A Yearlong Celebration

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This issue inaugurates our participation in the 3,000th anniversary celebration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The mayor of Jerusalem has officially proclaimed 1996 as the year to mark the anniversary.

Certainly the 3,000th anniversary of King David’s capture of Jerusalem—after which the city became known as the City of David—should not pass unnoticed. Anniversaries are, after all, occasions to remember and to rededicate.

There will, of course, be those who carp and cavil. Some will say it’s a tourist gimmick. True, in part, but why not come and listen to great music as well as see the sites?^a Others will say it’s political, intended only to solidify Israel’s position with respect to Jerusalem. Perhaps—though the anniversary celebration was planned long before the Israel-Palestinian peace agreement seemed a possibility.

Our own participation will be archaeological. Here too there is opportunity to question and quarrel. A bevy of scholars contend that King David never existed—indeed, that there was no kingdom of Israel until several centuries later; the Davidic stories, they say, were made up to provide a glorious past for this tiny, insignificant country governed by petty kings that found its bearings only in the eighth century B.C.E. Even the appearance of the words “House of David” in the recently discovered Tel Dan inscription has not changed the minds of these scholars; they translate the ancient semitic letters as “House of Dod,” 025whoever he or it is.^b The “House of David” reference recently detected by André Lemaire in the famous Mesha Stela is likewise dimissed by these so-called minimalist scholars.^c

It is easier to quarrel with the year 1996 as the correct anniversary than it is to question King David’s existence. How the date was chosen is not entirely clear. No exact date can be determined from the Biblical record. Apparently someone in then-mayor Teddy Kollek’s office read that King David captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites in 996 B.C.E. This is the date given, for example, in British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon’s Jerusalem: Excavating 3000 Years of History (McGraw-Hill, 1967), although she is careful to prefix the date with a small “c.”—meaning “circa,” around or about. I then wrote the powers that be that 3,000 subtracted from 1996 is not 996 but 1004—whoever did the original calculation apparently forgot that the numbers before the turn of the era are in effect negative numbers. At this point, the publicity changed and it was claimed that King David conquered Jerusalem in 1004 B.C.E. But I, too, made a mistake. I failed to consider that that there was no year 0. Thus, 3,000 years before 1996 is 1005 B.C.E., not 1004 B.C.E. I suppose some authority can be found for 1005 B.C.E.—I have seen dates ranging from 1009 to 995 B.C.E.—026but the organizers have now dropped all references to an exact year. Given the uncertainty, that’s probably a good idea, and 1996 is as good a year as any in which to remember the past.

Some small excavations, reconstructions and cleanup in Jerusalem’s archaeological sites have occurred as a result of the occasion—but far too little. A small excavation was undertaken at Dung Gate, another at the base of Robinson’s Arch. It will be a long time, however, before we can assess the results. Much preservation and cleanup remains to be done. The anniversary nevertheless provides an occasion to remark on these desiderata and, hopefully, to focus on them as projects for the near future.

The anniversary also reminds us of another very serious problem relating to Jerusalem archaeology. Since Jerusalem was reunited in 1967, the city has seen three major Israeli excavations. Unfortunately, none has been published. The directors of all three of those excavations have died, most recently Benjamin Mazar.^d

Unless there is public pressure to do so, it is at least questionable whether they will ever be published. “Publication” is a technical term in the archaeological world; it means the publication of a final excavation report. Unless an excavation is “published” in this sense, the information that could be provided is lost forever; there is no way to repeat the experiment, to re-dig what has already been dug. Excavation is destruction; we allow it only because of the information that it makes available. When an excavation is not published, the justification for the destruction disappears. The failure to publish, quite simply, is tantamount to looting.^e As Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog notes in a forthcoming article, “There is no substitute for the final report, the only means by which archaeologists may present evidence destroyed during the course of excavation.”^f

The earliest of the three Jerusalem excavations began almost immediately after the city was reunited in 1967—at the southern wall of the Temple Mount under the direction of Hebrew University professor Benjamin Mazar and with the field supervision of Meir Ben-Dov.

The second was led by Hebrew University professor Nahman Avigad in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. During the 19-year period between 1948 and 1967, when the Old City was under Jordanian control, much of the Jewish Quarter—synagogues, yeshivot (religious study centers) and even hospitals—was destroyed. Under Israeli control, the Jewish Quarter was rebuilt, but, ironically, the Jordanian-period destruction provided an opportunity for archaeological excavation before rebuilding.

The third major archaeological excavation occurred in the City of David, the oldest inhabited part of the city, located on a ridge south of the Temple Mount. It was directed by Hebrew University professor Yigal Shiloh.

Avigad and Shiloh died several years ago. Mazar was inactive for years before his death in September. The responsibility for publication must now lie elsewhere.

Unfortunately, what happened at these three sites is not unusual. The renowned Kathleen Kenyon dug both in the City of David and south of the Temple Mount between 1961 and 1966. She died in 1978 without publishing her final report. Indeed, at her death she had not even published the final report of her earlier excavation of Jericho between 1952 and 1958.

The great French savant Père Roland de Vaux died in 1971 without publishing the final report of his excavation of Qumran, the settlement adjacent to the Dead Sea Scroll caves. De Vaux led the excavation of that site between 1951 and 1957. Qumran was not the only major site that de Vaux failed to publish before his death: Another was Tell el-Farah (north), identified as the site of Tirzah, which for a time served as the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.

Harvard University professor G. Ernest Wright died in 1974 without publishing his excavation of Biblical Shechem.

The famous Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin, who died in 1984, left two major excavations unpublished—Masada and Hazor (only partially completed).

The list of archaeologists who have died without publishing final excavation reports is large, and the number of unpublished excavations is even larger. One recent study notes that more than 60 percent of the excavations of 1960–1969 have been 027published, whereas for the period of 1980–1989, only 13 percent have seen the light of day.^g The problem is getting worse, not better.

Still, the simple truth that the problem is so pervasive is no reason to refrain from addressing it in Jerusalem. I mention these other cases only to put the matter in context.

Like almost everything in Israel, including archaeology, politics is involved—most pervasively in the case of Mazar’s dig at the southern wall of the Temple Mount. Ironically, his greatest triumph was also his greatest failure. In the years after the 1967 Six-Day War, the United Nations regularly condemned Israel for a variety of reasons, including (through UNESCO) the archaeological excavation adjacent to the Temple Mount. Among the charges was that the excavation was not being conducted with the most rigorous scientific methods. The charge was entirely politically motivated. UNESCO appointed a noted European archaeologist to investigate; his report gave the excavation a clean bill of health.

In these circumstances, it was hardly surprising that no one in the archaeological community who worked in Israel came forward to criticize the dig. Seven years after the Temple Mount dig began, Israel’s most illustrious archaeologist at the time, Yigael Yadin, declared that Mazar’s excavation was “the greatest archaeological enterprise Jerusalem has witnessed.” It was being carried out, he said, “by a most competent team … working in a spirit of dedication and zeal befitting its historical mission. These excavations,” he added, “enable us to trace the history of the city step by step, stratum by stratum.” Yadin called the UNESCO resolution condemning the excavation “disgraceful,” as indeed it was.^h

Yet, as everyone close to the scene in the archaeological community well knew, too much was being dug up too quickly without adequate supervision or record-keeping and without adequate provision for publication of the results.

To complicate matters still further, the dig director (Mazar) and his field supervisor (Ben-Dov) fell out. A bitter feud ensued. Charges of stealing records and threats of lawsuits flew. Now, nearly 30 years after the dig began, almost nothing in the nature of a scientific report—even in preliminary form—has been written.

Today, no one seems to know where the field records of the excavation are. Some, according to one report, were destroyed in a fire. It is reliably reported that all the artifacts that have survived from the dig have now been transferred to the storerooms of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

It is time to face facts concerning this excavation. The Antiquities Authority has the responsibility to report just where matters stand and to see that whatever can be gleaned from the surviving artifacts and records be reported to the scientific community. That the situation may be acutely embarrassing is no excuse for failing to make available to all what can be made available. (According to a recent report, Mazar’s granddaughter Eilat Mazar will take charge of publishing what can be published.)

In contrast to the dig at the southern wall of the Temple Mount, Nahman Avigad’s excavation in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was as meticulous as any dig anywhere. The reconstructions that he supervised with such loving care are applauded by all. Moreover, he was required to continue digging year after year by the demands of a construction company that wanted to rebuild the quarter as quickly as possible after its systematic demolition during the Jordanian period.

For all Avigad’s good intentions, however, it is now clear that adequate provisions for publication were never made. Perhaps, like so many of us, he thought he would live forever. Or perhaps there was nothing he could do. In any event, when he died at the age of 86, no one was really prepared to fill his shoes. Fortunately, one stout volume on the First Temple period is ready to be published, prepared from a joint text by Avigad and his two chief assistants, Hillel Geva and Ronny Reich.

The situation is much the same with regard to the City of David excavation, except that the director of that dig, Yigal Shiloh, died young and unexpectedly—from stomach cancer when he was just 50 years old.

For both Avigad’s dig and Shiloh’s dig, careful records are available. But the tremendously knowledgeable captains are missing.

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In both cases competent people are working on the materials. But not enough. In Avigad’s dig, there is neither adequate funding, nor adequate personnel. By contrast, Shiloh’s dig was initiated by a responsible South African philanthropist, named Mendel Kaplan, who will assure the availability of adequate funding for publication.

When a dig director dies, however, the problem of publication is only partly financial. Others on the excavation staff not only know less and have less authority than the deceased director, but they have other obligations, other career goals, other projects of their own. In Avigad’s dig, a single person is being paid a thousand dollars a month to work on the material. Is it any wonder that the prospects for adequate, prompt publication are dim, especially as this person has enormous other professional obligations?

In Shiloh’s dig, two of his senior staff have left the field to become lawyers, although they continue to assume some publication responsibilties. Various final publication projects have been assigned to other specialists. But, as one insider candidly told me, “Not much is going on. It’s very, very slow.” (Hopefully, the charge itself will motivate everyone involved to prove it wrong.)

Obviously some institutional change is needed. I have elsewhere suggested the creation of a new profession—archaeology editor/writer, which should be a full-time, high-prestige position.ⁱ

The case of deceased dig directors is now a situation with which we have considerable experience. The British are responsibly publishing final reports on Kenyon’s Jerusalem and Jericho digs; but 30 years have passed since her excavation of the City of David, and the main part of the dig (Kenyon’s famous Trench A, which explained the relationship of the Gihon Spring to the defense of the city in the Bronze and Iron Ages) remains unpublished. The French École Biblique is trying to make provision for the publication of de Vaux’s Qumran excavation. Amnon Ben-Tor led a team that completed the publication of Yadin’s Hazor excavation. Ehud Netzer headed a team that has already published four volumes of final reports on Yadin’s Masada excavation. And volumes of final reports on Wright’s Shechem excavation continue to appear sporadically. There are enough people who have faced the problem of publishing a final report after the dig director has died to get together for a meaningful scholarly conference on the subject. A sharing of ideas in this way would undoubtedly be helpful to the various scholars struggling to publish final reports on the three major Jerusalem excavations.

Which brings us back to the Jerusalem celebration.

In the pages of BAR, our celebration will be year-long. Each issue of the magazine will contain a major article on some aspect of Jerusalem archaeology. In this issue, we begin with an article by Dan Bahat, former Jerusalem District Archaeologist and one of the pre-eminent authorities on the archaeology of Jerusalem, on the extraordinary tunnel that has been dug since 1967 adjacent to the western wall of the Temple Mount.

The next issue will include a path-breaking article by the distinguished archaeologist/architect Leen Ritmeyer, who has located the site of the First Temple’s Holy of Holies, as well as the precise spot within the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant rested!

Prominent archaeologists have also agreed to write articles on Roman Jerusalem (an often-neglected subject); an up-to-date report on the burial site of Ketef Hinnom, which produced the oldest Biblical text ever discovered; and a round-up of recent Jerusalem digs that have hitherto gone unreported in these pages.

More comprehensive treatments include a new beautifully illustrated book published by Random House, entitled Jerusalem—An Archaeological Biography.

In addition, we have re-issued our popular two-casette video on the archaeology of Jerusalem, together with a new Learner’s Guide. And our unique Jerusalem Archaeology Slide Set (with a detailed 36-page booklet of descriptive captions) continues to enliven classroom instruction as well as home study.

Nothing, however, can compare to a trip to the Holy City itself and the opportunity to explore its archaeology on the site. Hope to see you there—this year in Jerusalem!

This issue inaugurates our participation in the 3,000th anniversary celebration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The mayor of Jerusalem has officially proclaimed 1996 as the year to mark the anniversary. Certainly the 3,000th anniversary of King David’s capture of Jerusalem—after which the city became known as the City of David—should not pass unnoticed. Anniversaries are, after all, occasions to remember and to rededicate. There will, of course, be those who carp and cavil. Some will say it’s a tourist gimmick. True, in part, but why not come and listen to great music as well as see […]