Purity and Property at Gezer: The Commons in a Second Temple Town
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Abstract
Since the late nineteenth century, thirteen rock-cut inscriptions have been detected in the vicinity of Tel Gezer. Their date, function, and relationship to settlement history have all been debated. This article systematically relates the so-called “Boundary of Gezer” stones to the archaeology of the Hellenistic town on the tel. In doing so, it presents the first publication of an epitaph reused as the threshold of a house reportedly built in the 130s BCE. A boundary-making project of this nature was the result of the Hasmonean conquest of a stronghold of great strategic and ideological significance. The Gezer stones can be elucidated by means of comparison to boundary markers from Gerasa in Transjordan, Achaemenid Cilicia, and Greece. Code-switching between Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, the bilingual boundaries distinguish between two forms of property, not two populations, providing important evidence for collective property rights in Second Temple Judaism.
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Purity and Property at Gezer: The Commons in a Second Temple Town
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismSearch for other papers by Noah Kaye in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Since the late nineteenth century, thirteen rock-cut inscriptions have been detected in the vicinity of Tel Gezer. Their date, function, and relationship to settlement history have all been debated. This article systematically relates the so-called “Boundary of Gezer” stones to the archaeology of the Hellenistic town on the tel. In doing so, it presents the first publication of an epitaph reused as the threshold of a house reportedly built in the 130s BCE. A boundary-making project of this nature was the result of the Hasmonean conquest of a stronghold of great strategic and ideological significance. The Gezer stones can be elucidated by means of comparison to boundary markers from Gerasa in Transjordan, Achaemenid Cilicia, and Greece. Code-switching between Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, the bilingual boundaries distinguish between two forms of property, not two populations, providing important evidence for collective property rights in Second Temple Judaism.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1079 | 229 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 96 | 6 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 226 | 14 | 0 |
