Paleomagnetic analysis of archaeological materials is crucial for understanding the behavior of the geomagnetic field in the past. As it is often difficult to accurately date the acquisition of magnetic information recorded in archaeological materials, large age uncertainties and discrepancies are common in archaeomagnetic datasets, limiting the ability to use these data for geomagnetic modeling and archaeomagnetic dating. Here we present an accurately dated reconstruction of the intensity and direction of the field in Jerusalem in August, 586 BCE, the date of the city's destruction by fire by the Babylonian army, which marks the end of the Iron Age in the Levant. We analyzed 54 floor segments, of unprecedented construction quality, unearthed within a large monumental structure that had served as an elite or public building and collapsed during the conflagration. From the reconstructed paleomagnetic directions, we conclude that the tilted floor segments had originally been part of the floor of the second story of the building and cooled after they had collapsed. This firmly connects the time of the magnetic acquisition to the date of the destruction. The relatively high field intensity, corresponding to virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) of 148.9 ± 3.9 ZAm 2 , accompanied by a geocentric axial dipole (GAD) inclination and a positive declination of 8.3˚, suggests instability of the field during the 6 th century BCE and redefines the duration of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly. The narrow dating of the geomagnetic reconstruction enabled us to constrain the age of other Iron Age finds and resolve a long archaeological and historical discussion regarding the role and dating of royal Judean stamped jar handles. This demonstrates how archaeomagnetic data derived from historically-dated destructions can serve as an anchor for archaeomagnetic dating and its particular potency for periods in which radiocarbon is not adequate for high resolution dating.

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The article presents results of residue analysis, based on Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) measurements, conducted on 13 ceramic storage jars unearthed in the Babylonian destruction layer (586 BCE) in Jerusalem. Five of the jars bear rosette stamp impressions on their handles, indicating that their content was related to the kingdom of Judah’s royal economy. The identification of the original contents remains is significant for the understanding of many aspects related to the nutrition, economy and international trade in the ancient Levant. The study shed light on the contents of the jars and the destruction process of the buildings in which they were found. The jars were used alternatively for storing wine and olive oil. The wine was flavored with vanilla. These results attest to the wine consumption habits of the Judahite elite and echo Jerusalem’s involvement in the trans-regional South Arabian trade of spices and other lucrative commodities on the eve of its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.

Among the painted pottery types in the Levant during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., the "East Greek" class is especially conspicuous and usually assumed to have been produced in Ionia. This pottery is the subject of a comprehensive research project, examining it from typological, analytical, and other perspectives. Our conclusion is that the "East Greek" class comprises in fact several subgroups from various other parts of the Mediterranean. Here we discuss one of these groups, including mainly hydriai, table amphoras, and jugs, which we suggest were produced on Crete, specifically in the central part of the island. These are the first Cretan ceramics of this period attested anywhere off the island, and they provide the first hint that maritime routes then linked Crete with various eastern Mediterranean regions. This pottery can perhaps be understood as a proxy for the exchange of a wider array of commodities, a possibility addressed in the concluding section of this article. Since the conventional wisdom is that Crete was largely disconnected from the rest of the Mediterranean in the Classical period, both commercially and culturally, this discovery has important implications for Cretan history and more generally for tracing ancient Mediterranean interconnections. It also adds to our understanding of the ceramic repertoire of fifth-and fourth-century B.C.E. Crete, which is still rather poorly known. 1 introduction This article is the first fruit of an extensive research program, the aim of which was to reexamine the origin of the so-called East Greek decorated 1 The project was funded mainly by Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant 570/09, which was awarded to Gilboa and Lehmann, and by ISF grants 209/14 and 237/14. Gilboa thanks the Goldhirsh-Yellin Foundation (Encino, Calif.) for their long-lasting support of Dor-related research. Parts of this study represent the results of Shalev's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, "'The Mighty Grain-Lands'-Demographic and Economic Aspects of 'Southern Phoenicia' Under the Achaemenid Regime" (University of Haifa), which was supported by the University of Haifa and by a Nathan Rotenstreich scholarship. We are grateful to Elisa Chiara Portale and Maria Antonietta Rizzo, who studied the Gortyn pottery and made the analyses possible. We thank the staff of the research reactor of the Reactor Institute Delft, Delft University of Technology, for their technical support; Gerwulf Schneider and Małgorzata Daszkiewicz for the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis; and Paula Waiman-Barak for assisting with studying the fabrics and producing the thin-sections and the photomicrographs. Paula Perlman first opened our eyes to the significance of our finds, and Ilan Sharon, codirector of the Tel Dor Excavation Project, and Susan Rebecca Martin provided continuous collaboration and support. We thank our reviewers-Mark Lawall, Antonis Kotsonas, and a third, anonymous reviewer for the AJA-for their truly insightful comments and relevant references. ayelet gilboa et al. 560 [aja 121 ish Museum...

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