ReViews
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Discovered: Sodom and Gomorrah!
A Video
(Nashville, TN: Wyatt Archaeological Research, 1992) 45 min., $25.00 (call 941–421-1782 to order)
Ron Wyatt claims to have discovered Noah’s Ark, the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah, the “real” Mount Sinai (the one in Saudi Arabia), chariot wheels from the Red Sea, the Ark of the Covenant—well, you name it.
Our office regularly receives calls and letters from people who have heard Wyatt speak or have seen his videos and want to know if they should believe his extravagant claims. We respond that we—and the academically trained archaeologists we deal with—give Wyatt little credence. If it sounds too good to be true, we say, it probably is.
Wyatt is an amateur archaeologist; he makes his livelihood as an anesthetist. Wyatt calls himself a “biblical archaeologist,” but he would be more at home in the 19th century, when some supposed experts expected the Bible to be a clear, uncomplicated guide to the treasures of the past. In Wyatt’s case, the treasures he seeks are not gold or jewelry, but sacred objects and locales mentioned in the Bible.
Like many who have no sense of serious archaeology, Wyatt believes that the fabulous and miraculous—Noah’s Ark, whole cities—are out there to be found if only you read the Bible and search hard enough. Not for him are the arduous years spent untangling the stratigraphy of a single site (or just a single area within a site). Nor does he seem to know that great archaeologists can spend decades in the field and never discover even a scrap of an inscription. For Wyatt the Bible is a long inventory, and he would like to say, “Found that, found that, still looking for that, found that … ”
A 1992 video called Discovered: Sodom and Gomorrah! conveys the nature of Ron Wyatt’s work. It describes how he became convinced that an area near Masada, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, contains the remains of Gomorrah and that an area at the southern tip of the Dead Sea was once the site of Sodom. The video claims that the chalky, layered landscape resembles Mesopotamian-style cities, complete with ziggurats and streets, and that certain weathered remains were once sphinxes. Why cities far from the Fertile Crescent would have been built in the Mesopotamian style, and why these “Mesopotamian” cities also happen to feature Egyptian-style “sphinxes,” is never explained.
But the video rests its claims on geological arguments: The sites are not natural formations, and they are filled with sulfur balls—the brimstone the Bible says God rained on the sinful cities. Wyatt was especially impressed by the fact that he could crumble the remains like ash—that they were not rocks, but burnt remains (in his analysis). To evaluate Wyatt’s claims, we asked a geologist to view the video.
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.1 All these signals are present in the claims of Ron Wyatt, of the Wyatt Archaeological Museum in Cornersville, Tennessee, and in his “discovery” of the ashen remains of Sodom and Gomorrah along the Dead Sea.
Wyatt, with no academic background in archaeology or geology, claims that the whitish, layered geological formations along the western coastline of the saline lake are the remains of these Biblical cities and that they are composed of ash, though no chemical composition is ever given. He even goes on to claim that the layering is caused by some bizarre process of “thermal ionization” (whatever that is) during burning at 4000–6000° Fahrenheit. Rhylolites (a type of granite) and basalts, the rocks of volcanoes, start to melt at 1500–1700° F. Wyatt’s scenario is not possible on the surface of the earth. You would have to approach the center of the planet to reach 4000° F.
The geological formations that Wyatt mistakes for ancient cities are simply lake sediments that accumulated when the Dead Sea was larger and deeper, back in the Late Pleistocene period (an epoch ranging from 700,000 to 10,000 years before the present).2 (Geologists call that older body of water Lake Lisan.) The layering visible 062today is similar to those of sediments and sedimentary rocks found everywhere—no surprise there. Some beautifully contorted layers within these ancient lake sediments are signs of earthquake activity in the region;a these are called “seismites,” sub-lacustrine sediments disturbed by earthquake (seismic) activity. The lake sediments are not lithified (cemented into rocks) because of their relatively young age (40,000 to 60,000 years old), so they would crumble easily in someone’s hand—which explains why Wyatt confuses them with ash.
The minerals that make up these Pleistocene period whitish sediments (called the Lisan Formation or detrital laminated chalk facies) are calcite (lime) and gypsum (plaster of paris); these minerals are whitish and very soft. Clays are a minor component of the sediments. The composition of these Lake Lisan sediments is not unusual, since the drainage area contains these constituents in abundance (remember that the exposed areas near today’s shoreline were once part of the lakebed). The formations result from the normal processes of weathering and erosion over thousands of years.
Because the Dead Sea is a lake within an active rift zone,3 lake-level changes and the resulting sediments reflect the active tectonic setting and climatic changes through time. The sediments of the Lisan Formation obviously do not cover the entire bottom of the valley containing the Dead Sea because erosion destroyed many of the soft sediments after the level of Lake Lisan went down. The extent of the present-day Lisan Formation and its strangely shaped geological features are the result of the changing climate of the Dead Sea region during the time of exposure. The normal erosional pattern of the drainage areas dissecting the whitish chalk formation could even resemble streets to someone with a wild imagination! People have always detected shapes in the eroded columns of sedimentary rocks. At Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah, for example, the sandstone shapes are given picturesque names such as Sheep Rock, Three Gossips and the Needles.
Wyatt’s main “proof” that these geological formations are the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah is the presence of round sulfur balls in the chalk facies of the Lisan Formation. Chemical analysis of these balls indicates a 95.72 percent sulfur composition. It is not clear whether this is by weight or volume, but the result is not surprising, since these sulfur nodules contain portions of the surrounding sediment (gypsum is hydrated calcium sulfate) and the degraded organic remains of animals buried in the sediments (sulfur is an important component of living tissue). This type of post-depositional chemical feature within lake sediments is a common phenomenon in ancient lakes around the world.
The verdict on this video? Beware of junk science!
Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina/Israel: Von den Anfängen bis zur Perserzeit
Katalog Band I: Von Tell Abu Farag bis ‘Atlit, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Series Archaeologica 13
Othmar Keel
(Fribourg and Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 802 pp., $150.00
The sigillographer’s job is not an easy one. Thousands of seals have been discovered in the Holy Land alone, and students of these tiny artifacts must look through hundreds of books and articles to conduct their research. Scholars dig through final excavation reports only to find a single poor photo or drawing of a seal; critical information about the seal’s size, shape or material is often lacking. And that’s a good case. Many excavations have not been published at all or only have preliminary reports that fail to present small finds in any detail.
But no one can deny the importance of one of archaeology’s smallest finds. Examples of fine craftsmanship and often real artistry, seals, often made of precious materials, could be worn as jewelry or amulets. Usually, however, they served as a sort of identity card, inscribed with the owner’s name and title, and sometimes his father’s name. Stamp seals were often used to 064identify the sender of a document. An official would roll up a papyrus scroll, tie it with a string, place a lump of clay over the knot and stamp it with his personal seal. Seals offer us even more than an immediate connection with the individuals who once owned them, however. For example, from variations in the form, materials and iconography of seals found in one region, we can trace the development of, and interaction between, local cultures.
Now, thanks to the work of Othmar Keel and his team at the University of Fribourg, this information is becoming much easier to work with. After more than two decades of research, Keel is preparing a general corpus, in German, of stamp seals from Palestine/Israel from the beginning of their use (the Anfäen, as his German subtitle has it) in the Early Bronze Age (third millennium B.C.) until the time of Alexander the Great (late fourth century B.C.). His systematic introduction to the subject—actually a sort of textbook of ancient sigillography—appeared in 1995. Now he has published the first volume of his detailed catalogue of all the seals and amulets from ancient Israel. Volume one contains 2,147 examples from 20 sites starting with the letter A, from Tell Abu Faraj to ‘Atlit. This hefty volume offers a detailed entry for each seal, including a description of the seal and its base, date, collection and archaeological context (provenance), plus a bibliography. On facing pages appear detailed drawings (scale=×2) with photos and drawings of the back, side and base of the seal.
For several sites (including Akzib, Akko and Ashkelon), the volume presents a significant number of seals that have never before been published. Just by chance, many sites beginning with the letter A are on the Mediterranean coast; thus the book gives a good view of the seals of the seafaring Phoenicians (who settled at Akzib, Akko and Tell Abu Hawam) and Philistines (at Ashdod, Ashkelon and Tell el-‘Ajjul). The book also reveals the importance of Canaanite sigillography of the Middle Bronze Age. The 1,244 seals from Tell ‘Ajjul—mostly scarabs from the XIIIth to XVth Egyptian dynasties (18th to 16th centuries B.C.) as well as several from the XVIII dynasty (16th to 14th centuries B.C.)—provide clear evidence of the importance of this site (on the coast south of Gaza) during the Hyksos period, when Canaanites ruled Egypt, leading to a mixed Egypto-Asiatic culture. Moving inland, we find 35 seals from Arad (13 published for the first time), which date primarily to the first millennium B.C. Several of them bear Hebrew inscriptions.
The extremely clear presentation of the seals in Keel’s corpus will allow scholars to identify more accurately and easily the workshops that produced the seals, the various iconographic motifs they bear and the cultural, religious and historical significance of the seals. With this volume, sigillography truly enters a new era.
The Book of Hebrew Script
Ada Yardeni
(Jerusalem: Carta, 1997) 290 illus., 53 script charts, 364 pp., $60.00 (hardback)
The evolution of the alphabet is practically synonymous with the spread of civilization. Despite its worldwide reach, however, the alphabet was invented only once—in the Near East in about the middle of the second millennium B.C.E.b Ada Yardeni’s The Book of Hebrew Script examines how further invention and evolution created the Hebrew script used today.
Yardeni starts with a historical survey of the origins of all Western scripts, a discussion that, while fairly complete, is not as exhaustive as one would like in a book 066that could easily serve as a textbook on the history of the alphabet. Still, those who want to decipher ancient inscriptions, and those interested in the history of writing, will find extremely helpful drawings of all the major texts that have been important in the development of the alphabet. This book could be very useful in a course on ancient texts, even on a graduate level. It has one major drawback, however, that will make it less valuable for the nonspecialist: The ancient inscriptions are not translated or analyzed.c
Yardeni tells the story of the development of Hebrew from the ninth century B.C.E. to the present, as seen in modern Israeli newspapers. The most significant change in the history of Hebrew writing was the shift from the earliest script (often referred to as paleo-Hebrew) to the square Aramaic script still used today. This shift occurred, Yardeni suggests, because of the Aramaic script’s dominance in Mesopotamia during the Jewish Exile in Babylonia (sixth century B.C.E.). This shift was later solidified by the Persian Empire’s adoption of Aramaic script. Yardeni intriguingly suggests that the older script came to be identified with the Samaritans, a breakaway sect from mainstream Judaism that took great pains to preserve the old way of writing. The Jews’ use of the Aramaic script, Yardeni implies, was one way to distinguish themselves from the Samaritans.
After examining the evolution of handwriting by looking at such things as the way cursive writing came to look different from block letters, Yardeni surveys what she calls “the golden age of Hebrew printing”—the 16th century, when about 4,000 Hebrew books were printed on hand presses. This discussion, illustrated with the title page of a Pentateuch printed in 1566 and other woodcuts, may also appeal to bibliophiles with no particular interest in antique scripts. Yardeni ends this section with a review of the different typefaces in use today.
She next addresses the technical aspects of Hebrew script. Here Yardeni focuses on Hebrew paleography, or how ancient Hebrew was written—which direction strokes were drawn in, how the pen was held and the like. Yardeni’s exacting discussion includes a thorough explanation of almost every technical detail, which may ultimately confuse nonspecialists.
Yardeni also makes a valuable contribution in this section with her comparison of paleography to grammar. Grammar describes speech; it does not dictate how people must speak. The “grammar” of Hebrew script describes the way ancient Hebrew letters were written. Yardeni calls for undertaking this descriptive task before developing a set of rules for Hebrew script. I propose that we go further: The study of Hebrew script must always remain a descriptive task.
In the second half of the book, Yardeni applies her rules. She begins with script charts, which are, essentially, the different versions of the Hebrew alphabet without the context of text. Here Yardeni uses her rules of paleography to examine each letter of each alphabet. Though the history of Hebrew that appeared in the first section makes a fascinating narrative, here it is easier to understand what Yardeni is talking about when she gets into the specific details of such things as the semi-cursive Ashkenazic Gothic script of the 14th century.
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Most of the 53 charts and 290 figures in the book were prepared by Yardeni herself. She thus has firsthand experience with all the paleographic data she describes. The act of drawing the inscriptions allows Yardeni to understand better how Hebrew script developed. Yardeni doesn’t just describe what the letters look like; she also discusses comfortable pen positions and the different ways letters and words should be spaced. She even includes ancient exercises in Hebrew calligraphy.
The drawings are thus the book’s greatest strength, but they are also something of a weakness. All drawings are interpretive, and in this case there are several instances where the drawn letters do not precisely correspond to the letters in the inscriptions. For example, Yardeni’s drawings of the letter nun from the Siloam Tunnel inscription—shown in figure 9 and figure 22—are not consistent: figure 22 is accurate and shows a more developed, semi-cursive letter; figure 9 reflects a more conservative nun. This may seem a small point, but in a work based on minute changes, it is important to have all the details correct. I suggest that illustrations of paleographic script include both drawn copies and copies constructed by precise computer tracings. Yardeni tends to downplay the need for computerized copies, but minor discrepancies in her drawings show that it is necessary to use every means available to confirm the paleographer’s interpretation.
Despite these slight problems, The Book of Hebrew Script will undoubtedly become a standard textbook. The extraordinary drawings and script charts make it appealing for its beauty alone. The discussion is written so that even the nonspecialist will find the book extremely useful. Yardeni is to be congratulated on her contribution to the field.
Discovered: Sodom and Gomorrah!
A Video
(Nashville, TN: Wyatt Archaeological Research, 1992) 45 min., $25.00 (call 941–421-1782 to order)
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Footnotes
See Dan Bahat, “Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus?” BAR 12:03.
Magen Broshi, “Evidence of Earlier Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land Comes to Light in the Holy Sepulchre Church,” BAR 03:04.
The reading suggested by author John Wilkinson appears to me to be clearly wrong. He would read DDM.NOMIMUS. But the IV cannot be M. The letter I clearly follows the M. The letter following D cannot be D; on the contrary, it must be O. See Wilkinson, “The Inscription on the Jerusalem Ship Drawing,” PEQ 127 (1995).