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Investigations at Ramat Saharonim: A Desert Neolithic Sacred Precinct in the Central Negev Steven Rosen, Fanny Bocquentin, Yoav Avni, Naomi Porat To cite this version: Steven Rosen, Fanny Bocquentin, Yoav Avni, Naomi Porat. Investigations at Ramat Saharonim: A Desert Neolithic Sacred Precinct in the Central Negev. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, American Schools of Oriental Research, In press, pp.1-27. hal-02014702 HAL Id: hal-02014702 https://hal.parisnanterre.fr//hal-02014702 Submitted on 11 Feb 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Investigations at Ramat Saharonirn: A Desert Neolithic Sacred Precinct in the Central Negev STEVEN A. ROSEN F ANNY BOCQUENTIN Archaeological Division Centre Nationale Recherche Français Ben-Gurion Uni versity of the Negev MAE Uni versité Paris-X POB 653 Paris, France Beersheva. lsrael fa nny.bocquentin @libertysurf.fr [email protected] YOAV AVNI NAOMl PORAT Geological Survey of Israel GeologicaJ Survey of Israel 30 Malkhei Israel Street 30 Malkhei Israel Street Jerusalem 95501. lsrael Jerusalem 95501, lsrael [email protected] naom [email protected]. i1 fn ve.stigations aJ t/l e open-air sltrf11e ami cairn complex at Ramat Saharonim in the Makhtesh Ramon in 1/te central Negev reveal a sai:red precinc/ or ritua/ ce111er with a focus on a morcuary cult, artributable to .tlie Late Neolirliir, ra. 5000 n.c. The four shrines are aligned wirh the set1in1: Still of the s11111mer solstice. along with other land­ scape features. The tilree /1111111/i l!Xrm•ared, mughly rontemporary with the shrines. re­ vea/ed primary and secondary /Juriai.f and inlentimia/ bnne realig11111ent. Excavations al Shrine 4 allow derailed recon'i/rttf'lirm. of siteformatio11 pmces.ves, demonstrating fo11g- 1erm development of the fen111res of the complex. ln general, the megalithic aspect of the site, 1he symbolic nspear 1~{ tlw alig11111en1.1·, and the a11riburio11 11• the Lme Neolithic suggest a close rela1io11 s/Jip berween 1he rise of the de.sert cuit and tribal sociery asso­ ciated witlz the earlieJI intmductin11 of domestic herd animais i11 to the central Negev. LN T RODUCTLON ca. 5500- 5000 B.c.. onl y slightly postdates the ear­ liest i11fiJtration and adoption of berd animals-sheep s with the transition from hu111ing-galbering and goat- replacing hunting as a primary subsistence to farming in the Mediterranean zone. the base. A rise of pastoral nomadism in the desert per­ The presence of ancient cuit and mortuary sites iphery entailed far-reacbing transform<Uions in the in the deserts of the southern Levant ba ~ been basic cultural matrix of the desert. The shift from known since the late 19th century-for example, hunting animais to herding them marked a fundamen­ t:rom Palmer"s ( 1872: 12 1) discovery of the nawamis tal transformation to a society based on ownershîp of fields of easl Sinai. These sites exhibit a wide range the basic rneans of subsistence, and the consequent of types and functions, frorn single stelae, groups of need to preserve those meam. and entailed profound stelae, and elaborate arrangements of standing stones, concomitant change in virtually every realm of society to tumuli and fie lds of lumuli and otber mortuary (e.g., lngold L980). Archaeologically, it should corne structures, and on lhrough various types of other as no surprise that the earliest evidence for elaborate constructions, us uaJl y lumpeù into the general rubric shrines reflecting public ritual and rnortuary cuit in of "open-air shrinc'' (see especially Avner 1984; the southern Levantine deserts, in the Late Neoli1hic 1990; 2002; also Yisrael and Nachlieli L998). Other difficult-to-classify features. such as Lh e " K-Line" Open-air shrinei., sometimes referred to as tem­ (e.g., Haiman 2000) may also be included in Lhe ples, have also been investigated. Yogev (1983) ex­ general category. The general c lass of c alL struc­ cavaced a courlyard s hrine with stelae in a cis t in tures ranges in date from the sixtb mHlennium a.c. the focal corner of the shrine. in the Uvda Valley. through recent lime s-a~. for example, in open-air llated to the sixlh millennium cal s.c. Eddy and Wen­ mosques- and thus has been assocint:ed with the com­ dorf ( J 998; 1999: 36, 39) documented a rectangular plete complement of cultures lmown in Lhe deser1 shrine in eastern Sinaï similar to those al Ramat from the historical and pmtohistorical periods. Saharonim. also dating it by radiocarbon to the sixth ln cerms of the earlier part of this long Lime pan, milleon.ium caJ o.c., and Rothenberg (1979: 125. several recenc investigations provide imporiant back­ lig. 28) excavated anothcr, uggesting it be dated 10 ground for the excavations at Ramat Saharonim. the Pre-Ponery Neolithic on the basis of associated The earliest of these is the systematic exploration of anifacts. Given the absence of artifacts ar vinoally the nawamis fields al Ein el Hudera (Bar-Yosef et al. ail other such sites, and 1heir consistent Late Neo­ J 977) and Geb.el Gunna (Bar- Yosef et al. 1986) in lithic attributîon, il is likcly ù1at the shrine at Ein Sinai. These studies documented the nawamis. cy­ Yarka was builL on an earlier occupation. More sig­ lindrical corbel arched buildings usually 4-8 m in nificantly, Avner's (e.g., 1984: 1990: 2002; Avner extemal diameter and 2 m high, as mortuary struc­ and Cam1i 2001) pioneering long-tenn research pro­ tures dating to roughly the early fourth millennium gram on tbe desen cuit has documented numerous B.c. They reflect a local pastoral society (e.g., Coren hrines in the Negev and Sinaï, many typologjcally 1980) organized at a tribal level. wilh cultural linki. 10 idemical 10 those of Ramat Saharooirn. He. too. has Egypt. La1er analyses (Bar- Yosef et al. 1983; Hersh­ dated the origins of these structures to the Late kowitz et al. 1985) also established a seasonal and Nenlithic and has noced solstice alignments which he cosmological aspect to the nnwarnis; doorways are has interpreted in a cosmological framework drawn aligned to the west, facing the sening sun. with de­ from lmer Mesopotamian civilization (Avner 2002: viations apparently in accordance with the season of 102-J). On chis basis. he suggests a winter sunrise as construction but wiLh modaliUes suggesüog seasonal opposed to a summer sunsel orientation. preferences. The focus on the setling sun clearly has Wilh respect to Ramat Saharonim itself, Cohen symbolic meaning and is tied Lo Egyptiao beliefs in cxplored the site in the 1970s. publishiog plans and lhe connections be1ween dealh, lhe west. and the set­ n few surface artifacts in his doctoral thesis ( 1986: ting sun. 8-9. pis. 5-6; also see Avner 2002: table 14.9-12) The tumulus fields of the central Negev are con­ and Inter in hil> synthetic study of che Negev High­ ceptualJ y si milar to the nawamis in terms of spatial land ( 1999: 2 1-24). Tn formal test excavations werc clustering of the structures and 1heir morruary asso­ also cbnducted but never publisbed. Chronologi­ ciations. However, unlike 1·he nawamis, tumu li ex­ call y. Cohen attributed the site to the Chalcolithic cavations have usuall y (bu t not aJways) shown Lhem perioù based on su.rfacc ar1ifac1s, including several to be empty of burial remains, either from poor prcs­ wbu lar scrapers !Cohen 1999: fig. 9: 1. 2, 7) and a ervation or perhaps the removal of 1hc bones (c.g., simple bifacially retouchcd knife (Cohen 1999: fig. Haiman 1992). Also contrasting wilh the nawnmis, 9: 11 ). ln fact. tabular scrapers as a class appear in buriaJ goods are rare in the tu mu li, rendering chrono­ 1he late stages of ù1e Pottery Neoli thic (second half cultural anribution problematic. Although rcciangu­ of Lhe sixtb millennium B.C.) (Ro en L997: 75) and lar tumuli have usually been auribULed ro the ln1er­ continue through the Early Bronze Age. The bifacial mediate Bronze Age (= EB l V = MB l), Haiman knifo is 1101 diagnostic. lniûal assessments based on ( 1992: l993) bas suggested that the s tandard round survey work also tended 1oward the Early Bronze tumuJi be dated to Lhe Early Bronze Age, based on a Age attribution (Rosen and Rosen 2003). especially pauern of geographic association with large Early based on the strong architectural simiJarities be­ Bronze Age campsites. Avner (2002: 154-55) has lween the Early Bronze Age tumuli in the Negev presented radiocarbon date indicaling earlier oc­ Highlands (Haiman 1992: 1993) and those of Ramat currences. and, anticipaling later discussion. the Ra­ Sahnronim. mat Saharonim excavations indicaie a deeper his1ory The investigations at Ramai Sabaronim were ini- with the tradilion of tumulus burial beginning in 1he 1ia1ed in order to build on these pioneering works. Late Neolithic. The general goal of 1he project was to survey the site (Rosen and Rosen 2003) and excavate part of il m,ation (Zak 1968) (prirnarily, Limestone wiù1 clays, in a methodologicaJly dgorous fashion in anticipa­ maris. and some sandstones) to the Middle Jl!rassic tion that the greater detail would provide answers lo lnmar Formation (sandstone) (fig. 3). some of the quesùons conceming the early desert Historicall y, the area has been primarily the reaJm cuit not yet rcsolved.

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