Lecture
Raz Kletter, Israeli Antiquities Authority
Sunday, November 5
6 PM
At the Oriental Institute
Yavneh, a city some 20 km south of Tel Aviv, was a Philistine city on the border with Judah. It was occupied for numerous periods and was home to Canaanites, Philistines, Jews, Christians, Samaritans, Moslems and other people. This lecture concerns a unique find made in 2002, during a salvage excavation at the "Temple Hill" at Yavneh on behalf of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. The excavation revealed a round pit from roughly the 9th century BC, serving as a favissa (genizah in Hebrew), that is, a place for safekeeping of cultic objects, which could no longer be used in the cult. The favissa included thousands of bowls and chalices, some of them decorated, many showing traces of soot from burning of perfumes and/or incense. There were also dozens of juglets and other vessels. The most important find is more than a hundred intact or restored cultic stands.
Favissa are a rare find, and Yavneh is the best preserved and richest of all those found in Israel so far. The number of cultic stands is unheard of it more than doubles the existing amount known from 120 years of excavations in Israel. The Yavneh stands will contribute to the long-going debate about the function and meaning of these objects.
Raz Kletter has worked at the Israeli Antiquities Authority since 1990. He has served as Director of Excavations at dozens of sites in Israel and has published extensively on Bronze, Iron Age, and Biblical archaeology.
