Reviews
056
Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho
Ehud Netzer
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2001), 354 pp., 16 color plates, 10 b & w plates, $96 (available to BAR readers for $84 plus $13 for shipping from Israel; call 1–800-221–4644 to order)
Jericho under the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties is one of the most fascinating and important sites in Judea. In the western part of the oasis (west of the modern town), on both banks of Wadi Qelt, the Judean kings of the second and first centuries B.C.E. and the first century C.E. erected a great complex of winter palaces. Fed by aqueducts, these opulent palaces were adorned with pools and gardens that put the palace of Versailles to shame. The Hasmonean kings, who also belonged to a priestly family, built their palace among the grand houses and villas erected by their predecessors in Jericho. Herod, who ruled from 37 to 4 B.C.E., inherited the site from the Hasmoneans and added to it on a lavish scale.
The complex of palaces covers an area of some 30 acres (1,200 dunams). Adjoining the palaces was a large estate (500 dunams), on which were grown date palms and balsam shrubs. Balsam, the source of the most precious of perfumes and one of the most important exports of the Judean kingdom, was in great demand in Rome and commanded a high price. Thus, the huge investment in the complex of palaces and the estate in Jericho would have yielded a considerable return.
Ehud Netzer’s new publication presents a rich and detailed panoramic view of these grand palaces. As both an archaeologist and an architect, Netzer skillfully describes the intricate palace complexes, aided by dozens of plans and reconstructions and hundreds of photographs. Readers will imagine themselves walking down the palace corridors, strolling in the gardens, hearing the water trickling in the aqueducts and viewing the refreshing scene of blue pools surrounded by palm trees, balsam groves and flowers—all in the middle of the desert. But the beauty and splendor of the complex can be deceptive, for the palaces also witnessed scenes of appalling cruelty. One of the best-known of these is the drowning of the High Priest Aristobulus III. Herod, out of distrust of the popular Aristobulus, ordered his slaves to drown the young man in one of the palace swimming pools (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 53–56).
To read Netzer’s book is not merely to travel through a palatial labyrinth but also to travel through time, because the palaces were erected not all at once but in stages. The book is sensibly arranged in chronological order: The first third is devoted to the palaces of the Hasmonean kings, the middle third describes the palaces built by Herod and the last third examines the relationship among the various elements of the complex.
In all, six palaces were built at Jericho, each surpassing its predecessor. The first 057three palaces were erected by three great Hasmonean rulers: John Hyrcanus I (134–104 B.C.E.), Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 B.C.E.) and the wife of Jannaeus, Alexandra (76–67 B.C.E.). Herod built the other three.
The palace of Hyrcanus I was built at the same time as the founding of a huge estate and the construction of an aqueduct fed by the springs along the northern bank of Wadi Qelt. Netzer calls this palace the “Buried Palace” because it was buried under the subsequent building. The “Buried Palace” extended over an area of 3,000 square yards. It included a two-story building with a central courtyard and a fortified corner tower, a plan reminiscent of Qumran, which is associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls (I believe the “Buried Palace” served as the model for the main building at Qumran).a Outside the palace were two swimming pools surrounded by gardens.
The palace of Alexander Jannaeus was larger and higher—and heavily fortified—hence its name, the “Fortified Palace.” To achieve height, the builders erected an artificial mound 50 feet high, which was ascended by a staircase. To the northeast of the palace Jannaeus added a splendid complex of pools, which included a pair of large swimming pools (one of them apparently was the pool in which Aristobulus III was later drowned). To the south was erected a magnificent pavilion encircled by columns and to the north, a huge courtyard garden (200 x 236 feet, more than an acre) surrounded on all four sides by a colonnade. Jannaeus enlarged the estate, added an industrial area and built a new aqueduct fed by the springs near Na’aran.
The excavators call the third Hasmonean palace the “Twin Palace” because it consists of two nearly identical residences. Yet another garden containing a swimming pool was installed next to the palace. Based on the finds, including coins, oil lamps and pottery, the palace’s construction should be dated to the days of Alexandra, who ruled in Jerusalem after the death of her husband Jannaeus. Netzer believes the “Twin Palace” was built for Alexandra’s two sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. After Alexandra’s reign, a large swimming pool with a bathhouse, a reception hall and a large wing of storehouses (like those at Masada) were added to the complex.
Herod, who was appointed by Rome to rule over Judea, attached great economic importance to the date and balsam groves of Jericho; he leased the area from Cleopatra, who had received it as a gift from her lover, Mark Antony (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 96). Herod built his first palace on the Wadi Qelt, opposite the Hasmonean palaces; it was rectangular, with a peristyle courtyard and a basilical reception hall.
Herod’s second palace was built on the northern bank of Wadi Qelt, on top of the Hasmonean palaces—which, according to Josephus, had been destroyed in the earthquake of 31 B.C.E. The palace had two wings: a main wing with living quarters and reception halls and a second, lower wing with a bathhouse and a colonnaded garden.
Herod’s third palace was apparently erected in 15 B.C.E., the year in which Judea was visited by Marcus Agrippa, the most important person in the Roman Empire after Augustus himself. The palace was built on a large scale and in characteristic Roman style. It was such a grand project that Netzer is convinced Agrippa must have sent Herod teams of Roman laborers to build it. Indeed, large parts of the walls are built of Roman concrete and faced with bricks in the opus reticulatum style—wall facing made of a network of small squared blocks laid in neat diagonal lines—hence its name, the “Opus Reticulatum Palace.” The palace consisted of two parts that were connected, Netzer believes, by a bridge over the Wadi Qelt (though no remains of a bridge have been found). The palace covered 7.5 acres (30 dunams) and was built on a high spot with a commanding view of the landscape—that is, in the villa maritima style. The northern section contained two large reception halls, courtyard gardens, living quarters and a long colonnade. The part on the southern bank (excavated by J. L. Kelso and 058D. C. Baramki in 1954) contained a sunken garden, a colonnade parallel to the one on the northern bank and, at the end of the colonnade, an artificial mound crowned by a tower that contained an additional reception hall.
In Herod’s third and most magnificent palace, remains of beautiful opus sectile paving (made of shaped tiles of colored stones or marble) were found. The paving is composed of square and triangular tiles of polished stone in red, black and white. Frescoes in black, yellow and blue were also found in the palace. In the courtyard garden numerous flowerpots were arranged in 7 rows of 11 pots each. Such details are excellent examples of archaeology’s ability to illustrate the splendor of the past, the aesthetic tastes of the people of the period and their technological capabilities.
Netzer provides such a wealth of detail that readers will feel they have an intimate knowledge of the palaces and its occupants. He describes, for example, the red and pink frescoes that decorated the reception hall of the “Buried Palace,” the king’s bath and the stove beside it that was used to heat the bathwater in a large bronze cauldron and a row of 15 flowerpots in the garden to the west of the twin swimming pools in Jannaeus’ palace. The distance between the flowerpots was fairly small (40–50 inches), indicating that the plants grown in them were not large (perhaps balsam shrubs?).
The tenacious reader, equipped with patience (for it is not always easy to wend one’s way through the numerous and sometimes overly detailed plans), will find Netzer’s sumptuous volume remarkable. It is for anyone interested in the Roman world, and especially in the history and archaeology of the Judean kingdom in the Second Temple period.
On Scrolls, Artefacts and Intellectual Property
Edited by Timothy H. Lim, Hector L. MacQueen and Calum M. Carmichael
(Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 269 pp., $80 (hardback)
Those who have followed the battle over the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls will be interested in this book, which makes available the papers presented at a 1999 conference at the University of Edinburgh on the implications for intellectual property law of Qimron vs. Shanks, the lawsuit filed in Israel by scroll scholar Elisha Qimron against me and the Biblical Archaeology Society, publisher of BAR.
Unfortunately, the conference was poorly timed—after the Jerusalem court had ruled in Qimron’s favor but before the Israel Supreme Court had affirmed that decision. Consequently, some of the papers address an opinion that has been superseded by that of a higher court. The book will have enduring sales, however, because it also contains an English translation of both the lower court’s opinion (translated by Timothy Lim) and the Supreme Court’s opinion (translated by Yoninah Hoffman).
Moreover, pertinent new information has since emerged. Judge (now Justice) Dahlia Dorner had found that “[John] Strugnell [the Harvard professor originally assigned to publish the controversial scroll designated MMT] drew up transcriptions of the fragments and joined them to one another according to the shape of the fragment … At this stage the work of decipherment ‘was stuck’ … The Plaintiff [Qimron] assembled from the 60 to 70 fragments of the six copies, a composite text of 121 lines.” Since that ruling, an intensive study of early iterations of the text by Qumran scholar Florentino García Martínez found that “[T]he composite text … was … substantially 059completed [by Strugnell] in 1961,” almost two decades before Qimron became involved.b García Martínez concludes that “Qimron usurped Strugnell’s rights to the copyright of the book in passing the work done by another [as] his own.”
The contributors to this volume include such familiar names associated with the scrolls as former chief editor John Strugnell, the current chief editor Emanuel Tov, Oxford don Geza Vermes and my own. In addition to the papers presented at the conference, the volume includes several post-conference papers, including that of one of America’s most prominent copyright lawyers, David Nimmer. Elisha Qimron was also invited to contribute a post-conference paper but, according to the book’s introduction, “Having accepted the invitation, he withdrew without giving a reason.”
Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho
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Footnotes
See Dan Bahat, “Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus?” BAR 12:03.