Beth Yeraḥ

A SALVAGE EXCAVATION ON THE SOUTHERN EDGE OF THE MOUND

In 1994–1995 the Israel Antiquities Authority conducted a salvage excavation at the southern edge of Tel Beth Yeraḥ in connection with the widening of Highway 90. It was directed by N. Getzov. Work was conducted in two excavation areas: area AB on the western side of the highway included a 3–4-m-wide and 85-m-long strip, while area C involved straightening of a section (east of the highway) cut during previous highway construction. Four Early Bronze Age strata (V–II) and a Hellenistic stratum (I) were identified. The strata are local to the excavation areas.

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IB (STRATUM V). Remains of four phases of fortifications in area AB were noted in this stratum. In the earliest phase, W190 was erected at the upper edge of the natural hill upon which the tell developed. The wall was constructed of bricks laid upon two level terraces cut into the virgin soil and remained standing to a height of approximately 4 m; its width could not be determined. At the base of the southern face of the wall was a repair that included facing with two courses of fieldstones and a brick superstructure. In the following phases, the wall was widened (W191), destroyed, and rebuilt (W156). To the final phase belong very large brick collapses found above and sealing the destruction level of the previous phases. These collapses apparently came from another wall, the base of which was removed when foundations of a later wall were constructed. A similar picture emerges from the section in area C, where remains of W190 and W191 were especially prominent.

Within an area extending 30 m north of the wall were found layers of earth and ash, floors, concentrations of pottery, and isolated building remains. In the rest of the excavation area, the remains from stratum V were poor and it appears that most were removed in the course of leveling activity in stratum IV.

All of the pottery finds from stratum V, including the accumulation that preceded the construction of the walls and sherds found amid the bricks, is uniformly dated to the Early Bronze Age IB. This excavation found no evidence for earlier installations or ones reflecting the transition to the Early Bronze Age II, as were found at Tel Shalem and Tel Yaqush. The Early Bronze Age IB fortifications at Tel Shalem and at Beth Yeraḥ show that these sites were consistently refortified, whether in response to the destruction of the fortifications by man or nature.

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE II (STRATUM IV). Dense remains of buildings that apparently served as dwellings, with ceilings supported by columns, were uncovered from stratum IV in area AB. The pottery assemblage of this stratum is dominated by the metallic wares and parallels the main pottery assemblage from the tomb found at Chinnereth, and thus should be attributed to the Early Bronze Age II. No evidence for a public building is apparent in the area of the 1995 excavations. The absence of fortification remains dated to this period is also noteworthy.

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IIIA (STRATUM III). Atop the remains of the stratum V fortification wall was constructed another fortification wall (W110, 4.8 m wide), with a basalt foundation surmounted by brickwork. Within the wall and throughout area AB were found remains of buildings with narrow walls (c. 60 cm wide) that apparently belong to residential dwellings. Remains of this fortification wall were also encountered in area C.

A tunnel was constructed running parallel to the wall and some 35 m to its north. It was built within a trench dug in the accumulations of debris of the earlier strata and in virgin Lisan Formation soil. It consists of five to seven courses of basalt stones, with the upper three courses corbelled to produce a kind of vault-like structure. The tunnel is the earliest example of corbelled roof construction in the Land of Israel.

Most of the stratum III remains may be attributed to a single building phase and the deposits of this stratum are not very thick. This may indicate that the stratum III city existed for a relatively short period. Vessels were often found in situ on the floors of the buildings, possibly indicating that the inhabitants of the city hurriedly departed. Prominent in the pottery assemblage are vessels of light-colored fabric with a thin red slip; many of the platters were decorated with stripes of radial burnishing or net-pattern burnishing. This assemblage is dated to the Early Bronze Age IIIA.

Building remains and strata with finds clearly paralleling those of stratum III were found in all of the numerous excavation areas of the expedition from the Oriental Institute of Chicago. Particularly prominent is the oil press found in area K–H. It thus appears that the entire area of the tell was intensively inhabited during the Early Bronze Age IIIA.

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IIIB (STRATUM II). Along the inner side of the stratum III wall, a new brick wall (W109, 4.9 m wide) with a solid stone foundation was erected in a ditch cutting through buildings abutting the stratum III wall. Wall 109 was widened during its use (by W117, 2.1 m wide) to a total width of 7 m; the wall was also encountered in the area C section, but was built there abutting W110 and was not widened.

In area AB no dense building complex was uncovered and the architectural elements identified as belonging to stratum II were widely dispersed. On the other hand, thick deposits attributable to this stratum were found that attest to the city having been densely inhabited for a lengthy period of time and include, in some cases, evidence for a number of building phases. It is possible that the paucity of building remains is due to the use of brick construction without stone foundations, the destroyed walls leaving nothing in situ.

All of the stratum II accumulations contain Beth Yeraḥ ware pottery, and it appears that nearly the entire range of vessels utilized during this period belongs to that family. The sudden appearance of this ware certainly attests to the settlement here of a new population with cultural roots in a distant region. The Beth Yeraḥ ware allows for a confident dating of the stratum to the Early Bronze Age III. As it postdates stratum III, in which Beth Yeraḥ ware does not occur, it is referred to as the Early Bronze Age IIIB.

Wall 109, atop the remains of the fortification at the edge of the tell, is unmistakably a part of the wall with round and square towers exposed in the excavations conducted by P. Bar-Adon for the Department of Antiquities, but attributed by R. Hestrin to the Hellenistic period. Wall 109 is clearly not Hellenistic, however, since Hellenistic period tombs were cut into its top (see below). It would rather appear to date to the Early Bronze Age IIIB.

THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD (STRATUM I). Buildings from the Hellenistic period town of Philoteria were found only in part of the excavated area (northern area AB) while tombs from the town were discovered next to the edge of the tell (southern area AB), indicating that this area lay beyond the city limits. Moreover, in southern area AB no evidence was found for any fortifications later than the Early Bronze Age.

The orientation of the buildings of stratum I is markedly different from those of preceding strata, as was noted in the first season of excavations conducted by the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society (now the Israel Exploration Society) by B. Mazar and M. Stekelis in 1944–1945 and in other excavations. The new orientation is parallel to the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee rather than the edge of the tell and the ancient Early Bronze Age fortification wall. The correspondence between the results of our excavation and those conducted on the southeastern part of the tell by O. Yogev and E. Eisenberg in the 1980s illustrates uniform urban planning in these two parts of the town.

The finds in the 1995 excavation attest to a settlement from the third to the mid-second centuries BCE. The dating of the remains to the third century BCE is in conformity with the historical data on the founding of Philoteria by Ptolemy II and its conquest toward the end of that century by Antiochus III. Despite this, the dating of the end of the settlement in the second half of the second century BCE contradicts historical data concerning its conquest by Alexander Jannaeus. It can thus be assumed that the Hellenistic settlement of Beth Yeraḥ of that time was located elsewhere on the tell, not an unlikely possibility given the dynamic nature of the history of the settlements here after the destruction of the cities of the Early Bronze Age (with the Persian period settlement in the southeast of the tell, and the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad settlements in the north of the tell). Perhaps the Hasmonean period settlement should be located on the southeastern part of the tell, given the Eastern terra sigillata pottery found east of the Yogev and Eisenberg excavation.

NIMROD GETZOV

RENEWED EXCAVATIONS AND RESEARCH

Salvage work continued at Tel Beth Yeraḥ during the final two decades of the twentieth century. Israel Antiquities Authority excavations were conducted in the southern part of the site by E. Eisenberg (1981–1982) and O. Yogev (1985–1986), who unknowingly reexcavated and expanded the middle section of B. Mazar’s 1944–1945 trench, and by N. Getzov, in 1994–1995, who worked alongside Highway 90 in the southwestern part of the site (see above), thus expanding on the salvage work undertaken by N. Makhouly in 1933, when the road was first built. In 2001, a program of research and publication was begun by a Tel Aviv University team headed by R. Greenberg, intended to bring together the unpublished results of the first six decades of excavation at the site. In 2003, this team renewed excavations, on a limited scale, in the Circles Building (granary).

REVISED STRATIGRAPHY. The revised stratigraphy for the site is as follows:

Period A, characterized by gray burnished ware of the early type, was identified in several excavation areas in the northeast quadrant of the mound. It did not reach the southern excavation areas and apparently stopped short of the western edge of the mound. No architecture can be assigned to this stratum, but judging by its extent—perhaps up to 1.5 a.—it represents a site of considerable importance.

In periods B, C, and D, occupation covered the entire mound; however, differences in local stratification indicate that the intensity of occupation varies across the site. Thus, in the southernmost part of the mound as many as four strata of period C and six of period D were identifiable, whereas these numbered as few as two strata each in areas excavated in the center and north. A notable find of the 1985–1986 excavations was a locally made Early Bronze Age II jug bearing a graffito in hieroglyphic characters, interpreted by P. Kaplony as the private name hem khasti. The carver of this inscription might have been an agent of the Egyptian crown, as comparable finds have been made in royal tombs of the First Dynasty at Abydos.

A small (c. 1-a.) post-urban village from period E, built in the shadow of the Early Bronze Age fortifications, was excavated by P. Bar Adon in 1951–1953. The pottery of this transitional stratum is characterized by the disappearance of dominant Early Bronze Age types, such as platters and Khirbet Kerak ware, and by the introduction of post-Early Bronze Age forms, such as heavy four-spouted lamps and hole-mouth pots with simple bands of incised triangles below the rim. The Intermediate Bronze Age as such is not, however, represented on the mound, with the possible exception of a single burial deposit found on the south slope.

Period F represents a late Middle Bronze Age IIA occupation at the southeast tip of the mound. The remains of this occupation consist of a large open area strewn with potters’ kilns (at least three) north of the Early Bronze Age fortifications and a few structural remains to their south. Approximately 15 burials were identified in the open area. These burials appear to be coeval with the settlement, though the latest burials, inserted into one of the kilns, seemingly mark the final abandonment of the site on the cusp of the Middle Bronze Age II.

Dominant among the later remains are those of the Hellenistic period. A spacious and well-planned settlement existed in the southeastern part of the site during this period, identified in the Mazar, Bar-Adon, and Eisenberg-Yogev excavations. Elsewhere, Hellenistic occupation was sporadic, sometimes consisting of pits only, sometimes of fairly substantial architecture. Roman remains were reported by the early excavators, but could be ephemeral. For remarks on late antique periods, see below.

THE CIRCLES BUILDING. Renewed study of this building, dated to the Early Bronze Age III, adds the following points to the previous report: (1) The number of circles actually identified in the building is seven, and two more have been reconstructed beneath the late period bathhouse. (2) The ovens (one of them a potter’s kiln), plastered installations, and courtyard steps described in earlier reports represent a late phase of use in the structure. This phase appears to be characterized by the compartmentalization of the huge structure into various workshops, and its finds have little bearing on the original use of the structure. (3) Excavations in 2003 revealed at least two floor levels in one of the circles, and several wall-lines may be observed within the stone fill of the podium. These too suggest that the structure had a complex history of construction and use.

FORTIFICATIONS. Excavations in 1945, 1952–1954, and 1994–1995 revealed parts of three fortification systems (A, B, and C), all of which are to be attributed to the Early Bronze Age. Wall A is the 8-m-thick mud-brick fortification identified at various points along the southern perimeter of the mound. This wall, which was built in several stages and furnished with at least one gate located at the southeastern corner of the mound, was in use during the Early Bronze Age II, although its construction could have begun in the Early Bronze Age I. In the Early Bronze Age III the gate was blocked and a new wall, B, was built atop the brick wall, this time with low stone foundations. This wall appears to have been largely dismantled during the construction of the third fortification system, and is only found sporadically along the southern and western perimeter. Wall C is the massive, well-preserved, stone and mud-brick system excavated by P. Bar-Adon over a length of some 700 m (not as stated in Vol. 1). Though showing some traces of Hellenistic reuse, both the Bar-Adon and Getzov excavations demonstrate its original Early Bronze Age III date. Quantities of Khirbet Kerak ware were discovered in several of wall C’s towers, and it is clearly abutted by both Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age deposits. (See above descriptions of these fortification systems, designated differently, resulting from N. Getzov’s excavations on the southern edge of the mound.)

THE LATE PERIODS. Several discussions of the late period remains in the north of the mound suggest that previous interpretations need to be revised. R. Reich and D. Whitcomb have certainly laid to rest the interpretation of the fortified basilical structure excavated by P. L. O. Guy and P. Bar-Adon as a synagogue. The close association between this structure and the bathhouse adjoining it on the south (the same bath that overlies the Early Bronze Age Circles Building) has prompted Whitcomb to identify the structure as an Umayyad palace. This interpretation might be supported by the two coins of that period found during the original excavations of the bathhouse. In any event, reanalysis of the stratigraphy overlying the Circles Building indicates that there was yet another phase postdating both the bath and the fortress, datable to either the Early Islamic period or even early medieval times.

RAPHAEL GREENBERG

A SALVAGE EXCAVATION ON THE SOUTHERN EDGE OF THE MOUND

In 1994–1995 the Israel Antiquities Authority conducted a salvage excavation at the southern edge of Tel Beth Yeraḥ in connection with the widening of Highway 90. It was directed by N. Getzov. Work was conducted in two excavation areas: area AB on the western side of the highway included a 3–4-m-wide and 85-m-long strip, while area C involved straightening of a section (east of the highway) cut during previous highway construction. Four Early Bronze Age strata (V–II) and a Hellenistic stratum (I) were identified. The strata are local to the excavation areas.

THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IB (STRATUM V). Remains of four phases of fortifications in area AB were noted in this stratum. In the earliest phase, W190 was erected at the upper edge of the natural hill upon which the tell developed. The wall was constructed of bricks laid upon two level terraces cut into the virgin soil and remained standing to a height of approximately 4 m; its width could not be determined. At the base of the southern face of the wall was a repair that included facing with two courses of fieldstones and a brick superstructure. In the following phases, the wall was widened (W191), destroyed, and rebuilt (W156). To the final phase belong very large brick collapses found above and sealing the destruction level of the previous phases. These collapses apparently came from another wall, the base of which was removed when foundations of a later wall were constructed. A similar picture emerges from the section in area C, where remains of W190 and W191 were especially prominent.