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So Far No Cigar

They’ve found coins and pottery and arrangements of stones that may explain where the Qumranites resided, but no scrolls. That may change, however, by the time you read these words.

It’s always been a puzzle—where the Dead Sea Scroll people lived. The settlement at Qumran has been extensively excavated, but no domestic quarters have been discovered. The famous dining hall—the largest room in the complex—explains where they ate communal meals, but where did they sleep?

An expedition that still hopes to find scrolls may have the answer.

Hanan Eshel, a young Israeli archaeologist who probably knows the site and its environs as well as anyone, was walking the area trying, like others before him, to see if he could find paths from Cave 1, where the Bedouin found seven intact scrolls nearly 50 years ago, leading to the settlement. Hopefully, this would confirm once and for all that the caves where the scrolls were found were related, literally connected, to the settlement. But any possibility of finding these paths was eliminated by the Israeli army’s training in this area; if any ancient paths were to be seen leading from Cave 1, over a mile north of the settlement, the army equipment had long ago obliterated them.

Eshel had a flash: Instead of trying to find paths that led from the cave to the settlement, why not try to find paths that led from the settlement.

Eshel managed to find paths that led to several caves in the immediate area of the settlement. Surprisingly, half a dozen or more had never been excavated, even by the Bedouin. Some could not be because the ceilings had collapsed to an extent that even the shape of the cave could not be ascertained. Others were more accessible, although inside there were piles of ancient roof collapse.

Eshel teamed up with an old Dead Sea Scroll hand, recently retired curator of Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book, Magen Broshi, to mount an expedition to excavate the caves.

So far, with a team of about 20 volunteers in January 1996, they have excavated six caves without finding a single inscribed scrap. But they may have found evidence of where the Qumranites lived.

At least two of the caves show clear signs of having been lived in at the turn of the era, as evidenced by coins and an assemblage of domestic pottery—bowls, cups, cooking pots and storage jars. The latest coin dates to the second year of the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome—that is, 67 C.E., three years before the Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem and only a year before they destroyed the settlement at Qumran.

In addition, Eshel and Broshi found lines of stones that they believe, based on the patterns formed by the stones, mark the location of tents outside the caves. Eshel speculates that in winter, when occasional rains caused roof collapse in some of the caves, the Qumranites would move out of the caves and into tents for safety reasons. The caves are all in the marl terrace on which the settlement is built. They are man-made and the air in them is quite comfortable year round. This is far different, Eshel reports, from the dank, hot, stuffy, distinctly unpleasant feeling one gets in the limestone caves in the cliffs above the settlement. No one ever lived there. They were used only to hide scrolls. But the caves in the marl terrace are different, he says. The largest hoard of scrolls—Cave 4 with about 500 different manuscripts—was found in a cave in the marl terrace very near the caves Eshel and Broshi are excavating.

To make sure they don’t miss the tiniest scrap that may be inscribed, the excavators are sifting each basket of dirt they remove, even if it is roof collapse. So far no inscribed material has shown up. But they hope to go back into the field for three weeks in February. Then they intend to attack at least two collapsed caves that no one could have entered for millennia. Several years ago, Eshel excavated a cave near Jericho and found some inscribed papyrus 012fragments that, when rolled up, resembled cigarettes.^a This time, he’s hoping for a cigar.

The Case of the Missing Maccabee

“Not again,” said Yossi Levy with a small laugh, partly in jest and partly in exasperation. BAR had called Levy, Central Region Archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, to follow up on the Hasmonean fiasco. Lately, he has talked to a lot of reporters, trying to undo one of the biggest cases of archaeological misinformation in recent memory.

Last November, news reports flashed around the world: Israeli archaeologists had uncovered what may have been the burial caves of the Hasmoneans—the family, led by Judah Maccabee, that revolted against their Seleucid overlords and cleansed and rededicated the Jerusalem Temple in 164 B.C. in a military and religious victory celebrated today with the festival of Hannukah.

The caves were discovered in the course of expanding a major highway in the vicinity of Modi’in, ancestral home of the Hasmoneans. Archaeologists had come across three burial caves surrounding a small courtyard; inside the caves were 23 ossuaries, stone burial boxes in which bones were deposited after the body had decomposed.

Ironically, the newly found caves are near other caves that long ago were dubbed the Tomb of the Maccabees and that serve as the starting point for an annual Hannukah relay race, even though they date to the Byzantine period (fourth-fifth centuries A.D.).

One ossuary in particular seemed to contain electrifying evidence: It was said to be inscribed with the Hebrew letters het, shin and mem, equivalent to “Hasm … ” Fill in the missing letters and you get the first-ever artifact directly linked to the Hasmoneans. Except that the second letter is not a shin and the third letter is not a mem. But we’re getting ahead of our story …

As frequently happens now in Israel when a find is made involving human remains, the site was quickly descended upon by haredim, ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting what they saw as the desecration of graves. The Antiquities Authority had in fact managed to keep news of the discovery secret for two days. But word got out over the radio and within a half hour dozens of protesters had descended on the site, some 20 miles 013northwest of Jerusalem. The Antiquities Authority quickly turned over the bones to the Ministry of Religion for reburial and whisked the ossuaries off to an unspecified lab for further study.

Excitement over the find soon fizzled, however. About ten days after the discovery, the Antiquities Authority announced that it did not believe that the inscription read “Hasmonean” after all. So how did the inaccurate story get out? According to the Jerusalem Report, IAA archaeologist Shimon Riklin, who directed the excavation, was the source. Riklin denies it. He blames it on locals looking for publicity.

Antiquities Authority officials we reached all insist that they never made the Hasmonean claim. “Newspaper men made a lot of noise out of nothing,” Levy told BAR. He too says that when reporters descended on the area after the initial news about the cave discovery, they received faulty information from locals who were overeager to make a connection with the Hasmoneans. “They [the media] asked the wrong people what was going on,” Levy says. Yet it seems unlikely that reporters for major newspapers would have filed stories without checking with the excavator or someone in authority at the IAA.

Perhaps the eagerness to see a Hasmonean link may have been compounded by the fact that the discovery took place just weeks before the festival of Hannukah.

Even though the reading “Hasmonean” proved to be false, the find is yielding much information in its own right, according to Riklin. The tomb complex is a type found frequently in Jerusalem but only rarely outside the capital. The center and right-hand caves contained 22 ossuaries between them, and each bore loculi (kokhim), narrow openings in the cave wall for holding ossuaries or for initial interment. The left-hand cave contained only one ossuary, but also held tools, juglets, lamps and perfume bottles—all typical of the late Second Temple Period (end of second century B.C. to 70 A.D.).

In addition, three coins were found outside the caves; although they cannot be definitely linked to the burials inside the caves, the date of the coins—from the reign of John Hyrcanus (134–104 B.C.)—matches those of the other finds.

Riklin estimates that the ossuaries contained the remains of about 30 to 35 people—men, women and children, indicating that this was a family burial site. The ossuaries also yielded several inscriptions, the bulk of them, Riklin said, the names of women. Interestingly, most of the names were inscribed in Greek letters, with only a minority in Hebrew. The names were all typical of the late Second Temple Period—Miriam and Shimon, to cite two.

Riklin stressed that the discovery of the caves was noteworthy because it was the 014first large burial in a tomb similar to those in Jerusalem to be found well beyond the city. He speculated that the tomb complex belonged to a family originally from Modi’in who had moved to Jerusalem and wished to be buried back home.

And what of the name that wasn’t there? Joseph Naveh, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Israel’s senior epigrapher, emphasizes that the inscription is shallow and blurred, so very little is decipherable. He does say that the first letter is definitely a het, followed by a space wide enough for three additional letters provided that at least one of them is narrow, such as a vov. At the end of the line is the word “ben,” “son of.”

“Everyone in the IAA knew it didn’t say ‘Hasmonean,’” Naveh told BAR. “I confirmed for them that view.” Naveh added that the ossuaries were relatively simple ones, without decoration.

With the vanishing of the “Hasmonean” reading, the hoopla surrounding the caves in Modi’in quickly dissipated. Once the excavation there was complete, the religious protesters turned their attention to other digs, including several others still ongoing in Modi’in.

Although the tomb of the Maccabees eluded the excavators this time, they may yet find it nearby. If and when they do, their discovery will be spectacular, both for its intrinsic historical interest and for its sheer size. The First Book of Maccabees (13:27–30) records, “Simon [Maccabee] built a monument over the tomb of his father and his brothers; he made it high so that it might be seen, with polished stone at the front and back. He also erected seven pyramids, opposite one another, for his father and mother and four brothers. For the pyramids he devised an elaborate setting, erecting about them great columns, and on the columns he put suits of armor for a permanent memorial, and beside the suits of armor he carved ships, so that they could be seen by all who sail the sea. This is the tomb he built in Modi’in; it remains to this day.”

Festschrift—Plague or Praise?

I recently asked a prominent scholar if he would like to write something for one of our projects. “I would like to,” he replied, “but it would be criminal for me to accept another assignment.” He then enumerated the number of festschrift articles he had committed to write. I had to agree with him; he should accept no other assignments.

A festschrift—literally, writing celebration—is a book of articles in honor or in memory of a scholar by his friends and colleagues. Festschrifts usually begin coming for scholars reaching the age of 60. More commonly, he—and sometimes she—is presented with a festschrift at 65. Then they keep coming until the inevitable memorial festschrift, especially when the scholar has died young.

Of course it is difficult, if not impossible, to decline to write an article honoring a dear friend or colleague. So the pressure is great to accept festschrift assignments. Of late, there has been a sort of competition as to how many articles are in a festschrift; the more articles, the greater the honor. Some festschrifts include 60 or more articles. This has led to the recent phenomenon of the two-volume festschrift.

Then money must be raised to publish the festschrift, usually a very expensive production. While paperback festschrifts have been known, it is obviously better to present the honoree with as elegant a product as possible. Festschrifts are especially expensive productions because sales are very small. It is safe to say that no festschrift pays for itself.

Festschrifts tend to drain the energies of the most senior scholars because it is mainly their friends and colleagues who are being honored.

Sometimes very important articles are published in festschrifts, but then they are very hard to find since they do not appear in standard journals and the libraries that have festschrifts are few. It is ironic that in this age of the computer, it is still a mark of high scholarship to be able to cite a significant article in some obscure festschrift.

So the question arises: Should we dispense with festschrifts? Are they unduly siphoning off scholarly energies and funds? Shouldn’t scholars independently decide whether they 016should be working on an excavation report or a book of synthesis in the twilight of their career without the pressure of being obliged to spend so much time and intelligence on festschrift articles?

Some, on the other hand, would argue that festschrifts are a good thing. Not only do they honor deserving scholars, but they result in at least some production from otherwise lazy scholars.

Is there truth in both positions?

BAS Board Member to Head ASOR; Miller Resigns

Joe D. Seger, a member of BAR’s editorial advisory board and the director of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University, will succeed Eric Meyers as the president of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) on July 1, at the completion of Meyers’s six-year term.

This spring, shortly before Seger assumes leadership, ASOR’s offices will move to new quarters at Boston University, which were donated by that institution.

ASOR membership includes over 140 institutions in the United States. It also has three overseas affiliates—the William Foxwell Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, the American Center for Oriental Research in Jordan and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute.

Seger has held many leadership positions within ASOR; he is a member of ASOR’s Board of Trustees and Executive Committee, and chairs its Committee on Archaeological Policy. He has served as the president of the Albright Institute (1988–1994) and as a member of the advisory council for the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute.

Seger currently directs excavations at Lahav, Israel. He also directed Phase II of the Tell Gezer excavation. His numerous publications include, most recently, “Lahav Digmaster,” Biblical Archaeologist (June 1995) and “Gezer, a Twice-Told Tell, 1902–1909 and 1964–1974,” Biblical Archaeology Today 1990 (Israel Exploration Society, 1993). A book he edited, Retrieving the Past, Essays on Archaeological Research and Methodology in Honor of Gus W. Van Beek, will be published by the Cobb Institute in March.

On a related note, J. Maxwell Miller resigned as president of the Albright Institute during the November Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Miller led the institute for almost two years, approximately half his term, before turning in his resignation because he and longstanding director, Sy Gitin, had different visions for the direction of the organization. Patti Gerstenblith, former archaeologist and current DePaul University law teacher, is acting president of the institute’s Board of Trustees until a new appointment is made on July 1 of this year.

060

Institute of Archaeology Appoints New Director

Ten years ago we interviewed Amihai Mazar, then a rising young Israeli archaeologist. Now his career has reached a new height, having assumed the directorship of Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology this past fall. Mazar has directed excavations at Tell Qasile, Tel Batash, Timnah and Giloh. His appearances in BAR include “Bronze Bull Found in Israelite ‘High Place’ from the Time of the Judges,” BAR 09:05 and (with George Kelm) “Excavating in Samson Country—Philistines & Israelites at Tel Batash,” BAR 15:01, as well as our interview with him, (“A New Generation of Israeli Archaeologists Comes of Age,” BAR 10:03). His book, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000–586 B.C.E., received a BAS Publication Award in 1991.

Unclothing Masada’s Past

The siege of Masada is one of ancient Israel’s best-known events, but did you ever wonder what the fortress’s defenders wore? What about the Roman soldiers who besieged them? Thousands of textile fragments unearthed in Yigael Yadin’s 1963–1965 excavations of Masada are currently undergoing conservation and analysis in a project co-sponsored by Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Most of the fragments date from the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–73 A.D.) and were probably worn by the Jews who fled to Masada after the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., or by the Romans who laid siege to them at Masada.

The fragments reveal a great deal about the weaving techniques and clothing styles of the day. Men and women apparently dressed in the Greek style, with a rectangular mantle draped over a sleeveless tunic made from sewing two sheets together. Spindle whorls and loom weights discovered at the site suggest that some of the textiles were created there. Some fragments had decorative bands; many were dyed with plant dyes. The fragments of wool, linen and goat hair display a variety of weaving techniques. Fragments showing a sophisticated weaving technique are thought to be the Celtic and Germanic European garments of the Roman soldiers. Researchers have begun a computer database of the fragments, which include rare pieces of woven wool dyed royal purple. The arid desert climate kept the fragments remarkably well preserved, a gift to researchers but one that necessitates a laborious process of rehydration and cleaning.

The Scrolls Go Electric

There’s good news for you Dead Sea Scroll junkies out there: Now you can get your fix of scroll news electronically. Hebrew University’s Orion Center has recently begun a LISTSERV network to promote international discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to the comments of scholars, students and subscribers, the network offers bibliographies and information on lectures and meetings. To subscribe, write to majordomo@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il. Leave the subject line blank and write only “Subscribe Orion” as your message. Any questions about LISTSERV or the Orion Center can be sent to the center’s director, Michael Segal, at msorion@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il.

Correction

The address for the dig at Tel Hadar was listed incorrectly in “1996 Excavation Opportunities,” BAR 22:01. For more information, please write to Robyn Perricelli, Study Abroad, Ramapo College, 505 Ramapo Valley Rd., Mahwah, NJ 07430.

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Museum Guide

Pharaohs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from the Louvre

Through April 4, 1996

Thank goodness for renovations. A spruce-up at the Louvre has made possible this exhibit of items from the famed museum’s Egyptian collections. The show features artifacts from all the major periods of ancient Egypt’s 3,000 years of history. Only two of the 30 pieces, which range from 5-inch statuettes to monumental portraits, have ever been seen in the United States. The Pair Statuette of Akhenaten and Nefertiti has never been lent since it was acquired by the Louvre in 1938. Other famous works on display include the predynastic Bull Palette, depicting the king as a bull trampling the enemy; the red quartzite, IV-dynasty Head of Djedefra (the son of Cheops); the life-size Seated Statue of Sesostris III; and the marble Portrait of a Roman Emperor, thought to depict Nero in full pharaonic regalia. The exhibit focuses on kingship as the basis of ancient Egyptian civilization and examines royal portraits for insights into the traditions and innovations of Egyptian art. The great New Kingdom pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhenaten (with and without Queen Nefertiti), Tutankhamun and Ramesses II are each represented in sculpture and in painted relief. Related works from the Cleveland Museum’s collection will augment the items from the Louvre.

Pergamon: The Telephos Frieze from the Great Altar

Through April 14, 1996

Pergamon, in northwest Asia Minor, was one of the richest kingdoms of the Greek-speaking world from the mid-third century to the mid-second century B.C.E. Relief sculptures that adorned the great altar of the citadel of Pergamon form the heart of this exhibit. Among the most striking of the great altar’s friezes are those that tell the story of the kingdom’s legendary founder, Telephos. The exhibit features 40 marble sculptures (including the 12 blocks of the Telephos frieze), other fragmentary sculptural and architectural elements from the altar, and a model of the altar.

Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World

Through December 1, 1996

What role did synagogues play in ancient life? What did they look like? Featuring more than 100 rare artifacts never before displayed in the United States and manuscripts on loan from international collections, this interdisciplinary exhibition traces the early development of the synagogue from the third century B.C.E. to 700 C.E. With the aid of six elaborate scale models, twelve facsimiles of ritual objects, two videos and numerous photographic reproductions, the exhibit reveals how ancient synagogues reflected the ties between the various cultures of the Greco-Roman world and served as the antecedent not only for today’s Jewish houses of worship, but for Christian churches and Muslim mosques as well.

So Far No Cigar