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STORY IDEAS
Please note that the dates cited below use the convention BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) instead of BC and AD, respectively.
LITERACY: MAKING THEIR MARK Literacy was not as prevalent in the ancient world as it is today, though it was of course among political and religious leaders – and the people who wrote and copied the Dead Sea Scrolls. The words of the Dead Sea Scrolls are the most significant writings of the period, but earlier objects illustrated the evolution of writing and literacy.
From the 8th century BCE onwards, a growing number of examples of writing appear, often as inscriptions on pottery or stone. The Arad Ostraca, dating from the 7th to 6th century BCE, is, in essence, a memo: Eliashib asks that the soldiers in a fortress be given wine and flour.
Pottery, too, was marked, to indicate the owner. Just as T-shirts found in college and athletic stores bear phrases like “Property of the Department of Athletics, Penn State University,” jars and other vessels in ancient Israel were marked by seals pressed into wet clay before being fired in a kiln. The Pottery LMLK Jar bears the impression LMLK, an acronym for the Hebrew letters lamedh mem lamedh kaf, which represent “Belonging to the king.” These jars date from around the 8th century BCE and may have been used to collect grains or other goods for the payment of royal taxes.
Seal impressions were among the most common types of inscriptions found in ancient Israel and Judah. Many bear the names of the seal’s owner and his father. They often incorporated letters or images, and a surprising number of seals survive. The Stone Stamp Seal Bearing a Figure of an Archer is carefully carved from hard stone and dates from the 7th century BCE, as does a Clay ‘Bulla’ Stamped with a Personal Seal from the same period. The tradition of using seals, or bulla, to establish authenticity was adopted by the Catholic Church in the Papal Bull, which is named after the seal appended to the end of documents.
Not all markings were so official. Jerusalem’s ancient drainage canal, near the Temple Mount, was the location of a discovery: a rare engraving of a menorah, exhibited as Stone Inscribed with Five Branch Menorah. Its origins are unknown. Researchers speculate that a passerby who had seen the Temple menorah incised his impressions on a stone, as someone today might make a drawing, and abandoned it near the Temple Mount.
HEARTH AND HOME The remains of numerous ancient homes have been found in Israel, most were quite basic: a series of rooms that form a U around a courtyard with walls made of sun-dried mud bricks covered with a coating of mud, pillars supporting an upper level, and second stories where families would receive guests, eat, sleep, and worshiped at a small shrine.
A series of objects from a four-room house presented in the exhibition reveal a homemaker’s necessities. In addition to architectural fragments, there are storage jars for water, wine, and olive oil, jugs for tableware, bowls,
lamps that were fueled by olive oil, and more. Mortars, pestles, and grindstones were made of basalt, a hard stone. Thick-walled cooking pots – stews were common fare, often with lentils and seasoned with cumin or coriander – would rest on stands, above the embers, and those in the exhibitions have bottoms blackened from use. Bread was served at most every meal, making grindstones indispensible, and goat cheese and olives were also frequently parts of a meal. Melon, figs, dates, and dried pomegranates were also staples of diets. On special occasions, meat would be served, typically mutton. Condiments included olive oil, vinegar, and honey. Among the objects found at Masada are remarkably preserved salt, wheat, and walnuts.
Rare among the household objects in the exhibition are a Pottery goblet, Decanter, and Jug. The goblet dates to the 7th century BCE and rests on a foot, rather than a stand, which gives it an unusual shape. It’s one of two of its kind, and both were found in the oldest Israelite settlement in Jerusalem, the City of David, and it is further distinguished by the high quality of its clay and its deep red burnish.
Among the forms of storage jars found in the exhibition are pithoi, which first appeared around 1200 BCE. They are unique to the lands of Israel and seem to coincide with the earliest emergence of Israelite material culture.
COSMETICS AND JEWELRY Life in the ancient world was far from one of opulence. Yet luxuries did exist. Small Cosmetic Bowls, four inches across, survive. The area for the cosmetics is small and surrounded by wide lips decorated with incised patterns. And an elaborately carved Decorated Bone Handle that is nearly four inches tall shows grazing animals, a sign of wealth. Although not necessarily of Israelite origin, a silver Bracelet Fragment indicates the sophistication of silversmiths, while a couple of handfuls of pierced Gold Beads and a single Gold Brooch indicate the rarity of precious metal objects found in the area.
MONEY AND WEIGHTS False weights and balances – today, these words would describe a butcher with his thumb on the scale. Around 2,800 years ago, the phrase was applied to dishonest merchants.
Around the 8th century BCE, people in Israel began trying to standardize weights and measures, and the shekel became the unit of currency. Not yet a coin, shekels were made of limestone cut to weigh about 11.57 grams. Once cut, the weights would be marked with Egyptian hieratic script with the writing certifying their weight. Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Biblical Times contains numerous shekel weights as well as shekel coins, most commonly made of silver, though in other lands gold and bronze coins were common, as well.
Israelite shekels were far from the only currency in ancient Israel. After the Roman Empire came to rule the area, in the Second Temple period, the Romans decreed that a temple tax had to be paid in Tyrian shekels – the coin of Tyre, in present-day Lebanon – one of which is in the exhibition. The silver coin shows the Phoenician god Melqarth in his Hellenized form of Herakles. The human figure presented a problem for the Israelites: the Ten Commandments forbids graven images. The solution to the problem created a small scale industry: moneychangers would wait outside the Temple walls to exchange Tyrian shekels for currency that could be used in the sacred setting yet had little value anywhere else. The later New Testament account of Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the Temple probably refers to those who provided this service.
ARCHITECTURE The history of ancient Israel and the area is filled with numerous changes in peoples, religions, and politics, often tragic, yet evidence in stone that records moments of the shifting periods thankfully remain.
During the First Temple period, of the 10th century BCE to the 6th century BCE, royal and public buildings in Israel and Judah was marked by architecture that shared affinities with that found in Greece. Three capitals that once
stood atop pillars date from the 9th century BCE to the 8th century BCE, nearly three millennia ago. Similar to Ionic capitals, those found in Israel have scroll-like ornament. Yet the Limestone Proto-Aeolic Capitals in the exhibition are decorated with a central triangle.
Of all the sites of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Western Wall is among the most sacred. Built around 19 BCE, the Western Wall occupies land of historic significance. It is near the site of Solomon’s Temple, which was the center of Jewish faith from the 10th to 6th centuries BCE and the last known site of the Ark of the Covenant. Destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Second Temple was built and dedicated on the same site in 516 BCE. The Western Wall was added in an expansion of the Second Temple under Herod around 19 BCE and helped form a perimeter around the courtyard outside the temple, which was destroyed by Roman forces in 70 CE. For centuries beginning in 135 CE, Jews were forbidden from entering Jerusalem except for one day a year, when they could visit the Western Wall to pray and lament their fate: cut off from a site central to their faith.
Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times presents a remarkable artifact: a Stone from the Western Wall. The stone is massive: it weighs three tons. It is believed that the stone was toppled from the Wall when the Second Temple fell – both literally and figuratively – to Roman forces in 70 CE.
In the exhibition, the stone is set within a cast replicating a section of the Western Wall. Guests to the exhibition, in keeping with a tradition that continues to this day in Jerusalem, will be able to put their own prayers down on paper and insert them into the cast of the section of the Western Wall. The prayers will be sent back to Israel and left in the original wall itself.
The Western Wall stone is the only artifact in the exhibition that visitors will be allowed to touch, laying their hands on a piece of history that witnessed thousands of years of joys and sorrows, celebrations and catastrophes.
The destruction of the Second Temple is recalled as well by a Marble Slab with Menorah, which dates back to the destruction of the second temple. The deeply carved marble is inscribed in Greek: “One God, help Judah the Elder, year 741.”
HONOR AND WORSHIP The Kingdom of Israel came into being as a united monarchy of the 12 Israelite tribes in 1020 BCE and in 931 BCE was divided into a northern half, the Kingdom of Israel, and a southern half, the Kingdom of Judah. Although ruled by Israelites, the kingdoms were among the first melting pots of the world: people of numerous tribes and faiths lived, worked, and prayed throughout the area, and archaeologists have found numerous examples of religious objects from different faiths.
Small stone and clay incense altars were common throughout the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and were found both in local shrines and the remains of dwellings. Many, like a Pottery Four-Horned Altar from the 10th century BCE, have horn-like corners, imitating larger sacrificial altars with horn-shaped cornerstones. While official rituals were performed in the Temple in Jerusalem, these home altars indicate the regular practice of religion in homes, although without the sacrificial animal.
Altars were created with stands, some of which were highly decorative. A Pottery Cult Stand Fragment from the 10th century BCE depicts a naked man with a pointed beard. Found in the City of David, the oldest settled neighborhood in Jerusalem, his symbolism remains a mystery. His hands appear to be bound in front, suggesting that he might be a prisoner, and his right shoulder supports a heavy weight. Alternatively, he may be carrying a sacrificial animal on his shoulders. Without question, however, the stand was unusually elaborate and ornate and spoke of the care pottery artists took in creating objects of devotion.
One of the most important symbols throughout the area – and history, for that matter – are those that represent fertility. In the ancient Near East, both the Canaanite fertility goddess, Asherah, and her Greek counterpart, Astarte, were represented as a dove. Pomegranates represented fertility, as well. The Ivory Pomegranate and Dove from the late 9th century-early 8th century BCE in the exhibition is unique. Pomegranates made of ivory, bronze, and
pottery that date from Israel’s Iron age have been found. But the one in the exhibition is the only Israelite example of a dove atop a pomegranate.
Ossuaries, or chests that contain human remains, became frequently used during the Second Temple period and helped Israelites follow the Commandment to “Honor thy father and thy mother,” both in life and in death. The six ossuaries in the exhibition, found in a tomb in Jerusalem, have inscriptions that include the names “Jesus,” “Mary,” “Joseph” – names that were very common two millennia ago, but a remarkable coincidence. The highly controversial, recently published book, "The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth of Christianity," by biblical scholar James Tabor and documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, and a related documentary aired on the Discovery Channel this spring, contend that they come from a tomb that belonged to Jesus and his family. Tabor and Jacobovici’s claims are hotly disputed, but these ossuaries are testament to the veneration in which the people of Israel held their ancestors.
ART AND DESIGN The artistic riches in the exhibition are not those of paintings and sculpture but masters of various media whose works reflect an intersection of several cultures at a crossroads of the world.
A Pottery Female Figurine, from the 8th century BCE, is a sculpture in miniature. One of around 2,000 such figures that have been unearthed, her arms are akimbo and come close to her body just beneath her breasts, with reason: she is a fertility symbol. She may represent the cult figure Asherah, who many ancient Israelites believed was a mother goddess and the consort to the god of Israel. Although small in stature and roughly modeled from the neck down, her face is exquisite: her brow is finely articulated, as are her prominent cheekbones, refined nose, and delicate lips.
Even 2,000 years ago, dolls were a part of life. An Abbassian Bone Doll, measuring just 2-1/4 inches, would have fit perfectly in a child’s hand. Strikingly, the carefully carved figure is reminiscent of earlier Cycladic sculpture in its geometric, stylized form.
While examples of archaic design are found throughout the exhibition, ancient design that is reflected in current art is seen as well. Although it’s a utilitarian object, a Qumran Stoneware Two-Handled Measuring Cup, made of limestone, is a masterpiece of proportion and design, with sharply cornered handles offsetting the slight outward curve of the cup itself. Today, 2,000 years later, the measuring cup’s sense of volume and mass are found in the works of the late American contemporary artist, Scott Burton.
A handful of mosaics are among the many works in the exhibition, including a 45-inch square found in the house of a Roman governor in Jerusalem. Christian and Islamic mosaics are shown side by side in a rare pairing that contrasts the rectilinear design found in Christian imagery in the form of a cross with an Islamic mosaic showing geometric patterns, coiling vines, and foliage. An Israelite mosaic presents menorahs, a remembrance of Jewish faith.