Left: swastika on Ein Gedi synagogue mosaic floor. Discovered 1965.
Right: swastika on Maoz Haim synagogue mosaic floor. Discovered 1974.
The swastika symbol has been used for over 3,000 years.
The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit word svastika, composed of su- meaning "good, well" and asti "to be" – svasti thus means "well-being." The suffix -ka either forms a diminutive, or intensifies the verbal meaning, and svastika might thus be translated literally as "that which is associated with well-being," corresponding to "lucky charm" or "thing that is auspicious." ("The Swastika." Northvegr Foundation. Notes on the etymology and meaning of Swastika.)
There is archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dating from the Neolithic period in Ancient India. It still occurs in modern India, sometimes as a geometrical motif and sometimes as a religious symbol. It remains widely used in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
As noted by Monier-Williams in his Sanskrit–English dictionary, according to Alexander Cunningham, its shape represents a monogram formed by interlacing of the letters of the auspicious words su-astí (svasti) written in Ashokan characters. (Monier Monier-Williams (1899). A Sanskrit–English Dictionary, s.v. svastika (p. 1283).)
Ashoka, as we noted in The archaeology of Alexander the Great: 2. Altars, is Diodotus I, who used the Zoroastrian fire altars taken by Alexander the Great (and used by him probably as boundary markers) to be inscribed with his Edicts.
Right: gold coin of Diodotus c. 250 BCE. The Greek inscription reads: "(of) King Diodotus".
Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi is mentioned in many historical sources and the abundant finds from archeological excavations which have been conducted since the 1960s make it possible to trace the long history of this unique place.
Left: Arugot Stream, (Ein Gedi National Park) the Judean Desert, Israel.
In Second Book of Chronicles, it is identified with Asasonthamar (Cutting of the Pain), the city of the Amorrhean, smitten by Chedorlaomer in his war against the cities of the plain.
The Book of Joshua enumerates Ein Gedi among the cities of the Tribe of Judah in the desert Betharaba, but the Book of Ezekiel shows that it was also a fisherman's town.
And David went up from thence, and dwelt in the strongholds of Ein Gedi
- 1 Samuel 23:29
King David hides in the desert of Ein Gedi and King Saul seeks him "even upon the most craggy rocks, which are accessible only to wild goats".
It is in Ein Gedi that the Moabites and Ammonites gather in order to fight against Josaphat and to advance against Jerusalem "by the ascent named Sis".
The Song of Solomon speaks of the vineyards here:
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.
- Song of Solomon 1:14
The indigenous Jewish town of Ein Gedi was an important source of balsam for the Greco-Roman world until its destruction by Byzantine emperor Justinian as part of his persecution of the Jews in his realm.
The Synagogue, a street, a Miqwe and a number of buildings are visible on the site. Some remains of the earlier Second Temple period settlement can also be identified.
The Ein Gedi Antiquities
In 1965, 300 meters northeast of Tel Goren, remains of a mosaic floor were discovered accidentally.
The site was excavated between 1970-1972 by Profs. D. Barag and E. Netzer of the Hebrew University and Dr. Y. Porath of the department of Antiquities (today the Israel Antiquities Authority). Additional excavations were carried out in 1992 by G. Hadas on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and between 1995-1997 by Dr. Y. Hirschfeld on behalf of the Hebrew University.
The Israel Antiquities Authority Conservation Dept. preserved and restored the mosaics and the site during the years 1991 to 1996.
Historic and archaeological background
The ancient Jewish settlement with its synagogue existed in the third-sixth centuries C.E. (Late Roman and Byzantine periods; also known as the Period of the Mishna and the Talmud). Below these evidence was found of an earlier Second Temple period Jewish settlement which appears to have covered a large area than the later Jewish settlement.
Eusebius, an early Forth century father of the Christian Church, wrote of a "very large village of Jews" at Ein Gedi. Early manuscripts tell of Ein Gedi's inhabitants who grew date palms and persimmons.
The persimmon bush (Ommiphora opobalsamum) yielded a substance from which a valuable perfume could be extracted. Agricultural terraces and irrigation systems west of the settlement attest to Ein Gedi's agricultural past.
The Synagogue
The synagogue at Ein Gedi dates from the Roman-Byzantine period, but it underwent several changes in the course of its use.
When first built at the beginning of the 3rd century, it was a modest, trapezoidal structure. In its northern wall, facing Jerusalem, were two openings. The floor was of simple white mosaic with a swastika pattern in black tesserae in the center. This pattern has been interpreted as a decorative motif or as a good luck symbol.
The Jewish settlement and its Synagogue were destroyed by fire; sign of which were very evident during the excavation.
A hoard of line-wrapped coins was found in an adjacent building courtyard, the latest dated to the Emperor Justinian the First (527-565). Archaeologists concluded that the Jewish settlement and its Synagogue were destroyed in this wave of persecution, in ca. 530 CE.
The late (and great archaeologhist) Yizhar Hirschfeld excavated what he described as an "Essene Village":
The third season of excavations at Ein Gedi was dedicated to trying to date and understand an enigmatic site within the oasis of Ein Gedi. The site, which runs along the natural terrace on the slope north of Nahal 'Arugot, 200 m. above the Dead Sea (i.e., 200 m. below sea level) was discovered by Yohanan Aharoni during a survey of the oasis in the late 1950s (Aharoni 1958: 35-37). He identified it as a settlement containing about thirty cells (or "rooms," as he called them) built in a very simple, irregular fashion, using large boulders found scattered on the surface. Aharoni also discovered near the cells the remains of a pool, and nearby a spring hidden by vegetation and cane. The few pottery sherds collected by Aharoni were insufficient for dating the site, and he consequently dated it to the Roman-Byzantine period, mentioning that he was unable to date the beginning of the settlement and its phases of occupation. No other comparable site has been found within the confines of the oasis.
The small finds of the excavation include several intact pottery vessels, a few potsherds, glass, and 6-7 coins. No animal bones whatsoever were found. The stratigraphy recurrent in several cells exhibits two phases of occupation: (a) the early Roman period (first and early second centuries), and (b) the late Roman-Byzantine period (fourth-sixth centuries). Between these two periods there was a gap of about 100-150 years, which is characterized mainly by the absence of artifacts from the late second-early third centuries A.D. Who lived at this unique site and what can we learn about their way of life? We may assume that the inhabitants of these cells were Jews, since the site was part of the Ein Gedi oasis, which was situated nearby a Jewish village (mentioned by Josephus Flavius in the first century and by Eusebius in the early fourth century). The installations and small artifacts found inside the cells indicate that the inhabitants lived in these as permanent dwellings for a relatively long period. They were not seasonal workers, for if they were we would most probably find similar sites in other parts of the oasis as well. All features of the siteãits location above Ein Gedi, simplicity, and unique natureã conform to Pliny the Elder's (d. 79 A.D.) famous passage on the Essenes, which he describes as a celibate group of men, living on the western shore of the Dead Sea, who have no money only palm trees for company. He concludes by saying that below them lies Ein Gedi, which in his times was "a heap of ashes" (Pliny, Natural History, V, xv.73; trans. by H. Rackham; Cambridge, MA and London 1942, p. 277).
Each cell found at the site was used by a single individual and reflects the simplicity of the Essenes' ascetic approach to life. The terraces and irrigation system indicate that these people were engaged in agriculture and that they lived among the palm trees. The cell structures indicate a homogeneous society having some sort of organization. The fact that no animal bones were found indicates that the inhabitants may have been vegetarians. We do not know who resettled the site in the second phase (i.e., the fourth century). Nevertheless, no matter who they were, their way of life appears to have been similar to that of the inhabitants of the site¼s first phase.
- EIN GEDI 1998, Yizhar Hirschfeld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Essenes were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests. Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the other two major sects at the time) the Essenes lived in various cities, but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, and abstinence from worldly pleasures, including marriage and daily baptisms.
Recent scholarship is in confusion debating the location of the Essene headquarters. (The archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Jodi Magness, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003)
There is no reason why Essenes could not be in both Qumran and Ein Gedi, as well as other places. They were in Egypt and probably in most cities that had a substantial Jewish population.
The Essenes had an important, if not central role in Jewish resistance to Hellenisation
and in the First Jewish-Roman War. The caves around this village bear witnesses
to Jewish resistance
Papyrus Bar Kokhba 46, 5/6Hev 46. Scroll type: Simple deed, lease agreement; Date: 2 Kislev, Year 3 of Revolt (134 CE)
Discovered: Nahal Hever, Cave of the Letters, 1961. A scribe recorded this business transaction after the destruction of the Qumran settlement during the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The text mentions various crops grown in the Ein Gedi area at the time.
Sicarii and Essenes
Finds from two caves that were excavated in Ein Gedi in 2002 are described. Eleven bronze coins of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, twelve arrowheads and fragments of two papyrus documents were recovered in the Har Yishay Cave, located along the northern slopes of Nahal David. A hoard of nine silver coins, including a Bar-Kokhba tetradrachm, were found in the Sabar Cave. This is the second Bar-Kokhba tetradrachm to have been found in the context of a scientifically controlled archaeological project. Along with it were six Roman dinars and two dinars overstruck by Bar Kokhba. From the evidence of one of the Bar Kokhba documents dated to the third year of the revolt, it is possible to estimate that when this hoard was deposited in the cave, the total value of the coins exceeded that of a house!
- Finds from the Bar Kokhba revolt from two Caves at En Gedi, Roi Porat, Hanan Eshel and Amos Frumkin (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 139, 1 (2007), 35–53)
The curved 'metal object' (left) looks to me to be the tip of a sicarius blade – the wickedly-curved dagger used by the armed Jewish Resistance to assassinate their enemies. (How the blade looked, from a Roman mosaic, right.)
When Albinus reached the city of Jerusalem, he bent every effort and made every provision to ensure peace in the land by exterminating most of the Sicarii.
— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (xx.208)
The epithet "Iscariot" is read by some scholars as a Hellenized transformation, by the simplest metathesis, of sicarius. Robert Eisenman presents the general view of secular historians in identifying Judas Iscariot as "Judas the Sicarios".
A group of caves used for refuge by Jews at the end of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt was found along the cliff facing the Dead Sea, north of En-Gedi, during an archaeological survey we conducted in 2001–2004 (Porat and Eshel 2002). The refuge caves yielded archaeological remains from the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, including Bar-Kokhba coins, pottery, glassware and weapons. Among the weapons was a unique spearhead, after which the ‘Caves of the Spear’ were named. These finds accord well with other remains from the end of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt found in refuge caves in the region, and offer an important contribution to the study of the phenomenon of the refuge caves between ªEn-Gedi and Wadi Murabbaªat. The Caves of the Spear (figs. 1–2) are located in the upper part of the cliff facing the Dead Sea, c. 2.5 km south of Rosh ¡atzatzon (Ras Abu el-Quba), at the top of an escarpment that continues to the north-east from the top of a huge waterfall (roughly 300 m. high) of a stream called Wadi Marrazah, flowing north of Mitzpe Arnon (Ras Majbah Sa'id 'Ubeideh; map ref. 18653/10495).
- The ‘Caves of the Spear’- Refuge Caves from the Bar-Kokhba Revolt North of En-Gedi. Roi Porat, Hanan Eshel, Amoss Frumkin, Israel exploration Journal, 1.1, 2009
The earliest mention of the Essenes is by Philo (one of our Lysimachus of Alexandria), who wrote that there were more than 4,000 Essenes (Essaioi) living in villages throughout Palestinian Syria. The next reference is by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (died c. 79 CE) in his Natural History. Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes do not marry, possess no money, and had existed for thousands of generations. Unlike Philo, who did not mention any particular geographical location of the Essenes, other than the whole land of Israel, Pliny places them in Ein Gedi, next to the Dead Sea.
A little later Josephus (one of our Flavian sources for the canonical gospels) gave a detailed account of the Essenes in The Jewish War (c. 75 CE) with a shorter description in Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 CE) and The Life of Flavius Josephus (c. 97 CE). Claiming first hand knowledge, he lists the Essenoi as one of the three sects of Jewish philosophy alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality and commitment to a strict observance of the Sabbath.
Epiphanius (writing in the fourth century CE) seems to make a distinction between two main groups within the Essenes: "Of those that came before his [Elxai, an Ossaean prophet] time and during it, the Ossaeans and the Nazarean."
Their asceticism and strict observance of the law made them more resistant to outside influences and they therefore came into conflict with all secular authorities (Greek, Maccabean, Herodian and Roman), as well as with accommodating religious figures and groups, such as the Pharisees. In the conflicts of accommodation, the Essenes could always be relied upon to provide the spiritual resistance.
Hoards of valuable coins have been found at Ein Gedi, as hard evidence of the economic value of the trade to and from here.
Above the village are caves which have had many uses over an extremely long period of time, including hiding from outside attack.
Ein Gedi caves
Ein Gedi Between the Two Revolts
The settlement at Ein Gedi revived quickly during the period between the two revolts; that is, between 70 and 132 CE (Shar-Abi 2003 [Hebrew]). From the archive of letters of Babatha uncovered by Yigal Yadin in the Cave of Letters in Nahal Hever, we learn that a Roman legion was encamped on the fringes of the village (Yadin 1971: 49). It can be assumed that the Roman legion was stationed at Ein Gedi to secure the balsam crop and the date palm groves that had passed into the possession of the emperor. Additional documents refer to the village of Ein Gedi as “the village of our Lord the Emperor” (Cotton 2001: 139). By the time of the outbreak of the Second Revolt, the legion was no longer there. It is clear from the Bar Kokhba letters discovered in the Cave of Letters that the royal lands at Ein Gedi passed into the hands of the rebels and were considered “the property of the House of Israel.” In one of the letters, Bar Kokhba rebukes the leaders of Ein Gedi, Yahonatan, and Masbela for enjoying the “property of the House of Israel” and not caring for their fighting brothers, whose base was in the hill country (Yardeni 2000: 165).
- Ein Gedi: A Large Jewish Village, Yizhar Hirschfeld, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Ein Gedi is part of the geopolitical landscape of Jewish resistance to Hellenisation.
- It was a water supply in an area devoid of water. Such fresh running water was essential for Judaic ritual.
- It was an oasis producing valuable oil of secret and to this day, unknown composition.
- It was a base of the Essenes, a centre of resistance and in the surrounding caves, valuable documents were kept and freedom fighters took refuge.
Learning the archaeology and history of this Jewish village and its environs is as important to understanding the lost history of Classical Antiquity as the great cities of Alexandria and Rome.
Related posts:
- Archaeology of first-century wizards
- Archaeology of the earliest canonical gospels
- Private: Eleazar, Saul and a Deed of Gift at Qumran
- Archaeology of a first-century wizard
- Archaeology of faith and trade
- The language of Buddhist archaeology
- The Zen of Buddhist archaeology: earliest texts
- Archaeology of a magical, distant land
- Private: Chrestians and the lost history of Classical Antiquity
- Private: The Sun of Righteousness
Follow Us!