Terence Smith
On a lonely, isolated hill called Kuntillet Ajrud, overlooking a vast and empty desert plain, an Israeli archaeological team has discovered an ancient Judean fortress containing a rare collection of Hebrew and Phoenician inscriptions dating to about 800 B.C. The inscriptions were discovered on pottery and the plaster walls of a remarkable 2,800-year-old fortress apparently built by King Jehoshaphat of Judea to protect the Solomonic route to the port of Elath and the rich Red Sea trade lanes to the biblical Ophir.
The inscriptions are considered doubly significant because several refer to “Jehovah,” the traditional name of God that the ancient Jews wrote rarely because it was so extremely sacred. It is the largest collection of eighth century B.C. inscriptions ever found at a single site. The site itself had been discovered in the 19th century by a Briton who drew erroneous conclusions from what he found.
Important inscriptions found at the site of Kuntillet Ajrud.
Clues From Inscriptions
Some of the inscriptions are still being deciphered at Tel Aviv University and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. But Zeev Meshel, the archaeologist who headed the dig, has reached some tentative conclusions. The more provocative include the following:
The fortress is the southernmost and
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westernmost Judean site ever discovered. It stands at a crossroads between the ancient Gaza-Elath route and a track leading to the southern Sinai region. To Mr. Meshel, this suggests that effective control of the Judean kingdom of the period extended much farther south and west than had previously been believed.
Mr. Meshel believes that the Judean kings probably passed this way as they headed for Elath, which according to the Bible, King Solomon developed as a major port for the Red Sea trade. The existence of this fortress raises the possibility that others like it may lie undiscovered on the Gaza-Elath route.
The Phoenician inscriptions on the walls are evidence that some Phoenicians passed this way, again probably going to Elath, then known as Ezion Geber. In the book of Chronicles, the Bible records that Hiram, king of the Phoenician city of Tyre, sent to Solomon ships and seamen for his navy at Ezion Geber (2 Chronicles 8:18).
The Phoenician inscriptions found here tend to support the speculation that the ships were actually assembled in what is now Lebanon, were sailed down the Mediterranean to a point near Gaza, broken down there into sections and then hauled across the desert by the shortest route to Elath, which passes Kuntillet Ajrud.
“The theory makes sense,” Mr. Meshel said at the site. “We can’t prove it by what we have found here, but there was no wood in Elath to build the ships, and it is a fact that later in history the Crusaders hauled ships in sections across the desert in order to surprise their enemies in the Gulf of Elath.”
The inscriptions at the site are unusually poetic and religious, leading Mr. Meshel to conclude that the fortress had some sacred tradition associated with it. He stops short of calling it a temple because of its design, but the rich ornamentation, the extensive plastering over the stone-and-mud walls, altars and benches suggest strongly that there was something special about the place.
“It could have been built to commemorate the religious tradition associated with the Sinai,” Mr. Meshel said during a break in the digging. “Even in those days, the Jews knew the biblical stories of the wanderings of the children of Israel in the desert, the accounts of Moses receiving the Commandments on Mount Sinai. Those things had happened 400 or 500 years earlier. Perhaps the Judean kings wanted to commemorate that tradition.”
Quality of Ancient Life
One inscription, carved on the rim of a stone bowl, has a more topical reference. It reads, in ancient Hebrew: “May Obadyo, son of
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Adnah, be blessed by God.” Mr. Meshel believes this may refer to the Obadyo — or Obadiah — mentioned in Chronicles as the commander of King Jehoshaphat’s army at the time (2 Chronicles 17:7).
In addition to the inscriptions, the archaeologists discovered beautiful drawings. One shows a cow nursing a calf, another depicts a young girl seated on a bench with her legs crossed, playing a harp, still another portrays the Egyptian god Bes, a popular figure of fertility and protection.
The site is on top of an isolated hill halfway between Gaza and Elath. It rises only about 120 feet above the surrounding plain but affords an unbroken view for at least 20 miles in every direction.
At the foot of the hill a green clump of desert scrub surrounds the 10 wells of Ajrud. The wells, which still work and are used by the Bedouins today, date to antiquity. Mr. Meshel assumes that it was these wells, which provide the only water for miles around, that originally drew travelers to the site 2, 800 years ago.
Sherds Point to Judea
The site itself was discovered in 1869 by Edward Palmer, a Briton who explored Sinai and recorded his findings in a book, The Desert of the Exodus. Professor Palmer came across the architectural remains at Ajrud and concluded — erroneously — that he had found Gypsaria, a site on the old Roman road between Elath and Gaza.
Using Palmer’s work as a guide, Mr. Meshel, a professor in Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Nature-Preserve Research, visited the hill in 1970. The first pottery sherds he picked up, he said, demonstrated that it was a Judean, not a Roman, site.
Three seasons of subsequent excavation have proved that the site was occupied for only one period, roughly about 800 B.C., and then evacuated for an unknown reason. There is no sign of destruction other than the ashes of a fire that occurred years later.
Because of its remoteness and the dry desert climate, some organic material survived the centuries intact. The excavators found a perfectly preserved, still-usable cloth flour sieve, as well as pieces of wood, rope and bits of clothing, all dating to the eighth century B.C.
Although they are less important archaeologically, these finds excited some of the 50 kibbutznik volunteers to the dig more than anything else. “Holding that cloth in your hands,” a young woman said, “you can feel your ancestors.”
(New York Times, June 21, 1976.© 1976 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.)