Ancient oil-lamp workshop sheds light on Roman-era Jews and Christians
Hundreds of ceramic oil lamps – two bearing symbols of the menorah – and stone lamp molds for their production, were found along with terracotta figurines.
By Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post, December 14, 2020
An ancient ceramic oil-lamp workshop — one of the largest ever found —
has been discovered in excavations by the Antiquities Authority in the
“Hey” neighborhood of Ramat Beit Shemesh. Hundreds of ceramic oil lamps,
two bearing symbols of the menorah, and stone lamp molds for their
production were found along with terracotta figurines from about
1600-1700 years ago.
In the past few months, the Antiquities Authority
excavators have been joined by dozens of pre-military program students.
The
large-scale archaeological excavations are being carried out by the
Construction and Housing Ministry prior to the establishment of a new
neighborhood.
“The festival of Hanukkah is a wonderful opportunity to tell the public
about the recovery of these oil lamps, which was the main method of
lighting in ancient times,” the archaeologists said in a statement. In
light of the importance of the find and its location, the authority and
the ministry plan to preserve the site and incorporate it into a large
park that will be open to the public.
This find yields important new information on Jewish and early Christian life during the Late Roman period, they said.
The
discovery of the lamps, used for lighting in ancient times, surprised
the archaeologists not only because of their quantity and quality, but
also because it solved an archaeological mystery connected with them.
IN 1934, archaeologist Dimitri Baramki, an inspector on behalf of the Department of Antiquities during the British Mandate, discovered a water cistern in the region of Beit Shemesh. On excavating the cistern, he was surprised to uncover a huge quantity of intact ancient oil lamps bearing animal and plant motifs and geometric designs.
IN 1934, archaeologist Dimitri Baramki, an inspector on behalf of the Department of Antiquities during the British Mandate, discovered a water cistern in the region of Beit Shemesh. On excavating the cistern, he was surprised to uncover a huge quantity of intact ancient oil lamps bearing animal and plant motifs and geometric designs.
The lamps were dated to the Late Roman period (third to fourth centuries CE) and became known as “Beit Nattif lamps” after the name of the nearby village. Together with the lamps, Baramki recovered stone lamp molds and a wide variety of pottery figurines depicting animals, horse-riders, women and birds.
After the British Mandate-era discovery, the location of the cistern was
lost and has remained a mystery, despite all efforts to find it – until
now.
“As part of the Beit Shemesh development program, we examined an area on the edge of the ancient remains of Khirbet Beit Nattif,” explained excavation directors Moran Balila, Itai Aviv, Nicolas Benenstein and Omer Shalev. “We uncovered a water cistern that looked, at first sight, like many others in the region. But to our surprise, excavation beside the cistern began unearthing massive quantities of oil lamps, stone lamp molds and figurine fragments.”
When
the archaeologists entered the cistern, which was intact, they were
amazed to find that they recognized it from photos appearing in
Baramki’s excavation publication. The cistern also contained items left
behind by Baramki himself, including leather baskets used to extract
soil and an empty metal box.
“The
Beit Nattif oil-lamp cistern has been brought back to life! We are
extremely excited, since this is not just an important archaeological
discovery in its own right, but also tangible evidence of archaeological
history,” the archaeologists said.
“The
figurines and the motifs on the lamps from the Beit Nattif region tell
the story of the Judean Hills in the period following the Bar Kokhba
Revolt,” explained Benyamin Storchan of the Antiquities Authority, an
expert on the Beit Nattif lamps
“From the writings of Josephus, we know that during the Second Temple period, Beit Nattif was a regional administrative center – one of the 10 principal cities under Hasmonean rule. After the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt and Roman takeover of the region, the local Jewish population of the Judean Hills was greatly diminished – and in turn, the region was settled by pagans."
The many figurines unearthed at the site attest to this. At the same time, a small number of the ceramic oil lamps are decorated with distinctively Jewish symbols such as the shofar, incense burner and seven-branched menorah. The fragments tell us that Jewish life continued to exist in the Judean Hills, well after the rebellion’s failure.
Obviously, the oil-lamp workshop produced these lamps in response to a continued demand in the region. During this period, Christianity also began to emerge and some of the Beit Nattif oil-lamps carry fish motifs, one of the symbols of Christianity. The sheer variety of lamps and figurines therefore proves that the local population featured a mix of pagans, Christians and Jews.
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| Back in my day we used oil lamps in our cave carved from woolly mammoths tusks! |
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