Funerary monument reveals Iron Age belief that the soul lived in the stone
Discovery in Turkey comes from major Iron Age site
Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.
University of Chicago researchers will describe the discovery, a testimony created by an Iron Age official that includes an incised image of the man, on Nov. 22-23 at conferences of biblical and Middle Eastern archaeological scholars in Boston.
The Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago found the 800-pound basalt stele, 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, at Zincirli (pronounced "Zin-jeer-lee"), the site of the ancient city of Sam'al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.
The stele is the first of its kind to be found intact in its original location, enabling scholars to learn about funerary customs and life in the eighth century B.C. At the time, vast empires emerged in the ancient Middle East, and cultures such as the Israelites and Phoenicians became part of a vibrant mix.
The man featured on the stele was probably cremated, a practice that Jewish and other cultures shun because of a belief in the unity of body and soul. According to the inscription, the soul of the deceased resided in the stele.
"The stele is in almost pristine condition. It is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features and thus provides an important addition to our knowledge of ancient language and culture," said David Schloen, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute and Director of the University's Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.
Schloen will present the Kuttamuwa stele to a scholarly audience at the meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research on Nov. 22 in Boston, the major annual conference for Middle Eastern archaeology. Dennis Pardee, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago, will present his translation of the stele's 13-line inscription the following day at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, also in Boston, in a session on "Paleographical Studies in the Near East."
German archaeologists first excavated the 100-acre site in the 1890s and unearthed massive city walls, gates and palaces. A number of royal inscriptions and other finds are now on display in museums in Istanbul and Berlin. Schloen and his team from the University of Chicago have excavated Zincirli for two months annually since 2006.
"Zincirli is a remarkable site," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. "Because no other cities were built on top of it, we have excellent Iron Age materials right under the surface. It is rare also in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age. Having all of that information helps an archaeologist study the ethnicity of the inhabitants, trade and migration, as well as the relationships of the groups who lived there."
The stele was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a "servant" of King Panamuwa of the eighth century B.C. It was found in the outer part of the walled city in a domestic area—most likely the house of Kuttamuwa himself—far from the royal palaces, where inscriptions had previously been found.
The inscription reads in part: "I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …" It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. It is of keen interest to linguists as well as biblical scholars and religious historians because it comes from a kingdom contemporary with ancient Israel that shared a similar language and cultural features.
The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or "soul" of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.
The stele was set against a stone wall in the corner of the small room, with its protruding tenon or "tab" still inserted into a slot in a flagstone platform. A handsome, bearded figure, Kuttamuwa wore a tasseled cap and fringed cloak and raised a cup of wine in his right hand. He was seated on a chair in front of a table laden with food, symbolizing the pleasant afterlife he expected to enjoy. Beside him is his inscription, elegantly carved in raised relief, enjoining upon his descendants the regular duty of bringing food for his soul. Indeed, in front of the stele were remains of food offerings and fragments of polished stone bowls of the type depicted on Kuttamuwa's table.
According to Schloen, the stele vividly demonstrates that Iron Age Sam'al, located in the border zone between Anatolia and Syria, inherited both Semitic and Indo-European cultural traditions. Kuttamuwa and his king, Panamuwa, had non-Semitic names, reflecting the migration of Indo-European speakers into the region centuries earlier under the Hittite Empire based in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), which had conquered the region.
But by the eighth century B.C., they were speaking the local West Semitic dialect and were fully integrated into local culture. Kuttumuwa's inscription shows a fascinating mixture of non-Semitic and Semitic cultural elements, including a belief in the enduring human soul—which did not inhabit the bones of the deceased, as in traditional Semitic thought, but inhabited his stone monument, possibly because the remains of the deceased were cremated. Cremation was considered to be abhorrent in the Old Testament and in traditional West Semitic culture, but there is archaeological evidence for Indo-European-style cremation in neighboring Iron Age sites, although not yet at Zincirli itself.
In future excavation campaigns, the Neubauer Expedition, under Schloen's direction, plans to excavate large areas of the site in order to understand the social and economic organization of the city and its cultural development over the centuries. Schloen hopes to illuminate Iron Age culture more widely, of which Zincirli provides a richly documented example.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman in northern Israel
The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region.
Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community. Details of the discovery were published in the PNAS journal on November 3, 2008.
What was found in the shaman's grave?
The grave contained body parts of several animals that rarely occur in Natufian assemblages. These include fifty tortoises, the near-compete pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of a golden eagle, tail of a cow, two marten skulls and the forearm of a wild boar which was directly aligned with the woman's left humerus.
A human foot belonging to an adult individual who was substantially larger than the interred woman was also found in the grave.
Dr. Grosman believes this burial is consistent with expectations for a shaman's grave. Burials of shamans often reflect their role in life (i.e., remains of particular animals and contents of healing kits). It seems that the woman was perceived as being in close relationship with these animal spirits.
Method of burial
The body was buried in an unusual position. It was laid on its side with the spinal column, pelvis and right femur resting against the curved southern wall of the oval-shaped grave. The legs were spread apart and folded inward at the knees.
According to Dr. Grosman, ten large stones were placed directly on the head, pelvis and arms of the buried individual at the time of burial. Following decomposition of the body, the weight of the stones caused disarticulation of some parts of the skeleton, including the separation of the pelvis from the vertebral column.
Speculating why the body was held in place in such a way and covered with rocks, Dr. Grosman suggests it could have been to protect the body from being eaten by wild animals or because the community was trying to keep the shaman and her spirit inside the grave.
Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman's gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.
Fifty tortoises
Most remarkably, the woman was buried with 50 complete tortoise shells. The inside of the tortoises were likely eaten as part of a feast surrounding the interment of the deceased. High representation of limb bones indicates that most tortoise remains were thrown into the grave along with the shells after consumption.
The recovery of the limb bones also indicates that entire tortoises, not only their shells, were transported to the cave for the burial. The collection of 50 living tortoises at the time of burial would have required a significant investment, as these are solitary animals. Alternatively, these animals could have been collected and confined by humans for a period preceding the event.
Shaman graves in archaeology
According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.
Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.
The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.
Natufian grave site
Hilazon Tachtit is a small cave site next to Carmiel that functioned first and foremost as a Natufian burial ground for at least 28 individuals representing an array of ages.
The collective graves found at the site likely served as primary burial areas that were later re-opened to remove skulls and long bones for secondary burial – a practice common to the Natufian and the following Neolithic cultures.
Only three partially complete primary burials were recovered at Hilazon Tachtit. One was a skeleton of a young adult (sex unknown) reposed in a flexed position on its right side with both hands under his face. The scattered bones of a newborn were found in the area of the missing pelvis and it appears that the newborn and the young adult, possibly the mother, were buried together.
Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community. Details of the discovery were published in the PNAS journal on November 3, 2008.
What was found in the shaman's grave?
The grave contained body parts of several animals that rarely occur in Natufian assemblages. These include fifty tortoises, the near-compete pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of a golden eagle, tail of a cow, two marten skulls and the forearm of a wild boar which was directly aligned with the woman's left humerus.
A human foot belonging to an adult individual who was substantially larger than the interred woman was also found in the grave.
Dr. Grosman believes this burial is consistent with expectations for a shaman's grave. Burials of shamans often reflect their role in life (i.e., remains of particular animals and contents of healing kits). It seems that the woman was perceived as being in close relationship with these animal spirits.
Method of burial
The body was buried in an unusual position. It was laid on its side with the spinal column, pelvis and right femur resting against the curved southern wall of the oval-shaped grave. The legs were spread apart and folded inward at the knees.
According to Dr. Grosman, ten large stones were placed directly on the head, pelvis and arms of the buried individual at the time of burial. Following decomposition of the body, the weight of the stones caused disarticulation of some parts of the skeleton, including the separation of the pelvis from the vertebral column.
Speculating why the body was held in place in such a way and covered with rocks, Dr. Grosman suggests it could have been to protect the body from being eaten by wild animals or because the community was trying to keep the shaman and her spirit inside the grave.
Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman's gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.
Fifty tortoises
Most remarkably, the woman was buried with 50 complete tortoise shells. The inside of the tortoises were likely eaten as part of a feast surrounding the interment of the deceased. High representation of limb bones indicates that most tortoise remains were thrown into the grave along with the shells after consumption.
The recovery of the limb bones also indicates that entire tortoises, not only their shells, were transported to the cave for the burial. The collection of 50 living tortoises at the time of burial would have required a significant investment, as these are solitary animals. Alternatively, these animals could have been collected and confined by humans for a period preceding the event.
Shaman graves in archaeology
According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.
Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.
The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.
Natufian grave site
Hilazon Tachtit is a small cave site next to Carmiel that functioned first and foremost as a Natufian burial ground for at least 28 individuals representing an array of ages.
The collective graves found at the site likely served as primary burial areas that were later re-opened to remove skulls and long bones for secondary burial – a practice common to the Natufian and the following Neolithic cultures.
Only three partially complete primary burials were recovered at Hilazon Tachtit. One was a skeleton of a young adult (sex unknown) reposed in a flexed position on its right side with both hands under his face. The scattered bones of a newborn were found in the area of the missing pelvis and it appears that the newborn and the young adult, possibly the mother, were buried together.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Earliest Hebrew text in Proto-Canaanite script found
Discovery of oldest Judaic city fortress proof of United Monarchy
The earliest known Hebrew text written in a Proto-Canaanite script has been discovered by Hebrew University archaeologists in an ancient city in the area where David slew Goliath – the earliest Judean city found to date. The 3,000 year old finding is thought to be the most significant archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls – predating them by 1,000 years.
The ostracon (pottery shard inscribed with writing in ink) comprises five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 x 15 cm. and was found at excavations of a 10th century B.C.E. fortress - the oldest known Judaic city.
The ostracon was found lying on the floor inside a building near the city gate of the site, known as the Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa.
Excavations are being led by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his partner Saar Ganur, in partnership with Foundation Stone, a non-profit educational organization which works to provide a contemporary voice to ancient stories. The excavations and analysis are also being supported by J.B. Silver and the Brennan Foundation.
Why is this inscription so special?
Carbon-14 dating of organic material found with the ostracon, administered by Oxford University, along with pottery analysis dates this inscription to the time of King David ca. 3,000 years ago – predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by approximately a millennium, and placing it earlier than the famed Gezer Calendar.
It is hoped the text inscribed on the 'Qeiyafa Ostracon' will serve as an anchor in our understanding of the development of all alphabetic scripts.
While the inscription has yet to be deciphered, initial interpretation indicates the text was part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge", "slave" and "king". This may indicate that this is a legal text that could provide insights into Hebrew law, society and beliefs. Archaeologists say that it was clearly written as a deliberate message by a trained scribe.
What is the Elah Fortress?
Dating to the 10th century B.C.E., the Elah Fortress is the earliest known fortified city of the biblical period in Israel. Excavations began on the site in June 2008.
Comprising 23 dunams [2.3 hectares], the Elah Fortress (Khirbet Qeiyafa) was situated on the border between Philistia and the Kingdom of Judea (5 kilometers south of current day Bet Shemesh.). It is thought to have been a major strategic checkpoint guarding the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to Jerusalem, which was just a day's walk away.
Nearly 600 square meters of the Elah Fortress have so far been unearthed. Surrounded by a 700 meter-long massive city wall, the fortress was built with megalithic stones - some weighing four to five tons. The city wall is four meters wide, constructed with casemates. Archaeologists estimate that 200,000 tons of rock were hewn, moved and used in the construction of these fortifications.
A four-chambered gate, 10.5 meters across, is the dominant feature of the massive fortifications. Further excavations will reveal whether it is really six chambers and whether there are other gates. The larger rocks in the gate structure weigh five to eight tons.
To date, only four percent of the site has been excavated, promising many more incredible discoveries in the remaining 96 percent in the future.
How do we know this is a Judean fortress?
The early Hebrew ostracon, Judean pottery similar to that found at other Israelite settlements, and the absence of pig bones among the animal bones found at the site all point to this fortress being a city of the Kingdom of Judea.
Elah Fortress proof of United Monarchy
The Elah Fortress archaeological site could prove the existence of the United Monarchy, which scholars often question ever existed. The artifacts found at the site thus far all indicate that there was most likely a strong king and central government in Jerusalem - earlier than any discovered until now - rather than a number of small villages scattered throughout Judea. This would verify descriptions and narratives found in Samuel and Chronicles.
Over 100 jar handles bear distinct impressions which may indicate a link to royal vessels. Such a large quantity of this feature found in one small locale is unprecedented.
David & Goliath
The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is situated among four biblical cities in Judea's inheritance chronicled in the Book of Joshua 35:15 - Azeka, Socho, Yarmut and Adulam. The biblical narrative located the battle between David and Goliath between Socho and Azeka. According to legend, David selected five stones from the nearby Elah Creek with which to slay Goliath.
According to Prof. Garfinkel, this is the only site in Israel where one can investigate the historical King David. "The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of Kind David."
Related article:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2385590820&topic=7560
The earliest known Hebrew text written in a Proto-Canaanite script has been discovered by Hebrew University archaeologists in an ancient city in the area where David slew Goliath – the earliest Judean city found to date. The 3,000 year old finding is thought to be the most significant archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls – predating them by 1,000 years.
The ostracon (pottery shard inscribed with writing in ink) comprises five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 x 15 cm. and was found at excavations of a 10th century B.C.E. fortress - the oldest known Judaic city.
The ostracon was found lying on the floor inside a building near the city gate of the site, known as the Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa.
Excavations are being led by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his partner Saar Ganur, in partnership with Foundation Stone, a non-profit educational organization which works to provide a contemporary voice to ancient stories. The excavations and analysis are also being supported by J.B. Silver and the Brennan Foundation.
Why is this inscription so special?
Carbon-14 dating of organic material found with the ostracon, administered by Oxford University, along with pottery analysis dates this inscription to the time of King David ca. 3,000 years ago – predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by approximately a millennium, and placing it earlier than the famed Gezer Calendar.
It is hoped the text inscribed on the 'Qeiyafa Ostracon' will serve as an anchor in our understanding of the development of all alphabetic scripts.
While the inscription has yet to be deciphered, initial interpretation indicates the text was part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge", "slave" and "king". This may indicate that this is a legal text that could provide insights into Hebrew law, society and beliefs. Archaeologists say that it was clearly written as a deliberate message by a trained scribe.
What is the Elah Fortress?
Dating to the 10th century B.C.E., the Elah Fortress is the earliest known fortified city of the biblical period in Israel. Excavations began on the site in June 2008.
Comprising 23 dunams [2.3 hectares], the Elah Fortress (Khirbet Qeiyafa) was situated on the border between Philistia and the Kingdom of Judea (5 kilometers south of current day Bet Shemesh.). It is thought to have been a major strategic checkpoint guarding the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to Jerusalem, which was just a day's walk away.
Nearly 600 square meters of the Elah Fortress have so far been unearthed. Surrounded by a 700 meter-long massive city wall, the fortress was built with megalithic stones - some weighing four to five tons. The city wall is four meters wide, constructed with casemates. Archaeologists estimate that 200,000 tons of rock were hewn, moved and used in the construction of these fortifications.
A four-chambered gate, 10.5 meters across, is the dominant feature of the massive fortifications. Further excavations will reveal whether it is really six chambers and whether there are other gates. The larger rocks in the gate structure weigh five to eight tons.
To date, only four percent of the site has been excavated, promising many more incredible discoveries in the remaining 96 percent in the future.
How do we know this is a Judean fortress?
The early Hebrew ostracon, Judean pottery similar to that found at other Israelite settlements, and the absence of pig bones among the animal bones found at the site all point to this fortress being a city of the Kingdom of Judea.
Elah Fortress proof of United Monarchy
The Elah Fortress archaeological site could prove the existence of the United Monarchy, which scholars often question ever existed. The artifacts found at the site thus far all indicate that there was most likely a strong king and central government in Jerusalem - earlier than any discovered until now - rather than a number of small villages scattered throughout Judea. This would verify descriptions and narratives found in Samuel and Chronicles.
Over 100 jar handles bear distinct impressions which may indicate a link to royal vessels. Such a large quantity of this feature found in one small locale is unprecedented.
David & Goliath
The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is situated among four biblical cities in Judea's inheritance chronicled in the Book of Joshua 35:15 - Azeka, Socho, Yarmut and Adulam. The biblical narrative located the battle between David and Goliath between Socho and Azeka. According to legend, David selected five stones from the nearby Elah Creek with which to slay Goliath.
According to Prof. Garfinkel, this is the only site in Israel where one can investigate the historical King David. "The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of Kind David."
Related article:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2385590820&topic=7560
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
King Solomon's (Copper) Mines?
Did the Bible's King David and his son Solomon control the copper industry in present-day southern Jordan? Though that remains an open question, the possibility is raised once again by research reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Led by Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, an international team of archaeologists has excavated an ancient copper-production center at Khirbat en-Nahas down to virgin soil, through more than 20 feet of industrial smelting debris, or slag. The 2006 dig has brought up new artifacts and with them a new suite of radiocarbon dates placing the bulk of industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas in the 10th century BCE – in line with biblical narrative on the legendary rule of David and Solomon. The new data pushes back the archaeological chronology some three centuries earlier than the current scholarly consensus.
The research also documents a spike in metallurgic activity at the site during the 9th century BCE, which may also support the history of the Edomites as related by the Bible.
Khirbat en-Nahas, which means "ruins of copper" in Arabic, is in the lowlands of a desolate, arid region south of the Dead Sea in what was once Edom and is today Jordan's Faynan district. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom, foe of ancient Israel.
For years, scholars have argued whether the Edomites were sufficiently organized by the 10th to 9th centuries BCE to seriously threaten the neighboring Israelites as a true "kingdom." Between the World Wars, during the "Golden Age" of biblical archaeology, scholars explored, as Levy describes it, with a trowel in one hand and Bible in the other, seeking to fit their Holy Land findings into the sacred story. Based on his 1930s surveys, American archaeologist Nelson Glueck even asserted that he had found King Solomon's mines in Faynan/Edom. By the 1980s, however, Glueck's claim had been largely dismissed. A consensus had emerged that the Bible was heavily edited in the 5th century BCE, long after the supposed events, while British excavations of the Edomite highlands in the 1970s-80s suggested the Iron Age had not even come to Edom until the 7th century BCE.
"Now," said Levy, director of the Levantine Archaeology Lab at UCSD and associate director of the new Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), "with data from the first large-scale stratified and systematic excavation of a site in the southern Levant to focus specifically on the role of metallurgy in Edom, we have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in 10th and 9th centuries BCE and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible narratives related to this period."
Khirbat en-Nahas, comprising some 100 ancient buildings including a fortress, is situated in the midst of a large area covered by black slag – more than 24 acres that you can clearly see on Google Earth's satellite imagery. Mining trails and mines abound. The size argues for industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas, Levy explained. And the depth of the waste at the site, more than 20 feet, he said, provides a "measuring stick" to monitor social and technological change during the Iron Age, which spans around 1200 to 500 BCE, a key period in the histories of ancient Israel and Edom.
The archaeological team, Levy said, used high-precision radiocarbon dating on date seeds, sticks of tamarisk and other woods used for charcoal in smelting (along with Bayesian analysis) to obtain the 10th- and 9th-century BCE dates. The analyses were carried out by Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford.
Additional evidence comes from ancient Egyptian artifacts found at the site. The artifacts, a scarab and an amulet, were in a layer of the excavation associated with a serious disruption in production at the end of the 10th century BCE – possibly tying Khirbat en-Nahas to the well-documented military campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq I (aka "Shishak" in the Bible) who, following Solomon's death, sought to crush economic activity in the area.
For a comprehensive picture, the researchers marshaled the "the newest and most accurate digital archaeology tools," Levy said: electronic surveying linked to GIS that all but eliminates human error, as well as digital reconstruction of the site in the "StarCAVE," a 3-D virtual environment at UC San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
The present findings, Levy noted, support early results he and his colleagues obtained from digs at Khirbat en-Nahas in 2002 and 2004.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible.
"Our work also demonstrates methods that are objective and enable researchers to evaluate the data in a dispassionate way. This is especially important for 'historical archaeologies' around the world where sacred texts – whether the Mahabharata in India or the Sagas of Iceland – and the archaeological record are arenas for fierce ideological and cultural debates."
Future research at Khirbat en-Nahas, Levy said, will focus on who actually controlled the copper industry there – Kings David and Solomon or perhaps regional Edomite leaders (who had not been written about in the biblical texts) – and also on the environmental impacts of all this ancient smelting.
Meanwhile, Levy is working with the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in Jordan and other organizations to have Khirbat en-Nahas and the more than 450-square mile ancient mining and metallurgy district declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to protect it from possible mining in the future and preserve "its spectacular desert landscape and rare, ancient character."
Led by Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, an international team of archaeologists has excavated an ancient copper-production center at Khirbat en-Nahas down to virgin soil, through more than 20 feet of industrial smelting debris, or slag. The 2006 dig has brought up new artifacts and with them a new suite of radiocarbon dates placing the bulk of industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas in the 10th century BCE – in line with biblical narrative on the legendary rule of David and Solomon. The new data pushes back the archaeological chronology some three centuries earlier than the current scholarly consensus.
The research also documents a spike in metallurgic activity at the site during the 9th century BCE, which may also support the history of the Edomites as related by the Bible.
Khirbat en-Nahas, which means "ruins of copper" in Arabic, is in the lowlands of a desolate, arid region south of the Dead Sea in what was once Edom and is today Jordan's Faynan district. The Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom, foe of ancient Israel.
For years, scholars have argued whether the Edomites were sufficiently organized by the 10th to 9th centuries BCE to seriously threaten the neighboring Israelites as a true "kingdom." Between the World Wars, during the "Golden Age" of biblical archaeology, scholars explored, as Levy describes it, with a trowel in one hand and Bible in the other, seeking to fit their Holy Land findings into the sacred story. Based on his 1930s surveys, American archaeologist Nelson Glueck even asserted that he had found King Solomon's mines in Faynan/Edom. By the 1980s, however, Glueck's claim had been largely dismissed. A consensus had emerged that the Bible was heavily edited in the 5th century BCE, long after the supposed events, while British excavations of the Edomite highlands in the 1970s-80s suggested the Iron Age had not even come to Edom until the 7th century BCE.
"Now," said Levy, director of the Levantine Archaeology Lab at UCSD and associate director of the new Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), "with data from the first large-scale stratified and systematic excavation of a site in the southern Levant to focus specifically on the role of metallurgy in Edom, we have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in 10th and 9th centuries BCE and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible narratives related to this period."
Khirbat en-Nahas, comprising some 100 ancient buildings including a fortress, is situated in the midst of a large area covered by black slag – more than 24 acres that you can clearly see on Google Earth's satellite imagery. Mining trails and mines abound. The size argues for industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas, Levy explained. And the depth of the waste at the site, more than 20 feet, he said, provides a "measuring stick" to monitor social and technological change during the Iron Age, which spans around 1200 to 500 BCE, a key period in the histories of ancient Israel and Edom.
The archaeological team, Levy said, used high-precision radiocarbon dating on date seeds, sticks of tamarisk and other woods used for charcoal in smelting (along with Bayesian analysis) to obtain the 10th- and 9th-century BCE dates. The analyses were carried out by Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford.
Additional evidence comes from ancient Egyptian artifacts found at the site. The artifacts, a scarab and an amulet, were in a layer of the excavation associated with a serious disruption in production at the end of the 10th century BCE – possibly tying Khirbat en-Nahas to the well-documented military campaign of Pharaoh Sheshonq I (aka "Shishak" in the Bible) who, following Solomon's death, sought to crush economic activity in the area.
For a comprehensive picture, the researchers marshaled the "the newest and most accurate digital archaeology tools," Levy said: electronic surveying linked to GIS that all but eliminates human error, as well as digital reconstruction of the site in the "StarCAVE," a 3-D virtual environment at UC San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.
The present findings, Levy noted, support early results he and his colleagues obtained from digs at Khirbat en-Nahas in 2002 and 2004.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible.
"Our work also demonstrates methods that are objective and enable researchers to evaluate the data in a dispassionate way. This is especially important for 'historical archaeologies' around the world where sacred texts – whether the Mahabharata in India or the Sagas of Iceland – and the archaeological record are arenas for fierce ideological and cultural debates."
Future research at Khirbat en-Nahas, Levy said, will focus on who actually controlled the copper industry there – Kings David and Solomon or perhaps regional Edomite leaders (who had not been written about in the biblical texts) – and also on the environmental impacts of all this ancient smelting.
Meanwhile, Levy is working with the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in Jordan and other organizations to have Khirbat en-Nahas and the more than 450-square mile ancient mining and metallurgy district declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to protect it from possible mining in the future and preserve "its spectacular desert landscape and rare, ancient character."
Monday, October 27, 2008
Fire was key to migration of man out of Africa
The ability to make fire millennia ago was likely a key factor in the migration of prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology believes on the basis of findings at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov archaeological site in Israel.
Earlier excavations there, carried out under the direction of Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Institute of Archaeology, showed that the occupants of the site – who are identified as being part of the Acheulian culture that arose in Africa about 1.6 million years ago -- had mastered fire-making ability as long as 790,000 years ago. This revelation pushed back previously accepted dates for man's fire-making ability by a half-million years.
The Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site is located along the Dead Sea rift in the Hula Valley of northern Israel.
Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil, a member of Goren-Inbar's team, said that further, detailed investigation of burned flint at designated areas in all eight levels of civilization found at the site now shows that "concentrations of burned flint items were found in distinct areas, interpreted as representing the remnants of ancient hearths." This tells us, she said, that once acquired, this fire-making ability was carried on over a period of many generations. Alperson-Afil's findings are reported in an article published in the most recent edition of Quaternary Science Reviews.
She said that other studies which have reported on the use of fire only verified the presence of burned archaeological materials, but were unable to penetrate further into the question of whether humans were "fire-makers" from the very early stages of fire-use.
"The new data from Gesher Benot Ya'akov is exceptional as it preserved evidence for fire-use throughout a very long occupational sequence. This continual, habitual, use of fire suggests that these early humans were not compelled to collect that fire from natural conflagrations, rather they were able to make fire at will," Alperson-Afil said.
The manipulation of fire by early man was clearly a turning point for man's ancestors, Once "domesticated," fire enabled protection from predators and provided warmth and light as well as enabling the exploitation of a new range of foods.
Said Alperson-Afil: "The powerful tool of fire-making provided ancient humans with confidence, enabling them to leave their early circumscribed surroundings and eventually populate new, unfamiliar environments."
Earlier excavations there, carried out under the direction of Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Institute of Archaeology, showed that the occupants of the site – who are identified as being part of the Acheulian culture that arose in Africa about 1.6 million years ago -- had mastered fire-making ability as long as 790,000 years ago. This revelation pushed back previously accepted dates for man's fire-making ability by a half-million years.
The Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site is located along the Dead Sea rift in the Hula Valley of northern Israel.
Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil, a member of Goren-Inbar's team, said that further, detailed investigation of burned flint at designated areas in all eight levels of civilization found at the site now shows that "concentrations of burned flint items were found in distinct areas, interpreted as representing the remnants of ancient hearths." This tells us, she said, that once acquired, this fire-making ability was carried on over a period of many generations. Alperson-Afil's findings are reported in an article published in the most recent edition of Quaternary Science Reviews.
She said that other studies which have reported on the use of fire only verified the presence of burned archaeological materials, but were unable to penetrate further into the question of whether humans were "fire-makers" from the very early stages of fire-use.
"The new data from Gesher Benot Ya'akov is exceptional as it preserved evidence for fire-use throughout a very long occupational sequence. This continual, habitual, use of fire suggests that these early humans were not compelled to collect that fire from natural conflagrations, rather they were able to make fire at will," Alperson-Afil said.
The manipulation of fire by early man was clearly a turning point for man's ancestors, Once "domesticated," fire enabled protection from predators and provided warmth and light as well as enabling the exploitation of a new range of foods.
Said Alperson-Afil: "The powerful tool of fire-making provided ancient humans with confidence, enabling them to leave their early circumscribed surroundings and eventually populate new, unfamiliar environments."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Indiana: oldest such artifact ever documented
A prehistoric bone tool discovered by University of Indianapolis archeologists is the oldest such artifact ever documented in Indiana, the researchers say.
Radiocarbon dating shows that the tool – an awl fashioned from the leg bone of a white tail deer, with one end ground to a point – is 10,400 years old.
The find supports the growing notion that, in the wake of the most recent Ice Age, the first Hoosiers migrated northward earlier than previously thought. Sites from the Paleoindian and Early Archaic eras are more common in surrounding states such as Illinois and Ohio, which were not as heavily glaciated as Indiana.
“Indiana has been such a void,” said Associate Professor Christopher Schmidt, director of UIndy’s Indiana Prehistory Laboratory and president of the Indiana Archeology Council. “This bodes well for the future.”
The tool was found in 2003 in northwestern Indiana’s Carroll County by students participating in the university’s annual summer archeology field school. Schmidt has directed ongoing excavations since 2002 at the site near the small town of Flora, where a glacial lake attracted mastodon, giant beaver and smaller wildlife for thousands of years.
Stone tools thought to be from the same era have been found in Indiana, but because they are not made from organic materials, their age cannot determined precisely, only inferred from surrounding materials and comparison with similar artifacts. Tools made from biodegradable materials, such as bone, rarely survive intact from such ancient times.
Scratches and notches on the 5-inch bone awl indicate it probably was used in conjunction with a stone knife to punch holes in leather, perhaps for clothing. The nature of the activity suggests that the lifestyle of its users was more settled than nomadic.
“This tells us they’re pretty well established in northern Indiana,” Schmidt says. “This isn’t just people passing through. This is people settling down, making homes.”
The tool has undergone further analysis by Christopher Moore, who was among the UIndy students who found the tool and is now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky.
Moore and Schmidt describe the bone tool in the context of similar artifacts from around the country in an article titled “Paleoindian and Early Archaic Organic Technologies: A Review and Analysis,” to be published in an upcoming edition of North American Archaeologist.
The people who lived in Indiana 10,000 years ago are not well known, Schmidt says. No burials of this age have been found, and only a few sites this old have been documented.
“That’s what makes this site so interesting,” Schmidt says. “It gives us a glimpse into life not long after the glaciers had receded. It shows us a lake that was rich with life, some of which would soon go extinct, some of which is still with us today. And, despite the changes, it is clear those first people in Indiana were hardy and later flourished.”
Schmidt also offered praise for the residents of the Flora area, a close-knit German Baptist community that adheres to traditional farming practices but has been enthusiastic and generous toward the archeologists working in their midst.
“This particular dig has been wonderful because the people of Flora have been so gracious and supportive of our efforts,” Schmidt says. “They helped us at every turn. They gave us food, helped with our pumps, and even jumped into the pits to help with the digging.”
Radiocarbon dating shows that the tool – an awl fashioned from the leg bone of a white tail deer, with one end ground to a point – is 10,400 years old.
The find supports the growing notion that, in the wake of the most recent Ice Age, the first Hoosiers migrated northward earlier than previously thought. Sites from the Paleoindian and Early Archaic eras are more common in surrounding states such as Illinois and Ohio, which were not as heavily glaciated as Indiana.
“Indiana has been such a void,” said Associate Professor Christopher Schmidt, director of UIndy’s Indiana Prehistory Laboratory and president of the Indiana Archeology Council. “This bodes well for the future.”
The tool was found in 2003 in northwestern Indiana’s Carroll County by students participating in the university’s annual summer archeology field school. Schmidt has directed ongoing excavations since 2002 at the site near the small town of Flora, where a glacial lake attracted mastodon, giant beaver and smaller wildlife for thousands of years.
Stone tools thought to be from the same era have been found in Indiana, but because they are not made from organic materials, their age cannot determined precisely, only inferred from surrounding materials and comparison with similar artifacts. Tools made from biodegradable materials, such as bone, rarely survive intact from such ancient times.
Scratches and notches on the 5-inch bone awl indicate it probably was used in conjunction with a stone knife to punch holes in leather, perhaps for clothing. The nature of the activity suggests that the lifestyle of its users was more settled than nomadic.
“This tells us they’re pretty well established in northern Indiana,” Schmidt says. “This isn’t just people passing through. This is people settling down, making homes.”
The tool has undergone further analysis by Christopher Moore, who was among the UIndy students who found the tool and is now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky.
Moore and Schmidt describe the bone tool in the context of similar artifacts from around the country in an article titled “Paleoindian and Early Archaic Organic Technologies: A Review and Analysis,” to be published in an upcoming edition of North American Archaeologist.
The people who lived in Indiana 10,000 years ago are not well known, Schmidt says. No burials of this age have been found, and only a few sites this old have been documented.
“That’s what makes this site so interesting,” Schmidt says. “It gives us a glimpse into life not long after the glaciers had receded. It shows us a lake that was rich with life, some of which would soon go extinct, some of which is still with us today. And, despite the changes, it is clear those first people in Indiana were hardy and later flourished.”
Schmidt also offered praise for the residents of the Flora area, a close-knit German Baptist community that adheres to traditional farming practices but has been enthusiastic and generous toward the archeologists working in their midst.
“This particular dig has been wonderful because the people of Flora have been so gracious and supportive of our efforts,” Schmidt says. “They helped us at every turn. They gave us food, helped with our pumps, and even jumped into the pits to help with the digging.”
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Lost Capital of the (Jewish) Khazars
A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture.
Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital.
By law Khazars could use flamed bricks only in the capital, Vasilyev said. The general location of the city on the Silk Road was confirmed in medieval chronicles by Arab, Jewish and European authors.
"The discovery of the capital of Eastern Europe's first feudal state is of great significance," he told The Associated Press. "We should view it as part of Russian history."
Kevin Brook, the American author of "The Jews of Khazaria," e-mailed Wednesday that he has followed the Itil dig over the years, and even though it has yielded no Jewish artifacts, "Now I'm as confident as the archaeological team is that they've truly found the long-lost city,
The Khazars were a Turkic tribe that roamed the steppes from Northern China to the Black Sea. Between the 7th and 10th centuries they conquered huge swaths of what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia as far as the Aral Sea.
Itil, about 800 miles south of Moscow, had a population of up to 60,000 and occupied 0.8 square miles of marshy plains southwest of the Russian Caspian Sea port of Astrakhan, Vasilyev said.
It lay at a major junction of the Silk Road, the trade route between Europe and China, which "helped Khazars amass giant profits," he said.
The Khazar empire was once a regional superpower, and Vasilyev said his team has found "luxurious collections" of well-preserved ceramics that help identify cultural ties of the Khazar state with Europe, the Byzantine Empire and even Northern Africa. They also found armor, wooden kitchenware, glass lamps and cups, jewelry and vessels for transporting precious balms dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries, he said.
But a scholar in Israel, while calling the excavations interesting, said the challenge was to find Khazar inscriptions.
"If they found a few buildings, or remains of buildings, that's interesting but does not make a big difference," said Dr. Simon Kraiz, an expert on Eastern European Jewry at Haifa University. "If they found Khazar writings, that would be very important."
Vasilyev says no Jewish artifacts have been found at the site, and in general, most of what is known about the Khazars comes from chroniclers from other, sometimes competing cultures and empires.
"We know a lot about them, and yet we know almost nothing: Jews wrote about them, and so did Russians, Georgians, and Armenians, to name a few," said Kraiz. "But from the Khazars themselves we have nearly nothing."
The Khazars' ruling dynasty and nobility converted to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th centuries. Vasilyev said the limited number of Jewish religious artifacts such as mezuzas and Stars of David found at other Khazar sites prove that ordinary Khazars preferred traditional beliefs such as shamanism, or newly introduced religions including Islam.
Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Middle Eastern Institute in Moscow, said he believes the Khazar elite chose Judaism out of political expediency — to remain independent of neighboring Muslim and Christian states. "They embraced Judaism because they wanted to remain neutral, like Switzerland these days," he said.
In particular, he said, the Khazars opposed the Arab advance into the Caucasus Mountains and were instrumental in containing a Muslim push toward eastern Europe. He compared their role in eastern Europe to that of the French knights who defeated Arab forces at the Battle of Tours in France in 732.
The Khazars succeeded in holding off the Arabs, but a young, expanding Russian state vanquished the Khazar empire in the late 10th century. Medieval Russian epic poems mention Russian warriors fighting the "Jewish Giant."
"In many ways, Russia is a successor of the Khazar state," Vasilyev said.
He said his dig revealed traces of a large fire that was probably caused by the Russian conquest. He said Itil was rebuilt following the fall of the Khazar empire, when ethnic Khazars were slowly assimilated by Turkic-speaking tribes, Tatars and Mongols, who inhabited the city until it was flooded by the rising Caspian Sea around the 14th century.
The study of the Khazar empire was discouraged in the Soviet Union. The dictator Josef Stalin, in particular, detested the idea that a Jewish empire had come before Russia's own. He ordered references to Khazar history removed from textbooks because they "disproved his theory of Russian statehood," Satanovsky said.
Only now are Russian scholars free to explore Khazar culture. The Itil excavations have been sponsored by the Russian-Jewish Congress, a nonprofit organization that supports cultural projects in Russia.
"Khazar studies are just beginning," Satanovsky said.
Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital.
By law Khazars could use flamed bricks only in the capital, Vasilyev said. The general location of the city on the Silk Road was confirmed in medieval chronicles by Arab, Jewish and European authors.
"The discovery of the capital of Eastern Europe's first feudal state is of great significance," he told The Associated Press. "We should view it as part of Russian history."
Kevin Brook, the American author of "The Jews of Khazaria," e-mailed Wednesday that he has followed the Itil dig over the years, and even though it has yielded no Jewish artifacts, "Now I'm as confident as the archaeological team is that they've truly found the long-lost city,
The Khazars were a Turkic tribe that roamed the steppes from Northern China to the Black Sea. Between the 7th and 10th centuries they conquered huge swaths of what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia as far as the Aral Sea.
Itil, about 800 miles south of Moscow, had a population of up to 60,000 and occupied 0.8 square miles of marshy plains southwest of the Russian Caspian Sea port of Astrakhan, Vasilyev said.
It lay at a major junction of the Silk Road, the trade route between Europe and China, which "helped Khazars amass giant profits," he said.
The Khazar empire was once a regional superpower, and Vasilyev said his team has found "luxurious collections" of well-preserved ceramics that help identify cultural ties of the Khazar state with Europe, the Byzantine Empire and even Northern Africa. They also found armor, wooden kitchenware, glass lamps and cups, jewelry and vessels for transporting precious balms dating back to the eighth and ninth centuries, he said.
But a scholar in Israel, while calling the excavations interesting, said the challenge was to find Khazar inscriptions.
"If they found a few buildings, or remains of buildings, that's interesting but does not make a big difference," said Dr. Simon Kraiz, an expert on Eastern European Jewry at Haifa University. "If they found Khazar writings, that would be very important."
Vasilyev says no Jewish artifacts have been found at the site, and in general, most of what is known about the Khazars comes from chroniclers from other, sometimes competing cultures and empires.
"We know a lot about them, and yet we know almost nothing: Jews wrote about them, and so did Russians, Georgians, and Armenians, to name a few," said Kraiz. "But from the Khazars themselves we have nearly nothing."
The Khazars' ruling dynasty and nobility converted to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th centuries. Vasilyev said the limited number of Jewish religious artifacts such as mezuzas and Stars of David found at other Khazar sites prove that ordinary Khazars preferred traditional beliefs such as shamanism, or newly introduced religions including Islam.
Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the Middle Eastern Institute in Moscow, said he believes the Khazar elite chose Judaism out of political expediency — to remain independent of neighboring Muslim and Christian states. "They embraced Judaism because they wanted to remain neutral, like Switzerland these days," he said.
In particular, he said, the Khazars opposed the Arab advance into the Caucasus Mountains and were instrumental in containing a Muslim push toward eastern Europe. He compared their role in eastern Europe to that of the French knights who defeated Arab forces at the Battle of Tours in France in 732.
The Khazars succeeded in holding off the Arabs, but a young, expanding Russian state vanquished the Khazar empire in the late 10th century. Medieval Russian epic poems mention Russian warriors fighting the "Jewish Giant."
"In many ways, Russia is a successor of the Khazar state," Vasilyev said.
He said his dig revealed traces of a large fire that was probably caused by the Russian conquest. He said Itil was rebuilt following the fall of the Khazar empire, when ethnic Khazars were slowly assimilated by Turkic-speaking tribes, Tatars and Mongols, who inhabited the city until it was flooded by the rising Caspian Sea around the 14th century.
The study of the Khazar empire was discouraged in the Soviet Union. The dictator Josef Stalin, in particular, detested the idea that a Jewish empire had come before Russia's own. He ordered references to Khazar history removed from textbooks because they "disproved his theory of Russian statehood," Satanovsky said.
Only now are Russian scholars free to explore Khazar culture. The Itil excavations have been sponsored by the Russian-Jewish Congress, a nonprofit organization that supports cultural projects in Russia.
"Khazar studies are just beginning," Satanovsky said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)