Technological Insights on Philistine Culture: Perspectives from Tell es-Safi/Gath

AREN M. MAEIR is a professor of archaeology at the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. His research focuses on Bronze and Iron Age archaeology of the ancient Near East, on which he has published extensively. He directs the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project (gath.wordpress.com) since 1996, co-directs the Minerva Center for the Relations between Israel and Aram in Biblical Times (aramisrael.org), and is coeditor of the Israel Exploration Journal. (Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel; arenmaeir@gmail.com)

DAVID BEN-SHLOMO is an associate professor in the Department of Archaeology and Land of Israel Studies at Ariel University. His main research interests are southern Levantine archaeology of the Bronze and Iron Ages, ancient iconography, and the analytical study of pottery and ceramic materials employing petrographic analysis. He has been conducting petrographic analysis on the Tell es-Safi/Gath pottery for the past fifteen years. (Institute of Archaeology, Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel; davben187@yahoo.com)

DEBORAH (DEBI) CASSUTO has been a staff member on the Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath Archaeological Project since 2005 and on the Tel Burna Excavation Project since 2010. Her PhD dissertation, The Fabric of Society: Textile Production Workshops in the Southern Levant—A Case Study from Iron Age Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath, studies the textile-associated artifacts of the Iron Age within their technological, physical, and cultural contexts. (Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel; debicass@gmail.com)

JEFFREY R. CHADWICK is Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA and Jerusalem, Israel. He serves as field director of Areas F (since 2004) and D (since 2018) at the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project in Israel. (Brigham Young University, Joseph Smith Building, Provo, UT 84602; jrchadwick@byu.edu)

BRENT DAVIS is an associate lecturer in archaeology at the University of Melbourne. He received his undergraduate degree in linguistics from Stanford University, and his PhD in archaeology from the University of Melbourne: his dissertation on Linear A, the undeciphered script of the Minoans, was published as a book in 2014. He has published numerous articles and chapters on ancient cultures and scripts, and has been involved in the Tell-es Safi/Gath Archaeological Project since 2007. (School of Historical and Philosophical Studies Room 674, Arts West, The University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia; bedavis@unimelb.edu.au)

ADI ELIYAHU-BEHAR is a chemist engaged in archaeological research and excavations. She routinely applies various analytical methods in order to solve archaeological and historical research questions. Her main interest lies in the reconstruction and understanding of ancient pyro-technological processes, such as the production of metals, plaster, ceramic, glass, and in particular the many material aspects of the advancement of iron production during the Iron Age. She is a senior lecturer at Ariel University. (Institute of Archaeology, Ariel University, Ariel 40700, Israel; adi.eliyahu17@gmail.com)

SUEMBIKYA (SUE) FRUMIN is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Israeli National Natural Collection of Near Eastern Seeds and Fruits, Bar-Ilan University and the manager of the archaeobotanical lab of Prof. Ehud Weiss, Bar-Ilan University. Her PhD research focused on invasion biology in the past: the impact of Philistine migration in the Iron Age (twelfth century BCE) on plant biodiversity in Israel. Her botanical research and publications include studies of recent vegetation, as well as plant remnants of the Cretaceous period, and from archaeological assemblages. (Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel; suefrumin@gmail.com)

SHIRA GUR-ARIEH is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Pompeu Fabra University, Spain. She completed her PhD in archaeology at Bar-Ilan University in close association with the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Weizmann Institute of Science. Her research focuses on human-environment interaction, and especially on cooking technology and the utilization of plant resources for fuel and food, using experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and a variety of geoarchaeological techniques including phytolith analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, and micromorphology. (CaSEs Research Group, Bld. 24, Pompeu Fabra University, C/Trias Fragas 25–27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain; shira.gura@upf.edu)

LOUISE HITCHCOCK is professor of Aegean Bronze Age archaeology at the University of Melbourne. She has written, co-written, or co-edited and written or collaborated on four books and on over 70 articles on Aegean, Cypriot, and Philistine archaeology, and on archeological theory and gender identity. (Classics and Archaeology Program, Room 674, Arts West, The University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia; lahi@unimelb.edu.au)

LIORA KOLSKA HORWITZ is an archaeozoologist at the National Natural History Collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research and publications on faunal remains include prehistoric and archaeological assemblages from Israel and South Africa, including from the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath. (National Natural History Collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram Campus, Jerusalem, Israel; lix1000@gmail.com)