Archaeology and the Bible Edwin M. Yamauchi Ph.D., Doctorate In
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Archaeology and the Bible Edwin M. Yamauchi Ph.D., doctorate in Mediterranean Studies from Brandeis University and a Professor Emeritas of history at Miami University, Ohio. History of Archaeology. Archaeology is the study of the remains of ancient civilizations uncovered through excavations. It is a relatively young discipline, for the first excavations in Mesopotamia were those of Paul Emile Botta at Nineveh in 1842 and Austin Henry Layard at Nimrud in 1845, while the first in the Aegean area were conducted by Heinrich Schliemann at Troy in 1870 and at Mycenae in 1876. Egyptian antiquities had been brought to the attention of Europe by Napoleon's invasion in 1798. Most of the activities in Egypt in the nineteenth century, such as those by Giovanni Belzoni, were treasure hunts and not excavations. At the end of the nineteenth century, William Matthew Flinders Petrie introduced some semblance of order. It was Petrie who was the first to excavate in Palestine at Tell el‐Hesi in 1890. From his prior experiences in Egypt, Petrie recognized the value of pottery for dating the strata. The first American excavations in Palestine were at Samaria in 1908–1910 by George A. Reisner and Clarence S. Fisher, who introduced systematic methods of recording discoveries. William Foxwell Albright, the dean of American archaeologists in the first half of the twentieth century, established a sound basis for pottery chronology in his excavations at Tell Beit Mirsim in 1926–1932. Nelson Glueck, Albright's student, conducted extensive surface surveys in Transjordan from 1933, and in Israel's Negev from 1952. At excavations at Samaria (1931–1935) and at Jericho (1952–1958), Kathleen Kenyon introduced more precise methods of analyzing soils and debris. She later excavated in Jerusalem (1961–1967). Significant work has also been carried on by many French and German scholars. Since 1948, Israeli scholars have assumed leading roles in the exploration of their homeland. Yigael Yadin conducted large‐scale excavations at Hazor (1956–1958) and at Masada (1963–1965). At the latter site, Yadin initiated the practice of using volunteers rather than paid workers. After 1968, Benjamin Mazar, Nahman Avigad, and Yigal Shiloh directed major excavations in Jerusalem. G. Ernest Wright, in his excavations at Shechem (1956–1964), and William G. Dever, in his work at Gezer (1964–1971), trained scores of young American excavators. It was in the 1966 season at Shechem that a geologist was first added to the staff. Since 1970, Palestinian archaeologists, influenced by New World archaeology, have also enlisted the help of architects, photographers, and pottery restorers, numerous scientific specialists such as osteologists, paleobotanists, and paleozoologists to reconstruct ancient ecologies and societies. Specialized laboratories are used for such processes as carbon‐14 dating and neutron activation of pottery to determine its place of origin. Ironically, often the most spectacular discoveries have been made by chance rather than by scientific deduction. At Ras Shamra in Syria a peasant's plow struck a tomb, which led to the discovery of ancient Ugarit. Bedouin in search of a lost goat discovered the cave at Qumran which contained the Dead Sea Scrolls. Peasants seeking fertilizer in Egypt discovered the Amarna tablets in 1887 and the Coptic Gnostic codices at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Archeological Methods. The first important attempt to identify sites in Palestine with biblical cities was made by Edward Robinson and Eli Smith in 1838 on the basis of modern Arabic place names. In a few cases, inscriptions have confirmed the identity of ancient sites, as at Gibeon, Gezer, Arad, Lachish, Dan, and Abila. In some cases, proposed identifications are in dispute, such as Albright's identification of Tell Beit Mirsim as Debir and Glueck's identification of Tell el‐Kheleifeh as Ezion‐geber. According to Yohanan Aharoni, out of the approximately 475 place names mentioned in the Bible only slightly more than half have been identified with any degree of certainty. Recent surveys indicate how many new sites of ancient settlements may be discovered by systematic searches. Israeli surveys in 1965 in the Haifa area and the Negev uncovered two hundred previously unknown sites. Benno Rothenberg discovered two hundred new sites in the Negev and Arabah and a hundred in the Sinai in 1966–68. Surveys of the Golan Heights and the West Bank since 1968 have plotted hundreds of other new sites. Most ancient Near Eastern cities have left their remains behind in stratified mounds called “tells” (“tell” is the transliteration of the Arabic, while the spelling “tel” is from Hebrew; cf. Josh. 11.13). These trapezoidal mounds are to be found in the Near East because settled urban populations have existed there for millennia, with generation after generation rebuilding upon earlier rubble; the debris was kept in a compact shape by the city wall. The height of a tell can be considerable. In Mesopotamia the tells range from 17 m (56 ft) at Kish up to 43 m (140 ft) at Tell Brak. In Palestine, the depth of debris at Jericho is about 18 m (60 ft), and at Beth‐shan and Megiddo about 21 m (70 ft). The excavator's first step is to secure permission from the country's Department of Antiquities. The next step, if the land is privately owned, is either to purchase the area to be excavated, as at Megiddo and Dothan, or more usually to rent it with the understanding that the land will be restored to its former condition after the termination of the excavations. Not only must rent be paid for the use of the land but compensation must be given for the crops destroyed. The cost of excavating areas occupied with houses is prohibitive. Only where generous funding is available, such as for the excavations of the Athenian Agora, is this possible. The cost of financing excavations has varied greatly. At one extreme was the luxury of the University of Chicago's expedition after World War I at Megiddo with its budget of sixteen million dollars. At the other extreme was the fabled austerity of Petrie's camp in Egypt, where a little more than a dollar per week was spent for provisions. Kenyon's excavations at Jericho cost about twelve thousand dollars per year, and her later work at Jerusalem about thirty thousand dollars per year. On average, the cost of a season's expedition now runs well over one hundred thousand dollars. In the nineteenth century, individual subscribers in Britain supported the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Egypt Exploration Fund, which sponsored surveys, excavations, and publications. Wealthy patrons such as John D. Rockefeller, Charles Marston, Jacob Schiff, and Leon Levy have helped pay for excavations respectively at Megiddo, Lachish, Samaria, and Ashkelon. Recent excavations have depended upon consortia of schools and other organizations. Funds for Kenyon's work at Jericho came from forty‐three universities, societies, and museums. Along with securing the necessary funds the director must assemble a staff of trained supervisors and a work crew of laborers. The site to be excavated is surveyed, both horizontally, in a grid marked with pegs, and vertically, in elevations from a benchmark. The supervisor then determines which fields should be excavated, for example, over the probable sites of the gate, the wall, the chief residences. In some recent cases, the use of a magnetometer or aerial/satellite photography has facilitated the location of such structures. Each field is then subdivided, often into a series of six‐meter (ca. 20 ft) squares. Each of the square areas will be worked by an area supervisor and six or eight workers or volunteers. The digging season varies from two weeks to six months. Most expeditions take place in the summer for the sake of participating professors and students. The exception would be work at sites such as Jericho or Susa, which are unbearably hot in the summer. The average workday is a strenuous one, beginning long before sunrise to avoid having to work in the hot afternoon. Workers often rise before five A.M., dig for three hours, have breakfast, and then work for another three hours before lunch. After lunch, pottery is washed and sorted. The director and his staff will often work late into the night, recording their finds. The object of the excavator is to dig stratigraphically, that is, to remove the debris and associated objects layer by layer. Bulldozers have sometimes been used to remove modern remains or ancient fill. But even those who are interested chiefly in earlier levels are obliged to record carefully later occupations, such as those of Byzantine and Islamic periods. Since successive strata were not deposited at a uniformly level rate over a flat surface, absolute heights are not chronologically meaningful. Added complications arise from intrusions such as pits. The archaeologist often finds “robber trenches,” where stones have been removed for reuse. Picks are used to break up the soil, and large oversized hoes to scoop up the dirt into baskets. For finer work a small pick is used together with a trowel and a brush. Also essential are meter‐sticks, levels, strings, tags, and labels for measuring and recording; computers are being used more and more in the field for registering excavated materials, as well as in preparing them for publication after the digging has come to an end. When a special object is found, its exact location and level are recorded. Ordinary sherds are placed in carefully labeled buckets for washing and later examination. It is often worth sieving the soil to retrieve small objects such as coins. Most bronze coins appear as tiny spots of green in the soil. During the first three years of the Mazar excavation at Jerusalem ten thousand coins were found.