Pottery is probably the archaeologist’s most important diagnostic tool, not only for dating a stratum of an excavation, but also for determining the culture and ethnicity of the ancient people who lived there at the time.
In 1969, however, at the excavation of Tel Gezer, where I served as an area supervisor, a most unusual find would help us establish the culture and ethnicity of Stratum XI: a terra-cotta phallus.
It was handmade, broken at one end and measuring an inch long and about 0.4 inches wide. Stratum XI was dated by ordinary pottery to the late-12th to mid-11th century B.C.E. The detached member was found in the destruction debris of that stratum. Until that moment, the Stratum XI city at Gezer seemed to be, so the excavators thought, a Philistine city. But there was a problem: The phallus was circumcised.
The Philistines, traditional enemies of the Israelites, are referred to more than 30 times in the Bible, often pejoratively, as uncircumcised. One of the most famous is the lament at the death of King Saul:
Your glory, O Israel, lies slain upon your high places! How the mighty have fallen! Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the bazaars (huṣot)a of Ashkelon; or the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice, the daughters of the uncircumcised (ha’arelim) will exult.
(2 Samuel 1:19–20)
Circumcision has a long history in the ancient world, although its origin and purpose remain uncertain. The practice can be traced as early as the 23rd century B.C.E. in Middle Egypt. A stela from Naga-ed-Dar dated to 2130–1940 B.C.E. refers to a group ceremony: “[When] I was circumcised (sab) [?] with 120 men and there was none whom I struck and none who struck me among them.”1 Some mummies also show signs of circumcision.
A famous Egyptian relief illustrates circumcision on two adolescent boys in the Sixth-Dynasty (2350–2000 B.C.E.) tomb of the “royal architect” Ankh-ma-hor at Saqqara (a little more than 15 miles southwest of Cairo).2 It depicts the preparation for the operation and the procedure 050itself performed by a mortuary priest who is squatting. The accompanying text includes a dialogue between the circumciser and an assistant. In the relief, the priest tells his assistant “Hold him; do not let him faint,” and the assistant responds: “I shall act to thy pleasure.” To the right is a dialogue between the circumciser and the boy: “Rub off what is [there] thoroughly,” the boy says to the priest, who responds: “I shall make [it] heal.”3
The Ebers Papyrus, written in hieratic (cursive Egyptian script) in about 1550 B.C.E. and described as “the greatest Egyptian medical document,” offers an antidote for bleeding from circumcision. “Remedy for a prepuce (?) which is cut off [circumcision] and whence blood comes out: dzrt, honey, cuttle-bone, sycamore, fruit of dzja [unknown] are mixed together and applied thereto.”4
West Semitic peoples, including the Canaanites, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Phoenicians and Arameans were also circumcised (see Jeremiah 9:25). There is no clear evidence, however, that the East Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia, such as the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians, were circumcised.
The Biblical Hivites living in Canaan, on the other hand, were also apparently uncircumcised. Recall the story of Hamor the Hivite (called Horite in the Septuagint), the prince of Shechem. His son, named like the city, Shechem, defiled Dinah, the daughter of the Patriarch Jacob. The offense was exacerbated by the fact that the Shechemites were uncircumcised. Shechem was intent upon marrying Dinah however. Shechem “loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her” (Genesis 34:3). So his father Hamor said to Jacob’s sons: “Intermarry with us; give us your daughters in marriage and marry ours” (Genesis 34:9). The sons of Jacob (Simeon and Levi) insisted, however, that marriage could never take place between the Shechemites and the Israelites unless the Shechemites first submitted to circumcision. This was a ruse; after the Shechemites concurred with the condition, the Israelites massacred them “on the third day, when they were still in pain” (Genesis 34:25).
Although the Philistines were uncircumcised, other Sea Peoples, of whom the Philistines were one, did practice circumcision. According to the Great Karnak Inscription, three of the Sea Peoples—the Ekwesh, Sheklesh and Sherdani—were circumcised.5 These three Sea Peoples are included in a “list of captives and slain” in the Libyan-Mediterranean invasion of Pharaoh Merneptah (1212–1202 B.C.E.). From this stele, we learn that the Egyptians treated circumcised prisoners differently from uncircumcised prisoners. Circumcised prisoners had their hands amputated. Uncircumcised prisoners had their genitals amputated.6 The three Sea Peoples mentioned above are listed among those whose hands, but not genitals, were cut off.
For the Israelites, circumcision had a special religious meaning. It was the principal sign (‘ot) of Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh. The key text is Genesis 17. Yahweh says to Abraham:
Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin (besar ‘orlatkem) [by sense, “the foreskin of your penis”] and it shall be a sign (‘ot) of the covenant (berit) between me and you.7
(Genesis 17:10–11)
In Egypt circumcision was ordinarily a puberty rite. This also appears to be the case with other ancient ethnic groups who circumcised. Among the Israelites, however, the male child is circumcised when he is eight days old (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3).
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As a puberty rite, circumcision appears to be “regarded as that which makes a man fit for normal sexual life; it is an initiation to marriage.”8 In Arabic hatana means “to circumcise.” The words for “bridegroom,” “son-in-law” and “father-in-law” are all derivatives of htn.9 In the story of Shechem’s rape of Dinah (Genesis 34:14–17), the circumcision is prenuptial, thus making a connection with marriage. In two other Biblical stories, circumcision is also connected to the rite of marriage. For the bride-price (mohar) for Saul’s daughter Michal, David is to pay his father-in-law a hundred Philistine foreskins (1 Samuel 18:25).
In the mysterious, not to say mystical, episode in which Moses’ wife Zipporah uses a flint to circumcise their son and then touches Moses’ feet (regalim, a euphemism for the genitals) with the foreskin, Zipporah declares “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood (hatan-damim) to me!” She then adds “A bridegroom of blood because of circumcision (hatan damim lammulot)” (Exodus 4:25–26).
Despite these sub-surface connections to marriage rites, the purpose of Israelite circumcision was to remind the Israelite male of his covenant with God. As William Propp has observed, “Circumcision is a sign for the individual Israelite, reminding him of his covenantal obligations; it is not a sign identifying Israelites to the outside world.”10
You may think you know what circumcision is, but it is not always clear. In Egypt, circumcision may have involved simply a V-shaped dorsal cut, leaving the prepuce in place, but allowing the foreskin to hang freely.11 Traditionally, the Israelite practice involved the removal of the prepuce or foreskin covering the glans of the penis, leaving the glans exposed. It is not clear, however, that this was always the case. It is true that in the famous 053seventh-century B.C.E. Lachish reliefs, impaled Israelites, stripped naked, are displayed circumcised by complete removal of the prepuce. From careful examination of the originals in the British Museum, it appears that the entire glans is exposed.
Another Biblical text may contain intimations of the nature of Israelite circumcision. When the Israelites encamped at Gilgal after crossing the Jordan to the Promised Land, they observed the Passover. Circumcision is a prerequisite for celebrating Passover (Exodus 12:48; Joshua 5:8). On this occasion, Yahweh instructs Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again (sub) a second time (senit)” (Joshua 5:2). Why must the Israelites be circumcised “again a second time”? Jack Sasson explains the enigma in terms of the different ways the Egyptians and the Israelites performed circumcision. Perhaps the Egyptians did not expose the entire glans and corona, whereas the Israelites excised the complete prepuce or foreskin. Perhaps some Israelites had been practicing circumcision the Egyptian way, so they needed to have it done a second time.
By the Greco-Roman period (332 B.C.E.–324 C.E.), circumcision, along with Sabbath observance and abstinence from pork, served as common ethnic markers of Jews.12 In Greco-Roman culture circumcision was regarded as abhorrent. Participants in Greek gymnasia and Roman baths exercised in the nude. Jews, with their bare glans, would be the object of ridicule. Indeed, at times circumcision was officially banned. The Greek Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–163 B.C.E.), who Hellenized Jerusalem, proscribed the practice under the penalty of death. In order to participate in the activities of the Greek gymnasia, 054some Jews simulated a foreskin by practicing epispasm (Greek epispasmos from epispaomai, literally “draw to oneself”; Hebrew mesikat ‘orla, “drawing down the foreskin”). Robert Hall describes epispasm succinctly as “circumcision in reverse.”13 The procedure involves the painful stretching of the vestigial prepuce “to create a pseudo-foreskin”14
To render epispasm difficult or impossible, the rabbis required periah (literally, “revealing”), the removal of membrane under the prepuce at the shaft of the penis, as well as the prepuce itself. When this is done, the glans of the penis is entirely exposed.15 The practice of epispasm continued, however, from the second century B.C.E. to the second century C.E.16
Was Jewish epispasm performed so widely, despite the difficulty of re-creating the prepuce or, on the other hand, because the Jews (and Israelites before them) were not removing the entire prepuce?
In the New Testament, Paul forbids epispasm: “Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision [me epispastho]” (1 Corinthians 7:18).
Now back to the Philistines and Gezer: The Sea Peoples, including the Philistines, migrated from the region of the Aegean to the land of Canaan about 1185–1175 B.C.E., settling on the southern coast of Palestine. There they formed the “Philistine Pentapolis”—Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, Gath and Ekron. All have been identified with certainty, except Gath, usually associated with Tell es-Safi.b For the next 600 years, the Philistines were in conflict at various times with the Israelites, Assyrians and Egyptians.
Gezer is a 33-acre mound in the foothills of the Judean mountain range about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Excavators have identified 26 strata or levels extending from the Late Chalcolithic period (c. 3500 B.C.E.) to Roman times (324 C.E.).
According to the Bible, the Canaanites occupied the site: “Ephraim did not [could not] drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites lived amoung them in Gezer” (Judges 1:29). In the Solomonic era, Gezer became an Israelite city:
Pharaoh [Siamun] king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it down, had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.
(1 Kings 9:16)
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In Late Bronze Age IIA (1400–1300 B.C.E., Stratum XVI), Gezer was a flourishing city under Egyptian domination, as was much of Palestine. We know this because ten of the famous Amarna Letters, diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian pharaoh and his Palestinian vassals, originated in Gezer and were sent to the Egyptian capital at Tell el-Amarna.
In Late Bronze IIB (1300–1200 B.C.E., Strata XV–XIV), Gezer declined in importance, only to be destroyed by fire in 1207 B.C.E., perhaps by Pharaoh Merneptah. Did the city revolt? Perhaps. What or who caused the fire? Merneptah? No clear answers. In his “Victory Stela” (about 1207 B.C.E.) Merneptah claims to have conquered Gezer (as well as Israel).17
The later of these two strata (that is, Stratum XIV) contains no Philistine pottery, although the first wave of Philistines had already settled on the coast, using their distinctive monochrome pottery.
In the next three strata (Strata XIII–XI, reading from bottom to top), Philistine pottery (the later bichrome ware) does appear, but only in small quantities. It was this pottery that led the excavators initially to suggest that the site was occupied by Philistines. But the quantity of Philistine bichrome pottery is far too scanty to support this conclusion, especially when compared with the Philistine bichrome assemblages from the contemporaneous strata at sites of the Philistine Pentapolis. At Ekron, Ashkelon (excavated long after Gezer, however) and Ashdod, Philistine pottery exceeds 25 percent of the ceramic repertoires in the strata of this time period.
Gezer experienced a huge destruction in about 1050 B.C.E., at the end of Stratum XI. In the destruction debris was found the circumcised phallus that is the occasion for this article. It supports the conclusion that Gezer was not a Philistine site. This should come as no surprise to us, however, because Gezer remained outside Philistine territory and was dominated by Canaanites under Egyptian control (both of whom practiced circumcision) until a burnt and destroyed city was given to Solomon as a dowry when he married Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kings 3:1; 7:8; 9:16, 24; 11:1).
Pottery is probably the archaeologist’s most important diagnostic tool, not only for dating a stratum of an excavation, but also for determining the culture and ethnicity of the ancient people who lived there at the time. In 1969, however, at the excavation of Tel Gezer, where I served as an area supervisor, a most unusual find would help us establish the culture and ethnicity of Stratum XI: a terra-cotta phallus. It was handmade, broken at one end and measuring an inch long and about 0.4 inches wide. Stratum XI was dated by ordinary pottery to the late-12th to mid-11th […]
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See Walter Burkert, Creation of the Sacred (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1996), pp. 34–55.
2.
The controversy arises from the negative connotations of “mutilate.” Cultures that practice initiatory mutilation consider themselves not to be spoiling the body but perfecting it.
3.
Our oldest textual reference to the operation is an Egyptian inscription from 2300 B.C.E. A man boasts, “When I was circumcised, together with one hundred and twenty men, there was none thereof who hit out” (trans. by John A. Wilson in James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969], p. 326). Our first graphic depiction of the operation also comes from Egypt, from a bas relief at Saqqara dated to about 2400 B.C.E.
4.
The most recent, comprehensive study (ultimately coming down on the contra side) is David L. Gollaher, Circumcision: A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery (New York: Basic Books, 2000).
5.
See Propp, “The Origins of Infant Circumcision in Israel,” Hebrew Annual Review 11 (1988), pp. 355–370, esp. p. 355 n. 1.
6.
Apropos of the tassel: Many commentators emend the tautological “And it will be as a tassel for you” (wĕhāyâ lākem lĕṣîṣı̄t) (Numbers 15:38) to “And it will be as a sign for you” (wĕhāyâ lākem lĕ’ôt). This is as compelling as a conjectural emendation can be.
7.
The classic treatment is Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, French original 1909, trans. M. Vizedom and G. Cafee (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 71–73. On rites of passage in the Bible, see Propp, “Symbolic Wounds: Applying Anthropology to the Bible,” Le-David Maskil: A Birthday Tribute for David Noel Freedman, eds. Richjard Elliott Friedman and William H.C. Propp (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), pp. 17–24.
8.
On modern theories of the Torah’s composition, see Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit, 1987).
9.
The Semitic root ḫtn, which in Hebrew means “to become related through marriage,” bears an additional connotation in Arabic: “to circumcise.” Hebrew and Arabic are related languages; that is, like French and Spanish, they share a common ancestor. Because Arabic is vastly better attested than biblical Hebrew, scholars often look to Arabic to illuminate biblical obscurities. See John Kaltner, The Use of Arabic in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 28 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1996). For fuller discussion of Exodus 4:24–26, see Propp, “That Bloody Bridegroom,” Vetus Testamentum 43 (1993), pp. 495–518; and Exodus 1–18, Anchor Bible 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), pp. 233–241.
10.
Many have suggested that the use of stone tools here and in Exodus 4:24–26 implies the perpetuation of a Stone Age custom. But cheap and effective stone tools continued in use throughout the Iron Age; see Steven Rosen Lithics After the Stone Age (Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 1997).
11.
Some would dispute the totality of amnesia, but certainly there is no conscious memory.
12.
A few bad experiences would have shown the inadvisability of circumcising newborns, since their blood congeals slowly. After the first week, the clotting factor is more efficient, making circumcision fairly safe for all but hemophiliacs—whom later Judaism exempts from the rite. In modern hospital conditions, however, the circumcision of newborns is not dangerous.
13.
While speculative, this makes more intuitive sense to me than the common theory that circumcision makes the bleeding penis into a symbolic vagina, reflecting Man’s envy of Woman’s procreative power (e.g., Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic Wounds [London: Thames and Hudson, 1955]).
14.
Note that “vagina” comes from Latin “sheath.” For ethnographic evidence that circumcision removes femininity from a boy, who must seek out a mate to restore his original bisexuality, see briefly Gollaher, Circumcision, pp. 59–63.
15.
Baruch Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century B.C.E.: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” in Halpern and D.W. Hobson, eds., Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supp. Series 124 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), pp. 11–107.
16.
See Gollaher, Circumcision, for a thorough discussion of all these issues.
