Discoveries Archives - Page 128 of 154

Recent Discoveries in Egypt

The Global Arab Network has posted a number of articles on discoveries in Egypt, as noted by Joe Lauer.

1. A new tomb was discovered by an SCA mission at Tell el-Maskhuta [biblical Succoth] in the Ismailia governate (Egypt). The tomb dates to the 19th Dynasty (1315-1201 BC), is constructed of mud brick and consists of a rectangular room with a domed ceiling made of stone, and a deep square-shaped shaft.

2. The Head of Antiquities of Lower Egypt Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud said that archaeological missions working in North Sinai have unearthed Tharu, an ancient fortified city, a move which stressed the importance of this area as the eastern gate of Egypt.

3. A collection of 14 Graeco-Roman tombs dating to the third century BC have been found in a cemetery in the Ain El-Zawya area of the town of Bawiti, in Bahariya Oasis.

The first and third articles have photographs of the finds.

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations

Ptolemaic Coin Hoard Found in Egypt

From the AFP:

Archaeologists have uncovered bronze coins bearing the image of ancient Egyptian ruler King Ptolemy III in an oasis south of the capital, the culture ministry announced on Thursday.
Also found by the Egyptian team were necklaces made of ostrich eggshell, it said.
The 383 items dating back more than 2,250 years were found near Lake Qarun in Fayum oasis, around 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Cairo, the ministry said in a statement, adding that they were in excellent condition.
The coins weighed 32 grams (1.12 ounces) each, with one face depicting the god Amun and the other the words “king” and “Ptolemy III” in Greek along with his effigy, the statement said.

You can see a photo of all the coins, stacked but uncleaned, here. Middle East Online has a photo of the discovery site.

HT: Joe Lauer

Lake Qarun, near location of discovery

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt

Assyrian Vassal Treaty Found at Tell Tayinat

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Canadian archeologists in Turkey have unearthed an ancient treaty written in cuneiform that could have served as a model for the biblical description of God’s covenant with the Israelites.
The tablet, dating from about 670 BC, is a treaty between the powerful Assyrian king and his weaker vassal states, written in a highly formulaic language very similar in form and style to the story of Abraham’s covenant with God in the Hebrew Bible, says University of Toronto archeologist Timothy Harrison.
Although biblical scholarship differs, it is widely accepted that the Hebrew Bible was being assembled around the same time as this treaty, the seventh century BC.
[…]
Harrison’s dig at Tell Tayinat revealed tens of thousands of items last summer, including the tablet. It measured 43×28 centimetres, with 650 and 700 tiny lines of script — and was smashed to pieces. Still, at least the pieces were all in one place. Dozens of similar smashed tablets were scattered.

Assyrian vassal treaties have been studied for a century and compared and contrasted with biblical documents, especially the book of Deuteronomy. As the article says, some scholars believe that Deuteronomy is composed in the style of an Assyrian vassal treaty, which would date this “book of Moses” to the 7th century. Other scholars find that Deuteronomy has more similarities with Hittite vassal treaties from the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 BC), which would comport with the biblical dating of the book and not require that it be a fraud, pious or otherwise.

Kenneth Kitchen has done (and continues to do) significant work on the subject. In On the Reliability of the Old Testament, he wrote:

Sinai and its two renewals—especially the version in Deuteronomy—belong squarely within phase V, within 1400-1200, and at no other date. The impartial and very extensive evidence (thirty Hittite-inspired documents and versions!) sets this matter beyond any further dispute. It is not my creation, it is inherent in the mass of original documents themselves, and so cannot be gainsaid, if the brute facts are to be respected (pp. 278-88; emphasis original).

The implications of this debate are very significant, and I look forward to Kitchen’s future publication. And everyone can be grateful for the outstanding work by Harrison and the Tayinat team. An earlier version of this article includes a close-up photo.

HT: Paleojudaica

Update: The University of Toronto press release can be read here. The 2009 Seasonal Report for the Tayinat Archaeological Project is here (pdf). Thanks to Joe Lauer for the links.

Tagged Discoveries, Turkey

Beth Yerah: It's an Arabic Palace, not Synagogue

Earlier this week, there was a story about the discovery of an Umayyad palace that was previously identified as a synagogue. Early reports contained very few details, but a new story yesterday makes things a bit clearer (HT: Gordon Govier).

The site is still not named, but a little checking around has revealed that it is Khirbet Beth Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak) on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee (see map below). A synagogue was discovered here in the 1950s by P. L. O. Guy and Pesach Bar-Adon. Current excavations led by Rafi Greenberg of Tel Aviv University now identify the building as an Arabic palace dating to the 7th-8th centuries A.D. How did they get it so wrong?

The palace was also dismantled down to its foundations after the fall of the dynasty, leaving nothing behind but a foundation and few clues to help date the structure.
Archaeologists at the time also believed, erroneously, that the early Arab caliphates did not carry out many large-scale building projects.
Researchers first began to raise doubts about the origins of the structure in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2002 that archaeologist Donald Whitcomb from the University of Chicago first suggested that the site might in fact be the missing Umayyad palace. That identification was confirmed by archaeologists this week.
The identification of the structure as a synagogue was based on the image of a menorah that the early excavators found carved into the top of a pillar base. But the scholars behind the new review of the site realized that the carving was a red herring — that surface would have been covered by a pillar in the original structure, so the carving must have been added later.

The article on Beth Yerah in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (1993) provides more information on the “synagogue”:

Within the area of the Roman fort, Guy and Bar-Adon uncovered the remains of the foundations of a synagogue (22 by 37 m). The building was divided by two rows of columns into a nave and two aisles. There was an apse in the middle of the southern wall, oriented to Jerusalem. The nave was paved with a colored mosaic, partially preserved, depicting plants, birds, lions, and other motifs. Carved on the base of a column were a menorah, lulab, ethrog, and incense shovel (1: 258).

A couple of brief comments. The apse oriented toward Jerusalem also faces Mecca. The mosaic’s depictions might surprise some unfamiliar with Arabic tastes in this period, but it closely resembles the Umayyad palace in Jericho (Kh. el-Mafjar). Apparently the decorated column base threw the original excavators off. (And you thought archaeologists used pottery for dating.)

You can read more about the Tel Bet Yerah Research and Excavation Project at the official site.

From Sheet 6 of the Survey of Western Palestine Maps. Kh. el-Kerak = Beth Yerah.

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Galilee

Weekend Roundup

The level of the Dead Sea rose this winter for the first time in 13 years.

More than 250 silver coins were discovered by a man building his home in Syria, including many tetradrachmas.

An exhibit of 21 “authentic recreations of ancient musical instruments” opens next week in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Two middle-aged men were arrested while surveying an archaeological site in southern Jerusalem with a metal detector.

I think that this online Bible video project would be even better if people read their portions on location.

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, New Exhibits

Previous Publication of Mazar’s “Solomonic Wall”

A.D. Riddle has pointed me to a chapter that Eilat Mazar published a few years ago entitled “The Solomonic Wall in Jerusalem” (full bibliographic data below).

It includes a diagram similar to the one published on Hebrew U’s Facebook page yesterday. I’ve added labels in English.

Mazar’s diagram with English labels added (original here)

My impression in reading Mazar’s chapter is that yesterday’s press conference was mostly a re-statement of the conclusions of her 2006 article, which was based on her excavations in the 1980s. In short, she argues that Building C is a four-chambered inner gatehouse which may have been an entrance into a royal palace. She notes that its dimensions are “virtually identical” to those of palace Gate 1567 at Megiddo VA-IVB. With regard to date, she states that “the ceramic data were insufficient to provide a more precise determination within the terminus post quem time frame for the construction of Building C.”

She found two floors in Building D, the later of which was laid “no earlier than the 8th century.” She believes an intact black juglet was placed under a foundation stone as a “construction offering” and dates the building to the 10th century.

She concludes in part:

Based on the finds sealed below the floors of Buildings C and D, the construction of the fortification complex in the Ophel should be dated to the 10th century BCE. This date corresponds to the biblical passage announcing that King Solomon built a defensive wall around Jerusalem. There is no reason to assume that someone other than Solomon constructed or reconstructed the Ophel fortification line at some time during the 10th-9th centuries BCE.

It sounds as if Mazar has found more evidence in her recent excavation that confirms her previous conclusion that this fortification system dates to the time of Solomon. I don’t believe that her previous conclusions met with much enthusiasm from the scholarly community; we’ll see how the archaeologists evaluate her new material.

The bibliographic data for this publication is as follows:

Mazar, Eilat. 2006 “The Solomonic Wall in Jerusalem.” Pp. 775-786 in “I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”: Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Ed. A. Maeir and P. de Miroschedji. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.

This two-volume work is available from Eisenbrauns.

Tagged Analysis, Discoveries, Excavations, Jerusalem