Honoring the Elite Deceased: A Re-Examination of the Shechem Courtyard Complexes
The function of the enigmatic Middle Bronze Age Courtyard Complexes at Shechem has remained at the forefront of debate concerning the courtyard palace form. Shechem’s excavators have been unable to agree on the function of the Courtyard Complexes, with some viewing them as palaces and others as temp...
| Autor principal: | |
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| Tipo de documento: | Electrónico Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Verificar disponibilidad: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publicado: |
2023
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| En: |
Bulletin of ASOR
Año: 2023, Volumen: 389, Páginas: 75-97 |
| Otras palabras clave: | B
Shechem
B Courtyard Complex B courtyard palace B Middle Bronze Age B Funerary B burials B Southern Levant |
| Acceso en línea: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Sumario: | The function of the enigmatic Middle Bronze Age Courtyard Complexes at Shechem has remained at the forefront of debate concerning the courtyard palace form. Shechem’s excavators have been unable to agree on the function of the Courtyard Complexes, with some viewing them as palaces and others as temples. Since the only detailed analysis of the Shechem Courtyard Complexes occurred almost four decades ago (Toombs 1985), a reassessment of the material is overdue. An analysis of the Phase 902 Courtyard Complex, the best preserved of the five sequential complexes, supports its architectural association with the courtyard palace form (Oren 1992), while also highlighting a commemorative function, centered around housing and honoring the deceased elite and administering the ancestral funerary cult. Moreover, a functional link with the later Migdol temple and standing stones suggests at least a partial transference of function to this new, and possibly introduced, temple form in the later Middle Bronze Age. Therefore, the Shechem Courtyard Complexes are to be associated with the courtyard palace form, along with a primarily funerary/commemorative function and are perhaps better viewed as elite funerary complexes. |
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| ISSN: | 2769-3589 |
| Obras secundarias: | Enthalten in: Bulletin of ASOR
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1086/724363 |
