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The history of excavations in Ramat Rahel:
Ramat Rahel is
the name of a Kibbutz, founded in 1926. It was known that there were ruins of
ancient buildings on the grounds of the Kibbutz, but it was unknown what exactly
was to be found.
In the year
1931 an installation of rock-tombs has been excavated on the western hillside
below the tell. A survey has also been done at this early stage. The main
findings were iron age ceramics (Iron Age II), several finds with lmlk-stamps
and also persian and roman ceramics (published by Maisler and Shtekelis 1935;
Aharoni 1956).
Scientifically the site has been
excavated for the first time in 1954, as, in the course of the building of a
water reservoir, an emergency excavation was arranged.
This was followed by four
successive seasons of excavating from 1959 to 1962 directed by the Israelite
archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and in
cooperation with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Rome,
directed by G. Garbini (several publications).
In 1984 Gabriel Barkay
organized a small excavation (nothing has been published yet).
Minor exploratory
excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority followed for inventory reasons and
to conserve the site.
In 2005 a new and
systematic excavation campaign, directed by the Israelite archeologist Oded
Lipschits (Tel Aviv University) and the German Professor for Old Testament studies
Manfred Oeming (Heidelberg University) marked the beginning of a five seasons
long excavation campaign. |
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