Re-Thinking Goliath: Archaeologists Shed New Light on the Philistines - CBN News Julie Stahl

Re-Thinking Goliath: Archaeologists Shed New Light on the Philistines

07-14-2016

CBN News Julie Stahl

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ASHKELON, Israel – For the first time ever, archaeologists in Israel say they have uncovered a Philistine cemetery that could shed light on the origins of that ancient people named as an enemy of the Israelites in the Bible.  

Archaeologists found the cemetery while digging in Ashkelon – one of five ancient Philistine cities.  

"Now we have a major cemetery right next to one of these five cities of the Philistines," said Daniel Master, professor of Archaeology at Wheaton College.  Master is co-director of the site and has been excavating there for 25 years.  

"So we're sure we've nailed it. We're sure we have a cemetery of the Philistines," Master told CBN News.

A Great Way to End

After 30 years of digging in Ashkelon, archaeologists say finding the cemetery was an astounding way to end the Leon Levy Expedition.  

New finds from the cemetery and artifacts from the 30-year excavation are on display in the Israel Museum in an exhibit called, "Ashkelon: A Retrospective, 30 Years of the Leon Levy Expedition at the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem."

The excavation represents about 5,000 years of various civilizations at the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.  

"The name Ashkelon actually comes from the root "shekel" so S-K-L, which means to weigh. The shekel, the New Israeli Shekel, is also from there so the name Ashkelon automatically connects us to commerce and basically to trade," said Nurith Goshen, co-curator of the exhibition.

Goshen says most of the burials were in skeleton form.

"What we're trying to display is different types of burials we have in the cemetery," Goshen told journalists. "We have a cremation set."

"Some of the deceased were adorned with jewelry," Goshen added. "There was one burial that we can identify as a warrior burial."  

For years, archaeologists and scholars searched for clues as to the origin of the Philistines.

"One of the things about Ashkelon is that we're one of the few sites that can tell the story of the Philistines from beginning to end," Master said.

"So we've studied the Philistines from the 12th century (B.C.) as they arrived we think from the world of the Aegean," he said. "We've been able to see their development over time, from the 10th, the 9th, the 8th century (B.C.) and then at the end in the 7th century we see a brief renaissance and then we see the final fiery destruction."

Thousands More

Master said the cemetery houses thousands of remains of which more than 200 have been recovered.

Now, tests on bone samples from the cemetery that dates from the 11th to the 8th century B.C. could confirm what many long believed:  that the Philistines were mariners, or the "sea people" of the Bible and traders who migrated to ancient Israel from the west.

"This is going to allow us to see the Philistines face-to-face and to tell their stories not through the texts of their enemies – as the stories been so often told – but now we'll be able to tell the story from the standpoint of the Philistines themselves," Master said.

Lawrence Stager is the Dorot professor emeritus of the Archaeology of Israel, at Harvard University and the original director and now co-director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. He has been overseeing the work at the site, which takes place mostly during the summer, since 1985.

He noted most biblical references to the Philistines pit them as bitter enemies of the Israelites.

"Most of the portrayal you get in the Bible is the negative one because they want to compare an Israelite against a Philistine. They are the uncircumcised, you know, we are the circumcised. We don't eat pig. They did," Stager told CBN News.

Flawed Interpretation

In the Hebrew Bible the Israelites often referred to the Philistines as "uncircumcised" and that came to mean today "uncultured."  But that wasn't the case.

"Philistine has the idea of uncultured or unsophisticated, but what we find was that the Philistines were plenty cultured and plenty sophisticated and they were quite a cosmopolitan people, international people," said Master.  

That means "we have to re-evaluate the question and say, what was it about the Philistines that the writers of the biblical text didn't like," he added.  

Other scholars say "uncircumcised" likely referred to the fact they were idol worshipers and had no connection to the God of Israel.

The Philistines lived in Ashkelon for about 600 years.

"That's a long time when you think about it in terms of even the United States and how long we've been there. And then finally they were destroyed in 604 B.C.," Stager said.  

According to historical texts, King Nebuchadnezzar completely destroyed the Philistine city of Ashkelon in 604 B.C. That was about 20 years before Nebuchadnezzar carried away the Judeans to exile in Babylon as described in the Book of Jeremiah.

Watch CBN News report here: Philistines

Archaeologist Find Reveals New Truth Behind Wicked Philistines - ARI RABINOVITCH/REUTERS CHARISMA NEWS

Professor Lawrence E. Stager, Dorot Research Professor of the Archaeology of Israel, speaks during an interview with Reuters near a partly unearthed skeleton at excavation site of the first-ever Philistine cemetery at Ashkelon National Park in southern Israel. ( REUTERS/Amir Cohen)

Archaeologist Find Reveals New Truth Behind Wicked Philistines

 7/11/2016 ARI RABINOVITCH/REUTERS  CHARISMA NEWS

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Philistines were no "philistines," say archaeologists who unearthed a 3,000-year-old cemetery in which members of the biblical nation were buried along with jewelry and perfumed oil. 

Little was known about the Philistines prior to the recent excavation in the Israeli port city of Ashkelon. The famed arch enemies of the ancient Israelites -- Goliath was a Philistine -- flourished in this area of the Mediterranean, starting in the 12th century BC, but their way of life and origin have remained a mystery. 

That stands to change after what researchers have called the first discovery of a Philistine cemetery. It contains the remains of about 150 people in numerous burial chambers, some containing surprisingly sophisticated items. 

The team also found DNA on parts of the skeletons and hope that further testing will determine the origins of the Philistine people. 

We may need to rethink today's derogatory use of the word philistine, which refers to someone averse to culture and the arts, said archaeologist Lawrence Stager, who has led the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon since 1985. 

"The Philistines have had some bad press, and this will dispel a lot of myths," Stager said. 

Stager's team dug down about 3 meters (10 feet) to uncover the cemetery, which they found to have been used centuries later as a Roman vineyard. 

On hands and knees, workers brushed away layers of dusty earth to reveal the brittle white bones of entire Philistine skeletons reposed as they were three millennia ago. 

Decorated juglets believed to have contained perfumed oil were found in graves. Some bodies were still wearing bracelets and earrings. Others had weapons. 

The archeologists also discovered some cremations, which the team say were rare and expensive for the period, and some larger jugs contained the bones of infants. 

"The cosmopolitan life here is so much more elegant and worldly and connected with other parts of the eastern Mediterranean," Stager said, adding that this was in contrast to the more modest village lifestyle of the Israelites who lived in the hills to the east. 

Bones, ceramics and other remains were moved to a tented compound for further study and some artifacts were reconstructed piece by piece. The team mapped the position of every bone removed to produce a digital 3D recreation of the burial site. 

Final reports on the finds are being published by the Semitic Museum at Harvard University. 

© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Ancient Philistine Cemetery Unearthed in Ashkelon By Michael Bachner - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

Senior staff discuss 9th-10th century BC burial in excavation of Philistine cemetery. (Photo: Tsafrir Abayov/Leon Levy Expedition.)

Ancient Philistine Cemetery Unearthed in Ashkelon

By Michael Bachner July 11, 2016  BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

“And the Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines; and David waxed faint.” II Samuel 21:15 (The Israel Bible™)

A Philistine cemetery has been discovered for the first time in Israel, possibly shedding light on the mystery of the Philistines’ origins. According to biblical accounts, the Philistines were the arch-foes of ancient Israel.

“After decades of studying what the Philistines left behind, we have finally come face to face with the people themselves,” said Daniel Master, a professor of archaeology at Wheaton College. “With this discovery we are close to unlocking the secrets of their origins.”

Archaeologists and scholars have long searched for the Philistines’ origin. Artifacts found in the cemetery, which date back 2,700 to 3,000 years, may support the biblical account of the Philistines as migrants who arrived on the shores of ancient Israel from western lands in approximately the twelfth century BCE.

“Ninety-nine percent of the chapters and articles written about Philistine burial customs should be revised or ignored now that we have the first and only Philistine cemetery found just outside the city walls of Tel Ashkelon, one of the five primary cities of the Philistines,” said Lawrence Stager, Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel at Harvard University.

The discovery was made by the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon more than thirty years after the excavation began. The digs that took place in Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, and Gath have shown how culturally distinct the Philistines were from their Israelite contemporaries.

Philistine burial practices were not like those of the Bronze Age Canaanites, nor were they similar to burial practices in later Iron Age Judea. The Philistines buried their dead primarily in pits that were dug for each deceased individual: male or female, adult or child. Later, more bodies were sometimes placed in the same pit, which was dug again along roughly the same lines, but the new remains were interred with their own grave goods. The cemetery was also found to contain evidence of cremations, together with pit interments and multi-chambered tombs.

After quelling Bar Kochba’s revolt in the Roman province of Judaea in 135 CE, Emperor Hadrian renamed the area Syria Palaestina, for the Israelites’ ancient enemies.

Research on artifacts found at the site, including bones, ceramics, jewelry and weapons, may connect the Philistines to related populations elsewhere in the Mediterranean Basin. Bone samples taken from the site are also being tested in order to ascertain the Philistines’ origins.

Physical anthropology member documents discovered skeleton in Ashkelon excavation. (Photo: Melissa Aja/Leon Levy Expedition)

Most of the items found in the graves were storage jars, small bowls, and decorated juglets filled with what is believed to have been perfumed oil. While bracelets and earrings were found upon some of the remains and weapons with others, most of the individuals seem not have been buried with personal items.

The discovery was made in Ashkelon, a key port and maritime trade center from the Bronze Age to the Crusades, when it was destroyed and left uninhabited until modern times.

The excavation was organized and sponsored by the Leon Levy Foundation; the Semitic Museum at Harvard University; Boston College; Wheaton College; and Troy University, under license from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.