Modern archaeology has a long history of colorful characters and serendipitous discoveries. Occasionally, the two go hand in hand. Or should I say, paw in paw, for some of the greatest and luckiest finds have resulted from chance discoveries made by the most unexpected participants—animals.
In this article I will discuss significant archaeological discoveries indirectly attributable to a goat, two dogs and a partridge. Although the finds to which these animals alerted humans have become famous, the incidental contributions of the nonhuman participants have often gone unrecognized.
My first tale may be familiar to long-time BAR readers.1 It begins one morning in the winter of 1946–1947, when three Bedouin herdsmen of the Ta’amireh tribe, Khalil Musa, his cousin Jum’a Muhammed Khalil and the 15-year-old Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed, were tending their sheep and goats in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran, near the Dead Sea. The nearby spring of Ein Feshka provided the flock with water, and the cliffs above supplied food. Muhammed Khalil, nicknamed “edh-Dhib,” meaning “fierce like a wolf,” was fond of exploring the surrounding caves for possible treasure, but not this day, for he had lost a goat. Searching for food, the stray animal had scaled the craggy rocks. As Muhammed edh-Dhib scrambled after the goat, he spied a small hole among the rocks, barely large enough for a cat to enter. He tossed a stone through the opening and was surprised to hear the sound of shattering pottery. Although he thought the cave might contain gold, Muhammed did not immediately go in, some accounts tell us, because he feared the presence of an evil spirit. Instead, he hurriedly departed to inform his two cousins. Although all three were too busy to explore the cave immediately, they agreed to return soon. Three days later Muhammed left his sleeping cousins and went back to the cave alone. Successfully slipping through the narrow crevice, he observed about ten jars along the walls. Inside them he discovered three bundles, wrapped in cloth and leather. The goat had led him to the first Dead Sea Scrolls, including the great Isaiah scroll, the Habakkuk Commentary and the Manual of Discipline, in what came to be known as Qumran Cave 1. The cave eventually yielded seven scrolls.a
Amazingly, Muhammad’s goat was not the only animal to play a significant role in the annals of modern Dead Sea cave exploration, for a bird alerted the Ta’amireh Bedouin to the existence of an additional scroll cave.
Following the discovery of Cave 1, a frantic desert race began between the Ta’amireh Bedouin, who hunted scrolls for financial profit, and scholars, who sought these priceless documents for the knowledge they would shed upon the ancient world. One evening around a campfire, as Ta’amireh tribesmen discussed the recent excavations of the Qumran settlement, an elder of the tribe recalled a cave that he had chanced upon in his youth.2 While hunting partridge in this very area, he remembered, he had chased a wounded bird that had fallen behind the plateau. Flapping along the ground, the bird had escaped through a narrow crevice among the rocks along a cliff. Following the bird through the crevice, the Bedouin hunter had found himself in a large chamber hewn out of the marl terrace. An ancient pottery lamp lay in a small niche in the wall and broken jars were strewn upon the floor. Perhaps these jars too contained ancient scrolls!
Equipped with ropes and lamps for cave exploration and illicit digging, the Ta’amireh Bedouin set off in search of the cave the next day. They eventually located the site, but this cave would not so readily give up its secrets. The Bedouin were forced to dig through several feet of choking dust before uncovering thousands of scroll fragments—the largest collection of Dead Sea Scrolls ever found! Working in shifts the Bedouin uncovered the majority of the fragments before scholars even learned of their discovery. Although archaeologists had excavated and surveyed the adjacent Qumran plateau in full view of this cave,b they may never have discovered the cave (today known as Cave 4) without the assistance of the Bedouin and the wounded partridge.
The discovery of ancient texts in caves beside the Dead Sea is not just a recent phenomenon, and in medieval times, too, animals have led bipeds to these hidden treasures. One such account, dating to about 800 C.E., is preserved in a letter written by Timotheus I of Seleucia, the Nestorian Patriarch in Baghdad, to Sergius the Metropolitan of Elam.3 Retelling a story that he had learned from some Jewish converts ten years before, Timotheus writes that, one day, an Arab lost his dog while hunting near Jericho. The animal had chased some game into a nearby cave and had failed to return. When the hunter followed his dog into the cavern, he discovered a chamber containing many books. Returning to Jerusalem, he informed the Jewish community, who sought out the cave in great 043numbers. When Timotheus heard this story, he asked a scholar present among the converts about certain puzzling New Testament passages that are presented as quotations from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) but are not found there. The convert responded that these passages were contained within the newly discovered writings, along with more than 200 psalms of David. Still curious, Timotheus wrote to two other church officials asking them to investigate the discovered writings.
Although nothing further is recorded concerning this discovery or of any subsequent influence that these scrolls may have had upon the Jewish community, this story continues to ignite the imagination of contemporary scroll scholars.4 But the whereabouts of the ancient texts reported by Timotheus are a mystery today, and any connection with Qumran and the Essenes is a matter of scholarly conjecture. It is interesting to speculate about some link, however, for the mysterious Copper Scroll from Qumran records hidden scrolls in this very area!c
Our final archaeological discovery attributable to an animal occurred not among the remote caves of the Dead Sea, but in Jerusalem, and it involved one of the most obscure—but undoubtedly one of the most intriguing—archaeological pioneers of Jerusalem. A former owner of Thomas Jefferson’s estate of Monticello, James Turner Barclay came to Jerusalem in 1851 as a medical missionary for the Disciples of Christ, an emerging American denomination.5 Sent to introduce the populace to his denomination’s frontier Christianity, Barclay failed. He apparently found exploring Jerusalem’s archaeological remains far more engrossing than converting souls. His rigid theological convictions and disdain for existing religious denominations did not help either. His reputation among the Christian community as a troublemaker resulted in his eviction from the Latin mass at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 1852. Thus, during his tenure in Jerusalem, Barclay sought most of his friends from the city’s Muslim population, and his friendship with Muslim leaders afforded him frequent access to historical sites then off-limits to westerners. Among these forbidden locations were portions of the mosque complex on the Temple Mount.d
Barclay’s general skepticism, combined with his astute powers of observation, led him to question the authenticity of many of Jerusalem’s traditional religious sites. As he explored Jerusalem and began to map the visible remains of the ancient city, Barclay discovered a door lintel in the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The lintel turned out to be part of the sole gate preserved in its entirety and dating to the time of the Jerusalem Temple.e Located in the women’s section of the Western Wall, “Barclay’s Gate” is daily observed and photographed by countless visitors.6
Although Barclay made numerous contributions to understanding ancient Jerusalem, his dog incidently contributed to another major archaeological discovery. Hearing rumors of a cavern beneath the city, Barclay attempted to locate its entrance, which successive governors of Jerusalem had carefully buried to discourage exploration of this cave.
Although previous explorers had failed to uncover its location, Barclay’s dog, while digging for a bone along the city wall near the Damascus Gate, discovered the buried entrance. This cave is named Zedekiah’s Grotto, for according to legend King Zedekiah eluded the Babylonian army in 587 B.C.E. by secretly passing through this cavern, out of Jerusalem and on to Jericho.
The cave is also popularly known as Solomon’s Quarries, for early archaeologists believed that King Solomon used stones from this cave to build his Temple. Most likely, Herod the Great obtained building stones from this cavern during his rebuilding of Jerusalem.7 The dog’s discovery of the cavern reintroduced the western world to the cave, which remains a popular tourist site beneath the Old City of Jerusalem.
These stories of unintended and humbling discoveries remind us that observant amateurs, assisted by luck and, perhaps, a keen, canine sense of smell, can make the most spectacular of finds. Perhaps even greater discoveries await the aspiring archaeologist and animal lover who can embark upon his or her own archaeological voyage by becoming an excavation volunteer.
Modern archaeology has a long history of colorful characters and serendipitous discoveries. Occasionally, the two go hand in hand. Or should I say, paw in paw, for some of the greatest and luckiest finds have resulted from chance discoveries made by the most unexpected participants—animals. In this article I will discuss significant archaeological discoveries indirectly attributable to a goat, two dogs and a partridge. Although the finds to which these animals alerted humans have become famous, the incidental contributions of the nonhuman participants have often gone unrecognized. My first tale may be familiar to long-time BAR readers.1 It begins […]
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The following account is based upon John Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reappraisal, 2d ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1964), pp. 17–36; Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking Press, 1956), pp. 3–28; G. Lankester Harding, “Introductory,” in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, I: Qumran Cave I, eds. D. Barthélemy and J.T. Milik (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), pp. 3–7; Frank Moore Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran & Modern Biblical Studies, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1961), pp. 3–12; John C. Trever, “The Discovery of the Scrolls,” Biblical Archaeologist 11 (1948), pp. 46–57; John C. Trever, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Personal Account, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 96–110 and appendix I. A later, slightly embellished account by the Bedouin discoverer of the scrolls was recorded by William Brownlee, “Muhammad Ed-Deeb’s Own Story of His Scroll Discovery,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 16 (1957), pp. 236–239. For the subsequent scholarly debate over this interview see John C. Trever, “When Was Qumran Cave I Discovered?” Revue de Qumran 9 (1961), pp. 136–141; William Brownlee, “Edh-Dheeb’s Story of His Scroll Discovery,” Revue de Qumran 12 (1962), pp. 483–494; William Brownlee, “Some New Facts Concerning the Discovery of the Scrolls of 1Q,” Revue de Qumran 15 (1963), pp. 417–420; Cross, pp. 5–6, n. 1. (Trever’s spelling of Bedouin names is adopted throughout this article).
2.
Accounts of the discovery of Cave 4 are found in Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 43–44; and Millar Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking Press, 1958), p. 28.
3.
The significance of this letter was first observed by Otto Eissfeldt, “Der Anlass zur Entdeckung der Höhle und ihr ähnliche Vorgänge aus älterer Zeit,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 10 (1949), pp. 597–600. A readily available English translation of this document may be found in, Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect (London: Weidenfelf and Nicolson, 1985), pp. 98–99.
4.
The following recent and controversial books both discuss Timotheus’s letter: Norman Golb, Who Wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls?: The Search for the Secret of Qumran (New York: Scribner, 1995), pp. 105–110; Neil Asher Silberman, The Hidden Scrolls: Christianity, Judaism, and the War for the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994), pp. 35–36.
5.
“The Soul of Dr. Barclay Walks East Again,” in The Christian-Evangelist 21 January 1926, p. 3; Jack P. Lewis, “James Turner Barclay: Explorer of Ninteenth-Century Jerusalem,” Biblical Archaeologist 51 (1988), pp. 163–170. Many of Barclay’s archaeological adventures can be found in his letters from Jerusalem in The Jerusalem Mission: Under the Direction of the American Christian Missionary Society, compiled by D.S. Burnet (Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853). Barclay’s own public account of his archaeological discoveries appeared as The City of the Great King: or Jerusalem As It Was, As It Is, and As It Is Meant To Be (Philadelphia: James Challen and Sons, 1858).
6.
Barclay, The City of the Great King, pp. 489–491. This gate, one of the five original Temple Mount entrances, has been identified by modern scholars as the “Kiponus Gate” cited in the Mishnah, Middoth, 1:3. For additional information, photographs and a reconstructed drawing of Barclay’s Gate, see Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple: The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1985), pp. 140–144.
7.
Barclay, The City of the Great King, pp. 459–469. For the legends concerning this cave its history, and photographs, see Meir Ben-Dov, Jerusalem Man and Stone: An Archaeologist’s Personal View of His City (Tel-Aviv: Modan Publishing House, 1990), pp. 262–266.
