Tag: Michael Eisenberg

Report from Jerusalem #64, 10th November 2014

Earthquake and Recent Finds at Susita

Excavation continues at Susita, the site on the hills overlooking the east bank of Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee. The finds were discovered under the roof of a building that collapsed in the earthquake of 363 CE. Susita was also called Hippos as it sits like a horse on a hilltop 350m. above the lake. According to the excavator, Dr. Michael Eisenberg of Haifa University, the collapsed building, the largest on the site, was a basilica that served as a marketplace, and a number of skeletons were discovered under its collapsed roof. One of them was of a young woman who was wearing a golden dove-shaped pendant. Also found was the marble leg of a statue that may have been 2m. high, that of a god or an athlete. The earthquake of 363 was a powerful one and completely destroyed the city, which took twenty years to be rebuilt and, according to Eisenberg, there was a later earthquake of 749 CE, which destroyed the city completely – the city was never rebuilt. The city had a bastion of the Roman period that overlooked the lake and there the archaeologists found a catapult-like machine that would have been 8m. long and could have launched massive stone ammunition, some of which was still extant at the site.

Ancient Mikveh – Recent Graffiti, South of Beit Shemesh

In a rescue dig at the Ha’Ela junction, before the widening of Route 38, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has uncovered an ancient mikveh, believed to be dated to about 100 CE, and a massive water cistern of about two hundred years later. Great interest centred on the fact that the ceiling of the cistern had been scratched with the names of two Australian soldiers at the time of the British Mandate. According to Yoav Tsur of the IAA, the find “allows us to reconstruct a double story – a Jewish settlement of the second century CE, probably against the background of the Bar-Kochba Revolt and another story, no less fascinating, about a group of Australian soldiers who visited the site 1,700 years later and left their mark”. They left their names, Corporals Scarlett and Walsh and their numbers in the RAE (Royal Australian Engineers) with the date 30/5/1940.

According to the IAA, research shows that Scarlett died in 1970 and Walsh in 2005, but the IAA will contact their families to tell them about the find. The Israel National Roads Company has agreed to slightly change the junction layout so that the finds can be incorporated in the adjacent landscaping.

Latin Inscription Found in Jerusalem

Although found in July, this inscription from the time of the reign of the Emperor Hadrian was only recently displayed to the public at the Rockefeller Museum. It is on a large stone, weighing one ton and was found in secondary use as part of the cover of a deep cistern, with part of the stone cut out in a semi-circle to accommodate a small manhole cover to the cistern.

The inscription reads (in translation):

To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son of the deified Traianus Pathicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, high priest, invested with tribunician power for the fourteenth time, consul for the third time, father of the country (dedicated by) the tenth legion Fretensis Antoniniana

It is dated to the year 129/130 CE, when Hadrian was touring his eastern colonies and dedicated the rebuilt Jerusalem as Colonia Aelia Capitolina. The inscription is in fine classic Roman lettering and according to Dr. Rina Avner who led the IAA team that located it, “there is no doubt that this is one of the most important official Latin inscriptions that have been discovered in this country.”

The other half of the inscription, which was found many years ago by the French diplomat Charles Clermont-Ganneau, is on display in the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at the Lion’s gate of the old City.

The new inscription find was the subject of a day-long seminar last week at the Rockefeller Museum, where it will shortly be put on permanent display.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem

Report from Jerusalem, #26, 14th October 2010

Herod’s private theatre at Herodion

In the wake of the rediscovery of the tomb of Herod, Prof. Ehud Netzer has now fully excavated a room identified as Herod’s private box at the centre of the 400-seat theatre on the eastern slopes of Herodion. It was decorated by Italian artists sent from Rome in about the year 15 BCE, some eleven years before Herod died, at which point the theatre went out of use. The plastered private box was decorated with painted ‘windows’ looking to a Nile scene and a seascape with a sailing vessel, as well as human and animal figures. The theatre is being restored by the Hebrew University and it is hoped that it will be open to the public next year, but it can already by seen in outline from the upper part of Herodion.

Figure of Tyche at Sussita

In a private house in the Hellenistic city of Sussita (Hippos), above the eastern shore of Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee), Prof. Arthur Segal and Dr. Michael Eisenberg of Haifa University have found a fragment of fresco depicting Tyche, the goddess of fortune (and city goddess), together with the figure of a maenad, associated with the god Dionysus in his rites, dated to the 3rd century or early 4th century CE. This large house and its decoration remained in use in the Byzantine period and thus, according to the finds, these cultic images were not removed with the coming of Christianity, when several churches were built in Sussita.

Ring of Apollo found at Dor

A ring of the early Hellenistic period (late 4th century BCE) was found at Tel Dor, on the coast, north of Caesarea. According to Dr. Ayelet Gilboa, of Haifa University, it is a rare find and shows that high-quality jewellery was appreciated and affordable in a provincial port like Dor. The head on the ring was identified as an image of Apollo, the sun god – and god of healing, prophecy and music. It is an embossed image on a bronze signet ring used as a seal honouring the god. It was found in the same area as a gemstone with the miniature head of Alexander the Great and an elaborate mosaic floor that formed part of a major public building or large residence, uncovered during an earlier season.

Samaritan Synagogue south of Bet She’an

In an excavation south of Beth Shean directed for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) by Dr. Walid Atrash and Yaakov Harel, a mosaic floor from a Samaritan synagogue dating to the 5th century CE was uncovered. This would have remained until the Muslim Conquest of 634 CE. The ruins of the large hall of the synagogue face Mt. Gerizim, the holy site of the Samaritan Temple, and the mosaic has an inscription that the archaeologists read as: ‘This is the temple…’, which would refer either to this synagogue (if it were called a ‘temple’) or to the one formerly on Mount Gerizim site itself.

This synagogue is one of several in the Beth Shean area, once a major centre of Samaritans, and lies close to Nablus (Shechem), not far from the village that is still home to the remaining Samaritan community.

10,000th birthday of Jericho

The city council of Jericho is anxious to attract tourists to the earliest city in the known world, dating back to 8000 BCE. Besides the actual remains of the ancient city, now undergoing its fifth major excavation, this time by an Italian team, the local authority is promoting two other ancient features to interest tourists. One is an ancient sycamore tree with a massive hollow trunk two metres in diameter that, according to local legend, is the tree climbed by Zacchaeus, the short tax collector who, according to the Gospel of Luke (19:1-10), was trying to get a better view of Jesus. A new museum and visitors’ centre is planned, adjoining the tree. However, there is another dead, glass-covered sycamore in the courtyard of the nearby Greek Orthodox Church that claims the same venerable history.

The second feature for development is the colourful mosaic paving of the Hisham Palace, adjoining north Jericho, where the largest local mosaic is being uncovered for public display. Both the museum and the mosaic depend on raising the necessary finance, for the building and for a weather shield for the mosaic. Another problem is that Jericho, located in the Palestinian National Authority, is currently not open to holders of Israeli passports, but it is hoped this may change in the near future.

Forgery trial draws to a close

After five years, the defence has completed its case and Judge Aharon Farkash is due to give his verdict in the local Jerusalem Court before the end of the year, after considering the opinions of many legal and scientific experts and 12,000 pages of evidence. The case has boiled down to a focus on two major artefacts: the Yehoash tablet and the inscribed Ossuary of James, brother of Jesus, and to two defendants, Oded Golan, a Tel Aviv collector, and Robert Deutsch, a dealer and expert on ancient seals. The judge has already said that he will find it nearly impossible to reach a decision where the experts themselves cannot agree, and that he does not see that the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that, if there is forgery, the defendants have carried it out. The prosecution was brought by the IAA, who must await the verdict with some trepidation.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg
W.F.Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem