The Biblical Archaeologist - Vol.32, N.4

36 Pages·1969·4.22 MB·English

by  American Schools of Oriental Research

The
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST
?or-
Publishedb y
THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
126 Inman Street, Cambridge,M ass.
Vol. XXXII December, 1969 No. 4
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Fig. 1. Aerial view of the lower slope of Mt. Gerizim, looking southwest. Adjacent to the
two houses in the foreground are the re-excavatedr emains of the Tananir sanctuary.
All photographsa re by Lee C. Ellenberger.
Contents
Bronze Age Buildings at the Shechem High Place: ASOR Excavations at
Tananir, by Robert G. Boling ....... 81
Tribal League Shrines in Amman a..n..d.. ..S...h..e..c.h...e.m....,. .b..y.. ..E..d...w..a..r..d F. Campbell,
Jr., and G. Ernest Wr ight ......................................................104
82 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (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-
go, Illinois, 60614.
Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University; G. Ernest Wright, Harvard
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Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research, 1969.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY TRANSCRIPT PRINTING COMPANY
PETERBOROUGH. N. H.
Bronze Age Buildings At The Shechem High Place:
ASOR Excavations At Tananir
ROBERGT. BOLING
McCormick Theological Seminary
During the last three weeks of October, 1968, the American School of
Oriental Research re-excavated a Bronze age structure in the neighborhood
called Tananir,' located on the lower slope of Mt. Gerizim, some 300 meters
from ancient Shechem. The building was first described by G. Welter as
part of his progressr eport on the work of the German institute at Shechem.2
It was notable for its square plan (eighteen meters on a side), with square
and rectangular rooms arranged around a central room or court. Within the
latter were reported to be a platform or "altar"s ubstructurei n the southeast
corner and a centrally placed stone pillar. Welter interpreted the pillar as
a massebah. The southwest corner room enclosed a "plastered"c istern (see
Figure 2, where Welter's plan is represented by dotted lines). To facilitate
discussion we have assigned room numbers to the units of the building;
these numbers appear in boxes, e.g., room 1 in the northwest corner.
Architectural parallels for the Gerizim building were entirely lacking
at the time of the German work, and the religious interpretationw as based
largely, it seems, upon the interpretation of certain objects: "a fetish, in-
cense stands,"'3" a stone idol, a phallus."4 For additional details the only
1. Arabic broken plural of tannur, "oven." The name is not commonly used today, as appar-
ently it was only forty years ago. It is explained by older residents as referring to fireplaces on
the mountainside, used formerly by Samaritans on their festival occasions. In bestowing such a
name upon the neighborhood, the Samaritans perpetuated a very ancient activity at the nearby
ruins.
2. G. Welter, Archiiologischer Anzeiger, III/IV (1932), 313f.
3. Ibid.
4. E. Sellin, Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, L (1932), 305f.
1969, 4) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 83
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Fig. 2. Schematic plan of the Tananir sanctuary based upon Welter's 1931 plan and the
1968 excavations. The room numbers referred to in this article are indicated in squares.
This and other plans were prepared by Oliver M. Unwin.
84 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII,
surviving source is a newspaper release by Miss B. D. Mazur, Welter's
assistant for historical research. Fully half of the article is given over to
"the recent discovery by Dr. Walter (sic) of the Temple Baal-berith."
Mazur gives, apparently, the internal dimensions: a sixteen-meter square
structure with an eight meter square central court.
Near the altar were found tube-like incense burners, a few feet long
and similar to those found in Babylonia and at Besan; libation bowl;
oil lamp; and in the chambers huge pithos vases and alabastrao f Egyp-
tian importation. But most impressiveo f all was the foundation deposit:
resting in a corner of the foundation wall near the altar were a finely
carved bronze sword and two spears. . . . The chronology of the
temple is about the beginning of the Late Bronze Age 1500-1400.
Evidence clearly points to its destruction by fire-a testimony of the
piteous end of Abimelech's enemies (Judges 9:49).5
It is unfortunate in the extreme that no records of Welter's field work
can be found; anything that remains of the "altar"i s now under a modern
house and there is no hint of the impressive "foundation deposit" in his
Archaologischer Anzeiger paragraphs or in the report to the Department
of Antiquities. None of the objects from the 1931 excavation can today be
traced.
In the complete absence of comparable temple architecture, and after
a careful look at the Tananir pottery, Professor Albright interpreted the
building as a patrician house of the late Middle Bronze age, in certain ways
comparable to his famous Tell Beit Mirsim example.6 Albright was at that
time bringing order out of chaos with the establishment of a reliable ceramic
chronology for Palestine. However the question of the cultic character of
the building might finally be settled, Welter's announcement, that at Tananir
he had found the Late Bronze age temple destroyed by Abimelech, was
clearly wrong.
In 1956 there turned up what appeared to be the missing architectural
link, with the discovery of a Late Bronze age temple impeding the progress
of expansion at the Amman airport.7L ike the Tananir building the square
Amman temple consisted of rectangular rooms arranged around a square
central court, having a centrally placed massebah. The building was situated
a comparabled istance from any known settlement of the period. The only
difference is that the dimensions of the Amman building were smaller.
The striking similarity between the Tananir and Amman buildings has
recently been discussed by G. R. H. Wright, chief architect of the current
5. B. D. Mazur, The Palestine Bulletin, June 5, 1932. Welter himself dated the destruction to
the end of the MB II; see the full quotation in the article by Campbell and Wright below.
6. W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine (1954), pp. 91f., figs. 16 and 17.
7. Systematic excavation of the site in 1966, following preliminary salvage work by the Jordan-
ian Department of Antiquities, was conducted and promptly reported by J. B. Hennessy of the
British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, in Palestine Exploration Quarterly, XCVIII (1966),
155-62.
1969, 4) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 85
Joint Expedition to Balata (Shechem), who was understandably cautious
because of the lack of data for relating Tananir's own architectural units.8
Because of a recent flurry of new construction in the neighborhood, where
the panoramic sweep of the Shechem valley is unexcelled, Wright despaired
of ever reclaiming sufficient data to justify re-excavation. However, a visit
to the site in the summer of 1968, on a busman's holiday from Field XIII
at Shechem, convinced us that we would have access to at least one-third
of the building and that, in any case, we would uncover the southwest
corner, where the one published plan indicated we might find undisturbed
soil against the outside, which in turn would allow us to determine strati-
graphy. Plans were developed for ASOR to go into the field in October.
The Tananir dig was designed as an opportunity for archaeological
collaboration, providing initial field experience for students and scholars
related to a number of institutions. Area supervisors were ASOR Fellow
James Charlesworth and HUCBAS Fellow Frank Benz, together with Icole
Biblique students Margaret McKenna and Eduardo D'Olivera. Lee Ellen-
berger of the Joint Expedition provided his incomparable photographic cov-
erage, and the work of surveying and architectural recording was done by
Oliver Unwin of the British School. Completion of his ulpan studies en-
abled ASOR Fellow John Ribar to join us for the last week and complete
the excavation of a second MB structure. Mrs. Karin Rabkin, HUCBAS
student, was registrar and became supervisor-at-largea, s illness sidelined
two of the staff early in the game. ASOR's Edward Tango was foreman
and camp manager. ASOR Director Kermit Schoonover served throughout
as project advisor and persistent administrator.W e were quartered in the
home of Selman Suleiman, Mukhtar of Balata, where we did our bookwork
and, on costly total curfew days, formed two-penny pools anticipating the
next burst of gunfire, the hour of the lifting of the curfew, etc. Thanks to
the splendid spirit that dominated the staff from start to finish, we were
able to fulfill our obligations to our Balata friends, and meet the central
aims of the dig.
The Site
Ellenberger's aerial photo (Fig. 1, looking SW) shows the excavated
area narrowly hemmed in by two modern houses, a high rock outcrop up-
hill, trees above rapidly rising bedrock to the west, and a low rubble terrace
wall downhill. Hidden from view are a pair of cisterns alongside the houses.
The houses and cisterns cover one-half of Welter's building.
At the outset four five-meters quares were placed alongside the cisterns,
leaving one-meter balks and numbered from north to south. (See Fig. 4;
area numbers are encircled on the plan, e.g., area 1 at the NE corner of
8. G. R. H. Wright, Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, LXXX (1968), 1-35.
86 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII,
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1969, 4) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 87
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Fig. 4. The 1968 plan of the sanctuary remains. Numbers in circles refer to the excavation
areas.
the field). All were subsequently widened by half a meter on the east
Area 4 was finally extended another three meters uphill.
The biggest surprise to come from our search for pieces of the pub-
lished building (our "Building A") was the discovery of another one, in
part very much like it, one step down the slope. With the discovery of
"Building B," area 1 was given a 1.5 meter square extension at the north-
east corner. As an additional stratigraphicalc heck, the probe at the north-
east corner was subsequently carried another 2.5 m. down the slope.
88 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII,
"Bedding plane" is the geologist's term for each layer in the stratified
deposition of bedrock such as Gerizim's limestone. A glance at the north-
south Section (Fig. 3) will be enough to suggest how the configurationso f
bedrock presented some of the most fascinating puzzles of the season. Figure
5 shows two fine rendered surfaces separatedb y a low spur of bedrock.T hat
the latter once supported a mud-brick wall (wall 7) was indicated by the
angle of repose of bricks found to the west of it; these all belong to Build-
ing B. The inner terrace wall sits above a point where the bedding planes
terminate, stepping downhill at ca. 45 degrees. Except for a recent intrusion
at the east balk to obtain dirt for the adjacent garden terrace, the slope had
not been excavated in modern times. The evidence is clear in Figure 5,
where a dark continuous band of terra rossa is tagged (locus 2) in the
balk. This is pre-1931 topsoil, the result of centuries of erosion down the
slopes rounding off the rubble and depositing a thin skin of rich red dirt.
Fig. 5. Areas 1 and 2, looking west. The bedrock spur, separating two fine rendered surfaces,
is just to the right of the cat-walk or balk of earth left by the excavators; just to
right of the spur, a white tag in the unexcavated earth marks the terra rossa blanket
representing the undisturbed top-soil that collected over the ruins.
Everything above it is 1931-excavation dump, thrown back to form the
present terrace. The presence of terra rossa 2 in area 1, breaking directly
over the higher bedding plane and disappearing under the inner terrace
wall, meant that we were outside anything that might survive from the
published plan. The continuation of the terra rossa blanket into area 2 was
even more disconcerting, but it meanlt that areas 5, 6, and 7 should be
opened opposite 2, 3, and 4 respectively. With the appearance of the out-
side wall angling across area 6 it was possible to restrict area 7 to a four by
five meter "square;"i t was subsequently extended uphill for another three
meters. To be sure that we caught all surviving traces of wall 502, area 5
was widened by one meter on the west. To be doubly sure that we were
not missing the north wall of Welter's building, a one by five meter trench
had been placed along the brink of the terracea nd designated area 5a. With
the discovery of Building B, area 5a was extended down the slope at a width
of four meters. Thus developed the irregularo utline of the main field (Fig.
1969, 4) THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST 89
4). By the time it had developed, I was sure that I understood a curious
comment by Sellin, who remarks that the temple stood open to the north;9
that is, a long stretch of the north wall had disappeared in antiquity!
Area 8 was our designation for a small circular wall described as in-
corporating a rock outcrop and enclosing a "place where a fetish stood,
surrounded by numerous amphorae."'?T he "fetish stone" was "the only
one of its kind in Palestine" (Mazur). It was, to be sure, "outside"t he big
building, nearly a hundred meters to the west. A two by four meter area
was begun, exposing a stretch of circular wall one course high, just below
the surface, with rendered surfaces running against both faces and an
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Fig. 6. Area 8, where a small circular wall enclosed a place where Welter found what he
called a fetish and a number of amphorae. The 1968 excavation was precluded from
completing study of this installation.
abundance of pottery (MB to modern) churned together in the shallow
backfill (Fig. 6). When we had learned just this much, the curfew was
imposed.
Latest Remains
Area 9 was less than thirty meters to the west of Building A, centering
in a rock-filled rectangular basin or vat cut out of bedrock, flanked by a
long low rectangular platform to the west. According to Nimer Dahood Sal-
man, timekeeper for Welter, the latter had cleared inside the vat but had
not dug around it. We removed the accumulation of forty years, cleared the
surface around it, noted the shallow (settling basin?) depression in the
bottom, a low bedrock shelf in one corner, hard burnished plaster on sev-
eral surfaces, and weathered post holes on all four corners (Fig 7). This
9. Sellin, Zeitschrift fiir die alttestmentliche Wissenschaft, L. (1932), 305f.
10. Welter, Archiiologischer Anzeiger, III/IV (1932), 313f.
90 THE BIBLICALA RCHAEOLOGIST (Vol. XXXII,
Fig. 7. Late Roman or early Byzantine stone-cut vat in bedrock some 100 feet west of the
sanctuary.
was preparatoryt o stratigraphicalw ork around it when suddenly the cur-
few redirecteds upervisorsi n full force to the main site. Areas 8 and 9 were
photographed, planned, and placed on the Tananir map.
The area 9 vat installation could not have been dug with Bronze age
tools, and it probably belongs to a period of flourishing activity at Tananir
in late Roman and early Byzantine times. These later periods are well repre-
sented by sherds in topsoil and high subsoil loci and by other artifacts,
among them an iron nail and bits of glass; the glass included pieces of two
fine bracelets, several small bowls, and a "wine-glass"s tem." All but one of
11. For the typological placement of these pieces I have appreciated invaluable observations of
Mr. Dan Barag, who is preparing his Hebrew University dissertation on the glass of Late Roman
and Early Byzantine times.