"Then Moses and the elders of Israel charged all the
people as follows: 'Keep the entire commandment that I am commanding you today.
On the day that you cross over the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God
is giving you, you shall set up great stones and cover them with plaster. You
shall write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over."
(Deuteronomy 27:1-3).
Built on the foundations of an ancient Byzantine church, the
Greek Orthodox Church of St. George is home to the oldest, most precise map of
biblical Israel and the surrounding areas. The church is northwest of Madaba, a
provincial town of the Roman Empire that is now a Jordanian village. During the
reign of Justinian (527-565 CE), the long central hall of the cross-shaped
Byzantine structure was covered from wall to wall by the Madaba Map, which
originally spanned 94 square meters, though only 25 are preserved. The map (see
Page 36) identifies Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley with astounding accuracy,
and depicts a site called Galgala near Jericho. The Greek inscription next to
Galgala reads Dodekaliton, which translates as "Twelve Stones." The
inscription was believed to refer to the 12 stones the Israelites carried from
the Jordan River bed and set up in Gilgal (Joshua 4). However, it is also
possible that these stones are those mentioned in the above passage from
Deuteronomy. In that passage, Moses commanded the Israelites to inscribe
"all the words of this law" on large plastered stones after they
crossed the Jordan near Jericho.
Galgala, so accurately located by the Madaba Map, is
believed to be the site recently discovered by Prof. Adam Zertal and a team
from the University of Haifa which has been surveying the region since 1978.
They unearthed a huge man-made cavern 30 feet underground, which they believe
may have been a quarry that was already sacred to ancient Christians.
The largest man-made cavern in Israel, the excavation is
about 100 yards long, 40 yards wide and four yards high. Inside, Zertal and his
team found a ceiling supported by 22 huge columns bearing various carved
symbols. Thirty-one crosses were discovered, in addition to a possible zodiac
and the symbol of a Roman legion. Recesses for holding oil lamps were found in
the columns, along with holes to which animals hauling stones out of the cavern
could have been tied. The column carvings and fragments of pottery enabled
Zertal to date the cavern back at least as far as the beginning of the Common
Era, and the multitude of crosses leads him to believe it might have also
functioned as a monastery and hiding place.
Rumored to be haunted, the cave had been known to local
Beduin for centuries. Zertal explained that one of the first visitors to the
cave contracted "cave fever" or a parasite, which may have been the
reason the Beduin thought the cave was bewitched.
Working on the theory that the site may have also seen use
as an ancient quarry, Zertal and his team are examining microorganisms in the
stones to determine where they might have been transferred. Their next move is
to date the symbols on the pillars and compare them to other Jewish, Roman and
Christian sites in the Jordan Valley.
According to the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria,
Zertal has only received a permit to survey the northern part of the Jordan
Valley, and the cavern is south of the survey boundaries. In order to begin
excavating, Zertal says his team will have to raise NIS 1 million. Once
excavation is permitted, his next step is to examine the rubble on the floor before
removing it, hopefully to reveal coins.
Though he would like the cave to open to the public, Zertal
appreciates the great amount of work this would require. "We would need to
build a road and an entrance, install electricity, and raise money for a visitor's
center," he says.
THE MOST perplexing question, according to Zertal, the
answer to which might support the notion that this is where the "great
stones" described in Deuteronomy were quarried, inscribed and left for
safekeeping, is why anyone would dig such a large quarry with such a narrow
entrance so far underground. The Madaba Map may shed some light on this
mystery. Zertal explained that scholars had always supposed that "12
stones" referred to the biblical story of the stones removed from the
Jordan River bed to commemorate the miracle that the river stopped flowing when
the Israelites passed over it. However, the discovery of this cave suggests
that the "12 stones" inscription on the map may refer to the location
of the "master copy" stones of Deuteronomy and Joshua 8. Though this
theory appears to provide a logical reason for the quarry being constructed
underground, Zertal points out that "it is just a theory" and
"much more research needs to be done."
Rabbi Menachem Leibtag of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Gush Etzion
doesn't think the 12 riverbed stones are connected to the cavern at all.
"The 12 riverbed-stone memorial was built in Gilgal, nearby and a bit to
the east of Jericho, but by now it is long gone. The cavern found in the Jordan
Valley is clearly not connected to it. It's simply a quarry from thousands of
years later that had a possible secondary use as a monastery," he said.
Like Zertal, Liebtag believes that "it would not be
surprising if in Byzantine times they named a site near the Jordan River
Gilgal." He explained that the Byzantines tried to identify many sites of
the Bible and build churches in those areas, but the naming was usually not
based on careful archeological study, but rather on "assumption or ancient
traditions."
Leibtag, however, highlighted a key difficulty with
conjectures that the cavern may be where the "master copy" stones
were left for safekeeping. He notes that Joshua is described as having
constructed an altar out of special stones on Mount Ebal near the city of
Shechem (Joshua 8:30-35) 10 years after the death of Moses. Zertal claims to
have found Joshua's altar, but the site is far from the recently discovered
cavern and devoid of inscribed stones.
Discovering the stones from either story would be an archeological
feat of epic proportions, heavily supporting those who, like Zertal, believe
that all the events in the early books of the Old Testament happened and can be
proven. Opposing Zertal's camp are the biblical minimalists, who claim that the
Old Testament is literary rather than historical. A third group tries to bridge
the gap and believes the Bible to be folk memory converted into myth, a fusion
of fact and fiction.
Religious Studies Prof. Michael Satlow of Brown University,
who specializes in early Judaism, thinks such a discovery "would be a
terrific find from the point of view of biblical scholarship." However, he
is not convinced that it would have any ramifications regarding religious
beliefs. "Archeological discoveries really have little impact on living
religions," he said. "Think about how the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls might have changed the Judaism of your parents or grandparents. I'm
sure it didn't."
The writer, a Jerusalem Post intern, is an English major at
Brown University in Rhode Island.
