 2 Chronicles 36:23.
All three of these vessels can be dated to the late 6th or early 5th century BCE, during the first decades of Persian control of Palestine. However, pottery forms do not change simply because the political control does. As a result, these forms look very much like those from the Iron II period. That said, pottery forms do change over time, so the lamp in this photograph (in the center) is flatter, wider, and thinner-walled than those found 100 years earlier (in the Iron II period), and the juglet on the left is somewhat trimmer in profile than its Iron II counterparts.
The Elephantine Papyri are correspondences of a Jewish military garrison who occupied an island in the Nile River on ancient Egypt's southern border. They had a temple in which the god of Israel was worshiped under the name Yhwh ('Yahu'), and in this letter a man named Hananiah writes to the Elephantine Jews to observe the Passover. Hananiah cites the authority of word sent from Darius himself to Arsames, the satrap of Egypt, that the Jewish festivals were to be celebrated on their traditional dates. It is possible that Hananiah was the brother of the Nehemiah that is known from the Bible (see, e.g., Neh. 7:2). The letter was written on both sides of the papyrus (customary for letters, as opposed to contracts, which were only written on one side).
Money was invented in the Persian Period, and this particular coin bears the official name of the district in which the Jews lived: 'Yehud' (spelled out by the three letters to the right of the bird). The script is ancient Hebrew and the name is the Persian version of the biblical name Judah.
Tel Jemmeh: Persian Period Imported Greek Vase
This beautiful urn was made by a well known Greek potter and vase painter around 450 BCE. It was imported to Judah and found in the ruins of a Persian grain storage center at Tel Jemmeh. The reason that an elegant urn from Greece ended up in Judah is unknown, but likely has something to do with the fact that the Persians controlled everything east of the Aegean by this time.
This photograph shows modern Samaritans, one of whom is holding a Torah scroll, on Mt. Gerizim. The Samaritans still practice their religion in much the same way that ancient Jews practiced their religion prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. They slaughter lambs at Passover and burn parts of the sacrifice on a fire much as happened in the Jerusalem Temple courts. And the Samaritans of today still hold their religious festivals on Mt. Gerizim, near the archaeological ruins of their ancient Temple.
These three figurines of pregnant women wearing Egyptian wigs and holding one hand on their stomachs are typical of figurines found at other Phoenician sites in Lebanon, Cyprus, and Israel in the Persian period. Scholars usually assume that they were votive offerings to a goddess. Some similar figurines from a 4th century BCE shipwreck at Shave Zion, on the northern coast of Israel, bore the symbol of the Phoenician goddess Tanit.
This finely worked sculpture of a bearded man wearing a sort of a head cover is typical of the high-quality Hellenistic finds from the port city of Dor.
This map shows the extent of the Persian Empire in 500 BCE. With a capital in Persepolis (down and to the right of the center of the map), they expanded their borders all the way into India in the east and to Egypt, North Africa, and Macedonia in the west.
This bone pendant is a typical depiction of the god Bes, an Egyptian god who protected pregnant women. It would have been the central ornament on a necklace.