Nahal Refa'im
The site is situated on the
southern slopes of a hill - Giv'at Massua - near the bank of Nahal
Refa'im (Heb., Refa'im Valley), some 6 km. southwest of the Old
City of Jerusalem, on
the ancient road which led from the Coastal Plain to the Judean Hills
and Jerusalem.
Excavations at the site in
the Refa'im Valley have been conducted sporadically since 1980, but
most of the remains were uncovered between 1987 and 1990, when the
Biblical Zoo was established there. Two large villages, one on top of
the other and from different periods of the Bronze Age, were
excavated.
The name of the Bronze Age
villages was probably Manahat. The name is mentioned in the
Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed in
Alexandria, Egypt in the 3rd century BCE), in the list of towns on
the northern border of the Tribe of Judah. (Joshua
15: 59) An echo of the ancient name was preserved in the nearby
Arab village of Malha and the modern Jerusalem neighborhood of Manhat.
A short distance from the
site is a spring, the main source of water for the villages. Fertile
land, forests and grazing areas in the region made continued
settlement possible. Of the village houses, scattered over an area of
about 12 acres, some 30 have been excavated. They were built on
natural stone terraces on the gently sloping hillside, with open
areas between them.
During the Israelite period,
a new settlement was established on top of the hill above the older
village. Its inhabitants built stone terraces on the slopes of the
hill for planting and many of the cleared fieldstones - not used for
building of terraces - were placed in high piles on the remains of
the earlier buildings. The houses of the Bronze Age village were thus
well preserved, together with utensils used by its inhabitants.
The Early Village
A village was founded in the
Refa'im Valley at the end of the Early Bronze Age (2200-2000 BCE).
The houses consisted of a single story with a varying number of
different-sized rooms, built on exposed rock surfaces, sometimes next
to low rock cliffs. Their walls were constructed of fired bricks on
low stone foundations and the earthen floors were leveled with stone
surfaces. The flat roofs were constructed of wooden beams and
plaster, supported by wooden posts with stone bases recessed in the
floors. In some of the buildings, cultic stelae, flat standing
stones, were placed against the inner walls of rooms.
In the eastern part of the
village, remains of several building complexes, each extending over
an area of several hundred square meters, were exposed. Each complex
consisted of a number of dwelling units with several rooms. Some
houses had common walls and some were built around a courtyard,
probably for livestock and for domestic activities. It is assumed
that these complexes were the result of several building phases:
first, a single unit was built by the father of the family; then
units for the extended family were added. These clusters of buildings
are indicative of settlement over a period of several generations.
The livelihood of the
villagers was based on agriculture and herding. Agricultural crops
included grains, lentils, olives and grapes, planted on small plots
of land around the village and in the valley. Livestock consisted
primarily of sheep and goats, herded for grazing on the surrounding
hills, and hunting of wild animals supplemented the villagers' diet.
Pottery produced and used in
the village was of hand-made coarse clay, well fired. Huwwar, the
main material used by the village potters, was readily found in the
limestone rock. This was mixed with sand mined from narrow, deep
caves in the hard limestone within the village limits. The vessels
produced were mainly large, barrel-shaped storage jars, cooking pots,
cups and bowls.
The exposure of the Early
Bronze Age village in the Refa'im Valley is of great importance for
the study of settlement patterns at the end of the 3rd millennium
BCE. Until now, researchers had believed that large cities, such as Arad and Megiddo, were
destroyed by nomadic tribes at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, and
that for the next several hundred years, no permanent settlements
existed in Canaan. With the exposure of the remains of other villages
from the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, similar to that in the
Refa'im Valley, it is now evident that a village culture replaced the
destroyed urban one and that these rural settlements were established
by the population that had abandoned the fortified cities.
The Later Village
During the Middle Bronze Age
(1750-1550 BCE), a new Canaanite village was established in the
Refa'im Valley with most of its houses built on those of the earlier
village. The walls were built to their full height of fieldstones,
laid lengthwise in layers, with a mortar of clay, straw and gravel
between them. These sturdy walls have been preserved to a height of 2
m. Most floors were made of rock surfaces leveled with earth where
needed; some floors were made of laid stone slabs. Dwellings were
once more built individually, according to family size and
topography. Stone stairs connected rooms of differing levels and
provided access to the upper stories.
Daily life in the Canaanite
village in the Refa'im Valley is illustrated by the finds in the
abandoned houses. These include numerous grinding stones for
processing food, ovens for cooking and even a stone silo for grain
storage. The grain cultivated here was harvested with wooden sickles
into which flint blades had been inserted. Axes, knives, awls and
bronze needles were also widely used in the village.
The Temple. In the southwestern part of the village and separate from its houses,
was a rectangular (10 x 6 m.) building with thick, carefully
constructed walls, which appears to have been the village temple. The
entrance faced east and two short pilaster-walls extended from its façade.
The internal space of the temple, which was paved with stone slabs,
was divided by a partition into a narrow entrance room and a square
hall. The temple stood in the center of a courtyard (temenos)
surrounded by a stone fence. A small square room abutting the temple
served for the storage of small clay votive vessels and a variety of
cultic objects, which were found in the excavations.
The Canaanite village was
situated within the area of control of the city-state of Jerusalem,
the main city in this hill country, called "Shalem" in the
Bible (Genesis 33:18) and
"Urusalim" in royal Egyptian sources of that period. During
the 18th century BCE, Jerusalem was fortified with an impressive
wall, remains of which are currently being uncovered. The excavated
village in the Refa'im Valley was part of a network of such rural
settlements in the valley; it was a time of peace and the villagers
became prosperous, selling their agricultural surplus in the markets
of Jerusalem.
The remains of the houses of
this Canaanite village have been preserved within the Biblical Zoo of
Jerusalem.
Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry |