For a place few people have heard of, the town at Tel Malhata in the northeastern Negev Desert had a long and distinguished history. Now it is also home to one of the stranger finds in the annals of Israeli archaeology: wooden pendants of what are clearly African-style heads, carved from southeast Asian blackwood, found in early Christian graves.This story is getting a lot of media attention. This article notes the underlying article just published in the open-access journal ʻAtiqot:"It is a very special find," agrees Dr. Noé D. Michael of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Cologne in Germany, who handled the inspection and assisted at the excavation next to the Nevatim air base in the Negev, which is really where this story begins.
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Michael, Noé D.; Talis, Svetlana; Nagar, Yossi; and Aladjem, Emil (2025) "Bone and Ebony Figurines from Christian Burials in the Roman–Byzantine Necropolis of Tel Malḥata," 'Atiqot: Vol. 117, Article 12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.70967/2948-040X.2260. Abstract:A large cemetery dating to the Roman–Byzantine period was exposed south of Tel Malḥata, in the northeastern Negev Desert. Most of the burials were cist graves, comprising an individual buried according to Christian burial traditions. It is noteworthy that woman and children constitute the majority of the burials with grave goods. Three excavated cist tombs, of two women and a child, are discussed below in light of their rare burial goods, which included bone and ebony figurines, the latter possibly pointing to an “Ethiopian” origin of the interred.
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