fbpx

(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

What if people in the future forgot the name of your city? Sound ridiculous? In archaeology, that is actually a common occurrence…

Continuing our series on “obscure sites in the PLBL,” our picture of the week comes from the Biblical Negev. About halfway between Beersheba and Arad are the ruins of a significant city from the time of Hezekiah. The site’s modern name is Tel Ira, and you can see its location in the center of the map below (click on the map for a higher resolution).

In the photograph below, you can see the remains of an Iron II casemate wall found at Tel Ira. The scorching terrain of the Negev can be seen in the background.

The following information is provided in the PowerPoint notes in Volume 5 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands:

Tel Ira was excavated from 1979 to 1987 by Itzhak Beit-Arieh and others. The six-acre site was occupied in the Early Bronze III, Iron II, Persian, Hellenistic, Early Roman, Byzantine, and Early Arab periods.

In the late 8th or early 7th century BC (approximately the time of King Hezekiah), the site was entirely surrounded by a solid wall that was 5-6 feet (1.6-1.8 m) thick. In the east wall excavators uncovered a gate with six chambers and two towers, similar to gates found at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Excavators believe that Tel Ira was one of the most important sites in the Negev during the 7th century BC. It may have been destroyed by an Edomite attack. The ancient name of the site has not been determined.

A casemate wall was excavated near the six-chambered gate. Its total thickness is about 16 feet (5 m). The exterior wall (left in photo above) measures 5 feet thick (1.5 m) and the interior wall is 3 feet (1.0 m) thick.

The city wall was exposed on the complete circumference of the site.

Two statements in the third paragraph strike me as odd. The first is that this was “one of the most important sites in the Negev during the 7th century BC.” The second is: “The ancient name of the site has not been determined.” After we have dug at so many sites and learned so much about the biblical world, how could we not know the name of one of the most important cities within the territory of Judah during the period of the Davidic monarchy?

Years ago, Edwin Yamauchi wrote a book called The Stones and the Scriptures where he makes an interesting argument about how much we really know about the ancient world. He points out that our knowledge about the ancient world shrinks proportionately as we move from what existed in the historical period to what we have available for study today. He argues that out of everything that existed in antiquity, there is only a fraction of the material remains that have survived; of the surviving remains, only a fraction of the sites where this material is located have been surveyed or found; out of the known sites, only a fraction have been excavated; and out of the excavated sites, only a fraction have been published.

So when it comes down to it, we have only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of information available to us, based on the archaeological record alone. Sometimes this deficiency can be helped through written sources from antiquity (such as the Bible) but often we are left with sites without names, as is case with Tel Ira. So this once prominent city of the Negev finds itself today classified as one of the “obscure sites” in the Holy Land.

This photograph and map, along with over 700 other images, are available in Volume 5 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands, and is available here for $34 (with free shipping). More photographs and information about Tel Ira can be found at the following websites:

Share:

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor passed away today in Jerusalem. A Dominican priest and author of many books, Murphy-O’Connor is best known to many visitors of Israel for The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700. This excellent guide has been published in five editions beginning in 1980 with the most recent update in 2008.

HT: Paleojudaica

Second edition, 1986
Third edition, 1992
Fourth edition, 1998
Fifth edition, 2008
Share:

Norma Franklin asks, Why was Jezreel so important to the kingdom of Israel? Her claim that “there is no mention in the biblical narrative” of an Israelite palace is incorrect (1 Kings 21:1).

Another story on the excavations of Carchemish reports that the Japanese offered a million dollars for the opportunity to dig there.

The pigs in ancient Israel allegedly came from Europe.

Five historical monuments have been destroyed in Syria’s civil war. The photos show the damage.

How did ancient Greek music sound? The BBC reports on the research of Armand D’Angour.

How do you avoid losing what you learned on your trip to the Holy Land? Wayne Stiles suggests seven ways. My favorite is #4: Share with people what you have learned and experienced.

Leon Mauldin is doing a series on the cities of refuge. So far, he’s visited Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron.

All of the entries from Skyview’s 2013 Creative Shot Contest are online.

The Batchelder Conference of Biblical Archeology at the University of Nebraska is scheduled for Thursday through Saturday.

Haaretz profiles the Mormon campus on the Mount of Olives, with details about the campus architecture and the “Non-Proselyting Agreement.”

HT: Jack Sasson

Brigham Young University on Mount of Olives, tb011612774
Brigham Young University campus in Jerusalem
Share:

(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

Our picture of the week is an “elephant in the room,” archaeologically speaking. This site was occupied by Israel’s most notorious neighbor, was a flourishing city 100 acres in size, and was once a resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Yet this site is hardly (if ever) visited by tourists in Israel today. Thus, we continue our series of “obscure sites” with a map and photograph of the Philistine city of Ashdod.


Ashdod is located only 3 miles (4 km) from the Mediterranean coast. In ancient times it possessed some prime real estate along the main international highway that passed through the Levant, which helped contribute to the city’s wealth and prominence. In the map below (included in the PowerPoint files in Volume 4 of the PLBL), Ashdod can be seen in the far left. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)


The site was excavated for nine seasons in the 1960s and 70s. Remains from the Middle Bronze period to the Byzantine period were found here. At its largest size, the site was comprised of an upper city of at least 20 acres and a lower city of at least 70 acres.

The city reached this peak size during the time of the Philistines, when it was one of the five major cities of Philistine coastal plain (along with Ekron, Gath, Ashkelon, and Gaza). Amihai Mazar summarizes the archaeological findings at Ashdod from this period in the following way:

At Ashdod the first Philistines settlement (Stratum XIII), although unfortified, was a well-planned and densely built city, some twenty acres in area. … The next two levels at Ashdod (Strata XII-XI) denote successive rebuildings of the Philistine city in the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C.E. In Stratum XII the ruined fortifications of the last LB II city (Stratum XIV) served as foundations of a solid city wall. At the end of the eleventh century B.C.E. (Stratum X), Ashdod expanded to a size of about 100 acres, thus becoming one of the largest cities in the country. In this time Ashdod was surrounded by a solid wall with a four-chamber gate. This enlarged city endured for a long time in Iron II.

During this period is when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines in a battle against the Israelites (1 Sam. 4:1-11). The Ark was carried back to Ashdod and set in the temple of the Philistine god Dagon. As the story unfolds in 1 Samuel 5, this turn of events did not bode well for the statue of Dagon. It was supernaturally knocked down twice and consequently had its head and hands broken off. Furthermore, the people of the city were struck with a plague of tumors. So eventually the people of Ashdod sent the Ark to the neighboring city of Gath, where it wreaked further havoc on the Philistines.

The city of Ashdod also appears in several other places in the Old Testament. It is noted in the book of Joshua that it was not conquered by the Israelites when they entered the land of Canaan (Josh. 13:1-3), but several hundred years later it was conquered by King Uzziah of Judah (2 Chr. 26:6-7) and then by the Assyrians (Isa. 20:1-2). The city also is mentioned (and targeted!) in a number of prophesies in the Old Testament (Amos 1:8; 3:9; Isa. 20:1-2; Jer. 25:20; Zeph. 2:4; Zech. 9:6). Finally, in the book of Nehemiah the people of Ashdod opposed the rebuilding of the wall in Jerusalem (Neh. 4:6-8) and intermarried with some of the Judeans (Neh. 13:23-27).

Although this site has an immense significance both biblically and archaeologically, it is not currently set up to host tourists. When I visited the site in 2006, I was on my own in a borrowed car. I had to park and walk through an orchard to get to the site. Nothing was marked and I couldn’t even get to the top of the acropolis. The tell is bordered by industrial buildings and there is nothing there to indicate that this was once the thriving Philistine metropolis of Ashdod. And so, this once important city sadly finds itself among the “obscure sites” of the Holy Land.

This photo and over 1,500 others can be found in Volume 4 of the Pictorial Library of the Holy Land and can be purchased here for only $39 (with free shipping). Additional pictures and information about other Philistine cities can be found on the BiblePlaces website here and here, and on the LifeintheHolyLand website here.

The excerpt above is taken from Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000-586 B.C.E., The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 308, which is available for purchase here.

Post Script:  For those of you who may be interested, I have posted a review of the Rose Then & Now Bible Map Atlas on my personal blog here. Specifically, the review focuses on the electronic version published by Logos Bible Software.

Share:

Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am tell the fascinating story of Moses Shapira and his alleged discovery of an ancient scroll of Deuteronomy. The Times of Israel article includes quite a bit of interesting information about Christ Church, even though it is not really relevant to the story. The question that has never been resolved is whether Shapira held the first discovered Dead Sea Scroll.

Christ Church was the first Protestant church in the entire Middle East, and the only evangelical church in the region. Outwardly resembling a grand European synagogue more than a Christian house of worship, it was erected in 1849 by the London Society for the Promotion of Jews to Christianity for the express purpose of drawing Jews into the Christian fold.
Before that time, simple proselytizing — and the promise of financial gain — had resulted in very few Jewish conversions; the Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem hoped that an attractive, accessible church might facilitate the cause.
Church fathers wanted Jews to feel comfortable in the sanctuary, which is why the interior is replete with Jewish symbols.
Jewish students at the workshop manufactured the stunning olive wood communion table, decorated with both a Star of David and the Christian Alpha and Omega.
There were no crosses in the church; the cross on the table appeared in 1948, when Jordanians captured the Old City and Anglicans feared their sanctuary would be mistaken for a synagogue.
Moses Wilhelm Shapira, born Jewish in 1830, was 25 when he left his Russian homeland for the land of Israel.
Somewhere along the way, he converted to Christianity.

The full story is here. Shapira’s story is told in greater length in Neil Asher Silberman’s Digging for God and Country: Exploration, Archaeology, and the Secret Struggle for the Holy Land.

UPDATE: See the Jim Davila’s comments here.

Christ Church, tb011612801
Christ Church in Jerusalem
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
Share:

Baker has recently published a book worthy of mention here: The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, edited by Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald.

You can use the “Look Inside” feature at Amazon to read the Table of Contents. Here are some of the chapters I would read first:

Chapter 5: The Herodian Dynasty, by Everett Ferguson

Chapter 13: Slaves and Slavery in the Roman World, by S. Scott Bartchy

Chapter 15: Education in the Greco-Roman World, by Ben Witherington III

Chapter 16: Temple and Priesthood, by David Instone-Brewer

Chapter 26: Jewish Education, by Kent L. Yinger

Chapter 28: Reading, Writing, and Manuscripts, by E. Randolph Richards

Part 5: The Geographical Context of the New Testament includes chapters on Egypt, “Palestine” (eek!), Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and much more.

Though this work draws from a broad range of authors, some more conservative than others, overall this seems like a terrific resource. At $35 for a 640-page hardcover, this is a good value.

Share: