Publisher's Synopsis
The time between the end of the Egyptian supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean (around 1200 BCE) and the beginning of Hellenism (333 BCE) shows Palestine/Israel as the pawn of the great political powers. As soon as Israel as a state comes into being, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, each in their turn, and time and again the Egyptians, are interested in the small land bridge. The thrall in which war, deportation and foreign rule put Israel and Judea is clearly rendered in the themes of the art during the Iron Age. Egyptian sun symbolism, Assyrian rulers and gods, Assyrian-Aramaic moon worship, Babylonian and Persian worshippers and heroes can be found here one after the other. The knowledge about the images enables us to better situate the Biblical texts that came into being during the same time period, to understand them as proof of a debate held in different media, and to find their place in of the overall historical puzzle of that epoch.
