The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant From Urban Origins to the Demise of City-States, 3700–1000 BCE

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.

1. Introduction; 2. Villages and the growth of social power in the Early Bronze I; 3. Urbanism and its demise in the Early Bronze II and III; 4. The Intermediate Bronze Age – entering the orbit of Syria; 5. Villages, manors, and integrated city-states of the Middle Bronze Age; 6. The Late Bronze Age – under Egypt's heel; 7. Conclusion – the legacy of the Bronze Age Levant.

Raphael Greenberg is associate professor of archaeology at Tel-Aviv University. Specializing in the study of early urban formations, economies and institutions, he currently heads the Tel Bet Yerah excavations near the Sea of Galilee and is co-founder of Emek Shaveh - a non-profit organization that monitors the political role of archaeology in Jerusalem and beyond.