Tracing transformations in the southern Levant from collapse to consolidation

In the mid-second millennium BC the southern Levant witnessed the collapse of the urban civilization of the Middle Bronze Age. Severe destruction layers at many sites have been noticed but so far it is difficult to unravel the reasons and mechanisms that lead to this catastrophe. Around the same time Egyptian forces attacked the so-called Hyksos, a foreign dynasty that at the time had ruled the northern part of Egypt for about a century. The Pharaohs eventually expelled the Hyksos from Egypt and drove them into the southern Levant, but the cultural and historical impact of this event on the neighboring societies is still poorly understood. During the subsequent early Late Bronze Age the southern Levant came under the Egyptian sphere of interest, culminating in the well-known military campaigns of the Thutmosid kings of the 18th Dynasty and eventually leading to the cultural koine of the developed Late Bronze Age that often was characterized as the Bronze Age International Age. The formative stages of this International Age are still poorly understood. Within Tracing Transformations Dr. Felix Höflmayer and Katharina Streit will shed new light on this crucial period by applying a variety of different approaches. At the key-site of Tel Lachish, located in the southern Levant (modern Israel), a targeted excavation of settlement layers of the late Middle and early Late Bronze Age will take place that will help us understand the cultural and societal development within this critical period. A separate study on absolute chronology using high-precision radiocarbon analysis and statistical evaluation will provide the necessary chronological framework for correlating historical and archaeological data. A synthesis on the development of material culture in the southern Levant will show if and to what extent the political changes of the period had a lasting impact on people and their lives in the southern Levant. Finally, a new assessment of the historical sources, taking into full account the available archaeological data will help us to understand the trajectories of this crucial period between collapse of the Middle Bronze age city-states and the consolidation within the Late Bronze International Age.

The aim of the project was to date the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant using scientific methods. This transition is of particular relevance, as massive layers of destruction have been documented at numerous sites, usually attributed to Egyptian campaigns of the early 18th dynasty. According to the prevailing interpretation, these campaigns expelled Western Asian foreign rulers, the so-called Hyksos, who had ruled the Nile Delta for about a century at that time, pursued them into the Southern Levant, and in the process caused those destructions, usually dated to the middle of the 16th century BC. To test this assumption, archaeological excavations were carried out at Tel Lachisch (Israel) from 2017 to 2023 and, in cooperation with numerous other excavations, further sites were scientifically dated using the radiocarbon method. The project was able to show that the end of the Middle Bronze Age was not a sudden event, but rather a longer process that extended from around 1600 BC to at least 1530 BC. Since the beginning of the 18th Dynasty cannot be dated earlier than 1580 BC from a radiocarbon point of view, it can be ruled out that this process began with the expulsion of the Hyksos. Rather, it must be assumed that it only began after the first destructions and possibly benefited from them. Apart from the now confirmed dating of this process, the Austrian excavations also uncovered some surprising finds. These include a Cypriot sherd with an early alphabetic inscription and a local sherd with a hieratic inscription. The early alphabetic sherd is of exceptional relevance, as it comes from a controlled excavation and the context was radiocarbon dated. The early alphabet originated in the 19th century BC on Sinai in the context of Egyptian mining expeditions, but spread only in the 13th century BC to the southern Levant. However, the layer in which the sherd was found, could be dated to the mid-15th century BC, about 200 years earlier than the majority early alphabetic inscriptions. This find thus closes the gap between the origin of the early alphabet and its further spread to the southern Levant. Hieratic writing, cursive writing of hieroglyphics, is also known in the southern Levant almost exclusively from the end of the Late Bronze Age and usually comprises administrative texts, such as taxes in the form of grain. The Lachish sherd, however, which was also found in a context that could be dated to the 15th century BC, contains a list of Egyptian and Canaanite names along with food rations, making it a kind of pay slip. Until now, such a reference to an Egyptian administrative system from this period was completely unknown.