A Heritage in Danger

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Many of Israel’s archaeological sites—among them Tell Dan, Gezer, Beit Yerach, Tell Mor, Beit Shean, Ashdod, the citadel at Ramat Rachel and the temple at Nahariya—are being slowly destroyed by the elements because after excavation they were not preserved and restored.

How critical the situation is depends on whom you talk to. The Department of Antiquities and the National Park Authority, who together share responsibility for preservation say that they are “concerned.” But, they add, they don’t have adequate funds. (Both have limited government budgets which are partially related to the number of paid admissions received by their sites in any given year).

Israeli archaeologists believe that unless something is done now, future generations will be dependent on museum exhibits and photographs for their link to the land and its history.

One of the most tragic examples of what happens when preservation does not immediately follow excavation can be found at Tell Arad, several miles west of modern Arad. This double site, uncovered between 1962 and 1967, contains a marvelous Israelite citadel built in the 10th century B.C., which existed from the time of King Solomon through the last days of the Judean kingdom. The outstanding discovery at Arad was the temple which stood in the northwest corner of the citadel—the first such sanctuary to be uncovered by excavations and in many ways similar to Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. It also shows a striking resemblance to the Tabernacle in the desert.

This sanctuary was unfortunately left unpreserved and unguarded, prey to the elements, amateur archaeologists, and Bedouin who let their sheep and goats climb through the ruins. The massive outer walls, wholly original when excavated, collapsed during a season of hard rain. The inner walls, made of plastered mud brick, which formed part of the Holy of Holies disintegrated. The natural stones with which the altar of burnt offering was faced (“and if thou shalt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build of hewn stone … ” Exodus 21:25) have fallen off and disappeared; the plaster channeling, probably used for the collection of sacrificial blood, also is no more.

Today the local council of Arad, with the cooperation of the National Parks Authority, has taken an interest in the site and restoration work has finally begun. Although restorers are making every endeavor to copy the original in style, line, and material (using photographs taken in 1967), much of what was excavated and could have been preserved, is now lost to posterity.

At Masada, perhaps the most important national site after the Western Wall, there was no question, of course, of financing preservation. A monumental effort was made under the supervision of Professor Yigael Yadin, to restore the fortress even before excavation began, and to make its meaning come alive. Today thousands of visitors each year thrill at the story of Masada told in its multitude of artifacts, homely and royal, and in its partially rebuilt walls.

But at Masada, too, post-restoration problems have arisen which can be checked 035only if there are funds to support a full time research team charged with developing new and more effective preservatives: To date, neither foreign consultants nor the Israel Museum’s laboratories (whose primary concern is museum exhibits), have found a way to halt the corrosive effect of the Dead Sea salt. Plaster from the time of Herod the Great is crumbling, mosaic floors are being tragically reduced in size because the cubic stones in their original plaster bedding can be too easily dug out by thoughtless souvenir hunters. Walls within whose confines the Zealots lived and died are falling down. There is no way to save the small sailing ships scratched into the plaster of a bench in the Northern Palace 2000 years ago by Roman guards as they sat looking at the sea below, or to retain the patterns drawn onto the floor by Herod’s architects to guide artisans laying the mosaics.

Kornub, the ancient Byzantine town which according to Eusebius was situated between Hebron and Elat, has fared better than Tell Arad but worse than Masada. Preservation was done and the site opened; however. Kornub’s beautiful fresco in the residential quarter was never refurbished (those at Masada were removed from the walls, preserved, mounted on panels and restored to their original location). Recently the fresco crumbled from the wall. Preservation of what remains is imperative, but what has already crumbled is irreplaceable.

At Tell Beer-sheva, just off the Hebron Highway, an excavation was just completed which modern day Beer-sheva’s mayor, Eliahu Navi, hopes to turn into a national park. The site was once a well-fortified Israelite city, the capital of the ancient Negev (and quite possibly the site of the famous well sanctified by patriarchal tradition).

Three summers ago, a season before the dig ended, Navi pressured for preservation and about one-third of the site was restored in cooperation with the National Parks Authority. The summer before last, a similar request was made, but the Tel Aviv University archaeological team in charge was told that there was no money in the Parks Authority budget. Funds were not found until an article about preservation and restoration, citing as an example Tell Beer-sheva, appeared in the Jerusalem Post (The same article described the need for post-preservation research at Masada and the site was suddenly awarded $10,000 for this purpose.)

For Zev Herzog, a Tel Aviv University archaeologist, the problem could be solved simply by giving the Department of Antiquities complete responsibility for preservation and restoration, and creating a body within the Department authorized to raise money.

“It’s not by chance that most of our unpreserved sites are from the ‘not-so-very-interesting-to-the-man-in-the-street’ periods before the Destruction of the Second Temple or that geographically they are off the beaten track. The Parks Authority is concerned primarily with tourism.”

Other archaeologists are more skeptical about the ability of the Department of Antiquities to raise the necessary funds.

Herzog points out that preservation is not very expensive—at least in relation to the costs of excavation.

“Perhaps $25,000 a site would suffice, not including tourist facilities”. says Herzog. “I also feel that the institutions which finance and carry out excavations should reserve maybe 10% of their total budget (as they now put aside money for study and publication) for preservation and restoration. What is the point of digging up an important site like Hazor or Megiddo if it is then only partially preserved and not reconstructed at all?”

A partial answer may be a National Trust—an idea advanced by Jack Campbell, the restorer at Masada. However, since Campbell publicly proposed such a trust over a year ago, not much has happened—partially because Campbell is now working full time on the Tell Arad restorations. Ruth Amiran, an Israel Museum archaeologist who co-directed the Arad excavations, recently returned from England where she researched the way that country’s National Trust is run. So perhaps with this backing the idea will be revived.

Some have suggested that until sufficient money for preservation becomes available, or until Israel can take care of what has already been unearthed, a moratorium on excavation should be declared. The idea would undoubtedly be unpopular among archaeologists, as well as among the interested general public. But by excavating now and preserving later (or never) we are creating too many historical orphans—archaeological sites brought into the light of day only to be abandoned because we lack the funds to properly preserve and restore them.

Many of Israel’s archaeological sites—among them Tell Dan, Gezer, Beit Yerach, Tell Mor, Beit Shean, Ashdod, the citadel at Ramat Rachel and the temple at Nahariya—are being slowly destroyed by the elements because after excavation they were not preserved and restored.