The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (20 page)

Illus. 3.4
. The “Hellenistic”
nozzle and its alleged parallels.

(1) The “Hellenistic” nozzle (2) The Jerusalem parallel (3) The Shechem parallels

(i.
Exc
. Fig. 235:2; ii. Bagatti-Milik, Fig. 25: 2; iii. N. Lapp 1964, Pl. 1:29–31)

Bagatti did not realize that his “Hellenistic” lamp nozzle is related to a lesser-known type indigenous to the Galilee in Roman times. He needn’t have gone as far afield as Shechem and Jerusalem for parallels. In 1983 the Spanish scholar F. Fernandez published a book-length treatment of the Roman pottery of Galilee,
Ceramica Comun Romana de la Galilea
. The Spaniard reviews a considerable number of Bagatti’s finds and sometimes reaches different conclusions. Fernandez mentions
Exc
. Fig. 235:2 (the “Hellenistic” nozzle) in a footnote, and includes it in his lamp-type L1, which he calls the product of a “local pottery tradition.”
^[248]
The body of type L1 has a strikingly elevated rim around the filling hole which forms a small bowl sitting atop the lamp (readily seen in profile). The nozzle of this curious lamp ranged between two extreme forms, shown in
Illus. 5A
and
5B
. We shall see below that there were also intermediate variants in which we can locate the “Hellenistic” nozzle under discussion. The bowl on top of the lamp is an elaboration of the ridge around the filling hole, commonly seen in the bow-spouted lamp.
^[249]

        Variant A
. Bagatti discovered three examples of lamp type L1–A (=
Illus. 3.5A
) in Tomb 70 at Nazareth. He calls them “very unusual.”
^[250]
Four more examples were discovered in 1980–81 by Israeli archaeologist Nurit Feig when she excavated a number of tombs 2.6 km from the Church of the Annunciation.
^[251]
These tombs are beyond the eastern edge of the basin, on the far side of the hill called Jebel el Maskaub (summit 438 m). Lamp type L1–A was also found in Roman contexts of nearby loci in Southern Galilee, such as Tiriah (only 200 m south of the Feig tombs), Afula, and Mishamar Haemek.
^[252]
All the aforementioned examples are of variant L1–A, in which the nozzle has inwardly slanting sides and a small, rounded tip,
^[253]
similar to Bagatti’s Hellenistic parallels found in Jerusalem and Shechem (above,
Illus. 3.4:2
and
3.4:3c
). Feig perceptively notes the potential to confuse this variant with Hellenistic examples. Like Fernandez, she points out that this lamp is the product of a local tradition:

The lamps in illustration 9:10–11 and 11:2 [all of Type L1–A] have a long nozzle similar to typical Hellenistic nozzles. The raised rim, however, resembles Roman lamps like those found at
Ephesus. The base of the lamp is flat and thick, and around its opening a small bowl is moulded. The lamps were carefully made on a potter’s wheel, and their firing is intermediate. This type, of which 4 examples were found in Tomb M, was probably the product of a local pottery tradition. According to all the finds from this tomb, it is possible to assume that it dates from the middle of the first century [CE] to the middle of the second century CE.
^[254]

Because they lie outside the immediate Nazareth settlement area, the Feig tombs have not been used in this work as evidence of settlement in the basin.
^[255]
Nevertheless, those tombs cast welcome light on aspects of the archaeology of Nazareth. Lamp-type L1 is a case in point.

Illus. 3.5
.
Oil lamps of a local pottery tradition in Roman times.

(Fernandez Type L1.) A. From Nazareth, Tomb 70; B. From the Galilee boat.

(Redrawn from
Exc
. Fig 192:15; Wachsmann:98.)

Ms. Feig found a fifth lamp of related type, wheel-made like the others, in tomb B. The archaeologist compares it to a lamp found in Shimron “dated by [Paul] Lapp to the first century CE.”
^[256]

Context is certainly an important factor in cases like this, where we are dealing with an unusual lamp of limited geographic dispersion. We shall see that, in all cases, the context secures a Roman dating for the L1-type lamps found in the Nazareth basin and in the surrounding area, including those examined by Feig, Fernandez, and Bagatti.

With the above in mind, we note that Feig dates the tombs she excavated, and their associated artefacts, to Middle-Late Roman times:

From these facts and from the findings it is possible to relate the use of these tombs to a period of time between the middle of the first century (M) to the third century CE (D).
^[257]

Fernandez also affirms a Roman dating for the assemblage in which the three Nazareth examples of lamp type L1-A were found (Tomb 70, not far from the Church of the Annunciation):

The type [
ejemplar
] from Nazareth, n.1, does not betray any date, and the rest of the published material from the same [tomb] is certainly no earlier than the second third of the first century after Christ.
^[258]

Thus, Fernandez assigns Tomb 70 a
terminus post quem
of 33–67 CE. This is approximately the
terminus
Feig assigned to the nearby tombs she excavated, namely, post-50 CE. These two loci represent all the lamps of type L1 in the immediate Nazareth area, and it is evident that this “local pottery tradition” is not Hellenistic but Roman. This is clear from both context and typological parallels.

Nevertheless, Bagatti’s “Hellenistic” lamp nozzle is not similar to variant L1-A at all. It is, rather, much like Fernandez’ type L1-B. The latter lamp is slightly larger, and its nozzle has almost parallel sides, a wide and flat tip, and a large wick hole—quite like the “Hellenistic” nozzle.
^[259]
Type L1-B is less well represented than the other. What can we discover regarding its dating?

The Galilee boat

In the winter of 1986, two young men from the nearby kibbutz of Ginnosar were walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The water level was particularly low for the area had experienced several years of drought, with the result that the two could walk on land that was normally under water. They noticed the outline of a boat in the mud, and when experts examined the discovery it was determined that an ancient boat had been found dating to the turn of the era. The boat was preserved in a laborious process that took several years, and is now in the Yigal Allon Museum of Kibbutz Ginnosar.

A single intact oil lamp was found in the boat. It is of the type L1-B, and is diagrammed above in
Illus. 3.5-B
.
^[260]
We particularly note the nozzle, which is slightly longer than usual, has almost parallel sides, a flattened tip, and a large wick hole. It shares these characteristics with the “Hellenistic” nozzle of Bagatti, and furnishes a closer parallel than any furnished by the Italian. The only difference is in the underside of the nozzle. When one compares the profiles of
Illus. 3.4:1
(above) with
Illus. 3.5-B
, one notices that the former has a more pronounced curvature, with the wick hole in a more superior position. This too, however, is readily explained. The curvature of the Bagatti shard matches the underside of three examples of type L1 found in tomb 70 at Nazareth, whose form is diagrammed in
Illus. 3.5-A
, above. It is evident, then, that the Bagatti lamp nozzle is a hybrid of the two variants: the underside is modeled  with the curvature of
Illus. 3.5-A
, while the outline is in the form of
Illus. 3.5-B
. Several similar hybrid lamps were found by Feig in her tomb M nearby,
^[261]
and these represent the closest parallels to the Bagatti shard.

In 1990, Varda Sussman published a study of the Galilee boat lamp. She commented on its dating as follows:

Both the shape and the ware have a great deal in common with oil lamps and other vessels dated to the Early Roman and Herodian periods, ranging in date from the mid-first century BCE to the mid-second century CE.
^[262]

Thus, all the datings that we have assembled for this Galilean local tradition—lamp type L1—are Roman, not Hellenistic. It is all but certain that the Bagatti shard belongs among them, as seen from its form and from the presence of a number of nearby examples in and around the Nazareth basin. A chronological review of the local results for this lamp type follows:

      
Locus
                         
Artefact(s)
        
Type
                
Assemblage date

Nazareth Tomb 70               3 lamps            L1-A                
c
. 33
CE
+
^[263]

Feig, Tomb M                     4 lamps                        L1-A/B              50
CE
–150
CE
^[264]

Feig, Tomb B                      1 lamp              L1-A                 I
CE
(P. Lapp)
^[265]

Galilee boat                                    1 lamp              L1-B                 50
BCE
–150
CE
^[266]

According to these results, seven of the above nine lamps date
c
. 33 CE–
c
. 150 CE. The other two lamps are compatible with this range, and it is clear that late I CE to early II CE was the favored era for this local lamp tradition. We shall see in Chapter Four that this is also the earliest time when one can speak with certainty of the resumption of settlement in the Nazareth basin. The dating of the lamp nozzle we have been considering is entirely compatible with that time.

Bagatti’s so-called “Hellenistic” oil lamp nozzle, now identified as a shard from Fernandez’ Roman lamp type L1, is the most prominent of several small pieces of pottery that comprise the sum total of alleged Hellenistic evidence from the Nazareth basin.
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This lamp nozzle alone is responsible for multiple mentions of the word “Hellenistic” in
Excavations in Nazareth
.
^[268]
When we remove it from consideration, as we can now do, then the case for Nazareth in Hellenistic times is weakened beyond repair, for the remaining shards are more easily dismissed.
^[269]

The Church of St. Joseph material

In August, 1970, Bagatti excavated a 6×15 meter area next to the Church of St. Joseph. The express purpose of this excavation was to verify the existence of traces of settlement at the turn of the era—more particularly, traces of the house of the Holy Family itself. As Bagatti writes in the following passage, such traces had evaded prior attempts:

Scavando la chiesa medievale, per ricostruirla col titolo di S. Giuseppe a Nazaret, nel 1892 i francescani si limitarono a ricavare la pianta dei muri senza preoccuparsi dei piccoli oggetti. In questo modo restarono visibili dei resti: a) crociati con alcuni ricorsi della chiesa; b) bizantini con porzioni di pavimento musivo, una vasca quadrata ed una cisterna a pera; precristiani con grotte e sili riuniti con corridoi. Mancava, proprio, la testimonianza archeologica del periodo principale, del I secolo, a cui la tradizione raccolta dal P. Quaresmi nel 1620 e ripristinata dal P. Viaud, voleva far risalire l’abitzione della S. Famiglia.