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Picture of the Week: Late Bronze Palace at Hazor

(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

When you understand the age of archaeological remains in the Middle East, it is almost comical to visit “old” historic places in the United States. For example, half an hour down the road from where I live is My Old Kentucky Home in Bardstown, Kentucky. I visited the site last year with my family.

As you walk through the old house, which is filled with pictures and artifacts from the 19th century, it is amazing to think of how that building has been standing for 200 years. And yet that statistic pales in comparison to another building I was able to walk through on my last trip to Israel. The Late Bronze Palace at Hazor is about 3,400 years old!

Our picture of the week comes from Volume 1 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and features one of the most impressive archaeological finds in Galilee. A large, modern, freestanding roof covers the remains of the Late Bronze monumental building which was most likely constructed by the Canaanites in the early 14th century B.C. The 1,300-square-meter roof was necessary to preserve the mud-brick walls that were found here preserved to a height of about 2 meters. This building has been interpreted as a ceremonial palace by one excavator and as a temple by another.

Over the course of the current excavation project (which started in 1990) the whole building was excavated along with a large, paved courtyard in front of the building. The courtyard contains a large altar that was built with ashlars in its first phase, and at a later phase was crudely expanded to the east. (The altar can be seen in the foreground of the picture.) The building is approached by a broad staircase with four steps; at the top, two massive pillars stood on either side. Only the basalt bases of the pillars have survived, leading the excavators to suggest that the pillars were made of wood, like so many other features of the palace/temple. Large, wooden pillars have been reconstructed and stand on the bases today. The two pillars stood on the edge of a wide porch which was retained by a long row of basalt orthostats. After passing the pillars, a visitor then crossed the porch to enter the building through the main doorway. Similar to the porch, the walls of the building had a long row of basalt orthostats at their base, and the upper portions of the wall were made of mud-bricks inlaid with wooden beams to give greater stability (only the negative image of the wooden beams remains, but new beams have recently been placed in the walls as part of the restoration efforts). The walls are almost 15 feet thick.

Once inside, the visitor was standing in a large room, 40 by 40 feet, that was lined with walls that had even more orthostats along their bases. Amazingly, the floor of this room seems to have been made up of wooden beams: the artifacts inside this room were found below the level of the orthostats in a level of ash. The ash was tested and found to be cedar of Lebanon. This is the first wooden floor that has been discovered in any excavation in Israel and it illustrates the luxurious nature of this building and, by extension, the wealth in the city of Hazor in the Late Bronze period. This large room is interpreted as the throne room by one of the excavators and it is surrounded on three sides by smaller rooms. The pattern of the building is similar to a palace that has been discovered at Alalakh, north of Ugarit.

In the 13th century B.C., the building was destroyed in an intense fire, over 2350° Fahrenheit, that partially melted the mud-brick walls and even cracked the basalt orthostats. The intensity of the fire was due to the large amount of wood in the structure, the large quantities of olive oil that were being stored there, and probably the high winds that typically come at mid-day. This was explained to me during a tour of the site by Amnon Ben-Tor who directed the excavations for many years. Ben-Tor attributes the destruction to Joshua and the Israelites, but following an early date for the Exodus and the Conquest, I would propose that this destruction should be attributed to the Israelites during the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4).

So if you would like to take a tour through an “old” building, come visit the historic, 19th-century home here in Kentucky. But if you want to redefine what you mean by “old” then I recommend you visit the Late Bronze palace at Hazor.

This photograph and over 1,100 others are available in Volume 1 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and is available here for $39 (with free shipping). Further images and information about Hazor, including external links to other sites, are available on the BiblePlaces website here.

Information about the ongoing excavation project at Hazor is available here. Information about visiting the site is available here.

Tagged Picture of the Week

Wednesday Roundup

Mount Arbel does indeed provide a panorama of Jesus’ ministry. Wayne Stiles shares photos and a video. I certainly agree with his conclusion: “No visit to Mount Arbel is ever long enough. It remains one of the most beautiful, inspiring, and instructive sites in Israel.”

Exploring Bible Lands marvels at the many biblical events that occurred within the frame of one photo of Jezreel and the Harod Valley. (By the way, you can get that photo and a thousand others for pennies each here.)

Ferrell Jenkins visits the Beit Sturman Museum at Ein Harod and describes its large collection of Roman milestones.

The highest and lowest places of dry ground on the planet are being united by an exchange of stones from Mount Everest and the Dead Sea.

The Gabriel Stone goes on display today at the Israel Museum.

The pyramid complex of Dashur is being threated by looting and construction.

The website of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is reviewed in the CSA Newsletter.

Archaeology programs from the BBC are now online for free viewing.

The recent back-and-forth between Turkish and German authorities over the return of antiquities is reviewed in DW.

HT: Jack Sasson

Dashur Red Pyramid with Bent Pyramid, tb110400454

The Red and Bent Pyramids of Dashur
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Dead Sea, Egypt, Galilee, Jezreel Valley, Museums, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Research Plan Posted for New Jerusalem Excavations

When Tel Aviv University announced plans to excavate in Jerusalem’s City of David, some liberal voices responded with anger. What is the most liberal archaeological department in Israel doing working in an area associated with a history they deny? The apparent (but unconfirmed) funding of the dig by the conservative organization Elad grated all the more, for as the liberals know, the Bible-confirming results that come out of excavations in the City of David are controlled by these radical Jewish settlers.

More details about the planned excavations are now online. Yuval Gadot has posted his research plan for excavating on the eastern slope south of the Gihon Spring in Shiloh’s Area D3. He plans to excavate six squares in the first four-month-long season.

Gadot hopes to discover houses as well as the eastern wall of the city in order to address two questions: (1) How does household archaeology illuminate social order and cultural identity? (2)

What was the size and growth pattern of Jerusalem? In regard to the second question, Gadot wants to determine if the massive wall that Reich and Shukrun found in the Kidron Valley was a city wall or a revetment wall.

Before excavation begins, the archaeologists have to remove the dump of previous excavations. The area will be open to visitors and a 24-hour webcam will broadcast the work on the site.

HT: Joseph Lauer

City-of-David-aerial-from-east,-tb010703201

City of David from east with excavation area marked
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Excavations, Jerusalem

The Grotto of Saint Paul in Ephesus

(Post by Michael J. Caba)

The Grotto of Saint Paul, located in the foothills on the southern side of ancient Ephesus, has recently yielded intriguing finds related to early church history. The cave has been used from the early Christian era until the late 19th century for worship purposes, but was only “rediscovered” by modern researchers in 1995.

The grotto is adorned with numerous inscriptions and illustrations with the visual portrayals covering the gamut from Old Testament saints to soldiers from the Byzantine Middle Ages. The artwork itself ranges in age from the 4th century to the 12th/13th century, and the theme is consistently Christian.

The actual grotto enclosure is in the form of an elongated cavern measuring approximately 15 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2.3 meters high. The main passage leads back to a slightly expanded rectangular area measuring about 2.7 meters wide.

In the late 1990s Dr. Renate Pillinger from the University of Vienna discovered an early fresco on the western wall of the grotto’s passageway that includes a clear picture of the cave’s namesake, the Apostle Paul. The painting, which had been plastered over by subsequent occupants, is dated by Pillinger to the late 5th to early 6th century AD. The illustration also includes two women: Thecla to the left and her mother Theocleia to the right.

In the center of the image, Paul is shown seated with a book on his lap and his right hand raised with two extended fingers in a manner depicting a preaching gesture.

His discourse is the object of interest to the young woman Thecla, who is depicted on the left side of the fresco peering out a window.

The mural is actually a portrayal of an episode found in the apocryphal book, Acts of Paul and Thecla. Dated to the mid-2nd century AD, this text relates a story in which the betrothed Thecla listens from a window to Paul preach on “virginity and prayer.” Upon hearing Paul preach, Thecla reportedly decides to forgo her marriage and remain a lifelong God-fearing virgin, a decision for which she victoriously endures the heated opposition of friend and foe alike. Indeed, the hostility is so fierce that even her own mother (Theocleia) cries out, “Burn the wicked wretch.”

Not dissuaded from either her religion or chastity, Thecla is miraculously delivered from assorted ordeals and is reportedly even commissioned by Paul to “teach the word of God.” In this regard, Tertullian responded in De Baptismo:

But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul’s name, claim Thecla’s example as a license for women’s teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing, as if he were augmenting Paul’s fame from his own store, after being convicted, and confessing that he had done it from love of Paul, was removed from his office.

The fact that Tertullian (c. 200 AD) was aware of the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and felt it necessary to comment on it, indicates both the text’s widespread circulation and its antiquity.

However, it appears that Tertullian’s denouncement of the book had little effect on the artist in Ephesus who portrayed one of its central scenes in a prominent manner in the cave.

Unfortunately, in order to protect its delicate contents, the grotto is not typically open to the public at large.

(Quotations from Acts of Paul and Thecla taken from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8, pages 487-492. Tertullian quote taken from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, page 677.)

Tagged Turkey

Weekend Roundup

Plans to reconstruct Herod’s tomb at the Herodium have been scrapped.

The same article reports that the Herod exhibition at the Israel Museum has been extended to January 2014.

Tuesday’s Samaritan Passover ceremony is described in a Haaretz article. (I believe the first photo caption is wrong, for the animal is not slain until sunset.)

105 million euros is not enough to save Pompeii from deterioration, according to a New York Times video.

Ferrell Jenkins is back in Israel and he recently spent a morning with Shmuel Browns.

The Spring 2013 season at Tel Burna is over and they have found evidence of a destruction in the 9th century. There are still a few days left to sign up for the summer season.

Haaretz’s “Tourist Tip #218” describes the significance of the Broad Wall of Jerusalem.

The temporary bridge to the Mughrabi Gate next to the Western Wall still stands, but next month a committee is going to meet in Paris to discuss its replacement.

FoxNews reports on apps for archaeology.

Berlin’s Pergamon Museum has a new exhibition on the Mesopotamian city of Uruk. Better photos are available here.

Christianbook.com is now selling The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols.) for only $99.99. (That’s 75% the $400 list.)

A rare, original set of the 13 volumes of the Survey of Western Palestine has just been listed by a UK bookseller for $6,400. For $35 more, you can pick up a digital copy of the oversized maps.

HT: Jack Sasson

Key Map for the Survey of Western Palestine. All 26 maps (plus one from Transjordan) are for sale here.

Tagged Excavations, Holidays, Italy, Jerusalem, Judah, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Samaria, Shephelah, Weekend Roundup

Secret Places: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Museum

(Post by Chris McKinny)

For an introduction to this series see here.

Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Museum at the Church of the Flagellation – Old City Jerusalem, Muslim Quarter

Directions

View Secret Places: BiblePlaces in a larger map

Use the above map to find the Church of the Flagellation (it is near Hadrian’s Arch on the Via Dolorosa). Some nearby sites are Lion’s Gate (Rampart’s walk), the Western Wall Tunnels and the Pools of Bethesda. If you would like to visit the museum in conjunction with a tour of the Old City you might consider stopping at the museum after visiting the Temple Mount (use the northeastern exit near Lion’s Gate) or the Western Wall Tunnels (after exiting the tunnels walk directly across the street to the Church of Flagellation). The SBF museum is just inside the courtyard near the walkway to the bathrooms.

Operating Hours and Admission
The official website for the museum is here.
Open Tuesday-Saturday 9:00-1:00; 2:00-4:00
Entrance Fee – 5 NIS

Museum Information and Touring Suggestions
Biblewalks has a nice overview of the Church of the Condemnation/Monastery of the Flagellation’s history. Since our goal is to discuss the museum only we will leave the Church and its (historically problematic) tradition to others.

The SBF museum is by no means a “new” museum as it was originally founded in 1931 (it seems no coincidence that this followed the laying of the foundation of the Rockefeller Museum in 1930). Since then the museum has added to its collection through excavations sponsored by the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Some of these excavations include: Bab edh-Drah, Mt. of Olives (including Dominus Flevit), Nazareth, Bethlehem, Herodium, Machaerus, and Capernaum. Recently, the SBF museum has undergone a facelift and its exhibits are a bit more accessible. Their website describes the layout of the museum as follows:

Three rooms were dedicated to the excavations at Nazareth, Capharnaum and Dominus Flevit, respectively. This prominence was due in view of the importance these sites had in commencing a new era of Christian archaeology in the Holy Land, in unraveling the problem of Christian origins, especially the history of the Judaeo-Christian communities of Palestine.

In order of importance the other rooms are subdivided among other excavations made on the Mount of Olives, in the sanctuaries of Jerusalem and its vicinity, in the desert of Judea, in Transjordan, and in two Herodian fortresses Machaerus and Herodion. The purpose is to characterize the SBF collection in such a way as to be correctly perceived as Jerusalem’s archaeological Museum of Christian origins, at the service of scholars and pilgrims who, in ever greater numbers, visit the Holy Land.

In addition to these important collections, the SBF museum has a great collection/display of pottery from the Chalcolithic to Byzantine periods showing the different forms of vessels (e.g. jug) and their development through time. Of special note is their collection of lamps from the Early Bronze Age-Byzantine period—I know of no better location to witness the major shifts in the development of the lamp form. This is a great location to point out the difference between an Iron Age II “lamp unto my feet” (Psalm 119:105) and the kind of Roman lamp that the “ten virgins took…to meet the bridegroom” (Matt. 25:1).

Reconstruction of 1st cent. CE/AD house from Capernaum (i.e. Peter’s house)

As you might expect from a Catholic School/Monastery in Jerusalem the main thrust of the museum is directed towards Christian Archaeology (first century CE–Byzantine era), but that does not mean that there is not important material from earlier periods. There are some fantastic local Canaanite and imported Cypriot vessels from the Early Bronze-Late Bronze Age that come from the excavations in and around the ancient city of Jebus (cf. 2 Sam. 5). There are also some very nice Egyptian and Hyksos seals in the scriptorium room. For those interested in the early Canaanite period, do check out the back room where there is an exhibit on Bab edh-Dhra (Early Bronze–Intermediate Bronze, ca. 3300–2000 BCE).

For all of its strong points, the SBF museum’s artifacts do lack sufficient labeling for most of its materials. However, this seems to also be changing as they continue their facelift with plans of even adding a multimedia room in the near future.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the SBF museum should not be on your “must see” list whenever you visit Israel, however, if you have an extra half-hour to spend in the Old City it is well worth a visit even for first-time visitors. It is a decent stand-in for the Israel Museum if you don’t have enough time for a visit (although I would recommend the nearby Rockefeller Museum before the SBF). For returnees to the country I would strongly recommend checking out this small museum, as it will both inform visitors on the archaeology on some of Christianity’s most heralded sites, as well as help understand the development of Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land over the last century-and-a-half.

Tagged Museums, Secret Places