Archaeological Views: Jerusalem in Her Own Words

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One of the richest and most variegated epigraphic troves from antiquity is finally being given the scholarly attention it deserves. During the nearly 200 years of modern exploration in the Holy Land, thousands of inscriptions in different ancient languages have been found on stone, mosaic, ceramic, metal and painted cave walls, amounting to a riot of writing, ranging from a single word or name to complex texts of many lines. Many of these inscriptions have already been carefully published, but many others have been published poorly or not at all.

Several years ago, a team of scholars from Israel and Germany, compelled by the need to preserve this invaluable historical resource, founded the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae (CIIP), a multi-lingual, scientific edition of all epigraphic texts found in the modern State of Israel, from the Galilee to the Negev, dating to the period bounded by the conquests of Alexander (fourth century B.C.E.) and Muhammad (seventh century C.E.). The first three volumes of the CIIP, containing 2,160 inscriptions from Jerusalem and the northern coast of Israel, have now been published, and more volumes are on the way. It is estimated that when the project is completed, in the year 2017, the CIIP will contain some 12,000 inscriptions in more than ten languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, several dialects of Aramaic, Armenian, Georgian, proto-Arabic and Arabic itself.

The CIIP is arranged topographically (by geographical area), so that once the corpus is fully assembled and edited, we will have an epigraphic picture of the many cultures and languages that existed side by side in the region, as well as an inscriptional record of the empires that ruled there.

The inscriptions are of many types, including funerary epitaphs (which comprise the bulk), dedications of buildings and statues, records of donations, votive texts, imperial orders, graffiti of various kinds, weights, ostraca, curse tablets, other personal objects (amulets, rings), boundary stones and milestones, and on and on (but not scrolls or inscriptions on coins).

The information preserved in these texts is crucial to different areas of study, including the political and military history of the Roman Empire, the history of Judaism and Christianity, pagan cults in the Near East, social history (such as family structures, community titles, etc.), the dynamics of multilingualism and onomastics.

To get an idea of the importance and variety of the material, take a brief look at the first two volumes of the CIIP, presenting the 1,120 inscriptions surviving solely from Jerusalem. The first volume, containing 704 texts dating from the fourth century B.C.E. to the end of the first century C.E., includes the many well-known inscriptions from the Temple Mount, which were thrown down when the Romans systematically destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.: the famous warning in Greek prohibiting Gentiles from crossing into the inner court surrounding the Temple, the Hebrew direction sign “to the place of trumpeting” to announce the Sabbath, a Greek dedication of part of the pavement by a Rhodian visitor, fragments of inscribed stone vessels and other objects. These are random, practically miraculous survivals of the thorough Roman destruction and the repeated devastations of Jerusalem in later periods.

In the streets of the city below were a greater variety and number of inscriptions, especially from the second century on, when the city was no longer predominantly Jewish. The sole surviving pre-Destruction synagogue inscription is a splendidly preserved dedication by a certain priest and archisynagogos (synagogue president) named Theodotus, found just south of the Temple Mount. The inscription states that Theodotus “built the synagogue for the reading of the Law and teaching of the commandments, and the guest-house and (other) rooms and water installations(?) for the lodging of those who are in need of it from abroad.” This text is a unique survival, but its very existence indicates that there were more like it, perhaps many more, which haven’t survived. The New Testament (Acts 6:9, 24:12, etc.) and the Talmud mention synagogues in Jerusalem, and if these references are to real buildings, it is likely that they, too, had inscriptions on display.

By far the largest group of surviving inscriptions from pre-Destruction Jerusalem comes from the huge 2.5-mile band of burial caves around the city. These caves, of which about 900 have been found to date, have yielded more than 2,000 limestone ossuaries of which about 600 are inscribed. These inscriptions often consist of no more than a name, since their function (unlike most funerary inscriptions) was not for public display but merely to label burials—the caves were dark and sealed with heavy stones. But the taciturn ossuary inscriptions yield much valuable information. First of all, they preserve the memory of 071 hundreds of people who would otherwise have been lost to the oblivion of history. Famous names, such as high priests, appear on the ossuaries, but the unknown ones hold a peculiar interest. Second and equally important, the number of ossuary inscriptions is large enough to suggest meaningful patterns, such as family structure, language frequency and onomastic customs. No other historical source preserves information of this nature and quality for the social history of Jerusalem in the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E., the relatively brief period in which the ossuaries were used.

Strikingly, but not surprisingly, Jewish inscriptions in Jerusalem come to an abrupt end in the first century C.E. The epigraphic record of Jerusalem markedly shifts at this point: The Roman army and administration, as well as a growing Christian population, were now the ones primarily documenting themselves through inscriptions. Their epigraphic remains include epitaphs, dedications to Roman emperors and officers, dedications in pagan temples and votive objects, and of course, from the fourth century on, when the city was predominantly Christian, many different types of church inscriptions. These texts, too, contain information not preserved in any other written source, and are thus essential for writing the political, social and religious history of Jerusalem.

The volumes of the CIIP are bringing order to chaos. Inscriptions that had been published in myriad places, or not published at all, are being presented in coherent, scientifically edited volumes. Students of ancient Judaism, Christianity and the Roman Empire, will benefit immeasurably.

One of the richest and most variegated epigraphic troves from antiquity is finally being given the scholarly attention it deserves. During the nearly 200 years of modern exploration in the Holy Land, thousands of inscriptions in different ancient languages have been found on stone, mosaic, ceramic, metal and painted cave walls, amounting to a riot of writing, ranging from a single word or name to complex texts of many lines. Many of these inscriptions have already been carefully published, but many others have been published poorly or not at all. Several years ago, a team of scholars from Israel […]