Author Description

English summary: The first catalogue volume of the Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palastina/Israel, published in 1997, was enthusiastically received by many reviewers. With this volume sigillography truly enters a new era (A. Lemaire, Biblical Archaeology Review). The importance of this work is cannot be overestimated. Whole fields of scholarship now have a new and solid foundation for further research (W.E. Aufrecht, Catholic Biblical Quarterly). The Catalogue presents by far the biggest number of such objects from legal excavations. The presentation, description and interpretation are of an unsurpassable standard. (O. Loretz, Ugarit-Forschungen). Volume I presented 2139 stamp-seal amulets from 22 sites (names beginning with A). This volume includes 1224 objects from 45 sites (B-E). The ten most important provenances are Beth Shean (255), Beth Shemesh (228), Deir el-Balah (140), Tell Beit Mirsim (105), Ekron (71), Wadi ed-Daliyeh (70), Dor (61), Dan (41), Dotan (41) und En-Samiyeh (34). While volume I offered mainly material from the Middle Bronze Age often not very spectacular form an iconographic point of view, this volume deals primarily with Late Bronze and Iron Age glyptics. At the most productive sites, Beth Shean and Beth Shemesh, 80 % of the material is dated to the Late Bronze Age or later periods. Deir el-Balah and Dotan yielded almost exclusively Late Bronze material, Wadi ed-Daliyeh objects from the Persian period. In terms of provenance, too, volume II comes closer to biblical contexts. Place like Beersheba, Bethel, Beth Shean, Beth Shemesh, Beth Zur, Dan, Dor, Ekron and Ein Gedi are well-known from biblical texts. This volume presents indispensable source material not only for the archaeology of Palestine/Israel, the history of the southern Levant and Egyptology, but for biblical scholarship as well. The material is documented in photographs, drawings and detailed descriptions. Parallels are provided in a more systematic way, which allo