Yodefat Jotapata. A Jewish Galilean Town at the End of the Second Temple Period: The Results of an Archaeological Project 45

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1 4 Yodefat Jotapata A Jewish Galilean Town at the End of the Second Temple Period: The Results of an Archaeological Project 45 Mordechai Aviam The town of Jotapata is almost entirely built on precipitous cliffs, being surrounded by ravines so deep that sight fails in the attempt to fathom the abyss.... Concealed by other mountains surrounding it, the town was quite invisible until one came right up to it. Josephus J.W Not only was Yodefat/Jotapata invisible in antiquity; the site was all but invisible throughout the history of research, rarely visited by scholars and surveyors and almost did not appear in the archaeological records since its destruction in the summer of 67 ce until the summer of The site of Yodefat is located on an isolated hill, the peak of which is 419 m above sea level. It is surrounded by deep ravines from three sides and connected by a gentle saddle from the north to Mount Miamin. This topographical position is accurately described by Josephus Flavius. The hill is shaped by two elevations: the high rounded peak with a rocky summit and a southern, moderate ledge. Remains of ancient buildings were found all over the hill including cut and sunken foundations on the summit. 45. Although there is not yet a final report, a detailed study of the excavation can be found in Mordechai Aviam, Yodefat: A Case Study in the Development of the Jewish Settlement in the Galilee During the Second Temple Period (in Hebrew; Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2005). 109 GalileeII_A.indd 109 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

2 110 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Figure A. Reconstruction of Ancient Yodefat by Brian Lalor. Used with permission. The goals of the excavations were (1) to date the walls of which some segments could be seen on the surface around the perimeter of the hill; (2) to look for evidence of war and determine whether this site is the place of Jotapata that is described by Josephus; and (3) to locate and uncover residential units in an attempt to study first-century Galilean rural life, as most of the pottery collected in surveys was from this period. During seven seasons of excavations, from 1992 to 1999, a total of about 2,500 sq m was excavated, about half of it along the walls and the rest in the residential areas. 1 Early Stage The earliest pottery found during the survey and excavations is dated to the Persian period, but nowhere at the dig did we identify any built structure dated to this period. In our survey, about 1. The excavations were directed for the seven seasons by the author on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). For the first season, Douglas Edwards was a codirector on behalf of the University of Puget Sound. For the first three seasons, David Adan-Bayewitz was a codirector on behalf of the Bar-Ilan University. W. S. Green was the educational director. For the first two seasons J. Andrew Overman was an assistant director. GalileeII_A.indd 110 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

3 Yodefat Jotapata 111 Figure B. GCW Jar with two typical Hellenistic jars. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. 30 percent of the pottery, as well as some coins, was dated to the Hellenistic period. Coins and much pottery from the Hellenistic period were found in the Roman-period layer. A large quantity of the Hellenistic pottery belonged to the Galilean Coarse Ware (GCW) group. 2 In three areas we identified the Hellenistic layer, one on the eastern slope below the Roman-period houses, the second below the Late Hellenistic (Hasmonean) wall in the northeast and the largest spot below the Hasmonean wall on the west, where two chambers lacking doorways (probably for storage), were discovered. On the floor of one of the rooms there were two large GCW pithoi and an imported amphora from Rhodes dated to the second half of the second century bce, all covered by a layer of ash. The discovery of a Hellenistic-period oil lamp decorated with Eros figures, together with the GCW vessels, indicates that the inhabitants of the Hellenistic village were pagans, similar to many other sites in Upper Galilee and northern Lower Galilee. Together with other evidence from Galilee, we believe that this destruction layer is evidence for the Hasmonean wars in the Galilee and its annexation to the young Hasmonean state. It seems 2. For Galilean Coarse Ware, see Rafael Frankel, Nimrod Getzov, Mordechai Aviam, and Avi Degani, Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee (IAA Reports 14; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2001), GalileeII_A.indd 111 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

4 112 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Figure C. Terraced houses the eastern slope. Photo by Howard Smithline. as if this Hellenistic village occupied the top of the hill and was not fortified until its conquest by the Hasmoneans. During the Hasmonean reign, a strong wall was built, surrounding the summit with two strong towers controlling the northern accessible side. The Early Roman Period Town: Economy and Daily Life of Galilean Jews Four areas of dwellings were excavated: two on the southern plateau, one on the southern slope, and one on the steep eastern slope. The first three areas yielded a simple housing system. The houses are built of field stones; no remains of wall plaster were found, which means that they were plastered with mud plaster. Floors were packed soil or smoothed rock. Cut stones or ashlars were used only at the doorway where the wooden frame of the door would have been carefully attached. The houses and the entire town were not planned in advance but naturally developed as families grew. Narrow alleys separated the houses. As the town did not have a natural source of water (Josephus J.W ), each house had its own cistern with capacity large enough to supply water for the entire family and household. GalileeII_A.indd 112 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

5 Yodefat Jotapata 113 Wool Production In one of the courtyards, we uncovered the remains of a cooking oven (tabun), and nearby were home pottery vessels. In the same courtyard, about ten fired clay loom weights were uncovered within a layer of mud-roof. It seems that the house collapsed in the summer when the loom was on the roof. In total we have more than 250 loom weights from Yodefat, the largest number found at one site (comparable only to the finds from the fill of the cistern at Hellenistic Marissa/Maresha). Figure D. Clay loom weights. Photo by Howard Smithline. Information from animal bones retrieved at the site indicating more sheep (a high percentage of which were slaughtered at age five or more) than goats supports the understanding that spinning and weaving wool materials were an important part of Yodefat inhabitants livelihood, compensating for the lack of good arable land. Olive Oil Production In a cave on the southeastern slope, an oil press was found, proving that there was olive oil production at the town as well. The proximity between the cave and two nearby houses, each of which contained a mikveh, possibly supports other studies where it is suggested that in Jewish societies of the late Second Temple period the production of oil and wine was done in purity Ronni Reich, Miqwa ot (Jewish Ritual Baths) in the Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi; Israel Exploration Society 2013), GalileeII_A.indd 113 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

6 114 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Figure E. Tabun and vessels on destroyed floor. Photo by Howard Smithline. Pottery Production Another important production of the people of Yodefat, and a great surprise for both archaeologists and historians, was the discovery of at least two pottery workshops, containing four pottery kilns, both located at the southern edge of the town. From the waste found around the kilns it is obvious that both cooking ware and storage jars were manufactured in the town, as well as other possible products such as bowls, oil lamps, stands, and loom weights. The cookware is identical in its shape and color to the well-known Kefar Hananya ware, and the jars are also known to have been produced in other villages production sites. It means that the Galilean cooking ware as well as the jars were not produced in one center but rather in many local producers kilns. 4 Fresco House Another important surprise was the discovery of a section of a very rich mansion on the northern edge of the eastern slope. In this neighborhood, the houses were built along massive human-made terraces, rising up two or three stories. The uppermost building (only partially excavated) had one room, of which three of its walls were covered with colorful frescos of the 4. See, Mordechai Aviam, Kefar Hananya Ware Made in Yodefat, in Roman Pottery in the Levant: Local Production and Regional Trade (ed. B. Genz, Y. Gerber, and H. Hamel; Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 2; Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014), GalileeII_A.indd 114 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

7 Yodefat Jotapata 115 second Pompeian style. The best parallels for these wall paintings were found in the Herodian palaces, the rich mansions in Second Temple period Jerusalem and in a first-century mansion at Caesarea. Fallen chunks of frescos were also found in a couple of houses at Gamla. 5 There was one more surprising element: the floor was frescoed in the design of black and red tiles (see image G-1a in the color photo gallery). Small Finds There were a few small finds that support the existence of wealth in the town. Among the pottery vessels retrieved from the area of the fresco house are a few parts of a multinozzle knife pared, gray oil lamp, which is a luxurious object, imported from Jerusalem. 6 A pair of scale plates with the diameter of 5 cm informs us of the existence of delicate commodities in the town (fig. F). If there was a local dealer who sold expensive commodities such as fragrances or precious metals, there almost certainly were buyers who bought the merchandise. Another object is a large, iron door key (fig. G). Buying a lock and a key from a locksmith was expensive; if an ancient person invested in this security feature, he probably had something valuable to protect in the house. These discoveries shed important light on the question of how poor the Galileans were at the time of Jesus. The evidence from Yodefat, as well as finds from Gamla, clearly present a textured socioeconomic situation of rich and poor in villages, towns, and cities in first-century Galilee. 7 Figure F. Pair of bronze scales. Photo by Ron Rabinowitz. 5. For Gamla, see Yoav Farhi, Stucco Decorations from the Western Quarter, in Gamla, vol. 2, The Architecture (ed. Danny Syon and Zvi Yavor; IAA Reports 44; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2010), For Herodium, see Virgilio Corbo, Gli edifici della reggia-fortezza (Herodion 1; Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1989), 46, pl. II:I. 6. Multinozzle lamps are now a favorite of those who forge antiquities, selling the forgeries to ignorant Americans. 7. For a more detailed discussion, see Mordechai Aviam, People, Land, Economy, and Belief in First Century Galilee and Its Origins: A Comprehensive Archaeological Synthesis, in The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus (ed. David A. Fiensy and Ralph. K. Hawkins; Early Christianity and Its Literature 11; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), GalileeII_A.indd 115 8/27/2015 2:18:10 PM

8 116 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Figure G: Iron door key. Photo by Ron Rabinowitz. Remains of the Walls The North Wall The first phase of the northern wall is dated to the Hasmonean period. Superimposed over the remains of the Hellenistic village, a massive wall was built. In the north, it was a double wall with two massive towers that stood guard over the topographic saddle, the only accessible side of the hill. A glacis made of white rock chips was leaned up against the central tower, strengthening its foundations and base. Judging by the remains in several more squares around the top of the hill, it seems as if the Hasmonean wall surrounded the top of the hill only and created a tiny fortified village or a fortress. Above the Hasmonean remains, a new wall was built in the Early Roman (ER) period. Although it is not totally clear, it seems as if the builders of the new wall used some segments of the earlier wall in places where it was still in good condition, while constructing new segments in places where the wall was missing or damaged. The northern section of the ER wall was built as a casemate wall, of which two casemates were preserved as well as the beginning of a third one. Each casemate was built with a 2.1-m-wide external wall and 0.8-m-wide inner wall. The inner space of each casemate room is 2.5 m wide. The external wall was based on the head of the limestone-chips glacis, and its foundations are very shallow. In the inner walls of both stretches of casemate are thresholds of the doors including hinge sockets. During the dig, we could not identify any floor of these rooms, but in the western room there was a massive and organized fill of stones filling up the entire western corner. The base of the fill was at the same level as the threshold. The absence of floors to these casemate additions and the presence of stone fill on the same level as the threshold indicates that this fortified section was built shortly before the fill was created and that this fill was intended to defend the wall against the Roman army s battering ram operated from atop the assault ramp. When we took apart the stones of the fill, attempting to find any clues to date it, we discovered a ballista stone among the other field stones. The ballista stone proves that the fill was completed during a siege and under the firing of ballistae. Together with typical iron bow arrowheads and iron catapult arrowheads we had discovered conclusive evidence for a massive battle between the citizens of the town and the Roman army on this northern wall. GalileeII_A.indd 116

9 Yodefat Jotapata 117 Figure H. Ballista stones. Photo by Howard Smithline. On the northern slope, right below the casemate wall, we discovered on the surface some patches of hard surface that were made of lime plaster mixed with crushed pottery. Two excavation squares were dug near these areas. We discovered that the patches are remains of a layer that covered another thick layer of soil and fieldstones that had been laid against the natural northern slope of the hill. Several short and thin walls prevented this fill from sliding downhill. While sifting the soil, we discovered several iron arrowheads and two tiny iron, mushroomshaped nails, which are known to belong to the caliga, the official Roman army shoe. While checking the area with a metal detector, we got some signals from the area inside the plaster layer. The hard surface was broken with hammers, and inside we discovered two more iron bow arrowheads. These finds prove that the plaster layer, the soil, and the stone fill were the constituent elements of the Roman assault ramp, described by Flavius Josephus (J.W ). Western Wall While checking the remains of the wall along the perimeter of the hill on the western side, we discovered that the wall alternates from casemates to solid wall and back to casemates. It seems as if in places where there was enough space between the houses and the beginning of the slope, the builders preferred to use the casemate design. Where there was not enough space, a solid wall about 2 m wide was built. In one place, the builders had no choice but to build the wall over a room of one of the houses. The pottery in the foundations of the house is from the first century. South from there, still on the western side, two casemate walls were excavated. The casemate room of the northern one is large, 3.5 x 6 m, and the pottery remains in its fill were not later than the first century ce. The southern one is very small, and its inner space is 1.5 x 2.5 m. Both of the casemates were built directly on the bedrock with no foundation trenches. In the middle of the small one, we discovered a shaft cut through the rock, about 1 m deep, with GalileeII_A.indd 117

10 118 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages three steps at its bottom leading down to a horizontal, 2-m-long tunnel cut in the rock. The tunnel is roofed at the entrance with three couples of heavy stone slabs creating a gabled roof. The entrance to the tunnel could have been blocked with a stone door; there is a bolt-hole in the rock to the left. The tunnel leads into two rock-cut, human-made rooms, one to the north (1.35 x 1.3m and 1.25 m high) and one to the east (3.1 x 1.5 m and 1.07 m high). In these rooms, some storage jars from the Early Roman period were retrieved as well as twenty-five coins from the lower room, among them seven silver coins from the reign of Emperor Nero, the latest from the year 64 ce. Also found were a ballista stone; an arrowhead; animal bones, including some bones and teeth of a leopard; and some human bones. Southeastern Wall Another section of the wall was excavated on the southeastern side. Here, as well, the method of building the wall alternates from casemates to solid wall. While cleaning the surface of the wall in this area, we discovered that the wall was built over a pottery kiln. It was clear to us that if we were to dig carefully enough we would be able to find evidence that for the first time would enable us to assign a precise date to the wall. Our efforts uncovered a pottery kiln of 3.2 m in diameter that was destroyed and half covered by a new solid wall 1.75 m wide in the south and 2.75 m to the north. In the kiln and around it, we found large fragments of the vessels floor (the floor on which the leather-dried vessels were placed for firing; the lower floor is the fire floor ) of the kiln as well as much pottery and a large number of wasters, including one from a rim and neck of a storage jar. These allowed us to compare the jars that were produced in the kiln with those found on the destroyed, burned, and abandoned floors of the houses in the town; they are of the same type, what we named ribbed-neck jar, a very common type in first-century Galilee. In salvage excavations at Karm er Ras at Kafr Kanna, southeast of Yodefat, two pottery kilns were discovered that produced the same type of storage jars. 8 The results from this careful digging in and around the kiln prove that the potter who owned this kiln produced storage jars for the residents of Yodefat before the town was destroyed in a battle against the Roman army (ballista balls, catapult arrowheads, and caliga nails), and before the town was destroyed and a wall was built around it, covering and destroying the kiln, as part of a project to fortify the entire town. We made another interesting discovery near the destroyed kiln. A much smaller kiln was built beside the former large kiln. This smaller kiln was dug through the debris of the former one, proving it was built after the abandonment of the large kiln. Its entrance faces to the same open area as does the entrance of the large kiln. This small kiln, in contrast to the large one, carries no remains of fire or ash. It seems that the owner did not have time to operate it before the town was conquered and abandoned. 8. Oral information from the excavator Yardena Alexandre. GalileeII_A.indd 118

11 Yodefat Jotapata 119 Our conclusion concerning the walls of Yodefat is now very clear. Shortly before the town was attacked by a strong force of the Roman army, a wall was built surrounding the entire perimeter of the hill. In the north, right above the topographical saddle, the wall was built by merging earlier remains of the Hasmonean walls and creating a massive fortification at the most accessible point. In our opinion, there was no gate in the wall. In a time of emergency, there was no reason to create a gate, which would have been the weakest point of the fortifications. There probably was a small wicket or a narrow gap in the wall that could be filled up in a hurry. The only other fortification from the First Revolt that survived to a high level in the Galilee is the wall on Mount Nitai, where there is no gate as well, only a tiny wicket. 9 All the evidence points to a fortification project done in a hurry and under pressure. The wall does not have strong and deep foundations. Sometimes it is built directly on the bedrock with no foundation trench, and sometimes it does not even get down to bedrock but is floating in the soil. The wall-building method changes from casemate wall into a solid wall with changing width. The builders of the wall destroyed existing houses to make place for the wall along its line and used the stones of the destroyed houses to build the wall in the west and in the northeast. The wall led to the destruction of spaces, such as the pottery kiln and disconnected the oil-press cave from the (proposed) owner s houses. All of these observations, as well as similarities to the situation at Gamla, 10 and especially the precise dating, supports Josephus s narrative of his operation to fortify nineteen (he claims) settlements in his government territory. As mentioned above, we discovered conclusive evidence proving the existence of the Roman army at the site of Yodefat and conclusive evidence for a massive bombardment of stones and the launches of catapults into the town. Josephus, who was an eyewitness to the events and commanded the battle, described the Roman attack. He described the building of the assault ramp on the northern slope, the 160 ballistas and catapults that fired on the entire area of the town, the strengthening of the wall against the Roman machine attacks, the burning of the town at the end, and the heavy massacre of its citizens (J.W ; ; ). 11 Human Skeletal Remains For the first time in the research on the First Jewish Revolt, clear evidence for a mass slaughtering was unearthed. In almost every area where we excavated, we discovered human bones scat- 9. Uzi Leibner, Uri Davidovich and Benyamin Arubas, The Structure, Date, and Purpose of the Fortification on Mount Nitai (in Hebrew), ErIsr 31 (Ehud Netzer volume [2015]: ). 10. Danny Syon, Gamla: City of Refuge, in The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology (ed. Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman; London: Routledge, 2002), Mordechai Aviam, Yodefat/Jotapata: The Archaeology of the First Battle, in The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology (ed. Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman; London: Routledge, 2002), GalileeII_A.indd 119

12 120 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages tered in the houses and the streets. In the corner of the fresco house, we found on the frescoed floor two bones of a man s leg and around it five arrowheads. In two cisterns, we discovered mass graves. The first cistern was in a corner of the courtyard of a house with a mikveh, which we fully excavated. It is bell-shaped with a narrow mouth, about 5 m deep and fully plastered. It was discovered full of soil and debris from mouth to bottom. On the plastered floor, there was a narrow and high semicircular wall that was one stone wide. Behind the wall there was a heap of human bones and skulls. This discovery was carefully excavated and checked by our anthropologists. The heap contained the gathered bones of a man, a woman, and a child; not full skeletons. It was a puzzling discovery. Who were they? Why were they in a cistern? Why are they not full skeletons? After a few more seasons, and after digging in two openings of cisterns where we discovered more scattered bones, we excavated another cistern. This was a different type of cistern, having its entrance from the side. The water-drawer stood on one of two or three steps and lowered his or her jar into the depth of the cistern. When we entered it, on the slope of the soil that penetrated from the opening and filled it up, we discovered a human skull. Soon after we began digging in the fill, we met a narrow, simple, unstable wall, one stone wide; behind it we found a large pile of human bones mixed with soil. We did not dig deep in this pile, but from the small area that we cleaned behind the wall, our anthropologists identified more than twenty individuals men, women, and children. No full skeletons were identified; the collection was all gathered bones. Two skulls bore violent marks that probably caused their deaths. Some of the tibia bones found in the town carried cut marks likely caused by swords. Collecting all the evidence from the cisterns and the houses, we had a clearer view that is similar to Josephus s narrative of the last days of Yodefat. After the Romans broke through the walls, in one way or the other, a heavy massacre took place in the streets and the houses, as well as in the underground shelters that the citizens built and used. The cut marks on the arm bones are evidence of an instinctive gesture of protection against the thrust of a sword. I think that the only explanation for the human burials in the cisterns is that they were buried there a year or more after they were killed. As it was the first battle between the Roman army and Jewish rebels in the First Revolt, and as the siege lasted (according to Josephus) for forty-seven days, and as the Romans suffered many casualties (Vespasian himself was wounded), I suggest that the Romans punished the Jews by not allowing the survivors to bury their dead. We may imagine that slaughtered bodies were lying in the streets being scavenged by fowl and beasts of the field. There was probably a Roman garrison stationed nearby to prevent Jews from neighboring villages from coming back to the destroyed town to bury the dead. After a year or more and after the Roman garrison left the town, we may imagine that Jews came back and searched the debris. It would have been difficult or impossible to find complete skeletons; they were searching among the fallen walls and ceilings and extracted bones, mainly the long ones, as well as skulls, carrying them into the open cavities of the town, which were mainly the empty cisterns. There was no time to dig tombs or to cut them in the rock, as was common in this period, but mainly there was no way to identify the victims for their orderly burial. Therefore the burial places were arranged in the cistern and caves: and the bones were GalileeII_A.indd 120

13 Yodefat Jotapata 121 piled up, a supportive wall was constructed in front of the pile, soil was added to the growing heap, and finally the entire cistern was filled up. These were mass graves built in a hurry. We can hypothesize that the burial of the gathered bones of the man, the woman, and the child in the cistern of the mikveh house was an identified burial. The searchers probably knew that the family was killed in their home, or they were found together and therefore they were buried together. The bones and skulls uncovered through our explorations in the houses and the streets probably were not found by the searching Jews of the first century. In any case these discoveries illuminate an important issue concerning Galilean Jewish religious practices. There is no doubt that it was very important for the Galilean survivors of the war to bury their relatives and friends as quickly as possible under the Jewish law of not withholding the dead from their proper burial. In addition, we may imagine that Galilean neighbors could not endure the painful awareness of permanently exposed remains, which they understood from ancient times to be a horrific curse. Inscriptional Drawing One of the most interesting finds of the dig, reflecting the last hard days of the battle, is a 15 x 15 cm flat natural fieldstone, found in the debris of one of the Yodefat houses. On both sides of the stone were drawings made by etching the face of the stone with a sharp object. On one side, very clearly one can identify a mausoleum, similar in shape to the Tomb of Zachariah in the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem. It is a rectangular building with a pyramid on top, erected on a three-step stylobate. The entire etched building is covered with crisscross lines to indicate that it is a solid structure and not a building to live inside. Two lines, one on each side of the mausoleum, likely describe the rock-cut from which the mausoleum was carved. On each side there is a depiction of a tree that could resemble the tree of life, a common symbol of death, or trees that grew beside the remembered mausoleum. Depicted on each of the upper sides are lyres, probably another symbol of death and mourning. On the other side is a depiction of what looks like the astrological sign of Cancer. Although the figure itself does not look like a natural crab, it has an oval body, eight legs, and two lines that rise from its head, which can resemble its claws or its lifted eyes. Cancer is the zodiac symbol of the Hebrew month of Tamuz, and, according to Josephus, Yodefat fell to Roman hands on the first of Tamuz, or July 20. I have suggested that what is depicted on the stone is a rare example of feelings expressed in drawing instead of writing. I think the message comes from a person in the besieged town, while death surrounds him, probably communicating that here we (or I) will die in July. Not only is it a rare find, but it also carries symbols of death and symbols of time. The mausoleum appears as a symbol on Jewish ossuaries from Jerusalem as well as on oil lamps, probably oil lamps that were used in burials. The symbol of Cancer appears on Jewish zodiacs on the mosaic floors of later (fifth- to sixth-century) synagogues. Some scholars have suggested that there was no Jewish symbolism during the Second Temple period, but this stone suggests otherwise. GalileeII_A.indd 121

14 122 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Excavations at the Site of Yodefat Seven seasons of excavations at the site of Yodefat have contributed greatly to our understanding of first-century Jewish Galilee. Here is a summary of some key findings. Social Structure Until recently, the excavations of Yodefat were measured as the largest area in which firstcentury Galilean dwellings were uncovered. In the excavations at Nazareth, Capernaum, and Sepphoris or Tiberias, the first-century remains were covered with later layers. It was Gamla in the Golan, Yodefat s twin town, where a larger area was uncovered, and more recently at Migdal (Magdala). Most of the houses were simply built and reflect the simple life of most of the people in towns and probably most of Galilee. We also have evidence for local workshops and free occupations (oil producers, potters, spinners, weavers, dealers). The discovery of the wealthy mansion proved that the social structure in first-century Jewish Galilee was much more complicated than wealthy people in the city and peasants in the villages. There was wealth in the city and there was wealth in the towns and villages. The same situation is reflected at Gamla and Magdala. 12 Religious Customs Ritual baths. The finds in the Yodefat houses point to the religious behavior of some its citizens. In each of two houses, a ritual bath was discovered. These installations are small, fully plastered pools with steps leading down to a small basin that is deep enough to contain the bathing of the entire body of an adult. It is quite common today to identify these installations as Jewish ritual baths mikva ot. As these mikva ot are in the houses closest to the oil press in the cave, I suggest that these are the houses of the people who owned or operated the oil press. This idea is consistent with the conclusions of research on late Second Temple Judaism that special care was given to purification while producing liquids like oil and wine. Stone vessels. About 110 fragments of stone vessels were retrieved from the excavated domestic areas. Most of them belong to identifiable types of mugs, both small and large, some of which were spouted, and hemispheric bowls. The Galilean cups were made by a lathe from the inside and knife-pared from the outside. The bowls were made on a lathe only. There is one stone lid 12. Recently, David A. Fiensy published an article concerning the social life of the Galilee in the late Second Temple period in relation to the archaeological discoveries ( The Nature of the Galilean Economy in the Late Second Temple Period: The Sociological-Archaeological Debate, in A City Set on a Hill [ed. Daniel A. Warner and Donald D. Binder; Mountain Home, Ariz.: Borderstone, 2014], 78 97). However, Fiensy did not discuss all the new evidence that was brought to light in the excavations of Yodefat and related studies and was published in Aviam s article People, Land, Economy, and Belief in First-Century Galilee and Its Origins (see n. 8 above); the latest reference in Fiensy s article is from GalileeII_A.indd 122

15 Yodefat Jotapata 123 of a cup and one fragment of a stone table from the wealthy house and one rectangular basin, probably to prepare dough. Yitzhak Magen suggested that the cups were used for ritual hand washing. 13 It is very interesting to see that some types of stoneware do not exist among the ceramic types, and this could hint that they were not used for regular daily activity. I would like to suggest that the cups were used to decant oil into the oil lamps. The design of the spouted cup with its handle perpendicular to the spout allows one to pour the liquid slowly and gently into the container. The capacity of the small pitchers is similar to the capacity of the regular oil lamps, and the large pitcher is similar to the capacity of the large oil lamps or the multinozzle ones. It is possible that the stone vessels were used to fill the Shabbat oil lamp and therefore were considered holy and pure. The stone cups could have been used to drink wine for Shabbat. Figure I. Stone cup fragments. Photo by Howard Smithline. Lamps. An interesting phenomenon was identified while we were analyzing the oil lamp fragments from the residential areas. There are mainly two types of oil lamps: a locally made bootshape and a knife-pared spatulated nozzle, which is usually named Herodian oil lamp. In the past, two studies proved that the provenance of the clay of most of the knife-pared oil lamps found in first-century Jewish sites was the Jerusalem area. The results of our petrographic study of this type of lamp from Yodefat showed that the lamps were produced in Jerusalem, while the boot-shape oil lamp was probably manufactured on site. The surprising find is that 78 percent of the oil lamps in the residential areas are imported from Jerusalem! The potters of Yodefat knew how to make oil lamps; their lamp products were as good as their cooking vessels. Regardless, they preferred more expensive oil lamps imported from Jerusalem. The same picture comes from Gamla. Although I have no support from any written sources, we can surmise that the only reason for such an unusual phenomenon would be religious behavior. 13. Yitzhak Magen, The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period: Excavations at Hizma and the Jerusalem Temple Mount (Judea and Samaria Publications 1; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Antiquities Authority, 2002), 98. GalileeII_A.indd 123

16 124 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages Figure J. Black knife-pared oil lamp. Photo by Ron Rabinowitz. I think that the light that came from Jerusalemite oil lamps inspired people, especially on Shabbat night, and let them feel and believe that they were directly connected to Jerusalem, the temple, and the menorah. Animal bones. Animal bones were found everywhere, and they were analyzed by our archaeozoologist, Carol Cope. According to her report, there are 92 percent kosher animal bones: 48.8 percent small cattle, 31 percent cattle, 6.8 percent chickens, 2.9 percent partridges, 1.9 percent gazelles. Only 2 percent belonged to pigs, and of these close to 50 percent came from the northern areas and are mostly from the Hellenistic period. The appearance of 1 to 2 percent of pig bones is common at ancient Jewish sites. We have to remember that there is no prohibition on raising pigs, only on eating them. Coins. Another group of finds that reflects religious behavior is Jewish coins. It is very clear that Jews could not avoid the use of Roman imperial and city coins, as it was the most important currency of that time. Nevertheless, on the floors of the dwellings, we discovered not only Roman coins but also a large number of Hasmonean coins. It looks as if old Hasmonean coins were in use by Jews as inner circle currency, and these coins were, as a matter of fact, ethnic or national currency, not carrying any imagery and containing paleo-hebrew script. Pottery types. The last archaeological finds that point to religious behavior are the types of pottery vessels. An important change took place in the transmission from the Hellenistic period to the Hasmonean period. The local GCW ware, as well as coastal and imported types of pottery, ceased and mainly local vessels took their place. The typical Hellenistic figurative oil lamps also disappeared. During the Early Roman period, we do not have even one piece of imported pottery. It seems as if there was a complete avoidance of coastal or imported vessels. The fact that we have a house that was decorated with frescoes of which some of the ingredients were imported indicates that the avoidance was specifically about food vessels, which fits very well Jewish kashrut laws. GalileeII_A.indd 124

17 Yodefat Jotapata 125 The Excavations and Josephus Finally, the finds from the excavations display some hints of the social behavior of the Galileans on the eve of the war and illuminate some of Josephus s narratives. 14 The precise dating of the wall to the days before the siege of Yodefat not only proves that Josephus s report on building a wall around Yodefat (as well as other towns and cities in the Galilee) but also hints at the collaboration of the citizens with the new authority. According to Josephus s narratives, he had some opposition in the Galilee, mainly at Sepphoris, Giskala, Gabara, and at the beginning also at Tiberias. During the half year he governed this region, he succeeded in controlling Tiberias, and he moved freely through the entire Lower Galilee. Building almost 2 km of a defensive wall around Yodefat was not a task that citizens and farmers could undertake by themselves. It needed planning, organizing manpower, and money. Therefore, it looks as though the citizens of Yodefat obeyed the governance of Josephus. The discoveries at Gamla are not vastly different, and the fact that the wall was also built in a hurry while destroying private houses and reusing the stones points to collaboration of the citizens. Recently, another solid fortification with a strong wall and semicircular towers in the Galilee on Mount Nitai was dated to the First Revolt. 15 These three sites, and especially the details from Yodefat, suggest that most of the Galileans cooperated with Josephus in his attempt to fortify the Galilee before the Roman attack. In another place, I have tried to prove that the system of fortifying many towns, villages, and cities was not Josephus s own idea but rather an order from the central organization or government in Jerusalem, and the same acts were undertaken in every Jewish self-governed region. As a result of the large-scale excavations, the war itself on the town of Yodefat became very clear: an assault ramp was built on the northern slope; the walls were strengthened during the actual war; Roman siege machines were shooting at the town from all sides; the war ended with a heavy massacre of its citizens men, women, and children and the town was destroyed, set on fire, and abandoned. Bibliography Aviam, Mordechai. The Fortified Settlements of Josephus Flavius and Their Significance against the Background of the Excavations of Yodefat and Gamla. In The Great Revolt in the Galilee, edited by O. Guri-Ramon, 39*-42*. Haifa: Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, For a detailed study of this issue, see Mordechai Aviam, The Fortified Settlements of Josephus Flavius and Their Significance against the Background of the Excavations of Yodefat and Gamla, in The Great Revolt in the Galilee (ed. O. Guri-Ramon; Haifa: Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, 2008), 39* 42*. 15. See n. 10 above GalileeII_A.indd 125

18 126 The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages. Kefar Hananya Ware Made in Yodefat. In Roman Pottery in the Levant: Local Production and Regional Trade, edited by B. Genz, Y. Gerber, and H. Hamel, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 2. Oxford: Archaeopress, People, Land, Economy, and Belief in First-Century Galilee and Its Origins: A Comprehensive Archaeological Synthesis. In The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus, edited by David. A. Fiensy and Ralph. K. Hawkins, Early Christianity and Its Literature 11. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, Yodefat: A Case Study in the Development of the Jewish Settlement in the Galilee during the Second Temple Period. In Hebrew. Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, Yodefat/Jotapata: The Archaeology of the First Battle. In The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology, edited by Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman, London: Routledge, Corbo, Virgilio.Gli edifici della reggia-fortezza. Herodion 1. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, Farhi, Yoav. Stucco Decorations from the Western Quarter. In Gamla. Vol. 2, The Architecture, edited by Danny Syon and Zvi Yavor, IAA Reports 44. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority Fiensy, David A. The Nature of the Galilean Economy in the Late Second Temple Period: The Sociological-Archaeological Debate. In A City Set on a Hill, edited by Daniel A. Warner and Donald D. Binder, Mountain Home, Ariz.: Borderstone, Frankel, Rafael, Nimrod Getzov, Mordechai Aviam, and Avi Degani. Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee. IAA Reports 14. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority Leibner, Uzi, Uri Davidovich, and Benyamin Arubas. The Structure, Date, and Purpose of the Fortification on Mount Nitai. In Hebrew. ErIsr 31 (Ehud Netzer volume) (2015): Magen, Yitzhak. The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period: Excavations at Hizma and the Jerusalem Temple Mount. Judea and Samaria Publications 1. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Antiquities Authority Reich, Ronni. Miqwa ot (Jewish Ritual Baths) in the Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods. In Hebrew. Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi; Israel Exploration Society Syon, Danny. Gamla: City of Refuge. In The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology, edited by Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman, London: Routledge, GalileeII_A.indd 126