Events

Report from Jerusalem #58, 24th February 2014

Church Uncovered near Kiryat Gat

At the village of Aluma, just north-west of Kiryat Gat and beside the ancient road from Ashkelon to Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has discovered the remains of a Byzantine Church with excellent mosaics. The building is 22m long and 12 m. wide and is of the basilica type with a wide nave and narrow aisles. All three sections have floors covered in colourful mosaics laid out as forty medallions framed by vine tendrils, each medallion depicting an animal or botanical symbol and with the names of local church leaders Demetrios and Herakles. There is a large external entry courtyard floored in white mosaic with a panel giving the names of Mary and Jesus, and the local donor. The church is the only one of this period found in the area and the IAA suggest that it was the focus of Christianity in this vicinity. Also found nearby was a potter’s workshop with remains of jugs and bowls, lamps and glass objects, indicating a rich local culture, according to Dr. Daniel Varga, director of the excavation. The mosaics will be removed for public display at a museum and the site covered back to preserve it.

Dead Sea Scrolls on Facebook

Since early December 2013, the IAA have put the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital library on Facebook and made the thousands of fragments available free of charge to the public, in an improved format thanks to use of a unique camera developed for the purpose. The website is www.deadseascrolls.org.il.  The upgraded website includes 10,000 new images, translations into Russian and German, and a faster search engine.

Ancient Well in Tel Aviv

In a salvage dig in the Ramat Hahayal area, a large Byzantine-era well, about 1,500 years old, has been uncovered. The mouth of the well is several meters wide and is an example of one that employed a donkey to draw water by means of clay vessels on a continual belt and discharge it into a nearby cistern or reservoir.

Metal Greek Statue from Gaza

A life-size bronze statue of a Greek god has been rescued from shallow waters by a Palestinian fisherman off the coast of Gaza. It weighs 500 kg and was hauled aboard his boat by four men, he says, and taken ashore on a cart because of its great weight. According to one expert it shows no sign of encrustation or barnacles and it is suspected to have been found on land, though not declared as such. The local government of Hamas heard of it and ordered it to be taken into police custody, since when it has been kept from view, to the intense frustration of local scholars and archaeologists. One expert from the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem is reported to have declared it to be priceless, very rare and virtually unique, but it should be noted that there are two life-size bronze statues in the Athens National Museum, which are called Poseidon and Paris. The Gaza statue has been dated to the fifth to first century BCE and dubbed Apollo, for reasons unknown.

Unesco Listing of Ancient Caves and Terraces

Israel has put forward to UNESCO for consideration at their next meeting in Doha in June, for the World Heritage List, the caves of Bet Guvrin and Maresha, southwest of Jerusalem. The caves belong to ancient cities that were inhabited from the time of the Edomites to the Crusaders.

At the same meeting, the Palestinian Authority have put forward the ancient terraces of Battir, a west-bank village near Jerusalem, whose terraces go back hundreds of years, it is claimed.

Persian Period Village Near Jerusalem

During work on a natural gas line from the coast to Jerusalem, remains of a large village were uncovered near Mitzpe Harel, west of Jerusalem. The settlement consisted of several houses around narrow pathways and was probably surrounded by orchards and vineyards, as prevalent in the area today. It looks as if the houses were the standard four-room house around a courtyard, and the village was perched on an elevated spur with good views of the surrounding country. According to the dig director Irina Zilberbord, the village was at its peak in the Hasmonean period of the second century BCE and was abandoned at the end of that period – perhaps when Herod drew away many peasant inhabitants for work on his reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple, according to Dr. Yuval Baruch, the Jerusalem regional archaeologist. It is reported, happily, that the gas line will now be relocated so that the site can remain accessible for further investigation.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem.

Report from Jerusalem #57, 20th January 2014

Red Sea – Dead Sea Project

There has been considerable discussion recently in the press about the possibility of constructing a water link from the Gulf of Eilat to the southern end of the Dead Sea. The purpose of this scheme would be to stem the loss of water in the Dead Sea, which is dropping about one meter in height every year, The scheme would include considerable advantages in water supply to the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Jordanians, who all support the idea in theory, but it is ergonomically controversial and hugely costly. There are strong arguments on both sides. Whatever details, it would involve the construction of a canal or large pipeline between the two waterways and this would cause considerable damage to the area of the Negev involved, which in turn would require a very large number of rescue digs by archaeologists.

Removal of Jewish Relics from Temple Mount

There was a heated discussion in the Knesset at the end of December, initiated by Moshe Feiglin, who asserted that the Waqf, the Islamic supervisory body of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was removing ancient timber beams, which he claimed dated back to the time of Solomon, from the site. He blamed the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) for lack of supervision, but in fact, the IAA has no responsibility for this area, designated as a Holy Site, over which only the Waqf and the Israel Police have jurisdiction.

“Kedem Compound” Visitors’ Centre Criticised

The Givati Parking Lot opposite the entrance to the City of David site is due to be developed as a visitors’ centre in East Jerusalem. The approved plans have been criticized by archaeologists because the development will completely cover the site, which was in the course of excavation and has revealed rich finds that are attributed to a possible palace of Queen Helena of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism and settled in Jerusalem in 1st century CE. Judging by the published illustration, the project is a massive one with a central pedestrian walkway flanked by four-storey construction each side to house meeting and exhibition rooms, lecture halls and offices. There will be underground parking levels which will destroy parts of the site, and the critics claim that the whole complex should have been planned on an open ground floor with pillars, that would have allowed access to the original structures below.

Excavations at Tel Hebron

Work started in early January on excavations at Tel Rumeida, ancient Hebron, where walls exist that date back to the period of Abraham and earlier, according to a recent press release by the IAA. The dig will continue works started in the 1960’s which have revealed remains from the Early Bronze Age and all later periods up to the Islamic era. The excavations will be conducted by Emanuel Eisenberg of the IAA, who worked on the site 15 years ago and is now hoping to make finds, he says, that go back to the time of King David and earlier.

Ancient Pottery from a Private Collection in Galilee 

In mid-January the IAA made the surprising find of a large collection of ancient pottery in the basement of a woman living in Poriya Illit in the lower Galilee. The lady, Osnat Lester, telephoned the IAA to announce that she had a basement full of pottery dredged up from the Mediterranean by a fisherman relative of her family, now deceased. The IAA sent two of its members and found a large number of boxes of intact vessels and large broken fragments, that they were able to date to the periods from the Biblical to the Roman ages. The vessels were used to carry wine, oils and various foodstuffs, and had been loaded on cargo ships which later sank at sea. The pottery was encrusted with seashells and ocean debris and sediment. This valuable find will be examined in detail and then prepared for public exhibition, according to Amir Ganon of the IAA, which will please the donor who had expressed the wish that it will not just be stored away but put on view so that her grandchildren would be able to view it. The IAA thanked Mrs. Lester for presenting this precious cargo of pottery to them and thereby donating it to the people of Israel as a whole.

 Stephen Rosenberg

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem

Report from Jerusalem #56, 8th December 2013

Cuneiform Tablets to be Returned to Iraq

Nearly ten thousand cuneiform tablets will be returned to Iraq by Cornell University. The tablets date from the 4th millennium BCE and later, and are suspected to have been looted from Iraq, which has demanded their return. They were donated to the university by a collector who bought them on the market seven years ago, and they have been preserved, photographed and published over the last few years by scholars at the university, which has now agreed to return them to Iraq museum in Baghdad. The university acknowledges that there may be concerns about the safety of the tablets, but has stated that “the Iraq Museum seems to be secure at this point”. The tablets include the private records of a Sumerian princess of Garsana, who administered her husband’s estate after his death, who gave equal rights and wages to women, and allowed them to direct male workers on building projects. Other tablets record details of temple rituals, the treatment of refugees and the yields of agricultural products.

Climatic Changes at the end of the Late Bronze Age

A study conducted by Dafna Langgut and published in the Journal of the Tel Aviv Institute of Archaeology shows that there was a great climatic change in the period of 1250-1100 BCE, that may have accounted for the upheavals in the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt, Greece, Crete, Syria and in Israel, where the first monarchy was established. The study was based on core samples taken from deep under the Kinneret, Sea of Galilee, in 18m. long cores containing fossil grains of pollen, which Langgut claims is the most enduring organic material in nature. The pollen was blown into the water and the particles show details of the vegetation that grew around the lake and the climatic conditions of the period. The study was conducted together with Prof. Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, Prof. Thomas Litt of Bonn University and Prof. Mordechai Stein of Hebrew University. Prof. Finkelstein notes that this pollen study had a precision of forty years, as compared to other pollen studies of only several hundred years, which may have missed the changes now revealed. The results correlate with text records of drought and famine in locations from Anatolia to Egypt.

Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) Arrests Looter

Uzi Rotstein of the IAA Theft Prevention Unit reported the arrest of one of a group of six illegal metal-detector operators who were looting Byzantine coins at a site in the Nahal Sorek basin in the Judean hills. Excavating an ancient site without a permit from the IAA is considered to be a criminal act that can result in a prison term of up to five years. Members of the Theft Prevention Unit are not police officers but carry small arms and have the right to make arrests.

Ancient Wine Cellar Unearthed at Tel Kabri

At Tel Kabri, 3 km. east of Naharia, archaeologists have unearthed a large wine cellar dated to 1700 BCE. It was part of a luxurious palace and estate that may have belonged to a rich northern Canaanite ruler. The find amounted to forty plain 1 m. high storage jars and is one of the largest wine cellars ever found. By residue analysis, the excavators, Eric Cline of  George Washington University, Andrew Koh of Brandeis University and Assaf Yasur-Landau of Haifa University, showed that the wine, both red and white, was flavoured with honey,  juniper, mint, cinnamon and myrtle. The cellar was about 5 x 8 m. and adjacent to a large banqueting hall, both of which may have been destroyed by earthquake. At the end of the dig, two doors were found leading out of the cellar, which will have to await examination until the next season in 2015.

Chalcolithic Village found near Beit Shemesh

Since 2004, archaeologists of the IAA have been exposing domestic remains on a site south of Beit Shemesh, alongside road 38, which is due to be widened. The finds include a building of the pre-pottery Neolithic period dated to about 8000 BCE, the oldest such structure to have been found in this country, according to Dr. Amir Golani, in charge of the dig. Other buildings of a later date were also uncovered, together with axes, flints and stone tools, which will be cleaned and preserved by the IAA at their nearby offices.  Next to the oldest building was found a standing monolith (1.2m. high and weighing a quarter of a ton), that had been tooled on all six sides, which suggests it may have served a cultic function alongside the building.

Hasmonean Period Building in Jerusalem

A building of 64 sq. m. nearly 4m. high has been uncovered in the Givati parking area by the City of David, and dated to the Hasmonean period. According to Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, one of the directors of the dig, this is the first evidence of a building of this period to be found in Jerusalem. Dating has been made easier by the discovery on the floor of over forty silver and bronze coins of the second century BCE, which are now being cleaned and will take another year, Ben-Ami said. Only part of the structure has been uncovered so far, but it is not domestic in nature and likely to have been a public building. It is hoped to find further evidence of the period as the dig proceeds.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg,

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem.

Report from Jerusalem #55, 14th November 2013

James Ossuary and Yehoash Tablet to be Returned

Last year we saw the trial of Oded Golan and others on the charge that they had forged the inscription on the James “brother of Jesus” ossuary and a tablet that purported to be a text of King Yehoash repairing the Temple. The charge was brought by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and was finally dismissed by the court. However the IAA claimed that the IAA should be allowed to retain the items, but it has now been decided by the Supreme Court, on appeal, that both the Yehoash Tablet and the Ossuary shall be returned to their original owner, Oded Golan, who claims that he will now put both items on public display. Although the court found in favour of Golan, the provenance of the items is still in doubt, and the whole case is an ignominious defeat for the IAA and a blow against those that are trying to stop the illegal trade in archaeological artifacts.

Desecration of Graves in the Syrian Conflict

It has been reported by an Iranian news agency that ancient Jewish mausolea have been destroyed in the historical city of Tedef-al-Yahud, some 30 km. east of Aleppo, by terrorists belonging to the al-Nusra Front, backed by al-Qaida. There is supposed to be a tomb ascribed to Ezra Hasopher (the scribe) in the town but there is no mention as to whether that has been affected.

Serious Dig for School Kids

The University of Haifa is organising a professional excavation at Tel Esur, the site of an ancient fortress south of Haifa on the coast, with the help of 150 local children and 20 staff members. The children come from four different schools, Arab as well as Jewish, and spend three weeks on site, supervised by Shay Bar, an archaeologist of the Iron and Bronze Age periods, based on an initial survey conducted by Adam Zertal, the Haifa professor of archaeology. Shay Bar says that children “open like a flower, they are flourishing” and some of them are making significant finds, including a tiny Egyptian scarab of the 13th century BCE, depicting the god Amun with two other figures, uncovered by a 13-year old Arab girl. For the archaeologists the progress on site is painfully slow, as they show the kids how to work and record their findings but, they say, “it’s a project of the community and for the community, and for the education of the children of the community”, which makes it all worthwhile.

Ancient Tablet of Vengeance Found in Jerusalem

In a structure of the third century CE, destroyed by an earthquake in the fourth, was found a small rolled-up lead tablet containing the curse, originally in Greek, “I strike down and nail down the tongue, the eyes, the wrath, the anger, the procrastination, the opposition of Iennys”  made by a certain Kyrilla, presumably against her legal opponent, according to Dr. Robert Daniel of University of Cologne, who deciphered it. He thinks she might have used the declaration while striking an image of her opponent in a kind of magical ritual, and that it was probably written by a hired sorcerer.

The excavators, Dr. Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, working on behalf of the IAA, found the tablet inside the building on the old Givati car park opposite the City of David site in Jerusalem, and conjecture that it was hidden there before the earthquake by Kyrilla to work its potent magic on her opponent.

The ‘Book of Books’ Exhibition

This exhibition of Bibles has recently opened at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem. It is an amazing collection of dozens of valuable Bible texts, ranging from the Dead Sea Scrolls to 19th century translations into Chinese and Japanese. The range is enormous and includes, amongst many others, the King James Bible of 1611, the Manuel of Discipline and the Habakuk Pesher (in facsimile) from Qumran and fragments of the 3rd century BCE Septuagint. There are early coins of Biblical subjects and a complete model of the 15th century Gutenberg press, with a young man in attendance who will demonstrate how Gutenberg produced a lead plate, inked it and then printed it onto fine paper with a strong pull on the timber press. Gutenberg printed his work in columns of 42 lines, in accordance with the Sifrei Torah that he examined, and whose format he was loath to change. The exhibition will be in Jerusalem until May 24th 2014 and will then go to the Vatican before being moved permanently to Washington DC.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg,

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem

Report from Jerusalem #54, 7th October 2013

Assyrian Period Finds at Ashdod-Yam

A small number of trial digs were conducted at Ashdod-Yam in the 1960s, which demonstrated the antiquity of the port but it is only this year that excavations were resumed, this time under the direction of Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of Tel Aviv Archaeology Department. The expedition has uncovered a fortification system of the port dating to the 8th century BCE, the period of the Assyrian occupation, as well as much later evidence of the Hellenistic period of the 2nd century BCE, after the time that Alexander the Great was making his way down this coast to Egypt. The excavators found remains of a building of that period with Hellenistic coins and weights. This has been just the first season of the excavations and more finds are expected.

Jerusalem, Pottery Fragments from Before 586 BCE

Fragments of pottery that can be dated to the reign of Zedekiah, the Judaean client king appointed by the Babylonians in 597 BCE, have been uncovered at the City of David excavation conducted by Dr. Joe Uziel and Nahshon Zanton for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).  The fragments include small figureheads, lamps with single and multiple spouts, inscribed handles and above all a bowl fragment with an incomplete inscription in paleo-Hebrew lettering, which reads as “….ryah bn bnh….”.  The excavators point out the similarity with the name Zechariah ben Benayah, the father of the prophet Jahaziel (2 Chron.20:14) who advised King Jehoshaphat (870-845 BCE) about going to war against Ammon and Moab. They also point out that the inscription was written on the bowl before firing, and thus was not just something written on it as a sherd, and so it might imply possible ownership of the bowl.

Nimrud Fortress, 13th Century Lion Relief

Qa’alat Nimrod is a 12th and 13th century fortress in the upper Galilee and one of the finest castles in Israel. Mark Twain, who found Jerusalem to be a dirty and unpleasant city, praised Nimrod Castle as one of the finest monuments of the Holy Land. It looks like a Crusader castle but is in fact an Ayyubid and Mamluk foundation built to protect the road from the coast to Damascus against the Crusaders, It was strengthened and reconstructed by the Mamluk sultan Baybars in about 1270 CE. Today it stands prominently in a National Park where recently a large lion relief was found and identified by Dr. Moshe Hartal of the IAA.  The lion was the royal symbol of the sultan Baybars and the stone carving is over one metre long. It is a rare and monumental piece that probably came from the castle, and is the second one of a lion to be found in this area in the last fifteen years.

Gold Cache found near Temple Mount

The gold items were found just about 50m south of the Temple Mount in the Ophel excavations conducted by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University over the last four years. The extraordinary find consisted of 36 gold coins, a pair of gold earrings, a silver ingot and a large 10cm. gold medallion, on a short chain, depicting a seven-branch menorah, a shofar and a scroll, which Mazar thought might have adorned a Torah scroll. The artefacts were found in two locations, one hidden below floor level and the other hastily scattered above the floor, as if left in a hurry. Both are dated by the excavator back to 614 CE, when there was a short invasion of Jerusalem by the Persians to 629 CE. Dr. Mazar thinks that the hoard was destined as a contribution to a synagogue to be built near the site and abandoned at the threat of the Persian invasion, and later never retrieved by the owners. The gold coins have been dated by Lior Sandberg, of the Tel Aviv Institute of Archaeology, to a series of Byzantine rulers dating from the 4th to the early 7th centuries CE. After preparation, it is intended to exhibit the artefacts worldwide before placing them for public display in the Israel Museum.

Award to Prof. David Ussishkin

The Percia Schimmel Prize for 2013 will be awarded to Prof. David Ussishkin at the Israel Museum on 4th February 2014. It is given for Distinguished Contribution to Archaeology in Eretz Israel and the Lands of the Bible. David Ussishkin is retired professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and directed the excavations at Lachish for many years from the 1980s. He has recently published the five definitive volumes of that expedition and is at present co-director with Israel Finkelstein of the renewed Megiddo excavations. He has been a frequent and popular lecturer to the AIAS in London.

Correction to Report No. 53

In connection with the Crusader hospital, Report no.53  stated that “Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1291”. This was wrong, the date should have been 1187. It was the Mamluks who defeated the second wave of Crusaders at Akko (Acre) in 1291. My apologies and thanks to John Bartlett for pointing out my mistake.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg,

W.F.Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem.