Category Archives: ISRAEL

Ancient Islamic mosaics uncovered on the shores of Kinneret

Ancient Islamic mosaics uncovered on the shores of Kinneret

Ancient mosaics belonging to an early Islamic settlement have been uncovered by archaeologists from a German university in the Kinneret.

A VIEW of the Kinneret with the Hermon in the background. The view that inspired Rachel the Poetess, among others.

The mosaics, found near Khirbat al-Minya, are believed to have acted as a contact point for Umar and local Arab tribes dating to the fifth century BCE.

Khirbat al-Minya may have also served as a caravanserai, known to some as a caravan inn. Travellers coming through the region at the time would be able to rest there and recharge before heading back on their long, often strenuous journey.

Archaeologists from Germany’s Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) discovered these ancient mosaics along the Kinneret’s shoreline after geomagnetic surface surveys and subsequent excavations were done in the surrounding area.

According to JGU archaeologists, this discovery was made possible by the geomagnetic surface surveys themselves. Through this process, along with specifically-mapped “exploratory cuts,” archaeologists from the Mainz team were able to prove that the caliph, which was the title of the chief Muslim civil and religious ruler, strategically planned his palace. This residence was complete with a mosque and a high gate tower close to a nearby settlement.

At the time of construction of this palace, the shoreline was believed to have been almost completely deserted.

Ancient Islamic mosaics uncovered on the shores of Kinneret
THE WONDERFULLY watery Kinneret, photo snapped while barefoot on the rocks.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Kuhnen of JGU uncovered remarkable details from their discoveries. “Our most recent excavations show that Caliph Walid had his palace built on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in an already carefully structured landscape that had long been inhabited.”

“It was here that considerable money was subsequently made through the cultivation of sugar cane, sadly causing lasting damage to the ecosystem,” he said. What started generations ago as a money-maker would in turn have a  cost that would never be repaid.

 “Our research has brought this settlement adjacent to the caliph’s palace to light again, putting it in its rightful context among the history of human settlement of the Holy Land,” Kuhnen said. “Over the centuries, it experienced alternating periods of innovation and decline, but there was no real disruption to its existence during its lifetime.”

The Mainz archaeologists involved with the project found stone buildings from different periods made of basalt with plastered walls, a cistern and colored mosaic floors.

The tiles were found decorated with blossom designs, along with pictures of the animal and plant world of the Nile Valley.

The art found in the mosaics was believed to have symbolized “the life-giving power of the great river, which ensured Egypt’s fertility through the annual Nile flood.”

What can we learn from this discovery?

Archaeologists from JGU are confident this discovery shows that though life in Israel may have gone through major changes throughout the years, it never really made a full stop, which allows it to thrive today. 

 “With this research, we give the settlement in front of the threshold of the caliph’s palace a place on the stage of the settlement history of the Holy Land, which over the centuries has experienced a change of innovation and decline, but never real breaks,” a JGU representative said.

The Discovery of Jesus Christ’s Childhood Home

The Discovery of Jesus Christ’s Childhood Home

The 1st-century house at the Sisters of Nazareth site. It may have been the childhood home of Jesus Christ.

An English archaeologist may have just made one of the most intriguing discoveries of the last two millennia: the childhood home of Jesus Christ.

Ken Dark, an archaeologist at the England’s University of Reading, has published his findings in a new book, The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-Period, Byzantine, and Crusader Site in Central Nazareth.

The story begins with a dig by non-archaeologists: nuns who, in 1881, happened upon an ancient cistern while building the Sisters of Nazareth convent, but didn’t know what they had stumbled upon. Dark describes it as “one of the first examples of an archaeological project directed by a woman.”

“In many ways, they were way ahead of their time,” Dark told Artnet News. “They conducted a perfectly reasonable rescue excavation or salvage excavation.”

Records from their exploration, as well as another, by a Jesuit priest in the mid-20th century, were key to Dark’s research. The site had otherwise long languished, ignored by scholars, he said.

The location was home to several structures and uses over two millennia, Dark said, all of which are essential for his conclusion.

First, there was a 1st-century building, partly cut out of rock, that may have been a dwelling. The site was then used as a quarry, and then for a tomb. Later, it was home to a cave church, possibly one mentioned by the pilgrim Egeria, who wrote an account of her travels to the Holy Land in about AD 380.

Later, a Byzantine church was built on the ground above. Dark suspects it may be the previously lost Church of the Nutrition, which was built to commemorate the place where Christ was raised and was mentioned by Irish abbott and historian Adomnán in his book De Locis Sanctis (Concerning Sacred Places) in the late 7th century.

The 1st-century house at the Sisters of Nazareth site.

The church burned down around the year 1200 and was not in religious use until the Sisters of Nazareth began to build their convent there in the 1880s.

“The Byzantine church Sisters of Nazareth seems as though it was almost certainly the building described by Adomnán,” Dark said. “It was very large, very elaborately decorated, and probably from the 5th century.

“It overlay a crypt, which is also described in his book. In the crypt, just as he says, there are two Roman-period tombs, and between them, there’s a house—and that house, Adomnán says, is the place where Jesus was brought up.

“So, we found the church, we found the crypt, we found the house.”

Is it a slam dunk? Dark is quick to say no. But, he said, people historically much closer to Jesus felt it was: “I can be confident that it’s the house that the Byzantines believed, and was probably believed in the 4th century, to be Jesus’s childhood home.”

Dark was hardly out to uncover what he may have found.

“Primarily, I was there to look at the emergence of the Byzantine pilgrimage centre of Nazareth,” he said. “To have found the Sisters of Nazareth in itself seemed to be an amazing discovery.”

He hardly expected to find a 1st-century house, and possibly such an interesting one, underneath.

“So,” he said, “it comes as a bit of a surprise.”

Evidence of Opium Use by Canaanites in 14th Century BC Found

Evidence of Opium Use by Canaanites in 14th Century BC Found

A new study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University, and The Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed the earliest known evidence of the use of the hallucinogenic drug opium, and psychoactive drugs in general, in the world.

The opium residue was found in ceramic vessels discovered at Tel Yehud, in an excavation conducted by Eriola Jakoel on behalf of the Antiquities Authority.

The vessels that contained the opium date back to the 14th century BC, and they were found in Canaanite graves, apparently having been used in local burial rituals. This exciting discovery confirms historical writings and archaeological hypotheses according to which opium and its trade played a central role in the cultures of the Near East.

burials
One of the 14th-century-BC Canaanite burials at Tel Yehud was associated with vessels containing traces of opium.

The research was conducted as part of Vanessa Linares’s doctoral thesis, under the guidance of Professor Oded Lipschits and Professor Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archeology and Professor Ronny Neumann of the Weizmann Institute, in collaboration with Eriola Jakoel and Dr. Ron Be’eri of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the study was published in the journal Archaeometry.

In 2012, the Antiquities Authority conducted a salvage excavation at the Tel Yehud site, prior to the construction of residences there.

A number of Canaanite graves from the Late Bronze Age were found in the excavation, and next to them were burial offerings—vessels intended to accompany the dead into the afterlife. Among the pottery, a large group of vessels made in Cyprus and referred to in the study as “Base-Ring juglets,” stood out.

Because the vessels are similar in shape to the poppy flower when it is closed and upside down, the hypothesis arose already in the 19th century that they were used as ritual vessels for the drug. Now, an organic residue analysis has revealed opium residue in eight vessels, some local and some made in Cyprus. This is the first time that opium has been found in pottery in general, and in Base-Ring vessels in particular. It is also the earliest known evidence of the use of hallucinogens in the world.

Be’eri of the Israel Antiquities Authority says, “In the excavations conducted at Tel Yehud to date, hundreds of Canaanite graves from the 18th to the 13th centuries BC have been unearthed. Most of the bodies buried were those of adults, of both sexes.

The pottery vessels had been placed within the graves were used for ceremonial meals, rites and rituals performed by the living for their deceased family members.

The dead were honoured with foods and drinks that were either placed in the vessels, or consumed during a feast that took place over the grave, at which the deceased was considered a participant. It may be that during these ceremonies, conducted by family members or by a priest on their behalf, participants attempted to raise the spirits of their dead relatives in order to express a request, and would enter an ecstatic state by using opium. Alternatively, it is possible that the opium, which was placed next to the body, was intended to help the person’s spirit rise from the grave in preparation for the meeting with their relatives in the next life.”

Linares of Tel Aviv University explains: “This is the only psychoactive drug that has been found in the Levant in the Late Bronze Age. In 2020, researchers discovered cannabis residue on an altar in Tel Arad, but this dated back the Iron Age, hundreds of years after the opium in Tel Yehud.

Because the opium was found at a burial site, it offers us a rare glimpse into the burial customs of the ancient world. Of course, we do not know what the opium’s role was in the ceremony—whether the Canaanites in Yehud believed that the dead would need opium in the afterlife, or whether it was the priests who consumed the drug for the purposes of the ceremony. Moreover, the discovery sheds light on the opium trade in general.

One must remember that opium is produced from poppies, which grew in Asia Minor—that is, in the territory of current-day Turkey—whereas the pottery in which we identified the opium were made in Cyprus. In other words, the opium was brought to Yehud from Turkey, through Cyprus; this of course indicates the importance that was attributed to the drug.”

Be’eri adds, “Until now, no written sources have been discovered that describe the exact use of narcotics in burial ceremonies, so we can only speculate what was done with opium. From documents that were discovered in the Ancient Near East, it appears that the Canaanites attached great importance to ‘satisfying the needs of the dead’ through ritual ceremonies performed for them by the living, and believed that in return, the spirits would ensure the health and safety of their living relatives.”

According to Eli Eskosido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “New scientific capabilities have opened a window for us to fascinating information and have provided us with answers to questions that we never would have dreamed of finding in the past. One can only imagine what other information we will be able to extract from the underground discoveries that will emerge in the future.”

Late Bronze Age Tomb Opened in Israel

Late Bronze Age Tomb Opened in Israel

Late Bronze Age Tomb Opened in Israel
Some of the intact pottery was found by archaeologists at the cave at Palmahim, southern Israel.

An intact ancient burial cave – a rarity in and of itself – has been discovered on the southern Israeli coast, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday.

A tractor moved a rock during construction for a new park by Kibbutz Palmahim and thusly Dror Czitron, an inspector for the Nature and Parks Authority, became the first to gaze on the grave for over 3,300 years.

Literally, the first: the grave had not been robbed, confirms Eli Yannai, an expert on the Bronze Age at the IAA. However, the second may have been the first robber after all these centuries: there are indications that after the cave’s discovery, somebody did go in, mucked about and stole some items, though leaving most, the IAA says. It is investigating with vigor, it adds.

Anyway, among the grave goods the latter-day thief left behind, meant to serve the deceased in the afterlife, archaeologists found intact pottery and bronze vessels, exactly as they had been put into the tomb in the 13th century B.C.E.: amphorae and bowls of various types and forms, cooking vessels and oil lamps. They also found tiny vessels that had held small amounts of precious substances, which apparently hailed from Tyre, Sidon and other ports in Lebanon.

The 13th-century B.C.E. burial cave was discovered at Palmahim, southern Israel.

Yes, the archaeologists also found the gear of hostilities: arrowheads and spear tips made of bronze, which seem to have been associated with an organic material that did not survive the trauma of time.

“It’s the find of a lifetime,” says Yannai. “It’s like a set from ‘Indiana Jones’ – a cave with vessels on the floor that haven’t been touched for 3,300 years. The period is Late Bronze Age – exactly the time of the notorious pharaoh, Ramesses II … The cave provides a full picture of burial traditions in the Late Bronze Age.”

Ramesses II is credited with expanding ancient Egypt’s sway as far as modern Syria to the northeast and Sudan to the south. In other words, the burial cave dates to a time when ancient Egypt ruled the land that is today Israel.

The burial chamber had been carved into the bedrock in the form of a square, with a pillar supporting its ceiling. In contrast to (slightly earlier) burials found in the vicinity of Israel’s southern coast, it seems to have served a family or clan, Yannai says.

Other graves, albeit from the 14th century B.C.E., not the 13th, each served to inter one body. However, not much more about the bodies can be said: in contrast to the grave site itself, their preservation is poor, precluding the possibility of DNA extraction and analysis.

Palmahim Beach in southern Israel.

That said, Yannai believes it reasonable to assume that they were local people living on the coast, who – based on some of the grave goods – had a brisk trading relationship with Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria.

However, what settlement they may have been associated with, we do not know. “It may have been lost to the sea over time,” Yannai says. All along the coast, people were sailing out from makeshift “pirate” ports – notably at the mouth of the Soreq River where it pours, or trickles these days, into the Mediterranean Sea.

Some of the intact pottery discovered at Palmahim.

It is plausible that smaller traders would seek to avoid using the port services of the big cities, Jaffa and Ashkelon, which were the fief of the big merchants and would gouge them on fees, he explains. So possibly, the denizens of this untouched burial cave were “pirates” of that sort, or at least had possessions from them to take to the afterlife.

Some of the bodies had been laid on their back; some seem to have supplanted earlier bodies, which were moved, he adds. In any case, it seems the cave was used over generations.

Palmahim Beach, southern Israel.

As said, the identity and affiliations of the deceased remain a mystery for the time being. But there is the hope of being able to analyze the organic residue in the vessels, Yannai says, which could shed light on at least one enigma: what they liked to eat.

Amphorae at the burial cave.
Amphorae at the burial cave.

Archaeologists discover a 1,200-yr-old luxurious mansion in southern Israel

Archaeologists discover a 1,200-yr-old luxurious mansion in southern Israel

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FROM THE ISRAEL ANTIQUES AUTHORITY (IAA) HAVE UNCOVERED A LUXURY ESTATE THAT DATES FROM THE ISLAMIC PERIOD.

The team made the discovery during works to build a new neighbourhood in the city of Rahat in the Negev desert, located in Southern Israel.

The region was formerly ruled by the Al-Tayaha tribe (Al-Hezeel clan), a Negev Bedouin people that settled in the Sinai Peninsula during the early years of the Muslim conquests.

Archaeologists found a large estate with a central courtyard that sits on a vaulted complex and a three-metre-deep rock-hewn water cistern which dates to the Early Islamic period from the 8th to 9th century AD.

The estate has four wings, in which one of the wings has a hall paved with a marble and stone floor and walls decorated with frescoes using finely coloured red, yellow, blue, and black pigments.

Some of the other rooms had plaster floors and large ovens for cooking, while fragments of delicate glass serving dishes have also been uncovered.

“The luxurious estate and the impressive underground vaults are evidence of the owners’ means.

Their high status and wealth allowed them to build a luxurious mansion that served as a residence and for entertaining”, said the excavation directors – Oren Shmueli, Dr. Elena Kogan-Zehavi and Dr. Noé D. Michael.

Eli Eskosido, Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority said: “The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Bedouin are planning together to conserve and exhibit the finds to the general public.”

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant
A fossilized tusk from a giant prehistoric elephant emerged from an excavation site near Kibbutz Revadim in southern Israel

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed the complete tusk of a giant prehistoric elephant that once roamed around the Mediterranean. The 2.6-meter (8.5-foot) remnant, weighing approximately 150 kilograms (330 pounds), is estimated to be around half a million years old.

“This is the largest complete fossil tusk ever found at a prehistoric site in Israel or the Near East,” Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) prehistorian Avi Levy, who headed the dig, said on Wednesday. 

It belonged to a Palaeoloxodon antiquus, or straight-tusked elephant, that would have stood up to 5 meters tall, significantly larger than today’s African elephants.

Levy said the tusk would be preserved and transferred to a lab for further analysis to “try to define the age, where he lived, where he walked.”

The tusk will be displayed at National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem once the conservation process is complete

Mystery over who hunted the behemoth

What makes the find even more exciting is that it was found in an area where stone and flint tools and other animal remains have been recovered.

It is “very puzzling, very enigmatic,” said Omry Barzilai, an IAA archaeologist, explaining that the dig team did not know whether ancient people hunted the behemoth on the spot or whether they brought the felled animal’s tusk from further away.

The site in modern-day Revadim, Israel, was dated to the late lower palaeolithic period, around 500,000 years ago, based on stone tools found in the vicinity, the antiquities authority said.

But half a million years ago, when the ancient elephant died, the now-arid terrain was likely a swamp or shallow lake, an ideal habitat for ancient hominids.

The identity of the prehistoric humans who inhabited the region — a land bridge from Africa to Asia and Europe — was “a mystery,” said Levy.

“We haven’t found remains of people here, we only find their material culture the trash they discarded after use, whether animal bones or flint tools,” the historian added.

The 9,000-Year-Old Underground Megalithic Settlement of Atlit Yam

The 9,000-Year-Old Underground Megalithic Settlement of Atlit Yam

Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel.

Not far off the coast of the village of Atlit in the Mediterranean Sea, near Haifa in Israel, lies the submerged ruins of the ancient Neolithic site of Atlit Yam.

The prehistoric settlement, which dates back to the 7th millennium BC, has been so well preserved by the sandy seabed that a mysterious stone circle still stands as it was first erected, and dozens of human skeletons lay undisturbed in their graves.

Atlit Yam is one of the oldest and largest sunken settlements ever found and sheds new light on the daily lives of its ancient inhabitants.

Today, Atlit Yam lies between 8 – 12 metres beneath sea level and covered an area of 40,000 square metres. The site was first discovered in 1984 by marine archaeologist Ehud Galili, and since then underwater excavations have unearthed numerous houses, stone-built water wells, a series of long unconnected walls, ritual installations, stone-paved areas, a megalithic structure, thousands of flora and faunal remains, dozens of human remains, and numerous artefacts made of stone, bone, wood and flint.

A diver explores a well at the site of Atlit Yam, an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel.

At the centre of the settlement, seven megaliths (1.0 to 2.1 metres high) weighing up to 600 kilograms are arranged in a stone semicircle.

The stones have cup marks carved into them and were once arranged around a freshwater spring, which suggests that they may have been used for a water ritual. Another installation consists of three oval stones (1.6 – 1.8 metres), two of which are circumscribed by grooves forming schematic anthropomorphic figures.

Another significant structural feature of the site is the stone-built well, which was excavated down to a depth of 5.5. metres. At the base of the well, archaeologists found sediment fill containing animal bones, stone, flint, wood, and bone artefacts. This suggests that in its final stage, it ceased to function as a water-well and was used instead as a disposal pit. The change in function was probably related to salinization of the water due to a rise in sea-level.

The wells from Atlit-Yam had probably been dug and constructed in the earliest stages of occupation (the end of the 9th millennium BC) and were essential for the maintenance of a permanent settlement in the area.

The ancient artifacts unearthed at Atlit Yam offer clues into how the prehistoric inhabitants once lived.

Researchers have found traces of more than 100 species of plants that grew at the site or were collected from the wild, and animal remains consisted of bones of both wild and domesticated animals, including sheep, goat, pig, dog, and cattle, suggesting that the residents raised and hunted animals for subsistence. In addition, more than 6,000 fish bones were found. Combined with other clues, such as an ear condition found in some of the human remains caused by regular exposure to cold water, it seems that fishing also played a big role in their society.

The archaeological material indicates that Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast.

The inhabitants were some of the first to make the transition from being hunter-gatherers to being more settled farmers, and the settlement is one of the earliest with evidence of domesticated cattle.

Human Remains Reveal Oldest Known Case of Tuberculosis

A human skeleton was found at the site of Atlit Yam, an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel.

Ten flexed burials encased in clay and covered by thick layers of sand were discovered, both inside the houses and in the vicinity of Atlit Yam, and in total archaeologists have uncovered 65 sets of human remains.

One of the most significant discoveries of this ancient site is the presence of tuberculosis (TB) within the village. The skeletons of a woman and child, found in 2008, have revealed the earliest known cases of tuberculosis in the world. The size of the infant’s bones, and the extent of TB damage, suggest the mother passed the disease to her baby shortly after birth.

What Caused Atlit Yam to Sink?

One of the greatest archaeological mysteries of Atlit Yam is how it came to be submerged, a question that has led to heated debate in academic circles. An Italian study led by Maria Pareschi of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa indicates that a volcanic collapse of the Eastern flank of Mount Etna 8,500 years ago would likely have caused a 40-metre-high tsunami to engulf some Mediterranean coastal cities within hours.

Some scientists point to the apparent abandonment of Atlit Yam around the same time, and the thousands of fish remains, as further evidence that such a tsunami did indeed occur.

However, other researchers have suggested that there is no solid evidence to suggest a tsunami wiped out the settlement. After all, the megalithic stone circle still remained standing in the place in which it had been constructed. One alternative is that climate change caused glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise and the settlement became flooded by a slow rise in the level of the Mediterranean that led to a gradual abandonment of the village.

Whatever the cause of the submerging of the settlement, it was the unique conditions of clay and sandy sediment under salty water that enabled this ancient village to remain so well preserved over thousands of years.

Jackpot: 900-Year-Old Gold Coins, Dating Back to The Crusades, Found in Israel

Jackpot: 900-Year-Old Gold Coins, Dating Back to The Crusades, Found in Israel

Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered a trove of rare gold coins and a 900-year-old gold earring at the site of a Crusader massacre. Officials announced the discovery earlier this week, explaining that the artefacts were found at the ancient city of Caesarea on Israel’s coast.

A small bronze pot, which contained 24 gold coins and the earring, was found hidden between two stones in the side of a well located in the remains of a 900-year-old house.

“The coins in the cache dating to the end of the eleventh century, make it possible to link the treasure to the Crusader conquest of the city in the year 1101, one of the most dramatic events in the medieval history of the city,” explained excavation directors Dr. Peter Gendelman and Mohammed Hatar of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in a statement.

Citing contemporary sources, the experts noted that most of Caesarea’s inhabitants were massacred by a Crusader army led by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

“It is reasonable to assume that the treasure’s owner and his family perished in the massacre or were sold into slavery, and therefore were not able to retrieve their gold,” they said in the statement.

The bronze pot with gold earrings inside.

The stunning artefacts were found in the area of a sacred compound built by King Herod the Great more than two millennia ago. Other treasures have also been found nearby. In the 1960s, for example, a pot containing gold and silver jewellery was discovered at Caesarea, while a collection of bronze vessels was found in the 1990s.

The house where the latest treasures were found was built about 1,000 years after Herod’s reign.

The turbulent Crusader era in the Holy Land began in the 11th century and lasted until the 13th century.

The excavation project at Caesarea is sponsored by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation and involves the Caesarea Development Corporation, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, as well as the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The discovery also came just before the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, when it is traditional to give children “Hanukkah gelt,” which are chocolate coins.

“It is symbolic that the gold coins were discovered on the eve of Hanukkah,” said Caesarea Development Corporation CEO Michael Karsenti, in a statement. “For us, this is certainly ‘Hanukah gelt,’ and a testament to how much more is still hidden within Caesarea.”

Israel’s Crusader sites continue to be a source of fascination. In a separate project, for example, archaeologists recently discovered a Gothic hall at a medieval Crusader fortress in northern Israel.

Last year, amazing medieval jewellery was found during the excavation of a Crusader castle on Tittora Hill in the town of Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut.

In 2016, a centuries-old hand grenade that may date back to the time of the Crusaders was among a host of treasures retrieved from the sea in Israel. The hand grenade was a common weapon in Israel during the Crusader era.

Over decades, archaeologists have also uncovered the ruins of the once-thriving Crusader city in the modern Israeli city of Acre.