By MATTI FRIEDMAN | AP
Enlarge PhotoIn this photo taken on Dec. 1, 2011, Israel's Antiquities Authority archeologist …
View GalleryIn this photo taken on Dec. 1, 2011, marks carved in the bedrock over 2,800 years …
JERUSALEM (AP) — Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years
ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have
archaeologists stumped.
Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of
rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of the city
recently found the markings: Three "V'' shapes cut next to each other
into the limestone floor of one of the rooms, about 2 inches (5
centimeters) deep and 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. There were no
finds to offer any clues pointing to the identity of who made them or
what purpose they served.
The archaeologists in charge of the dig
know so little that they have been unable even to posit a theory about
their nature, said Eli Shukron, one of the two directors of the dig.
"The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I've never seen anything like them," Shukron said.
The
shapes were found in a dig known as the City of David, a politically
sensitive excavation conducted by Israeli government archaeologists and
funded by a nationalist Jewish group under the Palestinian neighborhood
of Silwan in east Jerusalem. The rooms were unearthed as part of the
excavation of fortifications around the ancient city's only natural
water source, the Gihon spring.
It is possible, the dig's
archaeologists say, that when the markings were made at least 2,800
years ago the shapes might have accommodated some kind of wooden
structure that stood inside them, or they might have served some other
purpose on their own. They might have had a ritual function or one that
was entirely mundane. Archaeologists faced by a curious artifact can
usually at least venture a guess about its nature, but in this case no
one, including outside experts consulted by Shukron and the dig's
co-director, archaeologists with decades of experience between them, has
any idea.
There appears to be at least one other ancient marking
of the same type at the site. A century-old map of an expedition led by
the British explorer Montague Parker, who searched for the lost
treasures of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem between 1909 and 1911,
includes the shape of a "V'' drawn in an underground channel not far
away. Modern archaeologists haven't excavated that area yet.
Ceramic
shards found in the rooms indicate they were last used around 800 B.C.,
with Jerusalem under the rule of Judean kings, the dig's archaeologists
say. At around that time, the rooms appear to have been filled with
rubble to support the construction of a defensive wall.
It is
unclear, however, whether they were built in the time of those kings or
centuries earlier by the Canaanite residents who predated them.
The
purpose of the complex is part of the riddle. The straight lines of its
walls and level floors are evidence of careful engineering, and it was
located close to the most important site in the city, the spring,
suggesting it might have had an important function.
A unique find
in a room beside the one with the markings — a stone like a modern grave
marker, which was left upright when the room was filled in — might
offer a clue. Such stones were used in the ancient Middle East as a
focal point for ritual or a memorial for dead ancestors, the
archaeologists say, and it is likely a remnant of the pagan religions
which the city's Israelite prophets tried to eradicate. It is the first
such stone to be found intact in Jerusalem excavations.
But the
ritual stone does not necessarily mean the whole complex was a temple.
It might simply have marked a corner devoted to religious practice in a
building whose purpose was commonplace.
With the experts unable to
come up with a theory about the markings, the City of David dig posted a
photo on its Facebook page and solicited suggestions. The results
ranged from the thought-provoking — "a system for wood panels that held
some other item," or molds into which molten metal would could have been
poured — to the fanciful: ancient Hebrew or Egyptian characters, or a
"symbol for water, particularly as it was near a spring."
The City
of David dig, where the carvings were found, is the most high-profile
and politically contentious excavation in the Holy Land. Named for the
biblical monarch thought to have ruled from the spot 3,000 years ago,
the dig is located in what today is east Jerusalem, which was captured
by Israel in 1967. Palestinians claim that part of the city as the
capital of a future state.
The dig is funded by Elad, an
organization affiliated with the Israeli settlement movement. The group
also moves Jewish families into the neighborhood and elsewhere in east
Jerusalem in an attempt to render impossible any division of the city in
a future peace deal.
Palestinians and some Israeli archaeologists
have criticized the dig for what they say is an excessive focus on
Jewish remains. The dig's archaeologists, who work under the auspices of
the government's Israel Antiquities Authority, deny that charge.
