Sandy Souza
A Photo tour of the 2004 season
(all photos by the author)
Hazor is about 9 mi (14 km) north of the Sea of Galilee, which is 700 ft (215 m) below sea level, so it is not only very hot, but also very humid. Called “the head of all those kingdoms” in the book of Joshua (11:10), Hazor is the largest Biblical site in Israel, occupying some 200 acres. Jabin, king of Hazor, was very powerful (Jos 11:1–5). Nevertheless, the city was burned by Joshua around 1400 BC, at the end of the Late Bronze I period (Jos 11:11). It was later conquered by Deborah and Barak during Iron Age I in ca. 1230 BC (Jgs 4:24) and then fortified by King Solomon during Iron Age II, around 950 BC (1 Kgs 9:15).
Hazor’s importance as a site for our understanding of the Conquest and settlement of Canaan by the Israelites is perhaps unsurpassed due to its prominence in antiquity and the relatively well-preserved stratigraphy remaining in its ruins. While structures were built all around the Late Bronze Age Canaanite palace, for example, nothing was ever built on top of it. So what was left after the conflagration, which was at its worse in the northwest corner of the building, is pretty much seen intact today.
At its zenith in the Middle Bronze period (2000–1500 BC), Hazor was like the Hong Kong of today—a large, very rich and very powerful force in international trade in the known world of that time, with more than 100,000 inhabitants, huge for that time.
While the tell occupied 200 acres in the Middle Bronze (2000–1500 BC) and Late Bronze (1500–1200 BC) periods, only 20 acres on the west side were inhabited in other periods of occupation. We were digging in the 20 acres where the rulers and the rich lived. This was very different from our projects at Khirbet Nisya and Khirbet el-Maqatir, which were basically lookout posts inhabited by soldiers and their families and the merchants who supplied them. There, we were digging up strictly utilitarian vessels and instruments. At Hazor, however, pieces of both fine painted imported vessels and domestic copies were surfacing regularly in almost every shovelful.
Professor Amnon Ben-Tor of Hebrew University has been the director of the dig since 1990. He is at the top of his game as an archaeologist. He also led all the teaching tours of the site, gave most of the classes in the evening and served us watermelon while we washed pottery before going back to the hotel.
I love pottery reading and have been trying to teach myself from some very good books I have. However, I was never very successful. Going to pottery reading on the Hazor dig is rather daunting because they throw pieces of pottery at you and you have to tell what kind of vessel it is and why and what period it belongs to and why. After years of sitting in on pottery reading, I still didn’t have a clue!
However, Amnon gave one 30-minute class on pottery reading and the next day I could participate with confidence. There’s nothing like learning from the author of the book! (The only hitch was when Doron Ben-ami, our square supervisor who was leading the pottery reading, realized you understood the basics he would start throwing you curves with the exceptions and back you went to Humbletown.) All in all, pottery reading still remains one of my favorite parts of the dig, due in part to the manner in which it was carried out and taught, but even more because of the “too-much-time-in-the-sun” humor expressed by the diggers as they tried to keep all the new details straight.
I dug in Area A-4, the area spanning the eastern approach to the Canaanite Palace. I dug weeks three, four and five of the six-week dig. During the sixth week another cuneiform tablet and an Early Bronze Age Syrian cylinder seal were found.
Professor Amnon Ben-Tor.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 48
Late Bronze Age Canaanite palace, ca. 1500–1230 BC. I dug about 100 yd (90 m) to the northeast of it. In front are steps leading up to a platform and podium where royal announcements were made. Visible on either side of the entrance are bases for huge pillars, similar to those that stood at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple. The main room was where the king met his subjects and there were storage rooms on either side of and behind this room. The roof is new, to protect the mudbrick walls which still remain as well as the ones that are being replicated to show the palace as it was. This palace had imported wood floors made of cedar from Lebanon—previously unheard of. Amnon said it took him a long time to believe that there had been wood floors, but he could not argue with two conjoined planks 32 in by 24 in (80 cm x 60 cm) that had escaped being burned in the fire that destroyed the palace. In addition, there was a 4 in (10 cm) gap between the cobble floor and the bottom of the basalt orthostats that lined the bottom of the inner walls of the main room. The wood was one of the three elements that caused the fire to be hot enough to melt the mud bricks. The other two were oil, which would be present in large amounts in a palace, and a stiff wind, which we experienced every afternoon at the hotel where we stayed approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) from the site.
Prof. Ben-Tor explaining Hazor. He is pointing out the occupation periods of the tell. The multicolored mound on the left is the 20 acres that was occupied almost continuously. The aqua and purple sections on the flat part of the tell represent Middle Bronze (2000–1500 BC) and Late Bronze (1500–1200 BC) occupation. A moat was built around the upper city at the end of Iron Age II (early sixth century BC), which destroyed large portions of the fortifications built in the Middle Bronze age. So much has been found at Hazor that it has its own museum across the street from the dig site.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 49
Hi ho, hi ho. I had two choices in my “commute” to work every morning. My destination was the black tent you see in the upper right corner of the left photo. The surface where we were working was 15 ft (4.6 m) below it. I could walk through King Solomon’s 950 BC three-chamber gate (left photo), climb up on the north side, and walk on top of the casemate wall to the toolbox, where I gathered a pick, terrea (hoe), petesh (hand pick), trowel, dust pan, rock brush, dirt brush, and pottery and bone buckets. The other option was to walk up the Canaanite Late Bronze Age steps leading to the sacred place (right photo), walk along a dirt path and then hop on Solomon’s wall to get to the toolbox.
My place in the dirt. The room where I was digging is under the tarp at the bottom left. This gives you an idea how big and deep the area was where we were digging.
This is my “room.” The wall with the ladder is the south wall. Yes, that is the sun just coming up and we are already on site. This was a photography day, so the tent is off. We were going to tear down some walls, so they needed to be photographed before we did them in. Sometimes we began digging so early that I couldn’t tell if the objects that were popping up while using the pick and terrea were pottery or rocks without picking them up and holding them close to my eyes.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 50
Last day photos. The north wall of my room is on the right above and the east wall is on the left side of the left photo. When you reach dirt beneath a wall, like the north wall, they say the wall has “floated.” It eventually will be torn down. However, the east wall continues on down below the surface of the room, so it will be around for a while.
Bucket chain time. Approximately every hour we lifted 200 buckets of dirt, along with rocks from walls we tore down up the ladder to the waiting wheelbarrows.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 51
This is why it takes so long. When you come across large rocks, you must dig down around them to see what they are sitting on. If they are just tumble, they will be sitting on dirt, as all these turned out to be. However, sometimes they are the highest remaining course of a wall and it is very important not to tear them down.
Circle of standing stones. About 25 yards to the northwest of my “room” where I excavated was a circle of standing stones which the Canaanites built in the high places and worshiped. Being in a circle is unusual. They were in groups of three—a larger limestone standing stone with an abutting smaller basalt standing stone and a flat stone in front of both of them for offerings. In one corner is a cobbled courtyard, probably for placing larger offerings.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 52
Looking southwest, I could see the standing stones. However, more importantly, in the distance, there is a huge wall that surrounds the palace and part of it is heading right for me (top center). By projecting the wall at its present angle, it would eclipse the east part of my room, making the west part within the temple compound. This is where the most definitive finds would occur, including archives (15 cuneiform tablets have been found at various places around the dig site), administrative buildings, the private homes of the rich and influential, temples, etc. My room was at the lowest level of any area that would fall inside the wall, so the supervisors were quite anxious for me to move from the Israelite Iron Age II (1000–587 BC) level into the Canaanite Late Bronze period level (1500–1200 BC). My square supervisor informed me that I was moving 1 ton of dirt a day but, alas, I never left the Iron Age! That is the way of archaeology—you have to take things as they come. Does this mean I will return to my room next year? I’ll think about it again in about three months when I have finally cooled off and all the stored-up heat has dissipated from my body and memory.
Iron Age houses. It is interesting that the well-to-do Israelites built houses along both sides and back of the Canaanite palace. You can see the basalt orthostats (large slabs of stone used to line the walls) of the palace in the upper center of the photo, as well as the supports for the modern roof. The houses come very close to, but do not make any connection with, the palace. Was there a prohibition against building over the palace? Did they build here because there was the oft-found breeze from the northwest? Archaeology many times poses more questions than answers!
Sandy Souza is a medical transcriptionist working out of her home in Walnut Creek, California. She has been participating in the ABR digs at Khirbet Nisya and Khirbet el-Maqatir since 1987 and has served as pottery and object registrar on both digs.
BSpade 18:2 (Spring 2005) p. 53