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Dates Excavated:
1936-1940
Excavator(s):
Benjamin Mazar
Archaeological Information: Building B
Date of Building Construction:
Phase I: 3rd- early 4th century (Period IIIA)[785]
Phase II: 1st half of 4th century (Period IIIB)[786]
Place of Building in Settlement:
On the northeastern side of a hill, overlooking the structures on the slopes. [787] The settlement was surrounded by a wall. Building B is a public building of at least two stories high, northwest of the synagogue building proper. Possibly the buildings belonged to the same “synagogue-complex.”
Building Description:
Phase I: (=Period IIIA) This was a south-west north-east basilica synagogue with two rows of eight columns. By the northwest wall was a raised platform between the columns that could have been the base for a bemah. The floor was paved with flagstones. There were three doorways in the southeast wall that connected to a courtyard. The courtyard had two cisterns. This synagogue was built as an addition to Building B, which was erected during Period II (2nd half 2nd century to beginning of 3rd century). Building B was affected by many changes during Period III.
Phase II: (=Period IIIB) Two doors in the southeast wall were enclosed, creating niches. The raised platform remained in use. The walls were coated in colored plaster and marble slabs with various decorations, and inscriptions were affixed to them. Far reaching changes were made to the annex buildings and building B, which served in this period as a large private residence. The buildings were eventually destroyed by a fire, probably around 350 CE. [788]
Maps and Plans
Other Materials
Copyright-Protected Materials (logged-in members only)
First Deposit
Date Excavated: 1939
Deposit Location:
In the basement of the building
Archaeological Information:
Room 8 of Building B, northwest of the synagogue
Certain association with the building itself? No; found in burnt debris [789]
Deposit Retrievable? Unknown
Deposit Type: II?3
Deposit Description:
1200 bronze coins found in the burnt debris in the basement of Building B at the end of Period III.[790]
Container Present? No
Description of Coins:
The coins found in 1939 in the synagogue site at Beth She’arim were never published. The only published reference to the coins is in Mazar’s report of 1973, in which he alludes to the 1200 bronze coins found in Building B, stating that“most of the coins are of the period of Constantine the Great, Constantine II (335-340 CE), Constans I (335-350 CE), and Constantius II. There are a few of Helena with Constantine, Licinius (307-323 CE), Fausta, wife of Constantine, and his sons Crispus (died 327 CE) and Dalmatius (died 337 CE).”[791]
Gabriela Bijovskyre-examined the coins for her 2007 article on the revolt of Gallus and identified 616 poorly preserved bronze coins.[792]According to her, the bulk of the coins are dated to the last quarter of the 3rdcentury to the ‘30s of the 4thcentury CE. There are, however, a couple of later coins: a coin of Constans I (348-350 CE), a fallen horseman coin of Constantius II (roughly 346-355 CE), a “Victory dragging captive” coin (383-395 CE), a “cross” (395-408 CE), and finally a worn coin dated from the 2ndhalf of the 4thcentury to the 5thcentury.
In the fall of 2019, I was able to access the archeological depot of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, with permission from Yosef Garfinkel, Head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, and Zeev Weiss, the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology. I was allowed to visit the depot for two full days, and with the help of Daphna Tsoran, the Curator of the Collection of Institute of Archeology, I was able to examine the Beth She’arim coins, which are now stored in the coin safe at the Institute. In total, 615 legible coins from the basement deposit are stored in a wooden box. On my first day, I sorted the coins according to their emperor and type. On the second day, I took photographs of the obverse and reverse sides of all 615 coins. Back at my office, I tried to identify and date each coin. However, I did not have the time to measure and weigh the coins for my database. Some coins are also difficult to analyze from the photos I took. All mistakes or inaccurate identifications are thus mine.[793]
If we assume that 1200 coins were originally found in the deposit, then 585 coins are missing from the coin safe. Perhaps these were not legible and thus were not kept. For the sake of completeness, they have been added to the database as “unknown.”
Of the 615 legible coins, I was able to date 577 coins with certainty. Of these, only one coin is older than 300 CE: a coin of Probus, dated to 276-282 CE. All other coins are from the 4thcentury, with 96.5% of the coins having aterminus postquemof the second quarter of the 4thcentury. Of the 615 coins, the emperors of 522 could be determined. 258 coins are of Constantine I (49.5%), 138 coins of Constantine II (26.5%), 93 coins of Constantius II (18%), 24 coins of Constans I (4.5%), 6 coins of Crispus (1%), and 1 coin of Licinius I (0.5%). All eastern mints are represented, with a predominance of Antioch. Only 1 coin could be attributed to Arles: a follis minted by Constantine I (322-323 CE).
Interestingly enough, 364 of the 586 coins, or 62% of the coins are of the GLORIA EXERCITVS-type. I could not find the late coins that Bijovsky identified. Unfortunately, she does not provide any coin numbers in her article, so it is difficult to determine to which coins she was referring. Hopefully, a future full publication of this deposit will solve this problem.
Coins
Other Images
Conspectus Table:
Conspectus table Beth She'arim, Deposit 1. This table can be seen in full screen by clicking the icon on the bottom right. For more details on the specific coins in each row, please hover over the numbers.
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References
Bibliography:
Website(s):
– The Bornblum Eretz Israel Synagogues Website:
http://synagogues.kinneret.ac.il/synagogues/beth-shearim/
– Bible Walks:
https://biblewalks.com/sites/BeitShearim.html
Footnotes
237 The building originally was dated to the late fifth or early sixth century by Zvi Ma’oz, based on his limited one week-long salvage excavation in August of 1982. However, after Killebrew and Ariel took a closer look at the pottery and coins from the excavations, they concluded that “The sherds and coins recovered from the construction fills at Dabiyye would indicate a terminus post quem of the early fifth century CE or later for the construction of the synagogue” (Killebrew 1991, p. 67 and Ariel 1991, p. 78).
238 Ma’oz 1991, pp. 49-50. The site had already been surveyed by Dan Urman in 1968 and 1972, during which remains of the synagogues still standing up 2-3 courses high were discovered (Urman 1995, p. 447)
239 All descriptions in this catalogue are mainly based on Spigel 2012, with additions and remarks from excavation reports published by the excavators of each site.
240 Ma’oz 1991: in Phase I, the synagogue was in use as a stable, probably beginning in the 6th century CE until 1967. Phase III was an orthogonal system of walls with unclear function pre-dating the synagogue building. It must be noted, however, that the building has only been excavated in an “explorative” manner: the entire building has yet to be excavated, and any conclusions on layout and dates must thus be tentative. In fact, it has been suggested that the building was not a synagogue at all and that no conclusions on the function(s) of the building should be made before the structural complex is excavated in its entirety (Urman 1995, p. 452).
241 Urman doubts this suggestion as he sees no evidence for this in Ma’oz’s reconstructed plans and observations (Urman 1995, p. 450). However, I believe Maoz’s interpretation is correct.
242 Urman is skeptical about this hypothesized shrine and accuses Ma’oz of inventing an imaginary wooden ark, a modification Ma’oz also made to the synagogue of ‘En Nashut which he had excavated a couple of years prior.
243 See Ariel 1991 for a published overview of 705 cleaned coins found at the site. It thus seems that the two deposits described here are not separate clusters but belonged to a “coin layer” that probably was spread out over a much larger surface under the flagstone floor of the synagogue.
244 Ma’oz 1991, p. 55. The dirt was sifted but no metal detector was used (Ahipaz 2015, p. 46).
245 Hachlili 2013, p. 544: she mentions 336 bronze coins in total, thus combining L 124 and 129 (see below) as if they are one group.
246 Ariel 1991, p. 75.
247 The IAA database also lists three coins as coming from Dabiyye, but without a locus number. It is possible that some of these three coins came from L 124 or 129, however, the order of the index cards in the system makes it more likely that they came from L108.
248 Decided after personal communication with Donald Ariel: he does not know what went wrong either, and does not remember how he came up with the exact analyses of the published coins.
249 Ma’oz 1991, p. 55.
250 Ariel 1991, p. 75.