Recent Archaeological Finds

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Found at last: the world's oldest missing page

Fifth-century Christian text turns up under floor in Egypt, bringing early church martyrs to light

A year after the Romans packed up their shields in AD410 and left Britain to the mercy of the Anglo-Saxons, a scribe in Edessa, in what is modern day Turkey, was preparing a list of martyrs who had perished in defence of the relatively new Christian faith in Persia.

In a margin he dated the list November 411. Unfortunately for the martyrs, history forgot them. At some point, this page became detached from the book it belonged to. Since 1840, the volume has been one of the treasures of the British Library. It is known only by its catalogue code: ADD 12-150

The missing page has always been a fascinating mystery for scholars and historians. Now, after an extraordinary piece of detective work, that page has been rediscovered among ancient fragments in the Deir al-Surian monastery in Egypt. It is, according to Oxford University's Dr Sebastian Brock, the leading Syriac scholar who identified the fragments, the oldest dated Christian text in existence.

"It is a list of martyrs and it must have been added to the main book at the last minute," he said. "There were three fragments from the last page. It was a distinctive handwriting, and it was very exciting to identify it. It is very important to complete the book. Many of the names on this list we have not come across before. So it gives us a lot of clues about that half of that century. Rome at the time was officially Christian, so the rival Persians would have persecuted Christians."

The fragments were among hundreds discovered beneath a floor in the Deir al-Surian, which is itself a treasure trove of ancient books. Dr Brock and his colleague, Dr Lucas Van Rompay of Duke University in North Carolina, are now working on the first catalogue of the many manuscripts that are more than 1,000 years old.

Elizabeth Sobczynski, founder of the Levantine Foundation, which supports the conservation of the mon-astery's manuscripts, is raising money to build a state-of-the-art library to preserve the remaining ancient books. "I found four fragments, and joined three of them together," she said. "These fragments survived for so many centuries, which is amazing .... They could so easily have been swept away."

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A Lead on the Ark of the Covenant?

When last we saw the lost Ark of the Covenant in action, it had been dug up by Indiana Jones in Egypt and ark-napped by Nazis, whom the Ark proceeded to incinerate amidst a tempest of terrifying apparitions. But according to Tudor Parfitt, a real life scholar-adventurer, Raiders of the Lost Ark had it wrong, and the Ark is actually nowhere near Egypt. In fact, Parfitt claims he has traced it (or a replacement container for the original Ark), to a dusty bottom shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe.

As Indiana Jones's creators understood, the Ark is one of the Bible's holiest objects, and also one of its most maddening McGuffins. A wooden box, roughly 4 ft. x 2 ft. x 2.5 ft., perhaps gold-plated and carried on poles inserted into rings, it appears in the Good Book variously as the container for the Ten Commandments (Exodus 25:16: "and thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee"); the very locus of God's earthly presence; and as a divine flamethrower that burns obstacles and also crisps some careless Israelites. It is too holy to be placed on the ground or touched by any but the elect. It circles Jericho behind the trumpets to bring the walls tumbling down. The Bible last places the Ark in Solomon's temple, which Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC. Scholars debate its current locale (if any): under the Sphinx? Beneath Jerusalem's Temple Mount (or, to Muslims, the Noble Sanctuary)? In France? Near London's Temple tube station?

Parfitt, 63, is a professor at the University of London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. His new book, The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark (HarperOne) along with a History Channel special scheduled for March 2 would appear to risk a fine academic reputation on what might be called a shaggy Ark story. But the professor has been right before, and his Ark fixation stems from his greatest coup. In the 1980s Parfitt lived with a Southern African clan called the Lemba, who claimed to be a lost tribe of Israel. Colleagues laughed at him for backing the claim; in 1999, a genetic marker specific to descendents of Judaism's Temple priests (cohens) was found to appear as frequently among the Lemba's priestly cast as in Jews named Cohen. The Lemba — and Parfitt — made global news.

Parfitt started wondering about another aspect of the Lemba's now-credible oral history: a drumlike object called the ngoma lungundu. The ngoma, according to the Lemba, was near-divine, used to store ritual objects, and borne on poles inserted into rings. It was too holy to touch the ground or to be touched by non-priests, and it emitted a "Fire of God" that killed enemies and, occasionally, Lemba. A Lemba elder told Parfitt, "[It] came from the temple in Jerusalem. We carried it down here through Africa."

That story, by Parfitt's estimation, is partly true, partly not. He is not at all sure, and has no way of really knowing, whether the Lemba's ancestors left Jerusalem simultaneously with the Ark (assuming, of course, that it left at all). However, he has a theory as to where they might eventually have converged. Lemba myth venerates a city called Senna. In modern-day Yemen, in an area with people genetically linked to the Lemba, Parfitt found a ghost town by that name. It's possible that the Lemba could have migrated there from Jerusalem by a spice route — and from Senna, via a nearby port, they could have launched the long sail down the African coast. As for the Ark? Before Islam, Arabia contained many Jewish-controlled oases, and in the 500s AD, the period's only Jewish kingdom. It abutted Senna. In any case, the area might have beckoned to exiled Jews bearing a special burden. Parfitt also found eighth-century accounts of the Ark in Arabia, by Jews-turned-Muslims. He posits that at some undefined point the Lemba became the caretakers of the Ark, or the ngoma.

Parfitt's final hunt for the ngoma, which dropped from sight in the 1940s, landed him in sometimes-hostile territory ("Bullets shattered the rear screen," of his car, he writes). Ark leads had guided him to Egypt, Ethiopia and even New Guinea, until one day last fall his clues led him to a storeroom of the Harare Museum of Human Science in Zimbabwe. There, amidst nesting mice, was an old drum with an uncharacteristic burnt-black bottom hole ("As if it had been used like a cannon," Parfitt notes), the remains of carrying rings on its corners; and a raised relief of crossed reeds that Parfitt thinks reflects an Old Testament detail. "I felt a shiver go down my spine," he writes.

Parfitt thinks that whatever the supernatural character of Ark, it was, like the ngoma, a combination of reliquary, drum and primitive weapon, fueled with a somewhat unpredictable proto-gunpowder. That would explain the unintentional conflagrations. The drum element is the biggest stretch, since scripture never straightforwardly describes the Ark that way. He bases his supposition on the Ark's frequent association with trumpets, and on aspects of a Bible passage where King David dances in its presence. Parfitt admits that such a multipurpose object would be "very bizarre" in either culture, but insists, "that's an argument for a connection between them."

So, had he found the Ark? Yes and no, he concluded. A splinter has carbon-dated the drum to 1350 AD — ancient for an African wood artifact, but 2,500 years after Moses. Undaunted, Parfitt asserts that "this is the Ark referred to in Lemba tradition" — Lemba legend has it that the original ngoma destroyed itself some 400 years ago and had to be rebuilt on its own "ruins" — "constructed by priests to replace the previous Ark. There can be little doubt that what I found is the last thing on earth in direct descent from the Ark of Moses."

Well, perhaps a little doubt. "It seems highly unlikely to me," says Shimon Gibson, a noted biblical archaeologist to whom Parfitt has described his project. "You have to make tremendous leaps." Those who hope to find the original biblical item, moreover, will likely reject Parfitt's claim that the best we can do is an understudy. Animating all searches for the Ark is the hope — and fear — that it will retain the unbridled divine power the Old Testament describes. What would such a wonder look like in our postmodern world? What might it do? Parfitt's passionately crafted new theory, like his first, could eventually be proven right. But if so, unlike the fiction in the movies, it would deny us an explosive resolution.

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Jerablus and the land of Carchemish

Biblical sites were highly sought after by some of our earliest and greatest archaeologists. One such site, Carchemish, was the famed city of the Hittite Empire. It attracted the attention of T.E. Lawrence and Woolley, pioneers of British Near Eastern Archaeology, who excavated there just before the First World War. Then came the crashing calamity of the Great War, and after it came new political borders...

Carchemish then found itself on the border between Syria and Turkey, which rendered the site inaccessible for further investigation. The region soon fell into neglect for some 70 years. All changed in the late 1980s when the construction of dams along the Euphrates River brought archaeologists back in major local and international rescue projects. But what have the archaeologists found? Edgar Peltenburg and T.J. Wilkinson were among the archaeologists to return. Here they tell of mega-floods linked to climate change, of champagne cup graves and of the changing fortunes of the land of Carchemish.

When we arrived in the land of Carchemish we arrived with a sense of great urgency. Dams were being built and the land was to be flooded. We needed to rescue excavate and we needed to survey. This is a key area of the Ancient Near East since Carchemish was the Hittite Empire’s capital of its Syrian provinces, and thereafter the centre of a paramount kingdom with lively relief sculptures and inscriptions lining processional ways from the Euphrates to the Inner City and Acropolis.

We were coming in the footsteps of T.E. Lawrence and Woolley. While Lawrence is best known for being Lawrence of Arabia, Sir Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) is considered to be one of the first 'modern' archaeologists. Thus, while at Carchemish he determined to set the city in a wider context and began exploring throughout the area, albeit in an unsystematic way.

For our landscape survey, we wanted to get a long-term history of settlement and landscape from the earliest prehistoric settlement of the 'agricultural revolution' through to the expansive growth of population that coincided with the incorporation of the area into the territorial empires of the Assyrians, Seleucids, Romans and Byzantines. Since Woolley's day, the nature of archaeological surveys has changed: they are now more systematic and can give a more rigorous view of patterns of settlement to show how cities, towns and villages expand and decline over the centuries. They have also benefited from developments in satellite imagery and GIS.

However, we have new challenges: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, archaeologists  witnessed a landscape that was much less inhabited than that of today, making survey far easier. Moreover, with the current huge investments in dams, earth-moving machines and industrialised agriculture, the landscape is being transformed to such a degree that we are rapidly losing the archaeological record. Modern surveys are therefore trying to record as much as possible of the archaeological record before it is lost for ever. Such work is therefore more pressing than ever before.

Carchemish and Jerablus


In addition to our landscape survey, we focussed on the tell site of Jerablus Tahtani at the north of the flood zone and adjacent to the British Museum-sponsored work at Carchemish. Carchemish and Jerablus Tahtani are tell sites. Tells are the emblematic sites of the Near East, the multi-period layer-cake mounds that accumulated as a result of the superimposition of occupational strata. However, though the history of tell development is frequently taken for granted, careful surveys demonstrate that their history varies in different parts of the Near East. Thus, over much of the Levant, tells were occupied for great lengths of time - in  some cases from the Neolithic until the Byzantine or Islamic periods. Further east though, in the semi-arid steppe between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, tell development usually finished at some time during the 2nd millennium BC. The area around Carchemish, situated between the Levant to the west and the Jazira to the east, could belong to either tradition.

Through our survey, wediscovered that in this area, tells began to appear following the Neolithic when agricultural settlements developed on the Euphrates River terraces as well as on hill tops (starting from around the 8th-7th millennia). By the important Uruk period (4th millennium BC) tells were, literally, beginning to grow up. This is not surprising: the Uruk period is synonymous with the growth of early civilisation. Its name comes from the eponymous southern Mesopotamian city most closely identified with the invention of writing and other characteristics of Sumerian civilisation. When working at Carchemish, despite the appeal of the tell's later occupation - including a series of stunning sculptures dating from the 8th century BC - Lawrence and Woolley had also uncovered tantalising finds from this Uruk period. The finds came from deep inside the site’s acropolis mound and included Uruk pottery with its early Sumerian connections; but at that time little could be stated about its significance. In post-Uruk levels, they also found a number of richer 'champagne graves', named after the abundance of tall stemmed cups found within metal-rich cist graves. These graves revealed something of the site’s earlier importance, but again little was known of the period at that time. It was thus with great excitement that in our preliminary survey of the 3ha mound of Tell Jerablus Tahtani we found not only Uruk sherds littering the mound but also fragments of the enigmatic champagne cups. We were poised to add information about these ill-defined early periods, and to provide new insights on Carchemish itself. With the support of the Council for British Research in the Levant and other agencies, including the British Museum where some of the earlier Carchemish discoveries are kept, we embarked on rescue excavations at Jerablus Tahtani in autumn of 1991.

 
Digging deeper at Jerablus Tahtani

We identified five major periods of occupation, from pre-Uruk times in the mid 4th millennium BC when local peoples founded a settlement on a low Pleistocene terrace beside the Euphrates, up to the 12th century AD when a grand building was placed on the top of a mound that then stood some 16m above the flood plain. From the earliest levels we discovered that the first inhabitants did not settle just in the area that would become the tell of Jerablus Tahtani. Rather they were also based on the active floodplain immediately beside the Euphrates, one of the world's formidable high-energy rivers, presumably for direct access to riverine trade and communications. This lower settlement, which has been granted the title of ‘lower town’, was occupied for part of the 4th millennium BC, and apparently the very beginning of the 3rd millennium. It appears to have taken the form of a straggle of pits, middens (waste dumps), and other functional areas to the west and north of the mound Soon after the site was settled, a number of new features more at home in southern Mesopotamia some 900km downstream began to appear in the settlement. These include changes in agriculture, stone bowl-making, metalworking, architecture with highly distinctive multicoloured bricks, and especially in the pottery repertoire with shapes indicating new methods of transport, storage, cuisine, and beliefs.

This pottery includes the proliferation of coarse bowls, many of which were found in dense scatters just like Woolley had observed at Carchemish. Hundreds of these have viscous black bitumen adhering to their sides and rims. Inhabitants were apparently engaged in processing this material which is known to be used for caulking boats. According to chemical analyses, it was brought to Jerablus Tahtani from as far away as southern Iran. Sealings, such as one bearing an impression of spirals, are another new feature suggestive of the administration of commodities.

Debate continues about the meaning of these intrusive features that occur widely along the great bend of the Euphrates. Who left them? Some say they point to the establishment of new colonies and enclaves in order to procure desirable raw materials lacking in the lowlands. They are therefore referred to as 'Uruk', after the great city in the south. Other researchers suggest the situation was more mixed, with southerners having to accommodate to developed political and economic infrastructures in the highland zone, and indigenous peoples adopting Uruk features.

The changes we noted at Jerablus Tahtani were abrupt but there was no destruction separating indigenous deposits from the overlying Uruk deposits. So how to explain this? One possibility is that Jerablus Tahtani was a small outpost of Carchemish, located where there was easier access to the river. After the Uruk phase, Jerablus Tahtani’s open settlement still retained long-distance contacts. For example, the link with South West Iran, and its great cities, may have continued since one sealing on a jar is closely similar to another from Susa in Iran.

cont'd

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However, during the early 3rd millennium BC, the outer ‘lower town’ then disappeared, and settlement was confined within the walls of the site itself. This settlement 'implosion' is known at a number of other Near Eastern sites, notably Tell Brak. This time, for Jerablus Tahtani, the change was not a peaceful process since the village was destroyed and a compact but massively walled fort was erected over its ruins.

Fortresses and walls

The fort had a stone-based defensive wall enclosing an area of about 300 m2. It still survives some 3m in height. It perched on a 7m high mound, so it was an imposing brilliant white-plastered monument in the midst of the flat green valley beside the dark blue of the Euphrates. Abutting the interior were well-preserved rooms with buttressed walls, hearths, pot stands, plastered bins and stone paved entrances with stairs leading out to passages that sloped up to the unexcavated central core of monument. These are overtly domestic, rather than military, arrangements.

The whole fort was a pre-planned edifice that probably involved master engineers. Sloping down from the centre of the fort beneath passageways was a large, carefully built main drain. Its exit through the stone base of the fort wall was built as an integral component of the wall, so the entire arrangement of houses and communications inside the fort, together with its defensive wall, must have been conceived as an integrated unit. The unified concept demanded forward planning and a well-organised administration capable of mobilising considerable labour, one that was probably beyond the unaided resources of the previous inhabitants. Who then was responsible?

The most likely author of such concerted intervention was Carchemish, a city that is unlikely to have countenanced an independent, heavily fortified site on its doorstep. But who was it defending against? Walled towns and forts proliferated up and down the Euphrates, and although Jerablus Tahtani's walls are a little earlier than most, it would seem that ompetition within an increasing population played a part. Yet there was enough land available for agriculture. Territorial disputes, if they existed, must have been for different reasons than for arable.

One source of friction may have been prized access to riverine traffic. Another concerns the role of pastoral nomads, that is mobile tribal groups usually affiliated to valley settlers. Pastoralists are traditionally associated with this area, and with their immense flocks all targeting the valley at the same time after the barley harvest, tribal gatherings would have considerably swelled the population.

A time of territorial states

Soon after the fort was built it was decided to surround the hitherto free-standing wall with a massive 12m wide rampart or glacis (see plan). Since it blocked the mouth of the drain, a new drainage system had to be created. The whole interior of the fort was artificially raised with a fill some 2m thick over the first rooms. New buildings and rooms were then placed on the fill, and they in turn were levelled for installing ever higher structures. As a result, the raised fort now became a towering landmark in the valley.

When we know most about the fort, in its later stages, its interior was divided into official and industrial sectors. The official sector contained granaries. Barley was fed into rectangular silos along angled shoots cut through their walls. Lacking entrances, access into these silos was through the roof, as shown in granaries on seals from Mesopotamia.

In the manufacturing sector, concentrations of bobbins attest to textile working, crucibles and moulds to metalworking, and numerous querns, rubbers, pestles and spreads of charred grain to large-scale crop processing. The fort was situated in the highly fertile floodplain so it is not surprising that it became an agricultural focus. One of the seal impressions found at the site has a lozenge design almost identical with well known examples from Ebla at the time when that royal city claimed control of Carchemish. Around 2500 BC, cities like Ebla and Mari began to dominate large areas by diplomacy and warfare. Regional states emerged in Syria. It was a time of major political, social and economic change characterised by intensification of production as more attached specialists were needed to implement the legitimacy of these dynamic new states. Textiles and metal became especially important since the Ebla texts show that kings deployed them in quantity for diplomatic initiatives and expanding armies. The small site of Jerablus Tahtani was not immune from these inter-regional developments and the introduction of a manufacturing zone is probably best understood in terms of macro-political developments.

Deceased workers of the fort were now buried under floors and in abandoned passageways between houses. A variety of burial types existed: single and multiple inhumations in pots, cists, pits and chambers. Many are reburials but we have no idea where the initial burials were placed. Adults were accompanied by quantities of mass-produced pottery, necklaces and metalwork, and if these goods are a reflection of lifestyles, such workers had access to varied material possessions. In death, they were clothed in the manner of courtesans, with bead-festooned crossed pins that fastened cloaks, as depicted on shell inlays from the great city of Mari lower down the Euphrates. However, these burial practices did not prepare us for the grandeur of a communal tomb outside the gate of the fort.

 
cont'd

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Grand tomb discovered

The discovery of one of the largest tombs of 3rd millennium Syria at Jerablus Tahtani was surprising since the site was not a great urban centre but a small fort. It raises many questions about how we interpret the social and political roles of small sites at a time of state formation.

Situated beside a road and staircase leading into the fort, the monumental Tomb 302 consisted of a two-roomed rectangular stone structure covered by a mound c.15m by 7m and 2.4m high. This tumulus contained over 30 adults and children buried with approximately 100 tall pedestalled cups exactly like the 'champagne cups' Woolley found at Carchemish. As shown on a plaque from Mari, they are ornate ceremonial vessels probably used in mortuary feasts. Ancient looters had overlooked pieces of gold, silver, rock crystal, ostrich egg shell, and ivory dagger pommels in crevices between the corbel-walled sides. In a final stage of remembrance, Tomb 302 became a memorial where offerings were made to the ancestors. On the fill that concealed the numerous bodies below mourners or worshippers had placed shaft-hole axes like those known from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, poker-butted spearheads, thin-bladed daggers, terracotta bull figurines, juglets laid in 'frying pans' and hundreds of bowls. Some 100 years separated the two phases of use of the monument, during which time satellite burials in jars were placed around it. Rarely do archaeologists find such dedications clearly distinguished from the burials themselves.
Climate change and mega-floods

Much debate exists about world-wide climate change in the later 3rd millennium BC, one that may have led to aridification in the east of Syria. In the west, the Euphrates regime had become more unstable even before that date, exacerbated by soil erosion caused by over-exploitation of the land. The results in the valley bottom around Jerablus Tahtani were devastating. We found evidence in the much refurbished mound of Tomb 302 for exceptionally high and recurrent Euphrates flood waters. When the mound was damaged, caretakers patched it up again, giving us a precious record of inundations. Because of the height of these Euphrates intrusions in the mound, we know that flood waters must have washed several metres over the adjacent fields. Since floods most likely occurred during spring snow melts just before harvest, they must have devastated surrounding crops and perhaps rendered the site uninhabitable.

In any case, the fort was suddenly abandoned about 2300 BC, and Jerablus Tahtani lay deserted for some 1700 years. Perhaps the fort's inhabitants moved to better protected Carchemish, so helping to lay the very foundations of its greatness. If this was part of a more general pattern, we may infer that Carchemish expanded appreciably at the end of the 3rd millennium. Thereafter, Carchemish grew in importance, becoming one of the most vital centres in the Hittite Empire, and reaching its apogee around the 9th century BC. However, when Carchemish was ttacked and fell in the 7th century BC, Jerablus Tahtani was once again fitfully re-occupied for
more than a millennium.

 
Changes in the landof Carchemish

After the initial abandonment of Jerablus Tahtani at around 2300 BC, other tells in the area continued to be occupied into the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. At such sites it appears that the nucleated and apparently walled settlement mound remained as the main focus of occupation and daily life. However, the role of the tell appears to have diminished significantly during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, and by the time the Seleucids were in power (from the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest) the countryside underwent a progressive transformation.

Gradually tells were abandoned, to be replaced by lower towns, as well as the dispersal of small settlements and farmsteads across the landscape. At the same time building works including stone-lined water channels, large earthen canals, quarries, and roads also appeared in the landscape beyond the settlements. During the period of these later empires, when the administration of the area changed towards more remote administration from imperial capitals, it is likely that the rights to hold lands were fundamentally changed or re-negotiated. As a result, the countryside itself became more populated and 'busy' with a wide range of activities reflecting the new administrative order.

Overall, some of these changes must relate to the differing administrative role of Carchemish itself, thus despite its current isolation within the nomans- land along the Syrian-Turkish border, it is possible to infer the history of the site from the halo of activity around it.

Today, much of this landscape has been lost beneath the dam waters, but Tell Jerablus Tahtani has been spared. It stands precariously at the northern edge of the lake and, barring unpredictable high water rises, should remain, as Woolley described it in 1921 as the little tell... on the river front...

How grateful we are to this little tell for revealing its secrets to us.

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City of David Dig Reveals Information on Ancient Postal System

Artifacts from City of David excavations in Jerusalem reveal an interesting tidbit of information about the ancient postal system in Israel.

In an archaeological excavation being carried out at the “Spring House,” near the Gihon Spring in the City of David – in the valley east of Jerusalem’s Old City, soil was excavated which contained pottery shards that date to the Iron Age 2 (eighth century BCE).

“Whereas during the ninth century BCE, letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the eighth century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals,” concluded the Antiquities Authority.

Wet sifting and sorting through the soil revealed three fragments of clay stamps used to seal letters or goods in ancient times. Two more stone seals were recently found as well. All of the objects bear Hebrew names and all date to the eighth century BCE.

Among them is a seal that was discovered intact, bearing the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem”, who lived in the City of David in Jerusalem during this period. The seals were primarily used by public officials, according to Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who oversee the dig.

“In contrast with the large cluster of bullae (seals) that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the ninth-beginning of the eighth century BCE), the new items indicate that during the eighth century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their own names to them.”

The Israel Antiquities Authority, together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association, discovered the seals during ongoing intensive excavations being carried out on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem.

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Closer and Closer

 Building Remains From The Time Of The First Temple Were Exposed West Of The Temple Mount

A rich layer of finds from the latter part of the First Temple period (8th-6th centuries BCE) was recently discovered in archaeological salvage excavations that are being carried out in the northwestern part of the Western Wall plaza, c. 100 meters west of the Temple Mount.

In the excavations, which the Israel Antiquties Authority has been conducting for the past two years under the direction of archaeologists Shlomit Wexler-Bdoulah and Alexander Onn, in cooperation with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, remains of a magnificent colonnaded street from the Late Roman period (2nd century CE) were uncovered that appears on the mosaic Madaba map and is referred to by the name – the Eastern Cardo. The level of the Eastern Cardo is paved with large heavy limestone pavers that were set directly on top of the layer that dates to the end of the First Temple period. Thus the Roman road “seals” beneath it the finds from the First Temple period and has protected them from being plundered in later periods.

This is actually the first time in the history of the archaeological research of Jerusalem that building remains from the First Temple period were exposed so close to the Temple Mount – on the eastern slopes of the Upper City. The walls of the buildings are preserved to a height of more than 2 meters.

 Another impressive artifact that was found in the salvage excavations is a personal Hebrew seal made of a semi-precious stone that was apparently inlaid in a ring. The scarab-like seal is elliptical and measures c. 1.1 cm x 1.4 cm. The surface of the seal is divided into three strips separated by a double line: in the upper strip is a chain decoration in which there are four pomegranates and in the two bottom strips is the name of the owner of the seal, engraved in ancient Hebrew script. It reads: לנתניהו בן יאש ([belonging] to Netanyahu ben Yaush).
The two names are known in the treasury of biblical names: the name נתניהו (Netanyahu) is mentioned a number of times in the Bible (in the Book of Jeremiah and in Chronicles) and the name יאש (Yaush) appears in the Lachish letters. The name Yaush, like the name יאשיהו (Yoshiyahu) is, in the opinion of Professor Shmuel Ahituv, derived from the root או"ש which means “he gave a present” (based on Arabic and Ugaritic). It is customary to assume that the owners of personal seals were people that held senior governmental positions.
It should nevertheless be emphasized that this combination of names - נתניהו בן יאוש (Netanyahu ben Yaush) – was unknown until now.

In addition to the personal seal, a vast amount of pottery vessels was discovered, among them three jar handles that bear LMLK stamped impressions. An inscription written in ancient Hebrew script is preserved on one these impressions and it reads: למלך חברון ([belonging] to the king of Hebron).
These finds, as well as the numerous fertility and animal figurines, are characteristic of the Kingdom of Judah in the latter part of the First Temple period – the end of the 8th century BCE to the destruction of the Temple in the year 586 BCE.

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Rare silver coin found in excavations in Jerusalem

A silver coin that was used to pay the half-shekel head tax to the Temple was found in what was the main drainage channel of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period.

This coming Thursday, before reading the Scroll of Esther, all devout Jews will contribute a sum of money, “a reminder of the half shekel” which was paid by every household in ancient times for the purpose of maintaining the Temple. Today, this sum is translated into local currency and donated to the needy.

A rare ancient silver coin, of the type used to pay the half-shekel tax in ancient times, was recently discovered in an archaeological excavation that is being conducted in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park near the City of David, in what was the main drainage channel of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.

The excavations, directed by Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, are being conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Nature and Parks Authority and the Ir David Foundation.

Archaeologist Eli Shukron surmises, “Just like today, when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of the street, that’s how it was some two thousand years ago – a man was on his way to the Temple, and the coin which he intended to use for paying the half-shekel head tax found its way into the drainage channel.”

The origin of the commandment to pay the half-shekel head tax to the Temple is in the weekly Biblical reading “Ki Tisa”, in the Book of Exodus: “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his soul to the Lord when you number them … half a shekel … the rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less…  you shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the Tent of Meeting; that it may bring the people of Israel to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for your souls.”

At the time of the Temple’s construction, every Jew was commanded to make an obligatory donation of a half shekel to the edifice. This modest sum allowed all Jews, of all economic levels, to participate in the building of the Temple. After the construction was completed, they continued to collect the tax from every Jew for the purpose of purchasing the public sacrifices and other needs of the Temple. The collection began every year on the first day of the month of Adar when the “heralding of the shekelim” took place, and it ended on the first day of the month of Nissan, the beginning of the new fiscal year for the Temple, when the purchase of public sacrifices was renewed.

It was most likely a shekel of Tyre that Jesus and Peter used to pay the Temple head tax (a half shekel each): "Go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money. That take, and give unto them for me and thee" (Matthew 17:27). Moreover, Tyrian silver coins probably comprised the infamous payment to Judas Iscariot, when "they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver" (Matthew 26:15).

The annual half-shekel head tax was given in shekel and half shekel coins from the Tyre mint, where they were struck from the year 125 BCE until the outbreak of the Great Revolt in 66 CE. At the time of the uprising, the tax was paid using Jerusalem shekelim, which were specifically minted for this purpose. In the rabbinic sources, the Tosefta (Ketubot 13:20) states “Silver mentioned in the Pentateuch is always Tyrian silver: What is Tyrian silver? It is Jerusalemite.” Many have interpreted this to mean that only Tyrian shekels could be used to pay the half-shekel head tax at the Temple.

The shekel that was found in the excavation weighs 13 grams, bears the head of Melqart, the chief deity of the city of Tyre on the obverse (equivalent to the Semitic god Baal) and an eagle upon a ship’s prow on the reverse. The coin was minted in the year 22 CE.

Despite the importance of the half-shekel head tax for the economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, only seven other Tyrian shekels and half shekels have previously been found in excavations in Jerusalem.

[nChrist]

Hello Pastor Roger,

Brother, it still seems that the importance and frequency of discoveries are escalating. It brings up the question about why they aren't getting the attention that they deserve. We could think about the amount of attention shown to objects associated with the Egyptian Pyramids. However, they would fall into the category of other religions and false gods with a little "g".

Now we have a mountain of evidence that relates to the ONE TRUE GOD AND HIS WORD - The Holy Bible. I know that the evidence is just as interesting, and the existence of THE REAL GOD is much more important than the false gods of ancient Egypt. I would happily pay top dollar to see a series of documentaries about THE TRUE GOD AND HIS WORD. However, we live in a day and age where made up con games like Al Gore's Global Warming receive the awards and attention. The contrast is mind-boggling.

We could think about the countless hours of so-called educational television devoted to the theory of evolution and wonder why ALMIGHTY GOD wasn't given at least equal time.  Instead, the theory of evolution was viewed as worthy science, and the TRUTH OF ALMIGHTY GOD was dismissed as insignificant. The real difference is that one relates to the vanity of man and the other relates to the GLORY OF GOD and HIS TRUTH.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable GIFT, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour Forever!

[Shammu]

Here is a picture of the "half shekel”, front image here Here is the back side of "half shekel”

[nChrist]

Here is a picture of the "half shekel”, front image here Here is the back side of "half shekel”

Thanks! I was really surprised with the beauty and detail. I would be interested to know how many people around the world are influenced by these discoveries. I know that they strengthen many Christians, but I was mainly thinking about the lost. ALL of the tiny pieces of the puzzle fit the Bible perfectly.

[Soldier4Christ]

New Babylonian town found

Iraqi archaeologists have discovered a new Babylonian town 180 kilometers south of Baghdad.

The head archaeologist Mohammed Yahya said the town is more than 20,000 square meters in area and includes administrative quarters, temples and other buildings of “magnificent and splendid design”

Yahya, who is the head of the provincial Antiquities Department in the Province of Diwaniya, where the new Babylonian town was discovered, said he still lacks evidence on the town’s ancient name.

The locals call it Shamiya after a provincial district nearby, he said.

“We have dug up a sectional sounding covering more than 20 square meters and have come across fascinating finds,” he said.

Most striking has been a 30-kilogram Babylonian Duck Weight.

“This is a unique find because the duck weights discovered so far are maximum 10 kilograms,” Yahya said.

He added that his team has come across several cuneiform tablets but “there is no one to read the ancient writing because Iraqi experts with the knowledge to decipher Mesopotamian script have fled the country.”

The shape of the finds tells that they belong to the Late Babylonian Period, about 1000 BC, Yahya said, but added that only specialists can give the exact dates.

The scientists have unearthed four graves but the positioning of the bodies has been somewhat perplexing.

Yahya said two of them had half of their bodies buried in the wall of a house and the other half in an urn.

The two others had iron nails in their hands, feet and necks indicating that they might have been executed, he added.

“Ancient Babylonian legislations must have been quite brutal,” he added.

Other finds include cylinder seals which could easily be compared with counterparts discovered in Babylon, 90 kilometers away.

“We have evidence of an intricate and highly developed sewage system in the town which can easily be compared with modern ones,” he said.

[Soldier4Christ]

A rock-hewn cave used by Christians hiding from official church authorities has been found by chance at Hammamat Pharaon on the west Sinai coast

It was an ordinary morning at Hammamat Pharaon (Pharaoh's bath), the mini-resort south of Ras Sedr on the west coast of Sinai where for centuries locals and travellers have enjoyed the spa waters of the natural hot spring. The water, smelling slightly unpleasantly of sulphur, bubbles from the rock inside a cave and flows down into the sea. In the cave, where the darkness is heavy with steam, clients were enjoying a soak in the rock bath, or else waiting their turn for a therapeutic treatment for rheumatism, skin diseases or other ailments.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian archaeological mission from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) carrying out a routine cleaning operation in the area near the spring stumbled upon what is believed to be a fourth-century rock-hewn grotto decorated with Christian murals.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the SCA, said last week's discovery was the second cave of its type to be discovered in Hammamat Pharaon and was only 25 metres away from first cave, which was used one to two hundred years later. The entrance to the new cave was blocked by a large amount of sand, stones and rubble. By removing all the dust and debris the team uncovered a one metre high vaulted entrance, which allowed the excavators to surmise that it could contain a church altar similar to the one found at Abu Suwera in Al-Tor, the capital town of South Sinai. However, further excavation revealed that the cave was not a church but may have been used by Christian followers or monks during the fourth and fifth centuries, a time of schism in the Christian doctrine of the Roman Byzantine Empire, when they needed to practise their preferred religious rituals far from the eyes of the leaders of the official church.

Tarek El-Naggar, director-general of South Sinai antiquities, said that the part of the cave so far excavated consisted of a large hall on two levels, the first level bearing some clay fragments and traces of a fireplace that burnt wood, and the second traces of ashes. On cleaning the fireplace the archaeologists uncovered a limestone floor and the remains of a large clay vessel.

The internal walls of the cave are covered with a layer of plaster decorated with red-painted Greek characters similar to those found in the first cave. A number of Byzantine-shaped crosses were also painted on the walls.

The cave found earlier had three adjoining vaulted halls; the first and third halls were plain and empty, but in the central one was a scene depicted in red paint of three notable Christian figures praying; from right to left these were St Mina, the Roman soldier who sacrificed his life to spread Christianity all over the globe, Iowans, the Alexandrian patriarch of the sixth century, and Asnasious, patriarch of the Constantine Church.

These portraits were enclosed within Greek prayer texts along with crosses painted in the style of the sixth and seventh centuries, and were similar to those found on the walls of St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. A three-legged chandelier was painted in black, along with remains of other drawings painted in yellow and red. On the left side of the scene were three niches decorated with old Creek texts painted in brown and black.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni called last week's find a great discovery. "It will enhance the area of Hammamat Pharaon not only as a therapeutic destination but as an archaeological site rich in Christian monuments," he said.

It will also shed more light on a time when the Christian church was deeply divided by opposing doctrines, and how the various factions managed to retain their beliefs in the face of changing tides in the official religious stance.

Following the discovery, studies are being carried out to spruce up the site and make it accessible to tourists.

[Shammu]

Quarry for Jerusalem's second temple found
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:17p.m.

Link for Video!!

Israeli archaeologists said they have discovered a quarry that provided King Herod with the stones he used to renovate the biblical Second Temple compound - offering rare insight into construction of the holiest site in Judaism.

The source of the huge stones used 2,000 years ago to reconstruct the compound in Jerusalem's Old City was discovered on the site of a proposed school in a Jerusalem suburb.

It was discovered as workers broke ground on the project, by a worker who stumbled upon a stake lodged in limestone. The tool was used to split the 20-ton stones of the Temple.

Today, the compound Herod renovated houses the most explosive religious site in the Holy Land, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims.

"This is the first time stones which were used to build the Temple Mount walls were found," said Yuval Baruch, an archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority involved in the dig. Quarries mined for the massive stones, each weighing more than 20 tons, eluded researchers until now, he said Sunday.

Baruch said coins and pottery found in the quarry confirm the stone was used during the period of Herod's expansion of the Temple Mount in 19 BC.

But researchers said the strongest piece of evidence was found wedged into one of the massive cuts in the white limestone - an iron stake used to split the stone. The tool was apparently improperly used, accidentally lodged in the stone and forgotten.

"It stayed here for 2,000 years for us to find because a worker didn't know what to do with it," said archaeologist Ehud Nesher, also of the Antiquities Authority.

Nesher said the large outlines of the stone cuts indicated the site was a massive public project worked by hundreds of slaves. "Nothing private could have done this," Nesher said. "This is Herod's, this is a sign of him."

Berger reports archaeologists call it another tribute to Herod as the master builder.

Herod was the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation from 37 BC. Herod's most famous construction project was the renovation of the Temple, replacing a smaller structure that itself replaced the First Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

Stephen Pfann, president of the University of The Holy Land and an expert in the Second Temple period, said the discovery was encouraging.

"It would be very difficult to find any other buildings in any other period that would warrant stones of that size," said Pfann, who was not involved in the dig. He said further testing of the rock is necessary to confirm the findings.

The Second Temple was leveled by Roman conquerors in AD 70. The Western Wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews, is the best known surviving remnant.

Atop the adjacent compound, where Jews believe the Temple once stood, now stand two of the holiest sites in Islam, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock.

The site is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming the area. Israel captured Jerusalem's Old City from Jordan during the 1967 Mideast war. While retaining security responsibility for the site, Israel allows Muslims to handle day-to-day responsibilities there.

Quarry for Jerusalem's second temple found

[Soldier4Christ]

At Jerusalem dig, archaeologists get peek at palatial gardens
New clues suggest this year's excavations could give answers about biblical rulers

Ancient kings, armies, prophets and pilgrims have made their mark on the ancient hills of Jerusalem and have left behind some of the world's most important archaeological finds. But with every stone overturned, puzzling questions about the history of modern Western civilization come to light.
 
This is especially true at the Tel Aviv University-owned site of Ramat Rachel, an archaeological site from biblical times. For that reason, Jewish and Christian archaeologists, theologians and volunteers come to dig there year after year.
 
Clues revealed by last year's dig, such as elaborate underground water tunnels, pools, pipes and gutters, suggest that this year's dig, July 20-Aug. 15, could give answers about the rulers who once lived there, said the site director and Tel Aviv University archaeologist Oded Lipschits.
 
The site, Lipschits said, is the location of an ancient palace replete with an impressive garden, which was built during the end of the First Temple period in the seventh century B.C.
 
"This is the only palace from the time period of the kingdom of Judah, and today it is a venerated site for all world religions," he said.
 
For Jews, this palace is believed to have been standing during the time of the Judean kings Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah. Christians believe it to be the site where Mary came to rest on her way to Bethlehem. An ancient octagonal church, "Katisma," built around the holy rock down on the slope of the hill commemorated her resting place and is also known as the seat of Mary.
 
Some scholars believe this church inspired the construction of the golden Dome of the Rock, also an octagonal structure built around a holy rock on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, one of Islam's most sacred spiritual centers.
 
Ramat Rachel is a modern name for the kibbutz on the high hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem, from which one can see Rachel's Tomb nearby in Bethlehem, West Bank, as well as modern and ancient Jerusalem and mountains surrounding the city.
 
The excavations at Ramat Rachel first began in the 1950s. Today Lipschits directs the site in conjunction with Manfred Oeming, a professor at Germany's University of Heidelberg. Every year, the dig attracts more than 100 volunteers and scholars from Israel and throughout the world.
 
A majority of the volunteers are Christians and include priests, theology students, nuns and archaeology students. Daily Scripture readings are made available to volunteers at the site.
 
All areas of the site are open to the public, and visitors to the archaeological park get a sense of the site's 3,000-year-old history. They can touch the original walls and fortress of a Judean king and find traces of later inhabitants of Persian, Hellenistic and Jewish descent.
 
Also on the site are the remains of a Jewish village from the Second Temple period, with numerous Jewish ritual baths, and the remains of the 10th Roman Legion, which built an elaborate villa there and a large Roman bath. During the Byzantine period, the site was home to monks and pilgrims who grew olives and grapes. During the Early Muslim period, there was a large farm on the site, and its remains are being excavated.
 
One of the most impressive elements of the site, said Lipschits, is an ancient royal garden. It is one of a few palatial gardens of its kind in the world.
 
Lipschits explained the significance: "The Assyrians and Babylonians believed that gardens represented spirituality. The name for garden in Hebrew represents a protected place, surrounded by a wall or a fence. This is exactly the meaning of the old Persian word 'pardes,' and this is why the Greeks, when translating the Bible, choose this word to describe the Garden of Eden story.
 
"From here, it was a short jump to the use of 'pardes' to describe paradise," said Lipschits.
 
"In a way, we are excavating paradise at Ramat Rachel," he said. "This is the only known garden in Judah from the biblical world, and excavating it is fascinating. We explore its plan and think about the connection between the garden and the attached palace."
 
In his ongoing research, Lipschits draws parallels between the ancient palatial garden at Ramat Rachel and the Western interpretation of heaven. At the site, he also is researching exotic trees, bushes and flowers imported from across the ancient Near East.
 
A team is analyzing seeds, pollen and soil. Lipschits said team members hope the garden may give a deeper understanding to imagery and symbolism found in the Bible.
 
Lipschits also is completing a book of stamp impressions bearing the name of the province "Yehud" from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Jews left Babylon to go back to their homeland. He wrote "The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem," and continues to author publications in partnership with Boston College and David S. Vanderhooft, a theology professor there.