Every summer, for the past 25 years, a large group of students, researchers, and volunteers from Israel and abroad has been excavating at the archaeological site of Tell-es-Safi/Gath, situated between the Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh.
This summer, the team, led by Prof. Aren Maeir, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University and a professor in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, held the project’s last excavation season. Research at the site will continue in the coming years, but if further excavations are carried out, the scope will be limited.
To mark the end of the 25-year annual summer excavation, Prof. Maier and the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project team took on the “Jerusalema Challenge” – dancing to the worldwide smash hit song, “Jerusalema”, in places it had never been danced before!
“We filmed it on several occasions – and locations – during the 2021 season while the team was carrying out various dig-related activities,” Prof. Maier said. “The video includes clips shot from the ground and from the air using two different drones (utilizing regular and multi-spectral imaging).
“As you can see, it was a lot of fun – even if some of us (including me…) are not the most ‘seasoned’ of dancers,” he laughed.
Throughout the 25 years of excavation at the site, fascinating finds from different periods and cultures have been discovered, including the remains of the Philistine city of Gath, hometown of the biblical Goliath. Among the finds were temples, public structures, a city gate, residential and cultic areas, many hundreds of well-preserved artifacts, and the earliest known siege system uncovered in the world. The finds made it possible to reconstruct the history of the site from the Early Bronze Age (third millennium BCE) through the Biblical period to the present day.
According to Prof. Maeir, over the last quarter of a century, about 4,500 volunteers, students, and archaeologists from Israel and abroad took part in the excavations.
“During this time, some 15 different excavation areas – including about 100 excavation squares – were opened. We ‘moved’ many hundreds of square meters of dirt and discovered thousands of diverse finds, some of which are displayed in museums. We forged scientific collaborations with some 30 academic and scientific institutions in Israel and worldwide, and about US $8 million were allocated to the excavation project from competitive research grants from granting agencies in Israel and around the world including the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, and England,” he said.
To date, two volumes of the final report have been published, as well as some 150 articles, which have appeared on scientific and popular platforms around the world, describing the research conducted on the finds. Over the years, Prof. Maeir has appeared in dozens of television shows, documentaries, and YouTube video clips, and has talked about excavation-related subjects. His Tell-es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project Weblog has received more than 800,000 visits over the years.
Want to find out more about studying archaeology at Bar-Ilan University? The International School offers a variety of degree programs in which archaeology is one of many different courses taught in English.
The programs include undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate degrees as well as research opportunities. These include the Multidisciplinary BA in Jewish Studies, the MA in Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, the MA in Biblical Studies, and more.
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