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Cities, Monuments and Objects in the Roman and Byzantine Levant: Studies in Honour of Gabi Mazor

2023; Penn State University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.11.4.0466

2166-3556

Jodi Magness,

Ancient Egypt and Archaeology

This Festschrift honors Gabi Mazor, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Following a brief preface of appreciation by N. Goldman, the twenty-five articles are arranged in rough chronological order, beginning with a report on the Hellenistic remains uncovered in recent excavations at Tell Iẓtabba (M. Edrey, P. Ebeling, T. Harpak, A. Lichtenberger, and O. Tal) and ending with a study of nineteenth-century guidebooks to the Holy Land for Russian pilgrims (A. Nagorsky and M. Frumin). Walid Atrash and A. Overman co-authored two of the articles: one surveying the urban development of Nysa-Scythopolis in the first and second centuries CE (the second article in the volume), and the other on an early Islamic residential quarter overlying the Roman theater at Tabariyya (Tiberias) (the penultimate article in the volume). Most of the articles focus on Roman-Byzantine Palestine, and many are on topics or sites related to Mazor’s experience and interests, such as Beth Shean or Roman architecture. The following is a summary of the articles in their order of publication.Tziona Grossmark considers the character of the Jewish community in Beth Shean (Nysa-Scythopolis) in light of literary and artistic sources, proposing that the Jewish owner’s choice of scenes from the Odyssey and Nilotic themes decorating the floor mosaic of the House of Leontis reflects the “cultural synthesis” characteristic of Jews living in that pagan city. Elise A. Friedland surveys some of the 168 Roman and Byzantine sculpture fragments (153 of which are of white marble) discovered in Mazor’s excavations at Beth Shean, which comprise part of a corpus of Roman marble statuary from Israel that is second only in size to that from Caesarea Maritima. Renate Rosenthal-Heginbottom discusses three lion-shaped and three cross-shaped metal door pull handles from Beth Shean, which are often depicted on the doors of rock-cut tombs or on oil lamps and are commonly misidentified as door knockers. Leah Di Segni publishes four Greek inscriptions in floor mosaics from the so-called Church of Saint Andreas and Church of the Martyr at Beth Shean, demonstrating that the former should be identified with the Church of the Martyr Basileus and was built before the city wall in the first half of the fifth century over a religious building of the fourth century, while the latter was dedicated to the same saint and was erected after the construction of the city wall. Based on the extensive archaeological discoveries, Benjamin Y. Arubas reconstructs the route of the monk Sabas around Beth Shean as described by Cyril of Scythopolis, who was a native of the city. Shimon Dar provides an overview of Hasmonean- and Herodian-period sites that he surveyed after 1967 on the southwestern part of Mount Hermon, including the village of Mount Sumaq and Ituraean temples and cultic sites. Arthur Segal notes regional variations among temples for the imperial cult around the Roman Empire, with those in the northern part of Provincia Arabia being strongly distinguished from the rest by their open-air plan and absence of a temenos.Based on recent discoveries, Joseph Patrich reconstructs the ascent from the pier of Caesarea Maritima’s Inner Harbor to Herod’s temple of Roma and Augustus atop the Temple Platform as a three-story-high double stair-tower with a wooden bridge. Mordechai Aviam and D. Shalem note that three mausolea in Western Upper Galilee built of free-standing sarcophagi with protruding bosses on their short front side represent the southernmost examples of a type common in southern Asia Minor. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah and O. Peleg-Barkat propose that the unfinished state of monuments around Jerusalem, for example at spots along the Eastern and Western Cardines and at the Northern City Gate (the modern Damascus Gate) may indicate that the construction of Aelia Capitolina was disrupted, perhaps at first with the outbreak of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, and then later with Hadrian’s death. Uzi ‘Ad, R. Bar-Nathan, and I. Taxel report on the excavation of a Roman veterans’ settlement of the Tenth Legion dating to ca. 70–130 CE at Moẓa outside Jerusalem, which brought to light an insula containing three barrack-like units to which later were added a colonnaded street and a peristyle building, perhaps for civilian use. Débora Sandhaus and I. Milevski analyze a Hasmonean-period farmhouse at Ramat Bet Shemesh that they excavated, showing that there is a clear differentiation between the public and private spaces of the complex. Amir Goralczany clarifies our understanding of the Roman domus at Lod, where a spectacular mosaic floor was first discovered in 1994, by presenting more recently excavated rooms in the complex with mosaics. Peter Gendelman and Y. Porath describe a luxurious, sprawling, late antique mansion along the shore of Caesarea Maritima’s Southwest Zone, which was divided into a private administrative and economic unit including horrea (warehouses) and the owners’ richly appointed living and hosting unit, which included a triconch stibadium (dining room) and a garden with fountain and pergola. Rivka Gersht discusses the large number of champlevé fragments from Caesarea, which are carved in low relief and seem to have been locally produced.Nurit Feig and M. Aviam describe a Byzantine church with mosaic floors that they recently excavated at Kafr Kama, proposing that its distance from the ancient village indicates it was a pilgrim monastery. Lihi Habas analyzes the mosaic floors decorating a Byzantine monastery at Sede Nahum, which display a variety of geometric, floral, and figured motifs. Rina Talgam, Y. Tepper, M. Peleg, and O. Bortnik discuss three mosaic pavements at Shivta originally discovered by the Colt Expedition, including one in the bema of the central church that depicted personifications of the four rivers of paradise. Ofer Sion and S. Israeli present a new urban plan of Mampsis based on a recent survey, identifying three rows of rooms (Structure R/2) as a military camp and a large adjacent complex (Structure R/1) as the living quarters of the camp’s commander. Based on an examination of early aerial photographs and the results of recent field work, Gideon Avni concludes that the massive construction of terraced fields in the Negev Highlands began around the fourth century CE and functioned at most sites until the tenth to early eleventh century, while most of the terraced fields in the Judean Hills west of Jerusalem seem to originate in the fourteenth to sixteenth century CE. Yinon Shivtiel presents a corpus of all the currently recognized underground hiding complexes in Galilee, which were used by the local Jewish population during one or both of the revolts against Rome and resemble contemporary hiding complexes in Judea.As this overview indicates, many of the articles in the volume present recent discoveries from excavations conducted by the author(s), which often were previously unpublished or have been published only in Hebrew. Inevitably, readers will engage with different articles depending on their specific interests. For example, I wonder why Segal includes the Augusteum at Samaria-Sebaste but not the one at Caesarea in his discussion of temples for the imperial cult (and I would welcome his thoughts about the temple at Omrit). Another example: Sion and Israeli’s conclusion (following A. Negev) that Mampsis was destroyed in the sixth century—100–200 years earlier than the other Negev towns—seems to be contradicted by the discovery of pottery dating to the late sixth to early seventh centuries in recent excavations, which they cite in a footnote (258 n. 9). Finally, Grossmark’s conclusion about the story of Odysseus and the sirens in the House of Leontis presumably would have been affected by considering the depiction of harpies-sirens in the Jonah mosaic panel in the Huqoq synagogue (see Britt and Boustan’s contribution in Magness et al. 2018: 111–15). Huqoq, unlike Beth Shean, was a Jewish community, suggesting that the “cultural synthesis” Grossmark describes is not limited to Jewish minorities living in pagan contexts.All the articles are richly illustrated with plans, line drawings, and photographs, some of them in color. Unfortunately, the publication quality is undermined by numerous typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors throughout the volume, which would have benefited from more rigorous editorial oversight, especially since English is not the first language of most of the authors. These occur already on the first page (2) of the first article, where “Keywords” is misspelled “Keywosds,” and other errors follow on nearly every page. One of the more egregious examples is in a footnote (157 n. 1): “The authors wish to express they’re thanks to M. Herskowitz O. Abd Rabu and Y. Rapuano for offering valuable comments on some of the pottery types. To.”Despite the poor quality of editing, readers will find a wealth of information in this volume, including new discoveries from recent excavations. As such, this is a fitting tribute to Mazor, who has contributed so much to our understanding of the archaeology of Roman-Byzantine Palestine.