The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant

The Levant - modern Lebanon southern Syria Jordan Israel and Palestine - is one of the most intensively excavated regions of the world. This richly documented and illustrated survey offers a state-of-the-art description of the formative phase of Levantine societies as they perfected the Mediterranean village economy and began to interact with neighboring civilizations in Egypt and Syria on the way to establishing their first towns and city-state polities. Citing numerous finds and interpretive approaches Greenberg offers a new narrative of social and cultural development emulation resistance and change illustrating how Levantine communities translated broader movements of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Bronze Age - the emergence of states international trade elite networks and imperial ambitions - into a uniquely Levantine idiom.