Maps and More

Enopoletus Harding (a.k.a. "pithom") called my attention to his recent publication of LMLK maps, which in turn led me to discover many other LMLK-related blog entries he's made over the past year. To introduce others to his work, I thought it would be helpful to provide some links with brief commentaries:

• (ironically undated) Chronology; very thorough, yet thoroughly wrong beginning at "1,600,000 BC", though kudos for "BC" instead of "BCE" since he's not a Christian; at least we agree completely on the Mandate & State of Israel dates; links to LRW G2T, S2DR, & Rosette pages; also to my 1st BibleInterp article.
• March 24, 2011: Is Nasbeh Mizpah?; fine encyclopedic overview; links to LRW Mizpah page.
• August 29, 2011: Reading "The Winged Disk of Judah"- Part 1; no direct LMLK content, but interesting; I was not aware of Stewart's book.
• August 29, 2011: Reading "The Winged Disk of Judah"- Part 2; interesting statement: "Radiocarbon dating almost ceases to work between the 4th and 8th centuries BC..." Almost? Labor-union isotopes threatened to strike?
• August 30, 2011: Reading the "Winged Disk of Judah"-Part 3
• September 19, 2011: Update on Hebron; "ridgid" typo, but helpful links to Radiocarbon & TA journal articles.
• October 21, 2011: Biblical History of Bethel; no direct LMLK content, but he found an LRW Beitin typo, so this link chronicles his research on this subject.
• November 10, 2011: Hezekiah's Reign; "...the three-year siege of Samaria was an artificial (and absurd) construct..." in the mind of an atheist.
• November 10, 2011: The Date of the Azekah Inscription; fine overview of this lesser-publicized of the Assyrian inscriptions.
• November 14, 2011: Curiosities About "Hezekiah’s Tunnel"; curious phrase: "the possibility the fact"; spoken like a true evolutionist.
• November 16, 2011: Dating the LMLK stamps; woo-hoo! I'm famous! "these. Lemarie’s It" typo; links to my 1st BibleInterp article, & LRW Maps, Hebron, Chemistry, Stratigraphy, Lachish Corpus, Timnah, Pithoi, Beth Shemesh pages; "God hardly deserves the poor quality artwork and script..."; like as if an atheist would know what God deserves! Ha! Ha! Ha!; "Phase 5 ... 'Top-Register'(including S2DW)" typo s/b S2DR.
• November 19, 2011: A History of the Interpretation of lmlk impressions; this is his most interesting contribution in my opinion; I was not aware of a couple of these publications, the phrase "traveling salesmen", or that they & some others were now available online.
• November 21, 2011: Was Socoh Destroyed in 701 BC?; "Grena's S2DR, may have been carried by refugees..."; very interesting & original thought!
• November 25, 2011: Why the Lachish III Assemblage Stays Where It Is; another excellent overview of a complicated set of interpretations; links to LRW Rosette page & Seal Sets bar-chart; I had never realized that the Lachish reliefs don't show the city on fire.
• November 26, 2011: Wish List For the Azekah Excavations; if it would be Albrightian to "expect" certain evidence, isn't it Aesopian to "wish" for it?
• December 2, 2011: Why Tell ed-Duweir Is Lachish; a link to Na'aman's 2005 collected works.
• December 3, 2011: Ramat Rachel: Hezekian, Assyrian, Persian; links to LRW Ramat Rahel & Rosette pages, & to the 2005 "Fall & Rise" Lipschits book; "It is clear the Rosette impressions cannot be associated with preparations for any revolt..."; you might want to check with David Ussishkin before you toot that horn too loudly!
• December 6, 2011: Libnah; Tell el-Beidah = Achzib = LMLK pottery???
• December 10, 2011: Identifying Joshua’s Negev Sites
• December 13, 2011: Rehoboam’s Cities; anachronistic link to his May 2012 Map; "clearly" it does not date to 2011; it seems this post "dates from a combination of periods"; his orthography of "seperate" may help scholars determine when he actually composed it, though we can't rule out a "Hasmonean interpolator".
• December 16, 2011: The Solomonic Districts; another "seperate" orthographic datum, separated by 3 days (or 3 possibly million or billion years if you're not sure when a historical narrative refers to ordinary Earth-rotation periods).
• December 24, 2011: Why Gunnar Heinsohn Does Not Understand Stratigraphy; "a lack of artifacts does indicate a lack of occupation" ... or looting ... or maybe they were there, but now are just missing as in: "Some billion years are missing from the exposed strata in the Grand Canyon"; how could anyone not understand stratigraphy when he explains it so rationally?; links to LRW Lachish Corpus page.
• December 26, 2011: The Joshua 15 Districts
• December 27, 2011: My Guess for MMST; "an unidentified town in the Halhul district"; chalk up another one for the dartboard!
• December 28, 2011: Best Candidate for MMST: Khirbet Abu et-Tuwein; UPDATE: easy come, easy go; nice link to the 2009 Greenberg/Keinan Sourcebook!
• December 28, 2011: (Regarding LMLKS) Socoh Used The Shephelah, Not Hill Country Road; links to LRW Home page (probably should've been to SUKE or Corpus pages).
• December 30, 2011: Why Did Hezekiah Not Feel a Threat to the South From Sennacherib
• January 1, 2012: Concentric Circle Marks: Their Date and Purpose; mentions me & Michael Welch; links to LRW Circles page; not sure how/why incised circles would indicate wine age.
• February 4, 2012: Regarding the Excavations W. of the W. Wall Plaza
• February 18, 2012: LMLK Bullae; mentions me; links to LRW Bullae page; if a Bethel bulla indicates Josiah, whose reign does a Bethel x4L indicate? Ditto for the SUKE bulla.
• April 6, 2012: The Destruction of Beth-Shemesh Level 3: Reconquest by Judah after Jeroboam II’s Death?
• April 16, 2012: What Is It With the LMLKs at Beth-Shemesh?; links to LRW Corpus page; original (& colorful!) LMLK pie-chart; "instead of the lmlk system being used for solely military preparations, it was used as an emergency non-monetary means of providing wages to government officials." Was it an "emergency" to indicate the age of wine on jars after Sennacherib left?
• May 7, 2012: What, no Iron I at Azekah?; why would it matter if LMLKs were found in the new survey if Bliss/Macalister already found some?
• May 11, 2012: Rosettes and Judah's Districts; links to LRW Hebron page & Tel Aviv vol. 38 #1 by Lipschits et al.
• May 14, 2012: Beitin: Its Size and History; links to LRW x4L page.
• May 15, 2012: Operation LMLK Map; links to LRW Corpus page; aren't all great ideas based on the work of young-Earth creationists?
• May 17, 2012: The LMLK Map Is Almost Ready
• May 18, 2012: The LMLK Map!; 2 original maps showing multi-colored Pac-Men eating ancient Judah; links to LRW Generic page.
• May 18, 2012: Planning to Expand LMLK Map; tersest blog post in the history of the world.
• May 19, 2012: Khirbet Abu et-Tuwein: MMST After All?; links to LRW Chemistry page; "the jars were sent from Lachish into the central hill country, then back to Lachish, and from there being sent to the other great lmlk-impression-centers"; then one jar said to another, "I just flew in from Lachish, & boy are my arms tired..."
• May 19, 2012: "The Archaeology of the Days of Manasseh" and the Date of the Rosette Jar-Marks; "Lipschits's suggestion ... is simply bizarre..."; links to PEQ v139 #2 (2007) by Thareani-Sussely.
• May 21, 2012: A Fortified Storehouse During the Hezekian Revolt?; links to LRW Ramat Rahel & Circles pages; "there is no point in independently moving hundreds of store-jars from a capital city to a fortified storehouse just outside the capital" but there is a point in moving hundreds of them from Lachish to the central hill country, then back to Lachish, then to "other great lmlk-impression-centers"???
• May 22, 2012: The LMLK Map, Cursory Edition; another original map, this time featuring little Pac-Babies eating leftovers; links to LRW x4C page.
• May 22, 2012: 412 Yh(w)d Impressions Over Over 300 years; it's necessary for me to point out a "neccecary" typo.
• May 23, 2012: Number of Provenanced LMLK Bullae Climbs to Two
• May 25, 2012: Why ABR Should Give Up On the el-Bireh-Bethel Equation; links to LRW Nisya-handle page
• May 26, 2012: Lions: The Seekrit Impressions; okay, I confess: the first time I read this post, I was stumped--unable to figure out how the ancient site of Seekrit was related to any lion stamps...
• May 29, 2012: I Am the Thousandth Visitor To the Home Page of the lmlk Research Website; links to LRW Bullae page; I am very grateful for people like you who have visited the LRW & found it useful, but unfortunately many of the counters are under-valued, having been reset due to unknown circumstances; the true value for the Home page is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000, but we'll never know; note that several thousand of those hits were probably from me & Michael Welch; the majority of the others are probably from people who mistyped "MLK" (Martin Luther King).
• May 29, 2012: Fiscal Bullae: The ‘Missing Link’ Between Rosettes and Mwshs?; links to LRW Bullae & Rosette pages.

Kidding aside, I think it's wonderful that Mr. Harding is researching these fascinating subjects, sharing his thoughts with everyone, & that he was able to make use of some info from the LMLK Research website.



G.M. Grena

King Calm

(Run-on sentence warning--take a deep breath!) I've been meaning to go for a bike ride through the less-civilized section of Los Angeles (known as South Central) to visit the landmark site associated with the beginning of the riots that erupted 20 years ago following the acquittal of police officers who had been accused of using excessive force while detaining a dangerous criminal named Rodney King.

Yesterday turned out to be the right day!

Along my 72-mile ride, I actually encountered multiple gunshots, but not where I was expecting to, nor (thankfully) in a criminal context (a police shooting range situated between the San Gabriel River bike trail, Carson St., the 605 freeway, Wardlow Rd.). At first I thought it might be a film shoot, but there usually aren't that many police cars parked at a filming.

I traveled the entire length of Florence Ave. from west to east, with
the infamous Normandie Ave. intersection about a third of the way into it. For a Saturday morning, the community was surprisingly active, & in a very positive way. I would estimate there were dozens of families, groups of men, groups of women walking the streets dressed in their Sunday best (Sabbath best?), carrying Bibles, on their way to one of the many Christian churches along this street. Unless you were to experience this for yourself, it may seem hard to believe. Expecting to be cursed or assaulted for my physical appearance, I was mostly met with warm smiles! Everyone with whom I made eye-contact reciprocated my "Good morning!" greeting!

Using Google Earth, these are the 21 churches that appear over a mere 8 miles:

• First United Church of Christ
• Grace & Truth Evangelical
• World Center Church
• Love of God Missionary Baptist
• Bethel Missionary Baptist
• New Testament Church of Christ
• Alpha & Omega Missionary Baptist
• Southwestern Church of God
• Angelic Institutional Christian
• Love & Joy Bible Church
• Gospel Word-Life Apostolic
• Gospel Prayer Center for Missions
• Faith & Hope Community Church
• Divine Temple Baptist Church
• Mision Cristiana Hebron
• Traveler's Rest Baptist Church
• St. Luke's Lutheran Church
• Huntington Park Hebrew Congregation
• St. Matthias Catholic Church
• First Assembly of God Church
• Iglesia Cristiana Pentecostes

Others are located within a block or two of Florence, but those 21 are directly along it. Amazing! And wonderful to see dedicated, devout Christians anchored in a region that needs to be reminded daily of God's presence!



G.M. Grena

Oriental Candy

In response to my previous post about the funds raised mostly in 1928 by Elihu Grant (Prof. of Biblical Literature, Haverford College) to excavate Beth Shemesh, Jordan Wilson guessed $15,000, & Todd Bolen guessed $3,000. (Thanks, by the way, for participating guys!) If I had thought anyone was going to respond ("Oh me of little faith"), I would've taken the time to provide some additional background on the subject.

Unfortunately I cannot put those guesses in complete perspective with today's excavation funding, because such information is not openly disclosed for most excavations, plus it's important to note that most modern excavation participants are either volunteers who happen to live near the site, or they pay their own way to travel there & pay extra to participate. Rarely do excavators hire workers to perform the actual digging like they did in the early 20th century. But here are some tidbits & snippets to get us in the ballpark of funds expended on modern excavations:

Seven minutes into a lecture delivered earlier this year by the excavator of Ekron, Sy Gitin estimated that it would take about "several million dollars in 20 years" to fund a dig, which reduces to about $200,000 annually assuming 4 for the word "several".

Not a direct correlation to dirt-based digs in Israel, but according to a report on National Geographic, it takes about $150,000 per season to fund the work at the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck, situated off the North Carolina coast.

According to the IAA's public disclosure for 2007, they conducted 337 archaeological excavations using a budget of 155 million NIS, which translates roughly to 40 million USD using today's conversion rate. Note that not all of that budget was for excavation, nor are salvage excavations comparable to full-scale ones, but the average comes to about $100,000 per site.

In a privately distributed mailing list for the privately funded Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project, Chief Archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins reported that it would cost about $100,000 just to perform Carbon-14 analyses on excavated material (message sent Fri 2/24/2012 9:21 AM).

In a comment posted on the Bible Places blog, Daniel M. Wright reported that the customized camera boom used in the Talpiot tomb exploration cost about $50,000 (not counting the $120k cameras on loan from GE, nor any of the other expenses associated with the work).

Note that the funds mentioned below by Elihu Grant were raised during the economic boom preceding the decade-long Great Depression. He wrote this letter just a few months before the stock market crashed!

"Dear Dr. Field:- Your spirit has been a help. I am leaving the book you so kindly ordered with Mr. Hoopes, also please accept these others which I have published privately while at Haverford. They give some idea of my style and effort. I have had to do certain services which have not been wanted by the many and these oriental studies have been my candy."

"I feel that with the issuance of 'Beth Shemesh' a chapter closes. I have enough materials for another volume but this will do for the time. When you realize that all this pother is about a ten-weeks campaign in the field-work of excavations with a very slim staff and that it is taking all this time to catch up, even so far, you will say it isn't bad."

"Have you seen the enclosed by Dr. W. F. Albright our leading expert in the field?  'Time' magazine gave archaeology in the Near East a very good 'hand' a few months back. Mr. Hoopes has a copy. He and several have been most kind. An accommodation, or a little boost, at a critical moment has often come along to make the impossible possible in any sense."

"You asked me about the income for such adventures & I append a statement."

"The new chapter is to open July 1, and I am on tiptoe to see how."

"Cordially"

"Elihu Grant"

"May 2. '29"

Attachment:

"Receipts for the First Expedition to Beth Shemesh"

"Oct. 10. 1927 an anonymous letter from a Haverfordian probably contained hearty expressions of interest and -> $25"

"Between that date and Jan 1. 1929 there has been received for lectures by the Director 185."

"From neighbors in Haverford & Westchester 120."

"From Managers & Grads. 245"

"$575"

The format of this page aligned the numbers so you could see the sum of 25+185+120+245.

I was not able to positively identify the addressee (Dr. Field) or Mr. Hoopes, but there was a John Robison Hoopes, who was the 1921 Student Association President at Haverford College. I found records of several other alumni named Hoopes, so I have no way of knowing if this one was working in a Haverford bookstore in 1929.

The other books that Grant referred to as reflecting his "candy" may have included:

• The Peasantry of Palestine, 1907
• The Bible as Literature : An Introduction, 1916
• Cuneiform Documents in the Smith College Library, 1918
• The Orient in Bible Times, 1920
• The People of Palestine, 1921
• A New Era In Palestine Exploration, 1922

His reference to Time was "Science: Diggers", published Nov. 19, 1928.




G.M. Grena