Jodi Magness

Caesarea Maritima : a retrospective after two millennia

This deluxe volume contains 40 papers from an international symposium - held on January 3-11, 1995 - on Caesarea Maritima, a celebrated Jewish, Roman, and Early Christian city. Climaxing a major excavation campaign in 1992-95, the book treats the citys archaeology, history, and culture comprehensively, from urban development and economy to epigraphy, sculpture, and ceramics. Papers on Caesarea and religious thought discuss Origen, Eusebius, rabbinic literature, Jewish and Christian academies, and the famous library. Spectacular discoveries, some published here for the first time, include Herods amphitheater and royal palace, later headquarters of Pontius Pilate and other governors; Roman and Byzantine baths; the Temple to Roma and Augustus; and notably the artificial harbor Sebastos, explored under water, a monument of ancient technology and engineering. Included are fold-out site maps and color aerial photographs showing the latest excavations and the entire site.

Jerusalem ceramic chronology : circa 200-800 CE

This outstanding book offers a standardized typology and chronology for the pottery of the Jerusalem area from c. 200 to 800 CE with an emphasis on the fourth to seventh centuries. It begins with a review of the stratigraphy and ceramic assemblages of the relevant published sites: the City of David, the north wall of Jerusalem, the Damascus Gate, Bethany, the Armenian Garden and Ramat Rahel. Also presented is previously unpublished late Roman and Byzantine pottery from Avigads excavations in the Jewish Quarter with a discussion of some of the ceramic types most characteristic of the Jerusalem area during the late Roman, Byzantine and early periods. The last part of the book is a corpus that sets forth a typology for the pottery of Jerusalem from c. 200 to 800CE with dates and lists of parallels provided for each type.

The Chronology of Early Greek Pottery: New Evidence from Seventh-Century B. C. Destruction Levels in Israel

Recent excavations at Ashkelon, Tel Miqne-Ekron, and Tel Batash-Timnah have revealed sealed destruction layers attributable to the Babylonian conquests of the late seventh century B.C. The destruction debris at these sites contains sherds of imported East Greek and Corinthian pottery, some of which can be directly paralleled at the nearby coastal site of Mesad Hashavyahu, a site that is generally interpreted as a garrison of Greek mercenaries. While the Greek pottery from all four sites consists of types dated stylistically to the seventh century B.C., there has previously been little independent historical evidence to confirm this dating. The chronology of early Greek pottery is based on its presence at other Near Eastern sites that have problematical stratigraphy. Some scholars, in questioning the traditional chronology for Greek pottery, have tried to lower the accepted dates, though still without specific historical evidence. Syro-Palestinian archaeologists, on the other hand, have used the standard chronology of Greek imports to help date the local material at sites such as Mesad Hashavyahu and Tyre. The new, securely dated material from Ashkelon and Tel Miqne-Ekron, supported also by evidence from Tel Batash and Kabri, shows definitively that specific types of East Greek pottery were present in the Levant before the end of the seventh century, and that the final days of Mesad Hashavyahu were closely contemporary with the destructions of Miqne and Batash.

Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery

The origins of the synagogue remain shrouded in mystery and its development in its early centuries is only slightly better understood. This text brings together over 20 essays from Israeli, British and American scholars to explore the development of the ancient synagogue. Combining original articles with the best of earlier studies - including nine articles translated from Hebrew for the first time - this collection presents a critical picture of the early synagogue and the scholarly discussions surrounding it. This book focuses on two central questions. First, what were the origins of the earliest synagogues, and where did they achieve the greatest growth in the early centuries? Second, what role did the early synagogue play within the Jewish community?

THE CULTS OF ISIS AND KORE AT SAMARIA-SEBASTE IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN PERIODS

The existence of a cult of Kore at Samaria-Sebaste in the Roman period is attested by inscriptions, a statue of the goddess, depictions of her on the citys coins, and the remains of a third century temple building. A Ptolemaic period dedicatory inscription to Sarapis and Isis found in the vicinity of the Kore temples foundations suggests that a Hellenistic shrine or temple to these Egyptian deities once stood in this area. In this paper, I reexamine the archaeological, numismatic, and epigraphic evidence for these cults at Samaria-Sebaste in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I conclude that the cult of Isis and Sarapis was established at Samaria in the Hellenistic period. I am grateful to Kenneth G. Holum, Peter Richardson, and Hanan Eshel for their advice and comments on portions of this paper. I assume sole responsibility for its contents. I would like to thank the Palestine Exploration Fund for their permission to reproduce the illustrations in Figures 1–3. It was centered around a shrine or temple located on a terrace north of the acropolis. This structure may have been rebuilt in the Gabinian period (mid-first century B.C.E.). After 30 B.C.E., Herod the Great erected a new temple on this spot, which he dedicated to the goddess Kore, the Greco-Roman equivalent of Isis. The architectural elements associated with the Hellenistic shrine of Isis and Herods temple of Kore were incorporated in the foundations of a third century C.E. temple of Kore, which was the last in the series of cultic buildings constructed on this spot.

Two Notes on the Archaeology of Qumran

The first part of this article focuses on an installation in a room on the eastern side of the site of Qumran which appears to be correctly identified in R. de Vauxs recently published field notes as a toilet. The presence of a toilet at Qumran is discussed in relation to the communitys rules and regulations regarding purity and sanitary practices. The second part of the article focuses on the hoard of 561 silver coins from three pots in Locus 120 at Qumran. The composition and character of the hoard may best be understood in connection with the sects interpretation of the Temple tax as a one-time payment made when a man reached adulthood and his name was recorded for the first time in the census registers. It is also possible, however, that the hoard represents the collected wealth of the community at the end of Period Ib, with no connection to the Temple tax.

A Reexamination of the Archaeological Evidence for the Sasanian Persian Destruction of the Tyropoeon Valley

During their excavations in the Tyropoeon Valley in 1927, J. W. Crowfoot and G. M. Fitzgerald uncovered a 40 m long stretch of a well-preserved street lined with houses. They dated the construction of the street and houses to the Byzantine period (late sixth to early seventh centuries C. E.), and concluded that the street and houses were in use for only a short time before they were destroyed by the Sasanian Persians in 614 C. E. However, their failure to recognize certain later disturbances led Crowfoot and Fitzgerald to misdate some of the architectural and ceramic remains. A reevaluation of the archaeological evidence leads to a revised chronological sequence and reveals that Crowfoot and Fitzgerald found no archaeological evidence for the Sasanian destruction of 614 C. E., or for any other destruction at the end of the Byzantine period. Instead, the street and houses saw continuous occupation from the Byzantine period into the Islamic period.

The Walls of Jerusalem in the Early Islamic Period

During the seventh century C.E., Moslem tribes from the Arabian peninsula swept through the Middle East and North Africa, creating a vast new empire. Recent excavations have revealed that the Umayyads, the first Moslem dynasty to establish its hegemony over the new empire, sponsored many building projects throughout Palestine, including numerous structures on and around the Temple Mount and a reconstruction of the city walls at the end of the Umayyad period.

The Chronology of Capernaum in the Early Islamic Period

Capernaum, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, is the site of an ancient village and a monumental stone synagogue. Excavations conducted by Vassilios Tzaferis on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority from 1978 to 1982 revealed the remains of an early Islamic settlement, which Tzaferis dated from the seventh century C.E. to the Crusader conquest. In this paper, I propose a revised chronology of the two earliest occupation levels (strata V and IV), based on a reexamination of the ceramic and numismatic evidence. The settlement appears to have been established in the first half of the eighth century, a full century later than the date assigned by the excavator.

A Reconsideration of Josephus’ Testimony about Masada

The contributions of this volume reflect on a wide range of literary, archaeological, documentary, epigraphic and numismatic sources and their bearing on the historical context of the Jewish revolt against Rome and on our own historical methods.