Tag: Queen Helena of Adiabene

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 #40, 15th March 2012

New Tourism Centre on Givati Car Park, Jerusalem

Recently initial approval has been given for a large new tourism centre over the site of the former car park opposite the City of David archaeological park and south of the Dung Gate of the Old City. The new complex will be built on stilts over the large site, still partly under excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is considered by some to have been the location of the palace of Queen Helena of Adiabene of the 1st century CE, where many Roman and Byzantine artifacts have been uncovered. The complex will house facilities for tourists as well as a museum of local finds, and will illustrate the history of the area, to include details of its Islamic past from the Arab Conquest to the present day. Further approvals have still to be given, and costs allocated, but once complete the complex will make it easier for visitors to access the southern part of the Old City and the excavations below the southern walls, where a new area has been prepared alongside the city’s ancient eastern wall and gate, considered by Dr. Eilat Mazar and others to be of the Solomonic period.

Cultivation of Ancient Citrons (etrogim) at Ramat Rahel, Jerusalem

Excavations at the royal palace of Ramat Rahel, which dates back to the time of Hezekiah in the 8th century BCE, have been going on for some years under the direction of Prof. Oded Lipschitz and Dr. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Oeming of Heidelberg University. The palace boasted a royal garden where the hard local ground had been replaced in antiquity by finer productive soil and the archaeologists were keen to find out what had been grown there. For evidence they decided to examine the plasterwork of the surrounding walls, on the theory that in springtime the plant pollen would have been blown onto the walls while they were being plastered. They carefully peeled off some layers of the plaster and were able to identify several wild species and also evidence of citrus plants from a layer of plaster that they identified as having been applied during the Persian period, after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon in the 6th century BCE. The pollen was identified by Dr. Dafna Langut of Tel Aviv University as being that of the citron, or etrog, the fruit which is used as one of the four species to be waved aloft on the festival of Tabernacles. This is the earliest evidence of the etrog in Israel, and it is assumed that the royal palace planted their trees, whose origin is in India, when they were brought to this country by the exiles from Babylon. Further evidence was found of willow and myrtle plants that are also used for the festive Sukkoth (Tabernacles) rituals (Lev. 23:40).

Restoration of Historic Sites, the Montefiore Windmill in Jerusalem

It has previously been mentioned that the Israeli Government has allocated funds to the restoration and preservation of sites of historic interest. At the end of February a list of 13 heritage sites was published and these included Tel Shiloh, where tradition claims that the desert shrine Mishkan was re-erected; the ancient synagogue of the Second Temple Period at Umm el-Umdam in Modi’in, and the Montefiore windmill in the Yemin Moshe area of Jerusalem.

The Government has pledged 72 million shekels (approx. £12 million) for these projects, of which one million is for the windmill, to which further funds will be contributed by the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Tourism and the Christian Friends of Israel from Holland. The plan for the windmill is to put it back in working order using replica parts made in Britain to the designs of the Holman Company of UK that built the original mill in 1857. The parts will be shipped to experts for assembly in Holland and then transported for final fitting to the mill in Jerusalem. It is hoped to complete the work before the end of this summer, and then have the four storey mill turning and working five days a week on a regular basis.

Another controversial find by Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici, the Canadian-Israeli director of the TV series, “The Naked Archaeologist”, claimed recently that he had identified the tomb of some of the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem. The burial cave in question is situated under a residential building in the Armon Hanatziv area of southern Jerusalem. It was first found in the 1990s, when local ultra-orthodox residents objected to further investigation and covered the cave with a concrete slab and built a block of flats over it. Jacobovici claimed he obtained permission from the residents to conduct further exploratory work and, although he was stopped from opening up the cave, he was eventually allowed to make a small hole and investigate below by means of a camera mounted on a robotic arm. The subsequent image that he obtained shows an incised carving of a fish swallowing, or vomiting out, a human head, which Jacobovici claims is an image of Jonah and the Great Fish (usually described as a whale) and that, he says, designates an early Christian image, as it was used as a symbol of Christ and his resurrection. Jacobovici has therefore concluded that the cave contained the remains of some of the early followers of Jesus, and the Israeli archaeologist members of his team are reported as agreeing with his findings. Jacobovici was due to hold a press conference in New York at the beginning of March, but I have no further information on this sensational claim.

Sale of Ancient Shekel in New York Auction

A silver shekel, struck in Jerusalem in year 1 of the Revolt by the Jewish rebels against Roman rule, was sold in early March at auction in New York for $1.1 million. It had been part of the Shoshana Collection of 2,000 ancient Judaean coins formed by a private collector from Los Angeles, who had purchased it 20 years ago for $240,000. The only other known example of this coin belongs to the Israel Museum. The collection as a whole will be sold off over the coming year and is expected to fetch $10 million.

Forgery Trial Verdict Announced

On 14th March the verdict of Judge Aharon Farkash of the Jerusalem District Court was released, declaring that the two defendants were not guilty of forgery. As for the two artifacts in question it could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt that they were forgeries. The trial had been in progress for nearly 7 years and the judge had to consider 12,000 pieces of evidence and the testimony of dozens of experts. The prosecution was brought by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) who had claimed that many artifacts had been forged by a number of defendants. In the course of the trial the number of pieces was reduced to two, the “James, brother of Jesus Ossuary” and the “Yehoash Tablet” and the defendants to two, Oded Golan, an antiquities dealer and Robert Deutsch, an expert in ancient seals. Both were found not guilty, but Golan was convicted of the minor count of dealing in antiquities without a licence, for which he will be sentenced later.

The judge had been unable to conclude that the pieces were forgeries as the testimony of the experts had weighed in on both sides of the argument and, as the judge had said, who was he to make a decision on a matter of contention between professionals.

It was also clear that even if the items were forgeries, the actual work could not be pinned on the defendants. It had been claimed that the alleged forgeries were committed by a named Egyptian craftsman, but the Court had been unable to bring him to court from Cairo. The judge’s decision is a disappointment for the IAA but they claim that the case has highlighted the questionable authenticity of artifacts acquired from the market and of unknown provenance, and in fact the judge’s verdict does not prove that the two items in question are not forgeries. It seems to be the opinion among archaeologists that it is quite possible that, concerning the inscription on the ossuary “James, the son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” the ossuary is genuine and only the last three words were added by a forger. As for the Yehoash (Joash) Tablet, the text is close to passages found in Second Kings 12 and Second Chronicles 24 and, if genuine, would be a remarkable confirmation of the Temple and its description in the Hebrew Bible. However, the texts are so close that experts were very suspicious, and also the origin of the tablet was unclear.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg,

 W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem