FIRST PHILISTINE CEMETERY EXCAVATED OUTSIDE ASHKELON RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT MATERIAL CULTURE AND ETHNICITY

FIRST PHILISTINE CEMETERY EXCAVATED OUTSIDE ASHKELON RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT MATERIAL CULTURE AND ETHNICITY

A DISCOVERY IN ASHKELON

Israeli archaeologists have excavated a 'Philistine' cemetery just outside Palestine 1948's ethnically cleansed Ashkelon. 

It's claimed to be the first 'certain' cemetery identified to hold the graves, remains and grave goods of 'Philistines' and holds the promise of answering questions about their origin. (But, as we shall see, we need to approach this possibility with some caution.)

The graves of 150 mostly adult persons - out of possibly thousands still unexcavated - are, in the manner of the burials, seen to strengthen the case for an Aegean origin for the Philistines by some (and denied by others). The oldest graves are from the eleventh to the tenth centuries, the youngest from the eight or the seventh century. 

This is reported mostly in inane terms in popular media, using anachronisms about 'ancient Israel' and claims of possibility of solving 'a Biblical mystery', but it's an important archaeological find. It's also important in reminding us that Palestine had a history outside and before the Bible.

If genetic material is recovered from the remains, the results could also have political implications. Archaeological and historical research in the area of historical Palestine is always political, whether intentional or not. We already see this in the way discovery is being reported - no mention of Palestine or Palestinians.

The Bible is constantly used as a 'title deed' as are 'shrines' and 'graves' of dubious provenance and same will, almost certainly, hold true of these old bones one way or another. Any genetic results will be reflected through political lenses.

IN SHADOW OF THE BIBLE

Too often the history of Palestine is defined by the Bible. Many modern historical accounts basically leap from the immensely old remains of Jericho to naively repeating the Bible's much later version of events that would have started in the late Bronze Age and were, by the time they were written down, distorted by perhaps six or seven centuries of oral transmission.

According to the traditional claim, the 'Biblical archaeology' is practiced with a shovel in one hand and a Bible in the other hand. Too much objectivity or critical thinking has never been a problem in the field of Biblical archaeology.

This find can help to raise the ancient Philistines from the 'shadow' of the Biblical account and help to make their culture both a subject of a more objective historical research and give it a more firm independent standing. This way the graves in this cemetery can help to 'resurrect' both Philistines and the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age history of Palestine, 'saving' it from the Bible.

IS MATERIAL CULTURE PROOF OF ETHNICITY?

1

This comes as a not so minor caveat: All the news articles and based on them, the Israeli archaeologists who have done the excavation, identify material culture and ethnic background.

Meaning that when bodies with objects usually found in the context of known Philistine population centres are found, the bodies are those of 'ethnic' Philistines and possibly still hold their genetic code which would show where their ancestors came from and which is their connection to later populations.

The problem with this is apparent if we look at the later Hellenistic era. The material and cultural evidence of Hellenism in Palestine is strong, especially in urban environments.

Both the coastal city states and the Hasmonean and Herodean dynasties were strongly hellenized: Herodes is not a Jewish name nor an Edomite one, but a Greek one as was his father's name, Antipater. The preceding Hasmonean dynasty had as one of its rulers namesake of the 'Great' Macedonian: Alexander Jannaeus.

Palestine during the Hellenistic and Roman periods - which in the eastern Roman empire was just a continuation of old Hellenistic culture under Roman political control - was a part of the larger cultural sphere originating in Greece which expanded after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon and his successors. But this didn't mean that the population would have been Greek.

Instead Hellenism largely represented the adoption of the Greek culture by first local elites and then urban populations. There were Greek and Macedonian immigrants, those numerous new cities called Alexandria and garrison towns like Nablus, but the immigrants, few in comparison to the existing populations, soon mingled with the original, now increasingly Hellenized population which could hold several different 'identities' for different social contexts.

Adoption of a material culture and use of Greek language did not have to mean and often did not mean giving up previously existing identity. Instead the process of Hellenization was helped by the fact that co-existence of different identities was possible. People could have different names in different languages. Same could have hold true previously during a theoretical 'Philistinization'.

If we excavate mid- to late-Hellenistic cemeteries even in the capitols of the Macedonian dynasties (say Seleucia in current Iraq), and take those graves which seem, based on material goods and orientation of bodies, most Greek then we still can't expect to find many ethnically Greeks or Macedonian remains. What we would find would be mostly both the remains of people both genetically native and 'mixed'.

This in mind, we can say that material culture is no proof of ethnicity, nor belonging to a certain religious or linguistic group. Material culture in this case shows that the people buried in the graves in ethnically cleansed Ashkelon had Philistine material culture. At this point we can't know more. 

2

Considering the possible evidence of Mycenean and/or Philistine-connected architecture from the early Iron Age as far as the Jordan Valley, the likely reach of Philistines or their ancestors, whether that solely cultural or also political reach, was larger than the areas usually considered to have been under their rule.

Borders didn't really exist in the modern sense during this period nor long afterwards. When one moved away from political centres, their power was slowly diluted the farther one went and in the end intermingled with those of other polities. Even geographical landmarks were at best nominal lines of political control, subject to lose their meaning based on almost seasonal warfare.

Most people ending up living under the core area of now considered to have been Philistines would have likely been descended from pre-Philistine populations, who would have been with time mixed with the 'ethnic' Philistines whose genetic contribution would have been slowly diluted. The same effect as later in Hellenization would have been at work.

Like political 'borders', also identities could have been fluid. People buried in the graves in the cemetery just outside Ashkelon (and just outside besieged Gaza Strip, where Philistines also were present based on archaeological evidence) could have considered them 'Philistines'. It might have been their only identity, but it might not have.

3

The effect we are talking about was probably at work even earlier. 

The Philistines are considered to have been descendants of the Sea Peoples, and based on aspects of their material culture, possibly Myceneans from Greece who would have joined the Sea Peoples.

But the Sea Peoples seem to have been a loose alliance of people from a large swath of the lands and islands of the Mediterranean (possibly as far as Sardinia and Sicily) and its quite likely that those ending settled in Palestine after their defeat by Egypt would not have come solely from one source population - and even that source population would have likely been mixed, if that was the case.

4

Mycenean Greeks had both the original inhabitants of mainland Greece, who are largely a mystery to us still, with only a small amount of seemingly Indo-European words left to us from them and the Minoans of Crete (whom they conquered in around 1400 BCE) as their neighbours and subjects. 

'Myceneans' joining Sea Peoples could well have come from Crete. Surviving Linear B tablets show naval activity but can be interpreted in two different ways: Either the Myceneans of Crete were patrolling the coasts in fear of a Sea People attack or they were themselves part of the Sea Peoples in fear of an Egyptian naval force - which, according to Egyptian sources, was supposedly sent to do a retaliatory attack against the Sea Peoples in their homelands.

But if 'Myceneans' from Crete were among the Sea Peoples, by then they were results of two centuries of mixing of Minoan natives (whose writing system they used) and mainland Myceneans, who would themselves have been to some extent mixed with the pre-Greek population which gave them and the later Greeks some of their own gods.

Again we have left with the observation that material culture and ethnicity are not the same thing and is in fact a dangerous connection to make when other evidence is slim.

COINAGE AS A WARNING

If we would not have good written records from Anglo-Saxon England, the coins of king Offa II(757-796) of Mercia with their Islamic texts could be claimed as a sign that he was a Muslim ruler instead of his kingdom's mints just using Islamic coins as models.

In the same manner the mints in the early Muslim Caliphate just copied East Roman coins until the early 8th century when changes in the imagery of East Roman coinage distasteful for the Caliphate is though to have led to the start of minting of independently designed coins. These copied coins, if we would lack written sources, could lead us to consider some kind of East Roman political control over the Caliphate. 

Offa II was not a Muslim, the Caliphate was not under Eastern Roman Empire's political control and we need to approach carefully the idea that the graves in Ashkelon represent 'pure' Philistine material culture and that the bodies in them could hold the 'pure' genetic code of the Philistines and give us clear answer of the origin of the Philistines, allowing us to neatly label them in manner of "Mycenean, Indo-European".

CONCLUSIONS

The graves excavated outside ethnically cleansed Ashkelon in Palestine 1948, just outside besieged Gaza Strip, hold the promise of opening a new window into the history of Palestine outside the limited, constraining scope set by the Bible.

Based on this now have hope that the Philistines can escape the confines of Biblical Archaeology and be studied in the context of their own time and in the larger context of the history of Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean without the shadow of the much later texts of the Bible falling over them and making research on them footnotes on those.

Still, we need to be cautious. What we have are people buried with objects known from Philistine material culture, excavated from a cemetery located in what is considered core Philistine area. We can expect that these people would have considered themselves 'Philistines' but we can't be certain of it nor of that they represent genetically 'pure' Philistines.

They could be 'only' a population that would have adopted Philistine material culture and perhaps identity, as adoption of material culture doesn't necessarily mean accepting an identity with it. More likely we will found out that the remains belong to people with a complex genetic background from possibly greatly varied geographic locations. 

Because of the exceptional circumstances in Palestine, the future study of the genes of the remains in the graves will not be only a scientific, but also a political issue. We can expect politics to play a role the way they will be interpreted by various parties, as political bias has already impacted the reporting of the discovery.

NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT THE DISCOVERY:

Ancient philistine cemetery discovered in Israel could solve one of the Bible’s biggest mysteries

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ancient-philistine-cemetery-in-israel-could-solve-one-of-the-bible-s-biggest-mysteries-a7129601.html

Archaeologists find first-ever Philistine cemetery in Israel

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.729879

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.729879

Discovery of Philistine cemetery in Israel could unravel Biblical mystery

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/07/10/Discovery-of-Philistine-cemetery-in-Israel-could-unravel-Biblical-mystery/9151468166178/?spt=su&or=btn_tw

First-ever Philistine cemetery found, offers unique glimpse of Israelites’ biblical enemy

http://www.timesofisrael.com/philistine-cemetery-find-offers-glimpse-of-deaths-and-lives-of-biblical-enemy/

First-Ever Philistine Cemetery Unearthed at Ashkelon

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/first-ever-philistine-cemetery-unearthed-at-ashkelon/

Has proof been found of Goliath’s people? Cemetery discovered in Israeli city with remains of up to 150 people could help solve biblical mystery 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3683674/The-Philistines-Cemetery-discovered-Israeli-city-remains-150-people-help-solve-biblical-mystery.html#ixzz4E6Yhf8rJ 

Researchers make 'first discovery' of Philistine cemetery

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36759340

Story of Philistines Could Be Reshaped by Ancient Cemetery

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/science/possible-philistine-cemetery-discovered.html?_r=0