Re: Piotr : Goliath and Uriah the Hittite as IE -

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, December 09, 1999 8:48 AM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Piotr : Goliath and Uriah the Hittite as IE -

Piotr 

Since I wasn't able to answer your question from recollection or the
resources I have here reliably, I went surfing.   I figured you needed
a real expert on Avaris to answer your questions, and the best person I
know about is Dr. Manfred Bietak, who has been excavating Avaris (Tell
el Dab'a) for almost 30 years now.  It took some searching, but I have
some information on how you can contact him, if you want. His email is
manfred.bietak@...  His position is Prof. Dr. Manfred Bietak,
Institute of Egyptology, Vienna University and the Austrian
Archaeological Institute, Cairo.  (Hrsg. Manfred Bietak. - Wien : Verl.
der Oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. - (Zweigstelle Kairo
des Oesterreichischen Archaeologischen Institutes ; 14)(Denkschriften
der Gesamtakademie Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 
As far as I can tell, he only speaks German, at least I can only find
publications in German.  I would be REAL interested in what you find
out.  Looking through what I could find on the Web indicates he has
found lots of stuff relating Canaanites to Avaris.  But he also is the
one who found the Minoan material. If you get the chance, ask him what
he knows about the early population of Avaris (The later Hyksos, the
15th dynasty, were clearly Canaanites, and in control).

In trying to find  him I ran across some interesting.things: 

First is a quote indicating when Avaris supposedly got it name:
"In the 14th Dynasty, toward the end of the 18th century BC, the name
of the town was changed to Avaris, "the (royal) foundation of the
district" (Bietak 1996:40). When the Hyksos later established their
capital there, they retained the name Avaris. Rameses (= Tell el-Dab`a
= Avaris)  When Rameses II rebuilt the city in the 13th century in the
post-Hyksos period, and long after the Israelites had left Egypt, the
name was changed to Rameses".  At first glance this would seem to be
saying that the Egyptians established the name.(which would be a real
bummer) But in fact, the 14th dynasty  occured during the initial
invasions.  The reference to Hyksos here, is probably referring to the
15th Dynasty and its Canaanite kings. So the timing of the naming looks
good to me.

Second is a site that summarized what was known about pottery, and what
that implies about population composition for Tell El-Maskhuta
(biblical Pithom) and the adjacent Avaris.  It looks like it was done
4-5 years ago, and focuses on Pithom not Avaris.  They go into detail
about pottery finds, and seem to settle pretty much on it being
northern Syrian.  But with the qualifier that it doesn't match well,
except when looked at overall. (i.e. only a so-so fit in the detail). 
It occured to me, that if someone was familiar with Luwian pottery they
might want to purview the list and see what they think.
"ETHNICITY, POTTERY, AND THE HYKSOS AT TELL EL-MASKHUTA IN THE EGYPTIAN
DELTA"
http://www.asor.org/BA/Redmount.html

And two Web sites, that may be on interest to everyone

The first site is an effort by The Austrain Academy to resolve the
problems of archaeological chronology in civilizations in the 2nd
Millennium.  Its an effort that has only begun recently, but its one I
plan to keep an eye on in the future.  As you undoubtedly know, the
chronology in archaeology is anything but settled.  It was the reason I
was looking into what was available on northern Middle East, when I
first ran across the information we are talking about.
http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/sciem2000/index.html  also
http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/sciem2000/InSitSFB.html#abstract


The last web site is an online university coarse that goes into a lot
of detail about Minoan, Mycenaen and related Thracian and Anatolian
artifacts.  Summarizes a lot of detail about archaeological findings. 
I am not up on this material, so I found it to be a Gold Mine.  I be
real interested in seeing what Sabine thought of the site, with her
detailed knowledge of Minoan and Mycenaen archaeology. 
THE PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE AEGEAN
http://tenaya.cs.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/

Anyway – hope this is more helpful than I was before

Brent

Dear Brent,

Thanks for these long postings and website references. I'm going to do some surfing on my own as well, and I'll tell you if anything of interest comes my way. I'm not a specialist in things Levantine or Egyptian; I got just accidentally caught up in all those mysteries as a result of our discussion. But I'm enjoying it, and it's certainly an opportunity to learn something completely new.

Piotr