Study in Jerusalem: Visiting Safi & Megiddo

I've been doing research at the Institute of Advanced Study at Hebrew University in Givat Ram since Nov 1. Our theme is Regional Narratives and our time is divided between weekly field trips and seminars, and doing our own research. There is a broad range of regional specialization among the different participants including Turkey, Greece, Egypt, the Canaanites, the Israelites, and the Philistines. In addition to interacting with each other, there has been interaction with fellows at the Albright and with members of the other IAS research group on urbanism. This has included joint seminars and fieltrips. We also had a mini conference in early December. I would say my teaching will have benefitted as much from being here as colleagues have been very generous with sharing information and circulating offprints, especially of items not readily available on JSTOR.

In November it was nice and green at Tell es-Safi and the bedouin tent was pitched below Area A.

Aren Maeir took us around Tell es-Safi, which is now a national park. The tell was very green - looking very different than it does in the summer.

There was also time to discuss the Goliath inscription.

A couple of days ago, Israel Finkelstein gave us a 4 hour tour of Megiddo, which included some interesting historical anecdotes about research there. Here we're near the entrance to the site at the Late Bronze Age gate.

March 21, 2007: My Own Armageddon

Today, we went to Megiddo for a tour by my friend Norma Franklin, of Tel Aviv U. This was my 4th time to the site. Norma is the volunteer coordinator for the dig there and gave me a private 4 hour tour 6 years ago. Megiddo is interesting for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with it’s infamous reputation. For me, the big interest is in the fact that there are mason’s marks there that may have a connection to earlier Aegean marks based on the possible use of Carian mason’s there.

When we arrived at Megiddo, I got 2 of my fingers stuck in the car door. Besides the pain, I was very worried at first as the last time this happened, so much blood built up under the nail, that I had to go to the emergency room and they made a tiny hole in the nail to release the blood. Fortunately, this did not happen and we were able to continue our site tours with a trip to Caesarea after Megiddo. After 12 hours of site visits, I went to the last half of my Hebrew class. I was so tired when I got home, I could barely eat.

The photo shows the so-called north stables at Megiddo. Another group are sometimes called the stables of Solomon. It is unlikely that they were either, but instead are large, 3 aisle warehouses supported by rows of stone pillars and linked with trade. Similar 3 aisled storage buildings occur on Cyprus.