Herod named the city Caesarea Maritimae (“Caesarea by the Sea”) to honor his patron, the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. The city was built on top of the remains of earlier construction and took approximately twelve years to build, from 22 to 10 BCE. In 6 CE, after Herod’s death, Caesarea became the capital of the Roman province of Palestine. It retained that status for more than six hundred years, until 641 CE when Islamic armies overran the city. Even after that date, the city continued to play an important role, especially through the Crusader (1099–1271 CE) and Mamluke (1250–1517 CE) periods.
Excavations at the site have revealed an amphitheater, a theater (now restored, in which modern musical and theatrical events are held), a hippodrome, a palace, an aqueduct, and marketplaces, as well as warehouses and harbor facilities. These excavations have taken place nearly continuously for much of the past half-century by various Italian, American, and Israeli archaeological teams. That work continues to the present.
Thus far, the discovery at Caesarea of perhaps the greatest importance to biblical archaeology is an inscription in Latin dating to 30 CE that mentions Pontius Pilate, the prefect (or governor) of Palestine infamously connected with Jesus in the New Testament. The inscription was found in the theater at Caesarea during the Italian excavations in 1961. It records a dedication by Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius. Three of the fragmentary lines read: Tiberieum/[Pon]tius Pilatus/[Praef]ectus Iuda[eae]— which translates as “Tiberius/Pontius Pilate/Prefect of Judaea.” The full inscription is believed to have read: “Pontius Pilate, the Prefect of Judaea, has dedicated to the people of Caesarea a temple in honor of Tiberius.” This is the only inscription on stone known to mention Pontius Pilate and confirms the title given to him, previously known only from the New Testament.
Herod undertook a number of other building projects besides Masada and Caesarea. The one for which he is most famous was in Jerusalem—the renovation of the Temple Mount and the alterations to the Second Temple that stood upon it. On the same site had stood Solomon’s Temple (the First Temple), which was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonians in 586 BCE. As described in the book of Ezra, Cyrus the Great of Persia authorized the rebuilding of the destroyed structure. Construction of the Second Temple began by 535 BCE and was completed about 516 BCE. With relatively little alteration, the Second Temple then stood on the same site for the next five centuries. In one sense, when Herod undertook his rebuilding project he was constructing what was really the third Hebrew temple on the site; however, because ritual sacrifices continued during the building process, it maintained continuity with the Second Temple and retained that name.
Herod’s constructs enormously expanded the Temple Mount during the years 19–10 BCE, so that it covered an area the size of fifteen American football fields. It is still approximately the same size today. His renovations to the Second Temple made it the eighth wonder of the ancient world, and it is often referred to as Herod’s Temple. According to Josephus, it appeared to travelers “like a mountain covered with snow.”
Many of the events attributed to Jesus in the New Testament occurred in and around this Temple complex. Jesus even prophesized the destruction of the Temple (Matt. 21:12–14, 24:1–3)—a prophesy that came to pass at the hand of the Romans under Titus in 70 CE—but only a few traces of the Temple have been uncovered to date, probably because the destruction of this area by the Romans was so thorough.
One of the most exciting Herodian discoveries in recent years was made by Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, at the site of Herodium, Herod’s desert fortress located some seven miles south of Jerusalem. Netzer has been excavating at Herodium since 1972, as part of a long career in which he has uncovered remains of Herod’s building program at many sites. Until recently, Netzer’s excavations had focused on the lower palace built at the site. This is a huge palace, essentially the size of a small town, known as Lower Herodium. The excavators uncovered palatial buildings, gardens, warehouses, pools, and stables.
The most prominent feature at Herodium is a cone-shaped artificial mountain that Herod had constructed by adding fill to a much-smaller natural hill and raising it artificially until it was so high that it could be seen from Jerusalem. The top was fully 2,460 feet above sea level and was shaped so that it appeared to be a volcanic crater. Within this crater, Herod built a second, fortified palace consisting of a huge circular courtyard with buildings, a reception area, and a Roman bath, all surrounded by four guard towers.
The Roman historian Josephus says that Herod’s body was brought to Herodium after he died at Jericho in 4 BCE. In a long and winding procession, Herod’s sons and relatives marched next to the bier upon which Herod’s body lay clothed in a purple robe, with a diadem and a crown of gold upon his head and a scepter lying beside his right hand. The bier was made of solid gold and studded with precious stones. As Josephus tells us, Herod’s relatives “were followed by the guards, the Thracian contingent, Germans and Gauls, all equipped as for war. The reminder of the troops marched in front, armed and in orderly array, led by their commanders and subordinate officers; behind these came five hundred of Herod’s servants and freedmen, carrying spices. The body was thus conveyed for a distance of two hundred furlongs to Herodium, where, in accordance with the directions of the deceased, it was interred. So ended Herod’s reign.”
Josephus does not describe the location of Herod’s grave or mausoleum. After having searched for years without success in the area of the lower palace, Netzer refocused his attention in 2006 on an area midway up the artificial hill, between the upper and lower palaces. Almost immediately he and his staff found indications that they were finally looking in the proper place. They uncovered pieces of a monumental limestone sarcophagus and mausoleum, including various architectural elements such as decorated urns. Unfortunately, both the sarcophagus and the mausoleum were badly shattered, and they found only a portion of the ten-meter-square podium, built of large white ashlars (squared-off stones, a basic building block of masonry), on which the mausoleum would once have rested.
Netzer has suggested that the tomb was that of Herod the Great, based on the architectural fragments recovered as well as its general location, and believes that it was destroyed by Jewish zealots during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome from 66–70 CE when, according to Josephus, the rebels took over the site. Only a small number of human bones have been found at the site, and no identifying inscriptions have yet come to light, so while most scholars agree that Netzer has now solved one of the great New Testament mysteries—where was Herod’s tomb?—complete confirmation is not yet available.
It was during the reign of King Herod, from 37 to 4 BCE, that Jesus was born—sometime between 7 and 4 BCE. According to the account in the New Testament, Herod attempted to dispose of this new “King of the Jews” by ordering the massacre of all male children in Bethlehem. But Jesus and his parents escaped to Egypt, where they remained until they received the news of Herod’s death (Matt. 2:1–18).
Archaeology has not yet been able to shed any direct light on the birth, life, or death of Jesus. That is to say, there is not yet any archaeological evidence for the historical Jesus—or any of the apostles for that matter. Archaeology deals with the physical residue of the past, whether the remains of buildings, pottery fragments, or inscriptions on stone or papyrus. Therefore, unless one finds the actual remains of a body, the tools of archaeology can rarely provide evidence for the existence of a specific individual or group of individuals who lived in the distant past.
However, the failure of biblical archaeologists and pseudo-archaeologists to provide confirmatory evidence of the life of Jesus and the apostles has not been for lack of trying. The most recent attempt in this regard concerns the so-called Lost Tomb of Jesus, which was in the headlines in 2007 and 2008 as the result of a book and a documentary film with the same title. The documentary, by filmmakers Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron, was featured on the Discovery Channel. The book was written by Jacobovici and C
harles Pellegrino. In both the film and the book, Jacobovici claimed that the tomb of Jesus had been discovered in Jerusalem three decades earlier, in 1980.
In fact, the tomb—better known to archaeologists as the Talpiot Tomb—had indeed been accidentally discovered in 1980, during demolition work by construction workers laying the foundations for an apartment complex. Amos Kloner, district archaeologist for the Israel Department of Antiquities (now the Israel Antiquities Authority) in the area of Jerusalem, arranged for a quick salvage excavation of the tomb, directed by Yosef Gath. The final report of the excavations was published in 1996 by Kloner, now an associate professor of archaeology at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. There was no mention in the report of any possible connection of the tomb to Jesus or any members of his family, nor was there any reason that there should have been, for there was no link to be made.
Jacobovici’s documentary was extensively criticized by archaeologists, who protested the manipulation of data and the leaps of faith involved in making such a claim. Jodi Magness, a biblical archaeologist and professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that the claim was sensationalistic and without any scientific basis or support. Joe Zias, a former curator of anthropology and archaeology at the Israel Antiquities Authority who was involved in the original excavation of the tomb, described the film as intellectually and scientifically dishonest. As far as professional archaeologists are concerned, the tomb of Jesus and his family remains undiscovered and, in fact, is more likely to have been located in their home town of Nazareth than in Jerusalem.
Apart from debunking the claims of irresponsible filmmakers, archaeologists can shed light on what the material culture was like at the time that Jesus and the apostles lived—for instance, what people ate, what they wore, and what their houses and buildings looked like in the cities of the Galilee, Sepphoris, Capernaum, and Jerusalem. In this way, archaeology can, to a certain extent, flesh out the details found in the writings of the apostles and of the historian Josephus. For instance, the excavators of the city of Sepphoris—located just four miles from Nazareth in the Galilee-describe life there during the first century CE as largely Jewish, rather than Hellenistic or Roman, as had previously been thought.
Sepphoris served as the capital of the Galilee first in 20 CE and then again from 61 CE. In the intervening four decades, the new city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee served as the capital. Sepphoris was no backwater. As Eric Meyers, a biblical archaeologist at Duke University and one of the excavators of Sepphoris, has said, it was architecturally sophisticated, “with paved and colonnaded streets; water installations, possibly including a bathhouse on the eastern plateau and some sort of public water works nearer the acropolis; multistory buildings; and major public structures, including a large columned building also on the eastern plateau.”
Similarly, the excavators of Capernaum, the town by the Sea of Galilee where Jesus settled and preached in the years before he left for Jerusalem, have found not only specific buildings—such as the synagogue and churches built on top of the traditional location for the house of St. Peter—but have produced evidence that life in Capernaum was fairly prosperous in the first century CE. John Laughlin, a professor of religion at Averett University, notes that “far from being a poor, isolated village, Capernaum, the center of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, was quite prosperous . . . In the centuries that followed, Capernaum expanded and continued to prosper, in part as a Christian pilgrim center. . . .” It seems that the tourist trade then, like now, provided the local economy with a boost, from which it has benefited ever since.
Chapter 11
From the Galilee Boat to the Megiddo Prison Mosaic
Archaeological discoveries relating to the Bible frequently come about in unexpected ways. For instance, in 1985 and 1986, the country of Israel was stricken with a severe drought. During the drought, the Sea of Galilee—otherwise known as Lake Tiberias— dropped dramatically, and great stretches of the lakebed became visible for the first time in hundreds of years. Near Capernaum, the receding waters of the Sea of Galilee left exposed an important artifact that lay waiting to be discovered.
Moshe and Yuval Lufan, two brothers from nearby Kibbutz Ginnosar, jumped at the chance to explore the newly revealed stretches of muddy land. As Shelley Wachsmann, a biblical and nautical archaeologist now at Texas A&M University, tells the story, a tractor that had become stuck in the mud of the lakebed churned up a few ancient coins while trying to break free of the muck. The two young men scoured the area and discovered a few ancient iron nails before spying a boat buried so deeply in the mud that only its outline was visible. Wachsmann, who at the time was an inspector of underwater antiquities for the Israel Antiquities Authority, was sent to investigate the find. A few days of digging in and around the boat uncovered a cooking pot and an oil lamp, both of which dated to the Roman period. Because the discovery of the boat had been leaked to the media and because the water level of the lake was once again rising, a more formal excavation had to begin without delay; that is to say, without the usual preplanning and fund-raising, which can take months and even years.
The entire excavation lasted only eleven days. In that span of time, working night and day, the archaeologists, conservators, and numerous volunteers from around the country managed to unearth what was left of the hull and superstructure of the boat. They encased all of the remains in a polyurethane “straitjacket,” as Wachsmann calls it, and floated it over to the Yigal Allon Museum at Kibbutz Ginnosar. There, a pool was quickly built and the encased boat was lifted into it. After years of conservation work by Orna Cohen and her team at the museum, the boat went on display to the public, where it can be seen today in a special wing of the building.
10. The Galilee Boat, on display in the Yigal Allon Museum at Kibbutz Ginnosar, was discovered in Lake Tiberias during a drought in 1986. Probably dating to a period from the late first century BCE to the late first century CE, it may shed light on the New Testament stories concerning Jesus’ activities in and around the Sea of Galilee.
The excavators concluded that the boat was made primarily of cedar planking with an oak frame, although five other types of wood were also used in its construction. The boat was 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and 4.5 feet high, with a rounded stern. It probably had a sternpost, which served to support a rudder and a mast, so that it could be sailed as well as rowed. It most likely had a crew of five, with two rowers per side plus a helmsman, and could perhaps have accommodated as many as ten passengers. Wachsmann hypothesizes that the boat, after possibly having a long and useful life, had ended up being used as scrap, with many of its still-usable timbers removed. The remaining part of the hull was pushed out into the lake, where it sank and then remained, until it was discovered nearly two thousand years later.
Seventeen datable pieces of pottery—including the intact lamp and cooking pot discovered during the first days—were found during the excavation. All point to a period from the late first century BCE to ca. 70 CE, that is, from a few decades before until a few decades after the lifetime of Jesus. Radiocarbon dating confirmed these results. The wood from the boat was dated to between 120 BCE and 40 CE. At the very latest, the boat sank some time around the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, which lasted from 66 to 70 CE. At the earliest, it may have gone down during Jesus’ own lifetime.
The discovery of the boat—the only one known from this time period in the region—has already shed light on the sailing and boat-building practices of the day, since archaeologists are able to physically examine its features and the method of its construction, rather than simply hypothesizing about them based only on pictures from mosaics or written descriptions in the Bible. Unfortunately, it is not clear who owned the boat or whether it was ever actually related to any of the events depicted in the New Testament stories concerning Jesus’ ministry in and around the Sea of Galilee.
Other objects associated with New Testament stories have been found by biblical ar
chaeologists working in the Holy Land. Some are found during regularly scheduled excavations at sites like Sepphoris or Capernaum; others are initially found by accident, with the archaeologists quickly called in. In the latter category is the burial tomb and ossuary of Caiaphas, one of the most infamous figures associated with the life of Jesus. Caiaphas was high priest in Jerusalem in the years from 18 to 36 CE, which spans the time that Jesus was said to have been arrested and put on trial (John 18:12–14, 24–28; Luke 3:1–2). He is perhaps best known for saying of Jesus that it was better “to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:49–53 [NRSV]; 18:14).
In 1990, the so-called Ossuary of Caiaphas—a stone box that may contain the bones of Caiaphas or members of his family—was discovered when a heavy dump truck broke through the roof of a burial cave during construction of a water park in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest, located to the south of the Temple Mount and just below the Haas Tayelet (Promenade). Subsequently excavated by Zvi Greenhut of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the tomb is in a large cemetery, which has rock-cut burial chambers dating from the first century BCE through the first century CE.
There were a dozen ossuaries found in this one family tomb. All contained bones collected from bodies that had decomposed. The bones had been subsequently placed into these stone boxes as a secondary burial. This practice allowed the bodies of those who had died more recently to be laid out in the limited number of rock-cut niches in the tomb—there to decompose and eventually be moved into stone boxes of their own. One of the ossuaries had the word “Qafa” (Aramaic for the Greek name Caiaphas) scratched on the outside of the stone box. This was the first indication to archaeologists that they may have stumbled upon the tomb of the Caiaphas family.
Biblical Archaeology_A Very Short Introduction Page 10
