ARCHEOLOGISTS NOW SAY PHILISTINES WEREN'T SO BAD AFTER ALL - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON— ''Philistine'' has long been a byword for a person lacking cultural values, spiritual enlightenment and intellectual interests. Nineteenth-century essayists ridiculed the English middle class as vulgar Philistines. Matthew Arnold, the poet and critic, suggested that those who invented the nickname meant ''a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the children of light.'' Arnold in turn considered Philistine ''people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich.''
Twentieth-century archeology has now come to the rescue of this beleaguered people, refurbishing their reputation and showing that the Philistines were, materially and culturally, an advanced society.
A leading authority on the Philistines, Trude Dothan of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, writes that their ''material culture, particularly the pottery and cult vessels, does not accord with the negative meaning of the term 'Philistine' as it is used today.'' The pottery, she says, ''demonstrates high artistic and esthetic abilities.''
Robert R. Stieglitz, chairman of the Department of Hebraic Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, has called the Philistines ''a great ancient civilization.'' Though scholars have not identified the language they spoke or found indisputable specimens of writing, Professor Stieglitz says he is sure the Philistines did write. Their culture, he said, was advanced and there is overwhelming evidence that writing was well known in the Aegean world from which the Philistines came.
It was biblical commentators who gave the Philistines a bad reputation; nothing else was known about the Philistines until 19th century scholars deciphered Egyptian references to them. Goliath, the giant slain by David, was a Philistine. Delilah, who coaxed Samson into revealing the secret of his strength, may have been one.
The Philistines occupied the southern coast of Palestine, the area between Gaza and what is now Tel Aviv, in about 1200 B.C. The name Palestine comes from a Greek translation of the Hebrew word for Philistines - p'lishtim. Palestine is thus literally the land of the Philistines. The precise origins of the Philistines, however, are unknown, though there are many tantalizing clues. The motifs on their pottery, their religion, the design of their ships and their military tactics all show affinities with those of ancient people who lived in the Aegean. The Philistines seem to have inherited much from the cultures of Greece and its islands, especially Crete, where the Minoans erected palaces starting around 2000 B.C.
Historic Truths Embedded in Myth
Professor Dothan's effort to identify the origin and homeland of the Philistines shows the types of evidence scholars today use to reconstruct events of more than 30 centuries ago. She has considered the accounts given in the Bible and in Greek myths, and has tried to trace the sources of words and place names. Professor Dothan has also had access to artifacts found in recent excavations -pottery, coffins, daggers and clay tablets found at 41 sites. By correlating the successive layers of history unearthed at the major sites, Professor Dothan has constructed a chronology of the Philistines from 1250 B.C. to 950 B.C.
Soon after they appeared in the eastern Mediterranean, the Philistines seem to have begun attacking Syria, Palestine and Egypt. They were repulsed from Egypt after fierce land and sea battles, depicted in stone carvings on the walls of an Egyptian temple at Thebes. The Philistines are shown wearing curious feathered headdresses, chest-protecting armor and short kilts with wide hems and tassels. The Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses III allowed the Philistines to settle on the southern coast of Palestine, then called Canaan. They became the archenemy of the Israelites, who, archeologists say, had entered Canaan from the east several generations earlier.
The Philistines were confined to southwestern Palestine until the second half of the 11th century B.C., when they expanded their influence east toward the Jordan River and north toward the Sea of Galilee. Philistine soldiers came into conflict with the Israelites, who were in the process of settling the land. After being defeated by King David early in the 10th century B.C., the Philistines steadily declined in importance. Their pottery, like the rest of their culture, seemed to lose its distinctive Aegean character as the Philistines were assimilated into the surrounding population.
According to biblical tradition, the Philistines came from the Isle of Caphtor, which many scholars identify as Crete. Yet, there is no archeological proof that the Philistines ever occupied the island. There is a traditional belief that Crete was the Philistine homeland. A mysterious clay disk was found at one of the Minoan palaces on Crete, Phaestos. The disk shows men in feathered headdresses much like the Philistines' headgear, but no one knows how it found its way to Phaestos. Mr.Stieglitz has also noted that in the second century A.D., Gaza, a Philistine city in Palestine, was sometimes called ''Minoa,'' after King Minos of Crete, and its coins bore the inscription ''Meino,'' referring to Minos.
How to interpret such bits of evidence is a puzzle. But unlike some of their predecessors, archeologists today pay close attention to mythical traditions. Said Mr. Stieglitz: ''Archeology tends to confirm that there is a historical kernel in myths. The more archeology we do, the more we find that myth is based on some historical event.''
