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More on "Nehemiah's Wall"

Yesterday the Jerusalem Post finally reported on the discovery of “Nehemiah’s wall” first announced several weeks ago. Today the AP has a report. Most of the material is similar to what was reported before, but the Jerusalem Post says that not only the tower but the wall as a whole is from the time of Nehemiah. That would be a significant development, because the wall is large and easily visible to tourists. The AP version quotes two scholars with different views on Mazar’s conclusion. Stern’s expertise is Persian period.

Ephraim Stern, professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and chairman of the state of Israel archaeological council, corroborated Mazar’s claim. “The material she showed me is from the Persian period,” the period of Nehemiah, he said. “I can sign on the date of the material she found.”
Another scholar disputed the significance of the discovery.
Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, called the discovery “an interesting find,” but said the pottery and other remains do not indicate that the wall was built in the time of Nehemiah. Because the debris was not connected to a floor or other structural part of the wall, the wall could have been built later, Finkelstein said.
“The wall could have been built, theoretically, in the Ottoman period,” he said. “It’s not later than the pottery — that’s all we know.”

You can read the full story here.

Wall (center foreground and below wooden staircase) dated by Eilat Mazar to Nehemiah’s time

On the picture above, the wall redated to Nehemiah’s time is in between the “Southern Hasmonean period tower” and “Northern Hasmonean period tower,” behind the “Stepped Stone Structure.”

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Ancient Synagogue Found Below Arbel

Hebrew University announced the discovery of an ancient synagogue this week. Dozens of Galilean synagogues from the Roman and Byzantine (Talmudic) periods have been discovered, including ones not far from this one at Capernaum, Arbel, and Hammath Tiberias. Wadi Hamam is located at the base of the Arbel cliffs, and is the location of the end of “the hike” if you’ve ever climbed down.

Students with me last year who hiked from Khirbet Kana (biblical Cana) to Magdala probably passed right over the remains described below. From the Hebrew University website:

Remains of an ancient synagogue from the Roman-Byzantine era have been revealed in excavations carried out in the Arbel National Park in the Galilee under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The excavations, in the Khirbet Wadi Hamam, were led by Dr. Uzi Leibner of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology and Scholion – Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies.
Dr. Leibner said that the synagogue’s design is a good example of the eastern Roman architectural tradition. A unique feature of the synagogue is the design of its mosaic floor, he said.

Area of discovery from southwest

The synagogue ruins are located at the foot of the Mt. Nitai cliffs overlooking the Sea of Galilee, amidst the remains of a large Jewish village from the Roman-Byzantine period. The first season of excavations there have revealed the northern part of the synagogue, with two rows of benches along the walls. The building is constructed of basalt and chalk stone and made use of elements from an earlier structure on the site….
The excavators were surprised to find in the eastern aisle of the synagogue a mosaic decoration which to date has no parallels — not in other synagogues, nor in art in Israel in general from the Roman-Byzantine period. The mosaic is made of tiny stones (four mm. in size) in a variety of colors. The scene depicted is that of a series of woodworkers who are holding various tools of their trade. Near these workers is seen a monumental structure which they are apparently building. According to Dr. Leibner, since Biblical scenes are commonly found in synagogue art, it is possible that what we see in this case is the building of the Temple, or Noah’s ark, or the tower of Babel. The mosaic floor has been removed from the excavation site and its now in the process of restoration.

The rest of the story and a photo of the mosaic floor may be found here.

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Roman street found near Western Wall

From today’s Jerusalem Post:

The remains of an ancient terraced street dating back to the Roman Period have been uncovered in the Western Wall tunnels, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The street, which likely led to the nearby Temple Mount, dates back nearly 2,000 years to when the city was called Aelia Capitolina, during the second to fourth centuries.

The site, which was uncovered in archeological excavations over the past year, is a side street connecting two major roads in the area, said Jon Seligman, the Antiquities Authority Jerusalem regional archeologist.

The ancient street is paved with large flagstones and is amazingly well-preserved. It is demarcated on both sides by walls built of ashlar stones.

The recent finding is the latest indication that even after they destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Romans continued to value the Temple Mount as one of the main urban focal points of activity in the city.

Various artifacts were discovered in the excavations, including pottery, glass vessels and dozens of coins that all date to the construction of the street and the period after it was abandoned.

Update (11/16): Link above updated. Reuters also has the story with photos.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

Excavator Claims Nehemiah's Wall Found in Jerusalem

A few weeks ago I reported on a discovery of Persian period material in the City of David. In a presentation at an archaeological conference in Israel yesterday, Eilat Mazar gave more details about the discovery. The mainstream press hasn’t yet picked up the story, but it is reported on the web at theTrumpet.com (HT: Joe Lauer). A few excerpts in italics, with my commentary:

Yesterday, at an archaeological conference at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, Dr. Eilat Mazar told 500 attendees that she had discovered Nehemiah’s wall.

This conference was the 13th Annual Conference of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies on “New Studies on Jerusalem.” One of the lectures scheduled later that day was by Israel Finkelstein: Jerusalem in the Persian Period and the Wall of Nehemiah. No report of that talk is given in this article.

Adjacent to the palace wall stood a large stone tower archaeologists believed to be built during the Hasmonean dynasty (142-37 b.c.). Early last summer, a section of that tower, which was built on a steep slope just outside the palace, began to give way, indicating it was on the verge of collapse. And so what started as a simple task of repairing a collapsing tower turned into a six-week dig—and a fascinating new discovery.

There are two towers that could fit this description. My guess is it is the northernmost of the two, because

1) the excavation had been working in close proximity to this for the last couple of years, including workers standing on top of it for debris removal and

2) previous excavators had suggested that the base of this tower was originally built in the Persian period. I’ve taught for years that if there’s any evidence in Jerusalem that has been found of Nehemiah’s wall, it’s here. What’s new, then, is the additional evidence to support this contention.

“Under the tower,” Dr. Mazar said at the conference, “we found the bones of two large dogs—and under those bones a rich assemblage of pottery and finds from the Persian period [6th to 5th centuries b.c.]. No later finds from that period were found under the tower.” The pottery is what clearly dates the time period for the tower’s construction. Had the tower been built during the 2nd or 1st century b.c., Dr. Mazar explained, 6th-century pottery underneath the wall would leave a chronological gap of several hundred years. Therefore we know, based on the pottery dating, that the tower would have been built three to four centuries earlier than previously thought, during the Persian Empire’s heyday, which is precisely when the Bible says Nehemiah rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem.

According to biblical chronology, Nehemiah returned to build the walls of Jerusalem in about 445 B.C., which is the middle of the 5th century. Thus the dating of this wall would correspond with the biblical record of Nehemiah’s wall. Furthermore, it is logical that that the Hasmoneans built their wall (the “First Wall”) above the remains of Nehemiah’s wall. The dog burials are interesting because 800 of such were found in a Persian period level at Ashkelon. The article does not mention the seal impression (bulla) with “a beautiful 5th century B.C. inscription” mentioned here previously.

Many of the landmarks described in Nehemiah’s book can now be clearly identified today thanks in large part to the work of Eilat Mazar.

False on two counts. Most of the landmarks of Nehemiah’s book are not identifiable today (for understandable reasons). And Mazar has excavated very little from the Persian period. Mazar would not make this claim for herself.

For the rest of the morning, Dr. Mazar’s colleagues spoke one after another, each of them picking apart her findings, some even rejecting her conclusions. But the entire morning session of perhaps the most important archaeological conference of the year in Israel was devoted to Eilat Mazar’s work—not her theories, her work.

This is what makes the archaeological discipline so much better than it was 100 years ago, when one archaeologist could make a claim and that was the end of the matter.

And that’s just the way she likes it. As she has said before, in the end, the stones will speak for themselves.

Rubbish. Stones do not speak for themselves. Archaeology is large part interpretation, which makes it as much of an art as a science.

UPDATE (11/12): Yitzhak Sapir was at the conference and would have written an entirely different article.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

Ron Tappy and the Abecedary

I don’t think this recently discovered alphabetic inscription has received coverage in the popular press like it deserves. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Ron Tappy became a committed Christian in his mid-20s, after deciding to read the Bible straight through.
When he did, “the Old Testament just floored me, and the history of Israel became my history, and I became a Christian in that process. To this day, I have an abiding respect for the texts of Scripture,” he said.
It seems fitting, then, that Dr. Tappy’s most famous discovery as a biblical archaeologist is a 38-pound limestone rock inscribed with a 2,900-year-old alphabet.
The stone was found two years ago at Tel Zayit in Israel, a dig about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. Using distinctive pottery and carbon dating of the soil levels above it, the stone was firmly traced to the 10th century B.C., the time when the biblical King Solomon was supposed to have lived.
The discovery was described by some experts as the most important find in biblical archaeology in the last 10 years.
One reason for the buzz was that the stone suggests the earliest Hebrew Scriptures could have been written down in that era — hundreds of years earlier than many scholars had believed.
For Dr. Tappy, the alphabet stone also suggests not only that King Solomon was a real historical figure, but that he did in fact have a growing kingdom at the time, because Tel Zayit sits on the border of Solomon’s Judah and the kingdom of Philistia, where the Philistines lived.

The story continues here. The excavation’s website is here, but has not been updated recently.

Photographs of the inscription appear to be more sacred than the ark rare but here’s one with Tappy and another showing a few of the letters.

UPDATE: Offline there is a lot of information and photographs in this article:

Tappy, Ron E., P. Kyle McCarter, Marilyn J. Lundberg, Bruce Zuckerman (2006). “An Abecedary of the Mid-Tenth Century B.C.E. from the Judaean Shephelah”. BASOR 344 (November): 5-46.

Tagged Discoveries

Persian Period Finds in City of David

I was talking with a scholar the other day about the general lack of archaeological material in Israel from the Persian period (530-330 B.C.). This is especially true for the city of Jerusalem. Then today I learned this from a reliable source:

Just yesterday, Eilat Mazar found a Persian period layer with much pottery and bullae, mostly fragments, but one with a beautiful 5th century B.C. inscription from the Persian Period.

Mazar is excavating in the City of David, above Shiloh’s Area G, on the summit of the hill in an area where she believes she is excavating the palace of David. When I know more, or when this is reported in the media, I’ll mention it here.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem