Prof. Angelika Berlejung, co-director of the RIAB Minerva Center, conducted an excellent workshop on masks at Bar-Ilan University, on Wednesday, April 25th in the RIAB Minerva Center and Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project lab.
In the workshop, Prof. Berlejung gave to presentations: 1) On masks (or the lack thereof) in the biblical texts; 2) An overall survey of masks in the early southern Levant.
These presentations were based on the recent volume that Angelika recently published: Berlejung, A., and Filitz, J. E., eds. 018. The Physicality of the Other: Masks from the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 27. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
In addition, a small exhibition of masks was set up in the lab for the workshop, including three replicas of masks from the Israel Museum (thanks to Dr. Eran Arieh for arranging this) – one from LB Hazor and two from Iron Age Achziv; an LB mask from Tel Burna (thanks to Itzik Shai) and an LB mask from Tell es-Safi/Gath.
The workshop was extremely interesting and generated some fascinating discussions.
Here are some pictures of the workshop.