Chalcolithic Cult and Risk Management at Teleilat Ghassul [Paperback]

This work addresses a number of issues emerging from evidence from Teleilat Ghassul in the south Jordan Valley, incorporating unpublished material from Professor J.B. Hennessy's excavations in 1967, 1975-1977, and new material from Bourke's 1994- present campaigns at the site. These include: A report of the excavated material and architecture from Area E, the 'Sanctuary' precinct; Justification for the 'cultic' attribution of the precinct, and some proposals about the nature of the cult activities and their purpose; The evidence for emerging internal competitive diversity in cult and religious activities at the site, its cause and consequences; Observations on the spatial and temporal place of Teleilat Ghassul, and specifically the Sanctuary, in the broader Chalcolithic and pre-state spectrum; The extent to which cult expression reflects a social response to managing crisis, rather than success; The extent to which the evidence supports conventional paradigms about increasing social, economic and technological complexity in pre-state societies, and the value added by the Ghassul evidence to our understanding of Chalcolithic culture and social systems; Analysis of the extent to which the Sanctuary and the broader site can inform the extension of archaeological analysis, to identify the conscious behaviour and evidence of individuals manipulating social and economic circumstances to alter the power relationships in a community; and the degree to which we can extend recent conceptual frameworks in articulating an 'Archaeology of Politics' from pre-literate evidence in cult contexts. Part I presents a full report on the architecture, ceramics and small finds from Area E. The stratigraphy, architecture and phasing of the Sanctuary precinct, including the Sanctuary Courtyard, and the adjacent Industrial Area, reports previously unpublished detail of the excavated remains. This is followed by the ceramics from the Sanctuary precinct, with lÔ