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Rare Neolithic Well Revealed in Jezreel Valley

A rare well dating to the Neolithic period was uncovered in recent excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority carried out at ‘Enot Nisanit’, along the western fringes of the Jezreel Valley prior to enlarging Ha-Yogev Junction (Highway 66) by the National Roads Company. Archaeologists estimate the well was built approximately 8,500 years ago.
During the excavations the skeletal remains of a woman approximately 19 years of age and a man older than her were uncovered deep inside the well. How did these come to be in the well? Was this an accident or perhaps murder? As of now the answer to this question remains a mystery.
According to Yotam Tepper, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “What is clear is that after these unknown individuals fell into the well it was no longer used for the simple reason that the well water was contaminated and was no longer potable”. Tepper adds, “The impressive well that was revealed was connected to an ancient farming settlement and it seems the inhabitants used it for their subsistence and living. The upper part of the well was built of stones and its lower part was hewn in the bedrock. Two capstones, which narrowed the opening, were set in place at the top of the well. It is c. 8 meters deep and its upper part measures about 1.3 meters in diameter”.
Tepper says, “Numerous artifacts indicating the identity of the people who quarried it – the first farmers of the Jezreel Valley – were recovered from inside the well. The finds include, among other things, deeply denticulated sickle blades knapped from flint which were used for harvesting, as well as arrow heads and stone implements. The excavation of the accumulations in the well shaft yielded animal bones, organic finds and charcoal which will enable future studies about the domestication of plants and animals, and also allow researchers to determine the exact age of the well by means of advanced methods of absolute dating”.

‘Enot Nisanit is located one mile north of Tel Megiddo. The full press release and six high-res photos are here.

UPDATE: The story is being reported, with some sensational titles, in the Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, The Times of Israel, and Reuters.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Well discovered in Jezreel Valley. Photo by Yotam Tepper, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Skeletal remains discovered inside well. Photo by Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Tagged Excavations, Jezreel Valley

Wednesday Roundup

Excavations are underway now at ancient Carchemish. We’ve commented on the plans previously here.

I really like how Wayne Stiles takes our photos and creates beautiful articles that explain the biblical history so well. This week he writes about the tabernacle at Shiloh.

James Davila points to a new article on the metal codices from Jordan and explains why he thinks they’re still fake.

Caspari Center Media Review: Jerusalem’s local conservation committee rejected plans to build a four-story hotel next door to Mary’s Well in the pastoral village of Ein Karem. Those who opposed the plan said that the construction posed a great risk to the well, which, according to Christian tradition, is where Mary the mother of Jesus bathed. “The water from the well is considered holy for Christians and pilgrims from all over the world come to this place to fill up bottles with water from the well. … Damaging the well would be very harmful to the country.”

HT: Jack Sasson

Shiloh, home of the tabernacle
(photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Tagged Forgery, Judah, Samaria, Turkey

Ancient Cedar Beams on Temple Mount

Archaeologists have long known about some ancient cedar beams on the Temple Mount. Recent tests indicated that they dated back to the time of Solomon’s temple. (I don’t have an English reference for that at the moment.) The Temple Mount Sifting Project team recently wrote about these cedar beams:

Some of these beams predate the first Al-Aqsa Mosque and have been used and reused numerous times in various structures, which actually aided their preservation. We have some fragments of these beams among the finds at the Sifting Project.
We have been monitoring these beams for many years as they lay exposed to the weather in the open courts of the Temple Mount. We hope the Israel Antiquities Authority will succeed in placing them in a safe shelter before the coming winter. We have been requesting that the IAA deal with this issue more than three years, but these ancient beams have yet to be properly secured.

Arutz-7 reported on Sunday that some of the beams are being used as firewood.

The wood, consisting of giant beams, first appeared at the end of the 1930s, when the Al-Aqsa mosque which currently occupies the Temple Mount was refurbished. The beams had been used in the roof structure of the mosque, and already at that time they were said to be thousands of years old by archaeologists – preserved only because they had been used in the building. Some of the beams were dated to the first Temple period, others to Roman times, and at least one beam was found to have Byzantine-era designs etched on it.
[…]
Now, many of the beams have been placed at what appears to be a dumping ground next to the Golden Gate of the Old City, apparently for the use of local Arabs as firewood. Jewish groups that visited the Mount saw the beams being moved, but reported that the Arabs forbade them to take photos of the activity. Officials of the Archaeology Authority, who are responsible for the safety of these ancient beams, are nowhere to be seen.

The Arutz-7 story includes a short video allegedly showing the beams being burned next to the Golden Gate.

Cedar trees in Lebanon
Photo from the new Lebanon volume

Tagged Temple Mount

Three Free Years of the Palestine Exploration Quarterly

You can read or download the last three years of Palestine Exploration Quarterly for free with a simple registration, for a limited time. You can see the table of contents here. The issues from 2009-2011 appear to be free without registration from the table of contents. Here are a few recent articles that caught my eye:

What Would the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I Have Seen If He Had Visited the Central Jordan
Valley?, by Lucas P. Petit.

Palestinian Antiquities Looters, Their Skill Development, Methodology And
Specialised Terminology: An Ethnographic Study, by Salah H. Al-Houdalieh.

The Location of Ziklag: A Review of the Candidate Sites, Based on Biblical,
Topographical and Archaeological Evidence, by Horton Harris.

The Location of Tarichaea: North or South of Tiberias?, by Nikos Kokkinos.

The Protestant Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, Englishwomen, and a Land Transaction in Late Ottoman Palestine, by Ruth Kark and Seth J. Frantzman.

Members of the Palestine Exploration Fund receive four issues of PEQ a year (as of 2013) as well as other privileges.

UPDATE (11/10): They changed the free access noted above. You should still be able to get to the content by registering for their free and informative mailing list.

Tagged Resources

Weekend Deal: Jerusalem in Original Photographs 1850-1920

Shimon Gibson’s excellent work is the “Deal of the Weekend” at Eisenbrauns right now. Marked down from $49.95 to $14.99, this is a great deal.

The publisher’s description:
Jerusalem in Original Photographs brings together pictures taken by the early travel photographers who captured unique moments in history. Structured around a contemporary map of the town, the selection of illustrations leads the reader on a walking tour through streets often little changed over the course of the intervening century. These black and white photographs have been drawn from the Palestine Exploration Fund archives and are accompanied by masterful commentary by the renowned archaeologist, Dr. Shimon Gibson.

From a review in Near Eastern Archaeology:

“Jerusalem in Original Photographs, 1850–1920 is an impressive volume, an entry point to important archival materials, a contribution to the history of photography in the Middle East, and an opportunity to reclaim the visual legacy of the last century. Photographs are valuable resources for research into the past. The immediacy of the images, the scope of the representation covering small details up to landscapes, and the visual information make for intriguing insights… “Jerusalem in Original

Photographs, 1850–1920 is a multifaceted book. It could be displayed on a coffee table and examined for its fine images. The layout of the volume is an engaging way to remember the late Ottoman and early British Mandatory city. The volume documents an important mode of representing the city. For the specialist in the period, the book is a superb resource to examine critically architectural and other material changes during the transition from Ottoman to British rule. Reading and studying this book may prove a very enlightening endeavor for many types of audiences. Gibson deserves congratulations for producing an important scholarly resource and an attractive compilation.” — Uzi Baram, New College of Florida in Near Eastern Archaeology 65:4, 2002

The Eisenbrauns website has more details. Recommended!

Tagged Resources

Weekend Roundup

A dog fell into a hole in Jerusalem and now it will become an open biblical tourist park.

Work continues in Georgia in constructing a museum for artifacts from Israel.

The next time you travel to the Golan Heights, you can remember your day this way: Bastions, Burials, Battles, and Borders.

Ferrell Jenkins shares a photo of a beautiful sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher may close its doors for a day to protest its bank account being frozen for not paying its water bill.

Al Jazeera posts 15 photos on the Western Wall prayer plaza and excavated tunnels.

The Zondervan Atlas of the Bible is marked down to $14.99 for the Fabulous Friday sale at christianbook.com. (Amazon: $26.39). It might make a great gift for someone who wants to understand the Bible better.

The latest SourceFlix video short is about the olive harvest. (If you appreciate their work, you might consider making a donation some time.)

A special exhibition opens next week at the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum on “The Battle over King David: Excavating the Fortress of Elah.”

I bet that this is the first (future) motion picture reference to Shaaraim in connection with the David and Goliath story. (If they ever read 1 Samuel 17, they’ll get rid of it. Shaaraim is not Qeiyafa and it’s not the Philistine base either.)

HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer

Woman harvesting olives near Bethlehem
Photo from Cultural Images of the Holy Land

Tagged 10th Century, Galilee, Golan, Museums, Resources, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup