BiblePlaces Blog

Rare Coin Exhibit in Jerusalem

2009-11-06T10:05:00.001-06:00

A new exhibit opens on November 11 at the Davidson Center south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From Arutz-7:

Among the artifacts to be displayed next week is a rare collection of 2,000-year-old coins that were burnt during the Great Revolt by the Jews against the Roman occupation, in which the Second Holy Temple was destroyed. The Western Wall, which was outside the Temple and not a part of it, is the only remaining part of the immediate area that remained standing following the destruction. The collection includes unique coins that were minted in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.

One extraordinary find to be presented to the public for the first time is an extremely rare shekel that was minted by the Jewish rebels during the last months of the revolt, in the year 70 CE.

Also on display will be other coins that were found in different excavations in the region and have a wide geographic origin, from Persia, via North Africa and as far away as France. These coins attest to the centrality of Jerusalem for all of the people who visited the city thousands of years ago, while leaving behind a "souvenir" in the area.

It is interesting to note the difference between the Jewish coins and others on display. Contrary to pagan coins, the ruler was not usually depicted on coins of Jewish origin, due to the Jewish prohibition against making a "graven image" or idol. According to an IAA statement, it is for this reason that a variety of symbols of inanimate objects, such as a wreath or scepter and helmet, appear on many Jewish coins.

The Arutz-7 article also notes that the sarcophagus lid with the inscription “son of the high priest” will be on display. The article has several beautiful photos of coins.

New Discoveries Related to Temple Mount

2009-11-06T07:02:00.001-06:00

Foundation Stone has a fascinating interview with Zachi Zweig, who co-leads the Temple Mount Sifting Project with Gabriel Barkay. It was Zweig who brought public attention to the Muslim dumping of the Temple Mount material many years ago, and his initiative led Barkay to secure a permit for the project. Barkay was interviewed recently about the project, and now Zweig provides more detail about some of the latest discoveries.

You can listen to the 45-minute interview (here, select part 2), but here are a few of the highlights:

They have been working 6 days a week for about 5 years now, but they have sifted only 20% of the material. They estimate 15 more years of work!
Their interest is in knowledge, in understanding the ancient world. This is sharply contrasted with the Arabs who removed this ancient material from the Temple Mount and dumped it in the Kidron Valley.
There are some tunnels and hollow spaces under the Temple Mount that have not been previously known, including one with an Aramaic inscription.
There is a mikveh on the Temple Mount, found in the 1930s but not accurately identified until recently.
Recently the Franciscans were digging on their property on eastern slope of Temple Mount in the Kidron Valley and they found the dump from the Temple Mount in use during the periods of the First and Second Temples. They found restorable vessels from the First Temple period, maybe as early as the 10th century (time of Solomon). They discovered lots of bones from sacrifices eaten on Temple Mount. They also found cultic figurines, which the Bible says were destroyed by King Josiah and dumped in the Kidron Valley (2 Kings 23:12).
Why does no one else care? Why is there so little interest in Israel for the only archaeological work possible on the Temple Mount?
Politics hurts archaeology and our understanding of the past.
The Temple Mount is a house of prayer for ~~all nations~~ the Muslims only.
A Byzantine mosaic was discovered under the Al Aqsa Mosque during the British Mandate but never publicized. Zweig published an article about it last year.
A massive wall uprooted by the Muslim authorities in 1970 may date to First Temple period.

In all, this is quite interesting, particularly the longest bullet point above.

Debris on the Temple Mount, 2005

Rachel’s Tomb, Then and Now

2009-11-05T07:22:00.000-06:00

The traditional location of the tomb of Jacob’s beloved wife is located on the north side of Bethlehem, next to the main highway that has run from Jerusalem to Hebron for thousands of years now. The photo below gives a good idea of what the monument looked like in the early 1900s. It’s quite picturesque.

The traditional Tomb of Rachel, early 1900s

Today, it’s a little harder to get a photo (see below). The tomb is here, just behind that fortified IDF watchtower on the right. The ancient highway now has “walls reaching up to heaven,” and Joshua himself might have despaired of getting through.

The reason for such security is that the tomb is a holy site for some religious Jews, but the Arab city of Bethlehem has grown up around the tomb. When the Israelis built the partition wall, they designed its route so that the tomb and the road accessing it would stay on the Israeli side of the wall. In difficult days, even this protection is not enough and travel to the tomb is banned. The Palestinians who live next to the tomb can no longer cross the street.

Access to the traditional Tomb of Rachel, Sept. 2004

Looking for a bright spot in all of this? How about this: the tomb has nothing to do with Rachel anyway. According to 1 Samuel 10:2, her tomb was in the tribal territory of Benjamin, which begins five miles north along the Hinnom Valley of Jerusalem. So all this expense and rancor is over Jews who want to pray at what likely was originally the tomb of a Muslim holy man!

The top photo is one of more than 550 photos included in the Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-09188). For less than 4 cents a photo ($20/CD), you get a unique and outstanding collection of high-resolution photographs of Bethlehem, Hebron, the Shephelah, Tell Beit Mirsim, the Judean wilderness, Jericho, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, Masada, Qumran, and the Negev.

Gabriel Barkay Interviewed

2009-11-04T09:00:00.001-06:00

Gabriel Barkay is interviewed in this 10-minute video about the destruction to the Temple Mount, which he claims is carried out not by Israelis but by the Muslims. He talks as well about his long-term project to save ancient remains from that destruction. The content is not really “news,” but it’s worth hearing it from one intimately involved in the matter. The interview concludes with his account of the discovery of the Ketef Hinnom amulets, with the oldest inscriptions of biblical verses known to date.

For more, see the websites about the Temple Mount destruction and sifting project.

HT: Joe Lauer

Photographs Reveal the Past at USC

2009-11-03T08:49:00.001-06:00

If an inscription is discovered today and you want the best photographs of it, you go to the Zuckerman brothers at USC. Their work revealed a more extensive inscription on one of the Ketef Hinnom amulets~~, and they were called on for photographing the recent Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon~~. The LA Times has a brief review of their work, including the equipment they use.

Researchers at USC's West Semitic Research Project have helped uncover its hidden narrative with the aid of lighting and imaging techniques that are credited with revolutionizing the study of ancient texts.

Over the last three decades, the USC project has produced thousands of crisp images of inscriptions and other artifacts from biblical Israel and other Near Eastern locales, making the pictures available to the public in an online archive, InscriptiFact.com.

Among the items shown in the online collection is a Dead Sea Scroll dating to the 1st century that discusses a buried treasure in modern-day Israel. (It's impossible to pinpoint the precise location because landmarks mentioned in the text no longer exist.)

The database also features an Aramaic inscription on a sheet of papyrus written by a group of Jews in Egypt five centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the text -- whose image is so sharp it reveals the grain of the papyrus -- Jews petition distant Persian rulers for permission to rebuild a temple.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," said Bruce Zuckerman, a USC religion professor who founded the research project in the early 1980s. "Sometimes big issues in history can turn on the interpretation of a single letter."

Zuckerman's foray into the world of photography and ancient texts grew out of his frustration over the poor quality of archaeological photos.

[...]

"What West Semitic Research Project did was create a collection of photos of inscriptions that were unlike anything that had been done before," said Wayne Pitard, a religion professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who has collaborated with the Zuckermans. "It's just astonishing."

Their research project occupies two floors of an academic building at USC. Its offices are filled with gadgetry dreamed up by the Zuckermans and their research team and by engineers off campus.

One office holds the Twister, a contraption with a large-format camera that snaps pictures of ancient "cylinder seals" about the size and shape of triple-A batteries.

The seals -- featuring pictures and symbols that once served as a form of personal identification -- are mounted on a turntable and slowly moved around in a circle while the camera snaps photos, producing a single large image.

"The picture is better than holding it in your hands," Bruce Zuckerman said.

The full story is here.

HT: Paleojudaica

UPDATE: My memory about photographing the Qeiyafa ostracon may have been mistaken and thus I’ve lined out the statement above. If it’s true, however, that the ostracon was brought to the U.S. for photographing but was not taken to the Zuckerman lab, then I can only wonder why.

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

2009-11-02T09:11:00.001-06:00

This week’s Explorator mentions several articles that may be of interest to readers here:

Evidence for tsunami events at Caesarea:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091026093728.htm

Rethinking the ‘odds’ of the Talpiot Tomb:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/tomb357926.shtnl

Feature on mapping Iraq’s archaeological sites:
http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=news/news_show.php&id=40707

A Roman-era cemetery from near Hebron:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=235964

Weekend Roundup

2009-11-01T07:33:00.001-06:00

Glo is reviewed in Newsweek. I’d like to say more about this Bible software some time. In some ways, it’s better than being on-site.

David Padfield has reviewed unfavorably the BAS Photo Archives Complete Set.

Arutz-7 Radio has posted a couple of interviews (mp3) this week that may be of interest to readers here. The first half of part one is an interview with Bernie and Fran Alpert, founders of Archaeological Seminars, which for decades has run the “dig for a day” program. They say that one million people have come through their programs, the main one of which is digging for a few hours in Hellenistic caves at Bet Guvrin.

Part two is a 50-minute interview with Eilat Mazar concerning her initial interest in archaeology, some of her previous excavations, and now her work in the City of David. She gives some reasons for why she believes the large stone structure must date to the time of David. I found myself nodding off in the middle, but it was worthwhile to listen to the end.

The real Snake Path is not at Masada, but in San Diego.

Egypt and the Bible Symposium, Toronto

2009-10-31T09:31:00.001-05:00

There was a notice yesterday in ANE-2 of two conferences related to Egypt in Toronto next weekend. You can read more about the Scholarly Colloquium on Ancient Egypt (Nov 6, 8) here.

The Egypt and the Bible symposium falls on the middle day between the colloquium and, while not free like the other, has a number of interesting lectures. I heard Hoffmeier give the same lecture as listed below last month and it was very good. I imagine that most of the others are as well.

EGYPT AND THE BIBLE

Saturday, November 7th, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Location: University of Toronto campus, 5 Bancroft Ave., Room 1050

Advance online registration: Public $90.00, Member $80.00, Student
$40.00, SSEA Members $80.00

-------------------------------------------

Of plots, women and lawgivers: Egypt as pictured in Genesis & Exodus
Prof. Donald B. Redford, Pennsylvania State University

Abraham in Egypt
Prof. John Gee, Brigham Young University

Exodus Geography and Location of the Re(e)d in the Light of Recent
Archaeological and Geological Work in North Sinai
Prof. James K. Hoffmeier, Trinity International University

The Campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq, the Bible's `Shishak', to the
Levant, ca. 920 B.C: Myth, Legend, or Something you can put your
(hand-)pick into?
Prof. John S. Holladay, Emeritus University of Toronto

The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance between Hebrews and Kushites
Henry T. Aubin, author of The Rescue of Jerusalem

Two Hymns as Praise: Poems, Royal Ideology, and History in Ancient Israel and Ancient Egypt: A Comparative Reflection
Prof. Susan T. Hollis, Empire State College - State University of New York

Egypt and the Infant Jesus
Dr. F. Terry Miosi

Herodium, Then and Now

2009-10-30T08:39:00.001-05:00

Early Western visitors were intrigued by a conical mountain about 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Bethlehem. Known by the Arabs as Jebel el Fureidis (Little Paradise Mountain), the site was believed to be the monument built by King Herod and named after himself.

Herodium, eastern tower, date of photograph: 1910-26.
From the Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-01383).

Edward Robinson visited the site in 1838. He described his visit in his second volume of Biblical Researches in Palestine: “Leaving here our horses, a steep ascent of ten minutes brought us to the top of the mountain, which constitutes a circle of about seven hundred and fifty feet in circumference. The whole of this is enclosed by the ruined walls of a circular fortress, built of hewn stones of good size, with four massive round towers standing one at each of the cardinal points. . . . The tower upon the East is not so thoroughly destroyed as the rest” (170-71).

Today one can see how impressive that solid eastern tower is. Excavations began at Herodium in 1962 under the Franciscan Virgil Corbo. After Israel took the area in 1967, Ehud Netzer continued the archaeological work. Two years ago, Netzer discovered the long-sought-for tomb of Herod.

Herodium with eastern tower on right

Support Sought for Tel Dor

2009-10-30T07:15:00.000-05:00

The Tel Dor team is looking for support and volunteers, and I’m glad to help out by posting a recent letter I received here. Times are tough for archaeology, as noted by Jeffrey Zorn in this column in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. They would appreciate your support.

Dear Madam/Sir,

The exquisite gemstone of Alexander the great that captured your attention is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of one of the largest, long-lasting and high-profile archaeological projects in Israel. If you care about the archaeology of biblical times (Israelites, Phoenicians and Sea People), the Classical periods, and the cultural heritage of Israel and the Mediterranean; and if you are interested in forging a bond between Israel and the international community - please take a moment to look at the attached file. Like almost cultural projects around the globe, we need your help to endure.

We would be grateful if you could pass this message to any other interested parties.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ilan Sharon,
Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905
Tel. 972-2-2881304

Dr. Ayelet Gilboa
Chair, Dept. of Archaeology,
University of Haifa, Mount Carmel
Haifa 31905, Israel
Tel: 972-4-8240234, 972-4-8240531

Tel Dor website: http://dor.huji.ac.il/
Email: dor-proj@mscc.huji.ac.il

Tel Dor has also a facebook page; you are welcome to visit us.

The cover story this month in BAR is about a beautiful mosaic found in the excavations of Dor.

If your idea of a perfect summer is excavating on the beach in the best climate in the world, you have found what you’re looking for.

Harbor of Dor, looking south

Menorah Cave Opened at Beth Shearim

2009-10-29T07:45:00.000-05:00

The cave previously known as the “Cave of the Coffins” has been restored and renamed. From Arutz-7:

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin unveiled a huge ancient relief depicting a seven branched menorah at Beit Shearim in the Galilee Tuesday. The menorah, which is 1.90 m. (75”) high, is one of the major tourist attractions at the renovated ancient burial cave site.

The burial caves were discovered decades ago but their recent renovation took place largely thanks to Rivlin's initiative. In 2004, during his first term as Knesset Speaker, Rivlin visited the site and was stirred by the site of the numerous depictions of the menorah, which is the modern State of Israel's symbol as well.

He took action to make sure that the site received special preference and that funds were allocated to its restoration and preservation. A team, which included restoration expert Jacques Neger and architect Ram Shoef, got rid of roots that had invaded the caves and restored the wall carvings, and the renewed site was opened to tourists.

The rest of the article, with photos, is here.

The Haaretz report adds this note:

Another two newly discovered burial caves not far from the current archaeological site will be opened to the public in three months.

Another Haaretz article notes the claims of a 93-year-old architect that he discovered the necropolis of Beth Shearim and not the famed watchman Alexander Zaid.

Menorah decoration before restoration, Beth Shearim

HT: Joe Lauer

New Blog for Tel Burna Excavation

2009-10-28T10:24:00.001-05:00

A promising new blog started last week with the intention of chronicling the excavation of a site from the very beginning. The Tel Burna Excavation Project is headed by Itzhaq Shai and Joe Uziel of Bar Ilan University and we look forward to continued informative postings. So far, they have covered:

Welcome to the New Tel Burna Blog—an image of the site using GIS technology
A Little Bit about the Site—with a map of the area and a photo of visible fortifications
Identifying the Site—is this biblical Libnah?
The Survey Season—includes a survey map
A Nice View of the Tel—it’s more a photo of the area next to the tell than the tell itself.

The Arabic name for the site is Tell Bornat, and it has been identified as Libnah by W. F. Albright and A. F. Rainey.

Tel Burna from the west

Pottery Baskets

2009-10-27T08:29:00.000-05:00

If you've ever thought it strange that they call them “pottery baskets” when they’re really just plastic buckets, the photo below may help.

This photo was taken in the first season of William F. Albright’s excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim (1926). It is one of 25 photos taken at the site included in the newly published Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (originally Library of Congress, LC-matpc-05733).

Hazor 2009 Report

2009-10-27T06:45:00.000-05:00

Amnon Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman have posted a brief summary of the excavation results of this year’s season at Hazor. The focus was on Iron Age material in Area M. Among other things, they report:

One wide wall, built with a mudbrick superstructure on a stone foundation, was uncovered in the final week of this season. This wall, 1 m. wide and 15 m. long, oriented east–west, is the first of its kind in the area. It must have belonged to a large public structure. The two central rows of worked limestone pillars are parallel to this wall, and most probably form the inner partition walls of an administrative structure. This assumption will be further checked in the next season.

The main finds attributed to the Iron Age phases in the area are pottery sherds and some complete and restorable vessels. In addition, several scarabs and seals, three Egyptianised beads made of faience, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic clay figurines, iron and bronze objects and an incised bone lid were found.

Unfortunately the website was created using frames, so you have to click this link and then select “Report of 2009 Season” unless you want to see the page without the header.

A promo video created by SourceFlix heads the page with information about the 2010 season.

Weekend Roundup

2009-10-25T18:21:00.001-05:00

Salvage archaeology is the unplanned kind which occurs when construction reveals ancient remains. In a city like Jerusalem, modern builders uncover the past far more than they would like. This Jerusalem Post article gives some good insight into the challenges and rewards.

Archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir is unhappy that the Israel Antiquities Authority is planning to build a three-story museum over the ruins of the Roman “Valley Cardo” on the western side of the Western Wall Plaza.

Stephen G. Rosenberg writes in the Jerusalem Post on two synagogues in the Golan Heights at Ein Nashut and Yehudiya.

An American geologist argued in a recent lecture that David chose the city of Jerusalem because of the karstic limestone formations. The brief article in the Jerusalem Post only covers the basics and doesn’t reveal what he has contributed to the discussion. An abstract of the article can be read here.

Case Western Reserve University has about 300 out-of-copyright books on the Ancient Near East available on their website.

The Jerusalem Post has a 3-minute video on the recent story (previously noted here) on the Western Wall tunnels and new discoveries made there.

Bridges for Peace sent me their 2010 calendar because they used one of my photos on the cover. The calendar is full of beautiful photographs and I see that they are for sale here for $10.

HT: Joe Lauer, Mondo Gonzales, David F. Coppedge

Double-Decker Plaza at Western Wall Planned

2009-10-23T09:28:00.001-05:00

From Arutz-7:

Israel is planning a major archaeological dig under the Western Wall (Kotel) plaza, opposite the Temple Mount, officials announced Thursday. The excavations will create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.

The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.

Don’t expect the Arab leaders to miss this opportunity.

The dig may be met with harsh reactions from Muslim and Arab leaders in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, many of whom have accused Israel of attempting to damage the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Jerusalem-area Muslims recently rioted for several days after it was rumored that “Jewish settlers” had planned to pray on the Temple Mount.

You can see an artist’s sketch of what the area will look like here. The full article is here.

The present plaza level was lowered in the 1960s, as I noted with this interesting photo comparison.

Cline on the Distortion of Archaeology

2009-10-23T07:47:00.000-05:00

The Bible and Interpretation has published a number of provocative essays since its return earlier this year. A recent one that relates to a matter occasionally noted on this blog is Eric Cline’s “The Distortion of Archaeology and What We Can Do About It: A Brief Note on Progress Made and Yet To Be Made.” The essay is adapted from a forthcoming book and thus may feel a bit long for internet reading, but you can profitably skim it, slowing down for the sections of greater interest. After an opening illustration, the article begins:

We find similar situations every year in archaeology, for the junk science which is practiced by many pseudo-archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts (against which I have railed elsewhere) not only cannot withstand serious scrutiny, but in many cases the “results” themselves are not really results in the first place. However, when gratuitous claims of amazing finds, especially concerning Noah’s Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, and Sodom and Gomorrah, are first made, they are featured prominently in the media, but subsequent rebuttals are given little or no attention.

We have to face the reality of the situation, which is that the media are going to keep reporting such stories because they sell newspapers and get people to watch TV or click on Internet links. While they are not nearly as interested in later negative responses, reporters almost always seek immediate reactions which can be used in the original story. So, we have to decide what we are going to do about this and how to turn it to our advantage. (emphasis mine)

You can read it all here.

Engineer: Excavations Do Not Undermine Temple Mount

2009-10-23T07:07:00.001-05:00

From the Jerusalem Post:

Despite recent accusations to the contrary, the chief site engineer for the Western Wall tunnels declared on Thursday that Israeli archeological excavations were not being done under the Temple Mount, were in no way detrimental to the structural stability of the mount or its surroundings, and were actually improving such stability "tenfold."

"There's been a lot of talk about instability [based on ongoing archeological excavations in the area], and let me reassure you, we have improved the structural stability here tenfold over the last few years and have actually strengthened areas where there was danger of further collapse," the chief engineer, Ofer Cohen, said during a Government Press Office-sponsored tour of the tunnels on Thursday afternoon.

Standing in a section of the tunnels known as the "Hall of Ages" - so named because the archeological and subsequent reinforcement work there spans from the First Temple period until today - Cohen and the tour's participants were dwarfed by a series of huge steel beams that had been set up to prevent the walls from caving in.

"To those who say that our work here is causing structural instability, the exact opposite is true," Cohen asserted.

The rest of the story is here.

Jerusalem vs. Pompeii (in Google Earth)

2009-10-22T08:16:00.000-05:00

There are not many computer programs that I am wildly ecstatic about, but Google Earth qualifies even if no others do. If you haven’t yet downloaded it, I recommend it.

I’ve been doing some reading recently on Pompeii. I think my fascination with the city may in part be owing to my “discovery” of the site years after I thought I had been to the most important ruins of the Middle East and Mediterranean world. When I visited, I felt that I had been cheated for years. Why had no one sat me down and told me in a most serious tone that I must discard all other travel plans and get myself to Pompeii? Apparently I do not have friends who love me enough.

Sadly I learned very little from my delay in visiting Pompeii in Real Life, for I have done no better in visiting Pompeii in Google Earth. I had no idea what a treat was awaiting me. At least for those used to staring at the fuzzy, low-resolution imagery of Israel, Pompeii is a beautiful contrast. (To find Pompeii quickly, paste these coordinates in the “Fly To” box: 40.750262°14.486046°).

Here is a comparison, with screenshots taken in Google Earth from the same elevation above the sites.

Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem

Forum and Temple of Augustus, in Pompeii

I don’t know what it’s going to take before we see high-quality satellite imagery in the Middle East.

Tall Tells

2009-10-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

I’ve often been asked how tells grew so tall. True, winds in the Middle East blow lots of dust throughout the year, but that certainly cannot account for tells which are 80 feet high. A.D. Riddle recently sent me the following quotation from C. Leonard Woolley, in which he gives a good explanation for the phenomenon of tells from his report on excavations at Carchemish. I have placed in bold the answer to this question, but the whole is worth reading, despite its length. Woolley writes:

The whole of North Syria is dotted with tells, artificial mounds which consist of and conceal old settlements. So little has been done in the way of excavating these mounds that it is dangerous to theorize too much about the nature of what lies beneath them; but certain features which are common to all, or which distinguish one from another, may, with such more sure information as digging has afforded, serve to throw light on the conditions of life which brought them into being and shaped their history.

Tell el-Farah South

The neolithic folk, the original founders, undoubtedly, of all these tells, built their huts of mud and rubble either on some slight knoll or, where none such lay to hand, on an artificial platform laboriously piled up with basketful after basketful of earth,—piled just high enough to raise them above the damp of the level soil. The huts fell in ruins, and these ruins raised the ground level on which new homes were built, and that at a goodly rate, for mud-brick walls tend to be thick, and their cubic contents are very great in proportion to the area they enclose, and as the bricks can scarcely be used a second time the whole material of the fallen house was let lie where it fell and was merely leveled for the foundations of the new. Year after year went on this accumulation of débris and of house rubbish (there are sites in the Near East where the rubbish-heaps outside the walls are nearly as extensive as and much higher than the ruins themselves), and the original platform reached a height at which it commanded all the surrounding country. Then a wealthier generation, perhaps more warlike, or more timorous, walled the hill-top round, turning their village in to a stronghold. The chance of an asylum would attract new-comers, whose houses huddled together on the slopes of the mound and spread over the low ground at its foot, and this in its turn began to heap itself up above the level of the plain around. After a while the outsiders, too, might demand protection for their homes, not content to leave them in war-time to the mercy of the enemy while themselves taking refuge in the fort: they built a wall round the new outer town. In proportion as the whole town was thus made defensible, the original settlement, the tell, tended to become less a place of general residence, more and more the centre of administration and of worship; here the princeling might live in isolated state, here were the barracks of his regular retinue, here the temples which from of old had been the houses of gods or heroes deified. At the same time the defences of the tell were kept in good repair, for whatever might be its use of every day, it was still the inner stronghold, the last resort in case the rest should fall; from a military point of view the outer town and its high citadel within might be compared to the mediaeval castle with its bailey and its keep.

Excavation of Tell el-Farah South, 1928-29, directed by Sir W. M. F. Petrie

Of course tells differ one from another in form as they differed in their history. There are low mounds scarcely noticeable above the level of the plain, short-lived villages whose ruins, scanty at their best, may have grown even less distinct through the gradual raising of the ground about them-the natural effect of long cultivation and often too of the ploughing of the nearer hillsides, whence little by little the rain carries the loosened surface soil down to the valleys. There are small steep-sided cones which, one thinks, can hardly be other than keeps or watchtowers, not the outgrowth of village settlements but military foundations to secure frontiers or trade-routes. There are rather larger whale-backed mounds, higher and more abrupt at one end and tailing off fanwise at the other, where one can almost see the cluster of domed or flat-roofed single-storied mud huts with, at the outskirts, the effendi's two-storied house of stone dominating them from its higher ground. Again, on a larger scale, we have the steep-sided C-shaped tell with a broad channel running down it at a gentler slope between the horns of the letter, like a volcano's crater with a gap in the rim; it looks as if, on the older mound's flat top, a huge ring wall had been built with a gateway and an approach thereto between flanking towers. In other cases the main tell is more or less pyramidal in form with, on one side, the lower rounded mound of the outer town, its flimsier walls indistinguishable now from the heaped mass of house ruins which they enclose: in a few, the outer walls stand out clearly as a ring of earthworks overtopped only by the great bulk of the acropolis within.

Source: Woolley, C. Leonard. 1921. Carchemish: Report on the Excavations at Jerablus on behalf of the British Museum, Part 2: The Town Defences. London: Trustees of the British Museum.

The two photographs are from the newly published Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (originally Library of Congress, LC-matpc-13993 and LC-matpc-13986).

The Dead Sea, Then and Now

2009-10-20T08:13:00.000-05:00

The waters of the Dead Sea rise and fall. You may not know that if you only read the newspapers and not the history books. Climate change has affected the earth as long as we can tell. There’s a great demonstration of the historically changing levels (and therefore shape) of the Dead Sea recently created by A.D. Riddle and David Parker. (After you click that link and read the introduction, click on the “Play” button on the right side and you’ll see the water level rise and fall.)

Evidence of the changing water levels is not so easily seen at the Dead Sea today. There is one spot on the northwestern corner (south of Qumran) where a marker made by the Palestine Exploration Fund in the early 1900s shows the level above today’s current highway.

Another evidence is visible from boat docks. The photo below was taken by the American Colony sometime in the first half of the 20th century, showing passengers embarking on boats on the Dead Sea. Today there is little boat traffic and almost no windsurfers or waterskiiers. That’s not the only thing that has changed, as evidenced by the second photo below.

The photo below is not the same dock, but it illustrates the declining water level. This photo was included in a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review in an article making the same point.

Dead Sea dock out of water, February 2005

The top photograph is from the newly published Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (originally Library of Congress, LC-matpc-07571). It is one of a series of 65 photos of the western shore of the Dead Sea included in the collection.

Kh. Qeiyafa: Survey vs. Excavation

2009-10-19T09:42:00.001-05:00

There’s a recent article on Khirbet Qeiyafa that is relevant for anyone interested in the discussion concerning the site’s identity as Shaaraim (for a primer on Qeiyafa, go here) or in archaeological methodology. Since the article’s thesis is that the survey results contradict the excavation results, it is significant that the author is Yehudah Dagan, director of the Judean Shephelah Survey Project which began in 1977.

The article is entitled “Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Judean Shephelah: Some Considerations” and it was published this year in Tel Aviv, volume 36, pages 68-81. If you or your institution has a subscription to Ingenta, you can access it online (or pay $39).

This is the article’s abstract:

The excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa have attracted attention recently following the discovery of a city gate and the proposals of the excavators that it be dated to the 10th century BCE and identified with biblical Sha'arayim. Based on my survey of the site, I suggest an alternative settlement history and a different interpretation of the construction stages of the circumference wall. I also propose an alternative identification of the biblical city of Sha'arayim.

In short, Dagan’s conclusions concerning the settlement of the site are nearly the opposite of what the excavators have reported. Dagan found pottery from Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, and Iron I, but the excavators apparently found nothing significant from these periods. The chief period of occupation according to the excavators is Iron IIa (roughly the time of King David), and Dagan says he found nothing from this period! The excavators then say the site was abandoned until the Hellenistic period, but Dagan says that the majority of potsherds from the site are from the Iron IIb-c period. Dagan also found material from Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods, about which little has been said by the archaeologists (to my recollection).

	Survey	Excavation
Early Bronze	Yes	No
Middle Bronze	Yes	No
Iron I	Yes	No
Iron IIa	No	Chief period
Iron IIb-c	Majority	Nothing
Hellenistic	Yes	Yes
Roman	Yes	?
Byzantine	Yes	?
Early Islamic	Yes	?
Mamluk	Yes	?
Ottoman	Yes	?

Any way you approach it, what we have here are startlingly different conclusions from survey results versus excavation work. It is one thing to find material from one or two periods which were not represented in a survey (which is limited to potsherds found on the surface). But this is almost a complete mismatch, making one wonder if they are studying the same site.

To say it a different way, it’s less significant that Dagan did not find any Iron IIa material in his survey than it is that Garfinkel has found no Iron IIb-c material. Sites are not always evenly settled (or preserved) and archaeologists often find a period of occupation missing in one area of the tell. But Iron IIa was relatively short-lived (less than 100 years) and Iron IIb-c lasted several centuries (c. 930-586). Dagan claims that the majority of the potsherds he collected was from this period, and that’s not surprising given the large population of the Shephelah during the Divided Monarchy. What is quite unusual, and the cause of much discussion last year, was Garfinkel’s conclusion that this was a single-period site in Iron IIa. He said that it was settled, quickly fortified, and then abandoned within a generation.

The point here isn’t to resolve the debate, but merely to note its existence. It certainly is a lesson in the need for excavation, and not a reliance upon survey alone. However, if Dagan’s survey has merit, the discrepancies with the present excavation results require some explanation. An example of the severity of the disagreement concerns the famous Iron Age gate, which Dagan says may actually be Hellenistic! He writes,

Hellenistic finds were discerned in the passage and all the chambers of the gate, and a floor with Hellenistic pottery was exposed in the southeastern chamber of the gate, resting on bedrock (Garfinkel and Ganor 2008c: 128–129). Four-chambered gates are not alien to the Hellenistic period (e.g., Mount Gerizim) (page 76).

Another lesson from this matter: interpretations are only as good as the data they are based on. If Dagan is right (and I don’t know that he is), all of the discussion about identifying the site as Shaaraim, Ephes-dammim, or other may be misguided.

Stay tuned. No doubt Garfinkel has some new data from his 2009 excavations and this article has undoubtedly lit some fires. Perhaps it is not irrelevant that Dagan conducted his survey under the auspices of Tel Aviv University and Garfinkel is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (As far back as Yadin and Aharoni, if one said black, the other said white.) We look forward to clarification.

Grena on the Qeiyafa Ostracon

2009-10-17T09:11:00.001-05:00

G. M. Grena, producer of LMLK.com, has analyzed the recent publication of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon and made some observations on the Biblicalist group. You can read that here and see his drawing here (may require group membership?).

Franz Debunks Yahweh Inscription

2009-10-16T10:50:00.001-05:00

Gordon Franz has a new article posted in the “Cracked Pot Archaeology” category of his Life and Land blog. His entry entitled “Yahweh Inscription Discovered at Mount Sinai” is an analysis of recent claims by Robert Cornuke concerning an inscribed stone allegedly found near Jebel al-Lawz in Saudi Arabia. Franz includes drawings of the inscription, a link to a video with Cornuke’s presentation, and a careful rebuttal of the reading and authenticity of the inscription.

I won’t repeat Franz’s analysis here, but will only make the observation that there will always be a market for the sorts of things that Cornuke and others like him are selling. Why? Some people (rightly) believe the Bible is a trustworthy historical source. Some people (rightly) believe that scholarship and media are biased against their views. Some people (wrongly) conclude that anything that scholarship and the media dismiss is trustworthy. This leaves a wide open door for charlatans, hucksters, as well as well-meaning but ignorant individuals. The key to success lies not in knowledge of the subject but in an ability to communicate.

I’ve commented previously on Cornuke’s claims here and here.

Qeiyafa Inscription Details

2009-10-15T17:49:00.001-05:00

Aren Maeir, archaeologist of Gath, was at the Jerusalem conference today at which Haggai Misgav presented his reading of the Qeiyafa ostracon. Maier reports on the meeting and provides an English translation.

You need to go to Maeir’s blog for the data and some of his thoughts, but I offer a brief comment. If you study these things from afar, you may be unimpressed with the fragmentary inscription and the difficulty of making any sense out of it (indeed, one respondent suggested that it’s a sort of lexical list). And if this inscription was one of thousands found, it would likely be yet undeciphered or published like many archive texts today. But this text apparently dates to 1000 BC, which is a period of great discussion these days among archaeologists and biblical scholars. To give one example, scholars debate today the degree of literacy at this period; this ostracon indicates proficiency in Hebrew some distance from the capital city of Jerusalem. Certainly the mention of the words “judge” and “king” at this period are provocative. It will be interesting to see how the discussion goes and if any views are changed because of this potsherd.