archeology – Jewish Independent

Archeological find changes perceptions

A human jawbone found in the Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel near Haifa. (photo by Israel Hershkowitz, Tel Aviv University via Ashernet)

A human jawbone and other fossils found in the Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel near Haifa indicate that human migration from Africa occurred during the Ice Age, approximately 200,000 years ago, which is contrary to the popular theory that the freezing conditions and dryness of the Ice Age periods deterred human migration between continents.

These recent findings were published in the Journal of Human Evolution by Dr. Lior Weissbrod of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Prof. Mina Weinstein-Evron of the Zinman Institute of Archeology at the University of Haifa, and they build on work previously published by Weinstein-Evron and Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of Tel Aviv University in Science.

In addition to the jawbone, Weissbrod said, “The fossils now being investigated were identified as belonging to 13 different species of rodents and small insect eaters, some of which now live in high and cold regions, in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran and in the Caucasus Mountains.”

This means that, “in Israel, cold conditions prevailed that allowed such animals to survive. Finding the human jawbone in the same layer where the rodent lived, suggests that these early humans survived under these conditions,” changing existing perceptions on human evolution.

Boy makes historical find

The tablet found by Imri Elya. (photo by IAA via Ashernet)

Imri Elya was on an outing with his parents at Tel Jemmeh archeological site near Kibbutz Re’im when he picked up the square clay object. His parents contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and they handed over the item to the authority’s National Treasures Department.

photo - Imri Elya, 6, from Kibbutz Nirim, near the Gaza Strip, holds his certificate of good citizenship and the tablet he found — Imri Elya, 6, from Kibbutz Nirim, near the Gaza Strip, holds his certificate of good citizenship and the tablet he found. *(photo by IAA via Ashernet)*

According to archeologists Saar Ganor, Itamar Weissbein and Oren Shmueli of the IAA, the artifact was imprinted in a carved pattern, and the artist’s fingerprints even survived on the back. The tablet depicts the scene of a man leading a captive. According to the researchers, “The artist who created this tablet appeared to have been influenced by similar representations known in Ancient Near East art. The way in which the captive is bound has been seen previously in reliefs and artifacts found in Egypt and northern Sinai.”

They date the artifact to the Late Bronze Age (between the 12th and 15th centuries BCE) and believe that the scene depicted symbolically describes the power struggles between the city of Yurza – with which Tel Jemmeh is identified – and one of the cities close to the Tel, possibly Gaza, Ashkelon or Lachish, or the struggle of a nomadic population residing in the Negev. The researchers believe that the scene is taken from descriptions of victory parades; hence, the tablet should be identified as a story depicting the ruler’s power over his enemies. This opens a visual window to understanding the struggle for dominance in the south of the country during the Canaanite period.

Hadrian’s Arch – built to last

Damascus Gate today and, below it, the Aelia Capitolina arch leading to the Roman Plaza. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

Revenge is sweet. Apparently, while the Roman Emperor Hadrian did not spike enemy heads on palisades, after three years of battle, he did construct an arch celebrating the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt. This archway was quite detailed, as it marked the northern border of his Jew-less Roman colony (Jews were only allowed in on Tisha b’Av to mourn the temples they had lost) and the Aelia Capitolina, a colony built on the Jerusalem the Romans had destroyed.

Below and to the left of Damascus Gate (built by Suleiman the Magnificent in 16th century CE) are the remains of Hadrian’s Arch of Triumph and his Roman Plaza. Although the site has been explored since 1864 by numerous archeologists, only recently have the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Jerusalem Municipality and the East Jerusalem Development Company (PAMI) cooperated to open to the public the arch that Hadrian ordered built in 135 CE.

The arch seen today was actually part of a three-arched entrance way. Two shorter arches bordered a taller and wider centre one. Only the eastern entrance remains fully intact, along with the bases of what were once elaborate stone pillars. Inside this archway, one still sees the vaulted ceiling and the floor made of large stone slabs.

The thick blocks making up this flooring measure some two metres (6.6 feet) long and 1.2 metres (3.9 feet) wide. To prevent people from slipping on the stones, the Romans striated some of the pavement, which is still in place, albeit worn smooth from use.

None of Hadrian’s building machinery was motorized, of course. Even the Roman tread wheel crane was run on human or animal power. Not one to waste and not one to overlook architectural beauty, Hadrian scavenged the enormous stones of the razed Second Temple and public structures – Herodian stones from the Temple area are distinct in having narrow margins and low, flat, smooth centre bosses. Hadrian used these stones to build two massive guard towers flanking the archway on the right and left.

As the Herodian stones were not attached by mortar, it was probably relatively easy – the average weight of each is said to have been two to five tons – for Hadrian’s gate builders to dismantle the Temple-area stones. These huge limestone pieces still stand, as the remains of the guard towers, neatly stacked at an incredible height of some 11 or 12 metres.

photo - In the Roman Plaza, a Roman soldiers’ game can be found on the ground — In the Roman Plaza, a Roman soldiers’ game can be found on the ground. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

Soldiers throughout history have faced boredom. To counter this, the Roman soldiers in these guard towers played games. One such “board game,” is still scratched into the flooring near the towers.

The gate with its three arches was typical of its period. Just above the remaining arch, one can still decipher the “C” in the Latin inscription bearing the city’s Roman name, Aelia Capitolina. In Jerusalem, a similar example of this kind of gate is the Ecce Homo Arch. It served as an entrance to the eastern forum of Aelia Capitolina. Part of it may be seen today, along the Via Dolorosa.

As further evidence of how well-planned Hadrian’s city was, the gate opened into a plaza, a circular space that was the junction or crossing point of the eastern and western cardines (plural of cardo; literally, heart) or main roads. According to Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book Jerusalem: The Biography, this plaza led to two forums, one close to the destroyed Antonia Fortress and one close to today’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There, Hadrian reportedly built a temple to Jupiter.

This gate appears on Jordan’s mosaic Madaba Map. On the sixth-century map – a model of which appears inside the discovered Roman Plaza – one sees an open square with a column just beyond the gate. To prevent anyone from forgetting who was victorious over the Jewish rebels, the column was topped with Hadrian’s figure. On site, there is a model of the column to give current-day visitors an idea of how the column looked. From this column, distances to different parts of the country were measured. Moreover, the column is the source of Damascus Gate’s Arabic name, Bab al-Amud.

To the left of the arch entrance are the large millstone remains from the later Byzantine period. Most likely, an olive oil factory existed there in ancient times.

To the east of the Roman Plaza, there are three other sites worth visiting when such things become possible again, once the COVID-19 pandemic is contained:

Zedekiah’s Cave (also known as Solomon’s Quarry) has visiting hours like those of the Roman Plaza. As the cave has very good acoustics, over the past few years, it has been used to host concerts. The entrance fee is currently 18 shekels. The local telephone is the same as that of the Roman Plaza, 02-6277550. There is partial wheelchair accessibility.

Rockefeller Archeology Museum, on the northern side of the street, recently had a small, but fascinating, exhibit dealing with the 100-year history of Jerusalem Armenian Ceramics. (imj.org.il/en/exhibitions/glimpse-paradise). The museum is free of charge, with hours Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, and even on Saturdays. There is a short flight of stairs at the entrance, so contact the curator, Fawzi Ibrahim, about visiting in a wheelchair. The local number is 02-628-2251.

The Northern Promenade route of the Old City’s ramparts allows you to visit these areas from “above,” but is not designed for wheelchairs or strollers. Buy tickets at the tourist office just inside Jaffa Gate.

From the Romans onward, rulers have built special arches marking the defeat of their enemies. Hadrian’s Arch might also have served as a reminder to potential rebels not to try again. What does seem clear is Hadrian has left us with a 1,885-year-old reminder of the many changes of hands Jerusalem has undergone.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Important finds in Usha

A 1,400-year-old hammer and nails, found at the ancient city of Usha. (photo by Yoli Schwartz/IAA via Ashernet)

An Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavation some 15 kilometres east of Haifa at the ancient city of Usha revealed a 1,400-year-old hammer and nails, confirming that the ancient inhabitants of Usha manufactured iron tools.

photo - One of the broken wine glasses found in Usha — One of the broken wine glasses found in Usha. *(photo by Yoli Schwartz/IAA via Ashernet)*

The IAA’s community excavation, carried out predominantly by youth and volunteers, has exposed part of a Jewish settlement with ritual baths, oil presses and winepresses. Indications are that the primary occupation of the Usha inhabitants was the large-scale processing of the olive trees and vines they cultivated on the surrounding hills. The discovery of the ritual baths indicates that the Jewish press workers took care to purify themselves in the ritual baths in order to manufacture ritually pure oil and wine.

According to Yair Amitzur, director of the excavation and of the Sanhedrin Trail Project for the IAA, “the settlement of Usha is mentioned in the Jewish sources many times in the Roman and Byzantine periods, as the village where the institution of the Sanhedrin was renewed, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and after the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135 CE. The Sanhedrin was the central Jewish council and law court, and it was headed by the president, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel the Second, who presided in Usha, and then his son, Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi. Here, in Usha, the rabbis of the Sanhedrin made decrees to enable the Jewish people to recover after the war against the Romans, and to reconstruct Jewish life in the Galilee.”

Where Jesus fed the Multitude?

A mosaic revealed during the excavation of the “Burnt Church” in Hippos. (photos by Michael Eisenberg via Ashernet)

A mosaic was revealed during the excavation of the “Burnt Church” in Hippos, which was built in the second half of the fifth or in the early sixth century CE and was probably burnt down during the Sasanian conquest in the beginning of the seventh century. According to the researchers, the descriptions in the mosaic, along with the location of the church, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, raise the connection to the “Feeding the Multitude,” the miracle performed by Jesus in the area, according to the New Testament. “There can certainly be different explanations to the descriptions of loaves and fish in the mosaic, but you cannot ignore the similarity to the description in the New Testament: for example, from the fact that the New Testament has a description of five loaves in a basket, or the two fish depicted in the apse, as we find in the mosaic,” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, head of the excavation team in Hippos on behalf of the Institute of Archeology at the University of Haifa, along with colleague Arleta Kowalewska. The excavation of the church specifically was placed in the hands of Jessica Rentz from the United States, who has exposed its entire internal area.

During the preservation process, headed by Yana Vitkalov from the Israel Antiquities Authority, most of the mosaic area was cleaned and preserved, and most of its decorations and two inscriptions in Greek were exposed. The first one tells about the two fathers of the church, Theodoros and Petros, constructing a sanctuary for a martyr, while the second one, which is located inside a medallion at the centre of the mosaic, exposes the name of the martyr, Theodoros. An initial reading of the inscriptions was done by Dr. Gregor Staab from the University of Cologne in Germany, expedition epigraphist.

Eisenberg continues to be cautious about the interpretation of the new mosaic. “Nowadays, we tend to regard the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, on the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, as the location of the miracle, but with careful reading of the New Testament, it is evident that it might have taken place north of Hippos within the city’s region.”

Solving a mystery

(photo from University of Haifa via Ashernet)

This pre-Columbian cultural artifact at the University of Haifa is one of the mysterious art objects from Puerto Rico that were alleged to have been made by members of the Ten Lost Tribes. “This is definitely one of the strangest and most fascinating stories I’ve ever been involved in,” stated the university’s Dr. Iris Groman-Yaroslavsky. “To date, we have not found any similar carved stone art objects from this region of the Americas and, therefore, many researchers assumed that they must be fake. However, the microscopic tests we performed show beyond any doubt that the stones were carved around 600 years ago.”

The story of these art objects, known as the “Library of Agüeybaná,” goes back to the 19th century, when a Puerto Rican monk by the name of José María Nazario presented a collection of some 800 carved stone statuettes, some of which had a clearly human form while others appeared to be artistic or ritual items. No similar statuettes or art objects have ever been found from this region, and it was he who claimed the Lost Tribes connection. In 2001, a research student named Reniel Rodríguez Ramos saw the stones during a study trip and was enchanted. He completed his doctorate in pre-Columbian cultures and returned to investigate the stones. Eventually, he came to Groman-Yaroslavsky’s lab, which specializes in microscopic examinations.

Finding Ziklag

Dozens of undamaged pottery vessels have been discovered so far at the site. (photos from Israel Antiquities Authority via Ashernet)

In 2015, archeologists began an excavation in the Judean Foothills, between Kiryat Gat and Lachish. In research conducted in a cooperative venture by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the archeologists believe they have found the Philistine town of Ziklag. Dozens of undamaged pottery vessels have been discovered so far at the site, and it has been determined that the vessels are at least 3,000 years old.

Ziklag is a Philistine name, given to the town by immigrants from the Aegean. It is mentioned many times in the Bible in relation to David (in both Samuel I and II). According to the biblical narrative, Achish, king of Gat, allowed David to find refuge in Ziklag while fleeing King Saul and, from there, David departed to be anointed king in Hebron. Ziklag was also the town that the Amalekites, desert nomads, raided and burned, taking women and children captive.

The purple dyes of the Carmel Coast

(photo from Haifa University via Ashernet)

“Until now, there has not been any meaningful direct archeological evidence of workshops for the production of purple-coloured textiles from the Iron Age – the biblical period – not even in Tyre and Sidon [in Lebanon], which were the main Phoenician centres for the manufacture of purple dye. If we have identified our findings correctly, Tel Shikmona, on the Carmel Coast [in Israel], has just become one of the most unique archeological sites in the region,” explained Prof. Ayelet Gilboa and PhD candidate Golan Shalvi from the University of Haifa, who are studying finds that have been guarded in various storerooms in Haifa since the 1960s and ’70s.

Tel Shikmona is known mainly for its surrounding Byzantine settlement, including some splendid mosaics. The Iron Age settlement dates to the 11th to 6th centuries BCE, corresponding in biblical terms to the period of the judges, the United Monarchy (Saul, David and Solomon), the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the Assyrian/Babylonian epoch. It occupies about five dunams (a bit more than one acre) out of the 100-dunam site of the Byzantine city at its peak. A section of the tel was excavated between 1963 and 1977 by Dr. Yosef Elgavis on behalf of the Haifa Museum, with the active support of then-Haifa mayor Abba Hushi. The site was known by archeologists and experts to have yielded rich material findings; for various reasons, however, these have never been published in a comprehensive manner.

The wealth of findings is associated with the Phoenician culture, including an unusual number of vessels imported from overseas, and it is the largest collection of ceramic vats found anywhere in the world from the first millennium BCE that still preserve purple colouring (made from the glands of murex snails). “Rather than being considered a region of secondary importance in this period, the Carmel Coast can now gain its rightful place as one of the most important production areas of the dye in ancient times in general, and during the biblical period in particular,” concluded the researchers.

The Shikmona project is being undertaken under the auspices of the Zinman Institute of Archeology at the University of Haifa, with the support of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the National Maritime Museum in Haifa, where some of the findings are displayed.

The making of ancient beer

Nanopores taken from ancient pottery have allowed researchers to make beer following a 5,000-year-old recipe. (photo by Yaniv Berman IAA via Ashernet)

Research led by scholars at Hebrew University, the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University has revealed a way to isolate yeast from ancient pottery, from which beer was then produced. HU’s Dr. Ronen Hazan and IAA’s Dr. Yitzhak Paz, who are among the leaders of the research, noted that “we now know what Philistine and Egyptian beers tasted like.” The team examined the colonies of yeast that formed and settled in the pottery’s nanopores. Ultimately, they were able to use resurrected yeast to create a beer that’s approximately 5,000 years old.

“By the way, the beer isn’t bad,” said Hazan. “Aside from the gimmick of drinking beer from the time of King Pharaoh, this research is extremely important to the field of experimental archeology – a field that seeks to reconstruct the past. Our research offers new tools to examine ancient methods and enables us to taste the flavours of the past.”

Added Paz, “This is the first time we succeeded in producing ancient alcohol from ancient yeast. In other words, from the original substances from which alcohol was produced. This has never been done before.”

Miriam’s legacy of drumming

Female hand drummers from the Iron Age II (eighth to seventh century BCE), found at the site of what was Achzib, on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel. From the Israel Museum collection. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

In February, an Israeli ultra-Orthodox bride got lots of media attention for playing drums before a mixed (male and female) crowd of wedding guests. Putting aside issues of religious modesty and political clout, does Jewish law restrict females from playing drums?

Significantly, there is a biblical precedent for female drum playing. It dates back to Miriam the Prophetess. Having just crossed a miraculously dry channel in the Red Sea, Miriam felt compelled to celebrate. She and the other Israelite women who had just experienced the Exodus play drums, referred to in Hebrew as tof miryam. (See Exodus 15:20.)

In a 2009 article in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Prof. Carol Meyers notes, “The Bible mentions … only one percussion instrument … the tof, or hand drum, even though other kinds of drums were known elsewhere in the biblical world. Whenever this word is found, it is quite likely that the presence of female instrumentalists is implied.”

Meyers explains that this hand drum consisted of an animal skin stretched over a hollow body of any shape or size. Moreover, although tof miryam is sometimes rendered in English as a tambourine, it is not, given that it has no rattle or bells. Meyers further reports that the tambourine was not authenticated before the 13th century CE.

Additionally, Meyers points out that female figures predominate in unearthed Iron Age terracotta statutes, holding what appear to be hand drums. These women are plainly dressed, hence they appear to be ordinary people, rather than gods or members of the elite.

Few terracotta statues have been discovered in Palestine or Israel. Yet, from the biblical references of Exodus, Judges 11:34, I Samuel 18:6 and Jeremiah 31:4, we are left to understand that there was a tradition of female hand drum players.

Moreover, citing I Samuel 18:6-7, S.D. Goitein states in a 1988 article in Prooftexts, that a woman’s duty was to welcome the returning fighters and to praise them.

Of what importance were these female drums? Meyers elaborates that female public performance would (1) assume a level of competence based upon practice, (2) indicate that, in ancient Israel, there were groups of women performers and (3) imply that leaders and other members of the community acknowledged and appreciated the expertise of these women performers.

Not only that, but, in the book Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from Around the World (1988), edited by Prof. Howard Schwartz, Miriam’s drum had magical abilities. Relying on a 19th-century Eastern European folktale, Schwartz writes that the music from Miriam’s drum drove off serpents and kept Miriam herself in eternal life.

According to Rabbi Allen Maller’s interpretation of the Mechilta and Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, while in Egypt, Miriam taught all the Israelite women how to play the drum. Moreover, he writes on blogs.timesofisrael.com, once the plagues started, Miriam repeatedly reminded the women of all that she had taught them and that, as a sign of their faith in G-d, they should all take at least one drum per family with them when it was time to leave.

Still it is not clear from whom Miriam learned to play. Did Miriam’s mother, Yocheved, teach her to play the hand drum? Or did Miriam learn from Egyptian women?

Broadcaster and writer Eva Dadrian states in her 2010 article “Let there be music!” that ancient Egyptian musicians realized percussion was basic to their orchestras. Thus, they played drums of different sizes. Drums were particularly associated with sacred ceremonial events, but they were also used during battles to rally the troops or to spread panic among the enemy forces.

Dadrian adds that, in spite of the richness of the documentation, our knowledge of pharaonic music remains limited: without theoretical treaty or musical score, it is particularly difficult to do an archeology of music. The two main membranophones used by ancient Egyptians were the single membrane drum mounted on a frame and the barrel-shaped drum with two membranes.

In the University of California, Los Angeles Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Music and Musicians (2013), Egyptologist Sibylle Emerit claims the single membrane drum is documented in Egypt’s Old Kingdom (2575 BCE to 2150 BCE) in a scene carved in the solar temple of Niuserra in Abu Ghurab. She relates that the non-epigraphic material from the East Cemetery of Deir el-Medina, dating to the 18th dynasty, indicates that the owners of the musical instruments buried in this tomb belonged to a modest social class attached to the service of local noblemen. Thus, Emerit confirms Meyers’ assertion about the plain appearance of female Iron Age II drummer statues.

Music researcher, lecturer and performer Veronica Doubleday notes in a 1999 Ethnomusicology article that plentiful evidence shows women played the frame drum in the Egyptian New Kingdom (1570-947 BCE) dynasties. There were musical troupes in temple rituals, as well as solo drum players.

Over the centuries, Islam, Christianity and Judaism marginalized woman’s public drum playing. In a PhD dissertation (2006), Mauricio Molina writes that early leaders of the Christian religion, for example, condemned the frame drums because of their connection with the fertility cults, which the Church was struggling to banish.

Aside from Miriam, Jewish (and non-Jewish) females might have been told that it is not lady-like to play drums, as drummers need to sit with their legs spread apart and drummers sometimes “let loose” to play.

Nonetheless, today, the number of female drummers – including Jewish female drummers – is growing. As the recent bride story reveals, the numbers are increasing even within the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox community. In Jerusalem, for example, the school Mayever LaMusica (Beyond Music) offers separate drum lessons for girls and women.

Among those who grew up Orthodox are Temim Fruchter, former drummer in the Shondes, and Dalia Shusterman, who drummed in an all-female Chassidic alternative rock group. Elaine Hoffman-Watts, who died two-and-a-half years ago at the age of 85, was a klezmer drummer – many klezmer bands refused her talents because she was a woman; it wasn’t until her father (also a klezmer musician) intervened that she got work as a drummer.

Other notable Jewish female drummers with Israeli backgrounds are Meytal Cohen, Mindy Abovitz (who is also founder and editor-in-chief of the drum magazine Tom Tom), Iris Portugali and Yael Cohen.

So, the beat goes on and, after a long respite, women are again helping to produce it.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.