Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries

1 THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS [1]

Cave 4 at Qumran and One of the Dead Sea Scroll Jars on Display at the Amman Archaeological Museum in Jordan.

The initial discovery was by chance in 1947, and not by archaeologists! Bedouin shepherds found seven scrolls or parts of scrolls and fragments, along with store jars and broken pottery jars in a cave overlookingthe northwest end of the Dead Sea. When a dealer acting on behalf of the shepherds sold the scrolls, they came to the attention of scholars in Jerusalem and then the scholarly world.
Subsequent investigations in the area of the cave of discovery ultimately led to the recovery of documents in a total of eleven caves and the excavation of a modest ruin nearby known as Khirbet (the ruin of) Qumran. All of this was occurring as the modern State of Israel was coming into existence, with all the political upheaval involved in that development. [2] As this century ends and a new one begins, efforts for a peaceful political settlement in the region continue and give signs of reaching fruition. In the meantime, scholars continue to study the multitude of fragments recovered and to attempt to assess their significance.
Among the more than eight hundred documents represented by whole scrolls, incomplete scrolls, and a myriad of fragments which have been recovered are complete copies or portions of all the books in the Hebrew Bible (our OT), except for the Book of Esther. These texts are older by at least a thousand years than any previous biblical texts written in Hebrew that we had prior to the discovery. They provide a window into the textual history of the OT prior to the closure of the canon. [3]
Besides copies of scriptural texts, from the caves in the Qumran area came sectarian documents that open a panorama on the obscure Jewish group apparently related to the production and deposition of the manuscripts. [4] This group was likely the Essenes, previously known from references to them in the writings of Flavius Josephus, Philo Judaeus, and Pliny the Elder. All the texts discovered, taken together, open a critical window into events in Palestine in the decades prior to and following the birth of Christ (although no NT texts were found among the scrolls) up to the time of the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans. The historical period of the Dead Sea Scrolls illuminates the environment in which Christianity developed in Palestine, the transformation of Judaism into Rabbinic Judaism in the aftermath of the First Revolt of the Jews against the Romans with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and the context in which the canonization of Holy Scripture was progressing.



The Dead Sea Scrolls now reside mainly in the Shrine of the Book, a part of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem where they are on display. The Copper Scroll can be seen in the Archaeological Museum in Amman, Jordan. Many of the small fragments are housed in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem. Scholars work almost exclusively with photographs and microfilm of the fragments, however, and these are available to scholars at many of the major universities around the world. It is likely that researchers will still be at work on the scrolls fifty years hence. [5]

2 THE HOUSE OF DAVID INSCRIPTION

More than a quarter of a century of excavations at Tel Dan in the north of Israel at the foot of Mount Hermon produced little in the way of written material. The excavations have been directed through the years since 1966 by Dr. Avraham Biran, distinguised Israeli archaeologist. Then on July 21, 1993, while work crews were preparing the site for visitors, a broken fragment of basalt stone was uncovered in secondary use in a wall. Surveyor Gila Cook glanced at the stone in the rays of the afternoon sun and saw what looked like alphabetic letters. On closer examination it turned out that, indeed, they had found an inscribed stone.. The discovery was of a fragment of a large monumental inscription, measuring about 32 cm. high and 22 cm. at its greatest width. Apparently the stone had been purposely broken in antiquity. It turned out that the stele fragment mentions King David's dynasty, "the House of David." As the preparatory work for tourism proceeded, two additional fragments of the stele were recovered in two separate, disparate locations in June of 1994. The partially reconstructed text reads as follows:
1. [ ... ...] and cut [ ... ]
2. [ ... ] my father went up [against him when] he fought at [ ... ]
3. And my father lay down, he went to his [ancestors]. And the king of I [s-]
4. rael entered previously in my father's land. [And] Hadad made me king.
5. And Hadad went in front of me, [and] I departed from [the] seven [ ...-]
6. s of my kingdom, and I slew [seve]nty kin[gs], who harnessed thou[sands of cha-]
7. Riots and thousands of horsemen (or: horses). [I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab]
8. king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin-]
9. g of the House of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned]
10. their land into [desolation ... ]
11. other [ ... and Jehu ru-]
12. led over Is[rael ... and I laid ]
13. siege upon [ ... ] [6]
The pavement and the wall where the fragments were found was laid at the end of the 9th or beginning of the 8th century BC, according to pottery fragments recovered in probes beneath the flagstone pavement. Since the fragment and the entire pavement was covered by the debris of the Assyrian destruction of Tiglath Pileser III, in 732 BC, it could not have been laid latter than that year.
The surmise is that Jehoash (798-782), grandson of Jehu, or Jehoash's son, Jeroboam II (793, co-regent 782-753), and more likely Jehoash, was the monarch who had this reminder of Aramaean domination smashed (2 Kgs 13:25). It is further assumed that Hazael (844/42-798?) was then king of Aram- Damascus, because Hazael fought against Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah ( 2 Kgs 8:7-15, 28; 2 Chr 22:5). Hazael was followed by his son and successor, Ben-hadad III, early in the 8th century BC
The discovery provides an archaeological connection to the biblical references to the ruling dynasty established by King David approximately two centuries before the events that are mentioned in the inscription. It is the first mention of King David and the earliest mention of a biblical figure outside of the Bible. The discovery is of particular importance in the face of those scholars who were either skeptical or denied the historical existence of King David [7]

3 AMULET SCROLL [8]

In 1979 Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, working with a group of students from the Institute of Holy Land Studies (now Jerusalem University College), excavated several tombs in Jerusalem on the "Shoulder of Hinnom," on the southwestern slope of the Hinnom Valley adjacent to the Scottish Presbyterian Church of St. Andrew. In one burial cave a repository for grave goods was found, containing approximately 700 items, including burial gifts of pottery vessels, over 100 pieces of silver jewelry, arrowheads, bone and ivory artifacts, alabaster vessels, 150 beads and a rare, early coin. Among the silver items was a rolled-up amulet bearing the tetragrammaton, the name of God (the consonantal letters yod, he, waw, he), YHWH.
The tomb dates to the end of the Davidic dynasty, approximately the seventh century BC. The silver amulet thus dates to the end of the seventh or early sixth century. The prayer-like inscription containing the divine name provides the oldest extra-biblical evidence for the name of God thus far archaeologically recovered in Jerusalem. The scripture passage on the amulet is from the Aaronic or priestly blessing found in Num 6:24-25. The owner apparently wore the inscribed, rolled-up silver amulet during his/her lifetime, and people felt it appropriate that such objects should accompany the owner in death as in life.
Of secondary interest is the fact that the evidence from the Shoulder of Hinnom tombs indicates a population in the Jerusalem area in the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of the city. The evidence also indicates a certain level of wealth on the part of those buried in the tombs.

4 GALILEE BOAT [9]

A severe drought in 1985-86 brought the Sea of Galilee to unusually low levels, exposing large areas of the lakebed along the shoreline. Two brothers–Moshe and Yuval Lufan--from Kibbutz Ginnosar, near Tiberias along the northwest shore of the sea, discovered the remains of a 2,000 year old boat buried in the mud along the shore. Israeli archaeologist Shelley Wachsman, an expert in marine archaeology, examined the sunken boat in situ and was able to confirm that it was an ancient rather than a modern craft. His judgment was based on a construction technique used in antiquity in which the planks of the hull were edge-joined with mortise and tendon joints held together by wooden pegs. This was the first time an ancient boat had been discovered in the Sea of Galilee.

The Galilee Boat on Permanent Display at the Nof Ginosaur Museum.

The boat measured approximately 30 feet long and 8 feet wide at its greatest width. It was excavated during February, 1986, and carefully moved some 1600 yards to a specially constructed conservation pool where it remained for several years undergoing treatment for its preservation. On the basis of pottery fragments found in the boat, it has been dated between the latter part of the first century BC to approximately the mid-century AD. Seventeen pieces of pottery were used in the analysis, including a complete lamp and cooking pot, as well as identifiable fragments of cooking pots, store jars, a jug and juglets. The pottery was identifiable as a part of the assemblage known from other Galilee excavation sites. In addition, carbon 14 dating gave corroborating dates between 120 BC and AD 40.
Evidence was found that the boat could be both sailed and/or rowed. Apparently the boat could accommodate four oarsmen plus a helmsman. It is estimated that the boat could hold some fifteen individuals, similar to the boats in which Jesus and his twelve disciples traveled across the sea (See Matt 8:18, 23-27, 9:1, 14:13- 14, 22-32, 15:39, 16:5; Mark 4;35-41, 5:18, 21, 6:32-34, 45-51, 8:9-10, 13-14; Luke 6:1, 8:22-25, 37, 40; John 6:16-21).
In recent years the boat, now preserved through the conservation efforts, has a permanent home in a specially constructed exhibit hall at Kibbutz Ginnosar. It has become a highlight for tourists visiting the Holy Land and a visual reminder of the Gentle Teacher from Galilee.

5 BARUCH BULLA [10]

Literally hundreds of Hebrew seals and seal impressions have been discovered in the last century and a half either in authorized archaeological excavations or by clandestine diggers; the results of the latter ending up in the hands of antiquities dealers, subsequently to come into the hands of collectors or of scholars. Hardened clay seal impressions are called "bullae" (sg., bulla). Bullae have survived in damp earth in a remarkable way.
In biblical Israel, papyrus was the primary form of writing material. Once an official document was written, it would be rolled up, one end folded in one-third of the breadth and the opposite end similarly folded in. The document, now shortened by folding, was tied with a string and a lump of clay was impressed on the knotted string. Then the upper surface of the clay lump was impressed with the signet ring of the owner of the document or its writer. Such documents were stored in temple or palace archives, with the unbroken seal guaranteeing the validity of the document's contents.
The reason the clay bullae survived is that a conflagration that destroyed the building and the papyrus archive fired the clay sealings, making them practically indestructible. The evidence of the knotted cord to which the clay had been attached remains on the underside of the bullae.
Sometime during the 1970's, a bulla containing the stamp and name of the scribe of Jeremiah appeared on the antiquities market and was acquired by a collector, Dr. R. Hecht. He permitted Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad to publish the bulla, which came from an unidentified place, now thought to be the "burnt house" excavated by Yigal Shiloh. The bulla is now in the Israel Museum. It measures 17 by 16 mm, and is stamped with an oval seal, 13 by 11 mm. A single line borders the impression, and it is divided by double horizontal lines into three registers bearing the following inscription:
lbrkyhw Belonging to Berechiah
bn nryhw son of Neriah
hspr the scribe.
The script used is the pre-exilic ancient Hebrew linear script, rather than the post-exilic script adopted by Jews from the contemporary Aramaic script. Reading the Hebrew from right to left, the first letter, Heb (l), is the preposition "to, belonging to," and the last three letters, heb. (yhw)is a shortened form of the name of God, Heb. (yhwh), the shortened form was likely pronounced "yahu." Baruch's name means "Blessed of the Lord (Yahweh)."
This bulla was without doubt from the impression of Baruch ben Neriah , the scribe who wrote to the dictation of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 36:4). Dr. Avigad expressed his personal feelings as he worked with the Baruch Bulla as having the feeling "of personal contact with persons who figure prominently in the dramatic events in which the giant figure of Jeremiah and his faithful follower Baruch were involved at a most critical time preceding the downfall of Judah." [11]
Avigad also published a seal bearing the inscription "Belonging to Seraiah (ben) Neriah." Seriah was the "chief chamberlain" in the court of King Zedekiah (Jer 51:59). [12] He accompanied the king to Babylon, and he carried a written oracle from the prophet Jeremiah looking for the ultimate destruction of Babylon, which he was to read aloud on his arrival in the city, then to throw the document into the Euphrates (Jer 59:64). Seriah ben Neriah was the brother of Baruch ben Neriah, and both were close friends of the prophet Jeremiah.

6 OSSUARY OF CAIAPHAS [13]

A dump truck accidentally smashed through the roof of a tomb in November, 1990, during some work in the Jerusalem Peace Forest, leading to the discovery of the ossuary which contained the bones of the High Priest in the time of Jesus. The Jerusalem Peace Forest is located on the southwest side of old Jerusalem, across the Hinnom Valley from Mt. Zion. Here, on the slope of the hills is a large cemetery from the late Second Temple era (1st century BC to 1st century AD). Rock-cut burial chambers used by Jews in this period contained typically four burial niches, shelves cut into the sides of the chamber; ossuaries are also characteristic of and unique to the period.
An ossuary is a stone bone box, used for secondary burials. Initially the body is laid to rest in a burial niche. After decomposition, the bones were collected and placed in an ossuary, making the burial niche available for a subsequent burial. Tombs belonged to families, so subsequent burials were normal. Two of a dozen ossuaries in the tomb contained a form of the name Qafa', or Caiaphas. Several of the ossuaries were decorated with traditional carved rosettes, zig-zag patterns, and other designs. The most intricately carved ossuary was decorated with two circles each containing five rosettes, and twice carved into an undecorated side appears the name, "Yehosef bar Qafa'" (Joseph son of Caiaphas). The ossuary contained the remains of six people: two infants, a child aged two to five, a boy aged 13 to 18, an adult female and a man about 60 years old. The latter are believed to be the bones of Caiaphas, before whom Jesus was brought for questioning (Matt 26:3, 57; Luke 3:2; John 11:49, 18:13, 14, 24, 28; Acts 4:6) [14]

7 PONTIUS PILATE INSCRIPTION

Replica of Pilate Inscription on Display at Caesarea.

Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of Roman Judea, under whose governance Jesus of Nazareth was crucified (Matt 27:2, plus 60 additional occurrences in the gospels, Acts, and 1 Timothy). He was appointed by the emperor Tiberius in AD 26 and suspended by L. Vitellius, Roman governor of Syria, in AD 37, after slaughtering a number of Samaritans at Mt. Gerizim.
Although Pilate is also mentioned in Josephus, Philo and Tacitus and coins issued during his governance exist, inscriptional evidence for Pilate was discovered in Italian excavations at Caesarea Maritima in 1961. Antonio Frova, director of the excavations, found a dedicatory stone that bore a three-line inscription: Tiberieum/[Pon]tius Pilatus/[Praef]ectus Iuda[eae], "Tiberius [the Roman emperor of the period]/Pontius Pilate/Prefect of Judea." The stone, in secondary use in the theatre at Caesarea, had been shaped to fit its new use and in the process some of the inscription had been mutilated, although it was easily reconstructed. The inscription not only confirms the historicity of Pilate, it clarifies the title that he bore as governor. It is now on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

8 EKRON INSCRIPTION [15]

In 1993, archaeologists Seymour Gitin of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and Trude Dothan of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, were in their thirteenth and final season of excavations at Tel Miqne in Israel. They had long suspected that Tel Miqne was the site of one of the main cities of the Philistine pentapolis, specifically biblical Ekron (Josh 13:3, plus 23 other references in the OT). Then a royal dedicatory inscription carved into a slab of limestone dramatically confirmed the place name, along with the names of five of its rulers, and two of them are specifically mentioned in the Bible.
The inscription was found in a destruction layer attributed to the Babylonian conquest dating to 603 BC It was within a 186 by 124 foot structure, considered a temple complex. The complex followed the design of known Assyrian palaces, and one section contained a sanctuary with a stone pavement; the inscription had fallen in the destruction to the pavement. The five lines of the inscription reads:
1. The temple which he built, 'kysh (Achish, Ikausu) son of Padi, son of
2. Ysd son of Ada, son of Ya'ir, ruler of Ekron,
3. For Ptgyh his lady. May she bless him, and
4. protect him, and prolong his days, and bless
5. his land.
Both Ikausu and his father, Padi, are known from Assyrian records as kings of Ekron. Sennacherib's annals mention Padi, in connection with the Assyrian campaign against the region in 701 BC that included the siege of King Hezekiah's Jerusalem. Padi also payed his taxes to his Assyrian overlord in 699 BC, as recorded on a royal clay sealing, indicating a contribution of a light talent of silver, about 67.5 pounds. Ikausu is numbered among twelve regional kings who transported building materials to Nineveh for the construction of the palace of Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) and also in a list of kings who assisted Ashurbanipal in his first campaign against Egypt in 667 BC The other three kings in this Philistine dynasty, Ysd, Ada and Yair, are otherwise unattested.
The goddess Ptgyh may be an unknown Philistine deity or, more likely, by reading the damaged fourth letter of the name as "nun=n", as Pt[n]yh. [16] This would be read as "Potnia," meaning "mistress" or "lady," the formal title used for various goddesses in ancient Greek The goddess behind the title was likely Asherah, a Semitic deity, since the other known Philistine deities bear clearly Semitic names: Dagon and Ba`al-zebul. The inscription thus helps confirm that the Philistines, whose origins were in Caphtor=Crete, in biblical tradition (See Amos 9:7), had largely assimilated to Canaanite culture in the centuries between their arrival and the dedication of the temple of Ekron.

9 MOUNT EBAL ALTAR [17]

This is a controversial pick, because the interpretation of the discovery is far from settled; nevertheless, Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal, who came across the ruins during an archaeological survey of the tribal region of Manasseh in 1980, still adheres to his interpretation. He went on to excavate the site located on Mt Ebal, the mountain from which Joshua pronounced the curses, [18] lying opposite Mt. Gerizim, the mountain of blessings, and separated by the valley in which the ruins of ancient Shechem lie near modern Nablus. He determined to excavate the site because in the survey he had found a great quantity of pottery sherds lying around the large pile of stones. The sherds dated to Iron Age I, ca. 1220-1000 BC, the period in which Israelites apparently settled in Canaan, as well as the period of the Judges. Further, though many Iron Age I sites were discovered in the survey, this was the only such site on Mt. Ebal.

Photo of Mount Ebal by Todd Bolen - BiblePlaces.Com

Excavations began in the fall of 1982 and were concluded after six seasons. What was revealed was a compound consisting of enclosure walls, a large rectangular structure built of unhewn stones, including spaces deliberately filled with four distinct layers of earth, stones, ashes, animal bones, potsherds, or combinations of each. In the ash layers were 962 animal bones which were burned or scorched. These included the remains of four species: sheep, goats, domesticated cattle and fallow deer. These faunal remains differ from those found in typical Iron Age I sites because the range of animals represented is quite narrow. Usually evidence of the donkey and the dog are also found in Iron Age sites. Further, the pig, which is attracted to the same environment as fallow deer, is lacking at this site. All this suggests that the Mt. Ebal ruins was a cultic site where animals were sacrificed and eaten. The place was abandoned by 1130 BC Because of its unique location and singular characteristics, Zertal believes this was the altar built and used when Joshua fulfilled Moses' command to build an altar to Yahweh on Mt. Ebal (8:30-35).

10 UGARIT [19]

Tell Ras Shamra contains the ruins of an ancient city known as Ugarit. The name was known, although the location was not, from references in the Amarna letters of Egypt and the political correspondence from ancient Mari prior to the discovery in 1928. The major excavator was Claude F. A. Schaeffer followed after his retirement by several other French directors. Excavations still continue in the face of growing urbanization both at the tell and at a seaside site a few kilometers away, Ras Ibn Hani.

Some of the Excavations of Tell Ras Shamra. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins, May 2002.

Apart from the architecture and artifacts of a wealthy, cosmopolitan center recovered, the significance of Ugarit is in the recovery of thousands of cuneiform tablets, written in several languages current in international circles of the day, but particularly a heretofore unknown language now bearing the name Ugaritic, after the site. When deciphered, the cuneiform signs used for writing were discovered to be based on the Semitic alphabet rather than on the syllabic signs of Mesopotamia. Even more important were the contents of the documents written in Ugaritic. Some were recovered from palace complexes and were primarily administrative and economic texts, opening a window on the international diplomacy and trade current before the city's destruction and demise c. 1180 BC. Others were recovered from temple complexes, including the legends and myths of Ugarit. Two legendary epics focus on ancient kings, Keret and Danel. Mythological texts recount the stories of Baal and Anath, Kathir-and-Khasis, El (the patriarch of the gods), Athtart, Mot (the god of sterility and death), Yam (the sea monster god) and others.

The myths and legends of Ugarit permit us to glimpse the conceptions of the supernatural that infused Canaanite life and thought and to observe their cultic rites and practices. The Canaanites were polytheists, and their gods were primarily deified aspects of nature. What we have is an unbiased view into the culture which dominated the land of Canaan into which the Israelites came, permitting us to understand the religious and cultural environment that in part Israel conquered and in part which conquered Israel. The Ugaritic literature and material continue to provide a rich source for comparative studies with biblical texts, including the Hebrew language, sociological, economic, monarchical, and religious areas.

Posted in: Unik