TY - JOUR
T1 - Monumental megalithic burial and rock art tell a new story about the Levant Intermediate Bronze 'Dark Ages'
AU - Sharon, Gonen
AU - Barash, Alon
AU - Eisenberg-Degen, Davida
AU - Grosman, Leore
AU - Oron, Maya
AU - Berger, Uri
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Sharon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2017/3
Y1 - 2017/3
N2 - The Intermediate Bronze Age (IB) in the Southern Levant (ca. 2350±2000 BCE) is known as the 'Dark Ages,' following the collapse of Early Bronze urban society and predating the establishment of the Middle Bronze cities. The absence of significant settlements and monumental building has led to the reconstruction of IB social organization as that of nomadic, tribal society inhabiting rural villages with no central governmental system. Excavation in the Shamir Dolmen Field (comprising over 400 dolmens) on the western foothills of the Golan Heights was carried out following the discovery of rock art engravings on the ceiling of the central chamber inside one of the largest dolmens ever recorded in the Levant. Excavation of this multi-chambered dolmen, covered by a basalt capstone weighing some 50 tons, revealed a secondary multi-burial (of both adults and children) rarely described in a dolmen context in the Golan. Engraved into the rock ceiling above the multi-burial is a panel of 14 forms composed of a vertical line and downturned arc motif. 3D-scanning by structured-light technology was used to sharpen the forms and revealed the technique employed to create them. Building of the Shamir dolmens required a tremendous amount of labor, architectural mastery, and complex socio-economic organization well beyond the capacity of small, rural nomadic groups. The monumental megalithic burial of the Shamir dolmens indicates a hierarchical, complex, non-urban governmental system. This new evidence supports a growing body of recent criticism stemming from new discoveries and approaches that calls for rethinking our views of the Levantine IB 'Dark Ages'.
AB - The Intermediate Bronze Age (IB) in the Southern Levant (ca. 2350±2000 BCE) is known as the 'Dark Ages,' following the collapse of Early Bronze urban society and predating the establishment of the Middle Bronze cities. The absence of significant settlements and monumental building has led to the reconstruction of IB social organization as that of nomadic, tribal society inhabiting rural villages with no central governmental system. Excavation in the Shamir Dolmen Field (comprising over 400 dolmens) on the western foothills of the Golan Heights was carried out following the discovery of rock art engravings on the ceiling of the central chamber inside one of the largest dolmens ever recorded in the Levant. Excavation of this multi-chambered dolmen, covered by a basalt capstone weighing some 50 tons, revealed a secondary multi-burial (of both adults and children) rarely described in a dolmen context in the Golan. Engraved into the rock ceiling above the multi-burial is a panel of 14 forms composed of a vertical line and downturned arc motif. 3D-scanning by structured-light technology was used to sharpen the forms and revealed the technique employed to create them. Building of the Shamir dolmens required a tremendous amount of labor, architectural mastery, and complex socio-economic organization well beyond the capacity of small, rural nomadic groups. The monumental megalithic burial of the Shamir dolmens indicates a hierarchical, complex, non-urban governmental system. This new evidence supports a growing body of recent criticism stemming from new discoveries and approaches that calls for rethinking our views of the Levantine IB 'Dark Ages'.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85014358017&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0172969
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0172969
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C2 - 28253312
AN - SCOPUS:85014358017
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 12
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e0172969
ER -