Talk:Usha (ancient city)

Habitation periods?

So does this settlement figure in the historical record before or after the 2nd century? Is Usha inhabited today? (If so, what is the modern name?) -- llywrch (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

@Llywrch: it only took 14 years :)) Arminden (talk) 15:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The JPost article I used now in the article for this purpose is only reliable with caveats, based on a 2019 press release and IAA conference where every journalist present got some details differently from his colleagues, no centuries were offered ("18,000 years ago", "15,000 years ago", where things don't add up 100%), so what can I say, take it with a massive pinch of salt. For instance: what was there in the late 18th c., a set of agricultural watchtowers (Hebrew "shomrah/shomera") of the land owners from Shefar Amr, of a type known since biblical times and used until today, for staying close to the fields or orchards during harvest time and keeping the tools & produce safe before moving it to the village; or a new village altogether? Does Jacotin have it? 'Cause none of the 19th-century "usual suspects" does, or else Huldra would have quoted all those daftars and household counts, man by man & cabbage by cabbage. N.B.: the 2014 dig report speaks of continuous "habitation" (that's not yet a settlement; nomadic campsites & isolated farms are also "habitation") from the Roman to the Ottoman period. Ouch. Either he forgot the Mandate to 1948 village, or he means: Roman to maybe Early Ottoman, gap, and later Ottoman, or... Endless and useless suppositions around carelessly put together dig reports. He also mentions a building, not just pottery, from the Persian period (6th-4th c.!), and Hellenistic pottery, two periods nobody else mentions, not even himself in the "continuously inhabited" bit. Go figure. But that's the type of sources I could find. No secondary literature online. Negev & Gibson doesn't even mention Usha. I thought the user might be better off having this than having nothing; maybe I was wrong.

Here a shomrah (why do they like to write it shomera?):

Agricultural watchtower ("shomera") near Jerusalem

Arminden (talk) 02:45, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Move suggestion

Ogress, Davidbena, Arminden, Greyshark09, Onceinawhile Following Zero0000's comment in a reply to my move suggestion at Usha, Israel I'm suggesting that Usha (city) be moved to Usha (ancient city). If accepted the disambiguation page Usha will need editing.

Definitely agree. If no one here disagrees, I'll make the move now.Davidbena (talk) 22:08, 24 January 2024 (UTC

 Done

Joshua's Hosah: did anyone connect the two?

@Huldra, Zero0000, Davidbena, and Tombah: hi everyone. Hawsha article mixed together Hosah and Usha in one common paragraph, giving several refs for the mix. None of those I could open mentions Hosah, just Talmudic Usha. The only one left is... "All that remains", W. Khalidi, whose book I cannot access online beyond the snippet option, and that has zero (0) hits for Hosah.

Either there is a source for it, or it must be thrown out, as a) Hosah is further north in anyone's analysis, and there are 2 candidates near Tyre; and b) there is no mention of pre-Roman findings here anyway. So a non-topic. It would be of very minor interest if any old source (mis)identified this site with Hosah, but it wouldn't deserve a full section. So I suggest to remove the whole topic soon if no one answers - both here and at Hawsha. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: sorry, didn't scroll back far enough. Arminden (talk) 20:37, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@Arminden: Please don't add hyperlinks to the outside world in the text itself. Use a footnote or ref. Zero^talk 00:48, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I know the rules, but A) it's a paragraph likely to be removed, and B) it's my own research, absolutely user-friendly in purpose and presentation (Wikilinks aren't normally presented as "here"; hard to be misled), and I see no reason to let ppl redo my Ggl search by themselves each one for himself (or not at all, and remain clueless about these sites). On such a page where I had to redo and copy-edit large parts of the material and still have to leave it in a very poor state, with tons of borderline sources mixed together, I do allow myself a few improvisations, and in good conscience. Whatever. Arminden (talk) 02:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

So move it here. Articles are not work spaces for original research, that is what talk pages are for. Zero^talk 06:52, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Since I haven't researched the matter, I am unable to render an opinion if a connection can be made between the archaeological site of Usha and the biblical town of Hosah mentioned in Joshua 19:29.Davidbena (talk) 02:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Arminden: Like Davidbena, I have not researched this; what is more: I have presently no time to do any research; I am on a wiki break. See you all in a few months, Huldra (talk) 23:04, 13 February 2024 (UTC)