As of tomorrow evening, I’m off to Texas, to give a few lectures about the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath.
So, if you are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area on Tuesday evening, April 21st, I’ll be talking at the SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
The next day (Wednesday April 22nd), I’ll be giving a talk at Baylor University, in Waco TX, at 12 noon.
And then, on Thurday evening (7 pm, April 23rd), I’ll be giving a talk in Houston, at the Houston Graduate School of Theology.
Tomorrow night, Jews all over the world will mark the beginning of the Passover holiday (Pesach), with the traditional “Seder” - in which the story of the exodus from Egypt, and its meta-historical, theological and personal meaning, both then and now, are discussed.
The Exodus, and its continuing metaphors in our everyday life, has served, and will continue to serve, as an excellent opportunity to reflect on one’s goals, limitations, personal “enslavements” and “exoduses”, and thus, transcends the Jewish aspect of this holiday.
On this occassion, I wanted to wish all those of you who read this blog, whether “Safi-ites” or not, that they should all find their own personal exodus and redemption, in any which way that one would wish to understand this.
Happy Passover to all!
And on a lighter note, here is a joke for Passover:
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Today, I had the pleasure of participating in the 35th Annual Archaeological Conference in Israel, which was held at the Mt. Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The conference was held all day, and during the 2nd part of the day, there were parallel meetings (on early and later periods).
As usual in such meetings, there were good talks and “less-good” talks.
Among that that I heard that were VERY interesting:
1) Haggai Misgav spoke about the Kh. Qeiyafa inscription, which still is for the most part undeciphered, but he showed some good slides of the 5 lines, 50 letters, and showed nicely the reading of, e.g., eved (slave), melek (king), al t’as (don’t do in biblical hebrew), etc. Inter alia, the so-called “Goliath inscription” from Tell es-Safi/Gath was mentioned.
2) A fascinating lecture on an archaeological excavation project being carried out at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, carried out by I. Gilad and Y. Haimi from Ben-Gurion University. Absolutely chilling, but important work with some very fascinating results.
3) Ezra Marcus et al. discussed the early MB II finds from Tel Ifshar, and in particular, the early Egyptian imports in the earliest stages of this very early MB II site.
4) Erez Ben-Yosef et al, who discussed some interesting results of Tom Levi’s project in the Edom lowlands, including details on some new sites at which there is evidence for early Iron Age and Iron IIA smelting activities.
5) Norma Franklin who discussed the so-called “Proto-Aeolic capitals” of the Iron Age, claiming, very logically, that none of them were actually capitals!”
6) Elisabetta Boaretto et al., discussed some of the results of a very detailed program of Carbon 14 datings, and the practical, methodological and technical issues that derive from this. They concentrated on dates from 4 sites: Tell es-Safi/Gath, Rehov, Megiddo, and Dor.
All told - an interesting day with some very interesting talks.
Aren
Yesterday, I mentioned that when we visited the tell during the day, we saw that someone had put up a little tent with beds in the middle of the excavations - who were jokingly referred to as “squatters”. After the visit, I spoke to Itamar, who is the regional inspector of the Israel National Nature and Parks Authority, who promised me that these squatters would be removed immediately.
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Today, I paid a short visit to Tell es-Safi/Gath. Besides the fact that the site and region were really nice (green fields, colorful flowers, etc. - “amechayeh” in Yiddish), the visit was very interesting for several reasons.
1) The main purpose of the visit was to discuss the possibility of conducting some archaeometallurgical research at the site this summer. In the late LB building in Area E, on the eastern side of the tell, analysis of samples taken from the eastern balk of this buillding by Steve Weiner and his team from the Kimmel Center of Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute revealed an unusual high quantity of metal finds. This being the case, in conjunction with the new project directed by Israel Finkelstein and Steve Weiner: “Reconstructing Ancient (Biblical) Israel: The Exact and Life Sciences Perspective”. We went to the site today to discuss the options for checking out in the coming season. The group included Israel Finkelstein, Steve Weiner, Itzik Shai, Yuval Gadot, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Adi Eliyahu Behar and yours truly. Perhaps, sometime in the next month or so, we will come out to the site for a day to recheck the specific section once again.
See here a picture of the group checking out the relevant section.
See here, a preliminary suggested reconstruction of the LB building (drawn by Anat Perko)
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Since the last time I posted a satellite view of Tell es-Safi/Gath and its surroundings it was so well-recieved, here is another view. In this view, you are looking over Tell es-Safi/Gath towards the north. I have marked off various ancient and modern sites in the vicinity.
Today, the news media has been awash with unofficial reports on a supposed long-range attack by the Israeli airforce on what is being identified as a weapons supply convoy, purported to have originated in Iran and meant for the Hamas in Gaza.
Without going into whether or not this is true (and sorry, I have no sources save for what’s in the media), for those of you interested in the earlier periods, there is evidence going back to the late Iron Age and Persian periods of military activities by people of Levantine origin (including possible Judeans) in the Sudan/Nubia.
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And now for something not archaeological, but definitely the excavation of something very interesting!
See here a short movie on the excavation of a subterranean ant city, which, according to the scientists involved is as large, in relative terms (ant/human) to the Great Wall of China…
Aren
Today, after being requested to post something on the ASOR blog, I posted a short piece on the current financial crisis and how it is effecting archaeology in the Near East. In particular, I discussed the problems, and perhaps, what can be done.
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Tell es-Safi/Gath is settled, virtually continuously, from the late Prehistoric period until Modern times. While the Bronze and Iron Age finds are relatively well-known, as well as the Medieval (particular Crusader) and Modern remains, some periods and finds at the site are less known.
One of these periods is the Persian Period (ca. 2nd half of 5th cent. to 330 BCE), the time frame equivalent, more or less, to the Jewish return from exile under Ezra and Nehemiah. This is a period in which the Land of Israel is ruled by the Persian/Achaeminid Empire and the early phase of the 2nd Jewish temple was constructed. The region around Tell es-Safi/Gath was most probably settled by Phoenicians, as seen at other sites (such as at Ashkelon, Beit Guvrin, etc.).
Over the years, some very nice finds from the Persian period have been found on the site.
Not too long ago, an article on the finds from this periods at Tell es-Safi/Gath appeared, which was mentioned a while ago.
In the earlier excavations by Bliss and Macalister, the most interesting find from this period was an apparent cultic favissa (cultic deposit; for another favissa mentioned not long ago, see here) which was found in the center of the tell and contained a very large collection (several score) of cult related items, included figurines, masks, amulets, etc.
Here is the protome of a woman from the favissa
And here are two Persian period figurines from the same favissa.
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