“Bethlehem” from IAA Dig Found by Archaeologist IAA Arrested

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Life’s little ironies department: After the Muslim Waqf (the religious authority responsible for the Temple Mount) illegally excavated a huge hole on the Temple Mount with a bulldozer to widen access to an underground mosque and then dumped the excavated material into the adjacent Kidron Valley, a young archaeology student named Zachi Zweig began rummaging around to see if there were any ancient artifacts in the dump.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) had Zweig arrested for digging without a license.

Zweig’s teacher, prominent Jerusalem archaeologist Gaby Barkay, teamed up with him and obtained a permit to take the dumped dirt and sift it for ancient artifacts. Thus, in November 2004 began what is known as the Temple Mount Sifting Project. The dirt is not simply dry sifted but wet sifted, which removes any dirt encrusted on the ancient artifacts. Barkay and Zweig have been wildly successful.^a The number of finds is in the thousands and the number of volunteers who have participated in the sifting is in the tens of thousands. And it is still going on.

As its fame spread, other archaeologists began to send their excavated dirt to Barkay and Zweig to have it wet sifted. Even dirt that had been professionally excavated was found to contain stunning, sometimes tiny objects, such as seals and seal impressions, that had been missed in the excavation.

So, guess what? The IAA—which had once arrested Zweig for rummaging around the Waqf’s dump—decided that it, too, ought to send some dirt to Barkay and Zweig for wet sifting, paying Barkay and Zweig for their services. This, no doubt, was the ultimate compliment. It has been going on for more than a year.

Recently, the IAA’s investment in Barkay and Zweig paid off big time! The dirt came from the IAA’s excavation of the City of David, a dig long directed by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron (Reich has now retired as director).

The find is a tiny clay bulla about 0.6 inches (1.5 cm) wide; it contains for the first time in any ancient archaeological context the name of the city of Bethlehem. According to the Hebrew Bible, King David was born in Bethlehem, and according to the New Testament, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

A bulla is a seal impression. The seal itself was used to impress a small piece of clay that secured a shipment or document. In this case the seal is what is known as a “fiscal bulla.”^b While all the details are not completely clear, the fiscal bullae seem to be part of Judah’s taxation system in the time of Hezekiah (727–697 B.C.E.) or Manasseh (697–642 B.C.E.). Taxes in kind, such as grain or oil, were paid to the central administration in Jerusalem. The bulla indicated the city from which the payment had come.

More than 50 fiscal bullae have been recovered, but this is only the second one recovered from a professional archaeological excavation. (The first was also recovered in Barkay and Zweig’s wet sifting project.) The rest have come from the antiquities market.

The three-line Bethlehem bulla reads as follows:

בשבעת

ביתלחם

למלכ

BSB‘T

[B]YTLHM

[LML]K

“In the seventh (year of the king’s reign) (taxes from the City of) [B]ethlehem, to (or “for”) the king.”

Note that, as shown in epigrapher Robert Deutsch’s drawing above left, seven of the letters (out of 11) are incomplete, but enough is there to identify them. The first letter of Bethlehem is missing, but the remainder of the letters are enough to identify the city. The first three letters of the third line are also missing, but even one letter is enough to identify this common expression in ancient inscriptions. The three registers of the inscription are separated by line dividers.—H.S.

Life’s little ironies department: After the Muslim Waqf (the religious authority responsible for the Temple Mount) illegally excavated a huge hole on the Temple Mount with a bulldozer to widen access to an underground mosque and then dumped the excavated material into the adjacent Kidron Valley, a young archaeology student named Zachi Zweig began rummaging around to see if there were any ancient artifacts in the dump. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) had Zweig arrested for digging without a license. Zweig’s teacher, prominent Jerusalem archaeologist Gaby Barkay, teamed up with him and obtained a permit to take the dumped […]