JERUSALEM REPORT 8 - 10 DECEMBER 2008
In England you may or may not have heard of the 'new' pyramid recently discovered at Saqqara in Egypt. This was announced by the ever-present Chief of Egyptian Antiquities, Zehi Hawass, in November. It was found next to the pyramid of Pharaoh Teti (c.2345-2333 BCE) and those of his two wives, which were discovered some years ago, and is thought to be that of his mother, Queen Shesheshet. The find is basically a 5-m high stump that was the base of a pyramid three times as high. It was buried under 25 m of sand and the fact that it was found with pieces of the original white limestone casing alongside suggested that it would have been a royal pyramid. The Queen mother always played a strong role in the kingdom and Queen Shesheshet is thought to have helped to establish her son as the founder of the 6th Dynasty of Egypt.
Last month, Zachi Zweig of the IAA announced some finds that he had made in digging into the survey records left by R.W.Hamilton of the British Mandate Antiquities Authority.in the 1930s. After earthquakes in 1927 and 1937, Hamilton had worked with the Waqf Islamic Authority in restoring damage to the El Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount (Haram es-Sharif). He found a Byzantine mosaic floor and under that a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) from the Second Temple period. The mosaic is similar to one at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and Zweig is of the opinion that it is of a public building, even a church, that stood on the Temple Mount, though there is no literary record of that. Zweig and Gabriel Barkay have uncovered over the last few years several pieces of white marble church chancel screen in the rubble from the Mount that they have been systematically sifting, which may have belonged to such a church. The details of the mikveh were not published by Hamilton in his official report but were filed in his records for the British Antiquities Authority. Barkay is reported as saying this find, even if not a church but some other public building, completely alters our picture of the Temple Mount during the Byzantine period, and the presence of a mikveh raises further unsolved questions..The Ehud Netzer saga of Herodion continues. In further excavation at the site of the presumed tomb of Herod, on the slopes of Herodion, Netzer recently announced that he had found remains of two further sarcophagi, that he said would have been buried with the previously announced more lavish pink-stone one, in a two-storey mausoleum 25m. high. It is presumed that these additional sarcophagi were of members of Herod's family. Who they were and whether they died a natural death or were murdered cannot be ascertained, as they were found empty and shattered. The continuing excavations have also uncovered a 'small' theatre (seating an audience of about 700) just below and to the west of the mausoleum. The theatre had remarkable wall paintings, with some of the original figures and colours intact, and plaster mouldings dated to about 15-10 BCE (Herod died in 4 BCE). It is not clear if the theatre was part of the original Herodion complex, or partly destroyed to make way for it.
A large excavation by the IAA has been progressing on the Givati car park site opposite the City of David visitor's centre in Jerusalem, under the direction of Doron Ben-Ami. There a discovery has been made of an ornate luxurious jewelled earring of gold set with pearls. The jewel was found within a Byzantine structure but is thought to have been made in the Roman period, several hundred years earlier, and perhaps preserved as a family heirloom. Jewelry from the Roman period is very rare in Jerusalem, thanks to the Roman and later destructions, but the excavators expect to make further discoveries of elite items from the period at this site of a presumed palace. The earring is of a late Roman model found elsewhere in Europe and similar in manufacture to ones known from Egypt.
Finally, the Tomb Raiders. At Hilazon Tachtit (literally, 'Lower Snail') in the Western Galilee near Carmiel, Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University and her team have uncovered a strange tomb that they consider to have been that of a Natufian witch, of 12,000 years ago. The tomb contained a large number of strange grave goods, including 50 tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard, the wing-tip of a golden eagle, the tail of a cow, two marten skulls, the foreleg of a wild boar and a human foot. The unusual relics point to the grave of a she-shaman, who was in touch with the spirits of nature and animals. It is the first time such a burial has been found in this area. The grave was oval-shaped and the body was laid on its side, resting against the wall of the tomb, as the witch was petite and had a decided spinal deformity that would have made her limp. Her age was about 45 years at death. The remains were covered with ten large stones, probably to protect the body from ravaging animals. Another less generous theory is that the community laid the heavy stones on the body to prevent the powerful witch-doctor from ever rising again.Stephen Rosenberg,
Albright Institute, Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM REPORT 7 - 17 NOVEMBER 2008
Immediately after sending off Report no.6, a number of important finds were announced, particularly at the Seminar on 28th October at the Hebrew University, so here goes.
Eilat Mazar continues to make new discoveries at the City of David site. The latest is an underground water tunnel (partly plastered) that ran under the building, which she calls The Large Stone Structure, which appears to have fed a nearby pool. It debouched onto the hillside and was deliberately blocked (and still is) at a later date. From pottery and two broken lamps, Mazar dates it to the Early Iron Age, and speculated that it may have served to help Joab, David's general, to penetrate into and conquer Jebus, pre-Israelite Jerusalem, by way of the 'tzinnor' (2 Sam.5:8), but that is not yet by any means established. At a later date the tunnel may have served as an escape route for those fleeing from the Babylonian destruction of 586 BCE.
The find of a shard from Khirbet Qeiyafa (perhaps 'Ruin Beautiful') in the Elah Valley, southwest of Jerusalem, has raised enormous interest. It is inscribed with five lines of an early Canaanite script, a precursor of Palaeo-Hebrew. The excavator, Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University, claims this to be the earliest Hebrew inscription yet found as he thinks that the first line contains at least two Hebrew words, 'Al Ta'aseh (do not make...)', but no full reading has yet been made of the shard. The find was made in the cooking area of a house alongside the six-chambered gate of this 23-dunam (6-acre) town, on a hilltop site overlooking the Elah Valley, where conflicts were fought between the Philistines and the kingdoms of Saul and David, according to the biblical record. It was built in the Early Iron Age but occupation ceased shortly afterwards, judging by the pottery. After a long interval it was re-occupied in the early Hellenistic period, during the Ptolemaic occupation of Palestine, then called Coele-Syria. The evidence for the latter comes from coins found on site. The find of the shard was made in the second season of the dig. It is planned to continue for several more years to uncover the central area of this walled hilltop town.
NEWS FLASH
Further news on Khirbet Qeiyafa: Yossi Garfinkel has just announced that there was a second gate to the city, which was not obvious as it had been built over in Hellenistic times. For an Iron-Age town to have had two gates was most unusual; it was a unique feature. He points out that the site lies between the better-known towns of Azekah and Socoh. In Joshua 15:36 there is a town called Sha'arayim (which means 'two gates'), mentioned together with the two sites of Azekah and Socoh. It is referred to again in the account of the battle with the Philistines. After David's combat with Goliath in the Valley of Elah, the Philistines flee, 'and the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the Way to Sha'arayim....'(1 Sam. 17:52).
The third dramatic find was that of an oval black seal in the dig opposite the Western Wall of the old City, conducted by Shlomit Wexler-Bedollah for the IAA. It shows a typical Assyrian archer, as on the Lachish reliefs in the British Museum, alongside a three-letter Hebrew name, X-G-V (the first letter is a Heth), and can be dated by the script to the 8th or 7th century BCE. The seal is so curious, combining a Hebrew name with an Assyrian motif, that it has already been pronounced a fake (a fashionable point of view) by one expert. but this is unlikely, as it was found in a controlled scientific excavation and is so unusual that a forger would neither know nor be tempted to make the connection. One possibility is that it belonged to an Israelite mercenary working for the Assyrian army that besieged Jerusalem in the time of Sennacherib and Hezekiah, but nothing is definite so far.
On the subject of fakes, the trial in Jerusalem District Court of Oded Golan and three accomplices, accused of faking the Yehoash Tablet and the Inscription on the James, brother of Jesus, Ossuary, has been halted for several months until January 2009. The trial has been going on for nearly three years, the court only meets once a week, and the judge has advised the police and the IAA to reconsider their case as they have so far been unable to pin down the charges on Golan and his co-defendants, in spite of the fact that most experts consider the two artifacts to have been faked, something which the defendants continue to deny. The judge's opinion is a setback for the IAA but it is thought that they will continue to prosecute though they may consider new tactics when the case resumes next year. Watch this space.
Another dramatic find, reported from Southern Jordan by Thomas Levy of the University of California, was of a large copper-smelting plant in the area of the kingdom of Edom, dated by radio-carbon analysis to the 10th century BCE. The plant is a 10-hectare site called Khirbet en-Naxas ('Ruins of Copper') about 30 miles north of Petra, and contains over a hundred buildings and a fortress, and is littered with large black slag heaps, and the remains of burnt charcoal that have enabled radio-carbon dating to be made. Although people are quick to associate copper mines of this period with Solomon (1 Kings 7:47) it is more likely that it was the Egyptians, as at Timna, that worked the mines, as an Egyptian amulet of the goddess Mut and a scarab from Tanis in Egypt were found in situ.
Sad news of the death of the Franciscan priest Michele Piccirillo on 26 October at the age of 63. Piccirillo was Professor of Biblical History and Geography at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem and an expert on the wonderful Byzantine mosaics of Jordan, on which he published at least four major volumes.Stephen Rosenberg,
Albright Institute, Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM REPORT 6 - 31 OCTOBER 2008
We are now in the post-excavation season. The main activity will be the start of the academic year and a spate of lectures and seminars are taking place in Jerusalem at the end of October.
Ehud Netzer continues on the Herodian theme at the Albright Institute, speculating on the exact function of the mountain palace: was it a summer palace, a fortress, Herod's burial place? Netzer was convinced that it was all three and, to my mind, he proved his case. His talk nearly clashed with Hanan Eshel who was launching his new book on the and Hasmoneans and the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Yad Ben-Zvi Institute a little later on the same night of 23 October. On 28 October at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University there will be a seminar on Urbanisation in the South Levant in the Early Bronze Age with Israel Finkelstein, Pierre de Miroschedji and Rafi Greenberg. And on 30 October at the Hebrew University the annual seminar to review the year's work in Jerusalem and Environs will be held with talks by Zvi Greenhut, Dan Barag, Yossi Garfinkel, Oded Lipschitz, Shimon Gibson, Ronnie Reich and others. There is plenty of meat here for the hungry archaeologist.
A fairly sensational find was announced earlier this month when a sarcophagus cover was found with the inscription "ben Hacohen Hagadol" (son of the High Priest) on the cover. The discovery was made (in-situ!) on an extensive dig by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) probably at Bet Hanina, just north of Jerusalem. However the IAA are not giving out further details except to say that the site is in the tribal area of Benjamin, where it is known that many of the Cohanim (priests) of the last Temple period (30-70 CE) lived. I think we can expect further details of this interesting find and the site in due course.
The water tunnel under the City of David, usually called Hezekiah's Tunnel, continues to attract many visitors and I would like to record the impressions of a newcomer to the site, who came with me recently through the water tunnel. He is Robert Lipman, an accountant from London, now living in Ashkelon, who writes, 'Here the two vital factors for the survival of the inhabitants 3,000 years ago come into play. Walls for protection providing safety from invaders and brigands and the supply of precious life-sustaining water. Hence the importance of the tunnel as a conduit for the supply of water in times of siege and adversity….the journey is made along a tepid man-made water course which at times just sloshes through one's plastic shoes and at others splashes just below the knees of one's shorts…one feels great empathy for the men who hewed out this vital narrow conduit. In places it is tall enough to stand erect and in others it is necessary to crouch … Imagine the excitement of the two teams of excavators as they approached one another, impossibly by chance, as the tunnel twists and turns, and then hearing each other excavating scarcely three cubits apart, before they finally meet….' I think Lipman conveys some of the excitement of one's first tour through this extraordinary tunnel, a major engineering feat of c.700 BCE. Even today there is still discussion as to how it was dug and why.
Besides the Hecht Archaeological Museum at Haifa University that I mentioned recently,
the National Maritime Museum in Haifa is also showing archaeological work, the results of seventeen seasons of excavation at the site of Tel Shiqmona, at the foot of the northern tip of the Carmel mountain. The early settlement was sustained by rainwater run-off from the mountain that fed into the adjacent fields. The site dates back to the Late Bronze Age when it was an Egyptian outpost connected to Bet-Shean, and one of the most interesting exhibits is the famous scarab that alludes, in hieroglyphs, to a local Hyksos ruler, reading
'Son of Ra, Ya'qob-her, grant life', that some scholars have related to the patriarch Jacob.
Another famous item is a terracotta figure of a girl with a drum, from the 8th century BCE. There are many other early artifacts, and a considerable number of a much later date from the Byzantine period, including a fine mosaic floor with animal roundels. Early excavations took place at Tel Shiqmona in 1895 by G. Schumacher and later by Moshe
Dothan in 1951 but the main work was conducted by Joseph Elgavish on behalf of the Haifa Museum of History from 1963 to 1979.
Finally, archaeological bacteria! It is reported that scientists from Tel Aviv and Hebrew University Medical schools, together with researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Salford, have found the DNA of an early strain of tuberculosis in the bones of a mother and child at Athlit-Yam, just south of Haifa, that were buried in the Neolithic Pre-Pottery Age of 9,000 years ago. Although this is 3,000 years earlier than previous evidence of the disease, it is shown to be the human strain of tuberculosis and not one evolved from bovine TB, as previously thought. The community from which it evolved was settled at a period when animals were domesticated but not yet used for their milk. The find will enable researchers to work out how the bacteria have evolved over the centuries to the present day, when TB is still infecting millions around the world.
Stephen G Rosenberg
Albright Institute, Jerusalem
JERUSALEM REPORT 5 - 23 SEPTEMBER 2008
A large walled enclosure of about 30ft. by 60ft. has been uncovered in the Galilee, in the Nazareth Hills, at Kfar HaHoresh. It dates to the Neolithic Pre-Pottery B Era (8th millennium BCE) and is being dug under the direction of Nigel Goring-Morris, a British archaeologist at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology. He considers it to be a funerary precinct which acted as a regional centre for nearby villages, probably the first in this area. The site has yielded up 65 skeletons, mostly of young adult males, and an entire herd of cattle was also buried nearby. In addition there is a large number of small finds such as shell pendants, a symbolic serpentine axe, engraved tokens and phallic figurines. The variety of stone materials indicates exchange with areas such as Anatolia, Cyprus and Syria. Goring-Morris will be lecturing about the site at the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem in November.
Reports have come in from Damascus that the jawbone of an early diminutive camel has been discovered at Khown, a desert site near Palmyra, Syria. One of the leaders of the Syrian-Swiss expedition, Heba al-Sakhel, has claimed that the bone of this desert-cruising species could be one million years old. We await further details.
Early this September, the press was shown the extensive work that has been conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority under Yehiel Zelinger on the southern slopes of Mount Zion, Jerusalem. This work, now being continued under Yoav Arbel of the IAA, has uncovered large sections of the southern wall of the city from the Second Temple period, and another section in front of it built in the Hasmonean period, with fine bossed ashlars typical of the period of the first century BCE. After the destruction by the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE, a Byzantine wall was built above the ruins, though it appears that the later builders did not know of the first walls. The present excavators were helped by earlier discoveries made by Bliss and Dickie, working for the PEF in the 1890s. At that time, they did not have permission to excavate from ground level, so Bliss and Dickie had to work from tunnels that they cut alongside the walls. The press was most interested in the souvenirs that were recovered from the 19th-century dig, such as beer and wine bottles, part of a gaslight and workmen's shoes. The site overlooks the Ben Hinnom Valley, which is scheduled to be landscaped as a national park.
Regrettably, on 16th September Avraham Biran died, aged (I believe) well over 90. Biran started his career in the British civil service during the Mandate period and became the long-time excavator of Tel Dan in the north of Israel. He had been Director of the Nelson Glueck School of Archaeology and received the Israel Prize for Archaeology a few years ago. Undoubtedly full-scale obituaries will appear in the archaeological press shortly.
Rumours have been circulating about the early demise of the Kenyon Institute (formerly the British School of Archaeology) in Jerusalem and I am happy to say that they are untrue. The new director of the Institute, Jamie Lovell, has inaugurated an extensive series of lectures and the library has been reorganized on user-friendly lines with new movable shelving.
Finally a curious report in Ha'Aretz and the Jerusalem Post detailed the unearthing of a medieval town in Russia that is claimed to be the city of Itil, the capital of the Khazar kingdom, near the Caspian Sea, which converted to Judaism in the tenth century CE. The work has been conducted by Dmitry Vasilev of the Astrakhan State University and supported by Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Middle Eastern Institute in Moscow. The city is on the Silk Route from China to Europe, which enabled the Khazars to collect taxes and become a wealthy kingdom. Satanovsky claims that they converted to Judaism so as to maintain their independence from the surrounding peoples that were practising Muslim and Christian-based cultures. We will surely hear more about this find from Russian scholars who have said that Khazar studies (previously proscribed by Stalin) are just beginning to uncover the history of this mysterious kingdom.
Stephen Rosenberg
Jerusalem, 23 September 2008
JERUSALEM REPORT 4 - SEPTEMBER 2008
As the main dig season is now over, newspaper and anecdotal reports are coming in from all over the country, and it is clear that some sensational finds have taken place.
I have already mentioned the three plastered skulls found at Yiftahel in the Lower Galilee; pictures and more information have now appeared. They date from Pre-pottery Neolithic B Period of 6 to 7000 BCE and the excavator, Dr. Hamudi Haleila of the IAA (Israel Antiquities Authority), reports that they were found in a pit near a mudbrick building, The graves were under the building and the skulls were later removed and set in the house on benches, a form of 'ancestor worship' set up as an example to the youth. Haleila points out that similar cults were observed as far away as Syria, and 15 similar skulls are known from Jericho.
There is ongoing work repairing and cleaning the present walls of Jerusalem, and a start has been made at the Zion Gate, where the scaffolding has just been removed to show a pristine stone face. The bullet holes of the 1948 period have, however, been left in situ, and the original dedicatory inscription to Suleiman the Great has been restored.
At Megiddo, the dig headed by Israel Finkelstein, David Ussiskin and Baruch Halpern, an amazing temple of the EB1 period (3000 BCE) has been uncovered. It is about 30 m long and has a row of central pillar bases, each side of which are smooth rectangular and circular basalt slabs of unknown purpose. There is a central altar on the back wall opposite the presumed entrance. Nearby were found masses of animal bones, mainly sheep/goat and gazelle. Finkelstein calls it 'the mother of all temples' and says that publication can be expected by next year. This is a major and intriguing find, situated not far from the later famous central altar of Megiddo.
More small finds are turning up at Elath Mazar's dig in the City of David. The latest is a bulla (seal impression) engraved in paleo-Hebrew of Gedalyahu ben Pashur (Jeremiah 38:1), a minister of King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, who was captured and murdered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
At Moshav Ahihud in Western Galilee, 5 miles east of Acre, a large olive-production plant of the sixth or seventh century CE has been found in an IAA excavation directed by Michael Cohen. The plant includes a huge olive press and two large oil storage containers lined in mosaic and plaster. The complex may have been part of a monastery as there is evidence (from small finds) of a church nearby. The site was destroyed by fire in about 700 CE.
A study of tuberculosis, undertaken by Israeli, Palestinian and German scientists, will be examining the ancient bones excavated by Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho, to try and discover the origin of the disease, which is still a killer in many parts of the world. It is felt that the tombs of Jericho, perhaps the oldest city known, may be able to reveal how the disease developed among the early crowded conditions 10,000 years ago. The research will be conducted at the Hebrew University (HU), Al-Quds University and the University of Munich, under a grant from the German Science Foundation.
The recent dig at Zippori (Sepphoris), under Ze'ev Weiss of the Hebrew University, has uncovered a Roman Temple of the third century CE. The temple was located in the centre of the city and shows that pagan worship took place in the city alongside Jewish practice. The temple measured about 24 x 12 m and was probably dedicated to Zeus and Tyche, judging from depictions of a temple facade on Zippori coins of Antoninus Pius. Only the foundations of the temple remained and it appears that a Christian Church was built over them at a later date, thus preserving the location of cult in the city centre. Another large Roman building, of unknown purpose, was found adjoining the temple.
The date for the domestication of cows, sheep and goats has been pushed back 2000 years to the sixth millenium BCE. The evidence comes from the examination of thousands of pottery vessels showing the remains of milk deposits, including vessels from Sha'ar Hagolan, in the Jordan Valley, excavated and examined by Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University, working with colleagues from UK, US, Netherlands, Greece, Turkey and Rumania. The work was published in a recent issue of Nature.
Dr. Daniella Bar-Josef of Haifa University has recently claimed that the large number of green-coloured jewellry from the Upper Paleolithic period of 12,000 years ago, collected by the Geological Survey of Israel from at least eight sites throughout Israel, were beaded amulets for human and agricultural fertility. She claims that their use came about at the transition from hunter-gathering to sedentary farming, when all forms of fertility were at a premium. The colour green was used to promote the aspect of growth, related to plants and trees, even at the expense of bringing material for the beads from sites 100 km distant.
The IAA have recently announced that all 15,000 to 20,000 fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls will be available for viewing on the Internet within the next five years, together with a translation and interpretation of each fragment. At the same time, the project for their preservation is continuing apace.
Stephen Rosenberg
Jerusalem, 2 September 2008
JERUSALEM REPORT - JULY 2008
We are now in the excavation season in Israel, in fact coming to the end of it shortly. The weather is hot and indeed sweltering in some places. As far as I am aware, digs have been going on at:
Rehov, near Bet Shean (under Ami Mazar),
Hazor (Amnon Ben-Tor),
Megiddo (Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin),
Tel Safi, former Gath (Aron Meier),
Gezer (Steve Ortiz and Sam Woolf),
Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Tel Azeka (Yossi Garfinkel),
Mount Zion (Shimon Gibson),
Tel Kedesh, in the north (Sharon Herbert and Andrea Berlin),
Tzipori (Ze'ev Weiss),
Yiftahel, rescue dig, IAA, (Hamudi Haleilah, Yanir Milevski, Nimrod Getzov),
Sussita, by Kinneret (Arthur Segal) and
Tel Kinrot and Tel Koor, near Rosh Pina (joint Dutch, Finnish, German, Swiss teams).
This is not a complete list by any means; my apologies to those I have omitted.
There must have been lots of finds and I mention just three exceptional ones of which I have heard. At Megiddo, they have uncovered a previously unknown Early Bronze Age temple next to the big section cut years ago. At the IAA rescue dig at Yiftahel, where a new junction is planned on the road between Haifa and Tiberias, three plastered skulls have been found, set in a row, dated to the Neolithic Pre-Pottery Period (not sure if A or B) similar to the ones of the ancestor cult found at Jericho. At Khirbet Qeiyafa they have found a two-chambered gate complex of the Early Iron Age (Iron II A).
The problem of ancient graves has come up again. Some have been found during the construction of a much-needed underground facility for the Barzilai hospital at Ashkelon, as the town is expecting more rocket attacks from the Gaza region. Work will be held up for the IAA to investigate. At the moment it seems the graves are of the Byzantine period and may be of Christian or pagan inhabitants.
A small white marble disc, 20cm in diameter, has been found by a diver off the coast at Yavneh-Yam, an ancient port between Tel Aviv and Ashdod. It is thought to have been used on a ship to ward off the Evil Eye and is dated to the 4th or 5th century BCE. The object is perfectly round, with a central hole, flat on one side and curved on the back. So far only four such pieces have been found.
An ancient catacomb has been found by Jordanian archaeologists under an early church at Rihab, northern Jordan. It is under the Church of St. Georgeous of 230 CE and could be the site of very early Christian worship. The excavators say they have found signs of early Christian rituals and they think the shrine was built underground to escape detection.
A date seed found by Yigal Yadin at Massada in the 1960s has been successfully germinated by scientists at Hadassah Hospital. It appears to be an extinct species of date palm that had extensive medicinal properties. It is hoped that the specimen will produce fruit in a few years (7 years after germination) and its location is being kept secret until further results are obtained. Radio-carbon dating on fragments show its date to have been compatible with the Roman Siege of Massada of 73 CE.
Further finds continue to be unearthed around the Silwan pool in Jerusalem by Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukron. On a recent tour we were shown a fine flight of steps that had led from the Pool up to the Temple Mount. It dates from the Herodian period and is built on top of a wide, man-high underground tunnel which was probably a sewer or waste water channel. Inside the tunnel were found many vessels and remains of provisions which indicate that the tunnel was used for escape purposes, probably by people fleeing from the Roman assault of 70 CE, which culminated in the destruction of the Herodian Temple.
Stephen Rosenberg
Jerusalem, 25th July 2008
JERUSALEM REPORT - JUNE 2008
The month of May, with the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, has been busy on an number of archaeological fronts.
A new national park has been opened by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Jewish National Fund at Adulam in the Elah Valley, some 20 km south-west of Jerusalem. This is the area (Cave of Adulam) where by tradition David was said to have hidden from King Saul (I Sam.22). The centrepiece of the park is Horvat (Ruins of) Etri, which are identified as the ancient Jewish settlement of Kfar Etara mentioned by Josephus. Another site in this park of 12,000 acres is Horvat Burgin, which is believed to have been the village of Kfar Bish, also mentioned by Josephus and by the Talmud.
At the May Presidential Conference, plans were unveiled for the ambitious Red Sea--Dead Sea Canal to the cost of $3 billion. This is the latest plan to save the rapidly falling Dead Sea, and may well become a reality as the costs will be underwritten by private Israeli funds, by the Jordanian monarchy and by Prince Bin-Talal of Saudi Arabia. It will provide hundreds of jobs for Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians in the construction of a canal, a railway line, electric power stations, desalination plants and tourist facilities. Such an enormous project, if it really happens, will require extensive manpower resources from the archaeological community in rescue digs throughout this sensitive area in the years to come.
In April an American initiative was published, which seeks to bring Palestinian and Israeli archaeologists together to preserve their common heritage. The plan comes from archaeologists of the Universities of California (Los Angeles) and Southern California. They have formed a joint Working Group with several Israeli and Palestinian colleagues and work has started on recording sensitive sites and arranging access for scholars and visitors of all faiths. It is hoped that this work will form an agreement that can be incorporated into any future peace negotiations.
Some months ago a quarry used to supply the fine stones for the Herodian Temple was uncovered in the northern Jerusalem suburb of Ramot Shlomo and very recently another has been found in the Sanhedria district, about two km from the centre of the city. It was uncovered by IAA in a rescue dig, under the direction of Gerald Finkielsztejn, before the construction of a private house. It supplied some of the smaller white limestone ashlars used for the retaining wall of the Temple Mount, and it is expected that more such quarries will be uncovered.
The famous arched gate to Ashkelon has recently been restored and opened to the public. It dates from the MB I period and is considered to be 3,850 years old. It was constructed in mudbrick to a parabolic profile. The upper section of the front elevation, which was not intact, has now been restored in matching materials, but the rear portion (the gate is 15 metres long or deep) has been replaced in timber, which is not authentic. The whole is protected from weathering by an appropriate roof. The ancient gate at Tel Dan is only slightly later (MB II) and together the two mudbrick structures are the oldest arched gateways in the world, and belie the idea that it was the Romans who invented the arch.
At Yiftahel, a pre-pottery Neolithic site (PPNB) in the Galilee, where a new road junction is planned, a cache of eighty stone knife blades, eight arrowheads, three flint blocks, two sickle blades and other bone items were uncovered by the IAA in May in a low-level structure considered to be 9,000 years old. Work is continuing on this early site.
Much older was a surprise find, also uncovered in May, of a large stalactite cave in the Western Galilee, found while a bulldozer was working on a sewage line in the JNF Forest east of the seaside town of Nahariya. The cave consists of a number of chambers, the main one 60 by 80m and 40m high. According to Ofer Marder, head of the Prehistoric Branch of the IAA, the finds include man-knapped flint tools and zoological remains of animals now extinct in Israel such as red deer, buffaloes and bears (!). The finds date from the Upper Paleolithoic period (40,000-20,000 BP) and the cave is at present sealed to prevent disturbance and contamination while the contents are under advanced scientific study.
Nearer to the present, and just in time for the 60th anniversary, the extensive dig opposite the Western Wall, which is revealing mainly Roman and Byzantine remains, has uncovered an unexploded Israeli Davidka shell of the 1948 War of Independence, which was rapidly removed by police, and appears to have been safely detonated outside the city.
Stephen Rosenberg
June 2008.
JERUSALEM REPORT - APRIL 2008
This is not the excavation season in Israel, but several digs are in progress and there is considerable activity on the conference front. Please note that at this stage the reports of digs are preliminary only and in no way official.
There was an evening meeting at the Hebrew University on April 6th to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Yigal Shiloh and the 30th anniversary of his excavations at the City of David in Jerusalem. The main speakers were Ronny Reich and Eilat Mazar who described the many new finds that were being excavated in the area of Shiloh's original work.
On 10th April, the full-day Irene Levi-Sala Annual Research Seminar will be held at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba on the subject of Pharaoh Hatshepsut's Monuments at Deir el-Bahri in Egypt. The main speaker will be Zbigniew Szafranski of Warsaw University, who is Director of the Hatshepsut Mission, working at Deir el-Bahri. The co-ordinator of the programme is Eliezer Oren, head of the Department of Archaeology at Beersheba, who has lectured to the AIAS on several aoccasions.
The Hecht Museum of the University of Haifa has recently opened an important Exhibition on the Great Revolt in the Galilee, 66-70 CE. The exhibition follows the course of the Roman army's defeat of the Jewish Revolt in the Galilee (the army then proceeded southwards to inflict its disastrous destruction on Jerusalem and the Temple). The catalogue (in Hebrew and English) examines the evidence of the battles and the hiding places of the Jews in the Galilee, the material culture of the Roman Army, and also the works of Josephus on the defeat of the towns of Yodefat and Gamla, whose descriptions are analysed critically and found not always to be in accordance with the archaeological evidence. The exhibition remains open for two years, until Spring 2010.
Tiberias has been the scene of much recent archaeological activity. The work in the southern area, started by Yizhar Hirschfeld, has had to be halted recently, due to Hirschfeld's untimely death. It was continued for a time by his assistants Anna de Vincenz, Eran Meir and Shulamith Miller, who are now working on the publication of Hirschfeld's finds. A recent salvage excavation to the south of the existing town has uncovered an Early Bronze Age settlement wall, still standing one and-a-half metres high, and also significant Umayyad remains, which indicate that there was both a very early colony before the new town of Tiberias was founded by Herod Agrippa, and also a more extensive residential area, well beyond the new town, in the Islamic period.
Much of the recently-exposed past of Tiberias will be incorporated into the planned Berko Archaeological Park that will cover 25 acres and is due to open in the late summer. It is named after Ozer Berkowitz, a well-loved local community leader and should become one of the town's main tourist attractions.
Last month Shimon Gibson (Israel Editor of the Bulletin) opened a new excavation at Mount Zion, near the Zion Gate, with a preliminary dig of four weeks (to be continued in June) on the site of previous excavations by Magen Broshi in the seventies. The dig has already gone down to remains of residences of the Second Temple period, and will proceed further over time to the underlying First Temple remains. The excavation is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which has sent volunteers to work on the site, and is co-directed by Gibson and James Tabor. They have in mind a programme of at least five seasons and then plan to turn the site over to an archaeological garden "theatre" showing the range of residential buildings from the First Temple period to late Islamic times.
Considerable First Temple remains are coming up at the excavations opposite the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, directed by Shlomit Wexler-Bedolah of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). This is a very long and extensive salvage dig and has already yielded up evidence of the late Roman Decumanus that extended eastwards towards the Temple, and now, at the lower levels, artifacts such as personal seals of the First Temple period, have been found.
At the City of David, Eilat Mazar continues her work around the 'Large Stone Structure' that some believe can be identified with a royal palace of the time of King David, due to its location, its massive construction in the Phoenician style, and the earlier pottery fragments under the lower courses of the work. The dig comes under the auspices of the Hebrew University and the Shalem Foundation, a Jerusalem think-tank.
Excavations continue at Herodion under Ehud Netzer (who lectured to the Society on the subject) and his assistant Roie Porath. They continue working on the remains of the tholos that is considered to have been Herod's tomb and are now planning to see how it relates to the monumental staircase that led from lower Herodion up to the palace within Herod's artificial mountain.
Finally I should mention the upcoming 34th Archaeological Congress of Israel, due to be held on 15th and 16th April of this year. It is an annual event when all the academics get together to see where they and their colleagues stand on the state of the art. It is sponsored by the Departments of Archaeology of the five major universities of Israel and the IAA, and has an impressive list of 35 eminent lecturers speaking under such headings as Research versus Excavation, Archaeology and Society, Discoveries in Jerusalem, Re-excavating earlier Digs, Archaeology and Science, and Text versus Archaeological Finds.
Stephen Rosenberg,
Jerusalem, 6th April, 2008