The Bible in Jesus Day

Before the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D. there was no one list of sacred books that was considered authoritative. At that time there was, as yet, no clear order between Biblical books and non-biblical books. Even though all Jews accepted the Torah, or the Five Books of Moses, as the scriptural underpinning of Jewish ritual and daily life, the scrolls show that numerous variants of even these key books existed among different Jewish communities of the day.


The Hebrew text were written on loose scrolls and not in any particular order. It would take until the fifth century AD before the biblical cannon was set.

“Excarnation: Food for Vultures”

Rami Arav argues that the site of Rogem Hiri in the Golan was a special type of Chalcolithic Age sanctuary, built specifically for the purpose of ritual excarnation—that is, exposing the bodies of the dead to vultures in order to divest them of their flesh. Photo by Duby Tal/Albatross.

This is an excerpt from an article in the  "Biblical Archaeological Review."  I have studied this process as it was used in Persia in biblical times but did not know that it was practiced in the Holy Land.
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"In “Excarnation: Food for Vultures,” author Rami Arav argues that Rogem Hiri was a special type of sanctuary, built specifically for the purpose of ritual excarnation—that is, purposefully exposing the bodies of the dead to vultures and other birds of prey in order to divest them of their flesh. As Arav explains, excarnation was widely practiced in cultures and civilizations that for one reason or another were interested in saving the bones of the deceased and not their flesh.

Archaeology shows that the Chalcolithic peoples of the southern Levant were very interested in preserving the bones of the dead. Peoples of the Chalcolithic Age throughout Syria and Palestine interred the bones of their deceased in fancifully decorated clay boxes, or ossuaries, which were often decorated with stylized facial features, including eyes, noses and mouths. Chalcolithic Age ossuaries also often have a boxy or “house-like” appearance, with a large opening in the front through which the bones of the dead were inserted."

What an interesting tradition. We have lots of vultures around here. I wonder?

3500 year old jaw bone.

Dig this jaw Bone!

Netta the anthropologist on the Ashkelon dig is holding a jaw bone from the Canaanite tomb we were excavating. She extracted a molar from it to send to the lab and get DNA for study. It dates from about 1500 BC.

The rest of that skull can be seen in the blue tub. We later glued it back together. So cool!  

Dear Dig Firends

Here are two dear friends from my Petra dig in 2002. Lin Hammond, wife of the Director Philip Hammond and Eudora Struble the Field Supervisor. I am still in contact with both of them. They are sitting on the front steps of the Edom Hotel where we had our headquarters. We were waiting for transportation to the dig site.

Painted Stones

Many of the stone walls of Petra were rough uneven and unsightly. To make them look good the workers put heavy amounts of plaster on the walls and drew in the stone blocks to make the wall look neat. Some of the walls were so uneven that the plaster in places were almost a foot thick. Workmen still do that to some degree.

I had some work done on my house and noticed some big cracks between joints. I asked the workers about the cracks in the wall. 

Their reply was, "That is why they make painters putty." Sure enough they filled the cracks with putty and painted over the error. Some things never change.

Caged Art

Here is a follow up picture of the caged art and you can see  how much has been chipped of and damaged over the years. There is also smoke damage from cooking fires. You can see why it had to be protected.

Take Lots of Pictures

One of the things we do during a dig season is take lots of pictures. I am so thankful for the invention of the digital camera. I took hundreds of pictures and did not have to develop any of them to see them. It was so easy to shoot and then look at the picture. If it was a bad shot I deleted it and retook the photo.

In this picture my friend Eudora is taking a picture of two thousand year old art work. It is behind bars to protect it from tourist who use to remove small pieces of it. Grrrr.