Wednesday, March 26, 2025

More on the pyramid and scroll finds at Nahal Zohar

ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY UPDATE: Enigmatic 2,200-year-old ‘pyramid’ near Dead Sea may have been fortress for ancient taxman. Excavations by Israeli archaeologists at the mysterious Judean Desert site reveal artifacts suggesting it served as a post for tax collection and later, a Roman-era tomb (Rosella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

This article on the recently announced discoveries at the Nahal Zohar excavation covers the earlier information and also interviews excavator Dr. Eitan Klein. It has some new thoughts about what the pyramid was for:

“The heap is five or six meters high above the surface of the hill, made of huge stones,” Dr. Eitan Klein told The Times of Israel over a phone interview. “We immediately noticed that someone had dug at the top of the structure, probably looters who had identified the grave.”

“At first, we thought the site could be just a tomb, but later, we noticed the shape of the original walls, and we understood that the structure was a building,” he added. “Eventually, we identified it as a tower or fortress dating back to the Hellenistic period, or 2,200 years ago.” ...

“We know that the main road linking Edom — modern-day Jordan — to Gaza passed directly beneath our structure,” said Klein, co-director of the excavation for the IAA alongside Matan Toledano and Amir Ganor. “We believe the building served to safeguard the road and may have been used by Ptolemaic officials to collect taxes from travelers.”

And more on the scroll fragments:
Although looters reached it first, archaeologists still managed to recover a wealth of organic and inorganic findings, such as papyri fragments inscribed in Greek, wooden tools and fabrics.

While additional research is required to decipher the content of the papyri, Klein said that they might have been part of tax documents.

I don't know if that is based on already deciphered content or just on the suggested purpose of the building.

There is also more discussion of the coin finds.

Background here.

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