The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has transferred the National Antiquities Collection from Jerusalem to a new, larger warehouse in the industrial zone of Beth-Shemesh, about 12 miles west of the capital.
The new facility, which covers an area of roughly 26,000 square feet, contains more than 750,000 artifacts—most of them never displayed before—ranging from prehistoric to Ottoman times and catalogued in chronological order. The storerooms are divided into six major sections: Prehistory, the Chalcolithic-Bronze Age (4500–1200 B.C.), the Iron Age-Persian period (1200–332 B.C.), the Hellenistic-Byzantine period (332 B.C.-638 A.D.), the Islamic period (638 A.D.-1917 A.D.) and stone architectural elements. According to the IAA, its collection is the largest in the Middle East, and contains the oldest artifacts found outside Africa.
A climate-controlled storeroom contains metal objects such as weaponry, work tools, inlays, household objects, figurines, bronze jewelry, axes and bells. The room also contains ostraca, or inscribed sherds, that require a constant humidity of 30–40 percent and a temperature of 68 degrees Farenheit. Separate rooms house small objects such as gold jewelry, figurines, beads, weights, bread stamps and shells, frescoes, glass objects and organic material. The facility also includes a study room with reference volumes and artifact exhibits where curators and student groups can study specific items, said Michael Sebanne, National Collections Storerooms director.
Sebanne said the process of putting all of the artifacts in place will be completed shortly, and computerizing the collection should be finished by the end of the year, he said.
“The collection itself had already been computerized before, but now we need to add the new location of the objects on the shelves for easy access,” he said.
The artifacts in the storehouse provide an extensive overview of the different 019periods of human civilization in Israel. The collection ranges from hand-sized flint instruments found in the upper Galilee, which were used about 1.5 million years ago, to a cannon used by Napoleon’s army recently uncovered in an excavation in Jaffa’s flea market area.
“We have brought thousands of years of history under one roof in a way which will be accessible to the public,” said IAA director Shuka Dorfman at the opening ceremony in January.
Galit Litani, the curator of the Neolithic-Bronze Age period of the warehouse and one of eight curators of the antiquities collection, explained that artifacts from excavations throughout Israel will be stored in the warehouse after they have been studied and the finds published. Until such publication, licensed archaeologists—both Israeli and foreign—are permitted to keep the items they intend to publish. The IAA can strip them of this right if the finds are not published within ten years of the completion of the excavation, but this rule is seldom adhered to.
Artifacts from excavations that have not yet been published will be stored in an industrial area in north Jerusalem, and some items are still stored at IAA headquarters at the Rockefeller Museum, near the Old City of Jerusalem, Litani said.
According to Litani, the storerooms will be open to curators, researchers and groups of advanced students accompanied by a guide. In the future, she said, it might be open for school tours.
“We know exactly what we have in each period, so if someone needs help we can give it to them,” Litani said. The idea is to facilitate lending both to scholars and museums, with the goal of having as much of the collection on display as possible. “If the public doesn’t see it, there’s no point.”
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has transferred the National Antiquities Collection from Jerusalem to a new, larger warehouse in the industrial zone of Beth-Shemesh, about 12 miles west of the capital. The new facility, which covers an area of roughly 26,000 square feet, contains more than 750,000 artifacts—most of them never displayed before—ranging from prehistoric to Ottoman times and catalogued in chronological order. The storerooms are divided into six major sections: Prehistory, the Chalcolithic-Bronze Age (4500–1200 B.C.), the Iron Age-Persian period (1200–332 B.C.), the Hellenistic-Byzantine period (332 B.C.-638 A.D.), the Islamic period (638 A.D.-1917 A.D.) and stone architectural elements. […]
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.
