【Global Vision】
Author: Andrew Lawler; translated by Chen Guangmeng
Last fall, the world's media rushed to report on a 2,700-year-old toilet. The toilet is important not so much because it illustrates the history of the sewer pipe, but because of the location where it was found, Jerusalem. Around the world, there are few places like this ancient Middle Eastern city that have carried out a lot of archaeological excavations for a long time. Today, Jerusalem is a fast-growing metropolis, but archaeologists still carry out at least a dozen excavations here every day. And, no matter how mundane the archaeological finds here are, they can attract a lot of media attention. Nowhere can you get that kind of treatment. Here, even an ancient toilet can attract the attention of countless people and make people think.
The picture shows an archaeological site in Jerusalem. Courtesy of Global Science magazine
1. An ancient city full of puzzles
It is the holy city in the minds of billions of people. Since the 1830s, treasure hunters, fervent believers and scholars have flocked to the city to uncover the history of the holy city through excavation. In the process of excavating ancient tombs and treasures, these archeological pioneers founded "biblical archaeology". Over time, secular scholars succeeded as the main force in Jerusalem archaeology, and although they were not very keen on preserving scriptures and treasure hunting, they still believed that religious texts were an important research tool, worth as much as the hand shovel used in archaeology.
Yet, despite more than a century and a half of research, Jerusalem still leaves researchers with a wealth of puzzles. In the 5,000-year-long history of Jerusalem, there are many periods that are missing in their entirety, including the period of the origins of the early Jewish civilization and the later period of Persian, Greek, and Arab civilization. Scientists know little about the health of the city's inhabitants, their diets, their trading partners, and how they interact with their surrounding areas.
The reason why Jerusalem has left so many unsolved mysteries is that archaeologists have always been obsessed with studying Hebrew scriptures rather than using modern means to restore history. It was only in recent years that they began to use techniques such as radiocarbon isotope dating, but researchers in other parts of the world have long considered this technique to be the standard tool. Archaeologists in Jerusalem have been preoccupied with finding clues from the Bible, but they have been reluctant to find clues from the piles of dilapidated artifacts and relics to get a more comprehensive picture of the daily lives of Jerusalemites thousands of years ago.
Now, scholars studying Jerusalem are racing to catch up with their peers with new analytical methods and research goals. However, the three faiths mingle in the city, and the two peoples are constantly at odds, and archaeological research here is still as inseparable from religion and politics as it was in the 19th century. This situation casts a shadow over science. Today, excavations in Jerusalem are tightly controlled by israel's Antiquities Administration. The agency, a governmental organization, does not issue permits for archaeological excavations to Palestinian teams in the city, and rarely authorizes foreigners to do so. On the other hand, groups with opposing interests often spend huge sums of money on excavation work at the same time. Israeli leaders often cite archaeological findings to proclaim their sovereignty over Al-Quds Al-Sharif, but many international organizations consider many areas to be forcibly occupied and condemn all excavations in those areas, no matter how perfect the scientific methods used by the diggers. While the latest analytical techniques are gradually revealing the city's history, the truth is now becoming confusing in the face of today's grim realities, no different from what was happening when pioneers dug their first shovel here. That's why, for researchers, Jerusalem is a particular conundrum. It's like a melting pot where religion, politics, and science rarely meet, sometimes complementing each other and sometimes clashing fiercely.
Artifacts from the Greek period from the 3rd century BC unearthed in Jerusalem. Courtesy of Global Science magazine
2. Archaeological research on tearing
In the 1830s, at the dawn of modern archaeology, an outstanding classical scholar in the United States named Edward Robinson began his fanatical exploration. He decided to use the scientific method to prove that religious texts accurately described people, places, and events in the real world. Carrying a Bible as a guidebook, a thermometer, a tape measure, a telescope, and three compasses, he set out for Jerusalem in search of what he considered "a true presence of Jewish antiquities."
Robinson first set out to match the names of the villages, wells, and streams around Jerusalem at that time with the names used in the text to prove that the geographic information in the text was accurate. In 1841, his work with collaborator Eli Smith was published. The book is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. The careers of such scholars have changed the landscape of archaeological research in the Middle East. At that time, the Ottoman Empire controlled Jerusalem and the surrounding Palestinian areas. In 1863, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (an Arabic term for ruler of an Islamic state) issued an excavation permit to a French explorer and senator, the first official excavation permit for Jerusalem. The Sultan was not interested in the Bible or science, but wanted to establish good relations with the powerful Napoleon III, a close friend of the senators. Soon, teams from Britain, Germany and Russia were also licensed to begin surveying, excavating and analyzing ancient sites across Palestine. These archaeological works were not just for the purpose of devout religious beliefs and understanding history. The Ottoman Empire spanned eastern Europe and the Horn of Africa, and the European powers competed fiercely to gain influence and dominance in the region. Jerusalem had important christian churches and sanctuaries that facilitated the gathering of intelligence by European states and the infiltration of power into the Ottoman Empire. Diplomats, officers and spies accompanied religious scholars here, many eager to find treasure while reconstructing history.
Although Jerusalem has existed for thousands of years, Westerners are concerned with the history described in the Bible, a period of thousands of years from the time the Israelites came to Jerusalem in 1000 B.C. to the time it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., when many of the events of the Old and New Testaments took place. Particularly appealing to them was the history of Jerusalem in the first centuries of Jewish rule. Most of these explorers were Protestants, and as children they had heard of King David's palace and Solomon's Temple, as well as relics and treasures associated with Judaism. One of the most famous relics, the Ark of the Covenant is a gilded chest said to contain a slab inscribed with the Ten Commandments that the Israelite leader Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, and is rumored to be magical. In Jerusalem, the desire for knowledge, wealth and religious holiness is often inextricably linked.
From the beginning, diggers faced a special set of challenges. Many ancient sites in the Middle East have a mille-feuille structure, whereby more recent ruins are built on top of older ruins, but this is not the case in Jerusalem. The foundations and building materials of the monuments of Jerusalem are limestone. Jerusalem's characteristic limestone is softer when mined, hardens and turns golden when exposed to air, making it an ideal building material. But the changing use of limestone complicated the work of archaeologists: a stone may have been originally used by the Jews to build housing, but was later reused by the Romans to build temples, arabs to build vaults, and then plundered by crusaders to build churches. Because wood and other organic materials are rarely used in these buildings, it is difficult to determine the construction time and builder of the building structure using modern methods such as ring dating and radiocarbon isotope dating that rely on these materials.
The instability of the geological structure itself also increases the difficulty of the survey. Limestone landscapes are naturally fragile, prone to underground caves and streams. In Jerusalem, thousands of years of quarrying and destruction have led to severe fragmentation of the rock. Rocks that appear solid, which are actually coarse sediments of a tile-like structure, can collapse suddenly. In the 1860s, a British excavator complained: "These sediments would come in like a flood, burying our tools and sometimes burying workers." "Archaeologists have been plagued by this problem ever since. As recently as 2018, an archaeological excavation site collapsed, producing tons of rock debris.
People on the ground also interfere with archaeological work. Unlike ancient sites such as the Babylonian ruins in Iraq, Jerusalem is still a vibrant city, with densely packed churches and shrines attracting a steady stream of Pilgrims, Christians and Muslims. Even just digging a hole here can be seen as disrespectful or even a blatant violation. In 1863, after the French senator first legally excavated a Jewish mausoleum in the city, Jews around the world protested fiercely. A few years later, the excavations by the British also drew fears from muslims, who felt that the British wanted to destroy the walls of the Acropolis of Jerusalem. The Acropolis is called the Temple Mount by Jews and the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims. At that time, the leader of the expedition used gunpowder to blow up the rocks underground in order to open the way, so although this fear sounded strange, it was also forgivable.
Since then, excavations in Jerusalem have sparked occasional demonstrations and bloody riots, and even international crises, with excavators being attacked and hunted down. To think of an archaeological study in Jerusalem, we must first be bold enough.
Towards the end of World War I, Britain seized control of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire. By 1948, Britain had relinquished control of Palestine, and Jewish and Arab forces continued to compete for control of the region. After Israel's independence, its capital was West Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Jordanian army controlled East Jerusalem, and the Old City of Jerusalem and most of the ancient ruins and shrines were in this area. In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Third Middle East War, Israel conquered East Jerusalem and incorporated it into its capital. While most countries believe that Israel has encroached on the territory of other countries, the war has changed the power structure in the Middle East again.
Since then, Israeli Jews have not only transformed the landscape of Jerusalem on the ground, but also finally had the opportunity to glimpse the secrets of the city's underground. Unlike the new generation of biblical archaeologists who were Christians, Robinson and most of his successors were largely agnostics and atheists with little interest in proving that religious texts were truth. But they were also nationalists, fascinated by Jewish history, and believed that the Bible was the basis for guiding them to a new homeland.
Renowned archaeologist Benjamin Magyar, former president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and his colleagues have found in archaeology luxury villas, magnificent avenues, and even the most stunning pedestrian bridges of antiquity, all dating back to the time of Herod the Great and his successors around the first year of the Common Era. The Israeli writer Amos Elon wrote in 1971: "Whether professionals or amateurs, Israeli archaeologists are not only excavating artifacts and studying history, but also gaining a sense of belonging by searching for the roots of their civilization." The findings have also caught the attention of Israeli politicians — the ownership of Jerusalem has always been disputed, so they'll quickly cite this physical evidence to support Israel's sovereignty over the holy city." Palestinians condemn such excavations for serving political purposes, distorting scientific research, and focusing on Jewish history while ignoring the cultural heritage of the ancient Canaanites and later Christians and Muslims in the city.
At the same time, archaeologists in Europe and North America are actively absorbing new research methods and cutting-edge technologies. Rather than focusing on excavating monumental buildings, high-quality artifacts, and physical evidence related to ancient kings, these scholars sought to learn more about the lifestyles of ordinary people, the routes of trade between different peoples, and the social changes revealed by changes in material culture. Thanks to the new technology, the researchers can more accurately date artifacts, and when carefully screened for excavations from the site, they can obtain representative artifacts that shed light on the diets, diseases, commercial practices and religious rituals of ancient local residents.
The picture shows Jerusalem. Courtesy of Global Science magazine
3. Cutting-edge technology is adopted
In fact, the way archaeologists do their field work in Jerusalem is quietly changing. In expounding his theory of the history of Jerusalem, scholars no longer cite scriptures, but speak with powerful data. For each bucket of dirt dug up, scholars sift through the number of fish bones, identify plant seeds, and look for administrative seals on tiny pieces of clay that may contain key information about trade and power. Finkelstein, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, is pushing for research facilities to carry out various archaeological analyses, such as determining the nature of the residue at the bottom of the cup, studying samples taken from toilets, and understanding the diseases that plagued residents at the time.
The west side of the plot of land where Eilat Magyar dug up the remains of the building was once a parking lot, and the archaeological work carried out here is a good example of the transformation of the way archaeologists work. Yuval Gado of Tel Aviv University said: "When archaeology was carried out in Jerusalem, researchers did not fully utilize those important scientific means. Since 2017, he and Iftah Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Administration have been busy excavating a site roughly the size of a block in the city, with artifacts unearthed in its stratigraphic section spanning millennia, from the 6th century BC to the first few centuries after Arab Muslim rule over the city. Such a section is rare in Jerusalem.
In one of the efforts, the researchers used a new technique to map changes in the geomagnetic field to determine how much and how quickly some key structures in the site were destroyed. In this way, they analyzed a large administrative building that collapsed in the 6th century BC, and the results showed that the building burned and collapsed suddenly, rather than with multiple small-scale fires and gradually dilapidated. The Bible details the major events of the Babylonian army's destruction of Jewish cities in 586 B.C., and the evidence presented by this study is consistent with the biblical account.
However, as for what happened in Jerusalem over the next 4 centuries, until recently, researchers knew almost entirely through religious texts, because apart from some pottery fragments, they did not find many artifacts belonging to this period. During this period, first the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonians, and then Alexander the Great annexed the Persian regime, creating a hellenistic period.
Using modern archaeological research methods, the research team demystified this almost unknown history. For example, after carefully sifting through the excavated sediments, they found tiny bat bones in the ruins of the buildings, indicating that the buildings here had been abandoned for some time before refugees quietly returned to the site. The team also found that Jews were importing fish from the Nile Valley, both before and after the sudden change in 586 BC. It was not until many years later that imports shrank, probably because after the death of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, the various Hellenistic kingdoms fought and fought among themselves, interrupting trade.
Previous studies of biblical archaeology have been unable to present this level of detail at all. "Once you have mastered the methods of stratigraphic research, you can start studying issues such as the eating habits of the ancients," Says Gado, "and now we can analyze a family's eating habits by digging up a house and understand their connection to the outside world." ”
In addition, during this long period of history, the Jewish people were closed, building and worshipping temples around monotheistic beliefs, following strict dietary precepts, and having many taboos about animal and human figures. But after analyzing the artifacts unearthed from the parking lot, the results became more subtle. Boxwood from the distant Anatolian region shows that Jerusalem's trade links with the outside world were quite extensive. There is also a Persian-period vessel with the face of an Egyptian god, once thought to have been a commodity imported by Egyptian or Phoenician merchants, and later proven to have been made in Jerusalem or nearby areas, suggesting that peoples other than Jews settled in the city and brought with them their own traditions.
Similarly, the dietary taboos of the inhabitants did not conform to the typical characteristics of the Jews in the minds of scholars. In June 2021, a paper in The Archaeology of the Near East described in detail a complete pig skeleton that appeared to have been a Jewish dwelling, not far from the Acropolis of Jerusalem, where a Jewish temple once towered. The researchers deduced that in the capital of the kingdom of Judah, not only people in the central area ate pork, but also pigs were raised in the city. Although excavations in this old parking lot focused primarily on the biblically described era, the researchers also studied other historical periods, such as a Romanesque and Byzantine villa, and samples from a toilet used by Arabs in the 8th century AD to determine what exactly was the parasite that plagued the inhabitants at the time.
These new archaeological methods focus on science and technology, meaning that less work is done on archaeological sites and more work is done in laboratories, such as the underground laboratory of the Department of Archaeology building at Tel Aviv University. International collaboration in research has also become more common, with most of the research team in the past being Israeli Jews, but now more graduate students from the United States and Europe are involved in research, creating important connections for Israeli researchers with the outside world. Archaeologists in Israel itself also worked with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot to collect a large number of radiocarbon samples to obtain a more accurate chronology of Jerusalem history.
Although the methods of archaeological research in Jerusalem have been updated, excavations in and around the Old City are still always controversial. The excavations in the parking lot, for example, angered Arab homeowners, who took the project team to court, accusing them of threatening their homes on both sides of the archaeological pit. Moreover, the pit itself will serve as the basement of a large visitor center, owned and operated by a controversial right-wing Jewish organization. Gado insisted: "Jerusalem should be developed like Athens and Rome." "But unlike these two ancient capitals, Jerusalem is still at the center of a conflict that is not only a major problem around the world today, but also often sparks violence. While archaeological research in Jerusalem may have gradually adopted scientific means, it is still difficult to avoid religious and political issues if large-scale excavations are to be carried out here. Archaeologist Greenberg said: "No amount of screening, no matter how many pieces are counted, no matter how many scriptures are examined, no amount of ancient DNA can change this complex situation." ”
4. Revival of traditional forces
The Bible has had a lasting influence on archaeological excavations in Jerusalem and throughout Israel. Any discovery related to the biblical history of Jerusalem for a thousand years is bound to be reported in the media. Reporting, in turn, can attract donations for excavations, which are often complex and costly, especially in Jerusalem, so these donations are important. After the death of Eilat Magyar, Yusuf Gaffenkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem took over her class. Gaffenkel, who had recently completed a series of excavations outside the city, believes he discovered a Jewish settlement shortly after 1000 BC. He insisted: "We have discovered the historic Kingdom of David, which had its own written and administrative systems. But some scholars disagree, such as Finkelstein, who pointed out that these settlements only existed for a few decades and do not directly reflect the size or status of Jerusalem itself. The divide between Finkelstein and his opponents has narrowed to decades in recent years over the dating of key sites in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, but Garfinkel's work has revived scholars' debate about what the city looked like when Israelis first arrived in Jerusalem.
For Finkelstein, the resurgence of traditional biblical archaeology has unnerved him. He wanted to think outside the box, no longer obsessed with proving that a king had ever existed, but in the context of the wider ancient Middle East, considering the exchanges between civilizations and analyzing the history of Jerusalem. But he said: "The wave of conservative scholars is getting stronger and stronger, and it's rather frustrating that Eilat Magyar and Garfinkel are just some of them." We're going to lose this battle. ”
To counter this trend, last fall Finkelstein launched a new archaeology project at the University of Haifa in Israel, which received ample funding to focus on developing cutting-edge science, strengthening international cooperation and conducting museum research. He added: "Of course, this battle is not limited to archaeology. "Israel, like the United States, is a place of increasing polarization, and these differences are reflected in research and politics. Proving the accuracy of the Bible is not just an academic debate, but part of a broader culture war.
Palestinians are largely bystanders. Jube, an archaeologist at the University of Palestine, argues that at the root of the problem, they were marginalized not because of Zionists, but because of Western Christians, such as Robinson, who were obsessed with the Old Testament. Because of this, "Jerusalem is the most excavated site in the world, and it now presents us with the history of the Israelites." Jubay said, but he also noted, "However, I think there is ultimately only one way to objectively reflect the history of Jerusalem, and that is science." In today's world of "alternative facts," Jubei's ideas are reassuring. However, in a city torn apart by conflict, there is no doubt that there is a long way to go for science to find a foothold.
(Courtesy of Global Science)
Guangming Daily (2022.05.19.14 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily