Biblical Archaeology Review

The name of Uriah the Hittite (who sold Abraham the Machpelah in Hebron in Genesis 23) may conceal a Hurrian name behind a seemingly Semitic form. See M. Vieyra, Revue Hittite et Asianique 35 (1933), pp. 113 ff. The element ewri (“lord” in Hurrian) appears in the root of the name.

For clear evidence of this custom see Aharon Kempinski and S. Kosak, Hittite Metal “Inventories;” Tel Aviv, 4, 1977, p. 87.

The krater was published by Joseph A. Callaway and R.E. Cooley, “A Salvage Excavation at Raddana in Bireh,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 201, 1971, pp. 15–19.

For the publication of the tomb from Kfar Yehoshua, see A. Droks, “A Hittite Burial near Kfar Yehoshua,” Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society XXX (1966), pp. 213–220. The Azor burials were published by Moshe Dothan, Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land s.v. Azor.

Concerning the jar-burials among the Hittites, see, e.g. M. J. Melink, A Hittite Cemetery at Gordion Philadelphia 1954. This form of burial should not be confused with infant or child burial in jars (single jars not connected). This form of infant burial was used in Palestine throughout the Bronze Age.

The idea of the emigration of Hittite groups after the destruction of the Empire has been formulated along general lines by Benjamin Maisler (Mazar), Untersuchungen zur alten Geschichte und Ethnographie Syriens und Palastinas, Giessen 1930.

The mountainous portions of Canaan were at that time held by the Israelite tribes and the process of settlement there was already at its height. In the Shephelah and in the valleys, the refugees from the north could still find a place to settle among the urban population. A portion of the Canaanite cities in which the refugees settled afterwards came under Philistine control.

And see H. Otten, Hethitische Totenrituale, Berlin 1958.

“The Plague Prayers” were translated by Albrecht Goetze, Kleinasiatische Forschungen, I, 1929, pp. 209–213; idem Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 394–395.