The Israel Antiquities Authority reports that in archaeological work it is conducting in the 2,000 year old drainage channel between the City of David and the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden:
Remains were Discovered of the Closest Building to the First Temple Exposed so Far in Archaeological Excavations, and on its Floor – a Hebrew Seal Bearing the Name ‘Matanyahu’
People used personal seals in the First Temple period for the purpose of signing letters and they were set in a signet ring. The seals served to identify their owner, just as they identify officials today.
According to Eli Shukron, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “the name Matanyahu, like the name Netanyahu, means giving to God. These names are mentioned several times in the Bible. They are typical of the names in the Kingdom of Judah in latter part of the First Temple period – from the end of the eighth century BCE until the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE. To find a seal from the First Temple period at the foot of the Temple Mount walls is rare and very exciting. This is a tangible greeting of sorts from a man named Matanyahu who lived here more than 2,700 years ago. We also found pottery sherds characteristic of the period on the floor in the ancient building beneath the base of the drainage channel, as well as stone collapse and evidence of a fire”.
In a previous illustrated post I reported on walking through this drainage channel. The finding of a seal within building remains is exciting news.
In another post, I published this plan of the drainage channel near the southwest corner of the Temple Mount:
Plan of the drains at the southwest corner, as discovered by Warren, and their relationship to the square Temple Mount and the subsequent extensions. From: The Quest, Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, p. 234.
This plan shows that the drain cut through two tombs, which, according to the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, belong to the Iron Age, as both have a ‘nefesh’ hole in the ceiling. There are several other tombs in this area with a similar design, one of which was converted into a mikveh in the Hellenistic period. These tombs are evidently part of a cemetery from the Iron Age.
As tombs are usually found outside the city walls (apart from the tombs of the kings), they probably date from before the time of King Hezekiah, who was the first king to include this area within his expanded city, when he built a wall round the Western Hill of Jerusalem. The building remains probably date to a time when pressure of space turned this location into a residential area, which could only have happened from the time of Hezekiah and onward.
The Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that
the William Davidson Foundation recently approved a very generous grant for the establishment of the East Hall Exhibition and Education Gallery in the Ethan and Marla Davidson Center for Exhibitions and Virtual Reconstruction in the Jerusalem Archaeological Park. The Davidson Center, which was made possible by the generosity of William (Bill) Davidson and opened to the public in 2001, became an overnight success, and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people annually.
The new East Hall of the Davidson Center will be established in a ca. 4,000 sq. ft. room dating to the Umayyad period (7th Century CE), that served as a storage room in an Umayyad palace, and is similar to the rooms in which the Davidson Center is now located. It is a square room measuring 62 x 62 ft, surrounded by 7 foot wide walls, and is adjacent to the Davidson Center.
The transformation from what the area originally looked like during the Temple Mount Excavations is amazing:
Underground halls of Umayyad Building II, discovered in the Temple Mount Excavations led by the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar.
In the Umayyad period (c. 661-750), large palaces and administrative buildings were constructed to the west and south of the Temple Mount:
You can see several interesting archaeological videos on the website of The Friends of the IAA. By clicking on the picture below, you can see a virtual reconstruction of these Umayyad buildings around the Temple Mount:
The new exhibition will be housed in the underground halls of the building in the foreground
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs showcases the immense contribution of this tiny country to the archaeology of the region.
Read the interesting article below.
HT: Joe Lauer
Greatest archaeological finds in Israel
Every day, the Israel Antiquities Authority has 30 active digs. In a country rich with history, exciting major discoveries are unearthed all the time
By Avigayil KadeshAs countries go, Israel is quite tiny. But as archeological sites go, it’s vast.Archeologists in search of biblical evidence have been digging up ancient treasures here since the mid-19th century,In December 2011 alone, a rare 2,000-year-old clay seal found near Jerusalem’s Western Wall was one of the few Second Temple artifacts ever unearthed; and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) found the remains of a Byzantine bathhouse when a new water supply system in the Judean coastal hills was under construction. but shovels really started flying after Israel achieved statehood in 1948.Fascinating discoveries often make the news
Also during December, researchers from Tel Aviv University published a paper on their newsworthy find from the previous year: Modern human teeth in a cave near Tel Aviv that predate by 200,000 years the African Homo sapiens. The discovery has put into place a new piece of the puzzle of human evolution.
The IAA had a field day during the building of Jerusalem’s recently completed light rail. Among the discoveries were part of a Jewish village dating from around 135 CE (65 years after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and exiled many Jews), 264 identical gold coins of the last Byzantine emperor who ruled in Jerusalem; a Roman Legion camp from the second century; a 12th-century village; and Byzantine monasteries.
And in 2009, Israeli archaeologists in Migdal (near Tiberius) found the most ancient depiction of the menorah, a carving dating from the Second Temple period 2,000 years ago.
Unearthing and preserving history
Jon Seligman, IAA’s head of excavations and surveys, can’t help but laugh when asked to name the most notable finds over the last 64 years.
“The archeology in this country has been revolutionized over the 60-plus years of the state,” he says. A complete listing of sites numbers 70:
Most major archeological sites were preserved as national parks after excavations were complete. Some of these include
• Masada, Herod the Great’s ancient fortress overlooking the Dead Sea (now one of Israel’s most popular tourist sites because of its dramatic role in the story of Jewish resistance against the Roman Empire;
• Megiddo, a key ancient and modern crossroads that was already a fortified city with huge walls by the third millennium BCE;
• Beit Guvrin-Maresha, with its thousands of years’ worth of quarries, burial caves, storerooms, industrial facilities, hideouts and dovecotes;
• Ashkelon, the oldest and largest seaport known in Israel, and a thriving commercial center during the Roman period; and of course
• the City of David, the nucleus of ancient Jerusalem, as well as all the Western Wall and Southern Wall areas surrounding the Temple Mount.
“Each is important in its own way,” Seligman says.
The IAA supervises about 300 annual excavations, accounting for about 95 percent of all the archeological digs in Israel. The digs usually take place at mounds composed of the remains of ancient settlements (tel in Hebrew). “We have 30 excavations every day,” says Seligman. Israel is so rich in archeology that even at this pace, he adds, “We can carry on for many more years.”
The digging, discovery and analyzing is part of a carefully considered process, Seligman stresses. “We have to look not only at what we excavate but also at what we don’t. We do the minimal amount necessary, since excavation is a destructive process and we have to think about what we must leave for future generations,” he explains.
“In general, we try to keep material at the site in its context, and only consider bringing things to a museum when there is no alternative. A mosaic, for example, is meant to be on a floor, not hanging on a wall.”
Not every excavation site is preserved for public viewing. “Maintenance is expensive, so we can’t afford to make each into a presentation site,” Seligman says. Those that aren’t developed into national parks are covered over after the archeologists have finished their investigations.
Best finds
Seligman and Aren Maeir, a noted archeologist from Bar-Ilan University, identified some of the most notable archeological digs in Israel over the past 25 years, listed in no particular order:
Archeology teams have spent 22 summers digging through 22 layers of civilization at this UNESCO World Heritage site near the Lebanese border, one of the largest archaeological sites in Israel.
Judging by the ruins of palaces and temples, a water system and many cuneiform documents, the book of Joshua was correct in describing Hatzor (also spelled “Hazor”) as the “head of all the Canaanite kingdoms” in the period of 1800-1200 BCE. Ancient scribes came for training at Hatzor, a major center for administration and scholarship in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
Here in 2010, Hebrew University archeologists discovered two fragments of a legal tablet written in Akkadian from the same time period as the famous Hammurabi Code. The contents were similar – referring to personal injury law, slaves and masters. They also found the first Iron Age basalt workshop ever discovered in the Middle East.
• Tel Dan
Tel Dan stele fragments
In the mid-1990s, three fragments of a large stele (inscribed stone) with an Aramaic inscription were found at this northern site, probably constructed by Hazael, king of Damascus, when he conquered the Dan region in the ninth century BCE.
The first royal inscription ever found in Israel, the stele describes the victory of a king of Aram over “the king of the House of David,” making it the earliest reference to the Davidic monarchy outside of the Bible, and it fills in aspects relating to stories recounted in the biblical text about encounters between Arameans and Israelites.
Tel Dan has also revealed treasures such as flint tools and primitive pottery; stone ramparts and houses, metallic pottery and seal impressions; a mudbrick gatehouse from the 18th century BCE; grain storage pits and an oil press from the Iron Age; a bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription; and a wine press, irrigation pipes, fountain house, Venus statue and coins from the Roman period.
• Tel Rehov
Tel Rehov, where ancient beekeepers made honey and wax
Here in the Beit Shean Valley, Hebrew University excavators found evidence in 2007 of a major Iron Age (biblical era) honey production facility. Maeir calls it “an absolutely unique find, because until now it was assumed that the honey referred to in ‘the land of milk and honey’ was date honey, but here’s clear proof there were bee hives at that time.” Most likely, wax was also produced here commercially.
The 30 intact hives arranged in orderly rows, and remains of up to 200 more, were made of straw and unbaked clay. There were even remains of bees, bee larva and pupae. By studying the DNA from these remains, researchers in 2010 determined that these bees were similar to the Anatolian species in modern Turkey. Indeed, an Assyrian stamp from the eighth century BCE shows that bees had been brought 400 kilometers from southern Turkey.
Tel Rehov, one of the largest Iron Age sites in Israel, has also yielded some of the largest collections of Greek pottery from the 10th to ninth centuries BCE found in Israel, along with clues as to the chronology of events in early Israel’s monarchy.
In 2006, the IAA found evidence of a large ancient settlement at this central Israel site, dating from the Early Islamic to Crusader periods.
Both Christian and Muslim symbols were found, such as crosses on clay lamps and inscriptions in ancient Greek that mention “the mother of God,” as well as bronze coins struck with the Arabic inscription, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his servant.”
The highlight was the discovery of a unique round Byzantine-Islamic stone structure paved with a colorful mosaic decorated with geometric patterns and a palm-tree motif. It might memorialize a religious martyr, a miracle that occurred at the site or a visit by a saint.
The archeologists also found ruins of an industrial zone for the large-scale production of wine.
• Ramla
An underground eighth-century reservoir at Ramla
Photo courtesy of Israel Tourism Ministry
Built in the early eighth century on sand dunes about nine miles southeast of today’s Tel Aviv, Ramla was the only city in ancient Palestine founded by Arabs. Most of its buildings were lost, but archeologists have been reconstructing the remains of the Umayyad-period White Mosque, with its distinctive minaret, since 1949.
In the 1990s, they unearthed an ancient dye factory as well as underground reservoirs and cisterns, and a trove of glass, coins and jar handles stamped with Arabic inscriptions.
In May 2006, a cement quarry bulldozer serendipitously broke into what turned out to be the second largest lime cave in Israel, on the outskirts of Ramla. Inside were several previously unknown species of invertebrates including 10 eyeless scorpions and seven species of crustaceans and springtails.
• Herodion
The 2007 discovery of the remains of Herod the Great’s tomb made international headlines. Maeir explains that archeologists had been searching for the gravesite for decades. Although it was partially destroyed, with the body of the king stolen by ancient grave-robbers, it was nevertheless clear what Hebrew University’s Ehud Netzer finally came across, following 35 years of excavations at Herodion (also called Herodium) in the Judean Desert.
Herod (74 to 4 BCE) was the Roman client king who built expansively throughout Israel, most notably the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Caesarea and Masada. Roman historian Josephus Flavius wrote that Herod was buried near his two palaces and gardens at Herodion, one of the largest royal sites in the Roman-Hellenist era, but nobody had ever found it. The Israelis weren’t able to get to the site, sometimes described as an ancient royal country club, until after the 1967 Six-Day War.
Archeologists unearthed many interesting architectural features at the site, which later served as the seat of the Roman governors, as a hideout for rebels during the Bar Kochba Revolt (see Te’omim Cave), and even as a Byzantine leper colony.
A cache of 9,000-year-old flint blades was among the latest Neolithic (9,000-8,700 BCE) treasures unearthed at this large Lower Galilee site that was once an important Crusader city. Flint blades were rare in Neolithic times, as people started to transition from a nomadic shepherding existence to a more settled agricultural life.
The collection – which was probably used for barter — includes 80 blades, eight arrowheads, three lumps of flint, two sickle blades and two bone implements. They were concealed under the floor of a building, discovered in 2008 during the construction of a new traffic interchange at the nearby Movil Junction.
• Tel Kabri
Located in the western Galilee near Akko (Acre) and the resort town of Nahariya, Tel Kabri has the earliest-known Western art found in the Eastern Mediterranean. Excavations focus on a palace dating from around 1600 BCE, which contains a Minoan-style floor and wall frescoes uncovered over the past 25 years.
“This is a unique find that tells us about international trade and culture connections,” says Maeir. He explains that frescoes of this style represented the Minoan culture of Crete, pointing to a direct link with their neighbor to the south.
The body of a sorceress or witch doctor from the Epi-Paleolithic period (16,000 to 8,300 BCE) was found buried in a cave at this Western Galilee site, giving it the nickname of the Shaman Cave or Witch Cave. There were also 28 skeletons of men unearthed here, but the shaman is of particular interest because her body was methodically surrounded by 50 turtle shells, bones of a leopard and wild boar, a human foot, a cow tail, two martens (an animal related to the badger) and a golden eagle’s wings, providing a fascinating picture of the social and cultic practices of this period.
Entrance to the Te’omim Cave
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Rebels against the Roman occupation once hid out in a series of natural caves in the Jerusalem hills east of Beit Shemesh, including the Te’omim Cave. In a recently discovered continuation of this cave, archaeologists found artifacts from the 132-136 CE Bar Kokhba Revolt, such as silver and bronze coins, weapons, pottery storage jars and oil lamps. Filled with stalactites, stalagmites and bat colonies, the cave also had human bone fragments — indicating that at least some of the rebels never made it out alive.
It’s called Twins Cave, by the way, because legend has it that a 19th century barren woman drank water dripping from the cave’s ceiling and subsequently gave birth to twins. But, thanks to the resident bats, it’s also sometimes called the Bat Cave.
• Khirbet Qeiyafa
A view of the Khirbet fortress
Photo by Yoav Dothan
Located on the hills bordering the Elah Valley, this six-acre strategic fortress is circled by a 700-meter long wall of eight-ton stones. Here, along the main road from Philistia and the coastal plain to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron, the young David felled the giant Goliath with stones from his slingshot.
Excavations began only in 2007, yielding evidence of David’s kingdom and also the earliest Hebrew inscription from a clear context. The two major layers of this tel date from the Iron Age and the Hellenistic era, with shards discovered from the Bronze Age as well as from the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, early Islamic, Mameluke and Ottoman eras.
• Tel es-Safi
Tel es-Safi siege system
Otherwise known as Gath, the hometown of the biblical giant Goliath, this tel has been under excavation since 1996 and still yields treasures such as the world’s oldest known siege system; the earliest metal production area for iron and bronze ever unearthed in Philistia; and a large stone Philistine altar built to the exact dimensions of the Israelite altar in the desert Tabernacle as described in the Bible, except that it has two “horns” rather than four.
Maeir’s team is aided in its work at Tel es-Safi by the Kimmel Center for Archeological Science at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, which provides a portable field lab at the excavation site and another lab at the base camp to facilitate more intricate analyses of the day’s finds. The results help archeologists decide on the day’s excavation strategy and provide an integrated perspective on the past, says Maeir.
• Ramat Rachel
The ancient dovecote (columbarium) at Ramat Rachel
An ancient water reservoir was uncovered here in 2010 with the aid of a 250-ton crane to remove the five 10-ton rocks forming the collapsed top of the cave in which the water was stored.
Now a kibbutz/conference center on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, Ramat Rachel was first settled in the days of the Judaic monarchy during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. It was home to Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic settlers, and then lay abandoned for about 1,000 years until Jewish pioneers rebuilt it in the 1930s.
A luxurious Assyrian palace, a Roman villa, a bathhouse, gold coins from the Second Temple period, a dovecote and a Byzantine church are also among the finds here.
• Omrit
Omrit, on the western side of the Golan Heights near the Hula Valley, is an exceptionally well-preserved site along the ancient Roman road to Damascus. It was hidden for millennia until a 1998 fire exposed it.
Among the finds there so far are two limestone podiums from a Roman temple; a Byzantine olive oil factory; a winepress; shops; a colonnaded road; and a bath complex constructed after the collapse of the temple in an earthquake in 363 CE. Because a first- or early second-century Roman temple is a rare find in Israel, Omrit will probably be preserved as a national park for tourists to get a glimpse of what political and cultural life was like in those days.
• Khirbet Wadi Hamam
Benches in the Khirbet Wadi Hamam synagogue
This Roman-period village in the eastern Lower Galilee just west of the Sea of Galilee was first excavated in 2007 and holds the key to dating the many synagogues found in this area.
Most Galilee villages had their own Jewish houses of worship, many featuring intricate mosaic floors, but the one found at Khirbet Wadi Hamam is particularly well preserved and wider than most. It depicts craftsmen at work, a scene found in no other mosaic of the time period. Made of limestone and basalt, this synagogue had two rows of benches and three rows of columns holding up a tiled roof.
• Jaffa
The ancient port city just south of Tel Aviv has a long but little understood history that archeologists are starting to piece together from finds gathered mainly since 1997 in excavations led by Tel Aviv University.
Jaffa was an ancient Egyptian administrative center, as evidenced by the ruins an Egyptian citadel and “Lion Temple” harboring a lion’s skull. A huge royal scarab found there bears an eight-line inscription in hieroglyphics declaring that by the 10th year of his reign, Amenhotep III (pharaoh of Egypt in the 14th century BCE) had successfully hunted 102 lions.
Archeologists also found the concrete remains of a 19th century BCE house with a bench in a paved area inside that may have been a kitchen, since next to it they found a plastered niche containing 12 Egyptian bowls.
HEKHAL is the name of the newly formed Irish Society for the Study of the Ancient Near East. It was created by a group of four Trinity College Dublin graduates who wish to:
promote research in the fields of ancient near eastern history and historiography, biblical studies, and archaeology with the long-term aim of increasing both academic and public understanding of the biblical and ancient near eastern world and its texts.
On 25–27 May 2012, they will hold their first annual symposium in Dublin, called:
Among the twenty-four speakers there are three Israeli archaeologists, Yosef Garfinkel, Joseph Patrich and Mordechai Aviam.
My talk is entitled “Relating the Temple Scroll from Qumran to the architecture of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem” and is scheduled for Sunday, 27 May, from 9.00 – 10.00 am.
Yesterday we reported on an article about “Roman Jerusalem”. In today’s Jerusalem Post, there is a similar article, this time about Jerusalem of the time of Jesus.
This well illustrated article describes the remains of several Herodian villas which were excavated by the late Prof. Nahman Avigad and subsequently restored and opened to the public. It has been suggested that the largest villa, called the Palatial Mansion, may have been the residence of the High Priest at that time.
While studying Conservation at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies at the University of York, archaeologists of the York Archaeological Trust showed us graphs indicating that the number of visitors coming to York during the month of February was always the lowest. That is why they organize the Jorvik Viking Festival every year, which includes the burning of a Viking boat on the river (incidentally, the website has a page on Barley Hall, the restoration of which I was fortunate to have been involved with).
This general trend is well-known in commerce and tourism, hence the protracted sales and low prices to attract customers during February. That may have been the reason why Haaretz put up an article on Roman Jerusalem, then called Aelia Capitolina, which is well written and interesting, but contains nothing new.
The fact that the straight streets, such as Chabad and Hagai, David Streets and the Via Dolorosa, date back to the Roman period has been known for a long time. Both the Cardo Maximus and the Lower Cardo began at the Damascus Gate in the north of the city, as shown on the Madaba Map.
The very interesting excavation to the west of the Western Wall Plaza, where a good stretch of the Lower Cardo was found, has been well documented previously and the street was known long ago from the Madaba Map. The discovery of a Roman Bath house has also been reported earlier, as was a Roman building in the Givati parking lot.
Experts agree the city was planned extraordinarily well, based as it was on designs of other cities in the empire and according to orders that came directly from the emperor.
To be sure, some new evidence has come to light during the last decade, but nothing revolutionary or earthshaking that was not known many years ago.
Yesterday we marked the first anniversary of the passing of Anson, a great scholar, a superb teacher and above all, a true friend. Along with his unique contribution to the study of Bible Lands – languages, historical geography and history – Anson also was one of Carta’s premier authors.
Rainey working on el-Amarna Letters at The British Museum (photo: Roy Brown)
Two decades ago, Anson revised and updated Aharoni and Avi-Yonah’sThe Macmillan Bible Atlas. Soon after we started discussing a new, ground-breaking work:The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical Worldwith R. Steven Notley, and its popular abridged edition,Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Biblewhich Anson, somewhat reluctantly, pared down in order “to augment the personal Bible study of all who seek a straightforward understanding of biblical history.” These two we published after a mere decade of gestation. Carta was also fortunate in having Anson – again with R. Steven Notley – update the 5th edition ofTheCarta Bible Atlas.
Teaching History and Historical Geography of Bible Lands: A Syllabusaccompanied Anson on his last U.S. lecture tour. Anson was happy to see in print what turned out to be his last published book.
In our “Recommended Books” section, we wrote the following about The Sacred Bridge. One of the books we treasure most (and which we would never dream of lending out, for fear of being left without it!) is The Sacred Bridge by Anson Rainey and Steven Notley. Reading it is like visiting a library with an erudite companion, who knows all the languages necessary to explore the culture in which you are interested or like walking in Bible lands with an omniscient voice guiding you: “This is the way, walk ye in it!”
Avigad would be pleased! Yesterday we received Vols. IV and V of the final reports of the Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, Conducted by Nahman Avigad 1969-1982. The first four volumes were edited by Hillel Geva and the fifth by Oren Gutfield. More volumes are in preparation.
This web page contains descriptions and downloadable PDF flyers, with pictures of the book covers, contents and order forms.
It was a mammoth task to prepare these volumes and Hillel and Oren are to be commended for their dedication and hard work to publish the results of these unique excavations. I can’t resist sharing these newspaper reports of when the Burnt House was first discovered and that were reproduced in Volume IV.
The Jerusalem Post, 16 Jan. 1970
Jerusalem Post, 23 January 1970
I remember Avigad telling me that during the excavation of the Burnt House, people were standing 4-deep around the area being dug, especially after the finding of a girl’s skeletal arm, the nation of Israel was so electrified.
After working on the Temple Mount Excavations, I began working on the Jewish Quarter Excavations, beginning in 1978. It was a very memorable privilege to have been able to draw up most of the plans for the Burnt House and other areas which were excavated in the quarter, which had been severely damaged by the Jordanians. Working for Avigad wasn’t restricted to my architectural contributions. When the Burnt House was eventually opened to the public, I was honored, to be the only one, with Kathleen, to be entrusted with the care of cleaning the glass display cases of the precious finds from the site. On a number of evenings we had to get a baby sitter for our children so we could drive over the cobble stones of the Jewish Quarter and take our vacuum cleaner and dusters into the eerily silent Burnt House.
Eventually, I made this reconstruction drawing of Burnt House:
Reconstruction drawing of the Burnt House. Leen Ritmeyer
Apologies for not having blogged a while, but I was busy with projects. For those of you who had sad thoughts about my absence, these are unfounded, as this picture shows:
With apologies to L. Jongewaard
Received an invitation marking the 20th anniversary of the death of Prof. Nahman Avigad to be held on Wednesday February 15th, at the Ben-Zvi Institute, Rehavia, Jerusalem.
Working with Avigad on the restoration of the Cardo and the Herodian Villas in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, I developed a deep appreciation for him. He was a kind person, meticulous in his work and research and willing to share his profound knowledge of archaeology and ancient architecture.
Avigad (centre) with Leen (left) inspecting the stucco work of David Simon during the restoration of the Palatial Mansion
The evening will also mark the publication of the 5th Volume of the Jewish Quarter Excavation final report. This volume contains my contribution on “The Restoration of the Cardo” (chapter 3).
A few days ago, the Temple Mount Sifting Project published an article about a fiscal bulla (a lump of clay that bears the imprint of an inscribed seal) that was found in an excavation on the eastern slope of Mount Moriah:
The bulla carries an Ancient Hebrew inscription: “[g]b’n/lmlk“, i.e. “Gibeon, for the King”. The bulla originates from the eastern slope of the Temple Mount, descending into the Kidron Valley. The bulla belongs to a group of bullae which were called by N. Avigad “Fiscal Bullae”. Presently we know more than 50 bullae of this type. They comprise two groups, one with names of cities in the kingdom of Judah, and the other with names of royal officials.
The Gibeon bulla, showing the inscription on the left and the back of the bulla on the right. Photo: Zev RadovanThe inscription of the bulla, reconstruction by Gabriel Barkay.
These ‘lmlk’ (for the king) bullae sealed tax commodities sent to the King of Judah and date from the time of King Hezekiah. About 50 of these fiscal bullae are known, but this is the first one that came from an archaeological rescue excavation. Gabriel Barkay has published an extensive article (in Hebrew) in which he discusses the entire phenomenon of the fiscal bullae.
The bullae include names of 19 different cities of Judah, and dates of the reign of one of the Judean kings, usually in hieratic numerals, as well as the particle “lmlk“, “for the king”. The components of the inscriptions are discussed, as well as the geographical history of the bullae, and its comparison to the list of Judean cities in Joshua 15: 20-63. The fiscal bullae represent a taxation system from the different Judean cities, based on yearly taxes, which probably replaced the previous one, reflected in the royal Judean jars and their seal impressions, from the time of King Hezekiah.
Not all of the cities, however, are mentioned in Joshua 15. Two cities belonged to Simeon, Eltolad and Bethul, and Gath was a Philistine city during most of the Biblical period. Here is the list of the 19 cities and where they are mentioned first:
These originally were all Canaanite cities that were conquered by Joshua and were still part of the Kingdom of Judah during the reign of King Hezekiah.
The city of Gibeon, viewed from the south. Photo: Leen Ritmeyer
Gibeon did belong to a group of four Canaanite cities that made a covenant with Joshua by disguising themselves. After having been found out by Joshua, he made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of God (Joshua 9).
It was created by a group of four Trinity College Dublin graduates who wish to:
