New Dig Reports: After the Dust Settles—Two Veteran Excavations

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In this issue, we highlight two impressive archaeological volumes—both from sites in Israel, one in the Negev, the other in the Golan Heights. These volumes represent decades of excavation and analysis.

Gamla

Gamla III: The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations 1976‒1989, Finds and Studies Part 1. IAA Reports 56

By Danny Syon
(Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2014), 259 pp., 103 images, $30 (paperback)

A city on a hill in the Golan Heights, Gamla has a superb vantage of the surrounding area and the Sea of Galilee below. No wonder it was one of the main Jewish strongholds against the Romans during the First Jewish Revolt. Now in ruins, the hillside features houses made of black basalt stone and a synagogue that functioned while the Temple still stood in Jerusalem.

The site has remains from the Chalcolithic through Roman periods. During the Early Bronze Age, Galma was a large settlement, but it eventually fell out of use and was not settled again until the Hellenistic period. By the time of the First Jewish Revolt, Gamla was “the strongest city in those parts [Galilee],” according to Josephus.

Jewish Zealots gained control of Gamla and fortified it in 66 A.D., but their efforts were not enough to keep the Romans at bay very long. Vespasian marched against Gamla in 67 A.D. to squash the rebellion and to sever any lifeline to the north, and he ultimately succeeded. The site was never inhabited again.

In this volume, Danny Syon writes an introduction that summarizes the history of Gamla. The rest of the chapters are devoted to an analysis of the weapons, military equipment and coins uncovered at the site. The second part of Gamla III is scheduled to be published by the end of 2015. That volume will analyze more of the small finds from the site—glass vessels, jewelry, stone vessels, metal weights and textiles, as well as the faunal and botanical remains, and more.

Tell Jemmeh

The Smithsonian Institution Excavation at Tell Jemmeh, Israel, 1970‒1990. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 50

Edited by David Ben-Shlomo and Gus W. Van Beek
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2014), xxxiv + 1087 pp., 941 figures, 77 tables, available for free digital download at http://bit.ly/Tell-Jemmeh-Report

In the Negev—near the border of the Gaza Strip—the mound of Tell Jemmeh sits along the ancient (and modern) north-south Coastal Highway. This tell boasts remains from the Chalcolithic through the Persian period. Tell Jemmeh was originally excavated by W.J. Pithian-Adams in 1922 and then, more extensively, by Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie—the father of Palestinian archaeology—in 1926‒1927.

A third expedition to the site was led by the late Gus Van Beek^a on behalf of the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History. This volume represents the work of the past 45 years—including 12 seasons of excavation between 1970 and 1990, as well as the research, synthesis and interpretation of David Ben-Shlomo and Gus Van Beek.

During the Bronze Age, Tell Jemmeh functioned as a Canaanite border town with Egypt to the south. Later, Tell Jemmeh would fall under the control of the Philistines and then the Assyrians. The excavation yielded many archaeological discoveries, some of the most significant being a Bronze Age courtyard house, a pottery kiln from the Iron I Age, an Assyrian administrative building from the end of the Iron II Age and a granary from the Persian period.

In this issue, we highlight two impressive archaeological volumes—both from sites in Israel, one in the Negev, the other in the Golan Heights. These volumes represent decades of excavation and analysis.
Gamla

Gamla III: The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations 1976‒1989, Finds and Studies Part 1. IAA Reports 56