"Cult, Trade, and Politics" by Michael Leff

Tel Shimron, referenced in both Egyptian execration texts and the Hebrew Bible, sits at a key intersection of major north-south and east-west trade routes. Excavations at Tel Shimron during the 2023 and 2024 seasons have shed new light on the site's status as the pre-eminent Middle Bronze Age city in the Jezreel Valley. These excavations have revealed an extensive cultic complex and a large favissa, or ritual deposit, containing rich assemblages of animal bones and vessels, as well as two copper-alloy theriomorphic bull deity statuettes. This talk examines these new discoveries, what they can tell us about the evolution of Canaanite cultic praxis, and the geopolitical role of the Shimron polity in the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant.

Michael Leff is a PhD student in the Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East (ANE) track of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. His research interests include ANE law, material culture, diplomacy and strategy, and Semitic linguistics.

This talk is an Israel Studies Fellow Colloquium, and part of the Graduate Student Lunch Colloquium Series.

Host or Publisher Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies