Last March, a team led by University of Haifa archaeologist Adam Zertal happened upon a small, unassuming entrance of a cave while conducting an archaeological survey in the Jordan Valley north of Jericho. Peeking through the narrow opening in the rock face, however, Zertal quickly realized he had made a big discovery—a really big one.
Zertal and his team had stumbled across the largest manmade cave ever discovered in Israel, outside of Jerusalem, a massive underground hall of more than an acre with a 10-foot-high ceiling supported by 20 giant rock-hewn pillars.
The cave’s walls were covered with several Roman and Christian symbols, including Latin letters, a zodiac design, a possible depiction of a Roman legion banner and more than 30 crosses.
The carvings, as well as pottery outside the cave, indicate that the cave was in use from approximately the first century A.D. until at least the sixth century, according to Zertal.
But what was the cave used for?
The cave’s blockish and heavily chiseled interior suggests that originally it was hewn out of the surrounding bedrock as a massive underground stone quarry, perhaps as early as the late first century B.C., when Herod the Great inaugurated an extensive building program in the southern Jordan Valley. Holes chiseled into the bedrock helped secure the quarrymen’s pack animals, while oil lamps placed in recesses in the cave’s pillars provided illumination. Given the size of the cave and its varied engravings, Zertal believes the quarry remained an active worksite well into the Byzantine period (fourth to sixth centuries A.D.).
Zertal thinks the cave might be identified with the site of Galgala on the famous sixth-century Madaba mosaic map, a place he says was mistakenly understood by the Byzantines to be the site of Biblical Gilgal, where the tribes of Israel set up 12 standing stones before crossing the Jordan River (Joshua 4). Galgala is also referred to on the map as Dodekaliton (Greek for “The Twelve Stones”) and, below the name, the map shows a church and 12 white stones. Though “twelve stones” is an obvious reference to the Biblical story, Zertal believes the map may have also been referring to the site of the newly discovered underground quarry. “During the Roman era, it was customary to construct temples of stones that were brought from a holy place,” said Zertal. “If our assumption is correct—that in the Byzantine period the place was identified as Biblical Gilgal—it became revered. And that is why they would have dug an underground quarry there—for holy stones to be used elsewhere.” Indeed, Zertal believes the crosses carved into the walls and pillars of the cave give some indication of the cave’s significance, as a holy site and the source of especially revered building blocks, though he notes that much more research is needed and other interpretations are possible.
Last March, a team led by University of Haifa archaeologist Adam Zertal happened upon a small, unassuming entrance of a cave while conducting an archaeological survey in the Jordan Valley north of Jericho. Peeking through the narrow opening in the rock face, however, Zertal quickly realized he had made a big discovery—a really big one. Zertal and his team had stumbled across the largest manmade cave ever discovered in Israel, outside of Jerusalem, a massive underground hall of more than an acre with a 10-foot-high ceiling supported by 20 giant rock-hewn pillars. The cave’s walls were covered with several […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
