Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T06:10:13.669Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Restoring the balance: an Early Bronze Age scale beam from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, Lebanon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Hermann Genz
Hermann Genz*
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut, Department of History and Archaeology, P.O. Box 11–0236 Beirut, Lebanon (Email: hg09@aub.edu.lb)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The author reports an object of modest appearance but great significance — a small bone beam for weighing precious commodities. Weighing indicates the regulation of quantities for exchange or manufacture and is thus a key agent of social and economic complexity. Well-stratified and dated to the early third millennium BC, this find puts the people of the Levant among the earliest to quantify mass. We are rightly urged to inspect faunal assemblages for similarly subtle modifications of bones.

Keywords

LevantLebanonEarly Bronze Agethird millennium BCscale beambalanceanimal bones
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 329 , September 2011 , pp. 839 - 850
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, N., Parise, N. & Peyronel, L. 2006. Weights in context. Current approaches to the study of ancient weight systems, in Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. (ed.) Weights in context: Bronze Age weighing systems of Eastern Mediterranean: chronology, typology, material and archaeological contexts. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Roma, 22-24 November 2004 (Studi e Materiali 13): 1–8. Rome: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.Google Scholar
Archi, A. 1987. Reflections on the system of weights from Ebla, in Gordon, C. H., Rendsburg, G. A. & Winter, N. H. (ed.) Eblaitica: essays on the Ebla archives and Eblaitic Language, Volume I: 47–89. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Ascalone, E. 2006. Tell es-Sultan-Jericho weight systems: new evidence of weights from inner Palestine during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, in Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. (ed.) Weights in context: Bronze Age weighing systems of Eastern Mediterranean: chronology, typology, material and archaeological contexts. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Roma, 22-24 November 2004 (Studi e Materiali 13): 161-83. Rome: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.Google Scholar
Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. 2006a. Early Bronze Age IVA weights at Tell Mardikh-Ebla: archaeological associations and contexts, in Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. (ed.) Weights in context: Bronze Age weighing systems of Eastern Mediterranean: chronology, typology, material and archaeological contexts. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Roma, 22-24 November 2004 (Studi e Materiali 13): 49–70. Rome: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.Google Scholar
Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. 2006b. I pesi da bilancia dell'età del Bronzo Antico e Medio (Materiali e Studi Archeologici di Ebla 7). Roma: Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza.Google Scholar
Badreshany, K., Genz, H. & Sader, H., with contributions by Breuer, P., Çakirlar, C., Deckers, K., Jungklaus, B., Nader, F., Riehl, S., Rokitta, D. & Yanni, S. 2005. An Early Bronze Age site on the Lebanese coast: Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, 2004 and 2005 final report. Bulletin d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises 9: 5–115.Google Scholar
Becker, A. 1993. Uruk. Kleinfunde I: Stein (Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka Endberichte 6). Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Bobokhyan, A. 2008. Bronze Age balance weights in the Berlin Schliemann collection: their identification and reconstruction of the archaeological context, in Wemhoff, M., Hertel, D. & A.änsel, H (ed.) Heinrich Schliemann's Samlung Trojanischer Altertümer - Neuvorlage: 271-94. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.Google Scholar
Bobokhyan, A. 2009. Trading implements at early Troy. Anatolian Studies 59: 19–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chesson, M. S. & Philip, G. 2003. Tales of the city? ‘Urbanism’ in the Early Bronze Age Levant from Mediterranean and Levantine perspectives. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 3–16.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1950. The urban revolution. Town Planning Review 21: 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cour-Marty, M.-A. 1990. Les poids Égyptiens de précieux jalons archéologiques. Cahiers de Recherches de l'Institut de Papyrologie et de l'Egyptologie 12: 17–55.Google Scholar
Cour-Marty, M.-A. 1997. Les poids inscrits de l'Ancien Empire, in Berger, C. & Matthieu, B. (ed.) Etudes sur l'Ancien Empire et la nécropole de Saqqara, dédiées à Jean-Philippe Lauer (Orientalia Monspeliensia 9): 129-45. Montpellier: Brill.Google Scholar
Efe, T. 2002. The interaction between cultural/political entities and metalworking in western Anatolia during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages, in Yalçın, Ü. (ed.) Anatolian metal II (Der Anschnitt, Beiheft 15): 49–65. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Google Scholar
Efe, T. 2007. The theories of the 'Great Caravan Route' between Cilicia and Troy: the Early Bronze Age III period in inland western Anatolia. Anatolian Studies 57: 47–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flender, M. 2000. Cylinder seal impressed vessels of the Early Bronze Age III in northern Palestine, in G. Philip & Baird, D. (ed.) Ceramics and change in the Early Bronze Age of the southern Levant (Levantine Archaeology 2): 295–313. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Genz, H. 2003. Ritzverzierte Knochenhülsen des dritten Jahrtausends im Ostmittelmeerraum. Eine Studie zu den frühen Kulturverbindungen zwischen Levante und Ägaïs (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 31). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Genz, H. 2009. Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: regional connections in the Early Bronze Age. Bulletin d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises, Hors Série 6: 107–116.Google Scholar
Genz, H. & Sader, H. 2007. Excavations at the Early Bronze Age site of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: preliminary report on the 2007 season of excavations. Bulletin d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises 11: 7–16.Google Scholar
Genz, H., Çakirlar, C., Damick, A., Jastrzȩbska, E., Riehl, S., Deckers, K. & Donkin, A. 2009. Excavations at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: preliminary report on the 2009 season of excavations. Bulletin d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises 13: 71–123.Google Scholar
Grimm, A., Schoske, S. & Dreyer, G. 2000. Am Beginn der Zeit. Ägypten in der Vor- und Frühzeit (Schriften aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung 9). München: Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst.Google Scholar
JoannèS, F. 1989. La culture matérielle a Mari (IV): les méthode de pesée: a propos d'un ouvrage récent. Revue d'Assyriologie 83: 113-52.Google Scholar
Marfoe, L. 1998. Kamid el-Loz 14: settlement history of the Biqāc up to the Iron Age (Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 53). Bonn: Rudolph Habelt.Google Scholar
Milano, L. 2004. Weight stones from Tell Beydar/Nabada. Kaskal 1: 1–7.Google Scholar
Müller-Karpe, M. 1993. Metallgefäße im Iraq I (Prähistorische Bronzefunde II 14). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.Google Scholar
Petrie, W. M. F. 1926. Ancient weights and measures. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.Google Scholar
Philip, G. 2001. The Early Bronze Ages I-III, in Macdonald, B., Adams, R. & Bienkowski, P. (ed.) The archaeology of Jordan (Levantine Archaeology 1): 163–232. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pinnock, F. 2006. The raw lapis lazuli in the Royal Palace G of Ebla. New evidence from the annexes of the throne room, in Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. (ed.) Weights in context: Bronze Age weighing systems of Eastern Mediterranean: chronology, typology, material and archaeological contexts. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Roma, 22-24 November 2004 (Studi e Materiali 13): 347-57. Rome: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.Google Scholar
Prag, K. 1978. Silver in the Levant in the fourth millennium BC, in Moorey, P. R. & Parr, P. J. (ed.) Archaeology in the Levant: 36–45. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.Google Scholar
Rahmstorf, L. 2006a. In search of the earliest balance weights, scales and weighing systems from the East Mediterranean, the Near and Middle East, in Alberti, M. E., Ascalone, E. & Peyronel, L. (ed.) Weights in context: Bronze Age weighing systems of Eastern Mediterranean: chronology, typology, material and archaeological contexts. Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Roma, 22-24 November 2004 (Studi e Materiali 13): 9–45. Rome: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica.Google Scholar
Rahmstorf, L. 2006b. Zur Ausbreitung vorderasiatischer Innovationen in die frühbronzezeitliche Ägäis. Prähistorische Zeitschrift 81: 49–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1992. Foreword, in Scarre, C. J. (ed.) The origins of metrology: collected papers of Dr Daniel McLean McDonald: vii–viii. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Rothman, M. S. 2002. Tepe Gawra: the evolution of a small, prehistoric center in northern Iraq (University Museum Monograph 112). Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Thalmann, J.-P. 2006. Tell Arqa 1: les niveaux de l'âge du bronze (Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique 177). Beirut: Institut Français du Proche-Orient.Google Scholar