Results of the 2001 Kerak Plateau Early Bronze Age Survey / Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi El-Hol

The first piece reports on assessments of eight sites in Jordan with substantial Early Bronze Age occupation, looking at architectural features and the nature of preservation. Most of the sites are in very poor condition, terraced and plowed extensively or damaged by later construction. The second piece is subtitled New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt, the wadi being about halfway between Luxor and Hou. Now a deserted wasteland, the area once teemed with economic and military activity. All the contributors of both are from US universities. There is no index. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

An anthropological archaeologist, Meredith S. Chesson focuses on life in early walled towns in the southern Levant (Israel, Palestine, and Jordan) during the Early Bronze Age. Chesson has directed or participated in archaeological projects in Jordan, Canada, United States, Cyprus, Israel, and Italy. Her edited volume Social Memory, Identity and Death presents ethnographic and archaeological studies of cultural memory and mortuary practices. Chesson currently works as publication co-editor on final reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain's excavations at Bab edh-Dhra`, Feifa, Numeira, and Khirbet Khanazir. John Coleman Darnell is Professor & Chair of Egyptology and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Yale University. Darnell's interests include Egyptian religion, cryptography, the scripts and texts of Graeco-Roman Egypt, and the archaeological and epigraphic remains of ancient activity in the Egyptian Western Desert. The latter work has led him to his current interest in state formation, the use of rock inscriptions in the creation of "ordered" space, and the economic status of the oases and the desert regions, particularly from the late Old Kingdom through the Third Intermediate Period. In addition to his teaching and research, Darnell has gained considerable experience in the field in Egypt.