U of M prof, students dig at site of ancient biblical city

SUBMITTED PHOTO Enlarge Image

Haskel Greenfield is returning for the third time to the Tell es-Safi dig in Israel.

There are dozens of archaeological sites being excavated in Israel at any given time, but there is one in particular that draws Haskel Greenfield back to the trenches every summer.

Greenfield is a professor of anthropology and archeology at the University of Manitoba and an expert on ancient economies.

In July, he will be returning for the third time to the Tell es-Safi dig in central Israel and will take six U of M students with him.

Tell es-Safi is the site of the biblical city of Gath, described in both the Old Testament's Book of Samuel and in the Book of Kings. One of the five cities that made up the ancient Philistine Pentapolis, Gath is the hometown of the legendary Goliath, the Philistine warrior felled by David's slingshot.

Excavation at Tell es-Safi has been ongoing since 1996 under the supervision of Aren Maeir, a professor of archeology at Bar-Ilan University in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan.

To date, countless relics from the past have been uncovered at the site, among them pottery shards, faded inscriptions and remnants of metal weapons, agricultural tools, culinary utensils and fortifications. These artifacts, excavated at various levels over the years, help shed light on the daily life, customs and activities of several different cultures during several different historical periods.

At one level of Tell es-Safi, archeologists discovered a row of collapsed houses with their original contents still inside. At another level they unearthed what is believed to be the first man-made siege system ever constructed. In 2008, they discovered the complete skeleton of a domesticated ass, surprising evidence that these beasts were used to transport goods long before camels were employed for that purpose.

"Usually we only find fragments of any one skeleton," Greenfield says. "It is unusual to find full skeletons of animals, where you can see all the parts fitting together. It enables us to test ideas about reconstructing animals and the humans who managed them."

Animal remains are of particular interest to Greenfield, who serves as Tell es-Safi's zooarchaeologist, or specialist in the study of animal bones and teeth.

"We can reconstruct the ancient economy from the animal bones," Greenfield explains. "They provide information about animal husbandry, farming, animal exploitation, butchering processes, food consumption and preparation, garbage disposal, tool making, ornaments, ancient technology and other aspects of ancient life."

Greenfield will pass down much of this knowledge to his students during their stay in Israel. They will receive university credit for their work on the dig, which will begin at 6 a.m. every day. Evenings will be devoted to workshops, field trips and visits to other archaeological sites.

At Tell es-Safi Greenfield and his students will focus primarily on a section that dates back to the early bronze age. There they will unearth critical information about the development of cities and the transformation from rural to urban life.

"The site is one of the earliest cities, as opposed to towns, in the southern Levant," Greenfield says. "It was established in the early Bronze Age as a city... and continues to be an important city throughout the next 2,000 years, during the late Bronze Age and into the Iron Age."

It is during this latter era that it was one of the main Philistine cities that waged war on the ancient Israelites. For this, and for other reasons, it is an important site from a Jewish perspective.

"It is one of the major Philistine cities, a place that was the hometown of Goliath, a place that Kind David lived, and a place that is mentioned in the Book of Samuel and other ancient Jewish texts," Greenfield says. "Hence, it has direct relevance to increasing our understanding of Jewish history."

That history is embedded in the rocks, fossils and clay at Tell es-Safi and at many other digs across Israel. So, too, is the history of many other people's faiths and cultures.

After all, archeology, as Greenfield's students know, is much more than the study of antique relics from the past. It is a study of history, sociology, geography, politics and science. It is a study of how the past, ancient and buried, informs how we live and where we live today.

schisvin@hotmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 19, 2010 H13