Alexander Ahrens
Address: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
Orient-Abteilung | Außenstelle Damaskus
Things I do and things I´ve done (in no particular order):
Senior Researcher (Wissenschaftlicher Referent) | German Archaeological Institute (Damascus Branch)
Director & Principal Investigator | Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project (WSAS) and Excavations at Tell Bleibil, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
AIA Fellow | Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University, Spring 2019
Associate Researcher | The Hyksos Enigma (ERC ADG Project/OREA, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Associate Researcher | Syrian Heritage Archive Project
Assistant Editor | Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie (ZOrA)
Advisory Board Member | Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant
Editorial Board Member | Avar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Life and Society in the Ancient Near East
Lecturer | FU Berlin
Address: Podbielskiallee 69-71 | D-14195 Berlin
Orient-Abteilung | Außenstelle Damaskus
Things I do and things I´ve done (in no particular order):
Senior Researcher (Wissenschaftlicher Referent) | German Archaeological Institute (Damascus Branch)
Director & Principal Investigator | Wadi Shuʿaib Archaeological Survey Project (WSAS) and Excavations at Tell Bleibil, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
AIA Fellow | Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown University, Spring 2019
Associate Researcher | The Hyksos Enigma (ERC ADG Project/OREA, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Associate Researcher | Syrian Heritage Archive Project
Assistant Editor | Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie (ZOrA)
Advisory Board Member | Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant
Editorial Board Member | Avar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Life and Society in the Ancient Near East
Lecturer | FU Berlin
Address: Podbielskiallee 69-71 | D-14195 Berlin
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Papers by Alexander Ahrens
See also: https://lens.idai.world/?url=/repository/eDAI-F_2023-2/08_eDAI-F_2023-2_Ahrens.xml
While Early Bronze Age glyptic finds from the southern Levant as well as from Syria have received considerable attention in the scholarly literature, unfortunately the same cannot be said about the glyptic material from Lebanon. For a long time, Byblos was the only site with a considerable number of Early Bronze Age glyptic finds, but the often unclear stratigraphic and contextual situation of the material hugely diminished its scientific value. Fortunately, in recent years more clearly stratified material has emerged from Sidon, Tell Arqa, and Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, which for the first time enables us to better define the glyptic styles in use in the central Levant during the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C.E. The paper presents the glyptic finds from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, located on the Lebanese coast just 12 km north of Byblos, with a special emphasis on the iconography of the seals and seal impressions, as well as their contribution towards the external relations of the site.
see also: https://jordantimes.com/news/local/archaeologist-reflects-tell-bleibil-excavations-after-pandemic-induced-pause
Within this workshop you will hear some of the answers to these questions. We are able to offer evidence that the Western Asiatic population, on which the Hyksos rule rested, came from a different region in the Levant - at least parts of their elite. Temple architecture and burial customs show that the religious inspirations and the concepts of afterlife in the eastern Nile Delta originated from northernmost Syria and northern Mesopotamia. The same can be also concluded from the introduction of the artificial irrigation systems for which new evidence could be collected from Tell el-Dab‘a, a harbour town which became the capital of the Hyksos. It is the site on which excavations between 1966-2011 under the supervision of the speaker produced with more than 80 field- and working-up-campaigns an enormous quantity of evidence on settlement, tombs, palaces, temples and a hoard of material culture which was partly published in 24 volumes but would still need the same amount of publications in the future if circumstances would allow it. Other excavations in the Delta and in the Wadi Tumilat such as Tell el-Retaba, Tell el Maskhuta and Tell el Khilgan contribute to the cultural phenomenon of the Hyksos. This ERC project was able to draw from these excavations but also produced conclusions, which place these archaeological results with the help of international colleagues into a much wider perspective. Our studies in relationship with the Hyksos lead us not only to the Levant but also to the wider cultural background of Mesopotamia and also to Asia minor, and concerning trade also to Cyprus and the Aegean. It seems clear now that the flourishing trading network built up by a Western Asiatic community before the Hyksos Period broke down during their reign, as they were cut off from the resources of Upper Egypt and Nubia and could not offer a barter for their trade with the Levant.