Discoveries Archives - Page 140 of 154

Copper Mines from Time of Solomon

Recently Dr. Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. In conjunction with that, he published an article in their journal (abstract here) about his work at Khirbet en-Nahas, including his belief that the copper mines were in operation here during the time that the Bible records King Solomon as mining copper. Lots of new sources and blogs have made a big deal out of the story, and while it is a good story, it is not a new story. If you haven’t read about it before, or if you need a refresher, by all means read it again. But if it all sounds familiar, you know why (NY Times 2006 article here; see also article in a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review).

The university press release is here. There’s a good 12-minute video made by the university (with dozens of BiblePlaces.com photos used without even a kind mention of their source). You can find many more articles by searching for “Levy copper mines.”

Khirbet en-Nahas, view from southeast

Khirbet en-Nahas, Iron Age workshop

Copper slag remains on surface

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations

“Son of the High Priest”: Sarcophagus Fragment Found

Arutz-7 reports:

Archaeologists excavating north of Jerusalem have found a piece of a sarcofagus – a stone coffin – belonging to a son of a High Priest. The visible inscription reads, “the son of the High Priest” – but the words before it are broken off. It thus cannot be ascertained which High Priest is referred to, nor the name or age of the deceased…
The precise location of the find is not being released, for security reasons.
The sarcophagus cover fragment – 60 centimeters (2 feet) long by 48 centimeters (19 inches) wide – is made of hard limestone, is meticulously fashioned, and bears a carved inscription in Hebrew letters that are both similar to today’s script and typical of the Second Temple period.
A number of High Priests served in the Temple in its final decades – it was destroyed in 70 C.E. – and there is no way of knowing which one is noted in the fragment. Among the known High Priests of the end of the Second Temple period were Caiaphas, Theophilus (Yedidiya) ben Chanan, Shimon ben Baitus, Chanan ben Chanan and others…
Other discoveries at the site include public and residential buildings, agricultural installations, pools and cisterns.

Tombs from the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D. are very common in Jerusalem. There was a large upper class that built lavish stone tombs, approximately 1,000 of which have been found.

The full story (and a tiny photo) is here.

UPDATE: The Israel Antiquities Authority press release includes a link to a zip file with three high-res photos, including one of the excavation site and two of the inscription.

HT: Joe Lauer

UPDATE (10/8): Haaretz has the story with some new details, and the Jerusalem Post has a 2-minute video about the excavation and discovery.

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Jerusalem

“Christ” Inscription in Egypt

Here’s a strange one: An archaeologist in Alexandria, Egypt claims to have found a cup with a Greek inscription, “Dia Chrestou Ogoistais” (“through Christ the Magi”). What’s stranger is that he’s claiming that he found it in a stratified context dating to A.D. 50.

You can read the article (in Spanish) here. Some comments and nice photos are here. More comments are here.

HT: Gene Brooks

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt

Speculation on the Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription

With regard to the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription, there are those who know and those who don’t. Those who know have been sworn to secrecy, leaving only those of us who don’t know to speculate. I am happy to oblige and suggest below some reasons on why this inscription is significant, thereby possibly fueling more speculation by others also in the dark.

What is not speculation is the fact that the inscription is being studied by Haggai Misgav, a Northwest Semitic epigraphist (source). Given the location of its discovery, this is no surprise, but it clearly rules out the possibility that inscription was written in another language. Misgav Haggai says at present that his conclusions are “doubtful and temporary” and he does not know when he will be ready to publish (reported by Jim West). That suggests that the inscription is difficult. I offer some ideas that may explain archaeologist Aren Maier’s comment that this inscription “is going to be
VERY INTERESTING!!!!”

1. The inscription is long. This is a guess based upon a photograph of the potsherd and a friend’s report that the inscription is 4-5 lines long. Too many inscriptions are known only from a small portion preserved. The recent ostracon found at Gath with a name similar to Goliath received much attention, but it contained only two words.

2. The inscription is meaningful. This is in contrast to other early inscriptions, such as the Tel Zayit abecedary (10th c.) and the Izbet Sartah abecedary (11th c.). Certainly alphabetic inscriptions are meaningful, and scholars can write much about them. But the primary reason why they get so much attention is because there are few other contemporary inscriptions. Sometimes conclusions about the state of writing are made that may be without warrant. The combination of a brief or ambiguous text with a lack of contemporary material makes possible many wrong interpretations.

3. The inscription was discovered in a stratified context. This is in contrast to the Gezer Calendar,
which was found in the debris pile in 1908. The Tel Zayit abecedary was found in a wall, not in its original context. Archaeologists do not have a clear stratigraphical context for many important inscriptions.

4. The inscription is early. Khirbet Qeiyafa has occupation from the 10th century and then a gap until the Hellenistic period (2nd c.). The inscription certainly dates to the time of the settlement, which guarantees a 10th century date (assuming that the site itself has been correctly dated). There are very few 10th century inscriptions in Israel, and all have some problems. (The only 10th c. inscriptions from Israel that come to mind are the Gezer Calendar, Tel Zayit abecedary, and the Shishak inscription, but there are probably others.) The significance of an inscription increases exponentially each century that you go back in time. A seal impression in the city of David from the 6th century is less rare and thus less valuable than a letter or poem from the 10th century.

5. The inscription dates to a period now highly controversial in biblical archaeology. In the mid-1990s Israel Finkelstein proposed a “Low Chronology,” which essentially re-dated all material believed to be from the 10th century to the 9th century. The poor material culture from the 11th century was brought down to the 10th century. Historically, then, Israel and Judah were impoverished and weak, or, more likely, non-existent (according to Finkelstein) at the time when the Bible describes the great United Monarchy. Like so many theories in biblical archaeology, this one is highly dependent upon a large amount of “white space,” in which one’s own ideas can be inserted.

Almost certainly this new inscription will fill in some of the gaps, as well as spawn its own controversies.

More speculating remains to be done on the site identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa, but that will need to await a future post.

Tagged Analysis, Discoveries, Shephelah

Qeiyafa Ostracon Photo

G. M. Grena has noted in a comment below and on a post on biblicalist that a photo of the 10th century ostracon is apparently already online here. You cannot see the inscription, but you get an idea for the size of the potsherd.

Grena speculates further on biblicalist:

For those not who didn’t attend last year’s ASOR conference, Prof. Garfinkel had presented a paper, “Khirbet Kiafa: Biblical Azekah”:
http://lmlk.blogspot.com/2007/11/asor-2007-p-6.html
http://lmlk.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/asor-2007-p-6/
Though he did not reveal to me anything about the ostracon, in personal correspondence this morning he confirmed that Kiafa “cannot be” Azekah after having completed their first large scale excavation this past summer. Joseph Lauer also brought to my attention a Hebrew University of Jerusalem web page for the excavation, which states the same thing:
“In the past we suggested an identification with the biblical city of Azeka, but the dating of the Iron Age settlement to the early 10th century BC clearly dispro[ves] our first hypothesis.”
http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/history.asp
Normally, it would be somewhat embarrassing to have your thesis “ruined” so quickly (less than a year), but I’m guessing that with the new discovery, nobody associated with the work at this khirbet minds!

The statement that dating the site to the early 10th century means that it cannot be Azekah does not make sense to me, as the story of David and Goliath mentions Azekah at approximately this time (1 Sam 17:1). Azekah also existed at the time of the Conquest (Joshua 10:10; 15:35), which means that any candidate for the site must have Late Bronze remains.

Another possibility, perhaps too good to suggest, is that the ostracon provides the biblical name of Khirbet Qeiyafa/Kiafa.

Tagged Discoveries, Shephelah

10th Century Inscription from Shephelah

Aren Maier, excavator of Gath, was at a meeting in Jerusalem recently with a group of Israeli archaeologists and Yossi Garfinkel and Saar Ganor presented a newly discovered inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa. Maier reports on the ANE-2 list:

This absolutely fantastic, fortified Iron Age site (late Iron I/early Iron IIA) has a very nice assemblage of pottery, and what may be the most important Iron Age Semitic inscription found in Israel in the last decade! (to be published by Haggai Misgav of the Hebrew University).
I can’t give details about it, but OH BOY – this is going to be VERY INTERESTING!!!!
Clearly, the site, its dating, the finds, and their significance, will be of paramount importance in the discussions of the Iron Age southern Levant, and just about anything connected to it, in the near future.
Based on Yossi’s previous track record in publishing excavation results, publications should be appearing soon!

I doubt Maier is exaggerating, and this could provide some fun discussion in the months ahead. It may help some readers if I spell out more of what Maier means by “the site, its dating, the finds, and their significance.”

The site: Khirbet Qeiyafa (aka the “Elah Fortress“) is located opposite Azekah along a ridge north of the Elah Valley, near the famous battle of David and Goliath.

The date: The site, and therefore presumably the inscription, dates to “late Iron I/early Iron IIA,” which is the scholarly way of saying “10th century B.C.” David and Solomon were kings in Jerusalem in the 10th century.

The finds: Some of this has already been reported, but Maier probably is meaning the inscription itself, about which nothing has been revealed to the public. I reported previously that the ostracon (inscribed potsherd) has 4-5 lines of writing.

Its significance: The major discussion in “biblical archaeology” right now centers on the 10th century. The newer view (popularized in this book) denies that Judah was a nation-state until hundreds of years later, insisting that the biblical account of the United Monarchy is pure fabrication.

Most archaeologists reject that view. My guess is that Maier’s excitement is because this inscription will play a role in this discussion.

Other inscriptions: It may be worth noting that two (or three) other significant 10th century inscriptions were found in the same region. To the north, Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister found the Gezer Calendar in the early 1900s. To the south, Ronald Tappy discovered an abecedary (alphabetic inscription) at Tell Zayit a few years ago. To the west at Gath, Maier uncovered the “Goliath inscription,” which dates to the 10th or 9th centuries. If you’re an archaeologist looking for a 10th century inscription, head for the Shephelah.

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Shephelah