American Historians of Islamic Art (NAHIA), an organization affiliated with MESA. All of the papers presented at the annual MESA meeting are listed in the Newsletter's fall issue; those papers available for purchase are listed in its winter issue. MESA does not sponsor either archaeological excavations or publications.
Jere L. Bacharach
MIDIAN. The extreme northwestern corner of tlie Arabian Peninsula, immediately east of the Gulf of 'Aqaba, was associated by the classical and medieval Arab geographers with the place name Madian or Madiama. It is generally agreed that these preserve the name of Midian, tire son of Abraham and Keturah and the ancestor of the Ivlidianites of the Plebrew Bible. It was to Midian tliat Moses fled after murdering an Egyptian overseer, and it was Zipporah, tlie daughter of a Midianite shepherd and (possibly) priest, variously named Jetliro, Reuel, or Hobab, whom he subsequently married (Ex. 2-4,18; Nm. 25, 31). According to one tradition {Nm. 10:29-32), Jethro helped guide the Israelites through tlte desert after their exodus from Egypt. The good relationship initially enjoyed by the two peoples is illustrated by the fact that Moses invited the Midianites to join in the journey to the Promised Land—an offer which was, however, declined. Relations soon deteriorated and, following an incident at Ba'al-Peor in Moab, when an Israelite zealot killed some Midianite princes apparently involved in a fertility rite, the two groups became implacable foes. In Judges 6-8 an account is given of an unsuccessful attack by Midianite raiders on the Israelite tribes in northern Canaan led by Gideon, followed by further military action in Transjordan. These events are conventionally dated to the eleventh century bce. The last mention of the Midianites as a people probably refers to an episode a few decades later, when they are said to have been defeated by the Idng of Edom {Gn. 36:35). After this, the name occurs in tlie Hebrew Bible only as a geographical expression; it does not appear, either as a gentilic or a locality, in any other ancient texts prior to the classical period.
The Midianites are portrayed in these traditions as nomadic sheep and camel herders, caravaneers, and raiders, ranging over a wide territory to the soutli and east of Canaan. There is no reason to suppose that this portrayal is not essentially correct, at least in part. However, recent archaeological survey in northwestern Arabia—the heartland of Midian—has indicated that tliis is not the whole story. There also existed, during the final centuries of the second millennium bce, sedentary communities that should, in all probability, be included among tlte Midianites. The evidence lies in the discovery at a number of sites of a distinctive type of painted pottery, stylistically related to certain types of Late Bronze Age pottery of the eastern Mediterranean region. The pottery may ultimately be derived from the Mycenaean pottery of tlie Aegean, by way of Canaan or Egypt. At the site of Qurayyah a number of Idlns used in the manufacture of this pottery have been identified. [See Qurayyah.] There is also strong evidence at this site of fortification walls and an irrigated field system contemporary with the pottery. Identical pottery has been excavated at the copper mining and smelting installations at Timna', in the southern Wadi ‘Arabah nortli of modern Eilat in Israel. That pottery is dated by inscribed Egyptian objects to the nineteenth dynasty (thirteenth-twelftli centuries bce)—precisely the time to which most authorities ascribe the Hebrew traditions mentioned above. [5ee Timna' (Negev).] There can be no doubt that the Egyptians were engaged, presumably in a controlling capacity, in the 'Arabah mines and that tliey employed workers from Qurayyah and perhaps from elsewhere in Arabia. There is no evidence for metallurgical activities at Qurayyah itself, however, or at Tayma’, where sherds of the same pottery have also been found, Tayma’.] This suggests that other activities, perhaps the incense trade with Soutltwest Arabia, played a part in Midian’s economy. The field system at Qurayyah indicates that agriculture was also economically important.
It has been suggested that the development of what has been termed oasis urbanism in Midian at this time was largely the result of Egyptian involvement in tlte economy of the region. This interpretation is controversial, primarily because of the complete lack of evidence in Egyptian texts for such involvement, other titan at Timna'. For the Egyptians, tlte inhabitants of the arid regions of Sinai, the Hijaz, and Transjordan seem to have been subsumed under the term shasu and depicted as pastoralists and raiders, much as the Midianites are depicted in the Hebrew Bible. In the present state of research, all further attempts to reconstruct the history of Midian must remain speculative.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mendenhall, George E. The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition. Baltimore, 1973. Chapter 6, “The ‘Sea Peoples’ in Palestine,” contains a stimulating, though very controversial, discussion of lire Midianites, suggesting an Anatolian origin.
Parr, Peter J., et al. “Preliminary Survey in North West Arabia, 1968.” Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London 8-g (1970): 219-241, pis. 21-42. The first account of the archaeological discoveries which began to challenge the conventional view of the history of Midian.
Parr, Peter J. “Pottery of tlie Late Second Millennium B. C. fromNorth West Arabia and Its Historical Implications.” In Araby the Blest: Studies in Arabian Archaeology, edited by Daniel T. Potts, pp. 72-89. Copenhagen, 1988. Succinct account and possible interpretation of tlie recent archaeological discoveries, witli full references.
Sawyer, John F. A., and David J. A. Clines, eds. Midian, Moab, and Edom: The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia. Sheffield, 1983. Conference papers; see in particular the essays by E. J. Payne (“The Midianite Arc”), E. Axel Knauf (“Midianites and Ishmaelites”), and Beno Rothenberg and Jonathan Glass (“The Midianite Pottery”).
Peter J. Parr
MILETUS, the southernmost settlement of Ionia, originally situated on the coast with four harbors but now, as a result of the silting of the Maeander River, in the middle of a plain 3 km (5 mi.) from tlte sea (37°3o' N, 27°!8' E). A prominent hill several miles to the west of the present theater was, in antiquity, tlte island of Lade, where tlie Persian fleet destroyed the Ionian navy in 494 bce
The site has a long and complex history. Surveys around Miletus conducted under the direction of Volkmar von Graeve have located more than one hundred sites that date from the Neolithic to Byzantine periods. Minoan settlement of the area may date to the sixteenth century BCE, perhaps as part of their maritime expansion throughout the Mediterranean. A city wall and some houses found near the theater date to the Mycenaean period (c. 1400 bce) and indicate that displacement of tire Minoan settlement roughly coincided with tire establishment of Mycenaean power on the island of Crete, formerly tire center of Minoan power. E. O. Forrer first suggested that Ahhijawa in Hittite texts was equated with the Mycenaean Greeks and that Millawanda, also mentioned in the texts, was Miletus. That interpretation has been disputed. James G. Macqueen, for example, argues that Millawanda lay on the shores of the Sea of Marmara in northwest Anatolia (1986, pp. 40-41). The debate continues.
According to literary sources, Miletus (Ionic), or Milatos (Doric), was also Itnown as Pituousa and Anactoria (Her-odotos 1.17-20, 141; 6.6; Arrian, Anabasis 1.18). In the twelfth century CE, tire site was called Balat (from tire Greek Palatia) because the inhabitants, then residing upon the completely covered Roman theater, thought they were over a palace.
Scientific excavation of the site (primarily by German archaeologists) began in 1899 under the direction of Theodor Wiegand but were discontinued after the start of World War I. Carl Weickert’s excavations, begun in 1938, were halted during World War II. More recently, excavations have been conducted by Gerhard Kleiner, Wolfgang Muller-Wiener, and Volkmar von Graeve. As part of tltis project, the prehistoric levels are being investigated under the direction of W. D. Niemeier.
Between the ninth and sixth centuries bce, the city established numerous colonies (ninety, according to literary sources) in lands around the Black Sea (notably Olbia, Sinope, Panticapeion, and Amisos) and around the Mediterranean Sea. At the time, it was tLe most powerful city in the Ionian world. The Black Sea colonies in particular provided large supplies of needed wheat. Miletus also gave rise to a number of famous philosophers and scientists, including Anaximander, Thales, Anaximenes, Aspasia, and later, Isodoros, tire builder of the magnificent Hagia Sophia in Istanbul/Constantinople. [5ee Constantinople.] In addition, according to Greek tradition, Hippodamos, who reconstructed Miletus and other cities after their destruction by the Persians, created a city plan that connected streets at right angles (the Hippodamian plan).
The Milesian alphabet served as tire basis for tlie unification of tire Greek states after it was adopted by Athens in the fifth century bce. Some of the earliest coins were minted at Miletus, including an electrum coin with a lion on one side and three ornamental notches on the other. After the city was demolished by the Persians in 494 bce, its principal leaders were removed to the mouth of tire Tigris River and the rest of tire populace enslaved. From that point onward, the city had litde influence in the region until the Hellenistic period, when it became an important commercial center. It then had close relationships with tire various Hellenistic kings who ruled after the death of Alexander. It became a part of the Roman province of Asia in 129 bce
The religious center of the town was Delphinion, where Apollo was worshipped. Originally established in tire archaic period, the current temenos was enclosed on three of its sides by stoas in the Hellenistic period and furtlrer expanded in the Roman period. Other buildings from the Hellenistic period include a gymnasium whose palaestra aird propylon have been located. The propylon that leads to the gymnasium is similar to ones encountered at Pergamon and Priene and may have been built as a result of the influence of King Eumenes II of Pergamon. [See Pergamon; Priene.] A bou-leuterion, also from the Hellenistic period, contains a colonnaded courtyard, an auditorium, and a propylon; it seated approximately fifteen hundred people. An inscription associated with the bouleuterion indicates that it was con-sU'ucted under file sponsorship of two Milesian brothers, Timarchos and Herakleides, at the behest of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
An agora in the southern part of the city has been partially excavated and is possibly the largest ever found in the Greek world (about 33,000 sq m). Founded during the Hellenistic period, the stoa on its east had thirty-nine pairs of shops back to back and the one on its south had nineteen. A large stadium was apparently erected during this period, as it is aligned witli the bouleuterion and is at right angles to both the soutli and north agoras. Its gateway is Hellenistic in design.
World History
