Past Perfect?
The Archaeologies of Mandate Palestine 1917-1948
By (author) R. Kletter
This book tells the story (stories) of the archaeologies of one small land, promised by the greatest twentieth-century Empire on earth to two peoples. It tells of the archaeology of the rulers, western and colonial, and of the three ‘local’ archaeologies, religious and nationalistic, which formed beside it. <br />The book tells how the British High Commissioner could keep a desolate and barren field – the place of Golgotha – but not prevent the tenant from placing manure there before ploughing; he could only expropriate that field by publicly declaring it was <i>not</i> a holy place. It speaks of excavators who caught eels and fought baby-goats eating their tackle, while their labourers bathed naked in the sea – were fifty yards from the path crossed by the village women to fetch water a respectable distance? It recounts how the elder of the biggest churches in Dublin had a darn afternoon at the Ophel, Jerusalem, when he just uncovered a huge bastion; the Dominicans who saw it got tremendously excited, but the landlord warned him that unless he paid for the new <i>kushan</i> (land deed), a blood feud would exist between them. The book also recalls honest finders of antiquities vs anonymous denunciations from “faithful reporters” and “true informers”; follows humble stone thieves, billionaire donors and Nazi members on an Advisory Board; praises the new gospels of the Danish holy man of Shiloh, who was guarding the sun at night; and reports on a pleasant old lady who staged a materialistic struggle for land at Megiddo as a spiritual, Armageddon war on the filths of sex. <br />Once, the High Commissioner arrived too early to a luncheon at Tell ed Duweir (Lachish): <i>hors d’oeuvres</i>, cold turkey, Charlotte Russe. The labourers had their lunch break curtailed and were working away “with the utmost enthusiasm”. This book’s readers will arrive on time, and join many tables thanks to the variety of sources and voices.
- By (author) R. Kletter
Other Titles in this Series
Images of Anonymous Women
A Semiotic Approach to Image-Text Relations in Interpretation of Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
Volume 310
Tabou et transgressions
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 11-12 avril 2012
La Septante en Allemagne et en France/Septuaginta Deutsch und Bible d’Alexandrie
Textes de la Septante à traduction double ou à traduction très littérale/Texte der Septuaginta in Doppelüberlieferung oder in wörtlicher Übersetzung
The Text of Leviticus
Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthelemy Institute, held in Fribourg (October 2015)
Volume 292
Entre dieux et hommes : anges, démons et autres figures intermédiaires
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 19 et 20 mai 2014
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Scribal Scholarship in Antiquity
Studies in Honor of Arie van der Kooij on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday
Volume 306
Divine Names on the Spot
Towards a Dynamic Approach of Divine Denominations in Greek andSemitic Contexts
Volume 293
Bilder als Quellen – Images as Sources
Studies on ancient Near Eastern artefacts and the Bible inspired by the work of Othmar Keel
Prééminence de YHWH ou autonomie du prophète
Etude comparative et critique des confessions de Jèrèmie dans le Texte hèbreu Massorétique et la "Septante"
Le Décalogue et l’histoire du texte
Etudes des formes textuelles du Décalogue et leurs implications dans l’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament
Oral et écrit dans l’Antiquité orientale: les processus de rédaction et d’édition
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 26 et 27 mai 2016
Volume 291
Le jeune héros
Recherches sur la formation et la diffusion d’un thème littéraire au Proche-Orient ancien
»Kultprostitution« im Alten Testament?
Die Qedeschen der Hebräischen Bibel und das Motiv der Hurerei
Die Selbstbehauptung Israels in der Welt des Alten Orients
Religionsgeschichtlicher Vergleich anhand von Gen 15/22/28, dem Aufenthalt Israels in Ägypten, 2. Sam 7, 1.Kön 19 und Psalm 104
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