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Archaeologists Excavate Legendary City of Dan

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Bianca Markos
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« on: January 03, 2012, 02:58:03 am »

Much more is left to explore. A team of archaeologists, students and volunteers plan to return to the site in 2012 under the directorship of David Ilan of the Hebrew Union College, Ryan Byrne of Rhodes College and Nili Fox of HUC-JIR/Cincinnati. They will expand upon what has already been accomplished, exploring the 90 percent of the site yet to be uncovered. Reports the expedition staff:

 

    Millennia of human occupation at Tel Dan during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Greco-Roman, Medieval and Ottoman periods have resulted in numerous cities superimposed on one another with countless artifacts deposited at the site. Archaeology has only revealed the tip of the iceberg, but much of what has surfaced is extraordinary. In addition to the House of David inscription, the triple-arched mudbrick gate, and the Israelite temple complex, professional archaeologists and volunteers alike have made several thousand discoveries. [1]

 

Among other things, excavations at Tel Dan have provided a kind of "open-book" on the past in this part of the Levant. Inscriptions found thus far imply more to come. "Texts allow us to glimpse the thoughts and cultures of real human beings in their own words", reports the team. "Tel Dan has been very generous in this respect. In addition to the 'House of David' and 'God Who Is in Dan' inscriptions, we have a nice collection of inscribed specimens, especially from the Israelite occupation." Inscriptions revealing personal names have been found on pottery vessels and jar handles. For example, one Phoenician script incised on a pottery shard reads “belonging to Baalpalt,” and another, in Hebrew script, “belonging to Amotz.” The inscriptions were created while the clay was wet during the jars' manufacture. Two others, in the form of seal impressions (used to denote ownership) on jar handles, read “belonging to Immadiyaw,” a northern dialect Hebrew name, and "Zakariyaw", or Zechariah. The Immadiyaw inscription was found within an Assyrian destruction layer dated to 732 BCE, the approximate year of Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III's campaign against the northern Israelite city. [1]   

Key questions remain to be answered. Who were the prehistoric people who first settled in this region long before the Biblical period?  Why and how did Dan remain a significant religious center well into the Greco-Roman period, long after the time of the ancient Israelites? And from the Biblical perspective, how do the materials left behind shed light on what became of the "lost tribe" of Dan and the other tribes of Israel north of the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem? A tomb dating to the Late Bronze Age, (14th - 13th century BCE), contained an unusual assemblage of ceramic vessels in the Mycenaean style. Does this present evidence of trade relations between the people of Dan and people as far away as mainland Greece? Archaeologists hope to be able to address these questions and many more in the coming excavation seasons.

Individuals interested in participating in the Tel Dan expedition should contact Levana Zias at

http://www.ngsba.org/en/component/contact/12-contacts/4-levana-zias- for more information.

A noteworthy virtual tour of the Tel Dan excavation site can be obtained by visiting the Virtual World Project website at http://www.virtualworldproject.org/vr/.

______________________________________________________

[1] http://teldan.wordpress.com/discoveries/

Cover Photo, Top Left: The outer wall of the Iron Age II gate complex with projecting towers. Photo credit Ronald A. Simkins and the Virtual World Project.

Photo, third from top, right: Front view of the Middle Bronze II mud brick gate at Tel Dan.  Ani Nimi,  Wikimedia Commons

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/december-2011/article/archaeologists-excavate-legendary-city-of-dan
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