A new research initiative at the University of Oldenburg in Germany focuses on the early origins of the Israelites. Hebrew Bible scholar and archaeologist Professor Dr. The team, led by Benedict Hensel, will spend three years investigating the abandonment and subsequent resettlement of one of the largest Bronze Age “megacities” in the Eastern Mediterranean and how narratives of these events were affected. Formation of early Israeli identity

Within the scope of the Lost Project, the Gerda Henkel Foundation is providing funding of approximately EUR 400,000 to the project titled Relocation of Ruins and Memories Under Construction – A Case Study on Hatzor and the Formation of Early Israeli Identity in the Iron Age. Program “Cities”. The international research team based in Oldenburg will work closely with scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Regensburg in Israel.

The ruins of the ancient city of Hazor are located in northern Israel, north of the Sea of ​​Galilee. According to archaeological findings, this region was first settled in the Early Bronze Age, approximately 5,000 years ago. By the Middle and Late Bronze Age, Hatzor’s population had reached between 10,000 and 15,000 due to its strategic location at the crossroads of various trade routes, making it the largest city in the entire region. Various sources from this period, including letters and clay tablets from Syrian and Egyptian cities with which Hatzor rulers traded, confirm Hatzor’s central role as a trading center and cultural melting pot for the entire Near Eastern region.

At the end of the Bronze Age, B.C. Around 1300, Hatzor was destroyed and temporarily abandoned for unknown reasons. In the following Iron Age, resettlement in this region occurred, albeit on a much smaller scale. “We don’t know exactly which culture the Hatzor people belong to,” says Hansel. In addition to archaeological findings, biblical texts have also been an important source of information about Hatzor. For example, the Old Testament book of Joshua describes how the Israelites conquered Hazor, which was then inhabited by the Canaanites. However, the historicity of these passages causes controversy among researchers, as the texts date to a much later period. “They’re probably not directly linked to the Hatzor migration,” says Hensel, an expert on biblical archaeology.

An interdisciplinary research team is now examining the resettlement period in more detail. Researchers in the fields of archaeology, social and cultural history, anthropology and Jewish biblical studies plan to use the findings to create a comprehensive overview of the cultural and ethnic transformations that occurred in the region between the Euphrates and the Sinai Peninsula known as the Levant. About how the identity of the early Israelites developed during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and during these upheavals.

Why did new settlers avoid certain parts of the abandoned city?

One of the key tasks of the project is to study the relocation of Bronze Age ruins during the Iron Age. The researchers aim to learn more about how the new settlers viewed and dealt with the ruins of demolished buildings in the area, and to gain insight into their cultural and ethnic identities. “The new settlers appear to have deliberately avoided certain places in the city, such as the old temple site in the upper city, which was actually an ideal place to settle,” Hansel explains. The team plans to conduct further excavations to find other sites with a similar history within the city complex.

The second goal of the project is to reconstruct the stories about Hazor and the Canaanites literary-historically and culturally-historically within the framework of the Biblical tradition and to investigate how these stories relate to the biblical imagination of Israel. an early tribal culture. “In the Biblical stories, Hazor is depicted as the capital of the Canaanites. This image is largely artificial, but it persisted throughout the centuries during which the Biblical texts were composed, long after the settlement was abandoned,” explains Hensel. “Hatzor serves as an image to the Israelites and shapes the identity of biblical Israel through literary means,” he notes. The project team is exploring potential historical reference points for these processes of identity formation.

Large-scale archaeological excavations have been carried out in Hazor since the 1990s. These are Professor Hansel and Dr. John of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who are also involved in the current project. It is directed by Igor Kreimermann. Last year, Oldenburg students took part in the Hazor excavation project for the first time. Funds from the project will allow volunteers in Oldenburg to continue participating in archaeological work.