A Religious Revolution in Yehud?: The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case

In reference to Ephraim Stern’s hypothesis that Judah witnessed a

religious revolution during the transition between the (Neo)Babylonian

and the Persian period, resulting in an imageless monotheism, the

contributors discuss the material culture of Persian Period

Palestine/Israel.

They refer to a workshop on Jewish “Material’ Otherness? Ethnic,

Religious and Cultural Boundaries in Late Persian and Early Hellenistic

Times in the Southern Levant , held at the Kate Hamburger Kolleg

Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe

(Ruhr-Universitat Bochum) in 2010.

Following an introductory overview on the material culture of the late

Iron Age to the early Hellenistic period, they review the most relevant

object genres in the light of new finds and current research:

administrative stamp-seals, figurines, incense burners, coins, seals,

bullae and Greek pottery.

Special attention is devoted to regional developments in order to

highlight commonalities and differences in the material culture between

Yehud and Samaria, and between Yehud and the other neighbouring

provinces.

The authors demonstrate continuities and discontinuities in material

culture, which mirror political, economic and historical developments.

If the religious revolution thesis cannot be substantiated, they make

an important contribution to the history of religion of Persian Period

Palestine/Israel with its nuanced discussion of Stern’s thesis and the

new synopsis it offers of the material, and especially pictorial,

culture of the period.