Tag: mikveh

Report from Jerusalem #72, 25th August 2015

Ancient Torah Fragment Restored

The Byzantine synagogue of Ein Gedi was excavated forty-five years ago and a charred scroll fragment was retrieved from the ark.  The fragment could not be deciphered at the time, according to Dr. Sefi Porath, the excavator,  and it was eventually scanned by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and sent to Prof. Brent Seales of Kentucky University, whose software was able to recognize the first eight verses of the Book of Leviticus of the Hebrew Bible, The discovery was quite astonishing to Pnina Shor of the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls Project, who said that “ we can now bequeath to future generations part of the Bible from the Ark of a 1,500 year-old synagogue.”

Obscure Drawings Found on Second Temple Ritual Bath

The mikveh (ritual bath) was discovered two months ago during the construction of two nursery schools in the Arnona district of Jerusalem when an ancient cave was uncovered. The mikveh was dated to the first century CE, according to the IAA, and one wall was found to be covered with Aramaic inscriptions and drawings of a boat, a palm tree and other plants. The archaeologists, Royce Greenwald and Alexander Wiegmann said such an assembly of symbols from the Second Temple period was extremely rare and for them to be found on the walls of a mikveh was a puzzle, as were the inscriptions themselves.  They have now been removed to the conservation laboratories of the IAA for further study, decipherment and preservatory treatment. It is hoped that the inscriptions can then be read after which they will eventually be put on show to the public.

Chicken Bred for Mass Consumption in Fourth Century BCE

According to researchers at Haifa University, the first instance of breeding chickens and eggs for mass consumption took place in the area of Lachish two thousand three hundred years ago, before the practice spread to Europe. Professors Gilboa and Bar-Oz said that underground breeding facilities of the Hellenistic period had been found in the lowland area, which indicated local use, and the large numbers of bones at a great number of sites showed the potential for an export industry, which may have supplied other parts of the Middle East and even spread to Europe as well.

Washington Museum to Show Israeli Antiquities

The Museum of the Bible, which is due to open in Washington DC, USA in 2017, will have a large area reserved for temporary exhibitions, and it is planned to set out an area of four thousand square feet for a show of Israeli antiquities, according to a press release issued by Israel Hasson, director of the IAA, “which will make the archaeological heritage of Israel and the vital work conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority accessible to people around the world.”

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

W.F Albright Institute of Archeological Research, Jerusalem

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