OBO SA 34 – Amir Golani / Jewelry from the Iron Age II Levant

Jewelry has always had an irresistible allure yet in the past also had a significance and function within society that went far beyond ornamentation. Jewelry is an important, if often forgotten facet of material culture. Its study is inter-disciplinary, involving archaeology, anthropology, art history, historical/textual studies, and research of materials and manufacturing techniques. While the renowned jewelry from regions such as Egypt and Mesopotamia has been studied, that of the southern Levant has received only limited attention, yet research of its archaeological/contextual, technological and socio-cultural perspectives is illuminating.
The book is a final publication of the author‘s doctoral dissertation made available to the archaeological and academic community at large. It is geared to be a working tool for archaeologists dealing in this period and region and to scholars who study its arts and crafts. The book provides a handy typological structure for jewelry classification as well as a comprehensive andf useful catalogue for research in this and related fields. In addition, it illustrates the significance, meaning and functions of jewelry and the development of the jeweler‘s craft in the southern Levant during the first and second millennia BCE.

Amir Golani (born Jerusalem, 1961) studied archaeology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he completed a thesis on the jewelry of Tel Miqne-Ekron (1996). He received a doctoral degree in archaeology from Tel Aviv University upon completion of a dissertation (2009) of which the present book is a thoroughly revised version.
Since 1990, Dr. Golani has been working in the Department of Excavations, Surveys and Research at the Israel Antiquities Authority. He has also excavated with Prof. Amihai Mazar at Tel Beth-Shean and with Profs. Trude Dothan and Seymour Gitin at Tel Miqne-Ekron. A member of the Archaeological Institute of America and associate fellow with the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, he has continued post-doctoral studies as a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania (2012-2013).
r. Golani has published numerous jewelry assemblages and co-authored several articles concerning ancient jewelry studies (see bibliography). Other publications include excavation reports on Qiryat Ata (IAA Reports 18, 2003), Ashqelon Afridar, Area E (‘Atiqot 45, 2004, 9-120), Tel Burga in the Sharon Plain (‘Atiqot 68, 2011, 69-98), and soon to be published, The Early Bronze Age I Site of Ashqelon Barnea – Vol. I, The Site and Excavations, Vol. II, The Finds (Monograph, IAA Reports).

2013, pages XII-313,
ISBN 978-3-7278-1733-5

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