Recent Archaeological Finds

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The view from the garbage


The secrets of life in Second Temple-era Jerusalem can be found in a trash heap

Two discs made of bone, which apparently served as buttons, are among the objects found in the municipal dump that served Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple era. These buttons were intended to be not only practical, but decorative as well. In addition the dump has yielded a handful of glass fragments, which testify to the use of prestigious objects.

However, the vast majority of finds at the dump were very much everyday objects: fragments of household utensils including cooking pots, storage jars, pottery and lamps, coins of low denominations and a large number of animal bones. The dump is located on the eastern slope of the hill where the City of David is located. It was first unearthed in 1867 by Charles Warren, and many other archaeologists excavated there after him, but they did not realize they were digging through garbage. Only in 1995 did Professor Ronny Reich, of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and Eli Shukron, of the Antiquities Authority, who directed the dig at the site, realize it was a dump.

The researchers estimate that the dump held a total of 300,000 tons of refuse. Reich says it came from the upper city ?(today's Jewish Quarter?), from the area adjacent to the Temple Mount and from the City of David. They calculate that every year, about 3,000 tons of waste was dumped there. This quantity of garbage, which was carried a fair distance from its source, could not have been brought there by individuals, they reason: The garbage must have been transported in a centralized and planned way from the residential area to the dump.

Reich, Shukron and their colleagues excavated in two places at the dump and systematically sorted and examined the material they collected. They found that the most significant portion of the manmade objects there were pottery shards, among which the most common were pieces of cooking utensils. These constituted about 30 percent of the shards, three times more than was found at a dwelling excavated by Professor Nachman Avigad in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter.

Reich believes that the reason for the large quantity of cooking utensils in the trash stems from the gradual increase toward the end of the Second Temple period in the number of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem on Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot. Some brought pots and cooking utensils, and others purchased them in Jerusalem. In any case, the pilgrims' broken pots were dumped at the site, increasing their relative proportion among the rubbish.

Apart from the pottery shards, the rubbish offered little evidence of the use of stone utensils, which were also common during that period. In the dozens of cubic meters of dirt taken from the dump, only two fragments of stone utensils were found. At private homes in the upper city of Jerusalem, however, stone utensils were much more popular.

Compared to pottery, stone utensils were relatively resilient ? and relatively prestigious ? which explains their absence in the dump. According to Jewish religious law in those days, stone utensils could not be considered ritually contaminated. While a contaminated piece of pottery had to be broken and discarded, stone utensils never faced that similar fate. Furthermore, stone utensils were apparently considered much more prestigious, and therefore better care was taken of them.

Evidence of Jewish life

The difference between the frequency of stone vessels in the waste versus in homes is one of the clear signs of the Jewish character of the city. However, more obvious signs can be found in the animal bones collected at the dump. Most of the bones, Says Dr. Guy Bar-Oz, an archaeo-zoologist from the University of Haifa, were of domesticated animals, goats, sheep and cattle. Not a single pig bone was found. A thorough examination of the bones showed that most of the animals eaten in the city were young. This fact concords with the Jewish religious injunction to sacrifice young, unblemished animals.

Signs of cutting were found on the bones, from which Bar-Oz concluded that they had been slaughtered by professional slaughters in accordance with Jewish law. The cuts were always found in specific areas of the animal's body. Ram Buchnik, a student writing a doctorate under the supervision of Bar-Oz and Reich, is examining the signs of cutting and comparing them to the slaughtering laws in the Talmud and the Mishna. Thus far he has found complete congruence between the writings and bones. Apart from the two buttons, the researchers found bones only of animals slaughtered to be eaten by the city inhabitants and the pilgrims. Manmade objects like beads, buttons or other items were not fund.

This phenomenon, according to Bar-Oz, characterizes all the findings at the dump. The inhabitants discarded only objects and materials that they could not recycle or that required too much effort to keep at home.

The dimensions of the municipal dump and the quantities of refuse that accumulated there about 2,000 years ago are indicative of the size and the development of the city at that time.

"Jerusalem was a very large and wealthy city that lived on constant domestic tourism," says Reich. "The pilgrims who came there regularly brought food, utensils and money, and all of these contributed to the development of the city and its inhabitants."

Therefore, the finds recently excavated not far from the city dump, in the national park encircling Jerusalem, did not surprise Reich. Rescue excavations on the planned site of the Beit Ha'asor building turned up a dwelling of impressive dimensions. The dig was directed by Zvi Greenhut of the Antiquities Authority, on land owned by the Elad Association. Along the entire length of the rock slope above the Shiloah Pool, which soars to a height of 13 meters, four stories of rooms were excavated. The walls were plastered in stucco and were girded with wooden beams or by means of hewing into the rock.

Greenhut also found evidence in the dwelling of a cellar with a plastered dome, next to a storeroom. Alongside the storeroom was a ritual bath, which also served as a source of water in case the purification pools fell below the level stipulated in Jewish law.

Since the domed structure is so close to the Shiloah Pool, which could provide enough pure water for the house's inhabitants, the question arises as to why they needed a reservoir. Of all the ancient ritual baths that have been excavated to date in Jerusalem, this is the second or third next to a reservoir. In Greenhut's opinion, the investment in the construction of the reserve pool shows that the dwelling's inhabitants were wealthy, and preferred not to go down to dip with the commoners but rather to do so within the walls of their comfortable home.

The discovery of such a large house in this part of the city, contradicts the prevailing view of town planning in Jerusalem during that period. Michael Avi Yonah had drawn up Jerusalem of that period as a city where the wealthy lived in large villas on the slopes of the hill, while the poor lived in shaky huts farther down. The lovely building that Greenhut excavated is located in the lower city, contrary to Avi Yonah's conjecture. But Reich is not surprised.

"Because Jerusalem was a wealthy city, there were also beautiful houses in the lower city. Certainly not miserable shacks," he says. "If there were poor people in Jerusalem, they probably lived by the dump and lived by gleaning off what the rich threw away."

This way of life was truncated with the destruction of the city in 70 C.E. This is witnessed by, among other things, the coins that went into the dump. The researchers found there 126 coins, of which 50 have been cleaned and identified. Of them, only four or five are dated to the days of Alexander Yannai, in the first century B.C.E. All the rest belong to the early Roman period, in the first century C.E. The later coins are from the time of the Great Revolt against the Romans: One is from the year 67, and the other from 68. The Roman conquest two years later is also evident in the garbage.

"After the year 70 the Jewish city ceased to exist and its inhabitants fled, were killed or went into exile, and garbage ceased being taken to the dump. In Jerusalem remained only a Roman garrison, and you can see that the garbage piled up in the streets," says Reich.

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 Israeli students discover Byzantine-era mosaic


Just as they were preparing for the end of the school year, students from the Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam Jewish-Arab school taking part in a yearlong archaeological educational enrichment project uncovered a Byzantine-era mosaic covered with crosses.

The mosaic was apparently part of the floor of the central room of a Byzantine church or convent and includes a medallion with a radius of about three feet decorated with a large black and red cross. Smaller crosses encircled by geometric shapes surround the central cross.

Another mosaic uncovered in a smaller room to the east of the central room also includes small crosses inside geometric designs.

The students also found stucco remains most likely used to decorate the inside walls of the structure, according to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release. Large pottery shards were also discovered, and archaeologists believe they were part of clay jars and jugs used in bath houses.

The archaeological site is on top of a hill overlooking the Ayalon Valley on the main road to Jerusalem, close to the modern-day Trappist monastery at Latrun, and is believed to be the site where Jesus first revealed himself to his apostles following his crucifixion.

"It is not every day that children ages 9 to 12 years old, Jewish and Arabs, uncover Christian archaeological remains which are an integral part of the cultural heritage of this land," said Hagit Noigbern, director of the Jerusalem Archaeological Center of the Israel Antiquities Authority, which organized the enrichment program.

The IAA and the educational Karev Fund conducted the archaeological enrichment program for the children over the past year.

Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is a cooperative village of Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship. The village includes a regular school, a peace school and hotel. It is the fruition of the dream of Dominican Father Bruno Hussar, who in the 1960s envisioned a village of coexistence. In 1970 he was able to begin the village on land leased from the nearby Latrun monastery.

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Team believes it found Noah's Ark
Returns from Iranian mountain with petrified wood, marine fossils


A 14-man crew that included evangelical apologist Josh McDowell says it returned from a trek to a mountain in Iran with possible evidence of the remains of Noah's Ark.

The group, led by explorer Bob Cornuke, found an unusual object perched on a slope 13,120 feet above sea level.

Cornuke, president of the archeological Base Institute and a veteran of nearly 30 expeditions in search of Bible artifacts and locations, said he is cautiously, but enthusiastically, optimistic about the find.

Some of the team's photos can be seen here.

Also on the team were Barry Rand, former CEO of Avis; Boone Powell, former CEO of Baylor Medical Systems; and Arch Bonnema, president of Joshua Financial.

The team returned with video footage of a large black formation, about 400 feet long – the length of the ark, according to the Bible – that looks like rock but bears the image of hundreds of massive, wooden, hand-hewn beams.

Bonnema observed: "These beams not only look like petrified wood, they are so impressive that they look like real wood – this is an amazing discovery that may be the oldest shipwreck in recorded history."

The team said one piece of the blackened rock is "cut" at 90-degree angle.

Sealed with pitch

Even more intriguing, they said, some of the wood-like rocks tested this week proved to be petrified wood.

It's noteworthy, they pointed out, that the Bible recounts Noah sealed his ark with pitch, a black substance.

When the retrieved pieces were cut open, a marine fossil was discovered. In the area around the object, the team found thousands of fossilized sea shells, and Cornuke brought back a one-inch thick rock slab replete with fossilized clams.

With the discovery of wood splinters and broken pottery at the remote 15,300-foot level, the team says it also found evidence that ancients considered it an important worship site for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Cornuke became involved in the search for the ark after meeting Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin, participating with him in several searches on Mount Ararat in Turkey, but with disappointing results.

Cornuke began looking elsewhere, after finding clues in the Bible such as Genesis 11's reference to descendants of Noah coming to the Mesopotamian valley from the east. Cornuke believes that would put the biblical mountains of Ararat somewhere in northern Iran.

He also points to ancient historians such as Nicholas of Damascus and Flavius Josephus who wrote, just before and after Christ, that timbers of the ark had survived in the higher mountains of present-day Iran.

Cornuke noted that during World War II, an American Army officer and road construction engineer in Iran named Ed Davis said he saw the ark on a high mountain in the country after being led there by Iranian friends. After the war, according to Cornuke, Davis passed a lie detector test affirming he saw timbers from an ark-like object.

Before his death, Davis gave Cornuke a map showing the way to the object.

"It was right where Ed said it was in his map," Cornuke said. "After seeing it from a distance, I thought it at first unimpressive, but once we stood on the object we were all amazed at how it looked just like a huge pile of black and brown stone beams."

Noah tours

Cornuke's is the latest of many expeditions – most of them at Turkey's Mount Ararat – in search of Noah's Ark.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a new travel website is promoting summer tours to a Turkish site near Mount Ararat believed by many to be the fossilized remains of Noah's Ark.

Noah's Ark Holidays, which bills itself as an "ethical travel referral website" is behind the offer, with a pitch for the location in Dogubayazit, Turkey.

The late Ron Wyatt, whose Tennessee-based foundation, Wyatt Archaeological Research, also believed the ark is located at Dogubayazit, some 12-15 miles from Ararat.

Meanwhile, as WorldNetDaily reported in March, others who believe the vessel is on Ararat itself became excited with the release of a new, high-resolution digital image of what has become known as the "Ararat Anomaly."

The location of the anomaly on the mountain's northwest corner has been under investigation from afar by ark hunters for years, but it has remained unexplored, with the government of Turkey not granting any scientific expedition permission to explore on site.

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible speaks of Noah and the ark, and Jesus Christ and the apostles Paul and Peter all make reference to Noah's flood as an actual historical event.

According to Genesis, Noah was a righteous man who was instructed by God to construct a large vessel to hold his family and many species of animals, as a massive deluge was coming to purify the world which had become corrupt.

Genesis 6:5 states: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Noah was told by God to take aboard seven pairs of each of the "clean" animals – that is to say, those permissible to eat – and two each of the "unclean" variety. (Gen. 7:2)

Though the Bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, it also mentions "the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days."

The ark then "rested" upon the mountains of Ararat, but it was still months before Noah and his family – his wife, his three sons and the sons' wives – were able to leave the ark and begin replenishing the world.

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Bone box on trial
James ossuary is at the centre of a Jerusalem court battle where the seamy side of the trade in ancient artifacts is exposed


In the city where Jesus preached and was killed 2,000 years ago, a controversy is building that could shake the foundations of the religion founded in his name.

The James ossuary, the purported burial box of Jesus' brother declared a fake by Israeli authorities three years ago, is at the centre of a Jerusalem court battle over alleged forging of antiquities.

The ossuary, with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," made a big splash when it was unveiled to the world nearly four years ago at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.

The trial, on hold for more than a month due to scheduling delays that plague the Israeli court system, resumes Tuesday with the testimony of Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel whose examinations of the ossuary helped lead to charges be laid.

With barely one-quarter of the prosecution's 124 witnesses called since the trial began last fall, and the defence team expected to call at least as many witnesses, the case is expect to take years to make its way through the court system.

"Trials in Israel are really something special," deadpans defence attorney Lior Bringer in a telephone interview from his office in Tel Aviv.

His client is Oded Golan, an antiquities collector charged with forging part of the inscription on the ossuary and faking two other artifacts.

Experts called as witnesses have contradicted each others' testimony — with one going so far as to say she will leave the profession if the limestone ossuary is a fake and another saying the entire controversy may be the result of an over-zealous cleaning.

One German expert even alleges that the Israeli Antiquities Authority "recently contaminated" the most contentious part of the ossuary, its inscription, in such a way that earlier tests cannot be reproduced.

Through it all, the on-again off-again trial of Golan and two of his colleagues has exposed the seamy underbelly of trade in ancient artifacts — a world of deception, forgery and secret deals that Golan says is becoming even more secretive thanks to efforts to crack down on dealers.

That puts the archaeological heritage of the country at risk, he says, as artifacts are taken out of the country with little or no documentation of their origins rather than risk trouble with authorities.

"The less important (antiquities) are sold to tourists and the most important are taken out of Israel," Golan says in a telephone interview from his home in Tel Aviv, where he is under house arrest.

The exact origins of the ossuary are not known. Golan, one of the largest collectors in Israel, says he purchased it from an Arab antiquities dealer in the mid-1970s for a bout $200.

He was still in university at the time, studying industrial engineering. The ossuary spent the next 15 years in his parent's apartment, including a stint on the balcony. At one point, it may have even been used as a planter, though no one can remember for sure.

Golan then took it to his apartment for several years, before putting it in storage along with about 3,000 other items in his collection. Only the most beautiful of his antiquities are kept in his apartment, he says, and the plain box now known as the James Ossuary did not qualify.

It was not until a French scholar, André Lemaire, stumbled across it in Golan's storage shed in 2002 that Golan began to realize how significant it might be. Within months it was on display at the ROM, and within a year the subject of a police investigation.

Its route from tomb to trial is mapped by rumour, hearsay and speculation. Golan says the dealer he bought it from told him it came from Silwan, a village south of the Old City of Jerusalem. Others suggest it came from a tomb uncovered in the 1980s, or from one raided by thieves in June 2000.

The uncertainties of its origin, however, have only added to the intrigue and scientific debate over its authenticity.

At the centre of the debate is a report by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, a government body that stores and authenticates ancient objects for scholarly research, that declared in June 2003 that the ossuary was authentic, but that part of the inscription was forged.

Both the ossuary and the inscription, "James, son of Joseph," date to the time of Jesus, the authority declared. But the second part of the inscription, "brother of Jesus," was a modern forgery. A crude attempt to apply artificial patina under high temperatures was made to hide the forgery, the authority said.

"The patina was not created under natural conditions," report contributor Yuval Goren says in a telephone interview from Israel, where he is an archaeology professor at Tel Aviv University.

The report relies on what is known as an isotopic test, meant to compare the composition of patina on the ossuary to others of a similar age.

If the patina of two ossuaries are the same, they are about the same age. If the patina inside an inscription matches the patina outside, the inscription was made when the ossuary was new. Patina is a darkening that come with age.

The results, Goran says, show that the ossuary itself dates from the time of Jesus, but that parts of the inscription do not.

"The patina on the rest of the ossuary was created in normal cave conditions," he says, adding that the patina inside the inscriptions did not match that on the face of the ossuary.

That means the inscription was made later, with a fake patina added, possibly by dissolving in water patina taken from the rest of the ossuary and then spreading the resulting paste into the inscription and baking it on.

"I don't know about the motive and I don't know who did it," he says. "The bottom line is that the patina in the inscription is not natural."

His conclusions have come under severe attack, however, with the criticisms mounting since the Golan trial began last fall.

In one court exchange with Bringer, noted Israeli palaeographer Ada Yardeni said she would resign as an expert on ancient inscriptions if the ossuary is fake.

"Yes. I said that I would leave the profession," Yardeni said on cross-examination, confirming a story in Biblical Archaeology Review, the first publication to report news of the ossuary four years ago,

Making the criticisms all the more visceral is the questioning in archaeological circles about the use of isotopic tests themselves.

In a report that the review's editor Hershel Shanks called a "bombshell" in the Jerusalem Post last month, Wolfgang Krumbien articulated the growing concerns of many experts about the antiquities authority tests.

An internationally recognized expert on patina from the University of Oldenburg in Germany, Krumbien declared that the tests done by the authority were "irrelevant" and should never have been conducted.

Isotopic tests, he wrote in a report prepared for Golan's defence team, can only be used when on objects stored in ideal cave conditions and at steady temperatures.

But there is plenty of evidence that the James ossuary was not kept in such conditions. In fact, Krumbien found, it is likely that wherever the ossuary spent much of the past 2,000 years, there was either a flood or a cave-in of the wall of the tomb, which damaged the ossuary.

"The cave in which the James ossuary was placed, either collapsed centuries earlier, or alluvial deposits penetrated the chamber together with water and buried the ossuary, either completely or partially," he wrote.

As well, he wrote, he was able to find microscopic bits of patina within the inscription that matched the patina on the outside of the box, indicating that the lettering dated to the origins of the ossuary itself.

He attributed Goren's failure to find the patina to aggressive cleanings that removed almost all the patina from the lettering.

Goren declined to comment on the Krumbien report, saying he will do so when called to testify before the trial. He was not sure when that might be.

Ed Keall, a retired curator at the ROM responsible for the ossuary when it was in Toronto, says he saw the patina in the inscription by using powerful microscopes. He also saw evidence that the ossuary — pockmarked along its bottom edge — had been buried or immersed in water for extended periods.

"It's all eaten away, like a piece of cheese," says Keall, who remains optimistic that both the ossuary and the inscription date to Jesus' time.

"I have yet to be given any unequivocal evidence that it's false," he says.

He is quick to add, however, that the question of the ossuary's authenticity may never be settled, particularly since aggressive cleanings by antiquities dealers looking to boost the value by enhancing the inscription and by the antiquities authority have made it more difficult to find patina in the inscription.

Once the trial is over, however, Keall would like to see an open forum organized to discuss the ossuary and to debate the various opinions about its authenticity.

Shanks of the Biblical Archaeology Review is already working on pulling together such a forum, though he sees no need to wait until after the trial.

The problem, he says, is that Goren has said he won't discuss the matter until after he has testified, and Shanks says the forum can't be held without him — meaning the debate will just have to wait.

"It would be like staging Hamlet without Hamlet," Shanks says from his Washington office. "It can't be done."

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Israeli Occupation Government to Demolish the Islamic Relic of Al-Maghareba Gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque

Islamic relic to be demolished by Israeli Antiquities Authority


The Israeli Antiquities Authority has announced in a press release the plan for the demolition of the famous Al-Maghareba (Moroccan) Gate at the gate of the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem. Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has called the door “one of the most sensitive places in the world.” Indeed, the gate is a significant and symbolic place for the region’s Muslim community. The newspaper added that the Israeli Security Service, or Shin Bet, has been active in preventing the demolition of the door during the past few years, fearing the reaction of prominent Muslim leaders.

An Israeli source told Ha’aretz that the current Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip and the recent arrest of members of the Palestinian government is serving as a distraction for Palestinian Muslims, referring to the Palestinian Authority as “paralysed.” He added that the Antiquities Authority would be unable to resist such a timely opportunity.

The Israeli government decided in December 2005 to transfer responsibility for the area to the Western Wall Heritage Fund, an organization close to Israeli settlers in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

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Two years on, dangerous Temple Mount ramp will finally be removed

The Israel Antiquities Authority will begin removing the Mugrabi ramp in a few days, despite the fear of Muslim riots.

The ramp, which leads from the Western Wall plaza to one of the Temple Mount Gates, is located in one of the most sensitive places in the world, and plans to carry out excavations under it have therefore been held up by the Shin Bet security service and the prime minister's military secretary for the past two years, for fear of Muslim riots.

Archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov warned yesterday that any digging in the area could lead to bloodshed. "Digging in this place goes way beyond the archaeological sphere. This place is far too sensitive and the price would be much too high," he said.

However, a reliable source told Haaretz that "now that the Palestinian Authority is paralyzed and incapable of resisting, it's an excellent opportunity to carry out the plan."

The need to remove the ramp arose in February 2004, when one of its supporting walls collapsed into the West Wall plaza. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the city eng ineer said that the ramp was unstable and must be removed soon.

However, the prime minister's military secretary and Shin Bet representatives who attended discussions about the ramp objected to removing it. A source who attended these meetings told Haaretz that the former military secretary, Yoav Galant, wondered why the ramp needed to be removed.

Meanwhile, the cabinet decided in January 2005 to transfer responsibility for the Western Wall area to the Western Wall Heritage Fund, a group close to settlers' organizations that are active in East Jerusalem. The fund initiated a plan to replace the ramp with a bridge, to which the government contributed NIS 5 million.

However, the plan raised strong objections from senior Israeli archaeologists, who said that building the bridge would severely damage the important archaeological site south of the ramp.

The Mugrabi Gate serves non-Muslim visitors who enter the Temple Mount, as well as the security services, which use it to enter the Temple Mount during riots.

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Documentary sets new date for Exodus


A new documentary by a Canadian Jewish filmmaker argues that the Exodus did happen, but that it took place a couple of hundred years before the commonly-accepted time frame.

The Exodus Decoded, a two-hour documentary by award-winning Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, suggests that the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt as recounted in the Bible occurred around 1500 BCE, about 230 years before the date most commonly accepted by contemporary historians.

The 10 plagues that smote the Egyptians, according to the Bible, are explained in the documentary to be the result of a volcanic eruption on a Greek island that occurred 3,500 years ago.

The documentary, which is narrated by the director James Cameron (Titanic), identifies a 3,500-year-old gold image - found in a museum in Athens - as that of the lost Ark of the Covenant. It also cites a hieroglyphic inscription discovered in an Egyptian museum that attests to the Exodus.

The film also claims to reveal the "true location" of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments according to the Bible.

None of the relics - or arguments - cited in the made-for-TV, state-of-the-art film, which is the result of six years of research, has been accepted by archeologists or any prominent archeological institution as proof for Jacobovici's theory.

And Jacobovici, who has produced an array of documentaries over the last two decades on subjects ranging from suicide bombing in Israel to the ebola virus to the global sex trade, readily agrees that he is no archeologist. But he asserts that this makes him no less qualified to investigate historical facts.

"I bring with me the same skills you bring to any investigation, whether it is sex trafficking, politics, terror or the Biblical archeological story," said the two-time Emmy award-winner, denouncing "minimalists" who say that the Exodus - and the Bible - is a fantastic fairy tale.

"I think it is a mistake when you have a situation in archeology where some academics have set themselves up as some sort of priesthood between us and the Bible," he added.

Jacobovici set out on his Exodus quest after doing a documentary in the 1990s on a group of people on the Indian-Burma border who claim to be the lost Israelite tribe of Menashe. That film was met with widespread criticism by people Jacobovici branded as "so-called experts." Jacobovici said he himself was skeptical of the tribe's Israelite claims until he researched the subject.

Similarly with the new Exodus documentary, he asserted that with his hefty $3.5 million budget, a lack of preconceptions, and none of the restrictions of conventional archeological wisdom, he was free to reach what he insists are credible conclusions about the Exodus.

The 55-year-old director, whose original claim to fame was his first-ever documentary Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews, made two and half decades ago and which focused on Ethiopian Jewry, said his research for the lost tribes film spurred him to question the widely accepted assumptions about what he called "the founding story of Western civilization" - the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

Six years later, mixing science, religion and a variety of archeological findings, Jacobovici is convinced that he has seen the light. Most of the archeological findings cited come from Egypt, with others from Greece. He said he researched in six countries, including Israel and the UK.

The film, which was first broadcast in Canada in April, premieres Friday at the Jerusalem Film Festival. It will be shown in the US on August 20 on the History Channel.

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Excavating at Megiddo

Dig this tel

More than a hundred years ago, German archeologists began to excavate the remarkable tel (mound) of Megiddo. Since then, artifacts galore from 26 layers of civilization built on top of one another have been discovered. However, the site still has many untapped secrets waiting for a trowel or shovel to unearth and expose them to the light of the new millennium.

Scores of students from Israel and abroad, including archeology buffs of all ages, are hard at work hoping to discover the unknown as they participate in this season's dig on and around Tel Megiddo.

For 25 years a German team worked the site, mentioned in ancient Egyptian writings as Thutmose III - one of the mightiest kings of Egypt - waged war upon the city in 1478 BCE. The battle was described for posterity in hieroglyphic detail on the walls of his upper Egypt temple.

The Germans were followed by teams from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr., some of their finds ending up in the US.

In 1992 the first Megiddo expedition of the Institute of Archeology of Tel Aviv University took to the site, and the present dig is their eighth season since.

The site, a former haunt of King Solomon, was settled continuously for six millennia. It is also known as Armageddon and of great significance for Christians, who believe that this will be the location of the final battle between good and evil when Judgment Day comes.

Megiddo was a site of great strategic importance. The large mound overlooks an all-important artery to merchants and warriors of the past (and present) - the narrow pass leading between the Amir and Menashe mountain ranges.

In l918, British troops invaded the north of Palestine through the Megiddo Pass to free it from Turkish rule. The commander-in-chief of the British forces, field marshal Edmund Allenby, was later granted the title Lord Allenby of Megiddo. The present holder of the title - and patron of the Megiddo Expedition - is Viscount Michael Allenby, the grandnephew of the legendary British general.

Tel Megiddo is perched on a large hill hugging the lower slopes where the Menashe Hills peter off into the Jezreel Valley. Whoever sat on the prominent hill not only controlled the entrance to the narrow pass but was also afforded - this remains the case in present times - an uninterrupted view over a large portion of the valley below.

Known as the Via Maris (Way of the Sea) - nowadays Wadi Ara, Nahal Iron or Route 65 - the ancient pass winds its way, flanked by undulating hills, to the Mediterranean coastline. In years of yore, it would lead one all the way to Assyria in the opposite direction.

At present, the past fills every moment of the working day for British-born Israeli archeologist and coordinator of the Megiddo Expedition, Norma Franklin, as she oversees the smooth running of this season's 90-member team who hail from Finland, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Turkey, Australia, Canada and the US, as well as Israel.

"We have 18-year-old students and lovers of archeology working alongside people up to the age of 70. And this year, many have come for the whole seven weeks," Franklin told Metro.

There are also people working on the tel under the auspices of the National Parks Authority, among them Ethiopian olim and a group from the nearby village of Mukeiba, an Israeli Arab Muslim village sitting on the Green Line opposite Jenin in the Jezreel Valley. The village is clearly visible from the tel.

A film crew is trying to capture the beehive of activity, and a huge sound boom suddenly looms up from behind one of the areas of black plastic netting strung across poles that gives the workers some respite from the beating sun. Cameramen and assistants gingerly step over rocks as old as the Bible, careful not to fall into one of the deep pits under excavation or uncovered in previous expeditions.

A camera trains on Abed, a 40something from Mukeiba hunkered down in a corner, squatting precariously on his heels as he carefully brushes out dirt from between stones, totally immersed in the task of searching for the past - and quite oblivious to the camera capturing the moment for the future.

Just down the road at the Megiddo prison, another archeological dig is underway following the discovery last year - while surveying to extend the facility where more than 1,000 Palestinians are imprisoned - of a mosaic floor of a 3rd- or 4th-century CE church, the oldest one found to date in the Holy Land and a very important discovery.

From the main Wadi Ara road, one can see a portion inside the prison, which is also built on a hill. Clearly visible over the outer wall are the same black netting structures for shade as those spotted atop Tel Megiddo.

Closing in on another area covered in black netting, voices float up from deep in the earth. Stepping off the beaten track and into ankle-deep fine white dust, I discovered three North Americans in a large pit some five meters deep, surrounded by piles of buckets, shovels, brushes and trowels.

Lee Drake from Wyoming, Katherine Sirman from Ontario and Colby Bestten from Missouri have spent the past months rising at dawn and working on the tel until noon. The archeology students attend academic lectures in the evenings at base camp in Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet, earning credits toward their university studies back home.

This is Bestten's third consecutive summer working on an archeological site in Israel. For Drake who, apart from archeology is also majoring in statistics and biology, being able to participate in the Megiddo Expedition is the answer to a dream. "When I was a kid I read about Megiddo, and the site has fascinated me ever since," he explains.

Sirman is the only one of the threesome not studying archeology. Theater is her major, and she found out about the dig while surfing the Internet.

What have they discovered so far after digging for eight hours a day for a month? "Pieces of pottery and animal bones," enthuses Bestten.

The students continue with their back-breaking work, huffing and puffing to find the remains of a house that an earthquake or war had brought down.

"To work on the expedition is always exciting," says Franklin. "We are looking for the big picture about those who lived here, how the people lived, organized their economy - about those who came and went."

[Soldier4Christ]

King Solomon-era fortifications revealed in Israel excavation

More than 30 years have passed since a major expedition has attempted to reveal the history of Tel Gezer, the ancient city of King Solomon fame located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This summer the biblical site has been re-excavated by a joint expedition of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The expedition is led by co-directors Steven M. Ortiz of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Sam Wolff of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The project encompasses several consortium members: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Marian Eakins Archaeological Museum, Lycoming College, Lancaster Bible College and Grace Seminary. More than 60 students and staff members participated in the inaugural season this summer from June 4 through July 7. In addition, the excavations drew support from local residents of Kibbutz Gezer and Karmi Yosef.

Some secular archaeologists doubt the reality of many people and places named in the Bible, but the current work at the Tel Gezer location may prove useful in verifying various biblical accounts.

This year's excavations have revealed more than 40 meters of a massive fortification system associated with the six-chambered gate common in the building projects of King Solomon. Solomon’s extensive building projects are recorded in the biblical account of his activities throughout his kingdom and at his capital city of Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:15-17).

The Tel Gezer fortification systems were constructed in the typical fortress wall system consisting of two parallel walls with dividing walls interspersed about every five meters. Scholars are not sure of the function of this system. The rooms do not have doorways and therefore served as some type of basement storage system entered from above or were filled with soil and rubble as a less labor-intensive construction.

In addition to this large fortification system, two major destructions tentatively dated to the Egyptian pharaohs of Merneptah and Siamun were exposed. The famous Merneptah Stela (end of the 13th century B.C.), where the name Israel is first mentioned in ancient historical records outside the Bible, mentions a major campaign in ancient Palestine that included the destruction of Gezer. Siamun (mid-10th century B.C.) is identified by many scholars as the pharaoh who conquered Gezer and gave it as a dowry when his daughter married Solomon (1 Kings 9:15).

While the ancient site of Tel Gezer was extensively excavated by R.A.S. Macalister in the early 1900s and by Hebrew Union College in the 1960s and ’70s, many questions still remain concerning the nature of the city during the period of the United Monarchy of the Ancient Israelite Kingdom. The goals of the renewed excavations are to investigate the major fortification systems on the south edge of the site as well as excavate several cultural horizons in order to better understand the growth and development of the Iron Age city.

While parts of the large fortification system have been exposed by previous excavations, several new discoveries were obtained this season. The first was a major rebuilding of the part of the city near the fortification. Some time in the eighth century B.C. a large pillared building and a second unit consisting of several storage rooms were constructed directly abutting the 10th-century B.C. fortification. The pillared building was six and a half meters by four meters and the second unit of rooms covered an area seven meters in length.

The renewed excavations coincide with the celebration of the July 10 opening of the site by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority as a national park. While most of the preparation was carried out by the Israeli authority, it is part of the excavation project’s future goals to assist in the conservation of the site. Thus, participants of the Tel Gezer excavation assisted by clearing the years of overgrown brush that covered the Solomonic and Canaanite Gates.

The Tel Gezer project is a long-term initiative to investigate the growth and development of the ancient city of Gezer. In addition, it is a field school to train the next generation of students. Students participate in an intensive program of archaeological fieldwork with evening lectures and a study program where they travel throughout the various regions of Israel.

[Soldier4Christ]

Although the following timelines are debateable this still verifies the Biblical story of Joseph and the major drought that is told of during his life time.

______________________

Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says


The pharaohs of ancient Egypt owed their existence to prehistoric climate change in the eastern Sahara, according to an exhaustive study of archaeological data that bolsters this theory.

Starting at about 8500 B.C., researchers say, broad swaths of what are now Egypt, Chad, Libya, and Sudan experienced a "sudden onset of humid conditions."

For centuries the region supported savannahs full of wildlife, lush acacia forests, and areas so swampy they were uninhabitable.

During this time the prehistoric peoples of the eastern Sahara followed the rains to keep pace with the most hospitable ecosystems.

But around 5300 B.C. this climate-driven environmental abundance started to decline, and most humans began leaving the increasingly arid region.

"Around 5,500 to 6,000 years ago the Egyptian Sahara became so dry that nobody could survive there," said Stefan Kröpelin, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Cologne in Germany and study co-author.

Without rain, rivers, or the ephemeral desert streams known as waddis, vegetation became sparse, and people had to leave the desert or die, Kröpelin says.

Members of this skilled human population settled near the Nile River, giving rise to the first pharaonic cultures in Egypt (related feature: sample and download Egyptian music).

Gift of Pottery

The new study, which appears online today on the Science Express Web site, is based on painstaking research that combines new radiocarbon dating of about 500 artifacts from the region with data from past studies.

Kröpelin and study co-author Rudolph Kuper also collected geological climate data from countless ancient lakebeds, rain pools, and rivers.

Over the course of 30 years the researchers labored for months at a time in deserts where daytime temperatures sometimes topped 120° to 140°F (50° to 60°C).

The information collected allowed the scientists to piece together a picture of the ancient climate, environment, and migration of prehistoric peoples in the eastern Sahara over the past 12,000 years.

Among their findings, the researchers provide further evidence that the human exodus from the desert about 5,000 years ago is what laid the foundation for the first pharaohs' rule.

"Egypt is a gift of the Nile, as Herodotus said, as many people still think today," Kröpelin said, referring to the 5th-century B.C. Greek historian. "But at the same time also it is a gift of the desert."

"Without the tradition and the know-how and the knowledge of the desert, probably the Egyptian pharaonic civilization wouldn't have emerged as it did."

For example, pottery was first invented in Africa in the Egyptian Sahara at the same time, if not before, it was developed in the Middle East.

"[Pottery] is the first modern plastic, one of the most important inventions in human history," Kröpelin said.

The innovation provided the economic basis for the Neolithic revolution—a period of human cultural development about 5,200 to 4,500 years ago.

Pottery vessels enabled nomadic peoples to preserve and store food and thus settle down (photo: excavating ancient Egyptian pottery).

"It was really a very, very big step in human evolution, and this happened in the desert," Kröpelin said. "Only when the desert dried out, this condition was brought to the Nile Valley."

Adding Some Meat

In their study, Kröpelin and Kuper also describe how pastoral cultures moved along with the desert's southern march.

The ancient peoples' progress helped sow aspects of farming, particularly domestic animal herding, throughout Africa (explore an interactive atlas of the human journey out of Africa).

David Phillipson, a professor of African archaeology, directs the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in England.

The study "adds a great deal of meat and detail to something which has been envisaged for a little while," he said.

"And it's extremely useful to have this, because it enormously increases the amount of basic data on which the conclusions are drawn.

"As the Sahara dried and became less suited and eventually unsuited to habitation, people ultimately had to move out, whether it be southward or to the east into the Nile Valley," Phillipson said.

"And this [study] helps [us] to understand the apparent rather sudden development of intensive settlement by sophisticated societies in the Nile Valley 'round about five or six thousand years ago."

[Shammu]

Augustus' birthplace believed found

Wed Jul 19, 8:20 PM ET

ROME - A team of archaeologists announced Wednesday they have uncovered part of what they believe is the birthplace of Rome's first emperor Augustus.

Leading archaeologist Clementina Panella said the team has dug up part of a corridor and other fragments under Rome's Palatine Hill, which she described as "a very ancient aristocratic house."

Panella said that she could not yet be certain that the house was where Augustus was born in 63 B.C., but added that historical cross-checks and other findings nearby have showed that the emperor was particularly fond of the area, she said.

Excavations on the Palatine in recent decades have turned up wonders such as another renewed Augustus' house, including two rooms with stunning frescoes of masked figures and pine branches.

Panella said there are at least two houses on the Palatine where the emperor was known to have lived. Much has yet to be uncovered, hidden in underground passageways.

Augustus' birthplace believed found

[Shammu]

Ireland worker finds ancient psalms in bog

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 25, 8:46 PM ET

DUBLIN, Ireland - Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.

The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries.

"This is really a miracle find," said Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, which has the book stored in refrigeration and facing years of painstaking analysis before being put on public display.

"There's two sets of odds that make this discovery really way out. First of all, it's unlikely that something this fragile could survive buried in a bog at all, and then for it to be unearthed and spotted before it was destroyed is incalculably more amazing."

He said an engineer was digging up bogland last week to create commercial potting soil somewhere in Ireland's midlands when, "just beyond the bucket of his bulldozer, he spotted something." Wallace would not specify where the book was found because a team of archaeologists is still exploring the site.

"The owner of the bog has had dealings with us in past and is very much in favor of archaeological discovery and reporting it," Wallace said.

Crucially, he said, the bog owner covered up the book with damp soil. Had it been left exposed overnight, he said, "it could have dried out and just vanished, blown away."

The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.

Wallace said several experts spent Tuesday analyzing only that page — the number of letters on each line, lines on each page, size of page — and the book's binding and cover, which he described as "leather velum, very thick wallet in appearance."

It could take months of study, he said, just to identify the safest way to pry open the pages without damaging or destroying them. He ruled out the use of X-rays to investigate without moving the pages.

Ireland already has several other holy books from the early medieval period, including the ornately illustrated Book of Kells, which has been on display at Trinity College in Dublin since the 19th century.

Ireland worker finds ancient psalms in bog

[Soldier4Christ]

Southwesterners help with major archaeological dig at Tel Gezer

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s collaboration with four Southern Baptist seminaries in one archaeological dig is “historic,” according to Eric Mitchell, assistant professor of biblical backgrounds and archaeology at Southwestern Seminary.

Mitchell served as a field supervisor in excavations at Tel Gezer from June 4 to July 7 in conjunction with the seminary’s Bible Lands Study Program. This summer, the program emphasized archaeological field work at Tel Gezer, along with evening lectures from experts in the field of archaeology and weekend study-tours throughout the Bible Lands.

"We have never had four Southern Baptist Seminaries working together on a dig,” Mitchell said. “It was just an excellent experience, an excellent team.”

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary co-sponsored the site with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Southwestern, Golden Gate and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminaries are among the eight consortium schools involved with the Tel Gezer project.

Steve Ortiz of New Orleans Seminary, who co-directed the expedition with Sam Wolff of the Israel Antiquities Authority, agreed that it is “unusual” to have four of the six Southern Baptist Seminaries involved in one expedition.

“This just means that I have supportive colleagues in other seminaries who see the value of the Tel Gezer Excavation Project for students,” Ortiz said. However, Ortiz noted that “denominational affiliations” are not emphasized at Tel Gezer.

“The emphasis is … on the desire to participate in a field school that is excavating a major ancient biblical site,” he said.

Southwestern Seminary will co-sponsor the work at Tel Gezer in 2007, a shift that comes in conjunction with Ortiz’ move to Southwestern Seminary this fall. In August, Ortiz will begin his dual role as Southwestern Seminary’s associate professor of archaeology and biblical backgrounds and director of its Charles C. Tandy Archaeology Museum. He will also continue to co-direct the expedition at Tel Gezer.

According to Mitchell, Southwestern’s sponsorship of Tel Gezer will give the seminary the ability to lead in the study of biblical backgrounds and archaeology.

“Tel Gezer will give (the seminary) a site recognized by the Israel Antiquities Authority and most Israeli archaeologists as one of the top five archaeological sites in Israel,” he said. “The last major American dig at the site trained some 40 archaeologists who have led digs in the last 35-40 years. So there is a great tradition at the site.”

According to Mitchell, Gezer was inhabited as early as the Early Bronze Age, around 3,000 B.C. The ancient city was situated in the Aijalon Valley, which runs east to west from the hills west of Jerusalem to the Mediterranean coast.

“Joshua stood on the descent of Beth Horon – just northwest of Jerusalem – overlooking this valley when the Israelites conquered the Amorite kings,” Mitchell said, referring to Joshua 10:12-13. “Joshua said, ‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon … And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.’”

Under the leadership of Joshua, the Israelites attacked Gezer, but could not drive the people out of the city. According to Mitchell, the city was overrun several times during the period of the Judges, but it was not inhabited by the Israelites until the time of Solomon.

According to a July 18 Baptist Press report, this summer’s excavations uncovered “a massive fortification system associated with the six-chambered gate common in the building projects of King Solomon.”

It also revealed two layers of destruction in the ancient city, “tentatively dated” to the time of the pharaohs Merneptah and Siamun. The Merneptah Stela from the 13th century B.C. contains the earliest reference to Israel outside of scripture, along with a description of a “major campaign” in Palestine. Tel Gezer, the report notes, was destroyed during this campaign.

The BP report adds that many scholars identify Siamun as the pharoah who defeated the people of Gezer and gave the city as a dowry to his daughter when she married Solomon. According to 1 Kings 9, Solomon then fortified Gezer.

“I thought the site was very impressive,” said Joseph Cathey, archivist at Southwestern Seminary’s A.Webb Roberts Library and assistant square supervisor at Gezer. “I think that excavations opened a particular window on Solomonic Gezer, and I’m looking forward to next year seeing, I think, a better picture than what we even uncovered this year.”

Students who are interested in volunteering on the dig in 2007 can get more information at the project’s Web site, www.gezerproject.org.

[Soldier4Christ]

Solomon-era Fortifications Revealed in Israel Excavation

More than 30 years have passed since a major expedition has attempted to reveal the history of Tel Gezer, the ancient city of King Solomon fame located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Baptist Press reports that this summer the biblical site has been re-excavated by a joint expedition of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and the Israel Antiquities Authority. The expedition is led by co-directors Steven M. Ortiz of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Sam Wolff of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Some secular archaeologists doubt the reality of many people and places named in the Bible, but the current work at the Tel Gezer location may prove useful in verifying various biblical accounts. This year's excavations have revealed more than 40 meters of a massive fortification system associated with the six-chambered gate common in the building projects of King Solomon. Solomon’s extensive building projects are recorded in the biblical account of his activities throughout his kingdom and at his capital city of Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:15-17).

[Soldier4Christ]

Bone box on trial
James ossuary is at the centre of a Jerusalem court battle where the seamy side of the trade in ancient artifacts is exposed


In the city where Jesus preached and was killed 2,000 years ago, a controversy is building that could shake the foundations of the religion founded in his name.

The James ossuary, the purported burial box of Jesus' brother declared a fake by Israeli authorities three years ago, is at the centre of a Jerusalem court battle over alleged forging of antiquities.

The ossuary, with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," made a big splash when it was unveiled to the world nearly four years ago at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.

The trial, on hold for more than a month due to scheduling delays that plague the Israeli court system, resumes Tuesday with the testimony of Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel whose examinations of the ossuary helped lead to charges be laid.

With barely one-quarter of the prosecution's 124 witnesses called since the trial began last fall, and the defence team expected to call at least as many witnesses, the case is expect to take years to make its way through the court system.

"Trials in Israel are really something special," deadpans defence attorney Lior Bringer in a telephone interview from his office in Tel Aviv.

His client is Oded Golan, an antiquities collector charged with forging part of the inscription on the ossuary and faking two other artifacts.

Experts called as witnesses have contradicted each others' testimony — with one going so far as to say she will leave the profession if the limestone ossuary is a fake and another saying the entire controversy may be the result of an over-zealous cleaning.

One German expert even alleges that the Israeli Antiquities Authority "recently contaminated" the most contentious part of the ossuary, its inscription, in such a way that earlier tests cannot be reproduced.

Through it all, the on-again off-again trial of Golan and two of his colleagues has exposed the seamy underbelly of trade in ancient artifacts — a world of deception, forgery and secret deals that Golan says is becoming even more secretive thanks to efforts to crack down on dealers.

That puts the archaeological heritage of the country at risk, he says, as artifacts are taken out of the country with little or no documentation of their origins rather than risk trouble with authorities.

"The less important (antiquities) are sold to tourists and the most important are taken out of Israel," Golan says in a telephone interview from his home in Tel Aviv, where he is under house arrest.

The exact origins of the ossuary are not known. Golan, one of the largest collectors in Israel, says he purchased it from an Arab antiquities dealer in the mid-1970s for a bout $200.

He was still in university at the time, studying industrial engineering. The ossuary spent the next 15 years in his parent's apartment, including a stint on the balcony. At one point, it may have even been used as a planter, though no one can remember for sure.

Golan then took it to his apartment for several years, before putting it in storage along with about 3,000 other items in his collection. Only the most beautiful of his antiquities are kept in his apartment, he says, and the plain box now known as the James Ossuary did not qualify.

It was not until a French scholar, André Lemaire, stumbled across it in Golan's storage shed in 2002 that Golan began to realize how significant it might be. Within months it was on display at the ROM, and within a year the subject of a police investigation.

Its route from tomb to trial is mapped by rumour, hearsay and speculation. Golan says the dealer he bought it from told him it came from Silwan, a village south of the Old City of Jerusalem. Others suggest it came from a tomb uncovered in the 1980s, or from one raided by thieves in June 2000.

The uncertainties of its origin, however, have only added to the intrigue and scientific debate over its authenticity.

At the centre of the debate is a report by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, a government body that stores and authenticates ancient objects for scholarly research, that declared in June 2003 that the ossuary was authentic, but that part of the inscription was forged.

Both the ossuary and the inscription, "James, son of Joseph," date to the time of Jesus, the authority declared. But the second part of the inscription, "brother of Jesus," was a modern forgery. A crude attempt to apply artificial patina under high temperatures was made to hide the forgery, the authority said.

"The patina was not created under natural conditions," report contributor Yuval Goren says in a telephone interview from Israel, where he is an archaeology professor at Tel Aviv University.

The report relies on what is known as an isotopic test, meant to compare the composition of patina on the ossuary to others of a similar age.

If the patina of two ossuaries are the same, they are about the same age. If the patina inside an inscription matches the patina outside, the inscription was made when the ossuary was new. Patina is a darkening that come with age.

The results, Goran says, show that the ossuary itself dates from the time of Jesus, but that parts of the inscription do not.

"The patina on the rest of the ossuary was created in normal cave conditions," he says, adding that the patina inside the inscriptions did not match that on the face of the ossuary.

That means the inscription was made later, with a fake patina added, possibly by dissolving in water patina taken from the rest of the ossuary and then spreading the resulting paste into the inscription and baking it on.

"I don't know about the motive and I don't know who did it," he says. "The bottom line is that the patina in the inscription is not natural."

His conclusions have come under severe attack, however, with the criticisms mounting since the Golan trial began last fall.

In one court exchange with Bringer, noted Israeli palaeographer Ada Yardeni said she would resign as an expert on ancient inscriptions if the ossuary is fake.

"Yes. I said that I would leave the profession," Yardeni said on cross-examination, confirming a story in Biblical Archaeology Review, the first publication to report news of the ossuary four years ago,

Making the criticisms all the more visceral is the questioning in archaeological circles about the use of isotopic tests themselves.

In a report that the review's editor Hershel Shanks called a "bombshell" in the Jerusalem Post last month, Wolfgang Krumbien articulated the growing concerns of many experts about the antiquities authority tests.

An internationally recognized expert on patina from the University of Oldenburg in Germany, Krumbien declared that the tests done by the authority were "irrelevant" and should never have been conducted.

Isotopic tests, he wrote in a report prepared for Golan's defence team, can only be used when on objects stored in ideal cave conditions and at steady temperatures.

But there is plenty of evidence that the James ossuary was not kept in such conditions. In fact, Krumbien found, it is likely that wherever the ossuary spent much of the past 2,000 years, there was either a flood or a cave-in of the wall of the tomb, which damaged the ossuary.

"The cave in which the James ossuary was placed, either collapsed centuries earlier, or alluvial deposits penetrated the chamber together with water and buried the ossuary, either completely or partially," he wrote.

As well, he wrote, he was able to find microscopic bits of patina within the inscription that matched the patina on the outside of the box, indicating that the lettering dated to the origins of the ossuary itself.

He attributed Goren's failure to find the patina to aggressive cleanings that removed almost all the patina from the lettering.

Goren declined to comment on the Krumbien report, saying he will do so when called to testify before the trial. He was not sure when that might be.

Ed Keall, a retired curator at the ROM responsible for the ossuary when it was in Toronto, says he saw the patina in the inscription by using powerful microscopes. He also saw evidence that the ossuary — pockmarked along its bottom edge — had been buried or immersed in water for extended periods.

"It's all eaten away, like a piece of cheese," says Keall, who remains optimistic that both the ossuary and the inscription date to Jesus' time.

"I have yet to be given any unequivocal evidence that it's false," he says.

He is quick to add, however, that the question of the ossuary's authenticity may never be settled, particularly since aggressive cleanings by antiquities dealers looking to boost the value by enhancing the inscription and by the antiquities authority have made it more difficult to find patina in the inscription.

Once the trial is over, however, Keall would like to see an open forum organized to discuss the ossuary and to debate the various opinions about its authenticity.

Shanks of the Biblical Archaeology Review is already working on pulling together such a forum, though he sees no need to wait until after the trial.

The problem, he says, is that Goren has said he won't discuss the matter until after he has testified, and Shanks says the forum can't be held without him — meaning the debate will just have to wait.

"It would be like staging Hamlet without Hamlet," Shanks says from his Washington office. "It can't be done."