Queries & Comments

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Once Was Blind, But Now I See

A few years ago my eyesight was poor. I canceled my subscription to BAR because I really didn’t read it much. Since my cataract operation, however, I’ve been reading more. I subscribed to BAR again and find it exciting, slyly humorous and helpful with Bible study as well as general history.

I think there has been a change in your approach, with more appeal to laymen. If not, I have changed!

The Deplorable State of the Akeldama Tombs

Besides fueling my armchair adventures, your instructive, thought-provoking articles often take on a second life as invaluable “on-the-ground” guides to my travels in the Land of the Bible. In June 1998, armed with your November/December 1994 issue (see “Akeldama: Potter’s Field or High Priest’s Tomb?” BAR 20:06), a friend and I set out to locate and explore Jerusalem’s Akeldama-area Second Temple tombs, especially the one identified as the tomb of Annas and his sons, the first-century A.D. high priestly family known to us from the New Testament and Josephus.

Thanks to your sidebar on the deplorable state of the Annas tomb, we went prepared for a less-than-pristine site, but were still shocked by what we found: A local opportunist—I say this not knowing who actually owns the property—had thrown up a makeshift fence and cordoned off the entire area as his private barnyard. A tangle of boards, grates and wire mesh covered the face of the tomb itself, including the two rock-hewn apses, the openings transformed into pens for pigeons, geese and other domestic fowl. The tomb was, of course, completely inaccessible.

In four years nothing has changed at this site. If anything, it has gotten worse. We can only add our voice to yours, to say to the government authorities: Please take responsibility for, first, rehabilitating and protecting these magnificent tombs, and then providing the public access and interpretive resources befitting such a unique cultural treasure. Other ancient tombs, in the Kidron Valley and in the upper reaches of the Hinnom, have been protected and nicely maintained. Why not this one?

Incidentally, when one approaches the Akeldama area from the south, as we did, the topography makes spotting these tombs difficult—we first walked beneath the tombs, missing them completely, then circled the entire area before finally homing in on them. A suggestion for others in search of this site: From the Old City, walk south on Ma’alot Ir David until you see the silver-domed monastery and tombs on the slope in front of you, across the Hinnom Valley; continuing downhill, you will reach a road junction where a dirt foot-path angles up the hill to the tombs.

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First Person

Ban the Lady of Lourdes?

How does one reconcile Hershel Shanks’s worthy desire “to keep religion and politics out of archaeology” (First Person, BAR 24:05) with the full page ad to its immediate right proclaiming, “Our Lady of Lourdes, Pray for Us”?

The First Amendment is a good place to start.—Steven Feldman

Shame!

Would Mr. Shanks’s editorial [the second paragraph of which begins, “The so-called ultra-Orthodox, the black-coated haredim, have enormous power in Israel because … ”—Ed.] carry less force if he just wrote “haredim have enormous power in Israel because … ”? Let me even grant that perhaps the word haredim needed an explanation. Would not a phrase like “strictly observant” serve just as well, instead of the derogatory “the so-called ultra-Orthodox”? But certainly the modifier “black-coated” attached to the word haredim could have no other purpose than to insult. That kind of disdain, common among western, “enlightened” Jewry toward the central and eastern European Jews did nothing to combat and perhaps helped, the prejudice that culminated in the Shoah [Holocaust].

Hershel Shanks responds:

I am sensitive to Father Kosciesza’s point. But there seems no way to describe the haredim for people who do not know the group that that term identifies without offending someone. I said “so-called ultra-Orthodox” because some people regard that term as offensive; the New York Jewish newspaper The Forward, for example, refrains from using that term for that reason; instead, it refers to the “fervently Orthodox.” But that would have little meaning to BAR readers. Even ultra-Orthodox, by which they are called in most secular newspapers and magazines, may not be sufficiently descriptive for our readers. That is why I added the term “black-coated.” I did not intend it as insulting.

Double Edges

Reading your objections to the religious parties in Israel giving archaeology a bad time, I am reminded that “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”

For decades, archaeologists have tried to use government power against collectors and dealers. They should thus hardly be surprised that now somebody is using government power against them.

Stone Vessels

Unstoppable

“Ancient Israel’s Stone Age,” (BAR 24:05) describes in some detail the procedures for turning stone bowls on a lathe. In the picture of the “stone stoppers” on page 52, the caption states that “no stone vessels with narrow mouths have been discovered … ”

It is almost impossible to carve the inside of any work on a lathe through a narrow opening, and even today, when strong, intricately angled chisels can be manufactured, rarely do we find turned work with narrow openings.

It is also highly unlikely that labor-intensive stone stoppers (with all of the problems associated with working in stone on a primitive lathe) would have been used to stopper common pottery vessels, despite the fact that stone vessels did not become ritually impure.

I think it more likely that the “stoppers” in the picture had to do with the apparatus or residue of turning the bowls themselves. Contemporary fixed or rotating lathe spindles (we call them “live” or “dead centers”) have the same tapers and general appearances of many of the “stoppers” on page 52. The larger, flatter “stoppers” may have been the “parting pieces,” the last residue cut from the finished bowl when they were completed or “parted” from the lathe.

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Ekron Inscription

Name That Goddess

In the controversy over how to read the name on the Ekron temple inscription—PTGYH or PTNYH—(Aaron Demsky, “Discovering a Goddess,” BAR 24:05), both interpretations seem to turn on an error by the artisan. In the first case an anomalously small but legitimate gimmel, and in the second a serious typographical and artistic departure. Neither seems consistent with the importance and solemnity of this massive temple’s commemoration. Might there be another plausible alternative, whereby the symbol in question is used as a separator between PT and YH? A sacred name containing the divine element YH might call for such a separation, resulting in PT YH.

Another fortuitous clue, in the same issue of BAR, is the inscription dedicated “To the god who is in Dan.” Its Aramaic section contains the name of ZILAS, with a yod that is evidently identical with the symbol in the Ekron monument. The goddess’s name might therefore be simply PTIYAH, a version of BATYAH, a Semitic name mentioned in the scriptures.

Potpourri

High-Risk Occupations

I am strictly an amateur in ancient studies, but I’m going to stick my neck out anyway. In a discussion of the archaeology of Ur, you state: “For a relatively short time—one hundred years—some of Ur’s high-ranking officials took their entire retinues of soldiers, musicians and servants with them to the grave, along with their luxury goods. No one knows the origins of this practice, or why the custom disappeared.”

I have no idea why this practice began, except that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But I’ll bet the reason for the disappearance is simple: The people wouldn’t stand for it.

What were the mechanics of this mass murder, by the way? Who did the killing? Did the soldiers massacre the musicians and servants, knowing that they, in turn, would be eliminated? Who, then, killed the people who killed the soldiers? The official himself? Or was the official already dead by this time? If so, what was the incentive for people to engage in all this bloodletting? Tradition? Well, maybe. But, as you point out, it wasn’t a tradition of very long standing.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, after a few years of this kind of slaughter, the high-ranking officials of Ur soon found themselves facing a critical shortage of soldiers, musicians and servants. After all, who would want to work for the elite knowing that when the boss dies, all the employees die too? Surely there were less hazardous jobs around.

In Praise of Milik

In the January/February 1995 BAR (see “The Honor Due,” BAR 21:01), Hershel Shanks wrote a short article in which he stated, “It is time to honor Jozef Milik,” the great Polish Dead Sea Scroll scholar. I then initiated a project to award him for his publication of the Qumran manuscripts, the award to be made by his homeland—Poland. On July 13, 1998, Jozef Tadeusz Milik was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland at the Polish embassy in Paris. (Milik appears second from right in the photo of the recent ceremony, above, and is flanked by Roland de Vaux [left] and Lankester Harding [right] in the photo, upper left, taken at Qumran in the 1950s.)

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Junk Bunk

Elizabeth H. Gierlowski-Kordesch writes, in her review of Discovered: Sodom and Gomorrah (September/October 1998), that “junk science has several warning signs: It advocates a cause, pays little attention to the investigative process, ignores contrary evidence and advertises a high moral purpose.”

Gee, that sounds like a description of more than a few of the writers that appear in BAR and its sister publication, Bible Review. The evidence that they ignore is the books of the Bible, which if nothing else are documents written by people who were a lot closer to the events described than we are.

To Market, To Market

I agree with Abraham Levy (“Bad Timing,” BAR 24:04) that the circular object found at Qumran is not a sundial. I don’t think that it is a game board for mehen, however. Like many ancient and modern games, mehen was played by moving game pieces along a spiral, usually represented by a coiled, striped snake; the Qumran object is patterned in concentric circles, with no clear path to move a game piece from one to the other.

The disk shows remains of a Greek inscription, which is upside-down as printed in the photo on p. 18. A phi is clear within the third band from the center, and what seems to be an alpha, a nu, and a nu or mu on the fourth band. A similar object was found at Priene in Asia Minor (Hiller von Gaertringen, ed. Inschriften von Priene [Berlin, 1906] n. 180); it has the same concentric circles and hole in the center, and judging by its inscription and dedication to Hermes, may have been part of the equipment for an agoranomos, or market supervisor. Such market supervisors also worked in Roman Judea, where their names were inscribed on official weights and measures.

It is likely that the Qumran disk was being reused, as stripes have been purposely incised all round it, obscuring the inscription; there also seems to have been a spout chiseled into the edge. Though its final function may remain a mystery, it certainly deserves a closer look.

Raising the Curtain on Ancient Textiles

Curtains matching those in the synagogue mosaics from Khirbet Samara, El-Khirbe and Beth Alpha (“How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,” BAR 24:03) can be found among the textile treasures discovered in Egyptian burials from the Coptic period (late third to mid-seventh century C.E., when Egypt was ruled by Rome and Byzantium). The textiles are a combination of plain weave undyed linen with polychrome or monochrome woolen and linen tapestry embellishments. The same type of textile can be seen in other mosaics, frescoes and manuscript illustrations of the period. Some of these are pagan, while others are Jewish or Christian.

While over 150,000 textiles have been excavated from Coptic Egypt, few have survived from the eastern Mediterranean. Those that were discovered at Dura-Europos and Palmyra resemble in both style and technique those from Egypt. The tabby-tapestry textile was as ubiquitous as blue denim is today.

Coptic fabrics have been the focus of my research for 25 years. I would like 016to communicate with others with a similar interest.

Was Solomon a Wannabee?

I didn’t have time to read the July/August 1998 BAR until we went on a recent holiday, which ended just ahead of Hurricane Georges. Regarding “Cultural Conundrum” (Strata, BAR 24:04), I think your interlocutor got it half right. Both David and Solomon used Phoenician architects/builders, hence the West Semitic Temple plan.

Solomon (and probably David as well) apparently used Egyptian scribes in the civil service. Seals were a phenomenon of the literati and the bureaucracy, hence the Egyptian seal motifs. See my article, “The Economics of National Security in Solomonic Israel,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 18 (1980), pp. 63–73; and especially E.W. Heaton’s Solomon’s New Men: The Emergence of Ancient Israel as a Nation State (New York: Pica Press, 1978). Heaton refers to Solomon as a pharaonic wannabee.

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A Note on Style

B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), used by some of our authors, are the alternative designations for B.C. and A.D. often used in scholarly literature.

Once Was Blind, But Now I See