the Middlebrook Family

Welcome to my view. Pretty huh? Actually, it's fascinating. For all those graduate students before the age of computers, word processors, digital maps, pdf's, zotero, language programs, online journals, articles, and whole books.... God bless ya'll. The window into the scholarly world is broad and sunny from here. But I'm not totally chained to the desk. There are the family outings, two chapels a week, and the occasional riveting class or academic convention. [see more below]




These lucky students at the Wheaton College lab are photographing the artifacts (in 3D) found at Tel-Dothan in Israel, southwest of Mount Gilboa. The gentlemen and I in the Ceramics independent study group visited the lab last week and had a quick and dirty overview of early civilizations in the Levant. We benefited greatly from having representative pottery from each period on hand to peruse and hope to be back again soon.





It is telling when you look at the pottery record that comes down the line. Around the time we understand Israel to begin inhabiting the Judean Highlands the pottery looks dramatically different from the surrounding regions. They show basic pots and bowls with typically no decoration or artistic flourishes. But the closer you get to the surrounding Canaanite nations, the pots get an artful detail here, a superflous inscriptions there. Some "Israelite" towns were almost no different from their neighbors.





O' those filthy Philistines!!










[Dad just came by so we'll post soon on all that.]