Tag: Tel Aviv

Report from Jerusalem #74, 30th November 2015

Acra Citadel Found

In the second century BCE in the fight with the Maccabees, the Syrian Greek Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes erected a citadel called the Acra in Jerusalem to control and watch over events on the Temple Mount, where the Maccabees had recaptured the Temple.  As the Temple Mount was higher than the surrounding areas, the Acra would have had to have been a tower high enough to oversee the Mount, and its location has been sought for many years by archaeologists but without avail.  However in the last few weeks, scholars from the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) working at the Givati parking lot just south of the Temple Mount have unearthed the massive foundations of what they consider to have been a high tower, perhaps twenty metres in height, and which they now think were the foundations of the Acra tower, which, if high enough, could have been used to supervise the activities on the Temple Mount. In addition to the tower foundations, the IAA found the base of an adjoining wall and the remains of a sloping rampart located to keep attackers away from the base of the wall and the tower. They also found evidence of the remains of a battle around the base of the tower in the form of lead sling shots, ballista stones and arrowheads, some of them in bronze, with the sign of a trident stamped on them, symbolizing the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. These would have been evidence of the battle conducted by the Maccabees in an attempt to storm the tower, which was hampering their activities on the Temple Mount.

Fine Mosaic in Lod

During excavations by the IAA at a large villa of the Roman period in th Neveh Yerek area of Lod, twenty kilometers south-east of  Tel Aviv, a brilliant mosaic was uncovered in what had been the living room floor of the villa, which stood in a neighbourhood of wealthy dwellings. The mosaic depicts scenes of hunting, figures of animals, fish and birds, with vases and baskets of flowers, and the archaeologists said that the images indicated a highly developed artistic ability. The work was found as the ground was being prepared for a visitor’s centre, in the name of Shelby White and Leon Levy, to view another colourful mosaic, already found in the courtyard of the mansion, which had measured approximately twelve metres square.  The mosaic will be lifted and shown in several museums at home and abroad and it will then be returned and the villa and the two mosaics will be displayed to the public.

Oldest Domesticated Seeds Found in Galilee

The world’s oldest domesticated Fava seeds have been found in the Galilee, in Israel. It is considered that the Fava bean (vicia faba), which bears large pods with edible seeds, dates back for more than ten thousand years, making them the world’s oldest domesticated seeds. They were found in storage pits after they had been husked, and the seeds were of a uniform size, indicating they were all cultivated and harvested at the same period of the year.  At this time an agricultural revolution was taking place throughout the region, when animals and plants were being domesticated and it is clear from several finds that the Galilee was the main producer of legumes at this period.

Early Statuette Found by Young Boy

Itai Halperin, an eight year old boy on a day trip with is family around Bet Shemesh, picked up a round ceramic object and soon realized it was the ancient head of a small statue and turned it over to the IAA, who recognized it as the head of the sculpture of a naked fertility goddess.  They considered it to be of the period between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE and its find area would indicate that this was a place controlled by the kingdom of Judah, of which Bet Shemesh was a prominent city. The find was important according to the IAA and Itai was awarded a special archaeological certificate to celebrate his find. He thanked them and said that he wanted one day to be like the celebrated Indiana Jones.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg,

W.F Albright Institute of Archeological Research, Jerusalem

This report comes to members of AIAS from Stephen Rosenberg in Israel. It represents his personal assessment. The Society takes no responsibility for the content.

Report from Jerusalem, #31, 11th May

Demonstrations over Graves in Jaffa

Problems continue with the ultra-orthodox trying to prevent the digging up of human remains for development and archaeological research. The latest incident has centred on the Andromeda Hill site in Jaffa, where 150 skeletons have been uncovered during archaeological digs that have been going on for some time before the building of the “Eden Hotel” luxury project. The digs were proceeding over the last year, and have also uncovered many pig bones among the human remains which, in the view of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), indicated that the burials were of a pagan nature and would not be of interest to the “Atra Kadisha”, the ultra-orthodox Jewish movement.

It seems that previous excavations in the area in 1993-1994 turned up a jar containing a foetus burial that was dated to c.1900 BCE. In the view of the IAA that find was conclusive evidence of the pagan nature of the area’s population.

Last June protests were held, both near the site and in Manhattan near the home of the US developer, and in late March of this year, hundreds of followers of the Atra Kadisha movement held a mock funeral for the remains. Whenever human bones of any nature are uncovered by the IAA, they are treated reverentially and handed to the relevant funeral authorities after examination, and very rarely retained for further research.

Return of ancient Christian artifacts demanded by Jordan

The story goes that a Bedouin farmer found a cache of small metal plates, bound by leaden rings, formed into codices, about 70 in number, in Northern Jordan between 2005 and 2007, and had them smuggled into Israel for sale. Another Bedouin, Hassan Saeda, living in Northern Israel, is holding them and claims that they are his family heirloom. It is said that Israeli archaeologists, (having been contacted by Saeda, who has been trying to sell the artifacts), say that the pieces are forgeries.

The Jordanian authorities however claim that the codices or miniature books  are extremely important and of significance equal to that of the Dead Sea scrolls, but so far the IAA have declined to comment, having no detailed knowledge of them. Nevertheless David Ellington, a British historian of Christianity, is said to have told the BBC that the codices are a major discovery of Christian History and that he hoped to have them moved to Jordan for examination. The codices are in Hebrew and Greek but written in a code so far undeciphered, though the language is clear.

It seems that a report on the matter was printed in the Daily Telegraph recently, and there has been much speculation about them on the internet, so readers in the UK may have more knowledge of this matter, as all details on the subject are very scanty in Israel, and no-one seems to have seen the pieces, which may well seem surprising if they really are so important.

Jacobovici discovers “Nails of the Cross”

Simcha Jacobovici, the Canadian-Israeli maker of popular films on Biblical Archaeology, hit the headlines in mid-April by announcing that he had retrieved two Roman nails from the IAA storerooms and that they were the nails of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. He said that the nails had come from the ossuary of Caiaphas, the High Priest who had handed Jesus over to the Roman authorities. The ossuary had been reported by the IAA but no details of the nails had been given or even recorded and Jacobovici was of the opinion that they were very significant, claiming that they had been buried with the remains of Caiaphas to indicate his guilt in arresting and reporting Jesus to the Romans.

Jacobovici has made films on the Death of Jesus and on the Exodus, and Israeli archaeologists have said that although his latest claims make good TV, they do not make good history.

The Kenyon Institute. formerly the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem

In recent years the name of the British School has been changed to the Kenyon Institute to give it a more modern title and yet retain its prime connection to the archaeology of the Holy Land, in honour of Kathleen Kenyon, the great British archaeologist. It is housed in an attractive older building in the Sheikh Jarrah district of northern Jerusalem and houses an extensive archaeological library, two lecture rooms and a convenient hostel for the use of visiting scholars. It has for years been sponsoring lectures and even digs on archaeology and in September 2007 gave room to a one-day conference on “British Groundbreakers in the Archaeology of the Holy Land”, which was organized by this society, the AIAS, and was addressed by scholars from Israel, Palestine and Jordan, while the UK was represented by several speakers from the PEF.

Funding for the Institute comes mainly from the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), and the Institute is administered by the British School in Amman, Jordan, but has its own local director and staff. There were a number of recent changes in the directorship and the present acting director is Omar Shweiki.

The Institute has not been very active in the recent past but has now started a series of three lectures entitled “The Modern Middle East”, which centres on the recent revolutions in the Arab world, commonly called “the Arab Spring”.

This trend in lectures suggests that the Institute is turning to the study of current affairs, which the AIAS and the archaeological community in general, would find unfortunate if it implied any move away from the original speciality in archaeology.

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

Report from Jerusalem, #30, 27th March

Bethlehem Church, UNESCO Heritage Site?

The Palestine Authority has recently applied to UNESCO to designate the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem a World Heritage site. If agreed, this would be the first heritage site in the Palestine Authority area. At present the Authority’s area is not recognized by the United Nations as a state so their sites cannot get heritage status, but the applicants hope that the historical importance of the Church will override that consideration.

At present several sites in Israel have UNESCO Heritage status, including Megiddo, Tel Dan, Masada and the Bauhaus buildings of Tel Aviv, and several more are under consideration.

Jericho’s ancient Tower

Recently the Neolithic tower at Tel Jericho has been described as “the world’s first skyscraper” and claimed to be a marker of the summer solstice. The tower is dated to c. 8500 BCE and is the first known stone monument to be built by humankind. It is conical in shape and 8.5 metres high. It has an internal staircase and was plastered externally. In the past it had been considered to be a fortification, a place of refuge during flooding, a ritual centre or a symbol of communal power. Now Ron Barkai and Roy Liran, archaeologists at Tel Aviv University, claim to have found a distinct line of sight between the stair aperture of the tower and the mountain called Qarantal that lies directly west of the ancient site. By computer analysis they have worked out that at the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, at this early period the mountain cast a shadow on the tower just before sunset.

This finding leads them to suggest that the tower was built, at great expense of labour, as a symbol used to demonstrate to villagers the advantage of giving up their hunting ways and settling down to a life of farming around the oasis.

Atlantis and Tarshish identified?

Prof. Richard Freund claims to have discovered Atlantis, the mythical city mentioned by Plato as being just beyond the Pillars of Hercules and disappearing into the sea after a violent earthquake. In a film by Simcha Jacobovici, who has done a number of popular films related to biblical subjects, Freund claims that Atlantis was a site off the coast of southern Spain, shown by aerial photos to be three concentric circles of sunken land around an island port. For extra interest Jacobovici has said that this Atlantis was the Tarshish known from the Bible, which mentions the ships of Tarshish (Ezek. 27 and elsewhere) and that Jonah took a boat to Tarshish (Jon. 1:3), which some scholars have equated with Tartessos in southern Spain.

Freund is professor at the University of Hartford and co-director of the ongoing dig at Betsaida with Ron Arav. As for Tartessos, in Spain, this has been equated with Tarshish because Herodotus mentions it as a port reached by the Phoenicians (1:163), but it is much simpler and robably more correct to say that the biblical Tarshish is the port of Tarsus, on the southern coast of Turkey, near to Phoenicia, whose local name is exactly as the Hebrew.

New Ground-penetrating Technology

A new “algorithmic toolkit” developed by Professor of Geophysics Lev Eppelbaum and his team at Tel Aviv University will be able to reveal underground archaeological remains free of interference from later obstructions like pipes, cables and modern construction. A clear picture, free of local “noise”, will emerge and enable archaeologists to work in densely built-up cities without the need for preliminary excavation. The system is called Multi-physical-archaeological-models, or Multi-PAM for short, and will cut expenditure of time and costs by many factors, but so far few details of how the apparatus works have emerged.

Three brief notices: Second Temple coins, headless Roman statue, Byzantine Mosaic

1. During a raid in Mazra’a, south of Nahariyah, police found a cache of ceramics and coins of the Second Temple period in the yard of a family who had been suspected of hiding weapons. The find has been taken to the local museum and further details are expected to be announced.

2. After the storm of 20th February, a headless Roman-style statue was found on the beach at Caesarea. It was nearly a metre tall and possibly of the goddess Aphrodite. This follows a similar find made at Ashkelon after a previous storm this winter.

3. In the Gaza strip, archaeologists from the Ecole Biblique of Jerusalem have uncovered a fine mosaic floor of the Byzantine period at the site of the St. Hilarion Monastery at Umm al-‘Amr. The work is supported by the French Consulate General and UNESCO and will include restoration and safeguarding the mosaic from damage by the public and the elements.

Stephen Rosenberg
W.F.Albright Institute, Jerusalem