Publishing the Tell Jemmeh Excavations, 40 years later

By David Ben-Shlomo

Opportunities arise in unusual ways. But the opportunity to help publish a major excavation is by definition unusual.

During the summer of 2008, while I was towards the end of a postdoctorate term at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, working on computerized archaeology, I was approached by Prof. Amihai Mazar. He said that an opportunity had arisen for someone to complete the final publication of the Smithsonian Institution excavations at the site Tell Jemmeh, directed by Gus W. Van Beek. Ami had been approached by Prof. Donald Ortner from the Anthropology Department of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), and was asked whether he knew of anyone having the time and capability for completing this project.

Naturally, I was well acquainted with the site of Tell Jemmeh near Gaza. It had been excavated and published by the famed British archaeologist William Flinders Petrie in 1927–1928 as a follow-up to his many years of work in Egypt. Petrie believed the enormous site was Biblical Gerar, but today the site should be identified with Yurza. Though Petrie had been a pioneer in Egypt, his methods were inadequate for the complexity of a tell site like Jemmeh, and removed an enormous amount of the site.

After Petrie, the sitewas excavated by Gus Van Beek and the Smithsonian in twelve seasons of work from 1970 until 1990. They worked patiently but produced relatively few publications, a function of their unique methods. Jemmeh was well known among the archaeologists in Israel especially for its Neo-Assyrian architecture as well as for its Philistine culture. Yet, the results from the Smithsonian Institution excavations at the site had become considered by some as one of the ‘lost cases’ of projects that would probably never get published.

The Jemmeh project was also unique in that it was the first and last occasion where all the finds from an excavation in Israel were shipped overseas to the excavator’s home institution. The background for this treatment was Van Beek’s strategy of ‘total retrieval archaeology,’ where every find no matter how small was collected and saved, and the impeccable reputation and status of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. And thus every item retrieved from the field, including all body sherds, were shipped in wooden crates to the NMNH. I had no hesitation in accepting this offer of working on an important site and its unique collection of materials.

During November 2008, while attending the ASOR meeting in Boston, I took the opportunity of visiting Washington, D.C. Don Ortner showed me the material stored in the basement of the NMNH (which had just been completely inventoried by Smithsonian archaeozoologist Melinda Zeder and her colleagues in the department). He also showed me what was, from my experience, the more crucial evidence: all the documentation existing for the dig, concentrated in what had been Gus Van Beek’s office. I estimated the work to take at least 2–3 years, just according to the vast amount of material.

Gus Van Beek had experienced a severe stroke just a few months earlier and was hospitalized in a nursing home. Don took me together with Gus’s wife Ora Van Beek to visit him. Sadly, he was unable to speak but clearly showed interest in the possibility of my involvement in the project. I well understood then that there was a narrow window of opportunity for eventually completing this important archaeological project.

It took about another year until all the funding and paperwork was arranged and the project could actually get started. I arrived in October 2009 at the NMNH and was given a small windowless room in the Anthropology department on the sixth floor, where all the documentation of the excavation was crammed. I then prepared myself for several years of challenging and interesting work, and commuting between Jerusalem and Washington, and between the NMNH sixth floor and basement.

I was not surprised that the work had to be started from zero, or, more likely, that more would have to be done in order to get to a ‘zero point.’I already had some experience in publishing ‘old’ excavations, first the Tel Ashdod excavations from the 1960s and then the Azor cemetery excavated in the 1950s, both by Moshe Dothan. Yet, as I started on Jemmeh, I realized that this project would be even more challenging. While there were many diaries, plans, section, notes, slides, and photographs, the excavation system of recording was far from ‘standard’, and was different from anything I encountered before. Moreover, the amount and type of information provided in the recording notes was highly dependent of the specific area supervisor. Thus, the work was heavily based on the plans, sections, and field photographs.

The quantity of material was also significant. For over 30 years Gus Van Beek had utilized an admirable system of volunteers of the Smithsonian Institution in order to reconstruct as many complete pottery vessels as possible. This resulted in an impressive number of reconstructed vessels dated from the Middle Bronze Age to the Persian period. But when starting to work on the vast amount of pottery it was clear to me that I would first have to sort the diagnostic pottery and discard the body sherds. As I started to do this, however, I first encountered strong objections from the Smithsonian’s Anthropology department curators who were surprised, or even outraged, by my throwing away archaeological material! Eventually it was understood that there was no point keeping all the nondiagnostic body sherds at this stage. Indeed, ‘total retrieval’ as a technique had its drawbacks. There were simply too many sherds to handle that produced too little archaeological return.

Many famous American and Near Eastern archaeologists had spent time in the initial stage of their career at the Tell Jemmeh excavations. Yet none has spent any considerable time in the analysis of the finds, save for one, Ron Gardiner. Ron had begun his archaeological career at Masada under Yigael Yadin. During the 2000s he created a catalogue and initial analysis of all the small finds from the Jemmeh excavation, and helped me enormously during my work through the completion of the volume. Artist Pamela Rogers also volunteered to draw all the complete vessels needed for the report.

After the initial challenging stage of organizing the material and the ‘deciphering’ of the excavation records from the dig — a kind of ‘archaeology of archaeology‘ – work progressed well during the years 2010–2012. In fact, the results and materials were much more interesting, rich, and diversified than I had imagined at the onset. While the more well-known and spectacular results of the Jemmeh excavations are the vaulted Neo-Assyrian brick structure, the Assyrian-style pottery, and the sophisticated Philistine period pottery kiln, important results also came from the late Middle Bronze Age, the Late Bronze Age, and the Persian period.

These finds have reinforced the view of Late Bronze Age Jemmeh as an important border town on the border between Canaan and the Egyptian empire, an early Iron Age Philistine town related to Gaza, a center for the Neo-Assyrian empire in a rebellion prone area, and finally, a Persian period town at the end of a long camel caravan route.

Many specialists agreed to undertake in-depth studies and complete chapters on specialized topics (for example on the Cypriote and Classic Greek pottery, cylinder seals, and Crusader coins). Towards the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 a large and detailed report, that included 34 chapters and over 900 illustrations, had emerged.

But at this stage a very sad and surprising event took place, the death of Donald Ortner, on April 30, 2012. Don was the fuel of this project, and without his enthusiastic involvement the publication of the volume would have never taken place. Gus Van Beek also died several months later, and thus, the two people that had most anticipated the appearance of this final publication sadly did not see it. At this stage as well, all the material from the NMNH basement was packed and shipped back to Israel after 40 years in exile.

The manuscript was submitted to Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press in the end of 2013, and their team, headed by Ginger Strader, very skillfully and efficiently managed to produce the printed volume within a year! Almost as impressive as this accomplishment is the fact that this enormous report of over 1100 pages may be downloaded for free from the Smithsonian web site.

The Smithsonian Institution, and in particular Donald Ortner and the NMNH director at the time, Cristián Samper, must be applauded for their support of the completion of this project, taking care to bring it to final publication even after the excavator was not able to do so. This is not a common occurrence; as we well know, many Near Eastern excavations of the twentieth century finally get to be published only many decades (if at all) after the spade’s toil dies away. But Tel Jemmeh will be able to live on and regain its place as one of the foremost and thoughtful excavations of the twentieth century.

David Ben-Shlomo is a research associate at the Ariel University.

~~~

All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this blog or found by following any link on this blog. ASOR will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information. ASOR will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. The opinions expressed by Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of ASOR or any employee thereof.