The Unique Specialised Economy of Judah under Assyrian Rule and its Impact on the Material Culture of the Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The geography of Judah is unique among the territorial kingdoms of the southern Levant, featuring four distinct regions with the potential for exploitation in different economic strategies. In the Iron IIB the vassal kingdom experienced a dramatic economic transformation directed by the Assyrian empire, from traditional Mediterranean subsistence to specialised economy based on its four zones: viticulture in the highlands, oleo-culture in the Shephelah, services to the Arabian trade in the Beersheba Valley and date and exotic plant groves in the Dead Sea Valley oases. This high-risk/high-gain system may clarify the development of advanced administration, which, in turn, explains the unique features in the material culture of Judah compared to neighbouring kingdoms: The system of stamped handles and weights and the proliferation of scribal activity. The division of the kingdom into districts, as portrayed in Josh 15, is connected to this reality, and hence probably originated slightly earlier than conventionally argued.

KEYWORDS:

• Judah
• agricultural specialisation
• viticulture
• olive horticulture
• administration
• lmlk stamped handles
• ostraca
• writing
• Joshua 15

Notes

1 In ‘settlement patterns’ we refer to sedentary activity; it goes without saying that the Beersheba Valley and the Judean Desert were also inhabited by pastoral nomads.

2 For the City of David, see Szanton 2013; For el-Burj, De Groot and Stern 2015; for Abu Shawan, Baruch 2007; for ‘Alona, Weksler-Bdolah 1997.

3 Studies of pollen in the Dead Sea do not testify for the Shephelah olive industry, because pollen grains do not pass the barrier created by the massive block of the Judean Highlands (Finkelstein and Langgut 2018). Mid-Late Holocene palynological records west of the watershed are not available. Identification of charcoal assemblages from sites in the Shephelah is also challenging, since in most cases Iron Age strata were grouped together without attention to the sub-phases of the period (Lipschitz 2007).

4 Needless to say, transportation of Arabian goods to the Levant via the desert commenced in earlier phases of the Iron Age if not before. This is best evident by the site of Kuntillet 'Ajrud, dated to the first half of the 8th century bce.

5 For the date of the fort at Khirbet en-Nahas, see different opinions in Levy et al. 2004; Levy et al. 2016, 893–920 versus Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2006.

6 Today date palms are artificially pollinated. Once the yellow dust from a male date palm is shaken above the flowers of a female tree, the fruit yield increases. It seems that the Assyrians had already been aware of this method: a relief in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II shows a winged god dusting palm flowers with pollen; a similar motif is repeated in a number of other Assyrian reliefs.

7 Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum 9.6.1–4; Diodorus Bibliotheca Historica 2.48.9, 19.98; Strabo Geographica 16.2.41, 17.1.15; Pompeius Trogus [apud Justin] Historiae Philippicae Epitoma 36.3.1–7; Dioscorides, De Materia Medica 1.19.1; Pliny Naturalis Historia 12.111; Tacitus Historiae 4.6.1. Josephus says that it was introduced to the region as a gift to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba (Ant 8, 6, 6).

8 In the Near East, bitumen can originate from five major areas: the city of Hit and surroundings and Mosul in modern Iraq, the area of southwestern Iran, the Dead Sea (Connan and Van de Velde 2010) and Abu Durba and Gebel Zeit on the shores of Egypt’s Gulf of Suez (Harrell and Lewan 2002). Natural asphalt from the Dead Sea could be gathered from the deposits on the shore of the lake or occasionally during periods of intensification in seismic activity, when it was found floating on the water surface.

9 Though the Gulf of Suez seeps were much closer to Egypt, it seems that the ancient Egyptians favoured the Dead Sea bitumen. This is perhaps due to its semi-solid nature, which enabled it to be more portable. Additionally, the Dead Sea area was linked to Egypt by a well-established coastal trading route, whereas bitumen from the Gulf of Suez would have to be brought either across the rugged mountains of the Eastern Desert or up the Gulf of Suez by a circuitous route as long as the direct one from the Dead Sea (Harrell and Lewan 2002).

10 For the impact of Assyria on Judah, see, e.g., Naaman 1995; Thareani 2016; Koch 2018. Contra, e.g., Stager 1996; Faust 2021 who contested this notion.