Off to Jordan – to a quick visit to Faynan

Tonite, I’m off to Jordan for a quick visit to Tom Levy’s excavations at Faynan. Will update when I return – should be very interesting.

Aren

Naked Archaeologist again!

This afternoon, once again I had a chance to have a fun and interesting time with Simcha Jacobovici, the “naked archaeologist” and his team. Simcha and team came to the Safi lab at Bar-Ilan to look at finds from the excavations, including the so-called “Goliath sherd” as well as a few other as yet unpublished inscriptions, and some other finds.
As always – I had a great time – a combination of great humor, intelligent people and ideas, AND whacky ideas… :-)

Aren

Lecture for IBEX

Tonight, I gave a lecture on the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath to a very interested group of students from IBEX, the Master’s College Israel Bible Extension program. The program, which is based at Yad Hashmonah, which is just outside of Jerusalem, between Abu Gosh and Neveh Ilan, is a hands on program for students from Master’s college, who come to Israel to learn about the history, archaeology and geography of the Holy Land.

Must say – it was a very nice group!

Aren

The new Tel Burna blog – check it out!

Joe Uziel and Itzik Shai, team members of the Tell es-Safi/Gath project, have started their own project in the Judean Shephelah, at the lovely site of Tel Burna, perhaps to be identified as Judahite Libnah.

Joe and Itzik have now joined blogdom and have started a blog about the project - do check it out.

New article by Itzik Shai et al on an Aegean fire stand from Tel Nagila

Itzik Shai, one of the core team members of the Safi project has just informed me that an article, by itzik, Raz Kletter and David Ilan, has just been published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

The article is entitled:
Shai, I, Ilan, D. and Kletter, R. 2009. An Aegean Fire-Stand from Tel Nagila. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 143/1: 161-167.

In this study, the publish a fragment of a very interesting “fire stand” of apparent Aegean influence, that was found in the excavations at Tel Nagila many years ago, and is being published as part of the publication project of these old excavations (led by J. Uziel and A. Maeir).

Newflash! Explanation of the Dinosaur extinction – and the dating of the flood narrative

With this new data now in (see below), we finally can supply fairly solid reasoning for the extinction of the dinosaurs, AND, most importantly, provide an evidence-based dating for the Noah flood narrative in Genesis – 65 million years ago! Isn’t it exciting what new finds reveal?

;-)

Aren

Visit to tell today

Today, a small group of the team members paid a visit to the tell. In the morning, Alex, Amit, Debi, Beth (an NYU student who is in Israel for the year and is helping out in the lab), and drove down to the tell to do some work that we had not finished in the summer. There were several sections that needed to be drawn in Amit’s part of Area A. So, we headed down to the tell with the equipment and drew the relevant sections.

As usual, the tell and surroundings were beautiful, and like always, it’s such a pleasure to get out and see some nature (and not cement…). Also, the excavation areas that we saw were in very good shape. Hopefully, this will stay the same until the summer.

Just at the base of the tell we say a group of cows, and next to them, the skeleton of a cow – who had probably not eaten a healthy breakfast every morning!

Later on, we were visited by a group representing the Jim Joseph Foundation, who just donated the new School of Education Building at BIU, and I explained to them about the tell and what we are doing.

Naked archaeologist at Tell es-Safi/Gath

Today, I had the opportunity to once again spend a day with Simcha Jacobovici, the “Naked Archaeologist”, who with his team toured (some of) Tell es-Safi/Gath with me.
As usual, this was a fun day, as Simcha has the perfect combination of razor sharp intelligence, a great sense of humour, and an especially healthy dose of the lunatic fringe! :-)

Discussions with him are always lively and interesting, and since he does make some very wide ranging connection and conclusions, at times quite challenging – making one think over the “standard” answers.
Yes, I know, some of my colleagues don’t appreciate him (to say the least), but as I have argued before, he does stir up a lot of interest in archaeology, Bible and related issues, and does have the courage to look at things from what at times is a very alternative, but nevertheless, often compelling perspective.

For those who don’t know any Biblical Hebrew…

I have been asked to provide a translation of the suggested reading, for those who have no biblical Hebrew. Please note that this is a VERY rough translation. Take into account the fuzzy translation of various things, the problematic readings, the letters which may be read in several ways, etc.

This definitely should not be seen as my definite and final opinion of this. It is ONLY a very rough translation of the general reading by Misgav!

אל תעש [ ] ועבד א[ת]
שפט בואלמ [ ]אל?ט
א?ל? ובעלל
א[ ]מ ונקמ יסד מלכ ג[ת]?/פ[?]
סרנ? ע[...] מג/דרת

(Very) Rough translation of Misgav’s reading
Do not do [ ] and servant a[…]
Judge ….. [ ] El(?)…
El(?) and Ba’all
Pe[rso]n will revenge, YSD king (of) G[ath(?)]
Seren(?) a[…] from Gederot (?)

Qeiyafa inscription update

As promised, here is a short update on some of the things that were said at the meeting at the Hebrew University, in the special session on the Kh. Qeiyafa inscription.
Do note – in the meeting proceedings, which were sold at the beginning of the meeting in the morning (and I came too late to buy it), there are full articles by the various people mentioned below. Note, the proceedings are in Hebrew, and can be purchased from the IAA.

First, Sa’ar Ganor, Yossi Garfinkel’s partner at the Qeiyafah excavations, presented an update on the finds from the site, including the last season. He showed slides of the finds from the various areas, including the impressive casemate wall, two gates, and other features. Consistently, throughout the site, there is an early Iron Age IIA (or possibly, late Iron I) level, which is often covered by a Hellenistic level. Save for some Byzantine material in the middle of the site, there are no other stratified materials from other periods (absolutely no Iron IIb-c). Based on 14C dating (indicated as well from comparative pottery typology) they date the Iron Age level to the late 11th/early 10th cent. BCE. Finally, he reiterated their suggestion to ID the site as Shaarayim, mentioned in the Bible in the vicinity of Socho and Azekah.

If I may add (AMM), without a doubt (from having personally seen the finds from the most recent seasons and having visited the site both in this and last season), the Iron Age level dates to the late Iron I/early Iron IIA (late 11th/early 10th cent.).

Following this presentation, Hagai Misgav presented his reading of the inscription. Admitting that it is VERY hard to read, he suggests the following (hold your seats…):

אל תעש [ ] ועבד א[ת]
שפט בואלמ [ ]אל?ט
א?ל? ובעלל
א[ ]מ ונקמ יסד מלכ ג[ת]?/פ[?]
סרנ? ע[...] מג/דרת

Now, Haggai admits that there are many problems and questions, but points out several things:
1) The language is Hebrew (not Phoenician) based on appearance of terms such as אל תעש
2) In his opinion, there is some narrative here
3) He notes the appearance of mlk (king), shofet (judge), eved (servant/slave), perhaps seren (philistine king)
4) He strongly believes (as I do) that the so-called “Proto-Canaanite” script (which he prefers to call Canaanite, I prefer to call “Archaic Alphabetic” [see our BASOR article on the Safi inscription]), continues into the 9th cent., particularly in southern Canaan, parallel to the beginning of the use of the early Phoenician script (such as in the Zayit inscription).

While I have to caution that this reading is a suggestion, it is really quite astounding! There is mention of different titles, some names, perhaps deities (ba’al). Even more interesting, perhaps mention of “YSD, king of Gath” (note – YSD is one of the kings of Ekron in the Ekron royal inscription).
And I won’t even mention some of the more “crazy” reconstructions that raced thru my head when seeing this reading.

Following Hagai’s talk, there were 3 respondents:
1) Ada Yardeni spoke, providing a slightly different reading, although agreeing with many (if not most) of Hagai’s readings. In fact, she reads shofet twice at the beginning and end of line 2. She had various comments on various words and readings. She believes that it may be a draft for a monumental inscription.
2) Aaron Demsky argued that this is sort of a lexical list of various titles in society, king, god, judge, etc., and compares it to such lists in other cultures. Believes that it is a scribal exercize.
3) Shmuel Ahituv was more critical of Hagai’s readings, and for example, does not accept “seren”.

The session ended with Hagai briefly replying to some of the comments.
All told, Hagai should be applauded for working so hard and providing a very interesting reading of this text. While I’m sure there will be many opinions about it, without a doubt, whatever the text means (or does not mean…), the location, the date, the context of the site, and the various words that can be read, provide VERY important new data on the lron I/Iron IIA transition in Judah and the Shephelah, and definitely require many to rethink some very strongly held opinions (and this, for people on both sides of the “fence”).

Personally, as a “Gittite”, the site and the inscription are VERY interesting and important! The vicinity of the site, and perhaps, mention of a king of Gath and other aspects in the inscription, turn this into a very critical comparison to the situation at Gath during this phase.
I won’t go in to all the various issues springing up from this inscription, from a wide variety of topics. I’m sure that it will provide much discussion and debate in the years to come!