Hensel/About Edom, 7. A Tale of Two Provinces

“A Tale of Two Provinces: Judah and Edom During the Persian Period” by Alexander Fantalkin and Oren Tal addresses the material evidence of the Persian-period provinces of Judah and Edom against the contemporary geopolitical conditions. Following the Egyptian rebellion of 404–400 BCE, southern Palestine underwent a major transformation as a result of becoming the southwestern frontier of the Persian Empire. Fantalkin and Tal offer a reconstruction of the political history and its social and economic manifestations that focuses on the inland regions of the inhabited land of Palestine. Sites, administrative centers, architectural remains, pottery, and epigraphic finds are used to reconstruct the period’s Zeitgeist.