The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (83 page)

BOOK: The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus
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[396]
  Rosenthal and Sivan 80.

[397]
    A careful review of Bagatti’s drawings shows that three lamps (
Exc
. 192:6 and 11 [2 examples]) display the oval and medium-size wick hole of Smith’s Type 1, while having all the remaining characteristics of Type 2. These lamps may be examples of the 10% which Smith calls “transitional” and which he dates to mid-I CE. Then again, they may be misdrawn. Fernandez, who examined the lamps in Nazareth, noted that “the drawings [in
Excavations in Nazareth
] are not always entirely correct” (Fernandez 29).

[398]
   Illus
.
4.3
:1–14, and the five Darom lamps that date between the two Jewish revolts. To these can be added the three lamps of the local pottery tradition (
Illus
.
4
.
3
:15–17), whose
terminus ante quem
is
c
. 150 CE.

[399]
 
The shorter time span of 85 years (50–135 CE) would obtain if all the lamps came from kokh tombs.

[400]
Kopp 1938:188–89. See Chapter 2, pp. 65
ff.
Tonneau’s original words are also at
Exc
. 220.

[401]
A. Médebielle,
Studia Anselmiana
27–28, Rome (1951), p. 313.

[402]
  Bagatti p. 220, n. 5.

[403]
  See Chapter 1, pp. 53–55.

[404]
 
ABD
, “Nazareth,” 1992.

[405]
See above discussion, p. 161..

[406]
It is Fernandez no. 224, type 9.2.2a (pp. 116, 150, and 230)

[407]
 
Gli Scavi del “Dominus Flevit
”, I, pp. 129–131, fig. 30, 1–3. The description reads: “Of these jugs No. 1 comes from a kokhim tomb, and is well-known in such locales as much for the narrow neck, the ribbon handle, thin walls, and accurate workmanship, as for the pointed base.” The caption reads “Jars… of the Roman and Byzantine periods.”

[408]
  Chapter 2, pp. 78
f.

[409]
Gli Scavi del “Dominus Flevit,”
p. 117. The passage is discussed in Chapter 3, p.114.

[410]
  This article is discussed in Chapter 2, pp. 74–75.

[411]
Bagatti 1955:20.

[412]
 
Exc
. 310. In Bagatti’s terminology, lamps with a “concave surface” describe typical Middle Roman lamps,
e.g
., at
Exc
. 242, in connection with lamps in T. 72, (dated
c
. 50 CE–III CE by Rosenthal and Sivan, p. 89). Such Roman lamps were round with a concave discus. Other Nazareth examples are at
Exc
. fig. 192:13–14 (five examples from T. 70). For discussion and plates see Rosenthal and Sivan 85; Bailey Pl. 12
f
. Bagatti’s translator variously uses “concavity” and “concave.”

[413]
Kopp 1963:53.

[414]
  The proximity of this tomb to the CA is a delicate matter. “30 metres” is the distance from the CA given by Asad Mansur in his 1923 description of the tomb (Mansur 90), and is the distance used in these pages. Given the Jewish prohibition against living in the vicinity of tombs, this was evidently too close for Bagatti who misdirects his reader to quadrants “C 1–2” of his map (
Exc
. 237 and fig. 3). The interface of quadrants C1 and C2 locates the tomb approximately 300 m from the CA. Interestingly, Bagatti’s map does not even show this tomb, yet marks others more distant from the CA. The omission of several tombs near the CA is likewise to be observed in Finegan’s map (Finegan 1969:27; 1992:44). Kopp 1938:193 provides a more accurate map.
Illus
5.2 sites all the known Roman tombs.

[415]
Hamidovic 2004:99, n. 32.

[416]
See Richmond 1931;
Exc
. 242.

[417]
  Chapter 3, pp. 105
ff.

[418]
 
Exc.
242. A photo of the lamps is found at Chapter 3:
Illus. 3.1
.

[419]
Yavor in
ESI
vol. 18 (1998), p. 32.

[420]
  Feig 1990.

[421]
  In writing this book it has been my strict policy to include in the primary evidence only artefacts verifiable by description, photo, and/or diagram in the published literature. Time and again this policy has proven judicious on account of innumerable dubious claims.

[422]
Eshel 2000 (first paragraph).

[423]
  Gibson 187. The author adds: “Complete mugs…are usually dated to the first century C.E. but are known to continue in use into the early second century C.E. (p. 185).

[424]
Deines 45.

[425]
  Dienes 45. Diagram p. 51 + Photos 2a and 2b.

[426]
  Gibson 185, 187.

[427]
  Eshel: first paragraph.

[428]
  For a typical assemblage of lamps from a pagan site, see Aviam 83.

[429]
  In contrast we note the childish, poorly executed (and probably post-Byzantine) graffiti in Tomb 70, which includes two incised heads (photos at
Exc
. 245). In tomb
72
a small Phoenician glass pendant with lion and star was found (Richmond Pl. XXXIII:4).

[430]
 
For location information see Y. Alexandre, “En Rani,”
Hadashot Arkheologiyot
117 (2005), dated 11/4/2005.

[431]
  Aviam:315 mentions a possible stone vessel industry at Bet Lehem HaGelilit, 7 mi. NW of Nazareth.

[432]
  See Gibson:1983 on the stone vessel industry at Hizma; Eshel:2000 on those found at Qumran; Bagatti and Milik 1958:164–65 on some vessels found in the “Dominus Flevit” excavations.

[433]
Exc
. 43, 48–49 and figs. 5 (#18), 6 (#2), 13, 21. These are at loci 17–19, 24, 26, in front of 34 (a wine press), and to the east of the CA apse (
Exc
. fig. 5, #18). The finished medieval blocks are pictured at
Exc
. fig. 19.

[434]
  Evans 2004.

[435]
  For a study of Roman oil lamps in Palestine see Rosenthal and Sivan (
op. cit.
), and smaller studies such as Neidinger, Wexler and Gilboa,
etc
. For Roman lamps in general see Szentléleky 1969.

[436]
Broneer type XXV, Loeschke XIII. See Rosenthal and Sivan 85
ff.
; R. Smith 1966:24–25.

[437]
  R. Smith 1966:25.

[438]
 
NIDBA
(1983), “Nazareth,” p. 330. Signed, “WHM.”

[439]
  Kloner 1999:28, 23, 25.

[440]
  In fact, there may have been two kokh tombs under the convent (
Exc.
243). Its rolling stone is pictured at
Exc
. Fig. 195.

[441]
 
ABD
, “Nazareth,” p. 1051.

[442]
  Strange 1975:46. For Strange, the Herodian period includes I CE and extends back to 75 BCE (pp. 61, 63).

[443]
  Hachlili and Killebrew 129; Kloner 1980:252–253 and XIII–XIV (English summary); Rahmani 1994:21; Aviam 316.

[444]
  “Ossuary” in
OEANE
(signed B. McCane).

[445]
 
Exc
. 247.

[446]
    The site is also called the Jebel Qasr el Mutran.

[447]
  Aviam 277.

[448]
  Feig 72–73 (Hebrew). Aviam:277 also describes ossuaries from nearby Sepphoris and Mashhad.

[449]
  Aviam 311.

[450]
  Aviam 271–76.

[451]
  Goodenough, vol. I:137.

[452]
  Aviam 272.

[453]
  Photo at Aviam 272. The Nazareth example is also reminiscent of a sarcophagus from a Jewish cemetery in el-Jish described by Avi-Yonah, with “pendant ribbons curving down from tops of wreaths.” (Cited with discussion in Goodenough, vol. I:136.)

[454]
  This has been a problem with other Nazareth evidence. A I CE stone inscription (see below) was “found” in Nazareth, though it came from elsewhere.

[455]
  The inscriptions often contained a curse on anyone who would disturb the body or open the tomb. See
ABD
, “Palestinian Funerary Inscriptions.”

[456]
  Levine 84.

[457]
  Exc. 249.

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