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DIGS
2018
Jerusalem’s
Ancient Trash
Stone Artisans
of Israelite Hazor
Ancient Silver Scrolls:
Why Miniature
Blessings Matter
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES
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 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
VOL. 44 NO. 1

24
DEPARTMENTS
6 FIRST PERSON
A New Chapter
8 QUERIES&COMMENTS

12 S T RATA
■ Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s
Father Has Died
■ Restoration Unveils Coptic
Monastery Frescoes
■ Jonah’s Destroyed Tomb Reveals
an Archaeological Secret
ALSO...
13 Do You Remember?
14 Who Did It?
15 Milestones
15 Exhibit Watch FEATURES
16 New Dig Reports

24 Digs 2018: Migration and Immigration in Ancient Israel

18 Cartoon Caption Contest
20 C L A S S I C A L C O R N E R
Robert R. Cargill
A Subterranean Surprise in
the Roman Catacombs Migration and immigration are not just modern occurrences—both the Bible and
Sarah K. Yeomans archaeology show that ancient Israel was a land of immigrants. Come along and
explore several excavations investigating the movement of peoples throughout the
60 B I B L I C A L V I E W S Holy Land and learn about the 2018 dig opportunities!
Neither Jew nor Greek, Slave
36 Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill)
nor Free, Male and Female
Karin Neutel
Yuval Gadot
62 A R C H A E O L O G I C A L V I E W S
Excavations on Jerusalem’s Southeastern Hill—just outside the “City of David”—
Performing Psalms
in Biblical Times have exposed a landfill from the Early Roman period (first century B.C.E. to first
Thomas Staubli century C.E.). This garbage provides insight into residents’ daily lives and habits
during a politically, socially, and religiously tumultuous chapter of Jerusalem’s
64 R E V I E W S history—when Rome ruled, the Temple stood, and Jesus preached.
68 A U T H O R S

72 W O R L D W I D E
46 Romancing the Stones: The Canaanite
Artistic Tradition at Israelite Hazor
Danny Rosenberg and Jennie Ebeling
The most important city-state in the southern Levant during the second millennium
B.C.E., Hazor was known for its magnificent architecture and artifacts that attest
World’s Largest Circulation Biblical Archaeology Magazine
to the craftsmanship of its Canaanite population. Following a hiatus of 200 years,
ON THE COVER: JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 Y VOL 44 NO 1 Y $5.95
WWW.BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGY.ORG

Cade Hazor was resettled by the Israelites, who, it seems, inherited one particularly
Kamaleson Canaanite craft tradition. Explore the surprising continuity in the production of
from Wheaton basalt vessels at Hazor.
DIGS College helps
52 Words Unseen: The Power of Hidden Writing
2018
uncover a
Jerusalem’s
Ancient Trash
Stone Artisans
cooking pot
of Israelite Hazor
Ancient Silver Scrolls:
Why Miniature dated to the Jeremy D. Smoak
Blessings Matter

Late Hellenistic/ In 1979, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay discovered two miniature silver scrolls from a
Early Roman period (first century late Iron Age (seventh century B.C.E.) tomb in Ketef Hinnom outside of Jerusalem.
B.C.E.–first century C.E.) at Tel When unrolled, the scrolls had tiny texts written on them—similar to the priestly
Shimron. blessing in Numbers 6:24–26. Curiously, though, these texts were hidden from
PHOTO: © TEL SHIMRON EXCAVATIONS/PHOTO BY
KATE BIRNEY human eyes, which begs the question: Who was their intended audience?
 EDITOR: Robert R. Cargill
ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY

MANAGING EDITOR: Megan Sauter

SHAI HALEVI, ISRAEL

WEB EDITOR: Robin Ngo

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Marek Dospěl
ADMINISTRATIVE EDITOR: Margaret Warker
biblicalarchaeology.org CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Glenn J. Corbett, John Merrill,
Suzanne F. Singer
DESIGN: David Fox, AURAS Design
ON THE WEB EDITOR EMERITUS AND FOUNDER: Hershel Shanks

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD:

The King of Judah, Jars of Wine, and Jerusalem Dan Bahat, Gabriel Barkay, Oded Borowski, George Wesley
biblicalarchaeology.org/jerusalempapyrus Buchanan, James H. Charlesworth, Dan P. Cole, Sidnie White
Crawford, J. Harold Ellens, Charles Fenyvesi, James Fleming,
The so-called Jerusalem Papyrus is purported to be an ancient papyrus from the George Giacumakis, Charles A. Kennedy, Norma Kershaw, Philip
seventh century B.C.E. that mentions “Jerusalem,” “the king,” and “jars of wine.” J. King, John F. Kutsko, Jodi Magness, Amihai Mazar, Eilat
Is it real, or is it a modern forgery? Read epigraphist Christopher Rollston’s anal- Mazar, P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., Ze’ev Meshel, James D. Muhly,
Shalom M. Paul, Leen Ritmeyer, Frederick Simmons, James F.
ysis in Bible History Daily. Strange, Samuel D. Turner, David Ussishkin, Jane Cahill West
Articles and the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily
Find a Dig represent the view of the Editorial Advisory Board or any
member thereof or of any particular editor. Advertising in
biblicalarchaeology.org/digs Biblical Archaeology Review does not imply endorsement.
Find a Dig offers detailed information about
A NOTE ON STYLE: B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E.
dozens of excavations seeking volunteers. (Common Era), used by some of our authors, are the alternative
We provide expanded descriptions of each designations often used in scholarly literature for B.C. and A.D.
dig, including location, director biographies,
historical, and Biblical significance and PUBLISHER: Susan Laden
goals for the upcoming season. Along with ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: Janet Bowman
ACCOUNTING: Jonathan Laden
ANN E. KILLEBREW

excavation information, download the free

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Heather Metzger
eBook I Volunteered for This?!—a collection
CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jennifer Drummond
of informative, amusing, and touching
MERCHANDISE MANAGER: Diane Bronder
articles by dig volunteers. EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS DIRECTOR: Sarah K. Yeomans
TRAVEL STUDY COORDINATOR: Alicia Bregon

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 Know your story,
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 FIRST PERSON
A New Chapter
Hello, I’m Bob Cargill, the new Editor
of BAR. I am honored to be taking the reins from
Hershel Shanks, the man who founded BAR and
who devoted his career to exploring and promoting
issues pertaining to archaeology and the Bible.
Through BAR, Hershel has brought the latest
archaeological discoveries from the Holy Land to
you, our loyal readers, since 1975. I’ll say more
This issue marks about Hershel—and trust me, there is plenty more
a new chapter in to say and many stories to tell—in our next issue.*
Hershel has been promoted to Editor Emeritus and
BAR’s history. We will continue to write periodically for BAR. It has
are committed been a privilege apprenticing under Hershel over
the past year, and I look forward to working with
to preserving him for many years to come—as the BAR editorial
Hershel’s legacy staff works to bring you timely, responsible, credi-
ble, and entertaining information about archaeology
while tackling and its relation to the Bible.
the next frontier For now, I’m excited to introduce this year’s
Dig Issue, which highlights the active excavations
in Biblical throughout the Biblical world, including Israel,
archaeology. the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey,
Lebanon, and Iraq. BAR provides this resource
in the hope that you might find an archaeological
dig and sign up to participate as a volunteer. As a
university student, I always valued this resource
because it gave me the essential contact and cost
information I needed to begin my search for the
dig that was right for me in terms of location, time
period being examined, and types of objects I just
might uncover. We also provide some scholarships
for those who might require financial assistance in
order to participate in a dig.
And remember, you don’t have to be a student
to go on a dig. Some of my best memories from
digs are of seasoned carpenters, lawyers, forensic
anthropologists, dentists, businesspeople, elemen-
tary school teachers, pest control owners, pastors,
and retired armed services members who decided
they wanted to do something different for their
summers—something romantic, adventurous,
exotic, and a little dirty that fed their passion for
*The next issue of bar will be a special double issue, reflecting on
Hershel the man, his career, and what bar has meant to the archaeo-
logical world.
6 January/February 2018
the Bible, its origins, its context, and the lands in
which fate itself conspired with the people to pro-
duce the history of events that brought us the book
so many of us have given our lives to studying. So
if you’re recently retired or suffering from “empty
nest” syndrome, there is no better way to travel
the Holy Land than to work your way through it
(literally!) on an archaeological excavation. It’s the
most effective way to lose weight, get a great tan,
exercise, and learn about what you love while trav-
eling to exotic places you’ve only ever read about.
And, oh, what great stories you will tell when you
get home!
In this issue, we feature four articles that, in vari-
ous ways, demonstrate the broad spectrum that the
world of Biblical archaeology entails. My article,
“Migration and Immigration in Ancient Israel,”
focuses on the many peoples who have called the
eastern Mediterranean home throughout history
and spotlights some of the archaeological excava-
tions taking place this coming year. Next, Tel Aviv
University’s Yuval Gadot offers us a first look at his
excavation in ancient Jerusalem. He argues that a
portion of the southern Kidron Valley east of Jeru-
salem’s Old City was not merely a dump, but one of
the earliest engineered landfills in antiquity. Danny
Rosenberg of the University of Haifa and Jennie
Ebeling of the University of Evansville in Indiana
discuss the basalt vessel production industry at
Hazor and the later Israelite admiration of this ven-
erable Canaanite tradition. Finally, Jeremy Smoak
of UCLA gives us another look at the Ketef Hinnom
inscriptions and explains how “invisible writing”
(written in such a way that no one could read it)
functioned in ancient Israel.
I hope you will enjoy this first issue of 2018. You
may begin to notice a few subtle changes in BAR,
both in print and online (like the adoption of the
Oxford comma), but I hope that you will take com-
fort in the fact that the entire staff and I are com-
mitted to preserving Hershel’s legacy here at BAR
and building upon his lifetime of tireless work. For,
as a wise man once said, a good editor is one “who
brings out of his treasure what is new and what is
old” (Matthew 13:52).—B.C.
 QUERIES&COMMENTS
y Magazine
g Biblical Archaeolog
World’s Best-Sellin BER 2017 Y VOL
43 NO 5 Y $5.95G
LOGY.OR
SEPTEMB ER/OCTOWWW.BI BLICALA RCHAEO
NEW TESTAMENT
POLITICAL
FIGURES
Paoflathece More Evidence
Kings of Hebron Still
Thanks for the article by Law-
Israel
Jewish in the
Days of Herod
and Jesus
rence Mykytiuk on political
Temple Menorah
Returned to
Jerusalem? figures in the New Testament
New Testament
Political Figures confirmed by archaeology and
extra-Biblical writings (“New
Testament Political Figures
Ancient Politics Confirmed,” BAR, September/
October 2017). How about
and Power another one? Paul mentions
Mysteries of an Erastus, the city treasurer
the Menorah in Corinth (Romans 16:23). An
inscription in the theater at
Crucifixion, Corinth may very well refer
Darkness, to him.
WILLIAM C. VARNER
and Science PROFESSOR OF BIBLE AND GREEK
THE MASTER’S UNIVERSITY
Ancient Intertwining of
Religion and Politics
In your list of real New Tes-
tament political figures, you
failed to mention Lysanias
(Luke 3:1), who is noted by
Josephus in Antiquities 20.138
and War 2.27.
Also, while I’m sure you’ll be
including various high priests
in the follow-up piece on
“nonpolitical figures,” accord-
ing to Josephus, the Jewish
high priests “were the political
governors of the people,” and
after the death of King Herod
and his son (Archelaus), “the
government became an aristoc-
racy, and the high priests were
Let us hear from you! entrusted with a dominion over
Send us your letters: the nation” (Antiquities 20.249–
4710 41st Street, NW 251; cf. Apion 2.185). This fact
Washington, DC 20016 can be observed by the way
or email us: Luke introduces various politi-
letters@bib-arch.org cal figures at the beginning of
8 January/February 2018
chapter 3 and also includes in
his list the names of Annas and
Caiaphas (Luke 3:1–2).
K. SHANE ROSENTHAL
HILLSBORO, MISSOURI
Lawrence Mykytiuk responds:
Thank you for the suggestions. In
the article, identifications must
be reliable, not merely possible, to
be considered real and to appear
in the table on pp. 56–57. More
information on people not clearly
documented outside the New
Testament is available in my blog
post, “New Testament Political
Figures: The Evidence” (Bible
History Daily, September 7, 2017;
www.biblicalarchaeology.org/
ntpeople), in which, regarding
Erastus, I cite pieces by Henry J.
Cadbury, Andrew D. Clarke, and
Steven J. Friesen.
Professor Varner, Friesen’s
chapter, “The Wrong Erastus,”
shows that the identification of
the Erastus of Romans 16:23 in
the inscription on three remain-
ing stone blocks in the plaza
southeast of the theater at
Corinth is founded on baseless
speculation about the Biblical
Erastus climbing to the higher
social level and elite title of the
inscriptional Erastus, inaccu-
rate archaeology, and circular
reasoning about the date of the
inscription (which is more likely
mid-second century C.E. than
first century C.E.).
Mr. Rosenthal, I intention-
ally omitted Lysanias (Luke 3:1)
from the table published in BAR
because there is not enough data
in sources outside the New Testa-
ment to identify Lysanias clearly.
Josephus’s writings are vague in
their time references and could
refer to another Lysanias. In
the inscription, there is enough
evidence to make a reasonable
(though not quite certain) iden-
tification of him and therefore
to classify him as “almost real.”
Also, Luke 3:1–2 specifies a par-
ticular time simply by listing
public officials, political or not.
My forthcoming article on the
remaining confirmed New Tes-
tament figures will address the
political and religious aspects of
ancient officialdom.
CLARIFICATION
“Hebron” Abbreviation
in External Texts
In “Hebron Still Jewish in
Second Temple Times” (BAR,
September/October 2017),
author David Ben-Shlomo
writes, “The name Hebron ...
is not mentioned in external
texts and is known only from
the Bible.” However, the four
Hebrew letters that spell this
word (HBRN) appear on seal
˙
impressions made during the
First Temple period.
The authors of Numbers
3:27, 26:58, and 2 Samuel 2:1
used the same abbreviated
spelling format.
G.M. GRENA
REDONDO BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Josephus on Hebron
I am somewhat puzzled by
a statement in your article
on Hebron that it is not
known from external texts
and only mentioned in the
Bible, yet three paragraphs
later you state it is found in
Josephus (“Thus did Simon
Seminar at Sea
TEXT & “TELL”
Issues in the Bible
and Archaeology
PRESENTED BY THE EMINENT
DRS. ERIC & CAROL MEYERS

E M BA R K I N G M A RC H 4 –11 , 201 8
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

O
ur ever-popular “Seminar at Sea” program
offers you the finest Biblical scholarship
with a most memorable vacation. Sail the
magnificent Caribbean and learn about the Holy Land,
the Bible and Israelite Women, Women’s Religious
Culture, Hellenism’s Impact on Early Judaism and
Christianity and much more. Join us this March!
LECTURE PROGRAM
Lecture 1: Rediscovery of the Holy Land – Eric & Carol Meyers
Lecture 2: The Bible and Israelite Women Fore-Grounding
Women: Women’s Work and Worth – Carol Meyers
Lecture 3: Barely Visible but Very Real: Women’s Religious
Culture – Carol Meyers
Lecture 4: Professional Women: Musicians and Others –
Carol Meyers
Lecture 5: Second Temple and Beyond, Exile and
Restoration: an End and a Beginning – Eric Meyers
Lecture 6: Impact of Hellenism on Early Judaism and
Christianity – Eric Meyers
Lecture 7: End of the Second Temple: Parting of the Ways –
Eric Meyers
Lecture 8: Holy Land Archaeology: Where the Past Meets
the Present – Carol & Eric Meyers
Lecture 9: Q&A
ERIC MEYERS is the Bernice and
Morton Lerner Professor Emeritus
of Jewish Studies at Duke Univer-
sity, specializing in Biblical studies
and archaeology. He has directed
or co-directed digs for decades
and has authored hundreds of
articles, reviews and books. He served as President of the
American Schools of Oriental Research for three terms and
has appeared in numerous documentaries dealing with
the Bible and early Judaism and Christianity.
CAROL MEYERS is the Mary Grace
Wilson Professor Emerita of Religion
at Duke University, specializing in
Biblical studies, archaeology, and
gender in the Biblical world. She
has been a staff member or co-
director of numerous archaeological
field projects and has written hundreds of articles, reviews
and books. Carol is a frequent consultant for media produc-
tions, and she recently served as President of the Society
of Biblical Literature.

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Valda K. ductions of famous Dutch artists throughout the ship.

To register visit www.biblicalarchaeology.org/semsea,

call 1-800-221-4644 x216, or email travelstudy@bib-arch.org
Q U E R I E S & C O M M E N T S
unexpectedly march into Idumea,
without bloodshed; and made a sudden
attack upon the city Hebron, and took
it” (War 4.529).
Am I missing something here?
AL SCHLAF
DES MOINES, IOWA
David Ben-Shlomo replies: There was
possibly a misunderstanding regarding
my statement about Hebron not being
mentioned in external texts. I meant that
Hebron is mentioned several times in the
Old Testament but is not mentioned in
any external Bronze Age or Iron Age texts.
An exception would be the appearance
of Hebron as one of the four cities of the
LMLK seal impressions (HBRN) during
˙ is interesting
the end of the Iron Age. This
especially because Hebron and its fortifica-
tions are described in the Old Testament
as very ancient: “built seven years before
Zoan in Egypt” (Numbers 13:22).
Regarding the Second Temple period
and Josephus, Hebron is mentioned several
10
times, yet the construction of the monu-
mental mausoleum on top of the Tombs of
the Patriarchs by Herod the Great is not
explicitly mentioned. However, Josephus
might have mentioned this construction
indirectly in a passage relating to the tomb
of the patriarchs: “Their tombs are shown
in this little town to this day, of really fine
marble and of exquisite workmanship”
(War 4.531–532).
THE TEMPLE MENORAH
Missing History and Mystery?
The article by Fredric Brandfon on the
history of the Temple Menorah (“Did the
Temple Menorah Come Back to Jerusa-
lem?” BAR, September/October 2017)
was a remarkably thorough account, save
for one omission.
Jordanes tells us that Alaric moved
south in Italy with his booty, but turned
back, and then died suddenly. He was
then buried somewhere in the bed of the
Busento River with much of his booty.
That supposedly might have included
the Menorah, along with other Temple
objects looted from Rome.
The account is of debatable histori-
cal value, but it surely should have been
included as a variant on the Menorah’s
obscure history.
JOHN W. BARKER
PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN—MADISON
Fredric Brandfon responds: Thank you
for highlighting the story of Alaric and
the Temple Treasure, possibly taken from
Rome in 410 C.E. As historians, we are
constantly making judgments about what
we think is important and what we think
is less so.
I make only oblique reference to Alaric
in my article when I say that Procopius
reported the sack of Rome by the Visigoths
and their alleged capture of the “treasures
of Solomon the King of the Hebrews.”
C O N T I N U E S O N PA G E 6 6
January/February 2018
 Because Israel's nature should never
be the topic of a history lesson
Photo Dov Greenblat

Every year, thousands of nature enthusiasts hike the Israel National Trail, visit parks
or witness the spectacle of bird migration in the Hula Valley, all the while drawing
inspiration from Israel’s natural beauty and distinctive biodiversity.
But they rarely consider what it will take to conserve these landscapes,
flora and fauna for generations to come.
Luckily, we do.
We work diligently to protect and preserve Israel’s natural resources
How?
Find out at www.natureisrael.org
Follow us on Facebook
 S T R ATA
Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s
Father Has Died
Mostafa ‘Abdel Hamid el-
‘Abbadi, the man behind the
recreation of the ancient
Great Library of Alexandria in
Egypt, died in February 2017,
aged 88. Professor of Clas-
sical Studies at Alexandria
University, el-‘Abbadi devoted
much of his research to the
ancient library of Alexandria.
His book The Life and Fate of
the Ancient Library of Alexan-
dria remains a valued account
on the long-vanished wonder
of Egypt’s former capital,
but el-‘Abbadi will be most
remembered for his initiative
toward the modern recreation
of this “temple” of learn-
ing—an imposing, 11-story
REUTERS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
12
structure on the banks of the
Mediterranean (see the view
from the old harbor, below).
Called by a Latin name, Bib-
liotheca Alexandrina, the new
library was inaugurated on
October 16, 2002. However,
the library’s greatest cham-
pion, Mostafa el-‘Abbadi, was
not among the distinguished
guests at the official opening.
He was not invited—appar-
ently because of his criticism
of how the project had been
carried out.
Little is known about
the original, ancient Great
Library of Alexandria. We
don’t even know its location
or the year it was established.
Professor el-‘Abbadi in his Alexandrian home
Its size is a subject of unreli-
able accounts and modern
guesses ranging between
40,000 and 700,000 volumes.
It is sometimes confused
with other Alexandrian
libraries, such as the one
housed in the Serapeum
SCOTT NELSON
(temple dedicated to the
Greco-Egyptian deity Sera-
pis). The Great Library was
founded by Ptolemy I or his
son Ptolemy II, Alexander
the Great’s successor kings
in Egypt, in the third cen-
tury B.C.E. Part of a larger
complex, it was not just a
repository of books but a
center designed to provide a
nourishing environment for
the brilliant minds of the day.
The idea of a repository of all
human knowledge can rightly
be credited to the expedi-
tions of Alexander the Great,
which had shown for the first
time the diversity of human-
ity and the breadth of human
genius. To be sure, the Great
Library was not the first
ancient library, but it was the
first universal one—hous-
ing texts in many languages
and covering subjects from
astronomy to poetry, includ-
ing texts we don’t have or
don’t even know ever existed,
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
January/February 2018
 S T R ATA

Restoration Unveils Coptic Monastery Frescoes

Restorers working in the Monastery of St. done on wet plaster) were discovered in
Bishoy in Egypt (Deir el-‘Anba Bishoy, in the main monastery church dedicated to
Arabic) have discovered previously unknown St. Bishoy. They contain figures of saints
wall paintings. Concealed under a layer of and angels accompanied with inscriptions
modern mortar, these murals date from the in Coptic, the ecclesiastical language of
9th–13th centuries. Egyptian Christians. Besides the murals, the
Located in Wadi el-Natrun (an oasis restorers uncovered architectural elements,
between Cairo and Alexandria that is home including an elevated platform for Scripture
as the papyri from excava- to a number
tions in Egypt occasionally of prominent
remind us. Christian
We don’t know when or monuments), the
how this library of dreams monastery is among
vanished. Different accounts the earliest still
suggest destruction by fire, operating in Egypt.
for which they blame differ- It started as a simple
ent wars, fanatic Christians hermitage of Bishoy, reading.
(in 391 C.E.), or conquering one of the fourth-cen- These and
Arabs (in 642). Many credit tury desert fathers other find-
the Roman politician Julius known for ings in the St.
Caesar and his operations in their ascetic Bishoy Church
the harbor of Alexandria in way of life expand our
48 B.C.E. and wisdom. knowledge of
But would the books have The original hermitage Medieval Cop-

PHOTO COURTESY OF EGYPT’S MINISTRY OF ANTIQUITIES

survived antiquity? From has developed into a large monastery tic iconography.
what we understand about the complex consisting of a fort, refectory, Depicted in the
natural physical degradation monastic cells, workshops, five churches, niche in the center
of writing materials, for scrolls pilgrims’ facilities, and now also the tomb of of the above image is
and codices to have survived Shenouda III, the late Pope of Alexandria and the Virgin Mary, enthroned
continuous use and the humid Patriarch of all Africa. and holding baby Jesus. On the sides we rec-
climate of Alexandria, they Following the sweeping floods in 2015 ognize the archangels Michael (left) and pos-
would have to have been con- that caused unprecedented damage across sibly Gabriel (right), with the apostles Peter
stantly replaced by new copies the region, the monastery has been undergo- (far left) and Paul (far right). The chipping
and properly curated. This ing extensive restoration under the auspices had been done intentionally to enhance the
would have required forces of the Ministry of Antiquities. adhesion of a new layer of mortar that has
and personalities that created The reported frescoes (i.e., wall paintings until now obscured the paintings.
and sustained cultural institu-
tions. But precisely the lack
of will and means to maintain
a major center of learning is DO YOU REMEMBER?
most likely what sealed the
fate of the Great Library of Where were these anthropoid
Alexandria.1 In other words, sarcophagi found?
we don’t need to look for a
single destructive force if A Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM BY NAHUM SLAPAK

we recognize that creative

achievements do not survive B Lachish, Israel
without a cultural milieu that
values them—a caveat as rel- C Tell el Yehudieh, Egypt
evant today as it was two mil-
lennia ago.—M.D.
D Petra, Jordan
1 Roger Bagnall, “Alexandria: E Aniba, Nubia
Library of Dreams,” Proceedings
of the American Philosophical
Society 146.4 (2002), pp. 359–361. ANSWER ON P. 67

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 13

 S T R ATA
Jonah’s Destroyed Tomb Reveals an Archaeological Secret
Reporting the loss of world
cultural heritage in the
hands of religious extrem-
ists has become a sad part of
daily news. Shortly after the
city of Mosul in modern-day
JOEL CARILLET/ISTOCK BY GETTY IMAGES
14
northern Iraq was taken by
ISIS in 2014, the terror group
broadcast their destruction
of one of the area’s most holy
sites, the Tomb of Jonah
mosque situated on Tell
Nabi Yunus. Venerated by
local Christians and Muslims
alike, the alleged resting
place of the Biblical prophet
(known in Arabic as “Nabi
Yunus”) was blown up pre-
cisely because of its status as
a shrine.
Last January, the east-
ern part of Mosul—located
across the Tigris River from
the ancient Assyrian city of
Nineveh, where the prophet
Jonah ministered—was liber-
ated. This allowed antiquities
experts to assess the monu-
ments and historical sites
there. When they inspected
the Jonah mosque (now
reduced to a ruin), experts
made an unexpected find.
Crawling through a laby-
rinth of narrow tunnels dug
in the mound by ISIS, they
discovered archaeological
remains of what appears to
be a palace.
This palace comes from
the seventh century B.C.E.,
a period when the Assyrian
Empire dominated the Near
East, including the kingdoms
of Israel and Judah. Archae-
ologists were aware of the
existence of a palace in the
area, but they had never
conducted proper excava-
tions under the mosque.
Paradoxically, the campaign
of destruction of religious and
archaeological sites has now
revealed the ancient palace,
which was constructed by the
Assyrian king Sennacherib
(reigned 705–681 B.C.E.) in
c. 690, expanded by his son
Esarhaddon (r. 681–669), and
renovated under Assurbanipal
(r. 669–627).
From the rubble emerged
mudbrick walls, fragments
of statues, stone reliefs (see
the image at left of a demi-
goddess sprinkling the “water
of life” to protect humans in
her care), pottery, and cunei-
form inscriptions. It is reason-
able to expect that the newly
discovered texts shed light
on Sennacherib’s campaign
against Judah. But before
archaeologists can embark
on any exploration, they first
have to make sure the site is
safe because the tunnels can
collapse at any time.
The new discovery is
overshadowed by the fact
that the tunnels were dug in
search of antiquities to sell
on the black market and to
help fund terrorism. Tellingly,
a trove of antiquities was
seized from an ISIS official
in Mosul. It is also deplorable
that many more artifacts dis-
appeared, monuments were
damaged, and the archae-
ology of the site was dis-
turbed—irreversibly.—M.D.
WHO DID IT?
Who deciphered
the language
of the Hittites?
ANSWER ON P. 67
January/February 2018

MILESTONES
KENNETH G. HOLUM
1939–2017
On September 20, 2017,
Kenneth G. Holum passed
away at the age of 78. An
eminent scholar, devoted pro-
fessor, and cordial mentor, he
advanced the study of ancient
Mediterranean history and
archaeology. BAR readers
will best remember him as
the excavation director of
Caesarea Maritima, which
was originally built by King
Herod the Great, on Israel’s
Mediterranean coast.
Born in 1939 in South
Dakota, Holum grew up on
the prairie and attended
Augustana University in
Sioux Falls. After graduating
from Augustana in 1961, he
served for six years in the
U.S. Navy. Then he earned
a Ph.D. at the University of
Chicago; his dissertation
examined empresses from
the Byzantine period.
He began teaching at the
University of Maryland in
1970, and he would stay there
for the next 44 years—until
his retirement in 2014, when
he took the title professor
emeritus. Specializing in Late
Antiquity (fourth–seventh
centuries, also known as
the Byzantine period), he
taught courses on a variety
of subjects related to ancient
Mediterranean history and
archaeology.
Holum had been trained
as a historian, but in 1978
he volunteered at the Joint
Expedition to Caesarea
bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW
Maritima led by Robert Jehu
Bull. This experience resulted
in a second specialty for him:
the archaeology and history
of ancient Greek and Roman
cities. Returning to Caesarea
Maritima for the next decade,
he progressed from volunteer
to area supervisor and publi-
cation contributor. When Bull
announced his intention to
retire from field work, Holum
partnered with the late Avner
Raban of the University of
Haifa and launched a new
excavation at Caesarea
Maritima in 1989, which
was named the Combined
Caesarea Expeditions.
Holum was a towering
figure at the University of
Maryland and at Caesarea
Maritima. He leaves behind
his wife, Marsha Rozenblit,
and children, Kate and Mark—
as well as many students, col-
leagues, and excavation vol-
unteers who benefitted from
his brilliance, generosity, kind-
ness, and slightly mischievous
take on life. May his memory
be a blessing.
E X H I B I T W AT C H
© THE FIELD MUSEUM/PHOTO BY JOHN WEINSTEIN
Ancient Cultures in Contact
In school we learn about the Mesopotamians, then the Egyptians,
then the Greeks, and so on. Unless these groups went to war with
one another, we may be left to believe that the great civilizations
of the Old World formed and existed in isolation. Their distinctive,
readily recognizable artifacts can in fact confirm this misleading
impression, but critical scholarship
reveals a much more complex, THROUGH APRIL 29, 2018
The Field Museum
dynamic picture of ancient cultures. Chicago, IL, USA
There is probably no better www.fieldmuseum.org
example so sharply contrasting the
picture of insular cultures than the Mediterranean basin during the
Hellenistic and Roman periods, when different empires, peoples,
and cultures participated in a wide range of interaction.
Arts and crafts that survived from this era reflect the dynamics
of creative exchange on the one hand and remarkable persistence
of cultural traditions on the other. This story of mutual interactions
is the subject of a special exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Titled Ancient Mediterranean Cultures in Contact, the exhibit
showcases nearly 100 objects from the museum’s ancient Egyptian,
Roman, Greek, and Etruscan collections. Underlining the aspects
of migration and assimilation, the show consciously points to the
parallels between the ancient world and our present situation.
Among the objects on display is an amulet (see above)
representing the Egyptian falcon god Horus. It is an example of
how Egypt retained much of its traditional culture throughout the
centuries of interaction with and even political subjugation by
other groups; it also embodies the globalizing tendencies of the
Hellenistic and Roman worlds, as Egyptian elements in art, archi-
tecture, and even religion were commonly exported, adopted, or
adapted by other cultures of the ancient Mediterranean.
biblicalarchaeology.org/exhibits For more on this exhibit
and others, visit us online.
15
 S T R ATA

NEW DIG REPORTS

Fortified Settlements in the Biblical Negev

The arid region of the Negev in southern Israel, though largely inhospitable, hosted a thriving civilization in Biblical times. Copious traces
of ancient life still await proper exploration—hiding in remote caves and buried in massive archaeological mounds (tells), which accumu-
lated through consecutive human occupations. Tel Malh·ata in the northern Negev and Yotvata in the south represent two such recently
explored centers.

YO T VATA C.E. by Aufidius Priscus, governor of the province of Palaes-

tina, who is also known from an inscription on a marble col-
The 2003–2007 Excavations in the umn found in Caesarea Maritima.
Late Roman Fort at Yotvata
Edited by Gwyn Davies and Jodi Magness
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), xii + 268 pp., T E L M A L H· A T A
color and b&w illustrations, $79.50 (cloth) Tel Malh·ata: A Central City in the Biblical Negev, 2 vols.
Edited by Itzhaq Beit-Arieh and Liora Freud
This volume reports on five seasons of excavation of the Late
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), xxii + 778 pp.,
Roman fort at Yotvata, a tell at a strategic road junction in the b&w illustrations, $179.50 (cloth)
Arava Valley south of the Dead Sea. The site is tentatively iden-
tified with Biblical Jotbathah, where the Israelites encamped These two volumes
during their desert wanderings (Deuteronomy 10:7), and with MEDITERRANEAN SEA Jerusalem present the results
a Roman site dedicated to the Roman goddess Diana. In the of seven excava-
immediate vicinity of the fort, other archaeological features Tel Malhata
. tion seasons at Tel
have been identified, including what is likely a temple of Diana. ISRAEL Malh·ata (called also
The richly illustrated volume presents the archaeology JORDAN the “Hill of Salt,” in
and finds from the fort, as well as analyses of floral and fau- EGYPT Arabic), possibly to
nal remains. Among the most exciting finds—attesting to the Yotvata be identified with
Roman emperor Diocletian’s reorganization of Arabia and Biblical Moladah—
N
Palaestina—is a monumental Latin inscription (below) indi- a city in southern
cating that the fort was established in the late third century Judah, presumably
on the crossroads of two major desert routes (see, e.g., Joshua
19:2). Carried out by a joint expedition of Tel Aviv and Baylor
universities between 1990 and 2000, the exploration focused
on eight areas of the tell. Included in this final report is also an
evaluation of two previous seasons, conducted in 1967 and 1971
by Moshe Kochavi, who dug two trenches across the mound.
The combined scope reveals the settlement history at Tel
Malh·ata from the Chalcolithic period (4500–3300 B.C.E.) to the
COURTESY ISRAEL EXPLORATION SOCIETY

Early Arab period (to 1100 C.E.).

The volume covers the site’s history, archaeology, architec-
ture, finds, and inscriptions. Also included are analyses of its
ancient faunal and floral assemblages that inform our under-
standing of the site’s historical environment and how past
populations interacted with the natural world. The work is
conveniently supplemented with maps, plans, photos, drawings,
and charts.

16 January/February 2018
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 S T R ATA

CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Write a caption for the cartoon below (see Exodus

17:6), and send it to us by mail or online on our
website (see box below):

BAR Cartoon Caption Contest

Biblical Archaeology Society
4710 41st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20016

Be sure to include your name and address. The

deadline for entries is January 31, 2018. The
author of the winning caption will receive a copy
of the BAS book The Origins of Things, a BAS tote
CARLTON STOIBER

bag, and three gift subscriptions to give BAR to

friends. Runners-up will receive a BAS tote bag
and two gift subscriptions.

“Is there no rest for the wordy?”

—Rev. David Brown, Capon Bridge, West Virginia

Thank you to all those who submitted caption entries for

our September/October 2017 cartoon (above), based on
Ecclesiastes 12:12. We are pleased to congratulate Rev.
David Brown of Capon Bridge, West Virginia, who wrote

CARLTON STOIBER
the winning caption, and our runners-up:

“If only Moses had used a Kindle!”

—Jules Glanzman, Indianapolis, Indiana

“Verily, my bookcase runneth over.”

—Karl Larew, New Park, Pennsylvania
biblicalarchaeology.org/captioncontest
▸ See additional caption entries for this month’s
featured cartoon.
▸ Submit a caption for our new cartoon.
▸ Check out past cartoons and captions.
▸ Send us your ideas for Biblical scenes that
would make good cartoons for future contests.

18 January/February 2018
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CLASSICAL CORNER

A Subterranean
Surprise in the
Roman Catacombs
Sarah K. Yeomans

In 2002, a burst pipe caused a

sinkhole to form in the basement of the
Istituto Sacra Famiglia, a convent and
school located along Rome’s Via Casilina.
The sisters were no doubt surprised
when the sinkhole revealed not only
faulty plumbing in need of repair, but also
chambers in which several hundred buri-
als were discovered. These burials, which
are believed to date to the end of the sec-
ond century C.E. or the beginning of the
third, were of individuals whose bodies
had been carefully but hastily wrapped
and deposited at the same time, indicating
some sort of mass fatality event. Over the
next several years of investigations car-
ried out by the Pontificia Commissione di
Archeologia Sacra (Pontifical Commission
for Sacred Archaeology), almost 345 indi-
viduals were examined and analyzed from
an estimated total of more than 1,300.

© INRAP, DIST. RMN-GRAND PALAIS/ART RESOURCE, NY

Such a discovery is in and of itself
remarkable and tantalizingly mysteri-
ous: What catastrophic event led to the
death of more than 1,300 people—mostly
young adults, including women—in such
a short period of time? But perhaps just
as puzzling was another question: What
were these evidently non-Christian buri-
als doing in the middle of one of Rome’s
most important Christian catacombs? 1
These chambers underneath the con-
vent’s ruined basement were indeed
firmly ensconced in the catacombs of
Saints Peter and Marcellinus, a complex beginning of the fifth century. However, subsequently interred in their epony-
comprising approximately 2.8 miles of such places were then venerated and vis- mous catacomb at the beginning of the
galleries on three levels, in which 20,000– ited by early pilgrims, as the catacombs fourth century, by which point the cata-
25,000 early Christians are buried. were believed to be the resting places of combs are believed to have already been
Knowledge of the catacomb itself has many of Christianity’s early saints and in use by the Christian community for
always existed, even after it fell out of use martyrs. According to tradition, Saints several decades. More recently, the cata-
as an active burial site (along with most Peter and Marcellinus were martyred combs were explored and mapped by the
of Rome’s other catacombs) around the during the reign of Diocletian and were famous archaeologist Giovanni Battista

20 January/February 2018
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de Rossi at the end of the 19th century,
and portions of the catacombs were used
as an air-raid shelter by local people dur-
ing World War II. The convent’s founda-
tions likely hindered exploration of the
area directly underneath it, and it would
take a broken water line 18 centuries
later for the mass burial that pre-dates
the catacombs themselves to be discov-
ered in their midst.
The answer to the mystery of how
and why these burials came to be here
is likely found in the history of the
property itself. Prior to the Constantin-
ian age, this area was the location of the
barracks of the equites singulares Augusti,
a private corps of mounted Imperial
bodyguards. The skeletal remains do not
display any of the obvious bone trauma
consistent with a massacre. The most
likely explanation for such a large num-
ber of simultaneous fatalities is an epi-
demic sweeping through the city at the
end of the second/beginning of the third
century.2 Given the close quarters of the
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soldiers and their families, such an event
would have been particularly devastating
in the barracks.
Christians were given the use of the
ground underneath the equites’ garrison
around the mid-third century by the
emperor Gallieneus, a conciliatory ges-
ture from the emperor in order to pla-
cate a community that had been savagely
persecuted under the reign of his father,
Emperor Valerian. When the Christians
began to construct the catacombs, the
chambers containing the earlier burials
were simply incorporated into the grow-
ing complex. Several decades later, fol-
lowing the end of the civil war between
Constantine and Maxentius, the equites
singulares Augusti were disbanded by
an irate Emperor Constantine follow-
ing his victory over Maxentius at the
Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 C.E.;
the unfortunate equites had backed the
wrong emperor. The property was then
given by Constantine to his mother,
Helena. It is here that she constructed
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her own final resting place. To access
the catacombs today, one walks by the
ruins of what was once her magnificent
mausoleum.
Today, the savvy visitor to Rome can
access this extraordinary site. A sinkhole
in the basement of a convent opened a
subterranean door to an archaeological
mystery, the investigation of which led to
a concerted effort by the Pontifical Com-
mission to undertake extensive exca-
vations and repairs of the catacombs.
After several years of painstaking and
beautifully executed restoration work,
the catacombs of Saints Peter and Mar-
cellinus boast some of the most skillfully
rendered and restored frescoes of any
of the city’s subterranean burial sites.
Particularly noteworthy are its many fine
depictions of the concept of refrigerium,
a custom borrowed by the Christians
from the Greek and Roman tradition of
holding funerary banquets in honor of
the deceased. In the Christian ethos of
this era, this custom came to be closely
tied to the sacrament of the Eucharist,
and banqueting scenes from the context
of the Roman catacombs are among the
earliest known images in the canon of
Christian art. What began as a plumbing
headache for the dismayed sisters of the
Istituto Sacra Famiglia turned out to be a
serendipitous catalyst for the opening of
one of Rome’s most enigmatic sites.3
Sarah K. Yeomans is the
Director of Educational
Programs at the Biblical
Archaeology Society. She is
currently pursuing her doc-
torate at the University of
Southern California and specializes in the
Imperial period of the Roman Empire
with a particular emphasis on religions
and ancient science. She is also a faculty
member in the Department of Religious
Studies at West Virginia University.
1 Grave goods buried with several of the indi-
viduals indicate that these individuals were
almost certainly not Christians.
2 Philippe Blanchard et al., “A Mass Grave
from the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Mar-
cellinus in Rome, Second–Third Century A.D.,”
Antiquity 81 (2007), pp. 989–998.
3 The catacombs of Saints Peter and
Marcellinus are open to the public. More
information is available on their website:
www.santimarcellinoepietro.it.
January/February 2018
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 Digs 2018

Migration &
Immigration
in Ancient Israel
Robert R. Cargill

The promised land (Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 8:1). The

land I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 33:1). The land of
Canaan (Genesis 11:31). The land to which you are going (Exodus 34:12; cf.
Deuteronomy 31:16). The land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8).
The land that the Lord your God is giving you (Deuteronomy 16:2). The
place that the Lord your God will choose (e.g., Deuteronomy 12:5; 14:23–25).
The land that came to be known as Israel and Judah in antiquity is known
by many names today: Israel, Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon,
Syria, Sinai, the Holy Land, and the Levant, for starters. But the names listed in
the above paragraph—the names taken straight from the Bible describing the land
before there was an ancient Israel—all have one thing in common: they describe a
land of migration and immigration.
According to the Bible, “ancient Israel” was first a concept of a new world—a new
beginning for God’s chosen people. It was a land into which the Israelites first had
to immigrate. Only then, after the immigration of the people, did the land become the
allotment of the 12 tribes, the land of Israel. Until that point, the children of God were
migrants seeking a new home.
That Israel is a land of immigration is not only a claim made by the Bible; it is also a claim

SMILE WHILE YOU WORK. The Middle Bronze Age site of Tel Kabri in northern Israel boasts the oldest and larg-
est wine cellar found in the ancient Near East as well as a Canaanite palace decorated with Minoan-style floor
and wall paintings. Here, volunteers Matthew Kerwin and Sydney Thatcher from The George Washington University
scrape loose soil into buckets with square-bladed hoes called turias.

24 January/February 2018
 ERIC H. CLINE

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 25

Digs 2018

AREN MAEIR

GATH OF THE PHILISTINES. At Tell es-Safi/Gath, hometown of the

giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4), archaeologists have unearthed sig-
nificant evidence of Philistine occupation in addition to remains
from prehistoric to modern times. Above, Tina Greenfield and Liz
Arnold excavate a donkey skeleton that was placed as a ritual
deposit below the floor of an Early Bronze Age III house. Right,
BAS dig scholarship winner Jessie Blackwell of the University of
DANIEL FRESE

Kentucky holds pieces of a Middle Bronze II platter she found

while excavating part of the glacis of the city wall in Canaanite
Gath’s upper city.

26 JAnuARY/FEBRuARY 2018
 Digs 2018

ODED LIPSCHITS
BIBLICAL FORTRESS UNEARTHED. Excavation director
Oded Lipschits, registrar Liora Freud, area supervisor Efrat
Bocher, and volunteer Ashley Byrd analyze potsherds
excavated at the Judahite stronghold of Azekah (right).
Above, volunteer Ella Gadot practices safety first by wear-
ing a hard hat to protect her head from debris.

supported by archaeology. To be sure, there are dis-

crepancies between the Biblical account and the
archaeological evidence regarding the timing of this
immigration and the manner in which it occurred,
but the archaeological data definitively tell us that
people immigrated and emigrated into and out of
Israel. They came, and they went.
This has been true throughout history, both before
and after ancient Israel. Kingdoms were built up and
were conquered. Empires were overthrown by suc-
cessive empires. The Egyptians, Hittites, Phoenicians,
Canaanites, Amorites, Israelites, Moabites, Ammo-
nites, Edomites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians,
Greeks, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Naba-
taeans, Romans, Byzantines, Sasanians, Umayyads,
Abbasids, Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids,
Mamluks, Ottomans, British, Jordanians, and Israelis
all at one time in history have migrated into modern
Israel and Palestine.
What’s more, the ancient Israelites understood
this. This is why the Hebrew God, his prophets,
ODED LIPSCHITS

and his righteous followers were so adamant about

caring for the poor, widows, orphans, and espe-
cially the foreigner or alien (Hebrew: gēr) (see, e.g.,

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 27

 Digs 2018

Deuteronomy 10:18; Psalm 146:9; Jeremiah 7:6).

It is why God commanded his people to love the
stranger (Hebrew: gēr), “for you were once strang-
ers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). It is
(at least one reason) why Boaz treated Ruth kindly,
even though she was a foreigner (Hebrew: nēkar;
Ruth 2:10). And, it is why Ezekiel 47:21–22 com-
manded the Israelites to welcome foreigners into
their company and allot land for them: “You shall
allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the

AVITAL ROMACH
aliens (Hebrew: gērim) who reside among you and

BETHSAIDA ON THE GALILEE? Conservator specialist

Yeshu Dray meticulously exposes a Roman mosaic at the BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY student and
Galilean site of el-Araj, a candidate for the fishing village BAS scholarship winner Ludwig Beethoven Jones Noya
of Bethsaida mentioned in the Gospels. exposes the top of a wall surrounding the upper terraces
at the site of Biblical Kiriath-jearim near Jerusalem.

Dig Scholarships
The Biblical Archaeology Society, publisher of BAR,
annually offers dig scholarships of $1,500 each to
help deserving individuals participate in excavations,
primarily in the Middle East. To apply, send a résumé,
cover letter, and full contact information for two refer-
ences (professional or academic) in one email to bas@
bib-arch.org or by mail to BAS Dig Scholarships, 4710
41st St., NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA. In your letter,
explain where and why you want to excavate, and why
you should be selected for a scholarship. Priority will be
given to first-time dig participants and those demon-
strating financial need. Applications must be received by
March 14, 2018.

Thank You
The generous contributions of our donors make the
BAS Dig Scholarship program possible. Our sincere
thanks to the following people, who supported the 2017
volunteers:
▸ Kenneth and Ann Bialkin
▸ George Blumenthal
▸ Edward and Raynette Boshell
▸ Eugene and Emily Grant
▸ Ms. Darlene Jamison
▸ David and Jemima Jeselsohn
▸ Victor R. Kieser
▸ Leon Levy Foundation, Shelby White, Trustee
▸ John and Carol Merrill
▸ Jonathan P. and Jeannette Rosen
▸ Harry and Gertrude Schwartz Foundation,
Jeffery Yablon, Trustee
ZACHARY WONG

▸ Michael and Judy Steinhardt

▸ Samuel D. Turner and Elizabeth Goss

28 JAnuARY/FEBRuARY 2018
 Digs 2018
© TEL SHIMRON EXCAVATIONS/PHOTO BY TAL GLUCK

PERCHED HIGH ABOVE the Jezreel Valley on the Naza-

reth Ridge, Tel Shimron witnessed the rise of ancient
Israel, Jewish Galilee, rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. University of Reading Ph.D. candidate Jessie Feito
operates a total station to measure spatial coordinates in
a residential area occupied during the Roman and later
Byzantine/Umayyad periods (above). Noemi Palomares
from Boston College carefully defines with her trowel a
Late Hellenistic/Early Roman lamp (right).

have begotten children among you. They shall be to

you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted
an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.”
This also explains why Jesus constantly sought
© TEL SHIMRON EXCAVATIONS/PHOTO BY MELISSA AJA

to minister to the “other” and to make “foreigners”

the heroes of his parables, as he does with the Good
Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) and the Sheep and the
Goats (Matthew 25:31–46), where Jesus specifically
welcomes into his kingdom those who welcomed a
stranger (Greek: xenos).
The issue of migration and immigration has
become a popular research question for many exca-
vations, especially those sitting on the ancient (per-
petually shifting) borders between Israel, Judah,
and neighboring peoples. The Elah Valley, about 30

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 29

Digs 2018
minutes west of Jerusalem in the Shephelah (the
fertile foothills in south-central Israel between the
Judean Mountains and the Coastal Plain), serves as
an ancient border between Judah and Philistia. The
Shephelah itself has witnessed a number of exciting
new excavations spring up over the past decade fol-
lowing the stunning discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa,
a fortified settlement that excavation directors Yosef
Garfinkel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and
Saar Ganor (Israel Antiquities Authority) claim to be
from the time of King David.
In the Elah Valley, Aren Maeir (Bar-Ilan Univer-
sity) directs the excavation at Tell es-Safi, which
most scholars identify as the ancient Philistine city
of Gath, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pen-
tapolis and the home of the giant Goliath mentioned
in 1 Samuel 17. The Late Bronze Age residents of
this site, the Canaanites, were displaced by the Phi-
listines, who immigrated to the region toward the
end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 B.C.E.). Maeir’s
latest research from Safi has suggested that the Phi-
listines weren’t simply Aegean peoples arriving and
conquering the Late Bronze Age residents of the
eastern Mediterranean coast, but were the result of
30
an “entangled” culture, slowly mingling “Western”
peoples (e.g., Mycenaean, Minoan, Cypriote, Ana-
tolian, etc.) with Canaanite coastal peoples over a
lengthy period of time.
Across the verdant Elah Valley from Tell es-Safi is
the Judahite border city of Tel Azekah, where Oded
Lipschits and Yuval Gadot (Tel Aviv University) and
Manfred Oeming (University of Heidelberg) have
completed five seasons of excavation. Azekah served
as a strategic stronghold on the border with the Iron
Age Philistines. This massive excavation, now the
largest in Israel in terms of annual participants, is
exploring what life was like for residents living on
the border between ancient Judah and Philistia.
South of these two digs, the Tel Burna excavation,
directed by Itzhaq Shai (Ariel University), explores
the site that is the leading candidate for Biblical
DIGGING NABOTH’S VINEYARD. Across the Jezreel Valley
on the foothills of the Gilboa Mountains, the Jezreel Expe-
dition is excavating a large rock-cut winery that might
have belonged to the period of Naboth (1 Kings 21). Here,
area supervisor Inbal Samet takes notes while team mem-
bers excavate a wall.
COURTESY OF THE JEZREEL EXPEDITION
JAnuARY/FEBRuARY 2018
 Digs 2018

Dig Sites 2018

These are the 2018 dig opportunities. Visit www.biblicalarchaeology.org/
Abel Beth Maacah Tel Dan digs for additional information, including a full description of each site, the
El Araj
N Tel Akko
Tel Hazor
Khirbet
excavation’s goals for the coming season, important finds from past sea-
Khirbet el-Eika Majduliyya sons, Biblical connections, and profiles of dig directors. The right archaeo-
Tell Keisan logical expedition for you is just a click away!
SEA Kursi Beach
HAIFA ‘Einot Amitai OF
GALILEE Hippos/Sussita
Shikhin/Asochis
MEDITERRANEAN SEA Abila of Abel Beth Maacah Shikhin/Asochis
the Decapolis June 24–July 20, 2018 May 25–June 25, 2018
Tel Megiddo Jezreel Robert Mullins, Naama Yahalom- James R. Strange
Tiberias Mack, Nava Panitz-Cohen
Tel Tsaf Tel Akko
Abila of the Decapolis July 1–28, 2018
JORDAN RIVER June 7–July 12, 2018 Ann Killebrew, Michal Artzy
David Vila, Robert Smith
WEST Tel Burna
JORDAN Azekah June 24–July 20, 2018
BANK
July 7–August 9, 2018 Itzhaq Shai
Oded Lipschits, Manfred Oeming,
AMMAN Yuval Gadot Tel Dan
Tel Gezer June 17–July 13, 2018
JERUSALEM ‘Einot Amitai David Ilan, Yifat Thareani, Jonathan
Mt. Zion August 12–24, 2018 Greer
Tell es-Safi/Gath Azekah Yonatan Adler
Khirbet er-Rai Tel Burna Tel Gezer Water System
Khirbet Safra El-Araj May 27–June 14, 2018
GAZA June 15–July 13, 2018 Dan Warner, Eli Yannai, Tsvika Tsuk
DEAD Mordechai Aviam, R. Steven Notley
SEA
Tel Hazor
Hippos-Sussita June 24–August 3, 2018
July 1–26, 2018 Amnon Ben-Tor and Shlomit Bechar
Michael Eisenberg
Tel Megiddo
Jezreel June 24–August 2, 2018
ISRAEL May 25–June 22, 2018 Israel Finkelstein, Matthew Adams,
Jennie Ebeling, Norma Franklin Mario Martin

Khirbet el-Eika Tel Tsaf

June 24–July 27, 2018 June–July 2018
Uzi Leibner Danny Rosenberg

Khirbet er-Rai Tell es-Safi/Gath

January 28–February 15, 2018; June 24–July 20, 2018
July 1–20, 2018 Aren Maeir
Yosef Garfinkel
Tell Keisan
Khirbet Majduliyya July 1–29, 2018
July 2–20, 2018 David Schloen
Mechael Osband
Tiberias
Khirbet Safra February 4–16, 2018
June 17–July 27, 2018 Katia Cytryn-Silverman
Paul Z. Gregor
Timna
Timna Kursi Beach January 27–February 9, 2018
October 28–December 14, 2018 Erez Ben-Yosef
Haim Cohen

E I L AT Mt. Zion
June 16–28, 2018; July 7–19, 2018
Shimon Gibson, James D. Tabor, Rafi
Lewis, Robert McEachnie

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 31

Digs 2018
EXPOSING A PORT CITY. Spencer Silver of the University
of Iowa and Cas Popp of Pennsylvania State University
use patiches to uncover a street leading to a Late Iron
Age Phoenician public structure on Akko’s acropolis.
Libnah. The excavation is also exploring the border
between Judah and Philistia, specifically asking how
border communities functioned.
The Shephelah is not the only liminal region in
Israel exhibiting evidence of migration. The Jez-
reel Valley served as the major east–west passage
across Israel for those traveling from Syria and the
Anatolian steppe to Egypt. The veteran archaeologi-
cal excavation that is the Megiddo Expedition—
Biblical Armageddon—led by Israel Finkelstein (Tel
Aviv University), is gearing up for its 2018 season,
as are the various research projects that are part
32
JANE SKINNER, COURTESY OF THE TEL AKKO TOTAL ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT
of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project headed by
Matthew Adams (W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeo-
logical Research). Across the Jezreel to the north, a
few miles west of Nazareth, the upstart Tel Shimron
excavation directed by Daniel Master (Wheaton Col-
lege) and Mario Martin (Tel Aviv University) broke
ground in the 2017 season, and its future seasons
promise to further our understanding of the east–
west trade that passed through the Jezreel Valley
in various periods.
In the north of Israel, a number of digs are exam-
ining the influence that northern peoples, such as
the Phoenicians, Hittites, and Sea Peoples, had on
ancient Israel.
The Tel Akko excavation, led by Ann Killebrew
(Penn State University) and Michal Artzy (Univer-
sity of Haifa), examines one of the most important
JAnuARY/FEBRuARY 2018
 Digs 2018
ERIC H. CLINE

WITH EAGLE EYES, Kabri volunteers George Arbanas, technological capabilities were. And just last sea-
Martha Soltani, and Nissim Sasson carefully sift buckets of son, they discovered the faience head of a bearded
excavated dirt in search of small artifacts. male in an Iron Age II context that might help us
understand the ethnic makeup of the population liv-
maritime trade ports in ancient Israel. Eric Cline ing in this city.
(The George Washington University) and Assaf These are only a small sample of the ongoing
Yasur-Landau (University of Haifa) have renewed excavations in the Biblical world, many of which
excavations at Tel Kabri, a regional capital of a Mid- will be digging this summer. Here at BAR, we want
dle Bronze Age Canaanite kingdom located in west- to promote the study of—and your participation
ern Galilee, which recently made big news when the
team unearthed one of the largest wine cellars in
the ancient Near East. The Tel Hazor excavation,
directed by legendary archaeologist Amnon Ben-Tor
(The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), will begin its
29th dig season in 2018 and will continue unearth-
ing one of the largest, most significant sites (in terms
of international knowledge) of the ancient world.
Finally, the Abel Beth Maacah project, led by Bob
Mullins (Azusa Pacific) and Naama Yahalom-Mack
and Nava Panitz-Cohen (The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem), have expanded the northern Israel exca-
COURTESY OF THE ‘EINOT AMITAI EXCAVATION

vation they began in 2013. During the second season,

the excavators discovered a Late Bronze Age hoard
of 12 silver pieces that may help us understand who
lived at this ancient border town and what their

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL. At the Roman-period site of

‘Einot Amitai in Galilee where chalkstone vessels were
produced, a dig participant cheerfully wheelbarrows dirt
away from the excavation area.

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 33

 Digs 2018
NAVA PANITZ-COHEN
in—these archaeological excavations. To further this
goal, generous donors have funded Biblical Archae-
ology Society scholarships, which are available to
individuals who might not otherwise be able to
participate in an excavation. In 2017, BAS scholar-
ship recipients participated in excavations at Abel
34
ROBERT MULLINS
BEARDS REMAIN IN STYLE at Abel Beth Maacah even
after 3,000 years. Bearded volunteer Mario Tobia (above)
found a bearded faience head in an Iron Age II case-
mate structure. Left, Wake Forest University professor
Leann Pace (second from left) helps Wake Forest and
Princeton Theological Seminary students Lisa Li, Jianing
Li, and Melissa Fradkin excavate jars from an Iron Age II
domestic area.
Beth Maacah, Tel Akko, Tel Burna, Khirbet el-
Eika, Tell es-Safi, Tel Gezer, Tel Hazor, Hippos-
Sussita, Khirbet el-Mastarah, Kiriath-Jearim,
Lachish, Mt. Zion, Shikhin, Tel Shimron, and
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It is my hope that you will consider signing up
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A list of 2018 excavations in the Holy Land can be
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org/digs. Here, you will find dig descriptions, loca-
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*Read about their dig experiences at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/
2017winners.
JAnuARY/FEBRuARY 2018
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 Jerusalem
and the

Holy
Land(fill) Yuval Gadot

“Garbage is among humanity’s

prodigious physical legacies to those
who are yet to be born.” 1

If this statement applies to all cities on

earth, it is nowhere more relevant than to ancient Jeru-
salem. The city’s continued occupation since the Early
Bronze Age (c. 3000–2800 B.C.E.) has resulted in more
than five millennia of trash. And while these discarded
remains can be discovered beneath the surface of the
entire city, immeasurable tons of smashed pottery ves-
sels, animal bones, coins, charcoal, seeds, glass fragments,
and other items curiously appear to have been amassed
together in Early Roman Jerusalem (first century B.C.E.

JERUSALEM’S DUMP. Excavations on the eastern slope of Jeru-

salem’s Southeastern Hill (Area D3)—outside the ancient city’s
walls—have uncovered an Early Roman landfill.

36 January/February 2018
COURTESY YUVAL GADOT/PHOTO BY ASSAF PERETZ

37
bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW
H o ly l a n D f i l l

to the first century C.E.) to form what seems to be y wall

outer cit u nt
Temple Mo
one of the world’s earliest landfills.
While Jerusalem may be a shining city on a hill,
the designation of that holy hill’s slopes for the city’s
garbage disposal completely altered the landscape of N
Jerusalem’s eastern border, the Kidron Valley and for OPHEL
centuries left the western slopes of the Kidron unin-
habited, outside of the developed city and its walls.
In fact, only in the latter part of the 20th century
C.E. did these slopes, which are the eastern slopes

all
of the ancient City of David and the modern Silwan

city w
neighborhood, once again become inhabited. This
means that for nearly 2,000 years, the western slopes Gihon

inner
of the Kidron remained unpopulated. Spring
Many archaeologists working in Jerusalem over
the past century have avoided these layers because

ID
they are an archaeological gamble. Digging steep

F DAV
slopes demands a considerable investment of time
and energy; what they might contain is unknown,

CITY O
and their potential value was not well understood.
And after all, it’s garbage! The ancient residents Area D3

Siloam

LLEY
Ancient Seeds of Knowledge Pool

A
ON V
M ore than 11,000 seeds and plant parts from the Jerusalem landfill were

identified. To collect these remains, the excavated material had to be
sieved. For the archaeobotanical remains that had been charred, a flotation
machine separated the botanical remains from sediment, and the charred
remains floated into empty netting. After sieving and floating the sediment, the
archaeobotanical remains were examined using a microscope and compared
to known plant types.
Our plant finds can be divided into six groups: cultivated grains, weeds,
cultivated legumes, fruits, other edible plants including wild legumes, and other
useful plants, including plants used for medicinal purposes. An impressive
amount of uncultivated remains was discovered, likely because the area served
as a garbage mound.
There is evidence that people who produced this waste consumed a varied
diet of carbohydrates, proteins, and sugar and oil sources. A number of fruits
were found, including grape (Vitis vinifera), olives (Olea europaea), figs (Ficus
carica), and pomegranates (Punica granatum). Pomegranates do not grow
in the wild in the southern Levant and were, therefore, considered a luxury
product. These finds illustrate Jerusalem’s wealth during this time.
Since chaff was not found in the landfill, this indicates the plants already had
been harvested, threshed, and winnowed prior to their arrival at the garbage
mound. These were likely the remains of foods that had been prepared for meals.
A large quantity of weeds in comparison to cultivated grains (43:142) was
observed. In ancient food preparation, after winnowing, the grains would be
sorted by hand or sieved to separate them from the edible grains prior to
cooking and grinding. Due to the large quantity of weeds in comparison to the
cultivated grains, we suggest the landfill also received the unwanted weeds
from the stage after winnowing and prior to cooking.—Ilana Peters and Ehud
Weiss, Bar-Ilan University
KIDR
outer city wall
HINNOM VALLEY 0 500 ft
threw the contents of this area away for a reason.
What possible good could come from digging in
2,000-year-old trash?
Our present excavation at the eastern slopes of
Jerusalem’s Southeastern Hill (Area D3)—also known
as the “City of David” and present day “Silwan,”
in an area that today is part of the City of David
National Park—puts the spotlight on these layers of
Jerusalem’s ancient garbage.
One thing has not changed since antiquity—people
produce waste. Things that our ancient predecessors
threw away, such as food, furniture, goods, and sup-
plies, are a reflection of their daily lives and habits.
Jerusalem during the first century C.E. was a
place of political turbulence and social unrest that
eventually culminated in its destruction in the year
70 C.E. This was also a time of growth when Jeru-
salem swelled to an unprecedented size, expanding
to include three sectors—the Upper city, Bezetha,2
and the Lower city. Economically and politically,

38 January/February 2018
 H o ly l a n D f i l l
COURTESY YUVAL GADOT

DISTINCT LAYERS emerged from the landfill during exca-

vation. These can be seen in the above cross-section—
with the neighborhood of Silwan in the background—and
in the drawing, to the right.

the city revolved around the Temple as local and

international pilgrimage—unique to the Temple in
Jerusalem—continued to grow, reaching its zenith
during the first century C.E. The garbage layers on
Jerusalem’s eastern slopes, in some places more than
36 feet thick, are a silent witness to those glori-
ous but troubled times. If excavated correctly, we
hypothesized that the garbage layers could poten- 0 2m
tially shed light on the dietary habits, trading prac-
tices, and vocational diversity of the ancient resi-
dents of Jerusalem. their excavations. The phenomenon of landfill cir-
The immense layers of the landfill as counted by cumvention was so impressive that it was recorded
archaeologist Ronny Reich3 were observed by each of on the plans of early 19th-century explorers such
the 16 excavators of the City of David. Most of them as Conrad Schick and Raymond Weill.4 They were
ignored the layers and attempted to bypass them in quick to recognize the fact that the landfill layers

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 39

 H o ly l a n D f i l l
date to the Roman period. The late archaeologist
Yigal Shiloh, who was the first to excavate these
layers, claimed that although the layers’ contents
dated to the Early Roman period, their formation
should be dated a few decades later to the era fol-
lowing the city’s destruction in 70 C.E. According to
this interpretation, Roman soldiers cleared the con-
tents of the destroyed and deserted Jewish houses
COURTESY YUVAL GADOT
40
down the slope as they prepared the ground for the
rebuilding of the city.5
The first to interpret the layers as a landfill—that
is, an intentional garbage disposal—were Ronny Reich
and Eli Shukron in their excavations by the Gihon
Spring and again later in their cooperation with Guy
Bar-Oz and Ram Buchnick during an in-depth study
of the landfill content, especially of the animal bones.
Their study led them not only to identify the layers
as garbage, but to go one step further and associate
the garbage with cultic activities performed at the
Temple Mount and in association with pilgrimage to
the Temple. Thus, this garbage provides a window
into worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.
In October 2013, we began a long-term excava-
tion project—conducted by the Institute of Archae-
ology at Tel Aviv University in cooperation with the
Israel Antiquities Authority—on the Southeastern
Hill. Our first year of the excavations was devoted
to researching the landfill and developing a rigorous
methodology so that the facts behind the garbage
would be reliable. Two main challenges had to be
CAREFUL COLLECTING. To recover all finds that might be
associated with the garbage, buckets from each distinct
layer of the landfill underwent different methods of sift-
ing: wet sifting with a 0.5-mm mesh and water, dry sifting
with a 1-cm mesh (see below image), and flotation, using
water to remove dirt from objects, which allows them to
float and be separated (see left).
COURTESY YUVAL GADOT
January/February 2018

COURTESY YUVAL GADOT
overcome: First, how do we process the massive
amount of dirt in the landfill? This process alone
could easily consume all of our time and resources.
The second challenge involved navigating the sharp
slope. We realized that the landfill is composed of
at least 11 distinct layers and that these layers slope
downhill sharply from west to east. Given the steep
slope and the density of the finds, it became quite
difficult to peel off each layer separately. We devel-
oped a four-stage sampling strategy to overcome the
two challenges:
Stage 1: Two regularly sized excavation squares
(4 by 6 m) were excavated from the surface down.
From these, one out of every 20 buckets of fill was
removed and subjected to wet sifting (using a 0.5
mm mesh) in order to recover all finds that might be
associated with the garbage. Finds collected in this
way serve as a representative sample of the entire
depth of the garbage layer, without distinction into
layers. A metal detector was also employed regularly
at this stage.
Stage 2: The sections of the square were sketched
and photographed, and the distinct layers were
marked with string to serve as guidelines for the
subsequent stage of excavation.
Stage 3: Careful stratigraphic excavations were
conducted on 1.5-by-0.5-meter segments of these
sections, with the finds recovered from each distinct
layer registered separately.
Stage 4: The buckets from each distinct layer were
subjected to different methods of sifting: wet sifting
(0.5 mm mesh), dry sifting (1 cm mesh), or flotation
(i.e., using water to remove dirt from objects, allow-
ing them to float and be separated). By doing this,
we secured the retrieval of a representative sample
of the variety of items making up the landfill.
Our systematic sifting proved to be valuable. We
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW
H o ly l a n D f i l l
SPLENDID SPOON. Found in a garbage layer of the City
of David in 2013, this spoon probably would have been
used for mixing cosmetics or medicine. Dating to the
Early Roman period, its leaf-shaped flat bowl is decorated
with concentric circles and a simple, three-leaf rosette
motif. Similar spoons were found at other excavations in
the City of David and in Jerusalem, such as the Jewish
Quarter and Temple Mount, as well as at Masada and
Caesarea. Interestingly enough, this type of leaf-shaped
rosette-decorated spoon is unknown outside of Israel.
can also conclude with confidence the presence of
materials that are now absent (like building stones)
and scarce (like wooden beams or metal and glass
objects). Such materials had secondary value and
were typically recycled. So while we did not find
many of them in the landfill, we found a lot of sup-
porting evidence that they had been there at one time.
A team of specialists is still analyzing the finds,
but a preliminary survey of the excavated objects has
already revealed some interesting results. First, the
Burnt to a Crisp
A round 280 samples of charred wood were collected from the Jerusalem
landfill and underwent a dendroarchaeological investigation. The samples
were cut using razor blades and examined under a microscope. Dendroarchaeo-
logical investigations hold great potential for the reconstruction of ancient envi-
ronments, both natural and cultivated. They also illuminate aspects of everyday
life, such as building construction and object manufacture, as wood is a common
and accessible raw material. In the ancient world, wood served as the main
source of energy and was widely used for various crafts. Despite the large num-
ber of archaeological excavations that have been conducted in Jerusalem over
the past century, few dendroarchaeological investigations have been undertaken.
This charred material came from the ashy remains of wood used to fuel
ovens and kilns, which were discarded in the city’s landfill. The fuel was
composed of mainly agricultural refuse in the form of roots and tubers, as well
as pruned branches of fruit trees, mainly olive, fig, and vine. Previously, the
agricultural activity around the city was assumed to be restricted to viticulture
(grapes) due to the high frequency of vine presses and the relative scarcity of
oil presses dated to the Early Roman period in that area.1 However, these den-
droarchaeological remains, combined with textual evidence, indicate that the
city’s agricultural hinterland was largely devoted to olive and fig horticulture,
with an unknown scale of viticulture.
The few charred coniferous tree remains detected within the assemblage
likely originated from local buildings that were demolished and/or destroyed
by fire, whose debris was later cleared to the city’s landfill. Charred remains of
sycomore fig (Ficus sycomorus) and the genus tamarisk (Tamarix spp.), which
were also employed in construction and artifact manufacture, reached the
landfill in the same manner.—Helena Roth, Tel Aviv University
1 EyalBaruch, “The Economic Hinterland of Jerusalem in the Herodian Period,” Cathedra 89 (1998),
pp. 41–69 (Hebrew with an English abstract).
41
H o ly l a n D f i l l

overall nature of the assemblage, including the stone
vessels, fragmented glass vessels, and decorated plas-
ter pieces, dates broadly to the Early Roman period
(63 B.C.E.–70 C.E.). More than 11,000 indicative pot-
tery sherds also date mostly to the first century C.E.,
after the days of Herod (see “Broken Pots, Recon-
structed Identities,” below, for more on the pottery).
We gained a more refined chronology in a study
led by Yoav Farhi of the coins found in the excava-
tion. Preliminary results show that most of the coins
date to the days of the Roman prefects under the
rule of Tiberius (15/16–31/32 C.E.). A second large
group of coins dates to the days of Agrippa I (41/42
C.E.). Some earlier coins date to the days of the Has-
monean Dynasty (165–63 B.C.E.) and of Herod the
Great (47–4 B.C.E.). These older coins were probably
reused and stayed in circulation for decades. Missing
from the assemblage so far are coins from the First
Jewish Revolt (66–70 C.E.), and, apart from one coin
dating to 54 C.E., there are no coins from the days
of the procurators that governed over Judea during
the decade that preceded the revolt.
The excavation of this area shows convincingly
that it is made of repeated alternating material cul-
ture layers (i.e., layers with numerous discarded
objects) sandwiched between layers much richer in
soil. But in order to prove that this slope was a desig-
nated disposal site, specifically an ancient landfill,
we had to answer two additional questions about
these layers. First, could we identify the time inter-
vals between individual layers? Was it weeks, months,
or even years between each of the material layers?
Second, how and why were each of the soil lay-
ers formed? Are they due to the natural erosion of
soil from the top of the hill, or were the soil lay-
ers deliberate acts by people intending to cover up
the garbage? Answering these questions was key to
determining whether this was a deliberate landfill or
simply a place where garbage was dumped.
It is difficult to use pottery typology to reveal

Broken Pots, Reconstructed Identities

H uge quantities of pottery fragments
were found in the ancient Jerusalem
landfill—about 11,000 indicative sherds (frag-
ments of rims, necks, handles, bases, and
even decorated body sherds that allow us to
recognize the shape, function, and occasion-
ally the origin of the vessels) were analyzed.
Studying this pottery not only helps in deter-
mining the time in which the landfill was
operational, but also allows us to reconstruct
the household activities for which the vessels
were used before they were thrown to the
garbage, and even to understand how the
landfill was formed.
We realized that most of our pottery types
belong to a single, short period between the
end of the first century B.C.E. and 70 C.E.,
just before the Romans destroyed the city.
Very few pottery types dating from the late
second to early first centuries B.C.E. were dis-
covered (less than 1 percent of our collection).
The deposits include ceramic types used
in a multitude of functions, ranging from
meal preparation and consumption, to food
and liquid storage, to lighting. An ancient
household assemblage typically shows a
balanced and varied assemblage of vessels
used for the different aspects of domestic
life, while an assemblage of vessels used
in a cultic or industrial context will show
a more specialized pattern, with certain
repeated functions being more dominant
than others. In the research conducted
by Ronny Reich and Guy Bar-Oz—with the
collaboration of many other scholars—on
the garbage found closer to Temple Mount,
a high percentage of cooking pots was
reported. They claim that those ceramic ves-
sel remains were the byproducts of pilgrims
who had made their way to the Jerusalem
Temple. However, the pottery farther away
from the Temple shows a relatively balanced
pattern, with serving dishes (bowls) appear-
ing most frequently, occupying almost 38
percent of the whole assemblage. Cooking-
pots are the second most frequent vessel at
25 percent, followed by storage jars, smaller
liquid containers like juglets, unguentaria
(small ceramic or glass bottles used to hold
oils, perfumes, and other liquids), flasks, and
oil lamps. Based on this pattern, we suggest
the fragmented vessels originated from a
domestic context.
We were surprised by the relatively
high percentage of imported vessels (0.52
percent all together). These are essentially
terra sigillata vessels (ceramic vessels cov-
ered by an ultrarefined clay slip that gives a
high gloss when polished) from Cyprus and
Syria that were popular among Greeks and
Romans, which some scholars claim were
deliberately avoided by the Jewish popula-
tion in Jerusalem. Our research suggests that
wealthier Jewish families did not necessarily
observe the prohibition against imported
ceramic wares.
Finally, we analyzed the state of per-
severation of the sherds. This was done
to better understand the formation of the
landfill and its content. We measured the
lengths of 396 ceramic fragments at their
longest points. While the entire assemblage
was broken, we found that they had not
been broken into relatively small pieces.
The longest side of most of the ceramic
fragments ranged between 1 and 5 inches,
with an average length of about 2 inches.
The relatively large size of sherds is an
indication of material located in a primary
dump.1 This accumulation of discarded
sherds had not been trampled. The sherds’
broken sides are acute, which makes it
difficult to claim that the material had been
rolled by the water or wind. Therefore, this
deposit is the result of a single, deliberate,
human action and not likely due to a natural
phenomenon.—Helen Michlaen, Israel
Antiquities Authority
1 M.B.Schiffer, “Toward the Identification of Formation
Processes,” American Antiquity 48.4 (1983), p. 679.

42 January/February 2018
 H o ly l a n D f i l l

The Jerusalem Diet

T he animal remains from Jerusalem’s Early
Roman landfill are the largest assemblage
of fauna ever published from Jerusalem. We
compared these bones with contemporane-
ous animal bone assemblages from other
parts of the city, as well as with bones exca-
vated from a northern section of the landfill
closer to the Temple Mount. The remains from
the landfill were highly fragmented, and only
a handful of bones were complete. Yet the
bones were well preserved and showed little
evidence of weathering, which suggests that
the assemblage was covered quickly either by
more refuse or by organic material.
Our analysis reveals that domestic livestock
was the main source of meat consumed in the

city and was supplemented by wild game and
chicken. The lack of pigs and other non-kosher
animals suggests that the populace was Jew-
ish. Further support that Judaism was the domi-
nant religion of Jerusalem at this time comes
from evidence that early kashrut (kosher)
butchery practices were being employed in
the removal of the sciatic nerve from the pelvis
(cf. Genesis 32:33). The meat proportions,
culling pattern, and animals present denote a
mix of elites and commoners—suggesting that
everyone’s refuse, regardless of socioeconomic
class, was disposed in the same area.
Comparing the usage of animals from this
excavation with that from the northern landfill
reveals a difference in Jerusalem’s disposal
ABRA SPICIARICH
INFORMATIVE BONES. These bone fragments from the Jerusalem landfill derive from sheep
or goats consumed in Early Roman Jerusalem and show evidence of early kashrut (kosher)
butchery practices. The butchery marks are highlighted with arrows.
activities. The livestock culling strategies, body goat remains, skull bones, and the presence
part frequencies, and lack of the priestly por- of pigeon remains suggest refuse from ritual
tion (cf. Leviticus 7:31), as well as the absence activity. Our assessment of the animal bones
of pigeon remains in the southern section from the landfill contributes to a greater
demonstrates that this refuse originated understanding of its formation processes and
from the residential areas of Jerusalem. In the economic, social, and religious status
contrast, in the northern section closer to the of the people behind the garbage.—Abra
Temple, the dominance of male sheep and Spiciarich, Tel Aviv University

dates of decades or less. Numismatic evidence is
helpful, but coins tended to stay in circulation for
longer periods of time due to their value, and the
analysis of the coins discovered in our excavation
is still in progress. However, other pieces of evi-
dence from our excavation indicate that this area
was indeed a planned, intentional landfill.
Analysis of the animal bones from the site showed
that the material layers were quickly covered by lay-
ers of dirt following their disposal in the landfill.
We know this because there are relatively few bite
marks from rodents and other scavengers on the
bones in the material layers and because the bones
are not weathered, meaning they did not blanch in
the sun and open air—a process requiring a long
period of time (see “The Jerusalem Diet,” above, for
more on the bones). Furthermore, an unusually high
percentage of the bones (14 percent) are burnt. This
is higher than the typical percentage of burnt bones
from domestic contexts. The garbage in our area
had been intentionally burnt and was then quickly
covered with soil.
The nature of the finds—almost all dating to the
Early Roman period, their large size, and the near
lack of large building materials—coupled with the
finds’ assortment into layers, being burnt at the
site, and possibly being covered quickly with soil,
all demonstrate that these remains were not sim-
ply tossed downslope, but were instead the deliber-
ate result of an organized, “industrial” garbage dis-
posal process at the outskirts of the city. This area
was designated as a city disposal site, specifically
an ancient landfill, just outside of Jerusalem’s walls.
The nature of the massive amount of garbage

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 43

H o ly l a n D f i l l
concentrated at this site suggests the presence of
an established, citywide garbage disposal operation
that included the development of a specialized mode
of collection and transportation to the top of the
slope (a convoy of donkeys hauled the waste), the
deliberate disposal of the garbage down the slope,
setting the garbage on fire, and burying the remains
beneath a layer of soil. The scale of work dictates
that this waste management operation was a public
enterprise. And while this may seem natural and
Fish Tales
T he assemblage of fish bones excavated from the Jerusalem landfill has a
few peculiarities. The total number of fish bones was 591, of which 294,
about 50 percent, could be taxonomically identified. This low percentage was
mainly due to the poor conservation of the delicate bones.
Twelve different families of fish were identified, eight marine and four fresh-
water fish. The most common identified fish (43 percent) were mullets from the
Mediterranean. Mullets are medium-sized fish commonly found in excavated
sites throughout Israel. Porgies are the most commonly identified fish at these
sites, but porgies made up less than 4 percent of the landfill assemblage.
We also discovered Nile perch (2.7 percent), which do not inhabit rivers in the
Levant but which were imported from the Nile Valley. Egypt was known to export
large quantities of perch over thousands of years, beginning in the Middle Bronze
Age. This fish is a common find in almost every eastern Mediterranean site.
Thirty-six percent of the identified fish bones belongs to the freshwater fam-
ily of carp, which is unusual. Several species of this family inhabit the Jordan
River system, including the Sea of Galilee. The town of Magdala, situated on
the western coast of the lake, was known during the Early Roman period for
its production of salted fish, which is attested by its Greek name: Magdala
Taricheae (“Magdala of the fish salters”). It is tempting to suggest that the carp,
cichlids (2.7 percent), and catfish (1.4 percent)—all of which inhabit the Sea of
Galilee—in the Jerusalem landfill came from Magdala.
Different kinds of fish were part of the diet of the Jewish population of
Jerusalem during the Early Roman period. Marine Mediterranean fish and
imported Nile perch were probably purchased in fish markets along the
coast. The main bulk of freshwater fish was likely imported from the northern
fish-salting plants in Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. These fish, caught and pre-
pared by the Jewish inhabitants of Magdala, might have had a special appeal
for the Jewish population of Jerusalem.—Omri Lernau, University of Haifa
44
JOHN F. WILSON
THE VAST MAJORITY OF COINS discovered in the Jerusa-
lem landfill date to the Early Roman period, with a couple
of earlier coins from the Hasmonean Dynasty (165–63
B.C.E.). Since coins stay in circulation for decades, even
these earlier coins don’t undermine an Early Roman date
for the landfill. A bronze coin of Herod Agrippa I of Judea
(r. 37–44 C.E.), like the one shown above at left, dates to
the rule of the Roman Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 C.E.).
Its obverse side features an inscription that reads
ΑΓΡΙΠΑ ΒΑCΙΛΕWC (“of King Agrippa”) surrounding an
umbrella-like canopy with fringes. The reverse side (cen-
ter) features three ears of barley growing between two
leaves, flanked by the date Lϛ (“Year 6” of Agrippa I’s
reign, which would be 41/42 C.E.). A bronze Pontius Pilate
(r. 26–36 C.E.) coin, similar to the above right, struck in
29 C.E. dates to the rule of the Roman emperor Tiberius
(r. 14–37 C.E.). It depicts three bound ears of barley, the
outer two of which are drooping, likely lamenting the
death of Tiberius’s mother, Livia Drusilla (Julia Augusta) in
29 C.E., whose name ΙΟΥΛΙΑ ΚΑΙCΑΡΟC (Julia Caesar)
surrounds the image. There are no coins from the First
Jewish Revolt (66–70 C.E.) in the landfill and only one coin
from the decade before the revolt.
vital for those of us living in the 21st century, this
was not necessarily the case in antiquity.
Throughout history, those living in Jerusalem (and
in other ancient cities for that matter) prior to the
Roman period did not experience the luxury of a
formal, citywide garbage disposal system. Jerusalem
was already a large and densely populated city during
the eighth–seventh centuries B.C.E., as it was during
the Byzantine period (fourth–seventh centuries C.E.),
and yet we find no evidence for an organized garbage
disposal mechanism during those times. It seems that
the first-century C.E. landfill of Jerusalem is a unique
phenomenon, which demands an explanation.
One option is that the Roman procurators who
governed Jerusalem during most of the first century
C.E. developed the garbage disposal program. Recent
evidence suggests the procurators developed an
increasingly robust civic life. They encouraged and
supported large public building projects such as the
ceremonial “Stepped Street” and perhaps even the
completion of the Temple Mount project initiated
January/February 2018
 H o ly l a n D f i l l

“Pure” Garbage—Limestone Vessel Remains

D uring the late Second Temple period (c.
first century B.C.E.–70 C.E.), Jews living
throughout Judea went to extraordinary
lengths to observe the Biblical laws relating
to ritual purity. Not only could people
become impure (e.g., from menstruation,
sexual relations, and contact with certain
animal remains and human corpses), but so
too could the food, drink, and utensils that
came into contact with ritual impurity.
Pottery is singled out in Leviticus 11:33 as a

PHOTO BY PAVEL SHRAGO

material that was particularly susceptible to
impurity and which, once it had become
impure, had to be broken. By the late first
century B.C.E., many Jews began to believe
that stone was impervious to impurity. They
subsequently began to produce a “pure
alternative” to pottery—tableware and
storage vessels fashioned out of local, soft
limestone.* The Gospel of John relates this
phenomenon in the wedding at Cana
narrative: the six jars that held the water-
turned-to-wine are said to have been made
of stone, and we are told that this had
something to do with “the purity [laws] of
the Jews” (John 2:6).
*See Yitzhak Magen, “Ancient Israel’s Stone Age: Purity in
Second Temple Times,” bar, September/October 1998.
More than a thousand fragments of
limestone vessels were unearthed in the
Jerusalem garbage dump. Although lime-
stone vessels have been found in the past
at hundreds of late Second Temple period
sites throughout Israel, the large number of
remains found in the dump allow us to see
how common the various types of stone ves-
sels were in ancient Jerusalem. We also com-
pared the quantity of “pure” stone vessels to
potentially “impure” pottery vessels. In one
“PURE” STONE VESSELS. Among the surpris-
ing finds in the dump were limestone ves-
sels which had broken while being made
and subsequently been discarded before
they were finished. This is clear evidence
that limestone vessels where being pro-
duced by artisans within Jerusalem.
excavated section, we found that 99 percent
of the fragments were made of pottery while
only 1 percent were made of stone.—Yonatan
Adler, Ariel University

by Herod the Great in 19 B.C.E. These immense
building projects also included the construction of
a maze of drainage channels beneath the streets,
including one running from the Ophel (just south
of the Temple Mount southward) to the Siloam Pool.
It makes sense that the procurators were the
inspiration behind the city’s waste management pro-
gram, as it promoted civic life in Jerusalem by keep-
ing the ever-growing city relatively clean. But why
Jerusalem? Garbage was a problem in all Roman
cities, yet we have no record of such operations
in other cities like Caesarea or Scythopolis (Beth
Shean). In Pompeii, garbage was simply discarded
into the sewage channels. So why did Jerusalem
receive this civic luxury?
We believe the Jewish population of the city, and
specifically their unique religious practices during
the first century C.E., may explain the presence of
the landfill.
For Jews observing purity laws, clay vessels had
to be broken and discarded, ritual baths (mikva’ot)
became a necessity, and so on (see “ ‘Pure’ Garbage—
Limestone Vessel Remains,” above). Could it be that
garbage was also considered ritually impure? We
have no direct evidence of this, but we learn from
later rabbinic sources that it was forbidden to dis-
card waste within the city’s walls, and that garbage
had to be taken out of the city.6
It seems that the landfill expresses an intercultural
agreement between Jews and their Roman overlords.
On the one hand, the Roman procurators brought
with them knowledge and ideology of how a city
should run and operate. On the other hand, Jewish
leaders and local cultural traditions likely demanded
patterns of behavior that encouraged civic purity
programs in the growing city, such as garbage dis-
posal. Ultimately, we can conclude that the Jewish
concept of the ritual impurity of certain types of gar-
bage drove the need to place it outside of the city—a
task that was welcomed, organized, and performed
by the Romans. The landfill therefore appears to
C O N T I N U E S O N PA G E 7 0

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 45

 Romancing
Stones
the
The Canaanite Artistic Tradition at Israelite Hazor
Danny Rosenberg and Jennie Ebeling
The Israelites of the Iron Age (c. 1200–
586 B.C.E.) are not remembered for their arts and
crafts. The Biblical writers relate that King Solomon
hired Phoenicians to cut the wood required to build
the Jerusalem Temple and cast its bronze furnish-
ings (1 Kings 5:6–9; 1 Kings 7:13–14). It is possible
that the prohibition against making graven images
discouraged much in the way of original artistic
development in Israel.
The Canaanites, who lived in the southern Levant
during the preceding Middle and Late Bronze Ages
(c. 2000–1200 B.C.E.), however, were known for
their intricate ivory carvings and work in bronze,
gold, and silver, as seen in the impressive objects
found in their temples, palaces, and tombs. Some of
these Canaanite craft traditions persisted into the
Iron Age, including the ivory inlays found and pos-
sibly produced in the Israelite capital of Samaria in
the ninth or eighth centuries B.C.E.*
Another Bronze Age Canaanite craft tradition
*See Strata, “The Samaria Ivories—Phoenician or Israelite?” bar, Sep-
tember/October 2017; and Rupert Chapman, “Samaria—Capital of Israel,”
bar, September/October 2017.
46
that continued into Iron Age Israel was basalt ves-
sel carving. The discovery of a unique workshop
for basalt vessels at Hazor 1 in 2010 sheds new light
on this largely overlooked Israelite craft and allows
us to study various aspects of basalt vessel produc-
tion for the first time.2 It also invites investigation
into the connection between the Late Bronze Age
Canaanite inhabitants of Hazor and the Israelites
who rebuilt the site in the succeeding Iron Age.
Located in northern Israel near numerous basalt
outcrops, Hazor had a tradition of basalt carving
from at least the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1500
B.C.E.). In the 1950s and in 1968, famed Israeli
archaeologist Yigael Yadin and his team unearthed
at Hazor some of the most impressive stone sculp-
tures known from Bronze Age Canaan, including
altars, orthostats, stelae, vessels, and statues. The
Hazor Excavations directed by Amnon Ben-Tor since
the 1990s have unearthed more orthostats, a large
square podium associated with a Canaanite palace,
and a headless sculpture of a male figure standing
behind a large vessel. All these stone artifacts were
made of basalt, hinting at the possibility that Hazor
January/February 2018
 G
BER
ANNY ROSEN
RTESY D
COU
was a center for the manufacture of basalt sculpture
in the second millennium B.C.E.3
But it was a bit of a surprise to find evidence for
basalt carving at the site in a later Israelite work-
shop. In addition to providing evidence for this little-
known Israelite craft, the workshop is the only one
of its kind in the Near East from the Iron Age, when
Hazor was a central administrative city and home
to a wealthy ruling class. It contained more than 20
unfinished basalt vessels—also called preforms or
wasters—as well as tools that may have been used to
carve them. Add this to the assemblage of a similar
number of unfinished basalt vessels found scattered
throughout the main excavation areas at Hazor in
the 1990s and early 2000s, and we have evidence
for a specialized basalt vessel industry at the site
spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Who were the basalt vessel carvers at Israelite
Hazor, and is there a connection between the Israel-
ite basalt carving industry and that of their Canaan-
ite predecessors?
By the Iron Age, basalt vessel manufacturing was
already a longstanding tradition in the region, as
bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW
MARKS OF BATTERING, PECKING, AND CHISELING
apparent on the unfinished vessels from Hazor allow
us to reconstruct the manufacturing process step-by-step
and consider possible tools used in carving these
basalt vessels.
beautifully carved deep basalt vessels/mortars are
known from the Natufian period (c. 13,000 B.C.E.).
Basalt vessels then continued to form important
components of prehistoric stone industries and
peaked during the Early Chalcolithic period (c.
4500–3900 B.C.E.). Although not as outré as their
prehistoric predecessors, Bronze Age (c. 3200–1200
B.C.E.) basalt vessels reflect great skill and variety.
Indeed, the vessels found at Hazor include at least
four types popular from the Middle Bronze Age
through the Iron Age.
The Iron Age basalt workshop at Hazor was dis-
covered on the northern edge of the tell, in an area
that served as the main point of passage between
the lower and upper cities and the location of an
administrative palace during the Middle and Late
Bronze Ages. Defined by walls on its northern and
47
Hazor stones
THE MOST POWERFUL CITY-STATE in the Bronze Age
southern Levant, Hazor remained a prominent city in the
Israelite period, when it was home to a wealthy ruling
class. A basalt workshop has recently been located in the
excavated area on the left in this photo.
eastern sides, the workshop lay outside the southern
wall of a large agricultural storeroom. It is not clear
how the workshop, which has not yet been fully
excavated, relates to the storeroom. Three layers of
beaten earth floor were identified in the workshop
containing unfinished basalt vessels and many basalt
chips as well as lots of ash, organic material, pebbles,
and pottery sherds scattered throughout. Two short
walls delineate a confined space in the northeastern
part of the workshop where seven loom weights
were recovered.
The iron chisels, flint tools, and basalt hammer-
stones found in the workshop may have been used
in the manufacture of the vessels, while the presence
of loom weights and spindle whorls may indicate
textile production in this same space.
The unfinished basalt vessels are made primarily
of compact, non-vesicular basalt and represent four
main typological categories: plates/platters, pedestal
bowls, tripod bowls, and bowls with everted (out-
turned) walls. The completely preserved specimens
from many Bronze and Iron Age sites, including
48
ZEV RADOVAN/BIBLELANDPICTURES.COM
Hazor itself, give us a good idea of what these ves-
sels would have looked like had they been com-
pleted. With the exception of vessels in their initial
stages of manufacture (probably done off-site, at
quarries), our Hazor examples document all stages
of production. Many of the unfinished vessels have
evidence of battering, pecking, and chiseling on their
interiors and exteriors, which allows us to recon-
struct the manufacturing process and the use of vari-
ous tools in the carving of these vessels.
A geochemical and petrographic study of the
unfinished vessels and the basalt outcrops in the
vicinity of Hazor showed that at least two major
preferred sources were used, and these were not the
closest basalt sources to the site. In fact, there is a
basalt flow just along the lower city of Hazor, but
this material was not used to manufacture the arti-
facts found in the workshop. This raises questions
about access and control of desired raw material and
the choices made by the Hazor stone artisans, who
had to transport the partially worked basalt vessels
some distance to the workshop.
The location of the workshop in close proximity
to a large storeroom suggests state control of special-
ized craft activity rather than a domestic industry or
independent commercial operation.4 Since the work-
shop is attached to an elite area, we propose that the
vessels were luxury items, in contrast to utilitarian
January/February 2018
 Hazor stones
ZEV RADOVAN/BIBLELANDPICTURES.COM

items, which are usually manufactured by indepen- THE LONG ARTISTIC TRADITION of basalt carving at Hazor
dent specialists. The Israelite basalt vessel carvers at is exemplified by these standing stones, or maṣṣeboth
Hazor did not specialize in the manufacture of any (singular: maṣṣebah), an offering table, and a crouching
particular vessel type. Most of the types common in lion. Excavated from a single-room Canaanite “Shrine of
the preceding Bronze Age are represented among the Stelae” dated to the 13th century B.C.E., they are on
display in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
the vessels found in the Iron Age workshop. Thus,
we tentatively suggest that the production of basalt
vessels in this workshop was controlled by the Isra- popular already during the second millennium B.C.E.
elite elite at Hazor and that the final products were Could there be a connection between the Canaanite
made for elites, who controlled the distribution of and Israelite basalt-carving traditions at the site?
these items and enjoyed the profits of their trade. In After Canaanite Hazor was destroyed and aban-
the future, we plan to sample similar vessels at con- doned in the context of widespread social dislocation
temporary sites to see if they in the eastern Mediterranean
were made of material from Sidon at the end of the Late Bronze
the same basalt outcrops and, Mt. Hermon Age, around 1250 B.C.E., it
Tyre
hence, possibly manufactured Dan was not resettled until about
in the ninth-century workshop Hazor 200 years later—most likely by
Acco
at Hazor. early Israelites.5 Even though
Finds of impressive basalt Mt. Carmel we don’t know where the
artifacts from the Middle and Canaanites went after they
Jordan River

Megiddo
SEA

Late Bronze Ages indicate that had abandoned the site, the
EAN

Hazor was a center for basalt evidence suggests that the

RAN

carving in that period. How- Gezer Iron Age inhabitants had some
ITER

ever, our workshop clearly understanding of and even rev-

MED

Jerusalem
dates to the ninth century, erence for the Late Bronze Age
DEAD
and it was Israelite specialists Arad SEA ruins at the center of the city.
who produced the same types This is seen in the decision
N
of basalt vessels that were to leave the ruins of the Late

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 49

Hazor stones

Bronze Age ceremonial palace untouched and build
around rather than on top of them for the duration
of the Israelite occupation of Hazor.6
It is also evidenced in the existence of a “ruin
cult” in this area that was identified by the late
co-director of the renewed excavations at Hazor,
Sharon Zuckerman.7 Interestingly, the 11th-century
Israelite site included two cult places within view
of the Canaanite ruins, which Zuckerman believed
to reflect “conscious appropriation” of the Bronze
Age remains by the Iron Age inhabitants.8 The
focus of these cult places was a single basalt stand-
ing stone, known in Hebrew as a maṣṣebah. Zucker-
man suggested that these basalt stones might have
been picked up from among the Canaanite ruins
and revered as memorials of the city’s glorious past,9
since basalt craftsmanship reflects the significant
resources available to the Canaanite elite that some

THE BASALT VESSEL

WORKSHOP,
excavated at the
point of passage
between the upper
and lower cities at
Hazor, yielded two
dozen vessels in
various stages of
manufacture as well
as possible tools
and production
waste. Together,
these finds draw an
COURTESY HAZOR EXCAVATIONS

intriguing picture
of a craft tradition
passed from Bronze
Age Canaanites
to their Iron Age
successors, the
Israelites.

50 January/February 2018
 Hazor stones
G
DA N N Y R O S E N B ER
RTESY
COU

two centuries earlier ruled Hazor. In addition, a Late
Bronze Age jug containing bronze objects, including
a figurine of a seated god, was found near the stand-
ing stone in one of the cult places.
It would then seem that the Israelite settlers
of Iron Age Hazor not only were familiar with
Canaanite architecture and material culture, but
also respected and possibly even revered it. Finely
worked basalt stones are rare in Iron Age structures
and are only seldom reused. Despite technological
advances from the Bronze to Iron Age
transition that may have allowed
for more efficient stone cut-
ting, the Israelite ruling elite
did not generally attempt
to rival their Canaanite pre-
decessors by reviving the
tradition of basalt architec-
ture. The ninth-century elites
at Hazor, however, may have
chosen to emulate their Canaan-
ite predecessors by reviving the
tradition of producing smaller
basalt items, including the
vessels found in the work-
shop. Perhaps they even
accessed the same basalt
outcrops as did the Late
DISCARDED IN AN EARLY
EVERTED BOWLS were named for their out-turned walls.
Their unfinished state makes it plausible that some arti-
facts under this rubric were intended as plates or other
forms. Pictured here is an example of a flat-base bowl,
with its well-defined rims finished before carving of the
vessel’s interior.
Bronze Age inhabitants of Hazor.
The basalt vessels from the workshop at Hazor
are now being studied in the Laboratory for Ground
Stone Tools Research at the Zinman
Institute of Archaeology, Uni-
versity of Haifa, where they
are undergoing a micro-
and macroscopic study for
production wear. Together
with the unique workshop
at Hazor, they promise to
shed new light on a neglected
Israelite craft tradition and allow
new opportunities to investigate the
production, distribution, and consump-
tion of elite artifacts during
the Iron Age. This research
also highlights Hazor’s
role as a center for artis-
tic innovation in the
Late Bronze Age, when
it was “the head of all
those kingdoms” (Joshua
COURT

STAGE of production, this

11:10), and suggests that
tripod bowl seems to sug-
ESY

gest that the legs would be the memory of this role

DA

was alive centuries later

NN

carved first, before the bowl’s

Y
RO

interior—apparently to ensure in the minds of the Israelite

SE
NB

inhabitants of Hazor. a
ER

accuracy and symmetry of the G

end-product. N O T E S O N PA G E 7 0

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 51

52 January/February 2018
 the Power of Hidden Writing
Jeremy D. Smoak

Sometimes the most powerful written words are the ones

that we don’t see. We wear clothing with tiny printed labels on the interior that
touch our bodies even though we rarely see or read them. We wear necklaces
that often bear the names of loved ones written in miniature letters. Sometimes
these necklaces are lockets that purposefully conceal pictures and written dedi-
cations inside clasped metal cases. Some people tattoo their bodies with letters
that are written in scripts they cannot read of languages they do not speak.
What’s more, many hide their tattoos away from all but their closest friends
and family.
In many cases, such “unseen” words are among the most important, per-
PHOTO © ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM, BY NAHUM SLAPAK

sonal, and meaningful forms of writing we possess. We secure birth certificates,

marriage licenses, and passports in safes out of the eyesight of others. Further-
more, each time we put on an article of clothing or an accessory—a watch,

UNROLLED SCROLLS. Conservationists Marina Rosovsky, Joseph Shenhav, and David

Bigelajzen of the Israel Museum carefully unrolled these two silver scrolls from Ketef
Hinnom—revealing that the amulets contain writing. Though highly corroded, some of
the writing, including Yahweh’s divine name, was immediately discernible. The West
Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California helped to further deci-
pher these inscriptions, both of which resemble the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–
26: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and
be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
The inscriptions date to the eighth–sixth centuries B.C.E.

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 53

 WorDs Unseen
ZEV RADOVAN/BIBLELANDPICTURES.COM
SILVER BLESSINGS. Standing only 1 inch tall, this minia-
ture silver scroll (Amulet 1) contains one of the earliest
Hebrew inscriptions ever uncovered. In 1979, archaeolo-
gist Gabriel Barkay and his team found this scroll and
another smaller silver scroll—both of which date to the
eighth–sixth centuries B.C.E.—in a burial cave at Ketef
Hinnom in Jerusalem. In antiquity, they would have been
worn as amulets. The photograph (above) and drawing
(right) show the first scroll before it was unrolled.
a shirt, or a pair of sunglasses—we are reminded
of the label or brand associated with these items
and the status they impart. These writings index
more than mere writing—they conjure associations
of prestige, wealth, social class, and even age. Like-
wise, the hiddenness of words in lockets and other
forms of jewelry are important both for what they
reveal and conceal about social bonds, relationships,
hopes, and losses. The hiddenness of their words
index proximity and intimacy between individuals.
The fact that such unseen words often touch our
bodies points to the crucial role they play in shap-
ing our self-perception, the image we wish to project
to others, our perception of reality, and our physical
and conceptual connections to other bodies, includ-
ing those of long-lost loved ones no longer present
in a corporeal way.
These unseen words become part of our identi-
ties and ultimately part of our bodies. Their words
might be hidden from our eyes, but they are present
in our minds.
The importance of unseen words is also palpable
in the material record of ancient Judah. Archaeolo-
gists have discovered texts that are engraved on the
54
FROM GABRIEL BARKAY, “THE PRIESTLY BENEDICTION ON SILVER PLAQUES FROM KETEF HINNOM IN JERUSALEM,” TEL AVIV 19.2 (1992)
0 2cm
insides of tombs in a way that hides them from the
public, preserving them solely for kin who might
visit the deceased relatives. Readers may be surprised
to discover that there is also evidence of special-
ized markets for portable, inscribed amulets in the
ancient Levant. Such items possess writing that is
small, which would have been masked from others
when worn on the body.
Two of the most famous written objects found in
the environs of ancient Jerusalem—two silver min-
iature scrolls—were inscribed in a way that assumed
that they would not be read. In other words, two
of the earliest Hebrew inscriptions ever discovered
were designed to be hidden from human eyes. In
fact, their words are so tiny that it required micro-
scopic technology to decipher their texts.
In 1979 during the excavations of the funerary site
of Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem, archaeologist Gabriel
Barkay discovered two thin sheets of silver in a tomb
repository.1 The sheets of silver had been rolled up
and worn as amulets around the neck. When the
sheets of silver were unrolled, archaeologists found
that they were inscribed with some of the earli-
est Hebrew texts in existence. Barkay and several
January/February 2018
 WorDs Unseen

epigraphers dated the inscriptions to the eighth to Beyond the presence of blessings with close par-
sixth centuries B.C.E. based upon their paleography.2 allels to the priestly blessing, both inscriptions con-
Once the texts were deciphered, they became two tain a wealth of important information about the
of the most important archaeological discoveries of background of the deity Yahweh. Amulet 1 refers
the 20th century. to Yahweh as the one who shows graciousness to
Both inscriptions contain blessings with strik- those who love him and keep his commandments.
ing parallels to the so-called priestly blessing of This expression exhibits close parallels to several
Numbers 6:24–26: “The Lord bless you and keep Biblical texts (cf. Deuteronomy 7:9; Nehemiah 1:5;
you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and Daniel 9:4).6 Amulet 2 refers to Yahweh as the deity
be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance who has the power to expel Evil.7 Such references
upon you, and give you peace.” The inscriptions on shed light upon the early history of amuletic magic
the amulets are badly damaged, making attempts to in ancient Judah during the
read their texts extremely difficult. Still, the presence Iron Age. While we have
of the blessings on the amulets makes them some thousands of uninscribed Old City
walls
of our earliest artifacts containing the divine name amulets from Israelite and
Yahweh. In 2004 the West Semitic Research Project Judahite sites dating to the
at the University of Southern California produced Iron Age, these are the only
high-resolution photographs of the inscriptions that extant ones with words Temple
brought new light to their words.3 Their readings of inscribed on their surfaces.
the text led to the following translations:4 When Barkay first pub-
Temple
lished the amulets, he drew Mount
Amulet 1 attention to their tiny size
1… ]YHW … by labeling them “minia-
2 ...
City
ture scrolls.” 8 He empha- of
3 the grea[t … who keeps] sized not only the minia- David
4 the
Ketef Mt.
covenant and ture scale of their words, Hinnom Zion
5 [G]raciousness toward those who love [him]5 and but also the small size of
6 those who keep [his commandments … the objects. Amulet 1 meas-
7 … ]. ures only 1 inch in height St. Andrew’s N
8 the Eternal [ … ]
Church and
and 0.4 inches in diameter. Hospice 0 250 m
9 [the?] blessing more than any Even smaller is the size
10 [sna]re and more than Evil. of Amulet 2, which measures only 0.5 inches high
11 For redemption is in him. with a diameter of 0.2 inches. After Amulet 1 was
12 For YHWH unrolled, its length was measured at 3.8 inches and
13 is our restorer [and] its width 1 inch. By comparison, Amulet 2 measures
14 rock. May YHWH bles[s] 1.5 by 0.4 inches. This places the size of Amulet 2
15 you and just shorter than the length of a standard matchstick.
16 [may he] guard you. We should note that Amulet 2 contains 12 lines of
17 [May] YHWH make text. This means that a scribe found a way to incise
18 [his face] shine … 12 lines of Hebrew text on a metal scroll the length
of a matchstick!
Amulet 2 Barkay also noted that one of the references to
1 [For PN, (the son/daughter of ) … ]h/hu. May h[e]/ the divine name Yahweh on Amulet 2 spans only
2 sh[e] be blessed by Yahweh, 0.3 inches in width.9 To put this into perspective,
3 the Warrior and the standard radius of a dime is 0.7 inches. So the
4 the one who expels scribe wrote the divine name in a space less than
5 [E]vil: May Yahweh bless you, half the size of a dime! Barkay estimated Amulet
6 ... 2 could have originally contained more than 100
7 guard you. Hebrew letters.10
8 May Yahweh make All of this begs the following question: What was
9 his face shine so important about the miniature size and, perhaps
10 upon you and more important, the invisible quality of the inscrip-
11 grant you tions? As a highly literate culture, we are accustomed
12 p[ea]ce. to thinking about writing along very functional lines.

bIbLICaL arCHaeOLOGy reVIeW 55

WorDs Unseen

We write to read and to pass along information that
(we hope) others will read. We regularly see exam-
ples of massive writing located on billboards, movie
screens, and shopping centers. We equate such large
letters with power, money, and importance. These
words are weighty.
In certain ways, ancient Israelites viewed written
words along similar lines. Kings inscribed large let-
ters in stone and displayed them at city gates and
other public spaces. As writing in stone, these words
indexed political and economic power. Most people
experienced these impressive words as prominent
displays of royal power. Thus, the iconic function
of writing was relatively easy to understand; they
gave voice to the ability of kings and elites to alter
landscapes and exercise power within a given place.

KETEF HINNOM TOMBS. Ketef Hinnom has seven burial

caves from the late Iron Age (seventh century B.C.E.). Of
these tombs, Cave 24 is one of the largest—with several
burial chamber 25 burial chambers connected to a central room. The scrolls
were found within an untouched repository in Chamber
25 of Cave 24. Burial benches line three of Chamber 25’s
RECONSTRUCTION BY LEEN RITMEYER

walls (see image below). Six headrests (only five of which

are preserved) along the right wall would have allowed
six bodies to be laid on that bench, while the other two
benches in the room would have accommodated one
central
room repository body each (see drawing, left). Although these tombs were
damaged by later quarrying and construction, enough
architectural fragments remain for archaeologists to
reconstruct the burial caves.

ZEV RADOVAN/BIBLELANDPICTURES.COM

56 January/February 2018

They were monumental texts.
Scribes wrote texts on papyrus and other mate-
rials in order to preserve information in temples,
libraries, and palaces. Sometimes these texts were
brought before audiences and read aloud as the
words of gods. This meant that people saw these
texts and heard their words, but they didn’t nec-
essarily read them. They were written words con-
sumed by the ear, not the eye. The bodies that read
them aloud and the spaces that stored them con-
veyed the meaning and importance of their words.
But how did the hiddenness of writing convey
meaning? Why was it important to have miniature
letters on the inside of amulets hidden away from
human eyes? Recent studies on miniaturization and
miniature writing offer some potential clues. Such
studies focus upon how miniatures affect cognition
by generating a type of “enchantment” and “sense
of being drawn into another world.”11 The miniatur-
izing of objects creates what we might call a “King
Kong effect,” which triggers a cognition that allows
the body to feel in control over large spaces and
expansive times. As art historian Stephanie Langin-
Hooper explains, “Miniatures are enchanting primar-
ily because they play with scale in order to present
an alternative version of reality.”12 As a result, “the
spectator or handler continuously fluctuates between
being in the miniature space and being outside of it.13
Miniatures—especially those worn on the human
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW
WorDs Unseen
TODD BOLEN/BIBLEPLACES.COM
LIVING DEMONSTRATIONS OF DEATH. Student visitors to
Ketef Hinnom take a short rest in Chamber 25 of Cave
24. Accompanied by archaeologist Gabriel Barkay (not
pictured), seven students lie down in the chamber and
demonstrate how the ancient dead would have lain in
the headrests and on the benches. In ancient times, the
chamber could have accommodated an eighth body.
Although five students lie along one wall in the above
photo, that bench originally had six headrests.
body—also create a sense of intimacy, privacy, and
personal time between the body and the object.
Such objects became part of one’s daily routine and
lifecycle. Their lightweight quality allows them to
dangle comfortably from necks, producing a feeling
that they are part of the body. In the case of minia-
ture texts on jewelry, this means that even though
the writing might be invisible or hidden from eyes,
the words are always accessible in the wearer’s mind
as the writing interacts with the body on a physical
level. As the jewelry dangles from, bounces off, and
returns to the body, the words inscribed on their
surfaces are replayed in the mind.
Miniature objects also affect conceptions of time.
Humans experience large objects and animals in
“slow-motion.” Time appears to elapse at a slower
pace when we watch something huge move. By con-
trast, we perceive tiny things—bugs, tiny reptiles, and
small rodents—moving quickly. Miniature things are
57
WorDs Unseen
THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. Ketef Hinnom (“the Shoulder of Hinnom”) is located next to St. Andrew’s Scots Memorial
Church and Guesthouse—across the Hinnom Valley from the Old City of Jerusalem. Built in 1927, St. Andrew’s is some-
times referred to simply as the “Scottish Church.” This photograph of the church was taken between 1934 and 1939.
seen as condensing or “speeding up” time. To put it
another way, miniature objects present the world to
human bodies as if time has already elapsed. This
results in a sense that the world is complete and
that time is finished and always present.
These observations offer important insight into
the function of the tiny writing on the Ketef Hin-
nom amulets. The inscriptions on these amulets
were written for human bodies. The portability
of their words when worn defined their meaning.
Their blessings walked with bodies and guided them
through their lifecycles—shielding them from harm.
When placed on the front of the body, amulets gave
tangible voice to certain aspects of their linguistic
content. For example, Amulet 1 describes Yahweh’s
blessing as more powerful than any snare and more
powerful than evil. Similarly, Amulet 2 invokes
Yahweh as the deity who expels evil. Thus, the
amulets not only protected the body, but they also
gave the body its orientation in relation to the deity
Yahweh. Yahweh stood with the wearer. Yahweh saw
what the body saw.
But we should neither forget the significance of
the materiality of the words. That is, we should
stress that the words were first and foremost sil-
ver scripts. The silver blessings of the Ketef Hin-
nom amulets indexed ritual knowledge and power,
economic status, and material durability. The amu-
lets represented a type of silver hard drive or ritual
storehouse of Yahweh’s words. The presence of silver
58
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LC-DIG-MATPC-03438
material on the body produced a tension between
the skin and the metal words. The body could feel
the contrast between the amulets and its surface.
Having ritual words written and stored inside silver
rolls and placed upon the body produced a cognitive
effect that the body was a “safe space” guarded by
the deity’s blessings. But the important point here
is that the body’s interaction with the metal words
served to generate this cognitive effect frequently.
The invisible words “spoke” to the ones who wore
them (Proverbs 6:21–22). Their portability and loca-
tion on human bodies meant that the words spoke
when the body was at home, when the body was
awake, when the body lay down, and when the body
rose up (Deuteronomy 6:6–9).
As miniature texts, the amulets also reveal an
important facet of personal religion in ancient Judah.
Their tiny words drew people into another world—
the world of the scribal artisan. A scribe would have
handled such written texts delicately, would have
bent over the text, looked at it closely, fixated upon
its words, and enclosed them with a narrow pos-
ture.14 He would have cradled the texts in his hands
and perhaps placed them in a space away from pub-
lic view until they adorned their wearers’ bodies.
The shapes of necklaces and other types of jew-
elry are designed to conform to and move with
the body. Their ergonomic designs work to create
the impression that they are part of the body. This
observation reminds us that there is no such thing
January/February 2018

as a “natural” shape to the body. The body pos-
sesses wrinkles and curves that make it a canvas
for inscription.15 Placing words upon the body is
not an unnatural act but rather a way to augment
or elaborate upon the body’s decorations. The body’s
physical form invited writing, whether in the form
of inscribed jewelry or amulets.
Placing these amulets upon the body extended
beyond mere conceptions of bodily adornment to
include notions of implanting the deity’s words in
proximity to the interior of the body. The frontal
portion of the upper body does not provide a flat
surface. It includes slight pectoral rises below the
neckline and a shallow valley near the top of the
intersection of the pectorals. This means that we
should not speak of the words being placed upon
the body, but instead as words placed in as close as
possible to the internal organs. That is, the deity’s
words entered into the anatomy of the body: “Keep
these words that I am commanding you today in/on
your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:6); “You shall put these
words of mine in/on your heart and soul” (Deuter-
onomy 11:18); “Your law is within my heart” (Psalm
40:8); “Bind them upon your heart always; tie them
around your neck” (Proverbs 6:21).
Studies also point to the ways in which miniatures
and miniature writing represent ritual and techno-
logical expertise. Poet Susan Stewart observes, “Min-
ute writing is emblematic of craft and discipline:
while the materiality of the product is diminished,
the labour involved multiplies, and so does the sig-
nificance of the total object.”16 This is true today.
Humans marvel at Lego constructions, gingerbread
houses, and domino chains. The labor and craft
required to build such intricately designed struc-
tures stretches the bounds of cognition and imagi-
nation. In this regard, it is easy to understand the
relationship between miniature writing and ritual
expertise. Tiny texts like the Ketef Hinnom amulets
compel a person to ask, “How is that humanly pos-
sible?” The answer, of course, is that the writing was
a wondrous act.
As a wondrous act, the tiny quality of the writ-
ing conveyed that its words were not invisible to
all eyes. The script on the amulets may have been
invisible to human eyes, but these texts had differ-
ent audiences in mind. According to several Biblical
texts, Yahweh was particularly adept at seeing micro-
scopically. His powers were manifest in the ability to
perceive human thought at the anatomical level. He
could count the grains of sand (Psalm 139:18). His
“wonders” were not limited to the fashioning of the
cosmos. Instead, his wonders were inscribed on the
interior of the human anatomy. Interestingly, Psalm
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW
WorDs Unseen
139 connects Yahweh’s act of knitting together the
“inward parts” of the human anatomy to his ability
to kill the wicked and bloodthirsty. Verse 16 declares
that Yahweh’s eyes possess the ability to behold the
unformed substance of a body. The previous verse
states, “My frame was not hidden from you, when
I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the
depths of the earth” (Psalm 139:15). According to this
passage, Yahweh’s powers were especially effective at
an anatomical level.
The words of this psalm are especially evocative
for an understanding of the ritual logic of the Ketef
Hinnom inscriptions. That they were invisible for
human eyes did not mean that Yahweh could not
read the amulets’ words. Indeed, their very invisibil-
ity might have indexed their function as words that
protected the body from invisible forces, demons,
disease, etc. Indeed, dangers that harmed the body
were rarely visible in the sense of their ability to
be diagnosed. Hence, we might surmise that such
writing intended to “speak” only to audiences that
operated beyond human sight, like “the terror of the
night and the pestilence that stalks in the darkness”
(Psalm 91:5–6), or goat-demons and Lilith (Isaiah
34:14). The miniature, unseen words of the Ketef
Hinnom amulets offered effective defense against
the unseen forces in the world that would do us
harm. These small words provided potent protection,
reminding the wearer that the words of Yahweh,
however small, were lamps for the feet and lights
for the path (Psalm 119:105). a
1 Gabriel Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction on Silver Plaques
from Ketef Hinnom Jerusalem,” Tel Aviv 19 (1992), pp. 139–192.
2 Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction,” pp. 169–174; Ada
Yardeni, “Remarks on the Priestly Blessing on Two Amulets
from Jerusalem,” Vetus Testamentum 41.2 (1991), pp. 176–185.
3 Gabriel Barkay, Marilyn J. Lundberg, Andrew G. Vaughn,
Bruce Zuckerman, and Kenneth Zuckerman, “The Chal-
lenges of Ketef Hinnom: Using Advanced Technologies to
Reclaim the Earliest Biblical Texts and Their Context,” Near
Eastern Archaeology 66.4 (2003), pp. 162–171.
4 Gabriel Barkay, M.J. Lundberg, Andrew G. Vaughn, and
Bruce Zuckerman, “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New
Edition and Evaluation,” Bulletin of the American Schools of
Oriental Research 334 (2004), pp. 41–71.
5 An alternative reading is “those who love [hi]m.”
6 For discussion, see Jeremy D. Smoak, The Priestly Blessing
in Inscription and Scripture: The Early History of Numbers
6:24–26 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2015); Nadav Na’aman,
“A New Appraisal of the Silver Amulets from Ketef Hinnom,”
Israel Exploration Journal 61.2 (2011), pp. 184–195.
7 For discussion, see Theodore J. Lewis, “Job 19 in the Light
of the Ketef Hinnom Inscriptions and Amulets,” in Marilyn J.
Lundberg, Steven Fine, and Wayne T. Pitard, eds., Puzzling Out
the Past: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures
in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman (London: Brill, 2012), pp. 99–114.
8 Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction,” p. 148.
9 Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction,” p. 148.
10 Barkay, “The Priestly Benediction,” p. 148.
11 Stephanie Langin-Hooper, “Fascination with the Tiny:
C O N T I N U E S O N PA G E 7 0
59
 BIBLICAL VIEWS
Neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male and Female
Karin Neutel
How would we live together in an
ideal society? In his letters, the apostle Paul for-
mulated something of an answer to this question.
Paul expected an imminent cosmic change, a new
creation ushered in by the death and resurrection
of the Messiah. Prominent in his vision of this new
creation was the fact that all the nations of the
world would worship the one true God, together
with Israel. Consequently, the apostle called upon
gentiles to abandon their gods, to accept God’s Mes-
siah, and to live “in Christ,” in expectation of what
was about to happen. “In Christ,” Paul writes, “there
is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor
male and female” (Galatians 3:28).
This verse seems to strike an almost modern note
about human equality. Contemporary interpreters
have updated Paul’s statement and added pairs to
the three original ones: “neither gay nor straight,”
“neither healthy nor disabled,” and “neither black
nor white.” While these creative rewritings make
Paul’s statement speak to new situations, they also
highlight something about the original: These three
pairs must have been as relevant in the first century,
as the additional categories are today.
So why does Paul put exactly these categories
together? The three pairs that Paul includes in
this verse all played a role in first-century concep-
tions of what an ideal world would look like. When
imagining ideal or utopian communities, Paul’s
contemporaries picture different peoples living
together in one homogeneous group under one
law—without ethnic distinction. They also imag-
ine societies where people are not divided into
households and families, but all live as “brothers,”
as equals. Such communities could reject property,
slavery, and marriage, since in the minds of first-
century philosophers, doing away with possessions,
slaves, and wives meant removing the major causes
of social conflict. When Paul sums up the commu-
nity of those who live “in Christ,” he uses catego-
ries that reflect such first-century ideals.
This ideal of unity that Paul shared with his con-
temporaries was influenced by cosmopolitanism,
60
a popular philosophical idea in the early Roman
Empire. Cosmopolitanism’s main component was
the conviction that all people are first and fore-
most citizens of the cosmos, rather than of their
local communities. This shared cosmic origin was
thought to connect all people with each other and
with the divine, and it suggested that all people
could live in a unified society, rather than divided
into different ethnic and geographic communities.
Cosmopolitanism had implications not only for
contemporary ideas about ethnic difference, but
also for ideas about the positions of slave and free
and about marriage and the relationship between
husband and wife. It therefore affected all three of
the pairs mentioned by Paul. We can see how this
works if we take a closer look at each of the pairs.
Like other first-century Jews, Paul expected that
in the end time, people from the nations would turn
to the God of Israel. In Paul’s letters, this expecta-
tion is expressed specifically in terms that have
a cosmopolitan ring to them, in that they appeal
to this ideal of ethnic unity. When he writes that
both Jews and non-Jews can be sons of Abraham
together (Romans 4:9–12), or that there is no differ-
ence between Jew and gentile (Romans 10:12), Paul
denies the relevance of ethnic distinctions, as was
characteristic of cosmopolitanism. In these state-
ments, the cosmopolitan mood of the time shines
through and takes on a clearly Jewish color.
Attitudes toward slaves were also influenced by
the cosmopolitan notion that all people are funda-
mentally connected. Seen in a cosmopolitan light,
slavery constituted a challenge to the brotherhood of
all human beings. Even though conventional society
was thought to require slavery, and cosmopolitan
thought did not challenge this, it could imagine a
utopian society as one without slaves, where people
either shared tasks equally or simply had no need of
labor. Paul’s statements about slaves and free people
draw on such ideals, most clearly when he writes
that there is “neither slave nor free.”
When it comes to the third pair, male-female,
C O N T I N U E S O N PA G E 6 8
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 ARCHAEOLOGICAL
Performing Psalms in Biblical Times
Thomas Staubli
The Bible does not tell us much about
how psalms were originally performed. Archaeology
and extra-Biblical texts, however, can shed some
light on the music and dance that accompanied
psalms in Biblical times.
When the Book of Psalms was compiled, dispa-
rate pieces of information got integrated into the
psalms’ superscripts or subscripts. These contain
rubrics—comments and directions introducing or
following a psalm. In these notes, ancient scribes
indicated the genre and alleged authorship of
individual psalms and their association with King
David; they also provided instructions on how to
perform the psalms.
Every Bible reader recognizes sentences such as
“To the leader: with stringed instruments. A psalm
of David” (Psalm 4:1). Similar verses are usually not
read aloud—and rightly so, because they are not part
of the hymn. Rather, they are remarks of the editors.
As such, they are commonly printed as headings,
or superscripts, introducing individual psalms—but
this arrangement is by no means certain. In antiq-
uity, subscripts were much more common than
superscripts. When read as subscripts, these “head-
ings” suddenly make more sense.
One example is Psalm 46, which praises God for
his defense of a city and its people. The superscript
reads, “According to the maiden. A song.” That
sounds odd. But if considered a subscript instead,
the note relates to the preceding Psalm 45, which
is a song for the royal wedding and contains verses
PHOTO THOMAS STAUBLI
62
VIEWS
such as “in many-colored robes she is led to the
king; behind her the virgins, her companions, fol-
low” (Psalm 45:14). The instruction then fits per-
fectly the content of the hymn.
Most psalm rubrics in the first three books of the
psalter are addressed “to the leader.” This seems to
indicate that they were sung by a chorister alternat-
ing with a choir, which would explain the switching
between the first and third person we find in many
of these psalms.
Rubrics to Psalms 45, 60, 69, and 80 contain the
expression “according to lotuses.” An adequate
interpretation of this instruction had until recently
been obscured by the fact that the Hebrew al-
shoshannim was translated as “according to lilies,”
while in fact shushan is an Egyptian loan-word for
the lotus flower. Lotus was an important decora-
tive element in both Egypt and the Levant, and it
even featured prominently in the Jerusalem Temple.
How is this relevant to a musical performance?
The shape of a lotus plant reminded the ancient
Egyptians of a trumpet. And indeed, in the tomb of
King Tutankhamun (14th century B.C.E.) a copper
trumpet was found with its wooden insert designed
to protect the soft sheet of metal from accidental
deformation when not used; this insert is charac-
teristically decorated with a lotus flower, a symbol
of rebirth and long life.1 It is possible that also the
silver trumpets made by Moses (Numbers 10:2) bore
a lotus décor. If so, the instruction in Psalms 45, 60,
69, and 80 would refer to the use of trumpets. And
if, further still, the alleged psalm superscripts are in
fact subscripts, “according to lotuses” would belong
to Psalms 44, 59, 68, and 79. Two of these psalms
(59 and 79) are psalms of vengeance, expressing this
plea to God: “Pour out your anger on the nations
that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do
not call on your name” (79:6). Psalm 44 is a desper-
ate lament to God: “Rouse yourself! Why do you
sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever!”
TWO KINDS OF LYRES—a larger bass instrument called
nevel and a smaller, box-shaped kinnor—are captured
on this eighth-century B.C.E. relief from Karatepe, Tur-
key. Both were still used in the Second Temple period,
as the coins of Bar-Kokhba attest by picturing the lyres
as a symbol of the then-destroyed Temple.
January/February 2018

VORDERASIATISCHES MUSEUM BERLIN/PHOTO THOMAS STAUBLI
INTROVERTED, MEDITATIVE POSTURE of this
lute player on an eighth-century B.C.E. relief
from Samal, Turkey, captures how we can
imagine the performer of a wisdom psalm.
(44:23). Finally, in Psalm 68 God is called
upon to demonstrate his power: “Sum-
mon your might, O God; show your
strength, O God, as you have done for us
before” (68:28). In all four psalms, peo-
ple are trying to awaken God, who seems
to be absent or sleeping. In these cases, a
trumpet would help to bring the people’s
concerns to God’s ear. “According to
lotuses” must then be a euphemism for
the noise of trumpets aimed at awaking
God and making him attentive to the
words of the psalmist.
Among the Levantine parallels to the
Biblical psalms is the famous text corpus
from Ugarit on the northern coast of
modern Syria. This collection contains
cultic hymns from the 14th century
B.C.E. While the Book of Psalms in its
final form is the result of much later edi-
torial work, the oldest psalms probably
originated in the same period—around
1400 B.C.E. It is then not surprising
that the southern Levantine music of
the Bible shared many aspects with the
northern Levantine cult music. In the
Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts, musi-
cal forms and instruments are called by
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW
the same West Semitic words. Like the
Ugarites, the Israelites of Jerusalem cele-
brated their chief god as king. The image
of Yahweh as a king residing on Zion is
in fact one of the most important in the
psalter (e.g., Psalms 24 and 47).
An element missing from psalms,
but present in a Ugaritic hymn for the
enthronement of Baal, is a praise of the
god as a lover—like in love poetry.2 In the
Biblical psalms, the link between love
songs and cult songs is less apparent,
but not entirely absent. Erotic aspects of
the Israelite cult transpire in the festive
translation of the Ark of the Covenant to
Jerusalem, at which King David is por-
trayed dancing almost naked. A dance—
including erotic moves and pantomime—
was part of the Levantine cultic tradition.
But as the episode of Michal daughter of
Saul shows, those rural Canaanite cus-
toms were not appreciated by everybody:
“Michal … looked out of the window,
and saw King David leaping and dancing
before the Lord, and she despised him in
her heart” (2 Samuel 6:16).
Little is known about the personal
use of psalms. Festive processions—men-
tioned in the Psalms, in some Biblical
stories, and in the Books of Chronicles—
are better documented. Several psalms
suggest that the most significant place
for festive performances of hymns was a
gate (Psalms 15; 24; 87; 118). Large gates
decorated with music scenes have been
excavated in the northern Levant, espe-
cially in the southern Hittite or northern
Aramean region. The reliefs on ortho-
stats (base stones of public buildings)
from the late Hittite cities display show-
ily dressed musicians with instruments
that correspond perfectly to the musical
instruments we know from the Bible.
What can archaeology tell us about
how ancient musicians performed? Their
habitus on the reliefs is varied. Musi-
cians are sometimes marching gravely,
as the orchestra on the Karatepe relief
on p. 62, or are static, as on the above
relief from Samal. Different reliefs, how-
ever, render scenes with playful and
even ecstatic elements. Consider also the
following Biblical description: “David
and all the house of Israel were dancing
before the Lord with all their might,
with songs and lyres (kinnorot) and bass
lyres (nevalim) and tambourines and cas-
tanets and cymbals” (2 Samuel 6:5).
Even outside the Bible, Yahweh was
seen as a music lover. Next to the famous
invocation of Yahweh and his Asherah on
a pithos from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, there
appears a depiction of a lyre player.* And
a fourth-century B.C.E. Aramaic papyrus
from Egypt contains the following exhor-
tation: “Drink, Lord (YHW[H]), from the
bounty of a thousand basins; be sated/
inebriated, Adonai, from the bounty of
men. Musicians stand in attendance upon
Lord (Mar): a player of the bass lyre
(nevel), a player of the lyre (kinnor). ‘Here
is the music of the bass lyre (neve[l]). You
have caused me to listen to the music of
the lyre (kinnor) and to other things sweet
to my ears at the banquets of men.’ ”3
To fully appreciate the effect and rele-
vance of music in the ancient Levant, we
would have to imagine a world devoid
of modern noises—a place without cars,
airplanes, and any sort of machinery. In
such an environment, every sound was
a strong sensation. The human voice
was a physical expression of one’s life;
musical instruments were artful means
of amplifying the range of human sounds
in order to make joyful noises for the
gods. With this in mind, we can better
understand the significance of hymns in
the Bible.
Thomas Staubli is Senior
Lecturer of Old Testament
Studies at the University of
Freiburg, Switzerland, and
Co-director of BODO
(www.bible-orient-museum.
ch/bodo), the world’s larg-
est online database for ancient Near East-
ern iconography. Between 1999 and 2012,
he co-founded and directed the
BIBEL+ORIENT Museum in Freiburg,
where he curates the ethnographic section.
1 The
BBC recorded this and another trum-
pet in 1939 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Qt9AyV3hnlc).
2 See Loren R. Fisher and F. Brent Knutson,
“An Enthronement Ritual at Ugarit,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 28.3 (1969), pp. 158–160.
3 Adapted from Richard C. Steiner and Charles
F. Nims, The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script:
Text, Translation, and Notes (self-published,
2017), p. 48.
*Hershel Shanks, “The Persisting Uncertainties of
Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” bar, November/December 2012.
63
 REVIEWS
The World of Early Christianity
The Didache: A Missing
Piece of the Puzzle in
Early Christianity
Early Christianity and Its Literature 14
Edited by Jonathan A. Draper
and Clayton N. Jefford
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature
Press, 2015), 631 pp., $75.95
(softcover), $95.95 (hardcover)
Reviewed by Tony Burke
The Didache, also
known as the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, is mentioned
by several church fathers
of the fourth century, but it
was not available to scholars
until 1873 when it was dis-
covered in an 11th-century
Greek codex. In the decades
since, other sources have been
found, including fragments in
Greek and Coptic, a complete
Georgian translation, and
excerpts in Latin, Ethiopic, and
Syriac. Scholars are still divided
over its origins, with suggested
dates ranging from prior to 50
C.E. to the third century. How-
ever, they are largely united
in characterizing the Didache
as a composite work, combin-
ing a set of moral instructions
about the “Two Ways,” which
juxtaposes the “way of life,”
or a manual of church order
and practice, and the “way of
death,” or an apocalypse.
Jonathan A. Draper and
Clayton N. Jefford’s essay col-
lection is intended as a capstone
for the efforts of a series of
seminars on the Didache held at
64
the annual meetings of the Soci-
ety of Biblical Literature from
2003 to 2011.1 In his introduc-
tion, Jefford calls the Didache
“a hobby interest for only a
scattered few scholars” and
laments that nonspecialists have
only vague notions about its role
within early Christianity.
It is becoming increasingly
apparent that the Didache
originated in an early Jewish-
Christian community with a
keen interest in ritual purity
and holiness, striving for “per-
fection” in Torah observance
but welcoming gentile converts.
It is closely aligned with the
Gospel of Matthew, drawing on
either pre-Matthean oral tradi-
tions or the Gospel of Matthew
itself—or both—at various
stages of its development.
Particularly striking is the
Didache’s lack of interest in
essential tenets of Pauline
Christianity. Not only does it
affirm Torah observance, but
it also makes no mention of
the death and resurrection of
Jesus, and its Eucharist cel-
ebration makes no connection
of the meal with the body and
blood of Christ. This position
suggests alignment of the com-
munity with, once again, the
Gospel of Matthew and with
the anti-Pauline “faith with-
out works is dead” theology
of the Epistle of James. The
Didache imagines Jesus as the
servant of God, not a dying
and rising son of God whose
eschatological return ushers in
a new kingdom.
Of interest also are the
numerous connections between
the Didache and other early
Christian texts—arguments
in the book are made for the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the
Book of Revelation—most likely
at the level of oral transmission
and community interaction
rather than from knowledge
of the texts. One aspect of the
Didache that the essays neglect
is its instructions for traveling
apostles, a sure indication of
early composition for at least a
portion of the text.
The points of agreement
should not obscure the dif-
ferences that separate the
contributors to this volume.
While there is near-universal
agreement that the Didache is
a combination of at least two
earlier works, some prefer to
study it as a unified text writ-
ten by a single author over
several stages.
Draper opens his conclusion
to the volume with the state-
ment that “if [the Didache] is
indeed a genuine document of
the first or even early second
century C.E., it is hard to see
how pessimism with regard to
its use in the reconstruction of
the emergence of early Chris-
tianity can be justified.” He is
certainly correct. This com-
prehensive collection of essays
demonstrates how the Didache
needs to be placed front and
January/February 2018
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Kiosk advertisement
Jesus, Joshua,
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Within a Christian
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comprehensively, rejected his theology.
This places the Gospels in an entirely
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most glaring misreading of the New
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66
center in discussions of Jewish-Christi-
anity, the Matthean Gospel community,
anti-Paulinism, and a host of other topics.
Tony Burke is Associate Professor in
the Department of Humanities at York
University in Toronto, Canada. He is the
author of Secret Scriptures Revealed: A
New Introduction to the Christian Apoc-
rypha (Grand Rapids, MI, and London:
Eerdmans and SPCK, 2013) and co-editor
(with Brent Landau) of New Testament
Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scrip-
tures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016).
1 The contributing authors are D. Jeffrey
Bingham, E. Bruce Brooks, John J. Clabeaux,
Stephen Finlan, Alan J.P. Garrow, Andrew
Gregory, Taras Khomych, Matthew Larsen,
Aaron Milavec, Joseph G. Mueller (S.J.), Matti
Myllykoski, Perttu Nikander, Nancy Pardee,
Huub van de Sandt, Jonathan Schwiebert,
Murray J. Smith, Michael Svigel, Peter J. Tom-
son, Joseph Verheyden, and John W. Welch.
Q&C
continued from page 10
Footnote 4 refers to the passage in Pro-
copius where Alaric is indeed mentioned.
But then, I go into far greater detail
when describing the sack of Rome by the
Vandals in 455 C.E.
Why did I choose the Vandals over the
Goths? Why is Alaric in a footnote, and
Geiseric, the Vandal leader, in the body of
the article? I made that choice because
that is the choice Procopius himself made.
With regard to the Temple treasures, in
Procopius, Alaric is little more than a
footnote, while Geiseric and Belisarius are
main characters.
CRUCIFIXION
DARKNESS
Metaphor or Solar Eclipse?
I usually find BAR interesting, but the
Classical Corner: “A Comet Gives Birth
to an Empire” by Sarah K. Yeomans
(BAR, September/October 2017) is
especially intriguing. I live in the 99.2+
shadow of the recent eclipse that passed
across the United States. It brought to
mind a line from the Gospel of Mat-
thew 27:45: “From noon until three in
the afternoon darkness came over all the
land.” Are there any records that might
include an eclipse in Jerusalem?
MARYANN WHARTON
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA
Sarah Yeomans responds: The passage
you refer to pertains to Jesus’s crucifixion,
which the Gospels indicate took place dur-
ing the Jewish festival of Passover—cel-
ebrated during a full moon in spring. A
new moon is needed for a solar eclipse to
occur, making it precisely the wrong phase
of the moon for a total eclipse. If we accept
that the Gospels give us the correct date
for Jesus’s crucifixion, a solar eclipse would
have been impossible. Furthermore, accord-
ing to Brother Guy Consolmagno, a noted
astronomer and director of the Vatican
Observatory, the darkness described during
the crucifixion was too long to be a solar
eclipse. While a partial eclipse can take sev-
eral hours, the period of total darkness only
lasts a few minutes at most.
NASA has a handy database that tracks
solar and lunar eclipse events going back
thousands of years (eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov).
There was a total solar eclipse on March
19 in 33 C.E. that could be seen in Antarc-
tica—not Jerusalem.
On April 3, 33 C.E., there was a partial
lunar eclipse that would have been vis-
ible from Jerusalem, but if we are to take
the passage in Matthew literally in terms
of the timing during afternoon hours, we
cannot point to either type of eclipse as
an explanation.
There may have been cloud coverage, or
the ancient authors may have combined
separate events as a literary device to
underscore the significance of the event.
PUZZLING POINT
Storage Amphora Bottoms
I enjoyed the piece in Strata, “Containers
of the Ancient World” (BAR, September/
October 2017), but I am puzzled about
the shape of the amphorae. They seem
difficult to store with their pointed ends.
Why were they constructed in such a
strange way?
RALPH MADISON
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
BAS Staff responds: Amphorae were
formed to best serve their purpose. A
January/February 2018
S T R ATA A N S W E R S
Who Did It? (from p. 14) Thanks to the efforts of Bedřich
Answer: Bedřich Hrozný Hrozný—whose name incidentally trans-
lates as Frederick Terrible—the Hittites
Bedřich Hrozný (1879–1952) deciphered got their voice back, and their ancient
the language of the Hittites in 1915 as a language has become essential in recon-
result of his work on clay tablets from structing the common parent of the
the royal archives of ancient Hattuša Indo-European language family.
(modern Boğazkale, Turkey)—the
Hittites’ one-time capital.*
The now-extinct Hittite language Do You Remember? (from p. 13)
flourished between c. 1700 and 1200 Answer: (A) Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
B.C.E. and was spoken by the Hittites,
© ARCHIVE OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, PRAGUE

who migrated into Asia Minor by the These anthropoid sarcophagi (coffins with
19th century B.C.E. When the Hit- human features carved on them) appeared
tites began expanding into the south- in the May/June 1998 issue of Biblical
ern Levant in the mid-14th century, it Archaeology Review.* The late Philistine
caused regional conflicts, including a expert Trude Dothan uncovered several of
struggle with the biggest power of the these intriguing ceramic coffins from the
day—Egypt under Ramesses II. The end cemetery at Deir el-Balah—about 10 miles
of the Hittite Empire shortly after 1200 southwest of Gaza. Nearly 50 others came
was abrupt—likely a result of the general from the market.** They average 4 feet in
turmoil in the eastern Mediterranean height. Strong Egyptian influences can be
caused by the “Sea Peoples.” Bedřich Hrozný in Kanesh in the 1920s clearly seen from the stylized representa-
The Hittite language belongs to the tions of the faces, hands, arms, and the occa-
Anatolian branch of the Indo-European Hattuša. Inscribed by unknown people sional beard of Osiris—the Egyptian god of
language family, which encompasses in an unknown language, those texts the dead.
almost all the languages of Europe, became a door to a lost civilization The sarcophagi date to the Late
including English. Older than Sanskrit when Hrozný cracked their code in 1915, Bronze Age (c. 14th–13th centuries
and Greek, it is in fact the earliest despite his conscription in World War I. B.C.E.), a period when Canaanite city-
attested Indo-European language. Hittite “Now you will eat bread and drink states served as vassals to the Egyptian
has survived on thousands of clay tablets. water.” Containing the word uātar pharaohs. In the decades following the
Although the script of these tablets is the (“water”), this was the first sentence expulsion of the Semitic Hyksos (pha-
Mesopotamian cuneiform that scholars Hrozný deciphered—three millennia raohs of the 15th Dynasty who ruled dur-
had been able to read since the mid-19th after the once-mighty Anatolian empire ing Egypt’s Second Intermediate period)
century, their language was not decoded vanished. from Egypt, the pharaohs of the 18th
until Hrozný came along. After the establishment of the inde- Dynasty subjugated the lands of their
Bedřich Hrozný was born on May 6, pendent Czechoslovakia in late 1918, former oppressors, the Hyksos, and cre-
1879, in Lysá nad Labem, a small town in Hrozný moved from Vienna to Prague, ated an empire (the beginning of Egypt’s
the Central Bohemian Region of what is where he chaired Charles University’s New Kingdom) that would last through-
today Czechia (the Czech Republic). Son newly founded Department of Cunei- out the course of the Late Bronze Age.
of a Protestant pastor, he was expected form Studies. He became the university Deir el-Balah served as an administrative
to follow in his father’s footsteps. He president shortly before World War center for Egyptian officials in Canaan.
even started a degree in theology but II and was appointed to the newly From priceless discoveries such as
instantly switched to ancient Near established Czechoslovak Academy of these, one can clearly see that Egyptian
Eastern languages, which he studied in Sciences in 1952. influence reached beyond the realm
Vienna, Berlin, and London. In 1905, Alongside his philological work, of politics. Similar sarcophagi have
Hrozný was appointed the first lecturer Hrozný carried out archaeological exca- been found at sites throughout Canaan,
in cuneiform studies at the University of vations, including of the ancient city including Beth Shean, Lachish, and Tell
Vienna. In researching cuneiform texts of Kanesh (modern Kültepe, Turkey), Farah South.
from Asia Minor, he became familiar where he discovered private archives of
with clay tablets recently excavated in cuneiform tablets inscribed in Akkadian. *Carolyn R. Higginbotham, “The Egyptianizing of
Canaan,” bar, May/June 1998.
what was later recognized as ancient Hrozný died on December 12, 1952,
and is buried in his hometown, Lysá **Hershel Shanks, “The Verdict on Advertisements for
*See Trevor Bryce, “The Last Days of Hattusa,” Archae- Near Eastern Antiquities—Dubitante,” bar, November/
ology Odyssey, January/February 2005; “The Hittites: nad Labem, where you can also visit his December 1984; Trude Dothan, “Cultural Crossroads,”
Between Tradition and History,” bar, March/April 2016. recently renovated museum. bar, September/October 1998.

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 67

seemingly unstable, pointed or rounded,
base actually allowed for safe storage on
uneven surfaces: The jars would be leaned
against a wall or propped in the ground.
On level surfaces, they could be kept
upright in ring stands. Shipping amphorae
could be propped shoulder-to-shoulder on
wooden racks and fastened together with
ropes around their necks.
GREAT DEBATES
Discussion Behind Bars
What makes BAR so good is that you
allow different people to explain their
work and let others debate and talk
about it. I am a prison inmate, and I
share BAR with friends. We all think
differently, but we still love to discuss,
debate, and talk about all the great arti-
cles in BAR.
BRENT WOLF
TENNESSEE COLONY, TEXAS
The cosmopolitan worldview under-
stood marriage as a fundamental tie
that formed the primary connection
between a man and the rest of humanity.
From that first and most intimate bond,
all other social relationships extended.
Given its important role in ensuring
legitimate offspring, the handing down
of property, and the continuation of soci-
ety, it is no wonder that the breakdown
of the current world—and the arrival of
a new and ideal creation—was thought
to encompass the end of marriage.
Seen in the light of first-century cos-
mopolitan ideals, Paul’s declaration of
unity thus takes on a distinctly ancient
form. It does not proclaim the equality
of all people, regardless of their social
positions, as is sometimes assumed by
readers today. Rather, it envisages a
social ideal of harmony and connection,
where those factors in society that create
division and conflict have been removed.
Paul’s conviction that he was called
at this crucial moment to participate in
God’s ultimate plan for the world caused
him to imagine what a new and ideal
creation would be like and how people
would live in such a new creation. His
summary of this ideal as “neither Jew nor
Greek, neither slave nor free, nor male
and female” resonated with the concerns
expressed by his contemporaries.
Karin Neutel is a postdoc-
toral fellow at the Univer-
sity of Oslo in Norway. Her
most recent book is A Cos-
mopolitan Ideal: Paul’s
Declaration ‘Neither Jew
Nor Greek, Neither Slave Nor Free, Nor
Male and Female’ in the Context of
First-Century Thought (Bloomsbury T&T
Clark, 2015).

Biblical Views
continued from page 60
things get a little more complicated.
Although it may seem obvious to contem-
porary readers that this pair refers to gen-
der difference, or gender equality, from an
ancient perspective it more likely points
to the pairing off of men and women in
marriage and procreation.
The distinctive formulation of the
third pair, “male and female,” suggests
a citation from Genesis 1:27. This pas-
sage describes the creation of male and
female and God’s instruction to them
to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the
world. It is exactly this world—with its
focus of men and women, and on procre-
ation—that Paul expects to end. Marriage
will end along with it, as he writes in the
well-known passage about living “as if
not.” Here Paul instructs men who have
wives to live as if they do not have wives
“because the forms of this world are
passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29–31).
Paul’s own advice—highly unusual at the
time—that both men and women should
not marry if they could avoid it, confirms
how he thought about the practice of
marriage (1 Corinthians 7:7–9, 32–40).
AUTHORS
Yuval Gadot (“Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill),” p. 36) is a
researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Sonia and Marco Nadler
Institute of Archaeology. He currently directs excavations in
Jerusalem and Azekah.
Jennie Ebeling (“Romancing the Stones:
The Canaanite Artistic Tradition at Isra-
elite Hazor,” p. 46) is Associate Profes-
sor of Archaeology at the University of
Gadot
Evansville in Indiana. She has worked
on ground stone artifacts from sites in the southern Levant
and currently co-directs the Jezreel Expedition, Israel.
Ebeling
Danny Rosenberg (“Romancing the
Stones: The Canaanite Artistic Tradition
at Israelite Hazor,” p. 46) is a Senior Lecturer in the Depart-
ment of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and the
head of the Laboratory for Ground Stone Tools Research at
the Zinman Institute of Archaeology. He specializes in the
prehistory and protohistory of the southern Levant. He runs
a research project studying various aspects of the Late Neo-
Rosenberg lithic and Chalcolithic transition in the Jordan Valley.
Jeremy D. Smoak (“Words Unseen: The Power of Hidden
Writing,” p. 52) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles (UCLA). His work on the Ketef Hinnom
amulets won the Joseph Aviram Award, which was spon-
sored by the Dorot Foundation and the American Schools of
Oriental Research. His recent book The Priestly Blessing in
Inscription and Scripture: The Early History of Numbers 6:24–
26 was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. Smoak

68 January/February 2018
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Holy Landfill
continued from page 45
be one example of a civic innovation
brought about by bi-partisan means for
the mutual benefit of Jerusalem. a
interpretation, see Guy Bar-Oz, et al., “Holy
Garbage’: A Quantitative Study of the City-
Dump of Early Roman Jerusalem,” in Levant
39 (2007), pp. 1–12.
6 M. Baba Batra 2:1, 9; T. Bavli Shabbat 67b; cf.
Deuteronomy 23:13–15.
7 Sharon Zuckerman, “Ruin Cults at Iron
Age I Hazor,” in Israel Finkelstein and Nadav
Na’aman, eds., The Fire Signals of Lachish:
Studies in the Archaeology and History of Israel
in the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian
Period in Honor of David Ussishkin (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011), pp. 387–394.
8 Zuckerman, “Ruin Cults,” p. 388.
9 Zuckerman, “Ruin Cults,” p. 389.

1 William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish!

The Archaeology of Garbage (Tucson, AZ: Uni-
versity of Arizona Press, 2001), p. 4.
2 Josephus, Jewish War 5.151.
3 Ronny Reich, Excavating the City of David:
Where Jerusalem’s History Began (Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society, 2011).
4 Conrad Schick, “Namenliste und Erläuter-
ungen zu Baurath Dr. C. Schick’s Karte der
weiteren Umgebung von Jerusalem” (“List
of names and explanations for Baurath Dr. C.
Schick’s map of the wider area”), Zeitschrift
des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins 19.3 (Leipzig:
K Baedeker, 1896); Raymond Weill, La Cité de
David (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1921).
5 This view is still maintained by Alon de-
Groot. See “Discussion and Conclusions”
in Alon de-Groot and Hannah Bernick-
Greenberg, eds., Excavations at the City of
David 1978–1985 directed by Yigal Shiloh
VIIA. Area E, Stratigraphy and Architecture:
Text (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, 2012), pp. 141–184. For a different
Hazor Stones
continued from page 51
1 We would like to thank Amnon Ben-Tor,
Shlomit Bechar, and the late Sharon Zucker-
man for their help with and support of our
study of the Hazor basalt vessel workshop.
2 For details, see Jennie Ebeling and Danny
Rosenberg, “A Basalt Vessel Workshop and Its
Products at Iron Age Hazor, Israel,” Journal of
Field Archaeology 40.6 (2015), pp. 665–674.
3 See Pirhiya Beck, “Stone Ritual Artifacts and
Statues from Area A and H,” in Amnon Ben-
Tor et al., eds., Hazor III–IV, Text (Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society, 1989), pp. 322–338.
4 Rachael T. Sparks, Stone Vessels in the Levant
(Leeds: Maney, 2007), p. 178.
5 Amnon Ben-Tor, Hazor: Canaanite Metropo-
lis, Israelite City (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration
Society, 2016), pp. 127–129.
6 Doron Ben-Ami, “Hazor at the Beginning of
the Iron Age,” Near Eastern Archaeology 76.2
(2013), pp. 105–109.
Words Unseen
continued from page 59
Social Negotiation Through Miniatures in
Hellenistic Babylonia,” World Archaeology 47.1
(2015), p. 62.
12 Langin-Hooper, “Fascination with the Tiny,”
p. 62.
13 Douglass W. Bailey, Prehistoric Figurines:
Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic
(London: Routledge, 2005), p. 42.
14 For discussion, see Sheila Kohring, “Bodily
Skill and the Aesthetics of Miniaturisation,”
Pallas 86 (2011), pp. 31–50.
15 For more, see Pasi Falk, “Written in the
Flesh,” Body & Society 1.1 (1995), p. 95.
16 Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of
the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the
Collection (Durham: Durham Univ. Press,
1993), p. 38.

Rediscovery of Ancient Israel’s Origins

EARLY ISRAELITES
Two Peoples, One History
By Igor P. Lipovsky
The greatest secret of the Bible is
the fact that the ancient Hebrews
in reality were two different tribal
groups, who arrived in Canaan
and then left for the Nile Delta at
different times. Both peoples then
made their exodus from Egypt in
different centuries and recon-
quered their places in Canaan
independently. The early biblical
history with which we are familiar, up until the 12th century
B.C., only represents the history of the Southerners, “Jacob,”
to which were later added a few fragments from the past
concerning the Northerners, “Israel.” Where the archaeologists
look for the history of one people, is in reality the hidden past
of two different peoples...
ISRAEL AND JUDAH
How Two Peoples Became One
By Igor P. Lipovsky
The Israelites and Judahites prop-
erly came together for the first and
last time only in the United Mon-
archy. It was then that the initial
version of the “common” genealogy
and history was composed. But the
two peoples could not co-exist for
long in the same harness, especially
when the junior partner, Judah, was
commanding the senior, Israel, and
the union fell apart forever...
What were the ethnic, historical, and religious differences
between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah that prevented their
new union? Distinguished scholar of Near Eastern History
Prof. Igor P. Lipovsky rediscovers the origins of the Israelites,
Judahites, and local Canaanites, and analyzes their role in the
emergence of the Jewish people.

Boston: 2012. 209 pp. Softcover, $11.93, and in digital form for Cambridge: 2015. 334 pp. Softcover, $14.69, and in digital form for
Kindle, $7.99. Kindle, $9.97.

Available at amazon.com and major booksellers

70 January/February 2018
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© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM/ART RESOURCE, NY

Nootka Sound, British Columbia, Canada
Collected in the 1780s by British explorer Captain James Cook, this ceremonial club is one of the oldest and
best-preserved artifacts of northwest Canada. Made of yew wood and stone, the club is 10 inches high and
almost 10 inches wide. The handle is decorated with black human hair and inlaid with snail shells
and sea otter teeth. While the bottom of the club’s handle depicts a stylized double-faced owl,
CANADA the top bears a striking representation of a Thunderbird—a legendary creature that symbolizes
power and strength.
Nootka Sound According to the Nuu-cha-nult peoples who fashioned the club, Thunderbird was the most
PACIFIC OCEAN celebrated whaler and taught the dangerous but rewarding practice to humans. Whaling provided
valuable resources and was a fundamental aspect of the lives of many communities in northwest-
UNITED STATES
of AMERICA ern Canada. Today Thunderbird remains a celebrated figure to many native peoples.

The Thunderbird Club can be seen today at the British Museum in London, England.

72 January/February 2018
DISCOVER EY • GRE

BIBLE LANDS T
U
RK EC
E

•
EL

IT
ISRA

AL
with TUTKU TOURS

Y
EGY

TA
AL
PT
Tutku Tours

M
•

•
J
O S
RD
RU
AN
• CYP * Please ask for detailed itineraries. Prices are per person in double occupancy.

2018
SAILING THE AEGEAN ON A GULET BOAT SEVEN CHURCHES OF REVELATION
May 26 - June 11 June 10-22
TOUR HOST TOUR HOST
Mark Wilson, D.Litt. et Phil., Director,
Asia Minor Research Center, Antalya, Turkey; $5,990 Dr. Mark R. Fairchild, Ph.D., $4,990
Associate Professor Extraordinary of Land & Air Luke J. Peters Prof. of Biblical Studies Chair Land & Air
New Testament, Stellenbosch University Dept. Bible & Religion Huntington University

GREECE & ITALY GREECE & TURKEY

September 14-27 $5,390 October 6-21
Land & Air
TOUR HOSTS TOUR HOST

Dr. Mark R. Fairchild, Ph.D., $4,990

Dr. Mark Prof. Sarah Luke J. Peters Prof. of Biblical Studies Chair Land & Air
Wilson Yeomans Dept. Bible & Religion Huntington University

2019
LEBANON & JORDAN ANCIENT MEDICINE TOUR April 26-May 5
March 15-24 TURKEY & THE GREEK ISLAND OF KOS
TOUR HOST TOUR HOST
Professor Sarah Yeomans
Dr. Mark R. Fairchild, Ph.D., $4,990 Director of Educational Programs, $4,390
Luke J. Peters Prof. of Biblical Studies Chair Land & Air Biblical Archaeology Society Land & Air
Dept. Bible & Religion Huntington University Lecturer, West Virginia University

BY SEA & LAND: PAUL’S JOURNEY TO ROME IN PAUL’S FOOTSTEPS IN TURKEY

May 4-17 May 18 - June 2
$5,990
TOUR HOST Land & Air TOUR HOST
Professor Sarah Yeomans Mark Wilson, D.Litt. et Phil., Director,
Director of Educational Programs, Asia Minor Research Center, Antalya, Turkey; $4,990
Biblical Archaeology Society Associate Professor Extraordinary of Land & Air
Lecturer, West Virginia University New Testament, Stellenbosch University

FRANCE & SPAIN: TO THE END OF THE EARTH, GREECE & TURKEY
PAUL’S JOURNEY TO SPAIN September 15-29 October 5-20
TOUR HOST TOUR HOST
Mark Wilson, D.Litt. et Phil., Director,
Asia Minor Research Center, Antalya, Turkey; Dr. Mark R. Fairchild, Ph.D., $4,990
Associate Professor Extraordinary of $6,900 Luke J. Peters Prof. of Biblical Studies Chair
Land & Air
New Testament, Stellenbosch University Land & Air Dept. Bible & Religion Huntington University

For Registration please contact:

Alicia Bregon 202–364–3300 ext 216
Email: travelstudy@bib–arch.org Fax: 202–364–2636
Visit for other tours: www.tutkutours.com
Biblical Archaeology Society Email for customized groups & individuals
4710 41st Street, NW Washington, DC 20016 info@tutkutours.com