Warning: This article contains much that is uncertain and even speculative. You must therefore be over 18 to continue reading. On the other hand, the uncertainties and speculations are clearly marked as such. Moreover, the background of the story is unquestionably true.
This is the true part.
Each Jewish male 20 years or older was Biblically required to contribute a half shekel each year to the Tabernacle (Tent of Meeting) (see Exodus 30:11–16). In Temple times this half-shekel tax was used for upkeep of the Temple. After the Roman legions destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E., the emperor Vespasian imposed the so-called Fiscus Judaicus as a kind of replacement tax, to be used for the upkeep of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. Unlike the half-shekel tax, which was imposed only on adult males, the two-denarius Fiscus Judaicus was imposed on every Jew—male and female, young and old, in the Land of Israel and elsewhere.
The spectacular finds continue to pour in! This time, it’s the discovery of what should probably be called an intaglio depicting Alexander the Great … from Tel Dor! Here’s the Arutz Sheva coverage:
Excavations in Tel Dor have turned up a rare and unexpected work of Hellenistic art: a precious stone bearing the miniature carved likeness of Alexander the Great. Archaeologists are calling it an important find, indicating the great skill of the artist.
The Tel Dor dig, under the guidance and direction of Dr. Ayelet Gilboa of Haifa University and Dr. Ilan Sharon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, has just ended its summer excavation season. For more than 30 years, scientists have been excavating in Tel Dor, identified as the site of the Biblical town of Dor. The town’s location, on Israel’s Mediterranean Sea coast some 30 kilometers south of Haifa, made it an important international port in ancient times.
“Despite the tiny proportions – the length of the gemstone (gemma) is less than a centimeter and its width less than half a centimeter – the artist was able to carve the image of Alexander of Macedon with all of his features,” Dr. Gilboa said. “The king appears as young and energetic, with a sharp chin and straight nose, and with long, curly hair held in a crown.”
According to the archaeologists involved in the Tel Dor excavations, the discovery of the miniature Alexander gemstone carving in Israel is fairly surprising. The Land of Israel was not, for the Greek Empire, a central or major holding.
“It has been accepted to assume that first-rate artists – and whoever carved the image of Alexander in this gemstone was certainly one of them – were primarily active under the patronage of the large royal courts in Greece itself or in major capitals,” the scientists explained. “It turns out that local elites in secondary centers such as Dor could allow themselves – and knew to appreciate – superior artwork.”
Additionally, the new find is important for the study of the historical Alexander the Great. The gemstone was found in the remains of a large public building from the Hellenistic period in the southern area of the tel. Unlike most of the portraits of Alexander in museums throughout the world, with unknown origins, the Tel Dor carving was found and classified within its archaeological context. The face was definitively identified as that of Alexander the Great by Dr. Jessica Nitschke of Georgetown University and Professor Andrew Stewart of UC Berkeley.
Historically, Alexander himself passed through Dor in 332 BCE, during his voyage to Egypt. It appears that the city fell to him without resistance. Since that time until its conquest by the Hasmonean Jewish King Alexander Yannai around 100 BCE, Dor served as a stronghold of non-Jewish Hellenists in the Land of Israel.
Here’s the best photo of the find (tip o’ the pileus to Joseph Lauer, who passed on a number of Hebrew-language items):
from magazin.org.il
The identification of Alexander seems reasonable (based on the nose and chin) and the detail is amazing for the size of the object. It’s interesting that it seems to depict a pre-Zeus Ammon Alexander …
As I work through the last of the end-of-school backlog, the quarry thing (next item) reminded me of this very interesting (especially as regards the dating) papyrus which border police in Israel seized about a month ago. An excerpt from the IAA press release:
The document is written in ancient Hebrew script, which is characteristic of the Second Temple period and the first and second centuries CE. This style of the writing is primarily known from the Dead Sea scrolls and various inscriptions that occur on ossuaries and coffins. The document itself is written on papyrus. The papyrus is incomplete and was in all likelihood rolled up. It is apparent that pieces of it crumbled mainly along its bottom part. The holes along the left part of the document probably attest to the damage that was caused to it over time. The document measures 15 x 15 centimeters.
Fifteen lines of Hebrew text, written from right to left and one below the other, can be discerned in the document. In the upper line of the text one can clearly read the sentence “Year 4 to the destruction of Israel”. This is likely to be the year 74 CE – in the event the author of the document is referring to the year when the Second Temple was destroyed during the Great Revolt. Another possibility is the year 139 CE – in the event the author is referring to the time when the rural settlement in Judah was devastated at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
The name of a woman, “Miriam Barat Ya‘aqov”, is also legible in the document followed by a name that is likely to be that of the settlement where she resided: Misalev. This is probably the settlement Salabim. The name Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov is a common name in the Second Temple period. Also mentioned in the document are the names of other people and families, the names of a number of ancient settlements from the Second Temple period and legal wording which deals with the property of a widow and her relinquishment of it.
According to Amir Ganor, director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the Israel Antiquities Authority, “Theoretically, based on the epigraphic style, the material the document is written on, the state of preservation and the text, which includes a historic date that can be deciphered, we are dealing with a document that appears to be ancient as defined by the Antiquities Law. Since this object was not discovered in a proper archaeological excavation, it still must undergo laboratory analyses in order to negate the possibility it is a modern forgery”. Ganor adds, “The document is very important from the standpoint of historical and national research. Until now almost no historic scrolls or documents from this period have been discovered in proper archaeological excavations. A historic document that can be definitely dated based on a reference to a historical event such as the ‘destruction of Israel’ has never been discovered. Much can be learned from this document about the names of people, their surnames names and the locations of settlements in Israel during this period. From an initial reading it seems that this document deals with the property of Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov, who was apparently a widow. The deciphering of the entire document by expert epigraphers and historians may shed light on how the people of the period managed their affairs and supplement our knowledge about their way of life. What we have here is rare historic evidence about the Jewish people in their country from more than 2,000 years ago, during the days following the destruction which sent the people of Israel into exile for a very long time – until the creation of the State of Israel”.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who is curious how the legal niceties compare with those seen in the Babatha archive.
An ancient quarry, c. 1 dunam in area and dating to the end of the Second Temple period (c. 2,030 years old), was uncovered in excavations being conducted on Shmuel HaNavi Street in Jerusalem, under the direction of Dr. Ofer Sion and Yehuda Rapuano of the Israel Antiquities Authority, prior to the construction of residential buildings.
Dr. Ofer Sion, the excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, believes, “The immense size of the stones (maximum dimensions: length 3 m, width 2 m, height 2 m) indicates it was highly likely that the large stones that were quarried at the site were destined for use in the construction of Herod’s magnificent projects in Jerusalem, including the Temple walls. It seems that a vast number of workers labored in the quarry where various size stones were produced: first they quarried small stones and when the bedrock surface was made level they hewed the large stones. The stones were quarried by creating wide detachment channels that were marked by means of a chisel which weighed c. 2.5 kilograms. After the channels were formed the stones were severed from the bedrock using hammers and chisels”.
“We know from historical sources that in order to build the Temple and other projects which Herod constructed, such as his palace, hundreds of thousands of various size stones were required – most of them weighing between two and five tons each”, said Dr. Sion. “The dimensions of the stones that were produced in the quarry that was revealed are suitable for the Temple walls. The large section that was exposed is actually a small part of an enormous series of quarries that was spread across the entire slope – from the Musrara Quarter to the Sanhedria Quarter. The massive quarrying effort, on the order of hundreds of thousands of stones, lowered the topography of Jerusalem in the vicinity of the Old City. Today, with the exposure of this quarry, the intensity of the building projects as described in the historical sources can be proven: Flavius Josephus wrote that before Herod built the Temple he prepared the infrastructure for it: the quarrying of the Temple’s stones lasted eight whole years. The Temple itself was built in a relatively short period of time of two years. With the exposure of the quarries in Sanhedria and Ramat Shlomo, it is clear that Herod began quarrying closest to the Temple and worked away from it: first he exploited the stone on the nearby ridges and subsequently he moved on to quarry in more distant regions”.
According to Dr. Sion, “In those days the world of hi-tech focused on quarrying, removing and transporting stones. Historical sources record that Herod trained more than 10,000 people to be involved in this work: they prepared suitable transportation routes and then moved the huge stones in a variety of ways – on rolling wooden fixtures that were drawn by camels, in pieces on carriages, etc.
Among the artifacts that were discovered in the excavation on Shmuel HaNaiv Street were metal plates (referred to in the Talmud as ‘cheeks’) that were used as fulcrums to severe the stones from the bedrock, and coins and pottery sherds that date to the end of the Second Temple period (the first century BCE).
As is often the case, the IAA provides a zip file of relevant photos. Coverage of the discovery last year of the quarrying in the Sanhedria area is available here.
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