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New Light on the Period of the Maccabees: Excavations at Tel Kedesh
Andrea Berlin Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 4:30 P.M. Yale University, Phelps Hall, Room 407 Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships
Since 1997, the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota have conducted excavations at Tel Kedesh, the largest tel site in Israel's Upper Galilee. Literary sources identify the inhabitants as Phoenician, and suggest that the site was a simple farming town. Two third century B.C.E. papyri record an Egyptian official's visit to purchase flour and take a bath. I Maccabees cites a battle between Jonathan the Hasmonean and Demetrius II in 145 B.C.E. that ended at Kedesh, on account of which the town's Phoenician inhabitants fled. Josephus identifies Kedesh as an outpost of the Phoenician city of Tyre in 66 C.E., when the Jewish Revolt against Rome began and also notes that the site served as an encampment for the Roman general Titus.

The Michigan-Minnesota project was conceived in order to investigate rural Phoenician life in the Hellenistic period, and especially the inhabitants’ interactions with neighboring Jewish towns. First season excavations revealed a house with intact pots, weights, mortars, and other domestic objects on the floor. The house appeared to have been hastily abandoned, and preliminary dating suggested that this occurred close to the time of the battle between Jonathan and Demetrius. A subsequent magnetometric survey revealed the outlines of a single enormous building at the far southern end. Excavation in the summer of 1999 confirmed that this was a single construction, which served as an administrative supply depot and international archive.

Findings included a storeroom with 14 large jars for grain. In the room next to this was a deposit of about 20 oil flasks and—most amazing—almost 2000 stamped clay bullae. The bullae carry images of Seleucid kings, Greek deities and mythological figures, and Phoenician officials. The entire complex was damaged and abandoned in the middle of the second century B.C.E., confirming the preliminary dating suggested by the abandonment of the house. The discovery of this large complex undermines our initial characterization of the site as a simple farming town, and provides new evidence concerning political and social interactions between Jews, Phoenicians, and Greeks in second century B.C.E. Palestine.

Dr. Andrea Berlin is the Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. She specializes in the archaeology of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology, and taught at Georgetown university, George Washington University, and the University of Virginia before going to Minnesota in 1997. Her work has taken her to Turkey (Troy), Cyprus (Nicosia), Egypt (Coptos), and Israel, where she is currently co-director of the excavations at Tel Kedesh. She is the author of numerous books and articles, with many more in progress. Lecturer's Curriculum Vitae

For More Information on Lecture Topic:
“A New Administrative Center for Persian and Hellenistic Galilee: Preliminary Report of the University of Michigan/University of Minnesota Excavations at Kedesh,” with Sharon Herbert, BASOR 329 (2003), pp. 13-59. Andrea Berlin, “Between Large Forces: Palestine in the Hellenistic Period,” Biblical Archaeologist 60.1 (1997), pp. 2-51. “Life and Death on the Israeli-Lebanese Border (in 140 B.C.E.): Excavating Tel Kedesh.” Co-authored with Sharon C. Herbert. Biblical Archaeology Review 31.5 (2005). Pp. 35-43. Read also I Maccabees, especially chapters 1-11. I Maccabees is part of the Apocrypha, which can be found in all complete Bibles (i.e. those that include the New Testament).

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