Nadav Na'aman (
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
: נדב נעמן; born in 1939 in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
) is an Israeli archaeologist and historian. He specializes in the study of the
Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...
in the second and first millenniums
BCE. His research combines the history of the
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...
, archaeology,
Assyrology, and the study of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
. '' kibbutz
A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
near Jerusalem and grew up in
Kvutzat Kinneret
Kvutzat Kinneret (), also known as Kibbutz Kinneret, is a kibbutz in northern Israel. The settlement group ('' kvutza'') was established in 1913, and moved from the Kinneret training farm to the permanent location in 1929. Located to the southwest ...
, a kibbutz on the
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...
. His father was Professor Shlomo Naaman, who taught in the Department of General History of
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...
(TAU).
After completing his
IDF military service (1957-1960), he left the kibbutz in 1964 and studied archaeology and Jewish history.
Career
Na'aman received his doctorate in 1975 from Tel Aviv University with
Yohanan Aharoni
Yohanan Aharoni (; 7 June 1919 – 9 February 1976) was an Israeli archaeologist and historical geographer, chairman of the Department of Near East Studies and chairman of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University.
Life
Born to the Ar ...
as
supervisor
A supervisor, or lead, (also known as foreman, boss, overseer, facilitator, monitor, area coordinator, line-manager or sometimes gaffer) is the job title of a lower-level management position and role that is primarily based on authority over la ...
, with a thesis on the importance of the
Amarna letters for the history of Israel. He subsequently worked as a lecturer in archaeology and history of the ancient Near East at TAU.
In 1984, Na'aman became Associate Professor of Jewish History. From 1989 until his retirement in 2007, he held a chair in Jewish history at TAU. In 2012 he was elected a member of the
Israel Academy of Sciences.
Azekah Inscription
In 1974, Na'aman published his first article, which contained a discovery of considerable importance for research. He found that what had been regarded as two separate
clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian language, Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay t ...
s written in
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
in the
Akkadian language
Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218–280 was an East Semitic language that is attested ...
, each attributed to another king of
Assyria,
Tiglath Pileser III and
Sargon II
Sargon II (, meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have be ...
, respectively, are actually fragments of one single tablet that had been broken at some point. This tablet became known as the
Azekah Inscription
The Azekah Inscription, is a tablet inscription of the reign of Sennacherib (reigned 705 to 681 BC) discovered in the mid-nineteenth century in the Library of Ashurbanipal. It was identified as a single tablet by Nadav Na'aman in 1974.
It descri ...
.
Earlier, in one of these two pieces, researchers read the name of
Azariah Azariah ( ''‘Ǎzaryāh'', " Yah has helped") is the name of several people in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish history, including:
* Abednego, the new name given to Azariah who is the companion of Daniel, Hananiah, and Mishael in the Book of Daniel ( ...
, King of Judah, and therefore assumed that he took part in the war that was going on in central Syria. The fragment of the second tablet mentions the attack on the city of
Azekah
Azekah (, ''ʿazēqā'') was an ancient town in the Shephela ("lowlands of Judea") guarding the upper reaches of the Valley of Elah, about 26 km (16 mi) northwest of Hebron.
The current '' tell'' (ruin) by that name, also known as Tel ...
, which was attributed to Sargon, king of Assyria.
When the two fragments of the tablets were put together, it became clear that they describe, in considerable detail, the Assyrian King
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...
's campaign against
Hezekiah
Hezekiah (; ), or Ezekias (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the thirteenth king of Kingdom of Judah, Judah according to the Hebrew Bible.Stephen L Harris, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. "G ...
, king of Judah. As a result, what was written earlier about Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon's campaigns to the Land of Israel was removed from scholarship, and instead, important details were added about Sennacherib's campaigns into Judah in 701 BCE.
Provenance of el-Amarna letters
Na'aman teamed up with archaeologists
Israel Finkelstein
Israel Finkelstein (; born March 29, 1949) is an Israelis, Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the a ...
and
Yuval Goren to try to determine the origin of the
Amarna tablets. They conducted the examination of the composition and origin of clay of which the tablets were made.
Yuval Goren removed samples from hundreds of tablets, tested and determined what material they were made of and from where in
Canaan
CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...
a material with such a chemical and mineralogical composition could have originated. Thus, in combination with the historical data emerging from the tablets and the archaeological data from sites throughout Canaan, the researchers determined the provenance of these tablets.
The three authored the book ''Inscribed in Clay'', in which they presented the data from their research, including conclusions about the origin of the tablets and what this implies for the study of the Amarna documents. In this way they could determine the origin of many tablets in which the sender's name was lost through damage, or was not mentioned at all.
There are also cases where the names of places are mentioned, but researchers disagreed on their identification, thus a
petrographic
Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock are described in detail. The classi ...
examination of the clay made it possible to decide the debate.
Other contributions
Na'aman also took part in the
Brook of Egypt
The Brook of Egypt () is a wadi identified in the Hebrew Bible as forming the southernmost border of the Land of Israel. A number of scholars in the past identified it with Wadi al-Arish, an ephemeral river flowing into the Mediterranean sea nea ...
debate, identifying this biblical river as the
Besor Stream
Wadi Gaza () and Besor Stream (, ) are parts of a river system in the Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Negev region of Israel. Wadi Gaza is a wadi (river valley) that divides the northern and southern ends of the Gaza Strip, whose major tributar ...
.
The identification of the site of
Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...
proved to be problematic. Na'aman also contributed significantly to this debate. He held that the ruins were Canaanite, based on strong similarities with the nearby Canaanite excavations at
Beit Shemesh
Beit Shemesh () is a city council (Israel), city located approximately west of Jerusalem in Israel's Jerusalem District. A center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy, Beit Shemesh has a population of 170,683 as of 2024.
The city is named afte ...
.
The tribute volume upon his retirement was published in 2006.
Selected publications
* ''Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction.'' Collected Essays, Vol. 1. Winona Lake 2005.
* ''Canaan in the Second Millennium B.C.E.'' Collected Essays, Vol. 2. Winona Lake 2005.
* ''Ancient Israel's History and Historiography: The First Temple Period.'' Collected Essays, Vol. 3. Winona Lake 2006.
Family
His younger sister is
Michal Na'aman, a noted Israeli artist.
External links
* Tel Aviv University
Prof. Nadav Na'Aman(Curriculum Vitae)
* Listing a
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
References
{{Reflist
Academic staff of Tel Aviv University
20th-century Israeli archaeologists
Biblical archaeologists