Prehistory

This image shows Tel Hazor looking west. The six-chambered gate is near the center of the image. There appear to be eight chambers, but the front square sections are remains of two tower foundations, guarding the entrance. Notice where the “casemate”…

This is an aerial image of the remains of Tel Hazor (Tell el-Qedah), an ancient city north of the Sea of Galilee, in the Hula Valley of northern Israel. At the top left of this picture, the square-like stone structures are the remains of a…

Shown here is a potter working from a shop in the southern part of the Central Hill, spinning a wheel to shape clay into a pot. Behind him, one can see finished examples before they are fired in a kiln to remove moisture, hardening the clay into…

This image shows a reconstruction of homo erectus (“upright man”). Behind homo erectus is a map of migration routes— beginning in Africa, near the origins of the Nile in Kenya and Uganda, and extending north, along the Syrian-African Rift, through…

This is the skull of homo erectus (“upright man”), the predecessor to the homo sapien. The skull is now held at the University of Michigan, Museum of Natural Sciences. Evidence for homo erectus has been found in Israel at various sites, in particular…

Writing was invented in southern Mesopotamia, in the ancient kingdom of Sumer, sometime before 3,000 BCE. Cuneiform, the type of writing seen in column 6 of this slide, was a development from earlier 'logographic' writing, in which signs stood for…

The Sumerian King List is the name given to a traditional canon of the early kings of Mesopotamia, thought by some scholars to have been composed in the time of Utu-hegal, a king of the city of Uruk who restored Sumerian independence after the…

This figurine, modeled in unbaked clay, has the form of a kneeling prisoner with his arms tied behind him at the elbows. The writing is hieratic, a script much like Egyptian hieroglyphics; the inscription contains the names of enemies. After it was…

This 6 inch-high clay figurine dates to the Late Neolithic Age (6,000-5,000 BCE), which is the same time that the earliest baked clay vessels were being made. It is the only complete one of its kind from this period, although fragments have been…

The earliest writing was not on paper, but on clay tablets. Instead of a pen, scribes used an instrument called a stylus that was triangular in cross-section. They would press the tip of the stylus into the clay to make the triangular portions of the…

This photograph shows the earliest fortification structure thus far discovered anywhere in the world. It is a circular tower that was probably built around 7,000 BCE and was connected to a massive stone wall. The position of the tower would have…

The earliest writing preserved from Israel/Palestine are in the form of cuneiform on clay tablets like this one. The cuneiform script and the languages that were written in it (like Akkadian) were developed in Mesopotamia. This tablet fragment…

This photo shows the fully preserved arched gateway at Tel Dan, which was made of mud bricks and is the first such structure found intact in Israel. In the Early Bronze Age, sun-dried mud bricks began to replace the stones that had been used for city…

These three figurines are characteristic of Late Bronze Age molded plaque figurines. All tend to be nude and standing in frontal position. They probably represented the Canaanite goddess Ashtaroth in her role as goddess of love and procreation.…

The story of Sinuhe has been preserved on numerous papyri and ostraca. This manuscript is written in an Egyptian script called hieratic, which is closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and dates to the Egyptian 12th Dynasty (ca. 1991-1785 BCE). It…

The Rosetta Stone contains an inscription written in three scripts (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek) and allowed the decipherment of hieroglyphs and Demotic. It was found by Napoleon's army in 1799 in the city of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile…

This photograph shows a simple one-room 'round house' in the Negev Desert that was built around 2,000 BCE. The pillar in the middle of the room supported the roof. It seems that they were used only for sleeping quarters: all cooking ovens and other…

These copper objects are part of one of the most famous hoards of objects ever found in the region. The hoard consisted of over 400 items that were found hidden in a cave high in a cliff overlooking Nahal Mishmar, a seasonal river bed near En Gedi,…

This 12 inch-high figurine depicts a female figure seated on a stool and holding a milk churn on her head. The milk churn is a miniature replica of ceramic churns known from this period. It was found together with several other apparently ritual…

This photograph shows a reconstruction of how the roof was probably built on a Round House. Wooden beams from the trunk of a nearby tamarisk tree were laid like spokes radiating from the central pillar to the outer wall, and broad, flat stones were…

This photograph shows some of the common pottery from the Middle Bronze I period (2,000-1,900 BCE). The basin-shaped vessel in the foreground center with the four pinched corners is an ancient lamp. Oil would be put inside and wicks would run through…

This photograph shows some common every-day pottery from the Early Bronze Age (3,300-2,000 BCE). Because archaeologists find more pottery sherds than anything else in an excavation, it is the main source of information for dating the architecture of…

A tel (sometimes spelled 'tell'), shown in this picture, is a mound holding ancient ruins. Most towns and cities in ancient times were built on the top of a hill because this location offered a defensive advantage. When all or part of a city was…

This photograph of one of the many the Early Bronze Age towers at Arad reveals defenses typical of the period. The towers, 10-12 feet in diameter and found at 65-80 foot intervals, projected out from the wall, thus exposing any attacker attempting to…

The ancient site of Yiftael, in Lower Galilee, has one of the best preserved Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age I (3150-2850) villages in Galilee. This photograph shows the foundations of the round or elliptical houses that comprised a room that was…