The Constructed Desert
A Sacred Cultural Landscape at Har Tzuriaz, Negev, Israel
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6043853 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lior Schwimer (0009-0000-0677-745X, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, corresponding author), Roy Galili (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Naomi Porat (0000-0002-5900-2460, Geological Survey of Israel), Guy Bar-Oz (0000-0002-1009-5619, University of Haifa), Dani Nadel (0000-0001-7736-1830, University of Haifa), Steven A Rosen (0000-0003-2792-8610, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 271-289 |
| Publication date | 2024-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0959774323000276 |
| OpenAlex | W4388270699 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 54 |
Past and present cultures perceive their natural landscape as an integral and vital component of their complex worlds, while particular landscape features and associated monuments built in selected locales become sacred and revered through stories, legends and rituals embedded in mundane and ceremonial events. The hyper-arid Har Tzuriaz area in the southern Negev, Israel, offers a case study of culture-geographic continuities over a chronologically cumulative archaeological sequence. The large set of well-preserved structures located adjacent to water sources, a massive escarpment and a major desert crossroads includes campsites, cult sites, rock-art sites, cairn fields and one desert kite (a large game trap). Cultural continuities and change can be traced from the sixth millennium bce through recent times, reflecting a dynamic system of meanings and interpretations of both the natural and the built landscape within one particular sacred area in the desert. These phenomena are exemplified in archaeological analyses of an open-air shrine, burial cairns, an isolated desert kite and a precise engraving of that kite dated 5000 years later, all in the general context of a dense concentration of surveyed sites
Ancient history · Archaeology · Cult · Cultural landscape · Escarpment · Geography · Natural landscape · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Historical Studies · History
Phenomenological Approaches in Landscape Archaeology
Variability within consistency
Early pleistocene lake deposits and Lower Paleolithic finds in Nahal (wadi) Zihor, Southern Negev desert, Israel
The Arms of the Dibouka
Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East
General patterns of niche construction and the management of ‘wild’ plant and animal resources by small-scale pre-industrial societies
Desert kites in the Negev desert and northeast Sinai
Archaeology as Human Ecology
Cultural Keystone Places
Chronology of the Jafr Prehistory and Protohistory
Investigations at Ramat Saharonim
Early Mosques in the Negev Highlands
Intermediate Bronze Age Crescent-Headed Figures in the Negev Highlands
Cairn Burials and Cairn Fields in the Negev
Niche Construction Theory in Archaeology
New perspectives on the use of kites in mass-kills of Levantine gazelle
Ramparts and walls
Modifying landscapes and mass kills
How geoarchaeology and landscape archaeology contribute to niche construction theory (NCT)
Following the herds? A new distribution of hunting kites in Southwest Asia
Ancient to recent-past runoff harvesting agriculture in the hyper-arid Arava Valley
Inscribed landscapes in the Black Desert
Reflections on the linguistic map of pre‐Islamic Arabia
Out of the harra
Protohistoric Developments of Religion and Cult in the Negev Desert
The “Works of the Old Men” in Arabia
Dating the Ramat Saharonim Late Neolithic desert cult site
Monumentality, Social Memory, and Territoriality in Neolithic–Chalcolithic Northwestern Arabia
Worldwide large-scale trapping and hunting of ungulates in past societies
Handbook of Landscape Archaeology
The Use of Desert Kites as Hunting Mega-Traps
From foraging to herding in the Negev and Sinai
The South-Eastern Jordan’s Chalcolithic – Early Bronze Age Pastoral Nomadic Complex
Rock Art in Eastern Jordan
Animals as Agents
From Standing Stones to Open Mosques in the Negev Desert
Mass Hunting Game Traps in the Southern Levant
The Rock Art of the Negev Desert
Walls, ramps and pits
A rock art tradition of life-sized, naturalistic engravings of camels in Northern Arabia
Hunting and Gender as Reflected in the Central Negev Rock Art, Israel
A phenomenology of landscape
Cultural Keystone Places and the Chumash Landscapes of Kumqaq', Point Conception, California
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |