Category: Sites

The excavators of Beth Shemesh (25 km west of Jerusalem) claim that the Canaanite city may have been ruled by a female monarch and that they may have found a depiction of her. Some of the El-Amarna letters of the 14^thcentury BCE speak of a ‘Mistress of the Lionesses‘ appealing to Egypt for help against bandits and invaders. The title implies a female ruler but neither her name nor that of the city is mentioned in the tablets. Prof. Nadav Na’aman, of Tel Aviv University, thinks the city in question is Beth Shemesh and the excavators, Prof. Shlomo Bunomovitz and Dr Zvi Lederman, have uncovered a ceramic plaque that they think might represent the lady ruler. It shows an Egyptian-type figure, purportedly male, but with both arms bent and holding lotus plants, which are considered to be female characteristics. The headdress and skirt appear to be female but some scholars consider them to be applicable to male as well as female figures. If this is really a female figure, then Bunomovitz and Lederman may have found a representation of the ‘Mistress of the Lionesses’ and they will be looking for more clues in the coming season.

The Speaker of the Knesset, Rueven Rivlin, has recently opened an archaeological garden adjoining the Parliament building in Jerusalem. It bears the name ‘Tranquillity within thy Palaces’ (Psalms 122:7) and shows original artifacts from the Second Temple period up to Ottoman times, mainly from Jerusalem sites. It includes an olive press, mosaics and ancient inscriptions. It was organized by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and is open to the public.

On a less happy note, the police have recently arrested two Palestinians who were trying to sell a papyrus document that is nearly 2000 years old. It is (surprisingly) written in Paleo-Hebrew script and dated to the fourth year of the ‘Destruction of Israel’ which implies the year 74 CE, four years after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, or it could be 139 CE, four years after the end of the Bar Kokhba war. The document was a roll with 15 lines of text, some of it missing, and relates to a widow, ‘Miriam barat Ya’akov‘ and the possessions that she is transferring to her late husband’s brother, according to Amir Ganor of the IAA anti-theft department. It is an important, so-far unpublished social document and it is not yet clear where it was originally found.

During the construction of a girls’ school in Ras al-Amud, East Jerusalem, a jar handle with the name Menahem, was found at a rescue dig directed by Dr.Ron Beeri of the IAA, who said that this is the first time that this name has been found on a handle in Jerusalem, although the name is common on seals found in Israel and elsewhere. The script is in clear Paleo-Hebrew of the 8^th century BCE, the time of king Menahem ben Gadi (749-738 BCE) one of the last rulers of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Finally, another ancient synagogue is being excavated in the Galilee, home to dozens of synagogues of the Roman and Byzantine periods. This one is at Wadi Hammam, a Jewish village near Migdal, a few km northwest of Tiberias. The excavations are now in their third season and are directed by Dr Uzi Leibner of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The synagogue is in three phases and went out of use in the later 4^th century CE, as dated by coins found within the structure. The middle phase, of the early 4^th century, had a mosaic and an inscription that were plastered over in the last phase. The first phase has not yet been uncovered.

The synagogue plan resembles the standard configuration with a central hall or nave separated by columns from two side aisles, with an ark niche in the south wall facing Jerusalem and a store room on the west side. Entry was from the north, though it is not yet clear whether there was one doorway or the more normal three. The stonework is in white limestone as well as the standard black basalt. The synagogue was an integral part of the village, with houses and an olive press adjacent to it. Further excavations are in progress.

Stephen G. Rosenberg,
The Albright Institute, Jerusalem

The Ancient Canaanite gate at Tel Dan has been extensively restored by the National Parks Authority of Israel. It was reopened to the public at the end of March and presented as ‘Abraham’s Gate’, a name that was chosen against the advice of the archaeologists.

The 7 m high gate was first uncovered in 1979 as part of the excavations at Tel Dan directed by the late Avraham Biran, so in that sense it is Avraham’s Gate, but the publicists are trying to link it to the biblical patriarch, who rode as far as Dan to rescue his nephew Lot (Gen. 14:14). Be that as it may, the gate consists of a triple mud-brick arch, the earliest known arch in Israel, and is dated to about 1750 BCE, though some claim that the parabolic entry arch at Ashkelon, also of mud-brick, may be earlier.

The view of the gate and the steps leading up to it is most impressive and the whole complex is covered by a huge, fan-shaped structure of steel and transparent sheeting, very necessary to give protection from the weather but which rather overshadows the object it has been built to protect, which is a pity.

Preceding work on the new railway line from Ashkelon to Netivot, in southern Israel, a massive (20 x 20 m) Byzantine bath-house was uncovered in a rescue dig by the IAA, directed by Gregory Serai, at Kibbutz Gevim, near to Sderot, the town that was under fire from Gaza for some years. The bathing complex consisted of six rooms, including a frigidarium and caldarium, with changing rooms, heated by an underground hypocaust system on the Roman model. It served an ancient village on the road from Beersheba to Gaza, which was a busy trade route in the Roman and Byzantine period. It seems that the bath-house suffered from subsidence, fell out of use and became an easy target for stone robbers. The excavation started in January and is still ongoing.

The ‘Jesus Ossuary Forgery Trial‘, which started in the Jerusalem District Court in September 2005, has recommenced after a recess of several months. The IAA and police case has been presented and is now being refuted by the chief defendants, Robert Deutsch and Oded Golan, against charges of forging, among other items, the inscriptions on the James-brother-of-Jesus Ossuary and the Jehoash Tablet. The prosecution has alleged that some of the forgeries were perpetrated by an expert Egyptian craftsman, but he has refused to come to Israel to attend the court and the prosecution are having difficulty proving their case to the judge, who presides over the court on one day a week.

Stephen Rosenburg
W.F. Albright Institute, Jerusalem

The Israel Antiquities Authority have been busy again with several important rescue digs, which precede both large and small building development, laying of pipelines, road works and suchlike, all over the country . They employ a staff of several hundred, many of them qualified archaeologists with doctorates in their subject, and other experts in ancient writing, identification of bones, coins, and so on. Most of the work is run-of-the-mill but on many occasions important finds are uncovered and outside experts are consulted.

At the end of February the IAA announced spectacular finds at Umm Tuba, an Arab neighbourhood south-east of Jerusalem, in a rescue dig directed by Zubair Adawi.. Two seal impressions in paleo-Hebrew were found with the names of two senior officials, possibly of the government of Hezekiah (726-696 BCE). One of the seals was stamped on a wine jar handle next to a ‘lemelekh’ stamp, indicating that this official was approving the contents of the jar as to purpose, content or tax compliance. The seal names were Aximelekh ben Amadyahu and Yehoxail ben Shaxar (I am using X for a Het, to save confusion with a He). In addition an inscribed pottery fragment of the Hellenistic (Maccabean) period of 2nd century BCE was also uncovered. The lettering looks like the first ten letters of the alphabet as written by an apprentice scribe.

These finds were made within a large building of the First and Second Temple period, a building of many rooms around a courtyard containing a pottery kiln of the Iron Age. It was partly destroyed by the Babylonians and then reused in the Hellenistic period until it was ruined again by the Romans, when Jerusalem was sacked. However it was re-used again in Byzantine times, probably by pilgrims travelling between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It may be that the building was originally a kind of government storage depot, or local distribution centre. Three years ago fragments of a monastery building found by the site carried the name ‘Metupha’, which relates to the present Arab town name of Umm Tuba or Tupha, which is also related to the Biblical place name of Netupha, the recorded birthplace of two of King David’s warriors (“Hanetuphati”, 2 Samuel 23:28-29).

The Moshav of Ness-Harim, 20 km west of Jerusalem, near to Bet Shemesh, had to allow the IAA to excavate their site at Horvat a-Diri, surrounded by oaks and terraces, before they could extend their buildings onto it. The rescue dig, directed by Daniel Ein-Mor, uncovered the beautiful mosaic floor of a Byzantine-period church with a sacred inscription in early Greek, which was deciphered by Dr Leah de Signi of the Hebrew University to read

‘Holy Lord of St Theodorus, guard over the noble Antonius and Theodosia, and Theophylactus and the priest Johannes, remember the donors Maria and Johannes, in the sixth year of indiktus (?), have mercy on Stephanos.’

The first season in November 2008 uncovered the narthex of the church, which seemed to be the centre of a larger complex extending over nearly 4 acres. It included an impressive wine press, with two tiers of presses and vats, indicating the production of wine that was typical of a church complex of 6th and 7th centuries CE. This building was clearly one of a string of similar Byzantine churches found at Emmaus, Bet-Guvrin and Jerusalem. It appears that the building was re-used for some kind of industrial purpose in the later Islamic period.

A most unusual, though not really ancient, find was made in a rescue dig directed by Dr Rina Avner for the IAA in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was a broken piece of a blue-coloured jar of the medieval period, 12th or 13th century CE. The design was in a naturalistic Turkish style and hailed from Iran with an inscription in Persian painted in black on the neck of the jar. It was identified by Rivka Cohen-Amir as part of a love poem or quatrain by Amar-Xiyam, one of the most famous of the Persian poets of 11th and 12th centuries, who was also an astronomer and mathematician. The text was translated by Dr. Julia Rabinowicz of the Hebrew University to read

‘..(his) hand was on the neck of his beloved…’

This is a unique find in Jerusalem and one wonders how it came to be here. Perhaps the jar was a gift to a beloved one in Jerusalem. Who knows?

Stephen Rosenberg,
W.F.Albright Institute, Jerusalem

The large, former car-park site in Jerusalem opposite the City of David visitors’ centre, continues to throw up interesting finds. The latest is a small red marble figurine of a male head and neck, only 5 cm high, that may have been a weight used by a merchant. It has a flat base and is not broken off from a larger statue. It is of a man with a curly beard and little, if no, hair, and is thought to be of an athlete or boxer, it certainly has a broken nose. It was found at the IAA dig directed by Doron Ben-Ami and dates from the Roman period, about 200 CE. The IAA claims nothing similar has yet been found in Israel

Two years ago the Israel Museum exhibited a large stone inscription, on loan from the Steinhardt family of New York, called the Heliodorus Stele. It was a Greek text announcing that the Emperor Seleucus IV (son of Antiochus III) had appointed his minister, Heliodorus, to oversee the temples of his empire, and it seemed to confirm the story in Second Maccabees 3 of chief minister Heliodorus being instructed by the Emperor to go and rob the Jerusalem Temple of its treasures. In that he was not successful, being attacked by a divine golden figure on a golden horse and the High Priest, Honia (Onias), had to pray for his recovery. These details are not recorded on the stele (!) but it does look as if the two Heliodoruses were the same man.
The stele was deciphered by Profs. Hannah Cotton-Paltiel and Michael Woerrle some time ago and dated to 178 BCE. H.Shanks wrote an article on it in BAR (Nov/Dec 2008).
The English text of the stele is available on the internet if you type in Heliodorus.

One problem is that the stele was damaged and the lower section is missing. Also, having been acquired on the market, in the present-day climate of suspicion, the provenance was suspect. Now, very recently, lo and behold, three missing sections of the stele have been found in a dig at Maresha, in the national park of Bet Guvrin.

The IAA have just announced that in a dig supervised by Dr Ian Stern of the IAA and Barny Alpert, three broken fragments were found in an underground storage vessel. Dr.Dov Gera (a specialist in the Hellenistic period) saw that they looked like the base of the Steinhardt piece and, indeed, they fitted it perfectly, though one further piece of the base is still missing. The new pieces have not yet been deciphered but they clearly continue the edict of Seleucus IV appointing Heliodorus, who, in his turn, appointed further officials to carry out the necessary inspections. The stele is written in truly diplomatic language, implying that it was in the locals’ interest to have their temples inspected whereas, if Maccabees is to be believed – and there is no reason to doubt it – its purpose was to provide the Emperor with the necessary plunder and cash to keep the empire going.

The fact that three missing pieces were found in the ‘Dig for a Day’ project indicates the authenticity of the stele and shows that this edict was erected in the Hellenistic city of Maresha. Presumably further copies were erected at other centres to indicate that the inspections being carried out by Heliodorus and his men were carried out on the orders of the Emperor himself.

We do not know the sequel of the story and exactly why Heliodorus was prevented from robbing the Jerusalem Temple. Perhaps he was not too diligent in his work for the Emperor, because it is known that three years later in 175 BCE he murdered the Emperor in the hope of putting himself on the throne. His plan was, however, frustrated by the ambitious Antiochus IV, brother of Seleucus IV, who rushed back from exile in Rome and seized the vacant throne. We can surmise that Heliodorus was not punished for the murder, which suited the new incumbent, Antiochus Epiphanes. And, though not exactly as the story of Hanukkah that they keep telling us, the rest is history.

Stephen Rosenberg,
W. F. Albright Institute, Jerusalem

Just in time for the Hanukkah holiday (at the end of December last year), when it is traditional for children to receive gifts of ‘Hanukkah gelt’, a young British volunteer, Nadine Ross of Birmingham, unearthed a cache of 264 gold coins at the dig on the car-park site opposite the City of David Visitors Centre, Jerusalem, which is being directed by Doron Ben-Ami for the IAA. This is the site where the Roman golden earring was found, as reported previously. The coins were minted at the time of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610-641 CE) and are in good condition. It looks as if the coins were hidden in a chink in one of the walls at the time of the Moslem conquest of Jerusalem; the owner obviously hoped to recover them at a later date.

Another case of a coin find by a young volunteer was made in the debris from the Waqf underground work on the Temple Mount. In the sifting of this material, which is being directed by Gaby Barkay, two coins were recovered recently (out of over 3000 found to date). One is a half-shekel, minted in Jerusalem at the time of the Great Revolt (66-70 CE), which depicts a branch of three pomegranates and the inscription ‘Sacred Jerusalem’. This is a relatively common coin; the second one, however, is much rarer. It is a Seleucid one depicting Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 BCE) who looted the Temple and aroused the enmity of the Maccabees.

In Egypt, two more tombs have been found in the necropolis of Saqqara, 12 miles south of Cairo. The tombs are rock cut and date to about 2300 BCE, the time of the Sixth Dynasty, and housed the remains of two senior officials, a man and a woman, according to the excavator Saleh Suleiman. The tombs are to the south-west of the known burial plots and indicate that the cemetery was much larger than previously thought.

In mid December UNESCO and the Egyptian Government announced that the world’s first underwater archaeological museum was being planned at the Bay of Alexandria, which contains many underwater remains of the Roman period and earlier. The museum will be built half underwater and half above water, presenting plenty of challenges to the designers and much that will be of interest and novelty to future visitors.

In what has become an urgent debate, the new underground facilities of the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon have been held up for many months due to the presence of graves and skeletons of the Byzantine period. Work on the facility, to provide an underground emergency room and operating theatre, started a year ago but was halted when the preliminary excavations revealed the presence of human bones. The hospital, which has catered for Israeli and Palestinian wounded, needs the facility urgently. Hopefully things can now proceed as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Metzger, has pronounced that the graves can be moved if the work is done with the necessary reverence.

At the Israel Museum, the archaeological section, as well as many others, is closed for extensive renovations and therefore a new service has been introduced which is proving popular with visitors. Every Monday and Wednesday (at 11 am) the museum is running tours to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem, with free guided tours of its extensive collections, most of them acquired at the time of the British Mandate. The Rockefeller itself is worth a visit, as it is an iconic building with one of the finest courtyards in Jerusalem. It is a haven of tranquillity with a lovely pool and a set of fine sculptured panels by Eric Gill. The tour is well worth taking for lovers of archaeology and architecture.

Finally, the newspaper Ha’aretz has just illustrated two remarkable finds made by Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukron in the debris fill of the hewn cistern by the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem. One is of a tiny (2 cm high) red ivory pomegranate figure surmounted by a sitting dove, the other a clay bulla (seal impression) of a ship being navigated by sailors using three oars. These finds were made together with dozens of fish bones and more than 170 bullae, all from the hewn cistern, and dating to the 9th century BCE, which shows, according to Reich and Shukron, that the City of David was then an important administrative centre. We await further details.

Stephen Rosenberg,
Albright Institute, Jerusalem