AN EXTRA MONTH OF SUMMER ATTEL ABEL BETH MAACAH
Zachary Thomas, 2017 Platt Excavation Fellowship Recipient
As an Australian, one of the advantages of coming to Israel to dig in June and July each year is getting to miss the coldest part of winter back home in Sydney. May I say though, this pales in comparison to the real reasons I returned this year to excavate for a second season at Tel Abel Beth Maacah, or ABM as its friends call it. For a start, the site is very relevant to my own doctoral research on the archaeology and history of the United Monarchy and Iron Age IIA period, being mentioned a few times in connection with David’s reign, most particularly 2 Samuel 20. It is also located at the cross-roads of different Iron Age identities or “ethnic groups”, the Israelites, Phoenicians and Arameans, which makes for a fascinating research question and many nerdy conversations on the sociopolitical place of the area itself.
But digging at any site, however relevant it is to one’s research, is only going to be as good as the project itself and the people you are digging with. I am very fortunate in saying that at ABM the work, the atmosphere and especially the people make it fantastic place to come and excavate, whether it’s an exciting or a more lacklustre day in terms of the finds. This starts from the top; our three co-directors, Prof. Bob Mullins of Azusa Pacific University and Drs Nava Panitz-Cohen and Dr Naama Yahalom-Mack of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem set the tone as all good leaders do. It’s one of informality and friendliness alongside collaboration and academic excellence, and it filters down to all the staff and volunteers and to the work we do. This was a tougher year than in 2016 when I first dug at ABM in terms of hot weather but probably surpassed it in terms of discoveries.
Our three directors plus a distinguished visitor, Prof. Amihai Mazar.
ABM is located in the far north of Israel in the Hulah Valley, a 15-20 minute bus ride each morning (if 4.15am is really morning and not still night) from our lodgings at the laid-back Kibbutz Kfar Szold. It is so far north in fact that we have the Golan Heights and views of Mt Hermon on the east and the hills of Lebanon overlooking the Tel on the west. Although the site has produced finds from different periods spanning the Early Bronze to the 20th century, the Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age I and Iron Age II are particularly well represented so far. We had four areas open this year, Areas A, F and O in the lower city and my area, Area B in the upper city. Much of the upper city is overlain by two old army bunkers built out of rubble from the village that occupied the site until the 1940s, so much of it is hard to access archaeologically. Area B sits in part of the upper city below the rubble capping, and before this year had already produced a rampart from the Middle Bronze Age, upon which was built a building from the Iron Age I, a large wall from the Iron Age II and a few phases of architecture from the Persian and Hellenistic period.
The crew of Area B near the start of the season.
This year our major discovery, on top of some great small finds and new phasing, was a second large wall from the Iron Age II running parallel to the one already known with what appear to be cross-walls connecting them. There was much discussion about whether we might have a casemate wall system similar to that from the Iron Age IIA at Hazor, but this is hard to confirm at this point. A big part our work in Area B this year was opening up two new squares on the west, which included D19, for which I was the square supervisor. We first encountered there the partially-collapsed remains of a building probably from the Hellenistic period and below that remains of another building of the Persian-Hellenistic period that had already been found in other squares. Last season I and some volunteers removed part of that building and we did the same this year. As this building stood between me and the Iron Age, I enjoyed dismantling this building this year just as much as I did last year! By the end of the season we had begun to reveal some more of one of the large Iron Age II walls and maybe even part of the another cross-wall. The Area B crew is quite representative of the makeup of ABM’s people in general, a mix of mostly Israelis and those from US partner institutions including Trinity International University and Cornell University (though you’ll find them all together in Area A, those Ivy-League types) plus those like me or our Canadian office manager/osteoarchaeologist/organizational genius Claire who joined the project of their own accord.
Square D19 towards then end of the season.
The personal and professional connections I’ve made among them make the dig both an enjoyable and intellectually rousing place to be. My thanks go to all of them and especially to Bob, Nava and Naama, as well as those who’ve funded me this year, Macquarie University and of course ñ. Regrettably I think thesis completion will keep me from coming back in 2018, so for whoever is willing to fill in for me (hopefully another Aussie to keep the Yanks in line), they can find more information on the and .
Zachary Thomas is a PhD candidate in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His doctoral thesis re-examines the history and archaeology of the United Monarchy of ancient Israel and the Iron IIA period through scholarship on the native understanding of society in the ancient Near East. His wider research interests include archaeological theory and interpretation, Iron Age ceramics, and the history and sociology of the Levant in the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.