The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (21 page)

È vero che lo studio-storico-teologico del P. Testa mostrava l’ambiente come un luogo abitato dai giudeo-cristiani, e quindi dava appoggio alla tradizione mantenuta nell’ambiente familiare, però la prova archeologica mancava. Per costatare la permanenza della vita sul posto è stato intrapreso lo scavo nella zona adiacente alla chiesa stessa, sul lato di nord. Esso è stato tenuto nel mese di Agosto del 1970, previo permesso del Dipartimento delle Antichità di Israele.
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Thus begins Bagatti’s article, “Scavo Presso la Chiesa di S. Giuseppe a Nazaret.” We shall put aside the Bagatti-Testa claim “that the area was settled by Jewish-Christians,” a thesis convincingly rebutted by Joan Taylor in her book,
Christians and the Holy Places
. On the other hand, we shall concentrate on the archaeological evidence Bagatti brings forward in this excavation, namely, one hundred small pottery shards. They date to many periods, including the Iron and the Byzantine, and most are no larger than 3–4 inches at their maximum extent (no scale is provided).

It is important to note that this was a
re-excavation
by Bagatti of a site first dug in 1892. As a result, the area was greatly disturbed and
no
stratigraphy was either possible or attempted.
A further compromising aspect is that the small finds came from a pile of material evidently discarded by the first diggers. Older finds were sometimes above more recent ones, and the archaeologist states that some of the objects described may not even have come from the area in which they were found. Bagatti writes (p. 6):

It was out of the question to find intact [stratigraphic] levels with characteristic objects since the zone [of the excavations], at least in part, was disturbed [
manomessa
]… [I]t was not possible to discern distinct levels, but only an accumulation of material coming
in great part
from the area of the church itself. For this reason, sometimes older remains were found in higher positions than more recent ones.         (Emphasis added.)

Given these untoward circumstances, it is indeed hazardous to attempt any conclusions based on the finds from this excavation. Bagatti claims that three of the recovered shards are Hellenistic. We will contest that claim below, but here it can be noted that their presence in the assemblage would be exceptional, for the remaining ninety-seven shards are Iron Age, Middle-Late Roman, Byzantine, and Medieval. Furthermore, the three fragments in question are “mutilated” and far too small to provide a reliable reconstruction of complete artefacts, even for an experienced eye. Their form must remain entirely conjectural—the three shards may be parts of pots, jars, craters, or other vessels, with or without spouts,
etc
. Nevertheless, Bagatti claims both a reconstruction and a Hellenistic dating for two (or possibly all three) of the shards.

Other problems attend Bagatti’s presentation. The photos accompanying the text are poor, and shadow obscures the greater portion of the visible surfaces of the objects portrayed. This renders it impossible for the reader to obtain a clear idea of the artefacts. An additional, but less grievous impediment is that the description, drawing, and photograph numbers do not correspond with one another. For example, photo 13:1 = drawing 17:15. When applied to one hundred objects, one can appreciate the unwieldiness of this Byzantine presentation. Regarding the three “Hellenistic” shards, Bagatti writes:

Del periodo ellenistico si notano le pentole col labro rientrante nell’interno (fig. 13, 2–3). Dell’ultimo ellenistico o romano è la base verniciata (fig. 13,1) sfortunatamente molto mutila
.
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We will ignore the “greatly mutilated” shard, itself sufficient reason to disqualify it as evidence for any period. In addition, Bagatti admits that it could be Roman. As regards the other two pieces, it is well known that vessels with incurved rims—though common in Hellenistic ware
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—were not unique to that period. This too disqualifies these pieces as demonstrably Hellenistic evidence. Incidentally, it is surprising that the archaeologist’s descriptions do not match the diagrams, for the drawings of the two objects in question do not show a “rim turned inwards.”

Most decisive, however, is the fact that the diagrams provided for the two artefacts show the upper portions of characteristic
Roman
cooking pots, with small handles set close to the rim and thin walls that facilitated the rapid transmission of heat. The photo corresponding to one shard (
Scavo
13:2 = 17:1) also shows the “sliced” handle typical of such Roman ware. Hayes dates the appearance of this type to
c.
100 CE.
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Ancillary problems, touched on above, make it difficult to use any of the hundred shards from this excavation as evidence for any period:

1. The area of the excavation was disturbed

2. The shards may have come from outside the area

3. No stratigraphy was determined

4. The recovered pieces are often too small to establish the form, type, and dating for the artefacts from which they came

In addition, we have mentioned that the diagrams of the objects at critical points do not match the descriptions. Finally, Bagatti provides no typological parallels. These are all reasons enough to disqualify these small pieces as “Hellenistic” evidence. Over-riding all these considerations, however, is the fact that there is nothing demonstrably Hellenistic about the shards. Bagatti seems to realize this, for in a
Communication
regarding this excavation (published in the
Revue Biblique
later that year), he surprisingly omits mention of the Hellenistic age and includes only the Iron, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader eras in his results:

   
On trouva d’abord un niveau moderne; puis commencèrent à apparaître des tessons de l’époque du fer, certains autres des époques romaine et byzantine, enfin ceux d’époque croisée immédiatement sur le rocher. On obtint ainsi une stratification inversée, ce qui montrait clairement que le remplissage provenait bien de l’église
.
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Even though the word “Hellenistic” is not present in the above passage, it had again entered the primary literature of Nazareth through the main article, to which the
Communication
is but a footnote, as it were. We indeed read of Hellenistic finds in Bagatti’s subsequent references to the St. Joseph site. Thus, the
Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land
(1977): “Potsherds from the Israelite,
Hellenistic
, Roman, and Byzantine periods and the Middle Ages were also found” (emphasis added).
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An identical assertion is made in the Italian’s 1993 NEAEHL article, “Nazareth.”
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In a passage we have already considered, Finegan goes a step farther and uses Bagatti’s indeterminate results to support the doctrine of continuous habitation:

In 1970 Bellarmino Bagatti excavated along the north wall of the Crusader church and in some of the grottoes under the wall. When the medieval church was excavated in 1892 much debris was piled here, and in the piles of debris Bagatti found in inverse order (as thrown out in the excavations) pottery fragments
from the Iron Age to the Roman
, Byzantine, and Crusader periods; and in the grottoes likewise he found Roman as well as Crusader pottery,
thus the site was certainly inhabited in the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. as well as earlier and later
. (Finegan 1992:57; emphasis added.)

Compounding error upon error, Finegan’s statement has moved levels of magnitude beyond the slim evidence, which is now used as witness of settlement “from the Iron Age to the Roman,” and as proof of habitation at and around the turn of the era. It is stunning when we recall that all these claims go back to none other than the three so-called “Hellenistic” shards discussed above. We have seen that these artefacts are by all appearances Middle to Late Roman. Even if we put aside the other compromising elements of this excavation as listed above, there is nothing recovered which demonstrates eras “from the Iron Age to the Roman.”

In summary, let us review the interesting history of this small excavation site next to the Church of St. Joseph:

• In 1892, the Franciscans excavated the area. They were primarily interested in structural remains (pre-medieval wall foundations and pavements) and, indeed, were ultimately focused on discovering evidence from the time of Christ. Despite that pre-scientific age in archaeology, these early diggers surprisingly ignored the small artefacts and simply piled them to one side.

• In 1970 Bagatti re-excavated this pile of small finds and itemized precisely one hundred of them. He noted that no stratigraphy was possible because the site had been disturbed by his predecessors, and that in the pile of debris older finds were
sometimes
above more recent ones (later, Bagatti claimed to detect an “inverse” order in the pile). Among these hundred artefacts the Italian claimed that three were Hellenistic—this is the key point. However, there is nothing demonstrably Hellenistic about these shards at all, and all three appear, in fact, to be Roman.

• From the non-evidence presented by the three questionable shards, Bagatti claimed evidence from the Hellenistic Age, the Roman Period, and—by inference—the time of Christ. He noises this claim in his 1971 publication and in several dictionary articles. The archaeologist also (arbitrarily, I would suggest) associates the shard-pile with the adjacent Church of St. Joseph. All this is transparently directed at one goal: to use the St. Joseph excavation as evidence for habitation at the turn of the era and, indeed, for evidence of one particular habitation: that of the Holy Family. This linking of the St. Joseph excavation with the nearby Church and with the “Roman Period” (read:
the turn of the era
) occurred to the archaeologist after publication of his 1970 article, and appears in his
Communication
of 1971. Ultimately, however, the fact that no Hellenistic and
Early
Roman evidence exists in the shard-pile invalidates all of Bagatti’s conclusions.

• In 1992 Finegan  (cited above) overtly stated what Bagatti had merely implied, namely, that pottery fragments from the shard-pile dated “from the Iron Age to the Roman [Period].” Thus, once again the Great Hiatus in settlement is obliterated, as later Roman evidence appears Hellenistic and also from the time of Christ. Finally, Finegan cannot refrain from stating in black and white what Christian archaeologists from the beginning have wished to state: that “the site was certainly inhabited in the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. as well as earlier and later.” This over-the-top statement is of course erroneous, for it is still based on the same three
later Roman
shards.

The reader should keep in mind that two- and three-inch fragments of pottery vessels are a precarious basis indeed for fixing the type and date of an artefact. Bagatti’s resorting to such small fragments time and again is hardly salutary either for his method or for his conclusions. In the best of circumstances and with larger shards, the possibility for confusion is still significant, even by professionals.

If we honor Bagatti’s diagrams, then these shards are parts of Roman cooking pots (see above). Because there is a non-correspondence between the diagrams and the descriptions, however, we are in an impossible position. If one were to honor the descriptions alone, then I would suggest that the two St. Joseph fragments belong to the Iron Age. “Two rims were at first considered Hellenistic counterparts of the Iron II holemouth jar rim,” writes Paul Lapp. “… Actually, they are from craters and have Iron II parallels. Their ware is definitely Iron II and not Hellenistic…”
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Such reevaluations to the Iron Age are not rare, and Bagatti already assigns no less than twenty-eight shards from the St. Joseph excavation to the earlier epoch. Four of those Iron Age fragments have “rims with ridges”
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as, arguably, the brief description implies (“
col
labro rientrante nell’interno
”).

Regardless of how we treat Bagatti’s contradictory presentation, the shards in question are probably Roman, possibly Iron, and certainly not Hellenistic.

A few more revealing observations can be made regarding this small excavation site. First of all, we wonder at the very existence of the shard-pile. Does it not betray a categorically unscientific attitude, even for 1892? After all, why were these pieces not placed carefully in a museum, or in some place for safekeeping? Why were they simply discarded to the side? It is as if the Franciscans, intent upon finding structural remains from Roman times, despoiled the remainder. This reminds one less of priests venerating a holy site as of Egyptian tomb robbers hunting for gold, smashing up masks and funerary objects and simply strewing them to the side.