Some Highlights in Local versus Regional Glyptic Consumption in the Southern Levant during the Iron I

Abstract

The southern Levant comprises a patchwork of diverse landscapes and communities whose connectivity fluctuated with the reorganization and termination of various economic, political, and social networks, at times expressing more similarity than difference among sites and regions. During the Iron I, communities in the southern Levant experienced the dissolution of Egypt’s colonial network, resulting in a range of responses. Building from previous research, this article utilizes the newly developed Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant database to survey all stamp seals from excavated contexts dated to the Iron I to explore how the withdrawal of Egyptian power from the region affected the consumption of stamp seal amulets related to seal type, iconography, and stylistic date of production. Some highlights from that study are presented here to situate consumption practices within the broader landscape and to nuance our understanding of community response in the wake of political reorganization.