[Magazine] The Biblical Archaeologist. Vol. 32. No 2

24 Pages·1969·2.75 MB·English

The
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST
?or-
Published by
THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
Jerusalem and Bagdad
Room 102, 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Mass.
Vol. XXXII May, 1969 No. 2
Fig. 1. Tell Hesbn, the site of ancient Heshbon, from the northeast. Notice the contour of
the mound with its acropolis and shelf between it and the lower slopes. Photo by George
J. Unger.
Contents
The 1968 Heshbon Expedition, by Siegfried H. Horn ................................26
Ancient Greek Synagogue Inscriptions, by Floyd V. Filson .....................41
New American Schools Publications ..................................... .................46
26 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII
The Biblical Archaeologist is published quarterly (February, May, September, December)
by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable,
non-technical, yet thoroughly reliable account of archaeological discoveries as they relate to the
Bible.
Editor: Edward F. Campbell, Jr., with the assistance of Floyd V. Filson in New Testament
matters. Editorial correspondence should be sent to the editor at 800 West Belden Avenue, Chica-
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Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1969.
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The 1968 Heshbon
Expedition
SIEGFRIEDH . HORN
Andrews University
The first season of excavations at Heshbon was planned for the summer
of 1967. Sponsored by Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan,
the Heshbon expedition enjoyed the cooperationo f the American Schools of
Oriental Research. A staff had been assembled, including archaeologistsw ho
had received their training at Shechem and at other sites; other professionals
such as architect-surveyorsp, hotographers,a nd an anthropologist;a nd teach-
ers and studenitsw ho desired to receive training in practical field archaeo-
logy. By the end of May 1967 the ASOR tent camp and equipment had
been moved to Tell Hesban, and some staff members had arrived in Jeru-
salem. First the rising political tension made a postponement of the expedi-
tion advisable, and finally the expedition had to be canceled altogether when
on June 5 the Six-day War broke out.
A new beginning had to be made. Many of the staff members were
willing to try again and new ones were added. Professor G. Ernest Wright,
president of the ASOR, gave his support by providing funds for equipment
and a car to be used in excavations east of the Jordan, where, because of
the new situation, the Jerusalem facilities were unavailable. Hence the first
Heshbon expedition began field operations, after a year's delay, on July 15,
1968 and worked for seven weeks until August 30. It was directed by the
writer of this article, while Roger S. Boraas of Upsala College served as
1969, 2) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 27
chief archaeologist. The staff consisted of 42 foreigners' plus three men
appointed by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan2a nd several students
of the University of Jordan. One hundred sixteen villagers from HIesban
and environs served as laborers.
Tell Hesban is a large and prominent mound, even slightly higher than
neighboring Mount Nebo, from which Moses is said to have viewed the
Holy Land before his death. It is located twenty-six road kilometers south-
west of Amman in the Transjordan, and some eleven kilometers north of
Madeba, the present administrative headquarters for the district. A new
hard-top road passes by the site and makes access easy. Four-fifths of the
mound is government-owneda nd is neither covered by houses nor cultivated.
It thus begged for an archaeologicali nvestigation.
In approaching the mound from the northeast some striking topographi-
cal features of the tell are clearly visible. The summit, which we called the
acropolis, is of a rectangularp lan. It is surroundedo n all sides by a gradually
sloping shelf, forth to sixty meters wide, from which a rapid drop to lower
levels is discernible on all sides except the southwest. The whole mound
has a size of approximatelyf ifty acres. Hence Heshbon compares favorably
in size with other ancient sites of comparablei mportance.
The Adventist school building in Amman was the headquarterso f the
expedition. The available facilities made our stay pleasant and materially
aided in the success of the work. The school auditorium served as dormitory
for the thirty men. Five classrooms provided offices for registry operations,
the architects and photographers, director and anthropologist, and sleeping
quarters for the women; a room underneath a stairway was converted into a
darkroomf or the photographers;t he kitchen and storeroomw ere the domain
of the cook and his three assistants; the back yard provided space for the
seven automobiles that gave mobility to the staff members- five VW buses,
one Volvo limousine, and an old Chevrolet carryall, bought for the ASOR,
which served also as truck. These vehicles made daily commuting to the
mound possible.
Work on the mound was carried on five days a week from 5 A.M. to
1:30 P.M. with a half-hour breakfast and a 15-minute tea break interrupting
1. Area supervisors and their associates were: Area A: Bastiaan Van Elderen and Mervyn Max-
well; Area B: Dewey Beegle and E. Grohman; Area C: Henry Thompson and D. Waterhouse;
and Area D: Phyllis Bird and L. Geraty. Robert Little was anthropologist; Avery Dick and
George Unger were photographers, and Bert De Vries and Paul Belton served as architect-sur-
veyors.
2. Fawzi Zayadin, Ghazi Besha and Mohammed Odeh were representatives of the Department
of Antiquities; Mustafa Tawfiq, a refugee from Balatah, was general foreman, and Mohammed
Adawi of the American School in Jerusalem, now also a refugee in Amman, was the expedi-
tion's cook.
28 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII
the eight-hour work days. Staff meetings, lectures, registration of objects,
pottery washing, daily pottery readings, drawing and registrationo f potsherds
were carriedo ut at the headquartersa t Amman.
'Heshbon's History from Literary Sources3
Heshbon is mentioned first in connection with the Israelite invasion of
Transjordan some forty years after the Exodus. At that time Heshbon was
the capital of Sihon, king of the Amorites. However, according to Numbers
21:26-30, Sihon had expelled the Moabites from Heshbon; hence the Moabi-
tes must have been in possession of that city prior to the arrival of the
Amorites. This is further confirmed by the fact that in the Pentateuch the
area surrounding Heshbon is called "the plain of Moab" or "the land of
Moab" (Num. 22:1; 31:12; 33:48; 36:13; Deut. 34:5, 6). However, in
Moses' time the northern border of Moab was the river Arnon, some forty
kilometers south of Heshbon. When the Israelites arrived from Egypt they
requested from Sihon of Heshbon permission to travel through his land.
When this request was denied a war ensued, which the Amorites lost. Hesh-
bon was taken and apparently destroyed; at least the biblical record speaks
of "the children of Reuben" as having built (or rebuilt) Heshbon after the
city was allotted to them (Num. 21:21-26, 34; 32:37; Josh. 13:15, 17).
Later, the city seems to have changed hands, for according to Joshua
21:38, 39, it belonged to the tribe of Gad. The possession by Gad of the
Heshbon area is confirmed by King Mesha of the 9th century, who claims
in the Moabite Stone inscription to have taken the territory north of the
Arnon from the tribe of Gad (lines 10, 11). By the time of Judge Jephthah,
Heshbon had been a city in which Levites dwelt (Josh. 21:39; I Chron.
6:81). During Solomon's reign "the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites,"
in which Heshbon was situated, is mentioned as belonging to one of the
districts into which that king organized his realm (I Kings 4:19). In Canti-
cles 7:4 "the fishpools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim"a re men-
tioned. Bath-rabbims eems to have been the name of a city gate.
For two centuries the Bible is silent about Heshbon, but in the time
of t;he prophet Isaiah (ca. 700 B.C.) Heshbon, together with Madeba, Elea-
lah, and other cities which had formerly belonged to Israel, appears to have
been in the hands of the Moabites (Isa. 15:2, 4; 16:8, 9). It is possible
that the city fell to them as the result of Mesha's conquest of the Gadite
territory described on the Moabite Stone, although Heshbon is not men-
tioned in that inscription. That conquest took place in the second half of
3. This brief account of the history of Heshbon as known before excavations began is based
on a B.D. thesis presented by Werner Vyhmeister and deposited in the James White Library
of Andrews University. A condensation appeared in Andrews University Seminary Studies
(henceforth abbreviated AUSS), VI (July 1968), 158-177.
1969, 2) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 29
the 9th century and preceded Isaiah's prophecy by more than 100 years.
In a prophecy of Jeremiah (48:2, 34, 45) Heshbon shares the prophet's
denunciation with other Moabite cities, indicating Moabite possession in
the earlier part of Jeremiah'sm inistry. However, in a later oracle of Jeremiah
(49:2, 3), Heshbon appears to be an Ammonite city, having apparently
changed hands during the prophet's life. How and when this happened is
uncertain, but it has been suggested that Ezekiel 25:9, 10 casts light on this
event. This passage refers to an invasion of eastern tribes and of the Am-
monites, in connection with which Heshbon may have fallen into their
hands.
During the Hellenistic period a strong Jewish population developed in
Transjordan. In order to bring this region into the Jewish state founded by
the Maccabees, their rulers - Jonathan in 147 B.C. and John Hyrcanus in
129 B.C. - annexed territoriesb eyond the Jordan. Hyrcanus captured Made-
ba (Josephus, Antiquities xiii.9.1). Although Heshbon is not mentioned in
the records dealing with these wars, there can be little doubt that it came
into the possession of John Hyrcanus at that time, because it is listed among
the cities of Moab that were in Jewish hands soon after, during the reign of
Alexander Jannaeus, who ruled from 103-76 B.C. (ibid., 15.4).
During the time of Herod the Great (40-4 B.C.), Esbus - as Heshbon
was then called - became a fortress city guarding Herod's kingdom against
the Nabateans in Transjordan. At the outbreak of the Jewish-Roman war
in A.D. 66 the city was sacked by the Jews (Josephus, Wars, ii.18.1), but
it does not seem to have been held by the Jewish rebels for any length of
time. After the Emperor Trajan dissolved the Nabatean kingdom in A.D.
106, Esbus became part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. In the
3rd century it was even allowed by the Emperor Elagabalus to coin its own
money.
At what time Esbus became a Christian city is not known, but that it
was the seat of a Christian bishop in the 4th century is attested by the records
of the Council of Nicea in 325, which repeatedly mention Bishop Gennadius
of Esbus. Also the acts of the Council of Ephesus, held in 431, mention a
bishop of Esbus whose name was Zosus. At that time the bishop of Esbus
seems to have been subject to the patriarcho f Antioch. Soon after the inva-
sion of the Arabs in the 7th century, Esbus apparently ceased as a Christian
city. The last evidence of the city's Christian character consists in corres-
pondence of the 7th century between Pope Martin I and Bishop Theodore
of Esbus concerning the latter's orthodoxy. After this correspondence, the
name Esbus disappearsf rom the literary sources, reappearingo nly centuries
later in its Arabic form Hesban.
After the Arab invasion a clear historical reference is not found until
30 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII
1184, when ed-Din, a biographer of Saladin, the great Moslem leader who
defeated the Crusaders, referred to Hesban as a village. In his history of
Saladin, ed-Din says that the Franks, that is, the Crusaders, had taken up
positions at el-Waleh (the biblical Elealah), while Saladin encamped close
to a village called before advancing toward Kerak. Another Arab
writer, Abu el-FedaH, .weshboa nd,i ed in 1331, said that "the capital of the Belka
is HusbMn."A lso during the 13th century several other Arabic writers men-
tion HesbMn. But after that there is complete silence with regard to this
site until the 19th century, when, during the age of Near Eastern explora-
tions, Ijesban is frequently described by travelers and explorers. However,
they know it only as a ruin site, a desolate mound, void of inhabitants.
The present population of the village of Hesbn consists of four fami-
lies who until a few decades ago were Bedouin. They were settled on the
eastern slopes of the mound by the Nabulsi family, wealthy landowners
who had moved to the Hesbin area from western Palestine toward the end
of the 19th century. It is therefore unlikely that the present villagers of
have either a historical or an ethnic connection with the people
Hesbin
of ancient Heshbon, Roman Esbus, or even with the Hesbin of the early
Arab periods.
The Aims of the First Season
Since Tell Hesbin had never been subjected to any archaeological
explorations, the first season was designed to provide as much information
as possible with regard to its archaeological history. It was hoped that in
this way enough evidence would come to light to show what could be ex-
pected from future seasons of excavations, in order to chart a long-range
program of exploration for this site. With this in mind four sectors of the
mound were chosen for the initial excavations. The choice was made after
careful study of the configuration of the mound and of surface indications
of ancient remains.
The summit of the mound was of a rectangularp lan with low mounds
of debris and stones bordering a flat space on the north, west and south sides
(see Fig. 2). Inside the rectangle a series of four column bases, running in
an east-west line, gave the impression of being part of the roof support of
a major classical structure. It was therefore decided to excavate this sector
of the mound and ascertain the nature of the buildings which in ancient
times were erected on the top of the hill. This sector became known as
Area A. It consisted of four 6 by 8 meter Squares (we called "Square"a ny
subdivisiono f an excavationA rea regardlesso f its shape).
Furthermore,i t seemed advisable to make a deep sounding to ascertain
in the shortest possible time how many occupation levels the mound pos-
sesses. A sector on the shelf just below and south of the acropolis was
1969, 2) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 31
chosen for this purpose, since its surface gave no evidence of walls or other
hints of major construction, thus allowing excavation as free as possible of
buildings and similar major features. This sector, Area B, consisted of one
Square, 7 by 7 meters in size.
AREA CS (cid:127) / ( ........ .. . \!
AREA
?=202 3 //V"VAS tE' Fp(cid:127)
Sr-F4LE-F
9CfOPOLIS
I BERT DEV RIES
Fig. 2. Contour map of the acropolis of Tell HesbAn. Contour lines are drawn at one-meter
intervals of elevation. The Areas dug during the 1968 season are indicated.
In order to find the ancient city's defense wall a sector on the western
slope was chosen for investigation. Here the slope drops rather steeply into
the Wadi HIesbn, and it was thought any defense construction had
,that
probably been located at the edge of such a natural contour. Furthermore,
two parallel hillocks and a depression between them gave an appearanceo f a
possible west-side gateway construction. For this reason four Squares run-
ning in a row from west to east were placed in this sector, called Area C.
The south balks of these four Squares formed our main east-west axis of the
mound, which in Area A marked north boundaries of Squares 1 and 2.
.the
32 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII
The fourths ectoro f investigationA, rea D, was placedo n the southern
slope of the summit.G round-surfacfee aturesg ave some basis for suspecting
a main accesst o the acropolisf rom the south or southwest.T hree Squares
were opened in this area along the main north-southa xis which in :ts
northerne xtensionf ormed the west balks of Squares2 and 3 of Area A.
While the excavationsw ere going on the surveyorsb egan work on a
contourm ap of the mound,a s their other duties left them time for this job.
The surveyo f the acropolisa nd adjacents lopings helf was completed.A lso
the base line of the tell was mappedo ut, but a surveyo f the lower slopes
of the mound and of the adjacenta reas must be made during the next
season, because no reliablem ap of the mound and its surroundinga rea
seems to exist.
The Ruins of a Byzantine Church in Area A
In the second week of excavationsit becamec lear that the building
to which the column bases, alreadyr eferredt o, had belonged was most
probablya Christianc hurch (Fig. 3). The evidencef or this identification,
which in the following weeks increased,l ay in a fragmento f a multi-
coloredm osaicf loor with an arc-shapedb order( Fig. 4), parallelt o which
ran two courseso f a wall consistingo f well dresseds tones that had formed
the apse of a building.T he shape of this wall and its locationi n the east
side of the building, typical for the apse of a Byzantinec hurch, gave us
the first hint with regardt o the charactero f the building we were exca-
vating. In the courseo f excavationsw e found that the apse mosaic,d ated
to the last half of the 6th century,4b elonged to the last phase of the
church, which in the course of its existence had experienceda number
of reconstructionasn d alterations.
The Arab invadersh ad destroyedi t most thoroughlya nd had not
even left the foundation stones in some parts of the excavateds ectors
of the building.H owever,i t seemsc lear that the four columnb ases,w hich
are well aligned with the apse, separatedt he centrala isle from the north-
ern side aisle. Of the north wall of the church three coursesw ere pres-
erved. This wall, 1.10 m. wide, is of excellent constructiona nd consists
of well dressedb locks of stones laid in header-stretchefra shion. In the
central aisle another fragmento f a mosaic floor was discovered,b ut this
may belong to an earlier phase of the church than the one found within
the apse. Also south and outside the apse, mosaic floor fragments came to
light which belonged most likely to a side room. Their proximityt o the
4. According to a letter of November 29, 1968, written to the author by Dr. Ute Lux, director
of the German Institute for the Exploration of the Holy Land, and a recognized expert on an-
cient mosaics.
1969, 2) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 33
south balk has so far prevented us from establishing their relationship
to the structural remains of the church.
Fig. 3. Byzantine church of Heshbon, in the course of excavation in Area A. The apse is in
the right foreground, with a cistern built in during the Arab period after the church
had been destroyed. Three column bases dividing the central aisle from the north side
aisle can be seen in the center; also visible is the northern outside wall running from
left to right beyond the row of column bases. Arab water channels run through the
ruin at the left. Photo by George J. Unger.
In the debris of the church numerous pieces of painted plaster were
collected that once had covered the walls of the building. Among them
was one that con~tainst he Greek letters ]ANIE[ which are the central
letters of the name of the prophet Daniel (Fig. 7, center). They are
painted on the plaster in a semicircular arrangement which once was
probably above the head of a painting of that prophet.
The southern aisle of the church and the western portion with its
entrance, lying under deeper layers of debris than the portions exca-
vated in 1968, will be uncovered during the next season of excavations.
In some parts of the excavations of Area A we reached bedrock just
below the architectural features of the church, and it seems that for the
construction of this Byzantine church the structural remains of all or most
earlier buildings had been removed. At the time of the Arab invasion or
sometime thereafter the church was thoroughly destroyed. Its area was
converted into an open square bordered on three sides by stone buildings
consisting of vaulted and other rooms. The eastern side apparently re-
34 THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII
mained free of buildings. This layout gave the courtyard exposure to
the morning sun from the east and protection from the afternoon sun
and prevailing winds form the west, which often can be very annoying
as we found out to our discomfort. The courtyard seems to have been
paved, if one can trust the memory of the villagers who claim to have
removed the pavement stones for reuse in the building of their houses.
Water channels were laid all over the area and a cistern was constructed
in the apse, while another cistern lying between two column bases was
also incorporated into the system of collecting rain water.
Area B, a Deep Sounding Shaft
As already stated, Area B consisted of only one Square and was
chosen to reveal, if possible, the stratigraphich istory of the mound. First,
layers of Arab remains were encountered under which was a thick layer
of almost sterile gray-white huwwar, i.e., decomposed limestone. While
it is possible that some of this huwwar is water-laid and came from the
higher slopes of the acropolis, the huge amount of this material rather
militates against this explanation. It is more likely that it had been brought
in as a fill to create an open flat space, perhaps for a threshingfloor or
courtyard. The limited size of the excavated area did not allow us to come
to a definite conclusion with regard to the purpose of this layer.
In the northern part of the Square, remains of what seems to have
been a Late Arab lime kiln were found. This installation had been cut
through all layers of occupation to a depth of more than three meters.
Its remains badly disfigured the north balk of the Square and made it
necessary for safety reasons to cut a sloping notch into the balk. The
walls of the kiln, oval in plan, consisted of lining stones that were badly
charred, cracked and discolored from the heat. The inside was filled with
a tumble of cut stones that were not charred like the lining stones and
therefore were probably not part of the collapsed roof. The remainder
of the space inside the kiln contained burned limestones ranging from
fist-sized to smaller cobbles.
At the south end of the Square the huwwar layer was interrupted
by a wall, mostly robbed out. Underneath the huwwar layer a stratum
from Byzantine and Roman times came to light, as the pottery indicated.
Then came a rebuild-phase of a 1.05 meter wide wall from Hellenistic
times, to judge from the evidence provided by some Attic black ware, a
Rhodian stamped jar handle, dated by the eponym's name to 220-180
B.C., and some local Hellenistic pottery. In this stratum was found the ar-
ticulated skeleton, minus head, of a large feline, probably a lynx. One hind
leg showed signs of burning. Whether this decapitated and partially burned
animal had been used in a cultic ceremony could not be ascertained.