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This congress volume of the Minerva Center for the Relations between Israel and Aram in Biblical Times combines theoretical approaches to historical research on autonomy or independence in ancient cultures and then presents articles which study the subject using Aram and Israel in antiquity as examples. These articles show clearly how strongly Syria and Palestine were linked to one another and how they constituted one single cultural region which was connected by its economy, politics, language, religion, and culture.

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Berlejung, Angelika
is a professor for Old Testament Studies at the University of Leipzig in Germany, and professor extraordinaire for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

Maeir, Aren M.
is a professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University.

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