The Excavations at Ohalo II

The excavations of Ohalo II, situated in northern Israel, provide us with a remarkable insight of Epipaleolithic lifestyles in this area. The site has been dated 18,000 BCE and was first discovered in 1989 when the Sea of Galilee experienced a dramatic drop in its water levels. The site measures around 1,500 square meters.

The site is composed of a tight cluster of several huts built of wood and brush, with a number of external hearths and fire pits, an area where domestic waste was deposited and a single grave which was situated not too far away from the huts. The huts were slightly oval in plan and measured 10 – 13ft across. “The huts had all been burned, the collapsed remains sealing the material that was on the floor when the huts was abandoned” (Watkins, p.207).

One of the huts was thoroughly examined; its walls were made from thick branches of oak, tamarisk and willow. Three floors were located, along with flint tools and food waste.

Near to these huts, a single grave was uncovered. The skeleton was discovered to be male roughly around the age of 35; he was buried on his back, with his hands folded on his chest and his knees folded backwards. Beneath his head, an incised worked bone tool was placed. Analysis of the body indicates that this man had physical disabilities in his later life, which may suggest that he was not able to contribute to his society (Nadel, p.451).

The site is renowned for its excellent preservation of botanical remains. Excavations at Ohalo II revealed more than 30 species of fruit and thousands of carbonised seeds, including wheat and barley. The charcoal remains include large fragments of acorns, broken stems, and many pieces of burnt wood. Some of these wood pieces have measure over 5 cm. The charcoal allowed archaeologists to date the site to around 19,000 BCE.

What is interesting about this site is the fact that no archaeological evidence has shown proof of another existing, or pre-existing, culture in this area. It has been stated by archaeologists that this shows that this is a unicultural site belonging to the end of the local Upper Palaeolithic or the Early Epipaleolithic (Nadel, p.541).

Bibliography:

Nadel, D. (1994) 19,000 Year Old Twisted Fibres From Ohalo II, Current Anthropology, The University Press of Chicago on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

Watkins, Trevor (2005) The Human Past – From foragers to Complex Societies in Southwest Asia, Thames & Hudson, London.

The Archaeology and Significance of the Goddess Sulis-Minerva

The archaeology of the Roman baths at Bath in Somerset provides us with much information about the cult of the goddess Sulis-Minerva. From this, we can understand more about the religious diversity within the Roman Empire at the time of its occupation in Britain. It is my aim to discuss the significance of the archaeological remains surrounding the goddess-Minerva.

First, let us define who we mean. Sulis-Minerva is the hybrid of the Roman goddess of healing, Minerva, and the native Celtic goddess Sul. The word ‘sul’ is usually translated as “gap”, “opening” or “orifice” which is the “interface between this world and the otherworld, from whence the extraordinary hot waters emerge” (Bowman, p.25).

The Roman baths at Bath is one of the most well-known religious sites in Britain. With most religious sites, animal sacrifice is most common with dedications to deities. However, excavations at Bath have yielded little faunal evidence, so it could be argued that animal sacrifice was not practised or that the animal remains were deposited outside the temple and baths areas (King, p.361). Through the archaeological information, it is most probable that the first theory is the most accurate one, since the site was dedicated to healing (King, p.361), so it is unlikely that animals, that were sometimes diseased, would be introduced where they could possible infect humans.

Different offerings were dedicated to the goddess. Coins were thrown into the sacred spring, attesting to the sanctity of the waters. Over 12,000 Roman coins have been found, which is one of the largest votive offerings found in Britain (The Official Roman Baths), dating from the first century CE right up to the fourth century CE. It is a matter of debate between archaeologists whether these coins were offered as a single votive offering or whether the devotee offered several coins at once. “However, the importance of these coins may not be confined to our understanding of the temple complex” (Gerrard, p.376)

Curse tablets have also been found. These were soft lead tablets inscribed with a curse, then rolled up and offered up to the goddess of the sacred spring (Richmond & Toynbee, p.97). The devotee would ask for intervention from the goddess. One curse states 'To Minerva the goddess of Sulis I have given the thief who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether slave or free, whether man or woman. He is not to buy back this gift unless with his own blood' (Gerrard, p. 288).

From the available evidence, the significance of the goddess Sulis-Minerva has been of importance since the time the Romans arrived onto the scene. The fact that the Roman goddess Minerva was entwined with the native goddess Sul can be seen of great importance, since religious encounters were more fluid than fixed. Even today, the archaeological evidence that is continually uncovered yields great significance in understanding the power and importance of the cult of Sulis-Minerva.

Bibliography:

Bowman, Marion (1998) Belief, Legend and Perceptions of the Sacred in Contemporary Bath, Folklore, Taylor & Francis.

Gerrard, James (2005) A Possible Late Roman Silver ‘Hoard’ From Bath, Britannia, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

King, Antony (2005) Animals Remains from Temples in Roman Britain, Britannia, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

The Official Roman Baths, Bath & North East Somerset Council, http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

The Syro-Hittite Ritual Burial of Monuments

The Syro-Hittite cultures flourished in ancient Mesopotamia from the Late Bronze Age to the time when they were finally annexed by Assyria sometime in the eighth century BCE. One of the many features they are known for are their remarkable pieces of art and architecture, especially giant lions where they were placed in front of palaces and temples.

Many of these beautiful monuments were later burnt to the ground by invaders who conquered these areas. These gate-lions and other statues were also broken down into smaller pieces and then taken away as spoils of war, to be reused for their own monuments or simply left buried underneath the rubble for an extraordinary long period.

However, at least five locations - Alalakh, Hazor, Zincirli, and Arslantepe near Malatya – archaeologists have discovered that these monuments were carefully buried in the ground, suggesting a Syro-Hittite burial ritual.

In Alalakh, archaeologists discovered several temples that were destroyed sometime in the 13^th century BCE when they were destroyed by the Sea Peoples. They also found evidence of a short occupation in the 12^th century BCE. A large statue of the king, Idri-mi, would have been firmly fixed onto a throne in an annex.

However, Woolley remarks, “In a room in the annexe of the temple proper ... we found a hole which had been dug into the floor and filled with earth and large stones (the largest weighing nearly a ton and a half) and smoothed over; under the stones there was a broken statue; the head, which had been knocked off, was set beside the body together with two smaller fragments, one of the beard, the other of a foot; only part of one foot was missing. The statue belonged to the throne found on the temple floor.... We can be sure that the statue was on its throne when the temple was destroyed because the breaking of the feet must have resulted from its being knocked violently off its base into which the feet were socketted.... After the sack of the temple someone must have crept back and piously collected all that he could find of the figure and hidden it in a hastily-dug hole ...”. The statue of the king had clearly been collected and buried carefully under the floor.

As with Alalakh, archaeologists found other temple monuments which, after invasion by a hostile enemy, had been buried in the ground. In Zincirli, five gigantic lions were dragged from their original places and buried in a specially made pit. When taking into account how heavy and the difficulties in moving them, it is clear that this was a case of ritual burying.

For a period of at least half a millennium, the Syro-Hittite people clearly practiced a ritual of burying monuments. However, there are questions that arise when looking at the information yielded from these temples. Why were only a small number of temple monuments buried in a ritualistic manner? Why did other temples not do this as well? Although the number of cases is relatively small, the sheer extent to which these ancient people went to bury these monuments clearly shows that it is not accidental.

The burial of monuments seems to indicate their importance in the cults and the ancient beliefs of the Syro-Hittite world. “The ritual burial seems to support the view that the gate-lions were not merely decorated orthostats meant to strengthen the superstructure of the gates in which they were incorporated, but, as guardians of the gate were considered to possess godly, demonical, or punitive powers”.

Bibliography:

Ussishkin, David (1970) The Syro-Hittite Ritual Burial of Monuments, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, the University of Chicago Press.

The History and Significance of the god Abassi

African mythology and the deities that were worshipped today in Africa have not received much attention from the general public. The west has appeared to focus on the mythology from ancient Greece, Rome, China and Japan. One of the reasons for this is that we seem to have more sources of information from these ancient cultures which is more easily available to the public.

Another reason for the lack of information or even understanding could be attributed to the way the African people were seen when the Europeans started to become a permanent presence in Africa. The Europeans, especially the British, French and Portuguese, subjugated the African people and tried to convert them into the Christian religions. This conversion destroyed the religious and to a large extent, the social way of life that the African people once enjoyed.

Only a few missionaries and scholars during the European history in Africa noted down the native deities. As the missionaries were more interested in ‘civilizing’ the people in the Christian way, a lot of their rich religious history has been lost to us. However, we are still able to gain a small insight into the religious history of the African people.

Abassi is a native god of the Anang (also spelt the Annang and Anaang) who are an ethnic group in south-eastern Nigeria on the west coast of Africa. Unlike the majority of Africans who continue to worship their native gods, the Anang are monotheistic. In this then, Abassi is the supreme god, the only god that they worship.

He was seen to be a sky god who “who is assisted in his task of governing the universe and man-kind by over thirty spirits residing on earth in shrines, and by souls of the dead awaiting reincarnation in the underworld. Most shrines are diminutive replicas of the Anang hut, but individual trees, groves, rocks, and ant hills serve to house spirits, and it is before these [shrines] that prayers and sacrifices are offered to the deity to be carried skyward by the [thirty spirits] residing within. Although Abassi is thought to be both omniscient and omnipresent, either directly or through the earth spirit, he lacks ultimate omnipotence, for ghosts, witches, and the spirit of evil magic possess powers over which he sometimes exerts no control. The Anang do not know where these malignant forces originate, and they must be combated with preventive magic”.

The certainty that Abassi will punish freewill behaviour contrary to the tenets of his moral code is the most powerful mechanism of social control in Anang society and it is said that he gives permission for souls of the dead to be reincarnated.

It is wonderful that despite the European subjugation and ‘civilization’, there is still the worship of ancestral deities worshipped in Africa today. For the study of these gods, goddesses and spirits give us a valuable insight into African religious history.

Bibliography:

Messenger, Jnr., John C. (1960) Reinterpretations of Christian and Indigenous Beliefs in a Nigerian Nativist Church, American Anthropologist, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association.

A Look at Neolithic Cultures at 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan

‘Ain Ghazal is one of the largest settlements to be excavated in Jordan but despite this we only know a fraction of the history and the people who once called this place home.

There were four phases during the Neolithic period in this region – the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB), the L ate Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB), the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC), and the Yannoukian Pottery Neolithic, which spans an occupation time from c. 7250 to 5000 BCE.

First discovered in the 1970s due to the construction of the Amman-Zarqa highway, it has been estimated that at least 10% of the site and what it can tell has been lost. However, continual archaeological excavations can help recover as much as possible.

At the beginning of the MPPNB period, ‘Ain Ghazal was a small village and reached a size of 4 to 5 ha by 6500 BCE. This remarkable expansion occurred in only a couple of centuries, and included the establishment of the Eastern Enclave from across the Zarqa River. One explanation for this expansion is the addition of ‘relatives’ from farming villages recently abandoned, such as Jericho, and by migrants from the surrounding area.

The site continued to grow in size and community awareness and closeness. Architectural remains suggest that by the end of the LPPNB period ‘Ain Ghazal had around 2500 inhabitants. Red ochre was used to decorate burnished plasterboards in the MPPNB period. This was a practice that was used by these people and was continued into the LPPNB and the PPNC periods, but the technique of using the pigment is something unique to the MPPNB people.

“In the LPPNB and PPNC phases, the few floors that have been exposed by excavation were coated thoroughly and thickly with the red colouring, evidently applied with a "broad brush"(in the figurative sense; the actual application technique is not known), but in the MPPNB every floor with paint shows that a "finger-painting' approach was used, evidenced by parallel and sub parallel lines. This technique allowed for intriguing designs, some of which may have been stylized representations of bird feathers. Even on floors with wall-to-wall fields of red pigment, does inspection reveals the finger-painting method”.

It wasn’t until the Yannoukian period that pottery manufacturing became a traditional thing. Pottery remains that have been found from this phase include coarse and fine wares in the form of jars, bowls and cups.

Burials from this site conform to a mortuary cult from the Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic phase. The deceased were beheaded and then buried under the floors of the homes. This practice emphasise the importance of family and community ritual in the Neolithic periods and went on to influence later religions and cults.

The Neolithic people of this region are of great importance to our understanding of ancient cultures in the Middle East and how they influenced later and neighbouring cultures. Continual excavations here will shed more light into these fascinating people.

Bibliography:

Rollefson, Gary O., Simmons, Alan H. & Kafafi, Zeidan (1992) Neolithic Cultures at 'Ain Ghazal, Jordan, Journal of Field Archaeology, Boston University.