ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island

The first-ever example of prayer beads from medieval Britain has been discovered on the island of Lindisfarne, one of Britain’s most historic ancient sites, to the excitement of archaeologists.

Medieval Prayer Beads Discovered on England’s Holy Island
These are the oldest prayer beads ever found in England, which were recently unearthed on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne as part of an ongoing crowdfunded archaeological project.

Dating from the 8th to 9th century AD, they were made from salmon vertebrae. Fish an important symbol of early Christianity were clustered around the neck of one of the earliest skeletons – possibly one of the monks buried within the famous early medieval monastery.

Archaeologists are seeking to unearth the lost history of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland. It was established by the Kings of Northumbria in the 7th century as an important religious centre and became the scene of the first major Viking raid on Britain in the 8th century.

It was there that monks created the Lindisfarne Gospels – the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England – but there have been few tangible finds at the site.

Dr David Petts, the project co-director and a Durham University specialist in early Christianity, told The Telegraph that the fish vertebrae appear to be prayer beads for personal devotion: “We think of the grand ceremonial side of early medieval life in the monasteries and great works like the Lindisfarne Gospels. But what we’ve got here is something which talks to a much more personal side of early Christianity.”

© Provided by The Telegraph Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island in Northumberland – Brian A Jackson/Brian A Jackson
The Lindisfarne Priory is viewed from above.

He paid tribute to Marina Chorro Giner, a zooarchaeologist, for recognising the significance of the vertebrae: “This bright, eagle-eyed researcher looked at them and said, actually these aren’t just fish bones, they’ve been modified and turned into something.”

Discussing the significance of fish and the sea to the island’s medieval inhabitants, he referred to a monk called Cuthbert, who joined Lindisfarne in the 670s and went on to become the most important saint in northern England in the Middle Ages: “We also have the stories of Christ and the Apostles being fishermen and going on the Sea of Galilee and calming storms. We see in Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert, that Cuthbert calming storms. So the sea is symbolically important.”

The beads offer significant information for understanding how people in the past lived and expressed their beliefs through objects.

Their position around the neck suggested that they had been strung like a necklace. The naturally-occurring hole through the centre of salmon vertebrae had been widened, either before threading or through wear.

The discovery follows ongoing excavations at Lindisfarne by DigVentures, an archaeology social enterprise in which volunteers work alongside professionals, as well as Durham University.

‘Remarkable find’

Lisa Westcott Wilkins of DigVentures described it as “a remarkable find”: “Clearly it was important enough that this person was buried with it. This is the only artefact from within a grave on Lindisfarne, so it’s a significant item. As far as we’re aware, it’s the first example of prayer beads found anywhere in medieval Britain.”

She added: “We believe these beads were used as a personal object of faith, especially given that our modern word bead comes from the Old English gebed, meaning ‘prayer’.”

READ ALSO: ANCIENT CHRISTIAN SETTLEMENT DISCOVERED IN EGYPT’S BAHARIYA OASIS

Such is the enormity of the site that the team will continue their excavations for another four years. Other finds have included runic namestones, coins and copper rings.

Mrs Westcott Wilkins said that they are now focussed on the earliest layer within a cemetery that lies next to the ruins of the 12th-century priory: “There are just so many human remains.”

In 1997, at the nearby medieval chapel at Chevington, Northumberland, fish vertebrae were found with similar modifications. But they were from Atlantic cod, among other fish, and that burial dated from the 13th or 14th century, whereas this is so much earlier.

EUROPE, SLOVAKIA, WORLD

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

The Skalica district in Slovakia is a well-known archaeological site where scientists have previously unearthed many interesting ancient objects.

“According to archaeological discoveries Skalica, as part of the region Záhorie, was populated 3,500 years ago. The area’s development was conditioned by the flow of the River Moravia.

The territory on the left bank of the river became known as the Amber Road.

The Amber Road was an ancient route used for transferring amber from the costs of the North and Baltic Seas. This could be seen as a sign of the importance of this area since prehistoric times.

As regards its Slavic population, it presumably settled in this territory between the sixth and eighth century.” 1

The Skalica archaeological site needs an increase in its protection, and while conducting work at the site, scientists unearthed a rare axe from the Early Bronze Age.

Axe from Early Bronze Age found in Skalica

“So far, it is the oldest metal object from this researched site, Monuments Board Trnava informed. The research was carried out by archaeologists of the Monuments Board Trnava and enthusiasts of archaeology from civic associations.

The smaller axe is 9.5 cm long and has an enlarged fan-shaped cutting part, shallowly-grooved flat sides with hints of the side rails and a pointed tulle. It belongs to the so-called Saxon-type axe, the oldest specimens of which were still made of copper.

READ ALSO: BRONZE DAGGER DISCOVERED IN SLOVAKIA

Similar axes were found in several locations in Slovakia, especially in Central Germany and Saxony. They are often part of a larger collection but also as individual objects as well,” the Slovak Spectator reports.

Recently, two other unique but accidental finds from older sections of the Bronze Age have been found in the Trnava region, both in the territory of Hlohovec. In 2017, a bronze blade from a so-called dagger on a club and in 2021 a short sword (long dagger).

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

This map is an essential ingredient of a story that has ‘Indiana Jones’ written all over it: secret caves, a lost civilisation and above all, a treasure trove of gold in unimaginable quantities. And all this is in the ground below the present-day metropolis of Los Angeles.

Map of the Lost Lizard City under Los Angeles

Below are two extracts from the LA Times of 29 January 1934, in the first of which reporter Jean Bosquet details the incredible story of G. Warren Shufelt, a mining engineer, who had been told of the underground city and its treasures by a wise old Indian, had consequently located it via ‘radio X-ray’ and at the time was sinking shafts into the ground to reach it.

The second extract explains the whereabouts of the putative underground city on the map and provides the legends for a few photos showing Shufelt’s hard work.

Needless to say, no such city has ever been found. Whether fully intentional or not, the hoax did leave us with this strange map of the supposed underground city, its tunnels vaguely laid out in the shape of a lizard.

Interestingly, this article on Skeptoid, a website providing critical analysis of pop phenomena, raises the possibility that Mr Bosquet’s story may be the original source for the later conspiracy theories about humanoid reptilians controlling the world. Indiana Jones has fathered David Icke…

LIZARD PEOPLE’S CATACOMB CITY HUNTED

Engineer Sinks Shaft Under Fort Moore Hill to Find Maze of Tunnels and Priceless Treasures of Legendary Inhabitants

(LA Times, 29 Jan 1934)

By Jean Bosquet

Busy Los Angeles, although little realizing it in the hustle and bustle of modern existence, stands above a lost city of catacombs filled with incalculable treasure and imperishable records of a race of humans further advanced intellectually and scientifically than even the highest type of present-day peoples, in the belief of G. Warren Shufelt, a geophysical engineer now engaged in an attempt to wrest from the lost city deep in the earth below Fort Moore Hill the secrets of the Lizard People of legendary fame in the medicine lodges of the American Indian.

So firmly do Shufelt and a little staff of assistants believe that a maze of catacombs and priceless golden tablets are to be found beneath downtown Los Angeles that the engineer and his aides have already driven a shaft 250 feet into the ground, the mouth of the shaft being on the old Banning property on North Hill street overlooking Sunset Boulevard, Spring Street and North Broadway.

LEGEND SUPPLIES CLEW (sic)

Shufelt learned of the legend of the Lizard People after his radio X-ray had led him hither and yon, over an area extending from the Public Library on West Fifth street to the Southwest Museum, on Museum Drive, at the foot of Mt. Washington.

“I knew I was over a pattern of tunnels,” the engineer explained yesterday, “and I had mapped out the course of the tunnels, the position of large rooms scattered along the tunnel route, as well as the position of deposits of gold, but I couldn’t understand the meaning of it.”

FIRE DESTROYS ALL

According to the legend, as imparted to Shufelt by Macklin, the radio X-ray has revealed the location of one of three lost cities on the Pacific Coast, the local one having been dug by the Lizzard People after the “great catastrophe” which occurred about 5000 years ago. This legendary catastrophe was in the form of a huge tongue of fire that “came out of the Southwest, destroying all life in its path,” the path being “several hundred miles wide.” The city underground was dug as a means of escaping future fires.

The lost city, dug with powerful chemicals by the Lizard People instead of pick and shovel, was drained into the ocean, where its tunnels began, according to the legend. The tide passing daily in and out of the lower tunnel portals and forcing air into the upper tunnels, provided ventilation and “cleansed and sanitized the lower tunnels,” the legend states.

Large rooms in the domes of the hills above the city of labyrinths housed 1000 families “in the manner of tall buildings” and imperishable food supplies of the herb variety were stored in the catacombs to provide sustenance for the lizard folk for great lengths of time as the next fire swept over the earth.

CITY LAID OUT LIKE LIZARD

The Lizard People, the legend has it, regarded the lizard as the symbol of long life. Their city is laid out like a lizard, according to the legend, its tail to the southwest, far below Fifth and Hope streets, it’s head to the northeast, at Lookout and Marda streets. The city’s key room is situated directly under South Broadway, near Second street, according to Shufelt and the legend.

This key room is the directory to all parts of the city and to all record tablets, the legend states. All records were kept on gold tablets, four feet long and fourteen inches wide. On these tablets of gold, gold having been the symbol of life to the legendary Lizard People will be found the recorded history of the Mayans on one particular tablet, the southwest corner of which will be missing, is to be found the “record of the origin of the human race.”

TABLETS PHOTOGRAPHED

Shufelt stated he has taken “X-ray pictures” of thirty-seven such tablets, three of which have their southwest corners cut off.

“My radio X-ray pictures of tunnels and rooms, which are sub-surface voids, and of gold pictures with perfect corners, sides and ends, are scientific proof of their existence,” Shufelt said. “However, the legendary story must remain speculative until unearthed by excavation.”

The Lizard people according to Macklin were of a much higher type intellectually than modern human beings. The intellectual accomplishments of their 9-year-old children were equal to those of present-day college graduates, he said. So greatly advanced scientifically were these people that, in addition to perfecting a chemical solution by which they bored underground without removing earth and rock, they also developed a cement far stronger and better than any in use in modern times with which they lined their tunnels and rooms.

HILLS INCLOSE CITY

Macklin said legendary advice to American Indians was to seek the lost city in an area within a chain of hills forming “the frog of a horse’s hoof.” The contour of hills surrounding this region forms such a design, substantiating Shufelt’s findings, he said.

Shufelt’s radio device consists chiefly of a cylindrical glass case inside of which a plummet attached to a copper wire held by the engineer sways continually, pointing, he asserts, toward minerals or tunnels below the surface of the ground, and then revolves when over the mineral or swings in prolongation of the tunnel when above the excavation.

He has used the instrument extensively in mining fields, he said.

DID STRANGE PEOPLE LIVE UNDER THE SITE OF LOS ANGELES 5000 YEARS AGO?

An amazing labyrinth of underground passages and caverns hundreds of feet below the surface of Fort Moore Hill is revealed in maps – all rights to which have been reserved – prepared by G. Warren Shufelt, local mining engineer, who explains his topographical endeavours as being based on results obtained from a radio X-ray perfected by him. In this elaborate system of tunnels and rooms, according to a legend furnished by Shufelt by an Indian authority, a tribe of human beings called the Lizard People, lived, 5000 years ago.

The network of tunnels formed what Indians call the lost Lizard City, according to Shufelt and the legend. Gold tablets on which are written the origin of the human race and other priceless documents are to be found in the tunnels, according to the legend. Shufelt declares his radio X-ray has located the gold. The engineer has dug a shaft 250 feet deep on North Hill street, overlooking North Broadway, Sunset and Spring streets, and intends to dig to 1000 feet in an effort to strike the lost city.

The Upper right-hand corner inset is Times Staff Artist Ewing’s conception of the Lizard People at work. Lower left, upper inset shows Shufelt and crew at top of the shaft, bailing water out of their deep excavation. The lower left inset shows Shufelt operating his radio X-ray device.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland

The ancient pendant made from mammoth bone was found in 2010 along with a horse-bone tool known as an awl. This piece of jewellery shows the great creativity and extraordinary manual skills of members of the group of Homo sapiens that occupied the site, said Dr. Wioletta Nowaczewska, a researcher at Wrocław University.

41,500-Year-Old Mammoth Ivory Pendant Found in Poland
Dorsal views of the 41,500-year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave, Poland.

“The thickness of the plate is about 3.7 mm showing an astonishing precision on carving the punctures and the two holes for wearing it.”

Using advanced methods of radiocarbon dating, Dr. Nowaczewska and colleagues dated the pendant, awl and bone fragments from Stajnia Cave to the Early Upper Paleolithic.

The objects are the earliest known evidence of humans decorating jewellery in Eurasia and the emergence of symbolic behaviour in human evolution.

The decoration of the pendant included patterns of over 50 puncture marks in an irregular looping curve and two complete holes.

The researchers suggest that the pattern of indentations, similar to later jewellery found in Europe, could represent hunting tallies (a mathematical counting system) or lunar notations which correspond to the monthly cycle of the Moon or Sun.

“If the Stajnia pendant’s looping curve indicates a lunar analemma or kill scores will remain an open question,” said Dr. Adam Nadachowski, a researcher in the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

“However, it is fascinating that similar decorations appeared independently across Europe.”

The presence of animal bones alongside the pendant and bone awl may indicate that humans were beginning to produce small and transportable art 41,500 years ago as they spread across Eurasia.

“Determining the exact age of this jewellery was fundamental for its cultural attribution, and we are thrilled with the result,” said Dr. Sahra Talamo, director of the BRAVHO Lab in the Department of Chemistry Giacomo Ciamician’ at Bologna University.

“This work demonstrates that using the most recent methodological advances in the radiocarbon method enables us to minimise the amount of sampling and achieve highly precise dates with a very small error range.”

“If we want to seriously solve the debate on when mobile art emerged in Paleolithic groups, we need to radiocarbon date these ornaments, especially those found during past fieldwork or in complex stratigraphic sequences.”

“The ages of the ivory pendant and the bone awl found at Stajnia Cave finally demonstrate that the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Poland took place as early as in Central and Western Europe,” added Dr. Andrea Picin, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“This remarkable result will change the perspective on how adaptable these early groups were and call into question the monocentric model of diffusion of the artistic innovation in the Aurignacian.”

The team’s paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

AFRICA, SOUTH AFRICA, WORLD

Fossils in the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ may be more than a million years older than previously thought

Fossils in the ‘Cradle of Humankind’ may be more than a million years older than previously thought

A group of Australopithecus afarensis.

The ‘Cradle of Humankind’ is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa that comprises a variety of fossil-bearing cave deposits, including Sterkfontein Caves. Sterkfontein was made famous by the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus in 1936.

Since then, hundreds of Australopithecus fossils have been found there, including the well-known Mrs. Ples and the nearly complete skeleton known as Little Foot.

“Sterkfontein has more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere else in the world. But it’s hard to get a good date on them,” said Purdue University’s Professor Darryl Granger.

“People have looked at the animal fossils found near them and compared the ages of cave features like flowstones and gotten a range of different dates.”

“What our data does is resolve these controversies. It shows that these fossils are old — much older than we originally thought.”

Forensic facial reconstruction of Australopithecus afarensis.

To determine the age of the Australopithecus-bearing sediments at Sterkfontein, the researchers measured radioactive cosmogenic nuclides — aluminium-26 and beryllium-10 — in the mineral quartz.

“Cosmogenic nuclides are extremely rare isotopes produced by cosmic rays — high-energy particles that constantly bombard the Earth,” they explained.

“These incoming cosmic rays have enough energy to cause nuclear reactions inside rocks at the ground surface, creating new, radioactive isotopes within the mineral crystals.”

“An example is aluminum-26: aluminium that is missing a neutron and slowly decays to turn into magnesium over a period of millions of years.”

“Since aluminum-26 is formed when a rock is exposed at the surface, but not after it has been deeply buried in a cave, we can date cave sediments — and the fossils within them — by measuring levels of aluminium-26 in tandem with another cosmogenic nuclide, beryllium-10.”

Life reconstruction of Australopithecus sediba commissioned by the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.

The team’s results show that the entire Australopithecus assemblage at Sterkfontein dates to 3.4-3.7 million years ago.

These australopiths were thus early representatives of the genus, overlapping in age with a morphologically diverse range of mid-Pliocene hominins, including Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus deyiremeda at Burtele, Australopithecus bahrelgazali in Chad, Kenyanthropus platyops at Lake Turkana, and Australopithecus anamensis at Woranso-Mille.

“The Sterkfontein hominins predate Paranthropus, Homo, and Australopithecus sediba at nearby sites in the Cradle of Humankind by over a million years,” the authors said.

In addition to the new dates at Sterkfontein based on cosmogenic nuclides, they made careful maps of the cave deposits and showed how animal fossils of different ages would have been mixed together during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to decades of confusion about the previous ages.

“What I hope is that this convinces people that this dating method gives reliable results,” Dr. Granger said.

“Using this method, we can more accurately place ancient humans and their relatives in the correct time periods, in Africa, and elsewhere across the world.”

The results were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Children’s Burials Hint at the Survival of Aztec Customs

Children’s Burials Hint at the Survival of Aztec Customs

Four children in Mexico were buried in the years after the Spanish Conquest with rituals and grave offerings that suggest that pre-Hispanic customs lived on for some time after the Aztec empire fell.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said Monday the burials of children ranging from a newborn to a girl aged between 6 and 8, were found in a working-class district just north of Mexico City’s historic centre.

When the Spanish conquered the Aztec capital in 1521, they quickly expelled the Indigenous Mexica population to the city’s edges, reserving the centre for the homes of only Spaniards.

Archaeologists estimate the children were buried in a layer of earth that dated between 1521 and 1620. Even though the Spaniards quickly outlawed most pre-Hispanic ceremonies and religious practices, researchers found evidence the children were buried with Aztec-style grave goods.

The youngest, the newborn, was buried inside a pot, with other pots around it. The bulbous shape of the pot was thought to imitate the form of a uterus, and it was not clear if the child died before or after birth.

Another offering found at the site included the bones of a bird in a ceramic pot with blue colouring, associated with water.

The older girl was buried with a large clay Aztec-style figurine depicting a female figure holding a child. Her skull showed signs of possible anaemia, malnutrition or infection, signs that suggest life was hard for the Indigenous population in the years following the conquest.

In December, archaeologists announced they had discovered another house site on the outskirts of the city’s centre where 13 large clay ceremonial Aztec incense burners had been carefully buried, again after the Conquest, suggesting that pre-Hispanic beliefs and customs lasted on for some time.

The incense burners had been carefully buried in a pattern that may refer to the Aztec calendar and were covered with adobe bricks as if to hide them.

ASIA, PHILIPPINES, WORLD

World War II Battleship Discovered in Deep Waters

World War II Battleship Discovered in Deep Waters

A U.S. Navy destroyer escort that engaged a superior Japanese fleet in the largest sea battle of World War II in the Philippines has become the deepest wreck to be discovered, according to explorers.

World War II Battleship Discovered in Deep Waters
In this Wednesday, June 22, 2022, image provided by Caladan Oceanic, the three-tube torpedo launcher that was part of the USS Samuel B. Roberts can be seen underwater off the Philippines in the Western Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Navy destroyer that engaged a superior Japanese fleet in the largest sea battle of World War II in the Philippines has become the deepest wreck to be discovered, according to explorers. (Caladan Oceanic via AP)

The USS Samuel B. Roberts, popularly known as the “Sammy B,” was identified on Wednesday and broken into two pieces on a slope at a depth of 6,985 meters (22,916 feet).

That puts it 426 meters (1,400 feet) deeper than the USS Johnston, the previous deepest wreck discovered last year in the Philippine Sea also by American explorer Victor Vescovo, founder of Dallas-based Caladan Oceanic Expeditions. He announced the latest find together with U.K.-based EYOS Expeditions.

“It was an extraordinary honour to locate this incredibly famous ship, and by doing so have the chance to retell her story of heroism and duty to those who may not know of the ship and her crew’s sacrifice,” Vescovo, a former Navy commander, said in a statement.

The Sammy B. took part in the Battle off Samar, the final phase of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, in which the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered its biggest loss of ships and failed to dislodge the U.S. forces from Leyte, which they invaded earlier as part of the liberation of the Philippines.

According to some records, the destroyer escort disabled a Japanese heavy cruiser with a torpedo and significantly damaged another while battling the group led by the command battleship Yamato.

After having spent virtually all its ammunition, it was critically hit by the battleship Kongo and sank. Of a 224-man crew, 89 died and 120 were saved, including the captain, Lt. Cmdr. Robert W. Copeland.

According to Samuel J. Cox, a retired admiral and naval historian, Copeland stated there was “no higher honour” than to have led the men who displayed such incredible courage going into battle against overwhelming odds, from which survival could not be expected.

“This site is a hallowed war grave, and serves to remind all Americans of the great cost born by previous generations for the freedom we take for granted today,” Cox said in a statement.

The explorers said that up until the discovery, the historical records of where the wreck lay were not very accurate.

The search involved the use of the deepest side-scan sonar ever installed and operated on a submersible, well beyond the standard commercial limitations of 6,000 meters (19,685 feet), EYOS said.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Convert’s ‘Bloody’ Curse Against Robbers Found in Ancient Galilee Grave

Convert’s ‘Bloody’ Curse Against Robbers Found in Ancient Galilee Grave

Dated back to the 2nd or 3rd century AD (Late Roman or Early Byzantine period) this painted bloody-looking burial curse inscription was found in a tomb in Beit She’arim Necropolis of Lower Galilee in Israel.

Convert’s ‘Bloody’ Curse Against Robbers Found in Ancient Galilee Grave
The curse, written in red paint on stone at an ancient grave in Beit She’arim.

The full text and the story of its discovery were presented at the Northern Conference, held jointly on June 1, 2022, by the University of Haifa and the northern region of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

Though the Beit She’arim necropolis had been studied extensively, the catacomb in which Jacob had been buried had been unknown until last year. This curse was the first inscription archaeologists have found in Beit She’arim for 65 years!

Necropolis of Bet She’arim, Catacomb 20, Copyright: © Tsvika Tsuk

Beit She’arim site

Beit She’arim, located in the Lower Galilee, was a central Jewish settlement during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, in the 2nd to 5th centuries CE. The Jewish Sanhedrin Council moved there after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Jewish Sanhedrin Council moved there and it became an important centre of Jewish learning and culture.

Inside the innermost chamber, the researchers discovered two inscriptions written in Greek, in red paint. Both were deciphered by Jonathan Price, professor of ancient history at Tel Aviv University. The small one, was found on the limestone wall near a burial lodge, with the name “Judah” on it, who archaeologists believe was the owner of the tomb.

The larger inscription, which was found on a stone slab leaning against the opening of the same alcove, consisted of the eight lines warning people to stay away from Jacob/Yaakov ‘the Convert’s’ (Koine Greek: ΙΑΚΩΒΟC Ο ΠΡΟCΗΛΥΤΟC) tomb and let the deceased rest in peace.

It was specifically written to deter grave robbers, and as such it says:

“Jacob the Proselyte vows to curse anybody who would open this grave, so nobody will open it. He was 60.”

The last three words of the curse were written in a different script and the researchers believe that they may were written after his death by someone else (possibly relatives), following his demise.

An emblem of a menorah carved in the stone, inside a structure at Beit She’arim National Park, an archaeological site in the Lower Galilee.

Why Proselyte?

This title means that he converted to Judaism, perhaps from Christianity or another pagan cult of the time, such as those of Isis or Mithras that thrived in the Late Roman period. During this period, we know that people were desperately seeking life meaning in different philosophical movements, cults, or religions of the united Roman world.

The Christian faith was growing stronger, however, there are indications that many people in the area choose also to join the Jewish religion. Jerusalem, for instance, is littered with remnants from the burials of converts to Judaism during the second and third centuries AD.

However, converting to Judaism is difficult and involves many serious life changes. After studying Jewish law, converts not only have to hearty accept and be sincerely devoted to the Jewish faith, but they also become members of the Jewish People, and they must embrace the totality of Jewish history and culture.

Greek-speaking areas during the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 BC) Dark blue: areas where Greek speakers probably were a majority Light blue: areas that were Hellenized. Wikipedia.

Why in Greek?

Greek, specifically Koine Greek (Common Greek) served as a lingua franca of the time. Also known as Alexandrian dialect, common Attic, Hellenistic, or Biblical Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire.

It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and was the language commonly spoken in much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries, including Roman-period Palestine. It was based mainly on Attic and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through dialect levelling with other varieties.

The excavation of the Beit She’arim ancient necropolis began 80 years ago. The burial inscriptions that were found belong to Jews and are written in various languages, but mostly Greek.

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