Participants booklet with schedule, abstracts, venue maps and field trip materials for the participants of the 2nd annual conference (March 1-3, 2017) of the Minerva Center for the Relations between Israel and Aram in Biblical Times (aramisrael.org)
The article considers an artifact (a kind of altar-shaped stela), which was found at the temple of Amun in the Baharia Oasis by A. Fakhry (during the excavations of 1930s) and recently published by F. Bosch-Puche (2008). The first part of the article presents a translation and a commentary of the hieroglyphic inscription with the unique Pharaonic name of Alexander the Great containing all five traditional titles and of the Greek inscription on the artifact.
The article proposes an interpretation of the autobiographical inscription from the tomb of Wennefer, son of Painmu, at Saqqara, dating back to the 4th century B.C. This source is preserved in fragments and published only partly. According to its earlier and still undisputed interpretation by Fr. von Kaenel, it describes the adventures of an Egyptian nobleman contemporary to Dynasty XXX; having come to disfavor under Tachos (ca. 361/0-359/8 B.C.), he later went to this king to his army fighting the Persians, appeared somehow at the court of the Great King (Artaxerxes II or III), and, after...
The paper analyzes the iconographical program of the building Xeste 3, from Akrotiri, Thera. The main protagonist is the goddess of Minoan Akrotiri who is defined as a solar goddess. On one painting she is shown as wounded and a crocus clearly grows from the wound. The old interpretation of initiation is abandoned.
Social studies and anthropology, based on ethnographical research, take for granted the role of large populous groups in defining ethnicity. Self-definitions of the group, as well as definition by others, are interpreted as the central issues regarding large groups. The paper aims to argue for the key-role of elite groups in self-identification and ethnic creation. Small groups of elite, by defining their own "ethnicity" decided it for larger groups. This hypothesis will be tested and illustrated by test cases of ethnogenesis in Iron Age Palestine.