Exploring the Longue Durée

Fifty scholars who represent a wide range of nationalities and specialties—archaeologists, biblical scholars, philologists, and historians—have contributed essays in honor of Lawrence E. Stager, the Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel and Director of the Semitic Museum at Harvard University, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Various academic generations are represented: among the contributors to this volume are Professor Stager’s former students and some of his own teachers, as well as a diverse group of his many friends and colleagues of all ages. Moreover, the studies collected herein span the gamut from detailed analyses of sites, artifacts, and texts to broad theoretical syntheses. Several authors draw directly upon Stager’s theoretical work, invoking his model of “port power” and his ideas about kinship and “patrimonialism” in ancient Israel, thereby demonstrating his influence as one of the leading Near Eastern archaeologists of his generation. Others discuss archaeological phenomena that have figured prominently in Stager’s research over the years, such as ancient horticulture, Iron Age houses and villages, and finds related to the site of Ashkelon in Israel, where he has directed excavations since 1985. The remaining chapters are a fascinating sample of research in biblical studies (often with a sociological emphasis, as in Stager’s own work), in nonbiblical philology, and in the archaeology of Israel and the eastern Mediterranean region in the Bronze and Iron Ages.