An artist’s impression of the interior of the new Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. (all photos from Ashernet)
An artist’s impression of the exterior of the new Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
The Museum of the Bible, which will open in Washington, D.C., in November 2017, will display a large collection on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The museum will cover an area of 48,000 square metres and use advanced techniques to illustrate Bible stories. Following an agreement with IAA, the new $400 million privately funded museum will devote a whole floor to a revolving selection of items from the two million held by IAA in Israel.
The museum also will house the Green Collection, the world’s largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts. Steve Green is the founder and president of the 600-branch U.S.-based Hobby Lobby craft store chain. The museum building, which was formerly the home of the Washington Design Centre, was purchased by Green for $50 million in 2012.
From the Israel Antiquities Authority’s collection, glass objects found in a 2,000-year-old burial cave in Jerusalem.
Also from IAA, a pottery cup from the late Canaanite period, 13th-century BCE.
On the website deadseascrolls.org.il, visitors can explore the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (screenshot)
Have you ever taped up a torn page? In our household, taping has saved many a book and article from falling apart. Seems like a practical solution, right?
Wrong! While it might do the job on faulty binding or read-it-again storybooks, it hasn’t worked well on extremely old, organic (mostly animal skin) materials, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Curator Pnina Shor, who heads up the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Department for the Treatment and Conservation of Artifacts, recently discussed this sticky mess.
According to Shor, for some 2,000 years, the Dead Sea Scrolls had been stored in 11 dark caves below sea level in a steady climate of hot/dry days and cold/dry nights. Beginning with their first discovery in the late 1940s, archeologists transferred the scrolls from the Qumran area to open rooms at Jerusalem’s Rockefeller Museum, some 800 metres above sea level. As anyone who has ever visited Jerusalem and the Dead Sea knows, these places are geographically close, but climatically quite far apart.
At the time, archeologists eagerly wanted to piece together the enormous puzzle of 15,000 (biblical and non-biblical) fragments now at their disposal. Most manuscripts date from the first century BCE to the first century CE, the periods of the Hasmonean and Herodian rule. The archeologists did not know the risks involved in handling such fragile, ancient pieces. So, for example, they touched the parchment with their bare hands, leaving skin oil on the surfaces. They drank their tea and ate their lunch over the texts. (Like the rest of us, researchers are guilty of leaving crumbs and spills.)
In the early second half of the 20th century, archeologists were unaware of the negative consequences of taping torn texts and fragments. They did not realize that the glass panes sandwiching the pieces would put additional weight on the delicate remains.
So, what happened? Sadly, the tape’s adhesive congealed. Some of the texts (especially evident along the edges of the texts) darkened to the point where they became indecipherable to the naked eye.
Measures to contain or reverse the damage began in the 1960s. Unfortunately, this treatment inadvertently resulted in further damage. Until the 1990s, when there was consultation with U.S. preservation experts, it was not understood that the safest environment for the scrolls was a replication of their original storage conditions. Since that time, however, the scrolls have been stored in a climate-controlled laboratory, and exhibited in like conditions for extremely limited periods of time.
Between 1990-2009, the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project put out 32 volumes, entitled Discoveries in the Judean Desert. These reports are based on the original infrared photography conducted from the 1950s-60s. The infrared negatives are referred to as PAM (Palestine Archeological Museum).
Four full-time conservationists work on the scrolls. The specialists repair each piece separately, depending on the condition of the leather or papyrus. If you have ever tried removing Scotch tape, you have a sense of what it can do to the material underneath.
The aging adhesive is painstaking removed using a water-based adhesive. Staff members lift stains using a kind of dry poultice. The writings are then placed on acid-free cardboard, lightly covered by Japanese tissue paper. They are housed in solander boxes.
Over the past several years, the IAA has come to feel responsible for sharing these ancient finds, not just with the professional world of archeologists, biblical researchers and historians, but with the public at large. So, on the one hand, some of the scrolls are lent to foreign museums for temporary exhibition. (Currently, the Los Angeles-based California Science Centre has a show.) The more compelling outcome of the new IAA policy, however, has been the mounting of the scrolls to the internet. This undertaking goes by the name of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library project, which has brought experts from far afield.
NASA’s Dr. Gregory Bearman was among those who served as a consultant for imaging technologies. With the assistance of various outside experts, a spectral imaging protocol was established, and it applies to the copying of all the writing:
Displaying the “raw” image alongside the full, enhanced version so others can see both the beginning and end point of the work that has been done.
Documenting the imaging procedure so another scholar, employing basically the same image and tools, can replicate the procedure. In that way, the investigator can better judge the degree of subjectivity involved in a given set of image manipulators.
Labeling aggressively enhanced images as electronic reconstructions, that is, the scholar’s best judgment of what s/he thinks should be there, as opposed to what really is there.
The operating philosophy is to cause no [irreversible] harm. Bearman explained some of the benefits of applying spectral photography, namely that it can “determine the amount of water present in the parchment from which the scrolls are made. Data such as this has added value for conservation and preservation issues. If, for example, we discover that the parchments are too dry, it will be necessary to modify the conditions in which they are maintained.”
In his grey-walled photo lab, Shai Halevi spoke about how he photographs and stores the fragments using multi-spectral photography. Working with Google Research, he photographs the fragments using colors both visible (there are seven bands in this range) and invisible (there are five bands in this range) to the naked eye. Thus, letters that had been illegible are now digitally readable using infrared wavelengths in combination with spectroscopy. You have to see it to believe it:
Halevi described how he copies the fragment from a variety of angles, altering the resolution so that we (the viewing public) will be able to navigate around any part of a scanned image and magnify or reduce any section. Using different filters, Halevi allows us, for example, to see parchment folds appear and disappear at will.
He saves the images in a databank maintained by Google. For each fragment, there are 28 frontal images (referred to as “recto”), 28 back images (“verso”) and two extra color images, which the spectral imaging creates. The internet goal is twofold: first, to have all the fragments uploaded for open viewing and, second, to eventually add transcriptions and translations for all the text.
Recently, perhaps with a gesture toward Shavuot, which celebrates our receiving of the Ten Commandments, Shor brought out an ancient manuscript containing the Decalogue. This inscription is part of a very small scroll (its width is only 2.56 inches, or 6.5 centimetres) containing excerpts from the Book of Deuteronomy. It lists two reasons for keeping the Sabbath: what we know as the Masoretic text of Deuteronomy 5:15, the commemoration of the Exodus, that is, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, G-d took our ancestors from Egypt; and what we know as the Masoretic text of Exodus 20:11, the commemoration of Creation, that is, G-d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
This and other texts are within easy reach on the website of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library (deadseascrolls.org.il).
Deborah Rubin Fieldsis an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
In July 2014, ISIS destroyed the Tomb of Jonah, the biblical prophet revered in Judaism and Islam, which was in the Iraqi city of Mosul. (photo from news-centre.uwinnipeg.ca)
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is disconnecting the present population from its past, and they will stop at nothing to achieve this goal, including murdering civilians and destroying cultural, religious and historical sites that interfere with their beliefs.
These were the sentiments shared by Winnipeg-based archeologist Dr. Tina Greenfield, who has worked in the Near East and conducted fieldwork in Turkey and northern Iraq under the threat of ISIS. Her University of Manitoba biography says that she is co-director of the Near Eastern and Biblical Archeology Laboratory (NEBAL) in Winnipeg, and is actively analyzing animal bone collections from Tel es-Safi and Tel Burna in Israel, Ziyaret Tepe and Gol Tepe in Turkey, and several sites in Iraq. Her lecture at the University of Winnipeg – ISIS and the Destruction of Archeological Sites in Iraq – was held on April 23.
Dr. Tina Greenfield is working to document archeological sites. (photo from umanitoba.ca)
She prefaced her talk by noting that keeping the population safe is, by far, more important than the artifacts on which she has worked. She then outlined the level of destruction that has occurred to some of the world’s oldest cities, and how she narrowly missed the expansion of ISIS in Iraq last year.
“I’m going to try to add some dimensions into this, so you understand how important this region is and why we should care,” said Greenfield. “So, while I will be discussing the Islamic State and a bit of their history and mantra, I twist into it my own experiences working in this region for the last two years, specifically.
“Yes, there are archeological sites being damaged, but it needs to be put into perspective. There are lives being lost in this region on a monumental scale. While I’m an archeologist, I’m trying to give another perspective. The priority is keeping the people safe in this region.”
The area in question is bordered by Turkey in the north, Iran in the east, and Saudi Arabia in the south. Also in the region, once known as Mesopotamia, are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and parts of Egypt. In the past, said Greenfield, “Mesopotamia refer[red] to the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. It’s also referred to as ‘the fertile crescent,’ because animals and plants were domesticated in this region. It’s also known as ‘the cradle of civilization.’”
The world’s earliest cities were built in this area, and major empires emerged from here, as well. Additionally, of historical and biblical interest, the first writings of the story of a great flood also originate there, as do the foundations of mathematics, astronomy, literature and poetry.
“Of all the empires, archeological sites from this region, each one has been damaged from Islamic State,” said Greenfield. “I’m giving you a brief introduction, so you can understand when I show you the sites, what is being damaged.”
The Assyrian Empire stretched from 2000 to 611 BCE, she explained, with its height about 3,000 years ago. “This is arguably the earliest empire of the ancient Near East, and Ashur is the capital of this region,” said Greenfield.
“There were some 19th-century gentleman explorers who came from Europe to try and find evidence of the Bible; they ended up in northern Mesopotamia and they dug these magnificent sites. It was a bit of a competition, because one was from Britain and one was from France.
“They each brought these riches back and displayed them in the British Museum and the Louvre. Suffice it to say, there was an awakening [about this historical time period] and the Mesopotamians and Assyrians were ‘rediscovered.’” It is these places that have sustained the most damage by ISIS out of all the Assyrian sites during the last four years, she said.
The motives and tactics of ISIS are many, she suggested. “We’re talking about terrorism, kidnapping, horrific murders, spreading terror throughout the region,” said Greenfield. “It developed from Al Qaida in Iraq. ISIS took precepts of the organization and beliefs, and developed them even further. It views itself as the restorer of early Islamic learnings. It also believes that it will cleanse the region of anything idolatrous or offensive…. There are eight million Iraqis and Syrians living under the control of ISIS right now. They seek to purify and stamp out anything offensive, idolatrous, any religious manifestations that don’t fit into their general ideas.”
In early 2015, museums and archeological sites became targets of the ISIS advance. “They weren’t picky,” said Greenfield. They targeted “everything from mosques, to churches, tombs, literary hero statues and manuscripts. They don’t want to have any part of that in this new caliphate state.
“They’ve publicized over 50 percent of their destructions in print and on social media. This is highly choreographed, highly targeted. There is no surprise that they have specialists in media. They want to break the link of what they consider heretical association with ancient Mesopotamia, destroying cultural heritage from all ethnic beliefs.”
This conquering tactic “isn’t new,” however. “We can look at Egyptian temples with statues, with faces smashed out, conquerors coming in and declaring things are idolatrous and smashing them. But, this is on a level we’ve never seen before. It’s calculated, choreographed and very well managed.
She continued, “There is looting … they are taking artifacts from these sites and selling them. There’s a massive network from South America to Asia to Europe. They’re selling to finance their organization.”
It’s important to bear witness to the destruction, she added. “Several of my Iraqi colleagues are trying to document, taking their lives in their own hands, essentially, to see what actual damage has been done to these sites. They’re also, in association with international organizations, trying to desperately document sites that haven’t been damaged yet, because we never thought these sites would be damaged and look what’s happened.”
Greenfield recounted that she had received an email on the day of her lecture from someone asking her what they can do, saying this must be stopped and asking by what means it is possible. So, what can be done about the damage being done to the region’s – and the globe’s – historical sites?
It’s an “excellent question,” replied Greenfield. “What do you do? How do we counteract the social media frenzy right now? Do we share them with people? How do we not play into their hands? But, how do you keep people aware of what’s going on?
“ISIS wants the link severed. They want the people gone and the history gone. How do we fight all of that at the same time? In my very humble position, the only thing I seem to be able to do is to continue to go out there – like this September and October again – and document this stuff.”
Since 2010, ISIS has been recruiting within the local population by paying more than government positions. “So, if you’re sitting there as a youth who is completely unhappy with the situation that’s occurred already and you’re offered a lot of money, it’s a no-brainer,” said Greenfield. “They are portraying themselves, in a sense, like Robin Hood, stealing and giving out food, giving out houses. They’re saying they’re protecting their own. Absolutely … there’s this ideology that they’re taking care of their people.”
A skull found at the Dan David-Manot Cave supports other evidence that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa or in the Middle East, not in Europe. (photo by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Francesco Berna, a Simon Fraser University assistant professor of archeology, is part of an Israeli-led team of scientists that has unearthed major clues about the first modern humans in northern Israel.
A paper published in Nature on Jan. 28 – co-authored by Berna – documents the discovery of a 55,000-year-old, partial human skull with a distinctive modern human, bun-shaped “occipital” region, at the Dan David-Manot Cave in the western Galilee.
The study involved researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority, Geological Survey of Israel, Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University, University of Haifa, University of Vienna, Harvard University, Case-Western University, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Columbia University and SFU. It is headed by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Dr. Omry Barzilai and Dr. Ofer Marder, and funded by the Dan David Foundation, Israel Academy of Sciences, Irene Levi Sala CARE Archeological Foundation, Leakey Foundation and IAA.
Berna and his colleagues believe that this skull’s date of origin and where it was found support other evidence that modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa or in the Middle East, and migrated from there about 65,000 years ago. This contrasts with the hypothesis that the human species first evolved in Europe.
One of the migration routes by which modern humans spread out across the world passes through the Levant (the Mediterranean basin), which is the only land crossing between Africa and Europe, but until now, no modern human remains that date to the period between 65-45 thousand years ago had been discovered.
The Manot skull’s inner and outer surfaces were covered with cave deposits that were dated by means of uranium-thorium to 55,000 YBP (years before present). A morphometric analysis showed it is that of a modern human being with similarities to modern skulls from Africa on the one hand and the ancient skulls of modern humans from Europe on the other.
Berna helped the scientific team understand how ancient humans used Manot Cave at the time of the skull’s origin and how the cave, its archeological remains and the skull got to their present state.
Megan Thibodeau, one of Berna’s graduate students, explored the use of fire in this cave. Their work is helping scientists confirm whether this skull is from the most recent evolution of anatomically modern humans, which showed up in Europe first, and eventually the rest of the world.
“The skull found at Manot is absolutely comparable to ours and different from other skulls of early modern humans previously found in Israel and dated to 100,000 years ago,” explained Berna. “This earlier group of humans had some slight anatomical differences from us.
“But, most importantly, they didn’t produce stone tools, mobile sculptures and cave paintings such as the one that our direct ancestor produced in Europe and the Middle East, starting at around 40,000 years ago. Earlier modern humans apparently hadn’t yet developed our brain.”
To date, five excavation seasons (2010–2014) on behalf of IAA, TAU and BGU have been conducted in the cave, which is located 40 kilometres northeast of the Mt. Carmel prehistoric caves. Preparations are being made by the Ma’ale Yosef Regional Council, Moshav Manot and the Jewish National Fund for the development of the cave for visits by the public.
Hartley Odwak holds a 1,000-2,000-year-old stone projective point recovered from one of the sites on which he has worked. (photo from Hartley Odwak)
What is fascinating and striking is that it’s largely unknown to most Vancouverites and British Columbians that there is a plethora of documented archeological sites in and around the Lower Mainland and all over B.C. – quite literally, thousands,” said archeologist Hartley Odwak.
Odwak, 48, grew up in Winnipeg and earned his bachelor’s (with honors in anthropology) at the University of Winnipeg (U of W), before moving to Vancouver for graduate school at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and later moved to London, England, for his PhD. He now calls Vancouver home.
“All the houses at Locarno Beach and south, up the hill a block or so, are on top of one of the most important archeological sites in the province – the Locarno site – which dates to at least 3,300 years ago,” said Odwak. “There are 45 archeological sites in Stanley Park. I don’t believe any are marked by interpretive signage, which makes knowing about them all the more unlikely. The same is true for all of the major cities, towns, villages and Gulf Islands in B.C., from Victoria to Nanaimo, Saltspring Island, Pender Island, Sechelt and Campbell River.”
According to Odwak, there are many archeological consulting firms in British Columbia – 30 or more – some very large and some very small. As for what types of archeological sites exist in the province, he said they include everything from winter and summer villages to seasonal camps, fortification sites, hunting sites, sacred sites, resource-gathering sites and rock art sites. “All these sites document the traditional use of the lands and waters of B.C. by First Nations people back several thousands of years … and we keep finding older and older sites.”
Road to archeology
After completing his BA, Odwak sought a graduate program with a strong human evolution component for his master’s. Although he felt he had received excellent training from Chris Meiklejohn at the U of W, there was no U of W graduate program at the time and the University of Manitoba also did not have a strong human evolution component.
“At the time, SFU’s archeology department had one of the best programs in the country and, as I wanted to stay in Canada, I thought it would be an interesting place to live and study,” said Odwak. “I’m not sure of the exact moment I decided to become an archeologist or if it was entirely intentional.”
At U of W, Odwak was drawn to anthropology, particularly the very early prehistoric periods and human evolution. Anthropological training gives a broad background in many sub-areas, such as archeology, biological anthropology (prehistory and evolution), linguistics and cultural anthropology. Odwak focused on biological anthropology and archeology and, early in his academic career at U of W, held summer jobs with Parks Canada as an archeologist. This provided him with diverse experiences, including traveling to excavate in the Yukon and in Saskatchewan (at Batoche).
When Odwak moved to Burnaby for his MA in 1990, he specialized in human evolution. As part of his thesis, he went to Israel to conduct research and excavations. At SFU, he said he hoped to do what every student of human evolution dreams of – “excavate at an early human site in the old world … and, given [his] Jewish background, love of Israel and grasp of Hebrew, Israel was [his] obvious choice. Israel contains many famous prehistoric archeological sites and fossils critical to the story of human evolution.”
According to Odwak, the oldest sites in Israel are nearly 400,000 years old (before the appearance of modern humans) and several sites contain evidence critical to our understanding of the appearance and evolution of modern humans.
Starting up a firm
When Odwak was hired by B.C. archeological consulting companies, he began working with local First Nations to collect archeological information from their territories.
“I felt an instant connection with the First Nation communities,” said Odwak, who was on his way to becoming an academic biological anthropologist, specializing in prehistory and human evolution in Israel, before his consulting career took on a life of its own.
“It really almost happened by accident,” he said. “When I was doing my MA at SFU, I needed to make some money and was asked by a colleague to help him on a very small archeological project on the Gulf Islands of B.C.”
This led to another project, and another, and, eventually, Odwak was hired by other firms to do work around the province. In 1997, one of the First Nations on Vancouver Island, with whom Odwak had been in the field earlier, asked if they could retain him exclusively. He accepted and, with a partner, started up the firm Sources Archeological and Heritage Research Inc.
Most archeological consulting in Canada, including Odwak’s, involves assessing proposed development areas for the presence of archeological sites. The firms locate, record and map sites to protect them during construction and development.
Making a new home
Coming from a tight-knit community in Winnipeg, it took Odwak a little while to get rooted in Vancouver but, once he and his wife, Anthea Lee, settled down in the Commercial Drive area in the early 2000s, he started to feel more comfortable.
“It’s a very diverse, welcoming neighborhood where, in my experience, you get recognized by the ‘people in your neighborhood,’ as the Sesame Street saying goes, more than other places I’ve experienced here.”
When the couple had children they became more connected to the Jewish community and have since made some very good friends through their kids – sons Noah and Sam – being enrolled at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver day care.
Odwak’s sister, Mindy, moved to Vancouver shortly after he did and now lives a few blocks from them. She and her partner, Nina, are loving aunts to Noah and Sam.
Having outgrown day care, Noah, 6, is now active in after-school programs and classes at the JCCGV, while Sam, 2, has been at the day care for several months. “It’s an absolutely wonderful program,” said Odwak. “Noah and Sam’s growth, development and strength of character gained so much from the teachers, administrators and overall day-care philosophy. This has helped our children develop an early group of community-based friends who, including their parents, are becoming very much like extended family to us.”
A copper awl from the fifth millennium BCE that was discovered at the site in Tel Tsaf. (photo by Yosef Garfinkel via Ashernet)
Excavations at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, near the Jordan River, revealed in a woman’s grave a small copper awl. Generally speaking, this would not have been regarded as special except, in this instance, the grave where the awl was found dates from 5200 BCE.
This find, announced by archeologists from the Zinman Institute of Archeology of Haifa University on Aug. 24, pushes back the time that metal technology was thought to have been introduced into the region by at least 500 years. The awl is probably the oldest metal object ever found in the Middle East.
The find also adds another dimension to the Tel Tsaf community itself. Discovered in 1950, it was not until about 10 years ago that it was established from excavations directed by Prof. Yosef Garfinkle that Tel Tsaf dated to about 5200 to 4700 BCE, the Middle Chalcolithic period.
It was clear that Tel Tsaf was a centre of regional commerce. There were silos that could store up to 30 tons of grain in each individual silo, and excavations, including burial sites, had revealed painted pottery, bullae (seals), basalt and obsidian beads, seashells, but no copper – until now.
The discovery of the copper awl would point to a population with advanced technology, and the fact that a copper implement was discovered at the site has a significant bearing on understanding the history of the period, both in Tel Tsaf and the rest of the Middle East.
A horse figurine is evidence of early Jewish ritual practice. (photo by Clara Amit/IAA.COM)
One might think that a significant archeological find a few hours’ walk from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem would turn up artifacts we would recognize as Jewish. But since the Judaism of the day was not what we know, the find yielded ritual objects that seem vaguely pagan, almost heretical by today’s standards.
Archeologist Shua Kisilevitz describes the religion of the era as “pagan Yahwism.” (photo from cjnews.com)
Shua Kisilevitz, the archeologist who was part of the team that excavated the site at Tel Motza, about seven kilometres west of Jerusalem, prefers the phrase “pagan Yahwism” to describe the religion of the era.
Last December, Kisilevitz and three fellow archeologists announced what they called an “unusual and striking” find, unearthed in construction for a highway: the 2,750-year-old walls of a temple, along with a cache of ritual objects that included a pedestal decorated with lions and sphinxes, pendants, pottery and vessel fragments, and figurines – two human and two animal – that may or may not have depicted deities.
The dig provides “rare archeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general and in the Jerusalem region in particular,” the team announced.
The uniqueness of the find is even more remarkable, the archeologists said, because of its proximity to the First Temple, built, according to the Bible, under King Solomon in 960 BCE. But archeologists know little about the period’s religious practices because there are hardly any remnants of ritual buildings from the era, according to Kisilevitz.
While more study is needed, the find provides valuable insights into what those rituals might have been, she said in an interview prior to her recent talk on the subject at the University of Toronto. While those practices may seem strange and un-Jewish today, they were in keeping with the rules of the time, Kisilevitz said.
Previous excavations showed that Motza functioned within the royal administration of the Kingdom of Judah, she said. “It was very much connected to Jerusalem. [It couldn’t] create its own religion. The people of Motza didn’t wake up one morning and say, ‘Oh, we want to create something new.’ They couldn’t break off so easily.”
According to Shua Kisilevitz, artifacts such as these found at Tel Motza, are important because they reflect a formative time for Judaism. (photo by Clara Amit/IAA.COM)
The artifacts are important because they reflect a formative time for Judaism, she noted, adding they show that the ancient Israelite faith was not always centralized in Jerusalem and its practitioners may have used ritual objects now forbidden as graven images. “There are all these presumptions we have which we project onto the early formation of religion,” Kisilevitz said. “This temple finally shows us how the religion started out and what it really looked like at the time. They [were] doing what was common in the period.”
The find also conforms to biblical accounts, which mention local religious precincts outside Jerusalem, she added. And “Motza” is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin, which bordered Judah.
Kisilevitz, who works for the Israeli Antiquities Authority and is in Ontario for several months on an exchange with the University of Toronto, said the team does not know whether the human and animal figurines served a religious purpose. “It’s kind of tricky and a little bit hard to say,” she noted.
The archeological team believes the temple at Tel Motza must have functioned before religious reforms enacted in the times of kings Hezekiah and Josiah, which abolished all ritual sites outside Jerusalem and concentrated religious practices solely in the Temple.
Kisilevitz believes the artifacts do not conflict “at all” with modern understanding of Judaism. “We just have to change the way we think of the religion at the beginning.”
Ron Csillag is a Toronto freelance writer. A version of this article was originally published in theCanadian Jewish News.
