© University of Haifa, Eric Cline, George Washington UniversityBlue Greek mosaic fragment with wing, perhaps from a griffon figure, on upper half.
At the American Schools of Oriental Research meeting in New Orleans, Eric Cline of George Washington (D.C.) University and Assf Yasur-Landau of Israel's University of Haifa report the intriguing results this year from Tel Kabri, a vanquished Canaanite palace more than 3,500 years old.
"Canaanite excavations always find art that recalls the Mesopotamian culture dominant then," Cline says. "But not this palace, these people were looking to Greece."
The Canaanites were the inhabitants of modern-day Israel at the time and Tel Kabri was one of their leading towns near the Mediterranean Coast. The site near the town of Nahariya is one of the few Bronze Age palaces in the region that wasn't built over, providing a snapshot of the time it was overcome, shown by collapsed rooms dating around 1550 B.C. The Bronze Age palace, from roughly the time of the Biblical figure of Abraham, likely stood for five centuries before its abandonment.
Over the summer, a team led by Yasur-Landau and Cline excavated the site, expecting to find remains of Babylonian or similar sculpture, as seen in other Canaanite sites. "Instead we find pieces, like jigsaw puzzles pieces of blue frescoes," Yasur-Landau says. Throughout the palace, they found bits of blue frescoes made in a style then popular with Aegean cultures, on Crete and the island of Santorini.
"Tel-Kabri made a conscious decision to associate with these foreigners and their art, perhaps as a way of standing above the rest of the crowd then," Cline says, noting none of the other artifacts or building styles from the site look Aegean. "It looks like they were just early to join Club Méditerranée (Club Med)," jokes Yasur-Landau.
the god of the chosen crew may have decided a military adventure in Canaa because it is found of art... Like the US of A looting Irak.