ARCHEOLOGY

When in the summer of 1947 a young Bedouin shepherd, Muhammad Adh Dhib, lost a goat in the wilderness between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea, he couldn't have imagined that he would end up making one of the greatest discoveries in biblical archaeology this century. In a cave in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran, he stumbled upon seven ancient scrolls, among them manuscripts of the Book of Isaiah about a thousand years older than any previously known Old Testament text.

Predictably, the Dead Sea Scrolls fired the imagination of the world. They constituted a part of the library of an ascetic Jewish sect, the Essenes, who, although never mentioned in the New Testament, were active in this area around the time of Jesus - a crucial period in man's history, and one of the most poorly documented.

Archaeologists subsequently examined the area carefully and found forty other caves in which there were more scrolls and tens of thousands of fragments. Many questions about the origins of the Christian faith could now be answered.

As the cradle of Western civilization, Israel is a veritable treasure house of relics of the past. And accidental finds are common.

Typical is the freak discovery of "Jason's Tomb," a 1st-century BCE rock-cut extravagance in the heart of a plush Jerusalem suburb. After builders had exposed part of it a neighbour rushed to alert professional archaeologists who crawled through the debris and found Maccabean coins, pottery, bronze mirrors and bottles.

Even the skilled archaeologists trust in Lady Luck. Israel's best-known excavator, the late Yigael Yadin , was exploring the caves at Nahal Hever, which had been combed by many before him, when his team electrified the country by announcing the discovery of the letters of the 2nd-century Jewish leader, Bar Kochba, masses of legal documents, household utensils and tatters of clothing from the same period.

It should be pointed out that although written evidence is often discovered during an archaeological investigation, it does not - strictly speaking - constitute the subject matter of archaeology proper, which concerns itself with the material remains of the past in order to fill in details that are missing from recorded history.

Frequently an archaeologist unearths a cache of historical objects after acting purely on a hunch. Dr. Benno Rothenberg was working near the Timna copper mines when it occurred to him that the brooding pillars of Solomon, carved by nature out of pinkish Nubian sandstone, might have been a place of cult worship. He dug a trench and, over the same spot where tourists had walked for decades, unearthed an Egyptian temple, only a metre below the sand.

Finds such as these have turned thousands of Israelis into passionate students of the past. More often than not the rewards lie on the surface of the sand or gravel. Caesarea, the Roman capital of Palestine, has yielded many ancient coins to hawk-eyed amateurs carefully scanning the sandy beaches around the colossal ruins.

Sherds of pottery literally lie scattered over the land and are the tell-tale signs of previous civilizations.

So great has been the impact of lsrael's fund of archaeological treasure that outsiders periodically swarm in to join the digs. Many of them write in advance to the Israel Antiquities Authority, P.O.B. 586, Jerusalem , for information on forthcoming digs. Note: it is forbidden to excavate, dig, etc., without permission from the authority. All archaeological finds are the property of the State of lsrael.

When Prof. Yadin prepared to unravel the secrets of Massada, he was flooded with thousands of applications from volunteers in twenty-eight countries, even though they knew in advance that they would have to pay their round-trip fares and sleep ten to a tent in the blistering heat of the Dead Sea rift.

The Israel Defence Forces have added a flamboyant touch to archaeological digs in the Holy Land. Soldiers helped to construct the paths down the cliff face to the caves at Nahal Hever and they brought in mine-detectors to find coins. Air Force helicopters have been used for aerial surveys and for ferrying finds from these remote areas to the safety of the cities.

The rubble has been cleared from the great Nabataean cities of 2,000 years ago and we can see how their advanced system of water conservation supported vast settlements in the arid Negev. We can follow the art of warfare and the subtle minds of the tacticians and strategists of yesteryear. Solomon's gates were built in such a way that enemy forces could smash their way through the first enclosure, only to find themselves trapped within it.

Ahab, the Israelite king, and Hezekiah, king of Judah, were formidable engineers. Ahab's stupendous water tunnels at Hazor and Megiddo show that however much he led his people astray from the laws of Moses, he nevertheless proved that they were masterly builders. Hezekiah's tunnel, cut through solid rock, is almost 600 metres long and runs below the City of David; it remains one of the wonders on view to the 20th-century tourist.

The burrowing archaeologist has also focused on the religious practices of buried civilizations. Man either believed in an after-life or practised ancestor worship as long as 11,000 years ago in Jericho. Some human skulls unearthed there are pasted over with plaster and the hollows of the eyes are set with sea shells. The great stone temples of the Canaanites uncovered at Gezer, and elsewhere, were contemporaneous with cultic figurines, including goddesses of fertility.

The archaeologist's spade and the builder's bulldozer have thrown much light on the burial customs of the previous inhabitants of Israel. A Nabataean cemetery at Mampsis (Kurnub) revealed that the bodies lay face up with the legs pointing east. Wealthy Hellenized Jews were often buried in family tombs. Those at Bet Guvrin were handsomely painted within. On the other hand terracotta ossuaries uncovered at Givatayim point to a 2,000-year-old practice of a second burial after the flesh had decayed.

A dig conducted by Prof. Benjamin Mazar near the Western Wall in Jerusalem after the Six Day War of 1967 unearthed ruins and relics that go back almost 3,000 years.

Stones toppled by the Romans from the walls of the Second Temple enclosure in 70 CE were found lying on Herodian streets below, presenting vivid testimony of the destruction of the colossal Temple.

Mazar's team uncovered part of the huge supporting walls of the Herodian Temple Mount, public works of the Herodian period - paved streets, stairways leading to the gates of the Mount, complex water systems and various types of building.

It is true to say that excavations conducted in this key area since 1968 have revealed more about the city's past than had all the previous excavations conducted during the last century.

In addition to the Second Temple period, the other main periods in Jerusalem's history are the Byzantine (4th-7th centuries CE) and the Early Islamic (7th-8th centuries CE). Excavations south of the Mount, at the Ophel - initiated by Mazar and continued by Meir Ben Dov - produced important finds from these periods, especially the latter. One massive and beautiful construction behind the El-Aksa Mosque, for instance, was an Umayyad palace; flanked by other large buildings, it suggests a centre for Caliphs in Jerusalem. A papyrus discovered in Egypt 80 years ago mentions two carpenters being sent to build a palace in Jerusalem. No one made much of this knowledge until this first Early Islamic palace was discovered.

Less than half a kilometre away from the Temple Mount, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Prof. Nahman Avigad and other experts have sorted out and assembled crate-loads of jars and vases from successive epochs in Jerusalem's history.

A large-scale investigation of the Ophel and the City of David began in 1978. The site of the original Jerusalem, the area was within the city boundaries of every king of Judah and was inhabited by Jebusites even before the Israelites invaded Canaan under Joshua.

The dig was headed by the late Dr. Yigal Shiloh . Within two months of starting to work at the site archaeologists uncovered a water tunnel from the Siloam spring going back to 900 BCE, which predates by 200 years the famous tunnel cut by order of King Hezekiah. They also found remains from the earliest settlement period known in Jerusalem, Early Bronze I (c. 3000 BCE).

In August 1981 the scientists and students at the dig were harassed by religious zealots who claimed to have found human bones at the site and persuaded the country's chief rabbis to declare the area a Jewish cemetery and out of bounds to archaeologists. The High Court of Justice, however, ruled that the dig could continue.

The main goal of the excavation was to explore what remained of the city from the First Temple period and before. "Since 1967, everything we knew about Jerusalem changed," said Shiloh. "This is the last part of the puzzle for this generation."

EXCAVATION SITES FOR VOLUNTEERS

A number of archaeological excavation sites are open to volunteers from abroad.

Volunteers must be over 17 years of age and physically fit. They are expected to pay their own fares to and from Israel and to take care of all their accommodation and other arrangements not connected with their work on the dig.

All archaeological finds are the property of the State of Israel.

For a detailed list of digs, dates and general information contact: Israel Antiquities Authority, P.O.B. 586, Jerusalem.