Chapter 3 Tel Kinrot: the Site
3.3 The Research History of Kinneret
The earliest known mention of Kinneret in ancient sources is together with other major cities of the region like Hazor and Laish, in the list of Palestinian cities subjugated by Thutmosis III (1479–1426 BCE.) The list is inscribed in the Temple of Karnak in Upper Egypt (Simons 1937:
111, 116, line 34). A slightly later mention is in Papyrus fragment Petersburg 1116A*, which lists envoys from Kinneret among Canaanite honoraries. The papyrus is from the time of Thut-mosis III or Amenophis II (1426–1400 BCE) (Epstein 1953). These mentions, as well as a frag-ment of an Egyptian stela found on the surface at Tel Kinrot, date to the 18th Egyptian dynasty.
The stela describes the triumph of a pharaoh over the Mitanni, a Mesopotamian kingdom from the period 1600 to 1330 BCE (Albright & Rowe 1928). The linguistics and content imply that the pharaoh should be identified as Thutmosis III. The excavations have uncovered many ceramic items from the MBII-LBI periods in later contexts. This time would tally with the reign of Thutmosis III. It seems that the ancient name of the site was Kinneret already long before it was mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Pakkala et al. 2004: 10). In the sources that date to the Late Bronze Age, such as the Amarna letters and the texts of Ugarit, the place name Kinneret does not appear (Fritz 1990: 176–178).
Fig.3.6 Cows grazing on the western side of road 90. Photo to the west, by TT.
Biblical Sources
The proper noun Kinneret is mentioned seven times in the Hebrew Bible, with slightly different vocalizations (= : ^ V;= :Û ^ V). The readings in the Septuagint have phonetic alterations (¼½É¸¿
in 1.Kings 15:20;¼Å¸É¸in Num 34:11;¼Å¼ÉÑ¿in Josh. 11:2, 12:3 and 39:35). In two of these cases the name is denoting a city or a political entity (Jos 11:2 and 19:35). More often, it refers to the Sea of Galilee (Num 34:11, Jos 12:3 and 13:27) and/or to the surroundings of the city and the lake (Dt 3:17 and I Kings 15:20). The reference in Jos 11:2 is somewhat unclear, as there are different kinds of political entities, kings, cities, and areas in the same context. Kinrot may therefore refer to a region or a city. From all the biblical passages it is clear, however, that Kinneret is a place (city, region, or lake) situated in the northern part of the Jordan Valley.
The list of fortified towns allotted to the tribe of Naphtali in Jos 19:32–39 is the most interest-ing of the biblical references, wherein Kinneret appears in a list of places in the region:
ª- =% a f / + ' x + k 6 1 ' 1 + ' r i i ! + :LE ! x 8 ' ' v+ k 6 1 ' 1 + 32
32 The sixth lot came to the sons of Naphtali and their clans. 33 Their border goes from Helef, the oak in Za’annim, Adami-Nekeb, Jabniel and until Laqqūm and it ended at Jordan. 34 And the border takes a turn to the west to Aznoth-Tabor and it goes from there to Huqqoq and reaches (the border of) Zebulun on the South and Asher on the West and Judah on the Jordan, towards the East. 35 The fortified cities are: Ziddim, Zer (LXX: Tyre), Hammat, Raqqat and Kinneret, 36 Adama, Rama, Hazor, 37 Qedesh, Edrei and Ein-Hazor, 38 Jir‛ōn, Migdal-El, Horem, Bet-Anath, Bet-Shemesh: nineteen cities with their villages.
39 This is/was the inheritance of the tribe of Naphtali and their clans, the cities and their villages.
The concluding passages in verses 38–39 state that there were 19 towns altogether, with their villages. The list of fortified cities mentions 16 cities, and the places mentioned before the list include six or seven names, some of which may be other known place-markers than towns.
When translating the geographical lists it is sometimes hard to know if a word is more likely to be a description or a proper name. The readings of the Greek translation of the Septuagint include ten names, as the noun for oak (eljōn) has been read as a proper place name, and it is transliterated, not translated. According to the places that have been identified, it seems that these places on the Western side of Jordan are listed from south to north.
I Kings 15.20 includes Kinneret in the list of cities and areas that were taken from the Israelites by the Aramean king of Damascus, Ben Hadad. Here Kinneret appears after three cities (Ijon, Dan, and Abel-Bet Macah) and refers to a larger area: all (the land) of Kinneret (kål-kinnĕrôt), before summarizing the conquest of Ben Hadad as encompassing all the land of the Naphtali
' + k 6 1 7 : ¡+ V + x 4 =L v: 1 V¡+ V {= # ! r ) 4 /¡=' C + = x # 0 vG¡= # 0L Q 4¡= {T Q #
( ).
All the Biblical mentions of Kinneret as a political entity would refer to the habitation of Iron Age II, still remembered generations after, or perhaps based on some earlier sources. The geographic descriptions that include Kinneret are now a part of Deuteronomistic history-writ-ings, an extensive and lengthily processed collection of writings that theologically interpreted the rise and fall of the Israelite and Judahite Kingdoms. The work includes layers of different age and theological emphasis. The geographical lists in Joshua 13–19 are usually thought to be based on earlier sources that had their originalSitz im Leben in the administration of the monarchies of Israel and Judah in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, and in the case of Judah also in the 7th century (Noth 1953: 8, 13–15; Fritz 1994: 196; Römer 2005: 82; Knauf 2008: 167;
Wazana 2013). The lists might also relate to the Assyrian administration during the 8th century BC (Fritz 1996: 36). The earliest parts of the Deuteronomistic history writings are dated to the sixth century BCE (Smend 1978: 111–115; Römer 2005: 67), and the present forms in Greek and Hebrew are considerably later (Römer 2005: 165–169).
The geographical lists of the Hebrew Bible have often been interpreted as administrative lists.
This seems to include an idea of a non-theological, and thus more purely historical, nature.
Sometimes even a pre-monarchic kernel is suggested (Hess 1994: 191–195, 205). This is in contrast with the critical eye shed upon the conquest stories that have been recognized as theological and ideological writings rather than factual reports (Hoffmeier 1994: 165–166;
Wazana 2013). The political interest in the lists was first suggested in 1982 by Nadav Na’aman, who dated them to the monarchy of King David (Hess 1994: 196). Their dependence on and cohesion with the conquest stories in Joshua 1–12 just preceding them was suggested by Moshe Weinfeld in 1986/1988. The lists have a nationalized goal, as do the conquest stories (Weinfeld 1988: 32; 1986: 283). Finkelstein and Silberman have suggested that a kernel of the Deuteronomistic writings, including the geographic lists, would have been written in the King-dom of Judah after the collapse of the KingKing-dom of Israel in 723 BCE. The kernel would reflect the pan-Israelite expansive hopes of the Judahite king Josiah’s politics (Finkelstein & Silberman 2001). The Deuteronomistic writers might also have created idealized lists in order to highlight the grandeur of the land that was given by YHWH to the people of Israel.
The name Kinneret does not appear in the later sources. In the 1 Maccabees, written around 100 BCE, the Sea of Galilee is called the water of Gennesar (11:67), and in the New Testament the rendering for the lake as the Sea of Gennesaret is another form of this name. The Arabic name of the mound in the 19th century was Tell Ḥanāzir (the mound of pigs), which may be related to the Greek name after an Arabic pronunciation (Hübner 1986: 256–258). The mod-ern nameTell el-ʿOrēme (mound of ruins) avoids mention of the pigs, as they are unclean an-imals in both Muslim and Jewish traditions. The map of the Survey of Western Palestine al-ready uses the name Khirbet el-Oreimeh (Sheet IV, surveyed in 1878). In modern Israel the lake as well as the mound bear the name Kinrot.
Identification
Internationally known early identifications ofTell elʿOrēme with ancient Kinneret were made by the German Gustav Dalman in 1919 (Dalman 1921: 118–120), and by the American William
Foxwell Albright in 1923, apparently independently of each other (Albright 1923: 36–37). The first scholar to identify the mound with the Kinneret mentioned in the Hebrew Bible was the German scholar Paul Karge, who was also the first to conduct archaeological activities at the site. The Finnish professor of the Old Testament Arthur Hjelt mentions in his travelogue from 1911 that professor Karge showed his visitors the excavations he had carried out atel-Ureima, and the finds that had been recovered. On the same occasion, he connected the site with the biblical Kinneret. The identification was published only in Finnish, in Hjelt’s travelogue (Hjelt 1917: 95–96), but Dalman also refers to Karge (1921: 120). This identification has been ac-cepted by scholars. TellelʿOrēme is the only site in the geographical location given in the bib-lical passages that was also inhabited in both the Middle Bronze Age and in Iron Age II (Pakkala et al. 2006: 323–324; Fritz 1990: 2–3).
Small scale excavations
Tell elʿOrēme has been explored by several small-scale excavations. The first to conduct exca-vations at the site was Paul Karge in 1911 (published 1917). Silex artefacts were found during the first trial probes below the surface by Karge (Mader 1932: 299). In the 1930’s there were several campaigns carried out by German scholars: Mader & Schneider in 1931–32 (published by Mader & Köppel 1932), and Bea in 1939 (published by Bea 1939 and Darsow 1940). After the World Wars there was a lengthy gap in investigations. In 1964 a water pumping station was built on the southeastern part of the mound, and rescue excavations were conducted at the site when disturbed archaeological remains were noticed by the field inspectors (Edelstein 1964). In the ensuing survey and excavation an aqueduct was found, which most likely dates to the Umayyad period. Three burials were also revealed, two of which were investigated and one was seen in section and left untouched. The deceased were placed in one or two pithoi each, and there were vessels typical for the Early Iron Age included in the pithoi along with the interred (Edelstein & Wolf, forthcoming.) Fragments of large pithoi, an intact flask, and small amount of bone material found during the construction work for the German Pilgrims’
House at Tabgha indicate that there were further burials at the outskirts of the settlement (Stepanski 1999).
Large scale investigation at the site was begun by Dr. Professor Volkmar Fritz (1938–2007), who led a trial excavation on the upper hill in 1978 (Fritz 1978). The results were promising, and a project of large excavations took place in 1982–1985 (see below). The results were pub-lished in two preliminary reports (Fritz 1978; 1986), and the final report was pubpub-lished promptly (Fritz 1990). The excavations were located on the upper mound, and focused on the Iron Age II remains. At a few places structures of the Early Iron Age were fragmentarily ex-posed (Fritz 1990: 25–27). Shan Winn and Jak Yakar directed an excavation project from Tel Aviv University on the eastern slope in 1982. The excavations revealed finds and structures of the Early Bronze Age (Winn & Yakar 1984). During the 1990’s there were several surveying and inspecting operations (including 35 short trial trenches) carried out by the Israel Antiqui-ties Authority in the wake of construction activiAntiqui-ties for the Pilgrims’ Guest House at the foot of the northeastern slope of the tell (Stepansky 1999).