Imagine a country the size of New Jersey containing more than 3,500 registered archaeological sites and 22 archaeological museums.
Israel is the armchair archaeologist's dream come true. Standing at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, the area that is now Israel has been marched over by the armies of ancient Egypt, Rome and the Byzantine Empire. Invaders have included Arabs, Jeljuks, Crusaders, Mamluks and Ottoman Turks and in our time, the British (not to mention a few forays from modern Arab nations).Each of those civilizations left behind remains, if not cities.
It is now law that when a building project is begun, alongside the architect and contractor stands the Israeli Department of Antiquities. Many a project has been stopped to allow archaeologists to recover yet another layer of history.
Luck and perseverance reward archaeologists at every turn.
Among the most notable finds:
- The late Professor Yigael Yadin (famous for securing five of the Dead Sea Scrolls after spotting an advertisement for their sale while he was in the United States) had just such an experience. He took a team of archaeologists to caves at Nahal Hever, a place that had been combed countless times before. Yet Yadin found a priceless cache of documents, household utensils and even tatters of clothing. But even more importantly, he found letters from the 2nd century Jewish leader Bar Kochba.
- Dr. Benno Rothenburg, working near the Timno copper mines, wondered if the "Pillars of Solomon" carved sandstone formation could conceal a cult worship site. Digging a trench beneath sand trod by generations of tourists, he discovered an Egyptian temple just three feet below the surface.
Even an amateur can stumble across a shred of antiquity. The sharp-eyed tourist walking across gravel and sand at the Mediterranean seaside city of Caesarea, once the Roman capital of Palestine, more than once has been rewarded with the discovery of an ancient coin. (If that tourist was honest, he would turn the coin over to the Antiquities Department at once!)
Of the thousands of archaeological sites located in the modern state of Israel, the one that most intrigues me is Beth-Shean (pronounced Bayt Shay-ahn), originally excavated by British and American archaeologists working in the Galilee region in 1921. Beth-Shean is 16 miles south of the Sea of Galilee on the banks of the River Harod in the eastern part of the plain of Jezreel. It can be reached by following Highway 41 south from Tiberias or Highway 31 east from Afula. All major tours are now stopping at this site, which has the largest and best preserved Roman/Byzantine city in all Israel.
The Jewish Talmud unequivocally states: "If the Garden of Eden is in the Land of Israel, then its gate is surely in Beth-Shean." No less than 20 layers of civilization stretching over 6,000 years have been found here. This corridor of ancient history has become a crossroads for modern-day tourists.
Today's Beth-Shean is home to 15,000 residents and surrounds a tell (layers of civilization in a moundlike hill). At the base of the tell is a Roman/Byzantine city.
When I was at Beth-Shean during a recent tour of Israel, a young man handed me a shard of pottery - a jug handle, found in a heap of detrius, tossed aside by archaeologists. That reddish-colored shard sent me scurrying to guide books and archaeology magazines to discover more about this site.
The incredible ascendency of Beth-Shean in Israel's world of archaeology can be credited to Amir Drori, appointed head of the Antiquities Department in 1988. The former army deputy chief of staff had a work force of just 54 when he took the reins in what many said was a mere political appointment. Drori was the first non-archaeologist to head the department, but his no-nonsense rule increased the staff of the department to 3,000 in five years with more than 200 professional archaeologists. Drori recognized the importance of archaeology as a tourist attraction. And he hasn't been shy in promoting it.
In a country frantically developing to keep up with some 500,000 new immigrants, building sites were turning up antiquities almost every day. In the March/April 1994 Biblical Archaeology Review, Abraham Rabinovich writes, "Drori quintupled the number of antiquities inspectors to 70 and set up a network of inspection offices around the country to ensure close supervision. He financed this by enforcing the law requiring those responsible for developing a site - whether the Public Works Department constructing roads or private contractors building homes or industrial sites - to pay for the salvage digs. The number of such digs increased from several dozen a year to more than 200 in 1993."
Beth-Shean became a major project because of several factors. It had been virtually untouched since the original excavations in the 1920s, and the city of Beth-Shean was suffering from one of the highest unemployment rates in Israel due to the influx of Ethiopian and Russian immigrants. The archaeological site employs more than 300 residents and is now the major employer in Beth-Shean. And the results have been striking.
Under the direction of four archaeological teams - two from the Antiquities Department and two from Hebrew University - the beautiful Roman city of Beth-Shean is emerging.
From the deepest pit of the tell are remains that date back to the fifth millenium B.C. Stele from the Egyptian conquest of Beth-Shean bear the cartouches (names in an oval form) of Pharoahs Tuthmosis III, Amenhotep, Ramesses I and II. A statue of Ramses III was found and a lintel with his name carved in it.
This area was the site of several stories recounted in the Bible.
During the Iron Age (1250-1000 B.C.), Beth-Shean came under rule of the Philistines. King Saul and his sons lost a battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa and their bodies were hung on the walls of Beth-Shean as told in I Samuel 31.
The nearby Spring of Harod was where the fascinating story told in Judges 7 took place. God wanted the Israelites to win a battle where they could not brag it was their strength that had made the difference. At the spring, Gideon was to observe how the men of his army drank. Three hundred "lappers" who lapped up the water with their tongues like a dog were selected to go to battle against the entire army of the Midianites. The men were equipped strangely with ram's horns and clay jars concealing flaming torches. Quietly surrounding the camp of the Midianites in the night, they suddenly produced a hellish din of 300 horns blasting and 300 shouting men, 300 jars crashing and the frightening appearance of the 300 blazing torches. The Midianites took to panicked flight with Gideon and his men on their heels for a complete rout. Much more effective than the CIA's wimpy rock music attack on Manuel Noriega!
These valleys were the site of more than just psychological warfare. The routes linking Egypt and Mesopotamia have been the site of battles and strategies that were repeated over the centuries. In 1486 B.C., Pharoah Thutmose III marched into Canaan to put down a revolt and took the smallest of three entrances into the Jezreel Valley against the advice of his generals. He surprised the Canaanite armies, crushing them.
King Josiah was killed as he tried to stop Egyptians from advancing in 609 B.C.
The Romans guarded the pass with a legion of soldiers.
It was General Allenby's brilliant outmaneuvering in the Jezreel Valley against the Turks and Germans in 1919 that captured the Galilee and then the whole country for Great Britain. For this, Allenby was awarded the title "Viscount Allenby of Meggido."
During the Hellenistic period (3rd century B.C.), the city moved to the base of the tell and began to spread. The city was known as Scythopolis, the city of the Scythians. It's anybody's guess who the Scythians were, the most provocative theory being that they came from Northern Russia. Scythopolis was part of federation called the Decapolis. Some of the other cities were Damascas, Hippos, Pella, Gerasa and Philadelphia. You will find the 10-city federation (the Decapolis) mentioned in Matthew 4:25 and Mark 5:20. Scythopolis was the only member of the Decapolis west of the Jordan River.
The city became Roman during the 1st and 2nd century B.C. There is a magnificent Roman theater (the best preserved in all of Israel) made with marble imported from Asia Minor. You may be taken aback when the guide describes the tunnels that discharged patrons into the theater as "vomitorium" but relax, this is an archaic term that means an opening or funnel leading to theater seats. (Excuse this observation, but that might aptly describe the portals in the Delta Center when heavy-metal bands are playing!)
If you ever sat in a darkened theater and watched the logo for Cineplex-Odeon appear on the screen, you'll feel at home exploring the Odeon, a small Roman theater at Beth-Shean. An incredibly beautiful mosiac of the head and bust of Tyche, the goddess of fortune, was uncovered. The mosaic survived a devastating earthquake in 749 A.D. when the city was destroyed but was lost to us when greedy thieves stole it in 1989 in the dead of night. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is recreating the mosaic from drawings and photographs.
The Roman temple recently uncovered probably served the cult of Dionysus, but many gods, including Pan, Zeus Akrios and Astoreth, were worshipped at Beth-Shean over the millenia.
Baths, fountains and reflecting pools beautified the city and are being restored. Intricately carved columns and stonework are stacked awaiting placement in the recreated city. The city streets were once lined with columns and there was a covered pavillion over the shops of Beth-Shean.
The pagan city became Christian at one point in its history and Jews and Samaritans were numbered among its citizens. One of the shops along the main thoroughfare yielded a Jewish bronze oil lamp with the carvings of a miniature menorah, a shofar (ram's horn), a lulav (palm branch) and an ethrog (citron fruit). A bronze lamp dating to the 6th century A.D. was decorated with a cross-shaped handle.
Walking quietly among the throngs of tourists, those with vivid imaginations and the ability to tune out extraneous sounds can fine-tune the soft summer winds whispering through the trees surrounding Beth-Shean. They'll hear cries and see battles fought long ago. There will be laughter rising from the elaborate baths and shouts echoing across the ampitheater where gladiators may have fought before members of the Sixth Roman Legion, stationed near Beth-Shean in the 2nd century A.D.
The view from one's armchair will never be the same.