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April 11, 2009
What/Where Was Belit-nesheti's City?
In July of last year, I said that I thought the probability of fNIN UR.MAḪMEŠ (Belit-nesheti, Lady of the Lionesses) being the queen of Beit Shemesh was less than 50%. We know fNIN UR.MAḪMEŠ from the Amarna letters EA 273 and EA 274. I think I should now revise that estimate upwards to around 50% probability. Without nearly irrefutable evidence in situ, that's high for me. The recent announcement of the discovery of a ceramic plaque, found at Beit Shemesh, showing what may be a woman in male dress influenced my new estimate; so did my revised, now nearly negative, opinion that her city might be Gezer. See Judith Weingarten's remarks on this second change in thought. Having now read the relevant portions of Goren, Finkelstein, and Na'aman's Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Letters and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts coupled with the normal uncertainties of exactly how to understand the plaque, I'm not ready to completely abandon my suggestion that Belit-nesheti was the Queen of Ṣapuma. (I called it Ṣapuna in my earlier post. The reading is a matter of debate and I'm debating with myself.) As I indicated, I now think that it is fairly unlikely that she was the queen or princess of Gezer. While Goren, Finkelstein, and Na'aman say that the clay of at least one of these tablets came from Gezer and that the scribe was likely the same scribe as that of the letters clearly from Gezer, they are more than open to the possibility that Belit-nesheti might have been the queen or princess of Beit Shemesh.
All the cities mentioned in EA 273 and EA 274 are likely within the geographical sphere of possible Gezer influence and affiliation. It is nearly impossible to think that Ṣapuma is Sophon in the Jordon Valley. Belit-nesheti was very likely allied with Milkilu of Gezer and had access to his scribe but was not from Gezer herself. For me, part of the issue turns on how one takes la-qi-ta URUṣa-bu-ma(!)ki, in lines 15 and 16 of EA 274. While I more or less follow Moran in translating these words, "Ṣapuma is taken." Moran actually translated it, "Ṣapuma has been taken." I also said in my earlier post, "Your results may vary. . ." Assuming the translation is generally correct, one must ask about the relationship between Belit-nesheti and Ṣapuma. Is Belit-nesheti just updating the Pharaoh on the status of a city in which she has some general interest or is she updating him on the fall of her own city? I don't know for sure and neither does anyone else. Was Ṣapuma an alternate name for Beit Shemesh? I rather doubt it. The name Beit Shemesh means "house/temple of (the god) Shemesh." I find it unlikely that it would have this name with its reference to a Canaanite god in the Iron Age and not in the Bronze Age. Or are Shlomo Bunimovitz and Zvi Lederman actually excavating Ṣapuma rather than ancient Beit Shemesh which may be somewhere else in the general area?
While several have written on the new discovery, Belit-nesheti and Beit Shemesh, I think Judith Weingarten, Zenobia: Empress of the East, has done the most thorough job. But, in addition to her not mentioning any alternative locations other than Gezer (which she rejects), I do have a couple of other very small nits to pick. For example, I think the phrase "nomadic people," with or without a "semi" prefix says both too much and too little about the Apiru. I would prefer to call them marauders. But, leaving aside the word "nomadic," Judeth's description of these folks as "freebooting for their own profit or available for hire" seems very much on target. That said, if you only have time to read two posts on all this read Judith's next. After all, by the time you get all the way down here, you've already read mine.
Posted by Duane Smith at April 11, 2009 1:44 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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Comments
Thanks for the kind words, Duane.
'Marauders' seems to me a weasel word. I just can't picture large bands of people (or maybe just men) wandering about in the interstices of villages, towns, and cities -- unless a (semi)nomadic folk. The area might be conducive to bandits and banditry, but the Apiru are reported over hundreds of years -- which implies something more than that. Or so I think. Maybe we should imagine them as something like Gypsies.
It's an issue (like the Apiru themselves) that won't go away!
Posted by: judith weingarten at April 12, 2009 2:45 AM
'Marauders' is a weasel word by intention. My worry with 'nomadic' is that it too functions as a weasel word but masquerading as cultural designation in this context. The truth is, I don't know want to call them.
Posted by: Duane at April 12, 2009 8:21 AM
Great research! I found your blog via 'Zenobia: Empress of the East'. I recently posted research of my own on this subject. You bring up very important points in reguards to locating ancient sites. Eventually with continued archaeological finds a site can be definitively identified. But seriously, how many times did people find the city of Troy? Several times before they got it right.
Posted by: Harmony at July 19, 2009 10:17 AM
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