Ein Gedi’s Archaeological Riches

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I have visited Ein Gedi, the oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea, a number of times. But not until I looked at this volume did I appreciate its rich variety of archaeological treasures.

Most tourists who stop here come for the natural beauty, not for the archaeological treasures. The main attractions of the site are a beautiful waterfall and pools in Nahal David where you can splash around and get a little relief from the often sweltering heat of the Judean Desert.

Ein Gedi lies between two major wadis. One is Nahal David. (Nahal is Hebrew for a usually dry valley bed. The Arabic equivalent is wadi.) The other is Wadi Arugot (also Nahal Arugot). Tourists with more time (but more often Israelis) take a walk up the incredibly sculptured Wadi Arugot with its own fresh stream and fascinating flora and wildlife. That can easily consume an early morning or a late afternoon.

With all that, the archaeology gets short shrift. That’s too bad.

This book is a dry scientific archaeology report, so I don’t recommend that you buy it—much less read it—unless you are a professional archaeologist; in that case it’s a must. But just skimming it reveals a lot, even to the amateur. It is the final report on Ein Gedi excavations conducted between 1961 and 1965. The excavations were led by the late, great Benjamin Mazar, who had just stepped down as president of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The staff included many who would 060become Israel’s next generation of leading archaeologists, including Ephraim Stern, the editor of the volume, now chairman of Israel’s archaeological counsel and excavator of Dor; Trude Dothan, excavator of Philistine Ekron; Amnon Ben-Tor, excavator of Hazor; David Ussishkin, excavator of Lachish and Megiddo; Yosef Porath, excavator of Caesarea; Amihai Mazar, excavator of Tel Rehov; and Magen Broshi, former curator of the Shrine of the Book, the Dead Sea Scroll pavilion at the Israel Museum.^a All got their start at Ein Gedi.

That the final report is being published only now, 40 years after the close of the excavation and more than a decade after the death of its leader, is both its tragedy and its glory. As Stern tells us:

The preparation of the report of a lengthy excavation is never an easy task because of the abundance of the finds and its complexity. How much more difficult is preparing an excavation report after an interval of more than 40 years during which time the finds had become scattered in countless directions, the registration of many groups of objects had disappeared and a considerable number of the plates prepared during the excavations had disintegrated or were simply nowhere to be found.

But the lapse of all this time allows for studies that could not have been undertaken when the excavation ended. The title page includes 20 contributors to the volume, including experts in coins, a hacksilber hoard, loom weights and a lime kiln. Moreover, the volume also contains reports on excavations conducted long after 1965 by Hanan Eshel and the late Yizhar Hirschfeld, and excavations 061that are continuing to this day under the direction of Gideon Hadas of Kibbutz Ein Gedi.

As this report spans two generations of archaeological excavations, so the site itself spans archaeological time—indeed several millennia. The earliest and perhaps most dramatic structure is a Chalcolithic temple complex that reflects Ghassulian culture from about 3500 B.C.E.

The temple complex sits at the top of a scarp running parallel with the Dead Sea on the edge of the eastern Judean Desert plateau. The Ein Gedi oasis lies at the foot of the precipice, below the temple. The temple complex is located between two springs: one that flows into Nahal David and the other, the spring of Ein Gedi. As the report describes it, “The view from the site is spectacular.” Below is the lush greenery of the oasis on the shore of a shimmering Dead Sea, and beyond the sea are the colorful mountains of Moab in Transjordan.

The temple complex is enclosed by an ancient stone fence. It is entered through an impressive gatehouse that leads into a courtyard that is approximately rectangular. In the center of the courtyard is a round cultic installation almost 10 feet in diameter that was somehow related to water lustrations. A round basin was constructed in the center of the installation. An as-yet-undiscovered water channel probably led from the installation to an outlet channel that has been found in the courtyard wall. Just how the circular installation was used in the cult remains a mystery, however.

In the right-hand corner of the courtyard (upon entering) is a small building, perhaps for the priests, their vestments and ritual utensils. Further along the right wall of the complex is a simple postern gate.

Directly opposite the main gatehouse is the temple or sanctuary. Because of its shape, archaeologists call it a “broad room” as opposed to a “long room”; that is, it is much wider than it is deep, typical of Chalcolithic architecture. In this case it is 64 feet wide and less than 18 feet deep.

On the wall of the temple opposite its entrance is the semicircular shrine or altar approached by two steps. In the right-hand corner of the shrine, the excavators found a round piece of white crystalline limestone that probably served as the base for a statue of the deity to whom the sanctuary was dedicated. A layer of ash filled the shrine area, strong evidence that fires were lit there.

At either end of the temple is a series of small circular pits that served as favissae, into which the remains of cultic offerings, mostly pottery, were placed.

The walls of the sanctuary were no doubt plastered, and perhaps painted and decorated. A fragment of painted plaster was found in the excavation. The roof was probably flat and composed of wooden beams covered with reeds or branches and cemented with clay.

In the words of David Ussishkin, who wrote the report on the Chalcolithic temple, “The shrine [was] clearly a monumental edifice in terms of contemporary architecture.”

The archaeologists found no evidence of the destruction of the temple complex, either natural or as a result of enemy action. The site was occupied for one period only and then, apparently, abandoned.

Where did the people live who worshiped at this temple? Ussishkin tells us that “no Chalcolithic settlement was found anywhere around Ein Gedi and, significantly, there were no Chalcolithic remains in the immediate vicinity of the shrine.” He theorizes 062that the site “was most likely a central temple serving a wide region and a focus for pilgrimage.”

In archaeology it is always dangerous to reason from negative evidence. The danger is that positive evidence may thereafter be found and upset your reasoning. Has this happened at Ein Gedi?

I noted earlier that this volume includes reports on excavations at Ein Gedi after 1965, indeed after 1980, when Ussishkin first published the report on the excavation of the Chalcolithic temple that is reprinted in this book. One of these more recent Ein Gedi excavations took place in the so-called Morinaga Cave under a team directed by Hanan Eshel. The editor tells us that this excavation is included in the volume because of the similarity between the Persian period finds in the cave and Persian period finds uncovered elsewhere at Ein Gedi. What he does not tell us is that the cave also yielded Chalcolithic finds!

For that we must read the excavator’s report later in the volume. But even that says little about these Chalcolithic finds, so I telephoned Hanan Eshel. In the Persian period, the cave served as a tomb; however, no bones from the Chalcolithic level were found. Was it a tomb in the Chalcolithic period? I asked him. “No,” he replied. The finds from the Chalcolithic period included considerable domestic pottery, including bowls and storage jars, as well as grinding stones. “There is no reason to assume it was a tomb,” Eshel told me. That being 063the case, this is probably the first evidence of Chalcolithic habitation near the site. Eshel told me he spent a week living in the cave during its excavation and he found it “quite pleasant.” He speculates that the priests of the temple might have lived here (the finds in the cave included cornets [cone-like vessels] and chalices with fenestrated pedestals).

Because the temple complex was abandoned, rather than destroyed, there was nothing on the temple floor and really nothing spectacular in the entire complex. The occupants simply cleaned up the place and left. The finds included mostly broken pottery, which was enough to establish the cultic nature of the complex.

Where was the “good stuff,” however? The answer probably comes from a cave in two wadis to the south, in Nahal Mishmar, 7 miles from Ein Gedi as the crow flies. At the same time the Chalcolithic shrine at Ein Gedi was being excavated, archaeologist Pesah Bar-Adon discovered the Cave 064of the Treasure in Nahal Mishmar. There, wrapped in a straw mat, was a hoard of 429 copper cult objects, including 240 maceheads, about a hundred scepters and ten circular objects that look like little crowns. Six additional maceheads were made of shiny hematite. It is clear that the hoard dates to the Chalcolithic period and reflects Ghassulian culture. Here, then, were the cult objects of the sanctuary, carefully stored and hidden when the Ein Gedi shrine was abandoned. Ussishkin speculates that the priests stored them here before moving on, perhaps because of some pestilence or an approaching army, intending to return when the crisis was past.

Pieces of wood were found in the scepters and maceheads. Were the maceheads mounted on poles and used in a procession of priests? Or did the worshipers hold the maces, as they sat on the 065benches in the sanctuary? Were the scepters stuck in the floor—or attached to the wall? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.

In any event, the metallic workmanship reflected in these objects is extraordinary, especially considering their date. Any suggestion that the metal industry was in its infancy in the Chalcolithic period must now be rejected.

After the temple complex was abandoned, the entire site of Ein Gedi lay empty for 2,000 years. Then, toward the end of the Israelite (actually Judahite) kingdom, in about 650 B.C.E., what would become Tel Goren was settled. “Settled” may not be quite the right word, however; the acropolis of the mound was occupied not by residential structures, as is usual, but by an industrial quarter. Its purpose: to produce perfume from the balsam plants cultivated at the site. That was the opinion of Benjamin Mazar, the excavator, 40 years ago; Ephraim Stern, the editor of this volume, adds that “the present writer is in complete agreement.” The attentive reader may smell a whiff of the Great Perfume Debate that may have started with this volume. Read on.

This settlement was destroyed by the Babylonians shortly after they destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. (the same kind of Babylonian arrows found in Jerusalem were found in abundance in the destruction of Judahite Ein Gedi). Ein Gedi again lay unoccupied, this time until the Persian period, beginning in the fifth century B.C.E. By this time the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great had allowed the Babylonian exiles to return to their land, and settlement was renewed at Ein Gedi. The perfume industry was again the key to the site’s prosperity. 066The excavators found an abundance of beautiful small vessels that they suggest “served as containers for a special commodity, probably perfumes, which continued to be produced at the site as in the previous period.” The Persian-period settlement at Ein Gedi was destroyed in about 400 B.C.E. It is not clear by whom.

The site flourished again, however, in the Hasmonean period (beginning mid-second century B.C.E.), when a fortress was built on Tel Goren, the tell of Ein Gedi. The settlement was destroyed again, however, by the Romans after they burned Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 C.E. Then they proceeded to the Judean Desert to suppress the last gasp of the Great Jewish Revolt: the Jewish defenders of Masada. The Romans built several encampments at the base of Masada, but they probably served as forward bases for a more permanent encampment at Ein Gedi. In any event, the Romans built a large military bathhouse at Ein Gedi, which continued to be used long after the rebels at Masada committed suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. A Roman cohort remained at Ein Gedi until it was attacked by Jewish rebels in the Second Jewish Revolt, or Bar-Kokhba revolt (132–135 C.E.).

Again the site was essentially abandoned until the Late Roman period, when a new Jewish settlement arose on the plain east and northeast of the tell. This settlement flourished through the Byzantine period. Indeed, a beautiful synagogue from the Byzantine period (fourth–seventh centuries C.E.), excavated by Dan Barag, features two successive mosaic floors. The lower one is plain white except for a huge black swastika within a square in the center. A colorful upper mosaic floor displays two pairs of birds in a circle that is within a diamond and two rectangles. The corners of the outer rectangle are decorated with pairs of peacocks and bunches of grapes. Finds in the synagogue included a bronze menorah and a charred wooden disk from the bottom or top of a pole around which a Torah scroll was once rolled. A report on the excavation of the synagogue is not included in this volume; indeed, a final report (or even a preliminary report) has never been written.^b

Nor does this volume include reports on some recent excavations at the site, especially the Jewish villages excavated by Yizhar Hirschfeld, who unfortunately passed away recently at the age of 56. Fortunately, however, Hirschfeld wrote a handsome volume¹ on some of these excavations and an extensive article² on the rest.

In 1964 two small pieces of pottery were found on the tell that are inscribed with a few Hebrew letters—ancient “notepaper” called ostraca. Harvard’s 068Frank Cross, the only non-Israeli contributor to this volume, was asked to study them. Altogether they contain only six words, but this was enough for Cross to tell us that the language is Aramaic and, based on the shape and form of the letters, dates to about 375 B.C.E.—the Persian period, when, according to the excavators, perfume production was the raison d’etre of the settlement. However, these ostraca seem to tell another story.

The texts on the ostraca, only part of which survived, seem nearly identical. They are tags, presumably written by the foreman (or a scribe), stating that a woman worker (we don’t have her name, but we know from a word-ending she was likely a woman) had cleaned the hide of a young sheep. In short, there was a leather-production facility at Ein Gedi in the early fourth century B.C.E.

Cross describes the process of taking animal skins and turning them into leather: “Removal of the hair or wool of a skin was usually done in antiquity using basins with solutions of lime or urine … Bating [to remove the alkaline lime or urine], using animal dung, was often used after (or during) depilation to remove any lingering traces of hair roots and fat, and to impart softness and flexibility to the leather. Washings to rid the leather of the solutions of lime and/or dung were, of course, necessary … The manufacture of leather was odorous and despised so that isolation was desirable.”

Ein Gedi was an ideal location for a leather factory. Ample fresh water and salt water were readily available, as were the other necessary ingredients, such as acacia pods and bark containing tannin.

In his preliminary reports excavator Benjamin Mazar noted that later Greek, Roman and Talmudic sources attest to the production of balsam at Ein Gedi. Josephus, Pliny and Eusebius all refer to the fact that Ein Gedi was a center for the cultivation of balsam. These sources, of course, do not speak of the Persian period, but Stern notes that huge amounts of beautiful Attic (Greek) pottery from this period probably served as containers for “perfumes, which continued to be produced at the site as in the previous period.”

Stern concedes that “the inhabitants of Ein Gedi were also engaged in the tanning of animal hides” (emphasis supplied), as Cross contends. Cross, however, says that the ostraca he studied “suggest rather the existence of a leather industry here” (emphasis supplied).

Is Cross arguing that the tanning operation replaces (and refutes) the suggestion that Ein Gedi had a perfume operation? Or could a perfume factory and a leather-production factory coexist at the same site despite their distinctly (or stinkly) different odors?

Perhaps BAR readers can enlighten us on whether the coexistence of these two different industries at the site would be likely.

I have visited Ein Gedi, the oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea, a number of times. But not until I looked at this volume did I appreciate its rich variety of archaeological treasures.