85 Shattered Maceheads at Early Bronze Age Tel Bet Yerah Introduction Te mace, ofen viewed as the frst weapon intend- ed solely for human combat, appeared in western Asia during the Neolithic period (in the seventh millennium BCE) and reached its widest distribu- tion during the fourth and third millennia BCE. 1 Maces and maceheads appear to have acquired a largely symbolic role from an early stage in their history, as suggested by the widespread use of pre- cious metal (arsenical copper) and exotic stone for macehead manufacture in the late ffh mil- lennium BCE (the south Levantine Chalcolithic period): these artefacts, which in some cases were never hafed, were clearly not used in battle. In the Early Bronze Age, spheroid, barrel-shaped and piriform maceheads were made of hard and heavy limestone or, rarely, calcite, with bores that could accommodate only thin shafs, render- ing the maces virtually useless in combat; this suggests that Early Bronze Age maces, too, were largely symbols of power and of formally sanc- tioned violence. 2 Te Early Bronze (EB) Age of the southern Levant, ca. 3700–2500/2450 BCE, is usually sub- divided into three subperiods. 3 EB I is character- ised by small and large villages practicing a Medi- terranean economy; fortifcations frst appeared at the end of the period (ca. 3400–3100/3000 BCE). In EB II (ca. 3100–2850 BCE), a major restructuring of the political economy led to the emergence of a broad network of fortifed towns and villages exhibiting a high degree of cultural uniformity and little evidence of administration or social stratifcation in the form of staple or wealth fnance, prestige items, craf specialisa- tion, or large private buildings. During the EB III (ca. 2850–2500/2450 BCE), prestige items be- came more common and palatial structures or 1 Rosenberg 2010; Sebbane 2009; Yadin 1963. 2 Rosenberg 2010. 3 Miroschedji 2014; Regev et al. 2012. Hai Ashkenazi and Raphael Greenberg Shattered Maceheads at Early Bronze Age Tel Bet Yerah: Symbolic Power and Destruction, but Whose? mansions were built in several fortifed centers. At the same time, large parts of the countryside – including many fortifed settlements of the EB II – were depopulated. It is at the transition to EB III that we frst see evidence for the arrival of a dis- tinct, non-local material cultural assemblage at sites of the northern Jordan Valley, which has been termed ‘Khirbet Kerak’ afer the type-site of Khirbet el-Kerak (Tel Bet Yerah) where it was frst identifed. Tis material culture consists of highly burnished black and red pottery (Khirbet Kerak Ware), clay andirons, a distinct lithic technology, symbolic objects and non-local ground-stone artefacts. Building technology includes wattle and daub (unlike the local dried mudbrick construc- tion) and polished and fired clay furnishings. Tis material culture is attributed to migrant settlers, identifed as mobile, non-urban groups associated with the Kura-Araxes/Early Transcausian Culture of South-Eastern Anatolia. 4 Khirbet el-Kerak/Tel Bet Yerah, a large mound located on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee (Fig. 1), was settled throughout the Early Bronze Age. Excavations at the site, conducted since the 1930s, uncovered a large fourth millennium village succeeded by a fortifed town that went through several phases of construction and de- cline in its six centuries of existence. Te urban- izing phase of the EB II, radiocarbon-dated to ca. 3100–2900 BCE, is marked by the emergence of orthogonal street-grids in parts of the site and collective construction eforts, suggesting that some sort of political organization existed, per- haps composed of heads of families or of larger kinship groups. Alongside the evidence for shared concepts of order, the material culture of this phase shows considerable uniformity – as in other sites of the period. Te EB II–III transition – like that of other sites – sees greater elite articulation through material markers as well as a reduction in collective activities, e.g., a shif from a central 4 Greenberg/Shimelmitz/Iserlis 2014.