1 - The archeology of Hellenistic Palestine

Summary

In Palestine, as in the whole Near East, it was not that the curtain rose abruptly on the new world of Hellenism at the time of Alexander's expedition. The Macedonian soldiers only overturned barriers which were already offering only feeble resistance to the interpenetration of the Greek and Jewish worlds. In some respects there was in the cultural life of Israel no break in continuity between the Persian period and the Hellenistic age. It was just that what previously was only an incipient influence was to become a major force.

From this time on the new ways of life introduced by the Greeks broke upon the Orient. In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace – almost a whole century – which followed the advent of the Ptolemies, the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and particularly thanks to the development of commerce, Hellenism infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees.

From an archeological point of view, the penetration of Hellenism was evident everywhere. First in military installations: the immense superiority of Greco-Macedonian martial techniques necessitated the perfecting and extension of the defensive system. Similarly in dwelling places: the settlement of Greek colonists, who brought with them their standards of comfort and the refined tastes of ruling classes who had known the ostentation of Alexandria and the oriental capitals, was at the root of the development of domestic architecture and of the expansion of decorative refinements. The latter used artistic themes of the Hellenistic koinē, like those to be found on funerary monuments.