| Legend says there
was once a Jewish king named Alexander Janneaus
who destroyed all things pagan in the harbor city of Tel Dor, Israel,
when he came to power around 100 B.C. Greek temples were dismantled and
statues were demolished and thrown into pits.
And now, thousands of years
later, there's evidence to back this up.
A team of UC Berkeley
archaeologists and volunteers has uncovered artifacts on a dig at Tel
Dor that link such destruction to the King Janneaus era. The findings,
released last week by UC officials, also indicate that Greeks may have
been a major presence in Palestine 200 years earlier than they were
thought to be.
"There's a chronological
coincidence that's very suggestive," said Andrew Stewart, UC
Berkeley professor who led the dig at Tel Dor in August. "We think
it's the first evidence that's come to light ... about these ancient
histories."
The artifacts -- a section of
an intricate floor mosaic, a headless statue, Greek temple columns and
fragments of the temple's foundation -- were discovered last summer and
recently restored. They are now housed in an Israeli museum near Tel Dor.
The excavators -- including
teams from Israel, Germany and South Africa -- started to dig July 4 and
continued for three weeks until they hit pay dirt.
The discovery of the Greek
statue Nike, which means "Victory," made Stewart's heart beat
faster. The statue would have stood at the corner of the Greek temple.
"I took one look at it
and said, 'Whoa, that's a winged Victory,'" Stewart remembered.
"Then I stepped back and took a deep breath."
He said the evidence of a
Greek temple is the first of its kind in the region.
"If we've got our dates
right, this is the earliest Greek temple discovered in Israel. Indeed,
the earliest in the Middle East."
Tel Dor is a tall mound of
deposits about 75 feet high and 70 acres in expanse. It contains the
remains of almost every civilization that passed through the Middle
East, beginning with the Canaanites who founded the city in 2000 B.C.
The city changed hands every
two or three centuries and was abandoned in Roman times, around 235 A.D.
Since 1980, volunteers have
chipped away at the site with small picks, so as not to create
significant damage. Only 5 percent of the surface has been uncovered
thus far, Stewart said.
"It's like digging up
the city of London with a teaspoon," he said. "It's kind of
serendipitous what you find. The best discoveries come unplanned and
unforeseen."
When a discovery is made,
Stewart said, caution is key. When the Berkeley team saw inklings of
Nike, they removed the limestone goddess with a surgeon's precision from
underneath a wall that sat atop her. She emerged intact, but with no
head and stumps for arms.
"We were totally
flabbergasted," said Martin Wells, a former UC Berkeley student who
was on the excavation. "We knew nothing like this had been found
that spoke to this time period."
The discovery struck Wells at
one particular moment.
"After the excavation,
we had the statue in the car and we were heading to the museum," he
recalled. "The Israeli director (of the dig) was driving and he
said, 'This is the first time this woman has seen the sunlight in 2,000
years.'"
"That's when it hit me.
It made me think about what had happened to her and what had happened to
the building. I felt really connected."
For his part, Stewart knows
that such discoveries only add a sliver to history's gaping puzzle.
"I'm not hanging my
reputation on this find," he said. "These discoveries help you
make inferences, theories ... but they can always be challenged by fresh
excavations."
SOURCE:
Contra
Costa Times
http://www.contracostatimes.com/partners/ns/dig_20010221.htm
Published Wednesday, February 21, 2001
Article by Sonia Krishnan |
