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BABESCH Byvanck-lezing 2014
BABESCH
Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology
Het bestuur van de Stichting BABESCH nodigt u graag uit voor
de 8ste Byvanck-lezing
door Prof. Dr. Lawrence Stager
“Rites of Spring in the Carthaginian Tophet”
Op dinsdag 25 november 2014 om 20:00 uur (zaal open om 19:30 uur)
in de tempelzaal van het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden
De avond wordt gemodereerd door Prof. Dr. Roald Docter.
De Byvanck-lezing, voor het eerst georganiseerd in 2007, heeft haar ontstaan te danken aan
het legaat van Lily Byvanck-Quarles van Uﬀord. Gedurende vele jaren was zij de drijvende
kracht achter BABESCH (voorheen Bulletin Antieke Beschaving). De naar haar genoemde
stichting stelt zich tot doel continuïteit te bieden aan haar inspanningen voor de Mediterrane
Archeologie en tevens een blijvende kwaliteit te garanderen van de jaarlijkse publicaties en
publieksgerichte activiteiten van de Stichting BABESCH.
De Byvanck-lezing wordt georganiseerd voor een breed publiek van belangstellenden binnen
het vakgebied.
VOOR MEER INFORMATIE BEZOEK ONZE WEBSITE WWW.BABESCH.ORG
Prof. Dr. Lawrence Stager
“Rites of Spring in the Carthaginian Tophet”
Between 1976-1979, the ASOR Punic Project unearthed 445 cinerary urns in the cemetery
(Tophet) of Carthage. Most of the burnt remains were identifiable as infants, but in about 25%
of the urns also lambs and a few partridges appeared to be present. Recent analysis reveals that
specifically spring lambs of 1-3 months old were burnt as oﬀerings, on the same pyre as human
infants of the same age. In order to understand the significance of this finding, Lawrence Stager
combines archaeological and epigraphic evidence from the Tophet with written historical sources
into a new hypothesis. Ancient Phoenicia (Canaan) and Syria knew a great Spring Festival that,
like Hebrew Passover, coincided with spring lambs and that the latter were included in the oﬀerings of First Fruits, which celebrated the early shoots of barley in March-April. In the Bible this
ancient Canaanite agricultural and fertility festival historicized as the biblical Exodus Story and
Passover. e 2nd century AD Roman Lucian wrote in his treatise ‘On the Syrian Goddess’k about
the great New Year’s festival at Hierapolis in Syria, known as the Torch or Fire Festival, where live
sheep, goats, and birds were tied to tree trunks in the courtyard of the temple and set ablaze as a
great holocaust oﬀering. Also during this first fruit celebration children were sacrificed.
Lawrence Stager (1943) started his scholarly career in 1965 as a graduate from Harvard College
in Archaeology and History of the Ancient Near East, earning his PhD in 1975. After teaching
Syro-Palestinian Archaeology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago for over a
decade, he returned to Harvard in 1985 as Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel and
Director of the Semitic Museum. In 2012 Stager retired after 40 years of teaching and serving
as primary director of over fifty doctoral students and their dissertations. His field research
and writing have focused on Canaanites, Phoenicians, Philistines, and Israelites. From 19751980 he directed the Punic Project at Carthage, with excavations at the Commercial Port and
in the Tophet. From 1985 up to the present, he has been directing (recently with Daniel Master) the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, one of the largest and lengthiest excavations programmes in Israel. Among his popular works is the award-winning Life in Biblical Israel (2002;
co-authored with Philip King) and Ashkelon Discovered: from Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Muslims (1991). His volume Ashkelon 3: e Seventh Century B.C. (2011) won the
Levi-Sala Book Prize. A new book, Ashkelon: Seaport of the Canaanites and the Philistines, is
due to be published next year. In 2008 Lawrence Stager was honored with a Festschrift (D.
Schloen ed., Exploring the Longue Durée), with a rich array of essays reflecting the range of
Stager’s intellectual interests.
De Byvanck-lezing wordt u aangeboden door de stichting BABESCH en is georganiseerd in
samenwerking met het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.
‘Carthago’ – een unieke tentoonstelling in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden over de archeologische rijkdom en de roemrijke geschiedenis van Carthago. 27 november 2014 t/m 10 mei
2015. www.rmo.nl/carthago
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Taﬀehzaal), Rapenburg 28, 2311 EW Leiden, www.rmo.nl
Het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is gesitueerd in het historisch centrum van Leiden, op 10
minuten wandelafstand van het station Leiden Centraal. De beste parkeergelegenheid biedt
parkeerterrein Haagweg. Van daaruit rijden er shuttlebusjes naar het museum.
Het aantal zitplaatsen in de Tempelzaal is 200. Aanmelding vóór 18 november:
[email protected]

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