What's In a Name
18/Nov/2008 01:58
So, last February, it was still Khirbet Qeiyafa. None of us knew what it meant at that time. I spoke to some Arab friends and none of them could help. As we talked, we decided we needed a name that would resonate in the public imagination. We tossed some ideas around, and yours truly suggested “Mivtzar HaElah” - The Elah Fortress - and everyone agreed. Simple. Clean. It was after-all a fortress city in the Elah Valley.
During the summer we found out that the local Bedouin call the site “Khirbet Daoud” or “David’s Ruin”. That was intriguing - VERY intriguing.
Later on, Professor Garfinkel informed us that a professor at the university translated the Arabic to mean “beautiful ruin” - really a fitting moniker.
But the real identification of the site continued to elude us. Even our intrepid archaeologists had offered suggestions that as we learned about the site proved to be in error, such as 2007’s hypothesis of Azeka. The blogosphere was abuzz with theories and conjectures: Efes Damim and Gov were but two. (Here is the list quoted by Yossi at ASOR
HISTORICAL IDENTIFICATION
Adataim? (Y. Dagan)
Azekah? (S. Ganor)
Sha’arayim? (D. Adams, A. Rainey)
Efes Damim? (blog)
Gov? (N. Naaman)
So allow me to digress - another anecdotal story: it’s the early days of the 2008 season, in one of our informal discussions, I asked Yossi if he thought there might be a second gate. We had one already, and I figured having two would be twice as good. I said to Yossi, “Do you think it’s possible, since we have a gate in the west, that there might be another gate. Yossi, thought for about a nano-second and said, “In the 10th century, we have no sites in the country with two gates.” Not wanting to appear like a total rube I let the matter die. We all did.
But I was curious, and being a graphic designer by default, an educator by obsession, and as I mentioned earlier, a curious sort, I took my camera and tripod in hand and decided to do something useful. I’d survey the walls of the site, inside and out and build a portfolio of images that might prove useful to me or someone else in the future. There were MANY features that caught my eye: the base of an archway, steps leading into the side of “berms” near the inside walls, ramps, platforms and ruins of a variety of shape and size - and astonishingly - what looked to my amateur eye - like another gate. And as I circled the walls excited and hardly containing myself, I bumped into Prof. David Adams - doing exactly the same thing from the other direction - photo-surveying the site.
“David - as you go around - take a look - I think there’s another gate,” said I. David took some pictures of the same features, and they went into the general archive of images of the site.
So it really didn’t come as much of a surprise when a couple of weeks ago, I was informed that the team now thought that there was a second gate. Yossi had looked at David Adams’ pictures, and I sent him one of mine, and the decision was made to go out, clear the area with some volunteer yeshiva boys from Australia, and assess what we had. And what we had was amazing. A second gate in the city wall, with massive monolithic stones - maybe even grander than our western gate.
Yossi will talk more about it at ASOR, but the really cool thing, the really, really cool thing, is that there’s a verse in Joshua that lists the 14 cities of the Shefela (okay, there’s 15 listed there and there are all kinds of rabbinic discussions about which two names are really describing one site - but that’s another issue for a blog). One of those sites, is a site called “Sha’arayim” - meaning - Two Gates! How trippy is that? And - as if that wasn’t enough, it is also mentioned in the Book of Samuel - you see the Israelites chased the Philistines all the way home - “Derech Sha’arayim” - along the road to Sha’arayim.
Professors David Adams and Anson Rainey win the lottery for their early suggestions on the site name.
Kudos to Prof. Garfinkel and Saar Ganor for their continued excellence in discovering another unique and compelling feature, as we unravel the Mystery of the Elah Fortress. Two gates is waaaay cool. And now I’m thinking - maybe there’s three?
David Willner
Foundation Stone
During the summer we found out that the local Bedouin call the site “Khirbet Daoud” or “David’s Ruin”. That was intriguing - VERY intriguing.
Later on, Professor Garfinkel informed us that a professor at the university translated the Arabic to mean “beautiful ruin” - really a fitting moniker.
But the real identification of the site continued to elude us. Even our intrepid archaeologists had offered suggestions that as we learned about the site proved to be in error, such as 2007’s hypothesis of Azeka. The blogosphere was abuzz with theories and conjectures: Efes Damim and Gov were but two. (Here is the list quoted by Yossi at ASOR
HISTORICAL IDENTIFICATION
Adataim? (Y. Dagan)
Azekah? (S. Ganor)
Sha’arayim? (D. Adams, A. Rainey)
Efes Damim? (blog)
Gov? (N. Naaman)
So allow me to digress - another anecdotal story: it’s the early days of the 2008 season, in one of our informal discussions, I asked Yossi if he thought there might be a second gate. We had one already, and I figured having two would be twice as good. I said to Yossi, “Do you think it’s possible, since we have a gate in the west, that there might be another gate. Yossi, thought for about a nano-second and said, “In the 10th century, we have no sites in the country with two gates.” Not wanting to appear like a total rube I let the matter die. We all did.
But I was curious, and being a graphic designer by default, an educator by obsession, and as I mentioned earlier, a curious sort, I took my camera and tripod in hand and decided to do something useful. I’d survey the walls of the site, inside and out and build a portfolio of images that might prove useful to me or someone else in the future. There were MANY features that caught my eye: the base of an archway, steps leading into the side of “berms” near the inside walls, ramps, platforms and ruins of a variety of shape and size - and astonishingly - what looked to my amateur eye - like another gate. And as I circled the walls excited and hardly containing myself, I bumped into Prof. David Adams - doing exactly the same thing from the other direction - photo-surveying the site.
“David - as you go around - take a look - I think there’s another gate,” said I. David took some pictures of the same features, and they went into the general archive of images of the site.
So it really didn’t come as much of a surprise when a couple of weeks ago, I was informed that the team now thought that there was a second gate. Yossi had looked at David Adams’ pictures, and I sent him one of mine, and the decision was made to go out, clear the area with some volunteer yeshiva boys from Australia, and assess what we had. And what we had was amazing. A second gate in the city wall, with massive monolithic stones - maybe even grander than our western gate.
Yossi will talk more about it at ASOR, but the really cool thing, the really, really cool thing, is that there’s a verse in Joshua that lists the 14 cities of the Shefela (okay, there’s 15 listed there and there are all kinds of rabbinic discussions about which two names are really describing one site - but that’s another issue for a blog). One of those sites, is a site called “Sha’arayim” - meaning - Two Gates! How trippy is that? And - as if that wasn’t enough, it is also mentioned in the Book of Samuel - you see the Israelites chased the Philistines all the way home - “Derech Sha’arayim” - along the road to Sha’arayim.
Professors David Adams and Anson Rainey win the lottery for their early suggestions on the site name.
Kudos to Prof. Garfinkel and Saar Ganor for their continued excellence in discovering another unique and compelling feature, as we unravel the Mystery of the Elah Fortress. Two gates is waaaay cool. And now I’m thinking - maybe there’s three?
David Willner
Foundation Stone
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Refocus
05/Nov/2008 11:31 Filed in: Education
It took a little bit of effort, but I’m now refocussing. The media is all over the ostracon, 3,000-year-old text, David and Goliath - so I decided to try and regain a little perspective on all this. People are excited by this find and I think I’m beginning to understand why. It’s personal.
Here’s what I mean. Deep down, inside a great many people on this planet, we want to believe in something. Something that inspires hope and gives meaning to the crazy world we live in. And if the meta-messages of this world are such that we are bombarded with emptiness and superficiality, when something of real significance comes along, our spirits are set on fire. When that happens it is a wonder to behold.
On this level it doesn’t really matter if one is religious or secular, a deep believer or a committed sceptic. In a world plagued by banality, significance is a balm.
There’s more to come. Watch this site as we begin to flesh out the educational issues, touch the history, and try to make a difference. A significant difference. It’s gonna be quite a ride. Care to join us?