Transcription
[Music] the site of bethlehem is located about 17 miles a southwest of jerusalem. in the ancient period, one of the main roads that led from a gaza from the mediterranean to jerusalem through autopolis, but government today passed just below the site, which makes the site and located in very, very central place in the judean hills.
there's many significance in this site. it goes back all the way to uh the whole political period. we found here access from the fourth millennium bce. and then we found up in the hill on what we call the biblical tale, we found pottery from bronze age 2 and mainly from i1h2. it goes together probably with the two burial caves that was found over here in 1960 and known as the jerusalem cave. it's one of the most important burial caves ever found in israel.
and why is that? in one of the burial caves, professor nave from the hebrew university, who was the archaeologist to dug it in the 60s, found in one of the worlds ancient hebrew inscription, the first one to mention the name of god and the city of jerusalem. this inscription is on special exhibit now in the epigraphic section of the the israeli museum in jerusalem.
we're here trying to uncover truth and we think that we have found the story of bet leahy. it begins many, many years ago with a oral tradition that the bedouin arabs had. we did not name this place bet leahy, by the way. english leahy is lehigh, l-e-h-i. we didn't name it lehi. bette means house of or ruins of. this is the house of lehi. and i met a sheik. we were taken over to a sheik's home and he recounted the story, oral tradition of many years before muhammad, that there was a prophet by the name of lehi who judged the people of judah and ishmael. and it became known to them as the house of lehi or lehi. and so we have found writings. we have found the writings of what we believe is from a prophet here. it is now in the jerusalem museum and you can go there and see it. it speaks in the name of jehovah, talks about the redemption of jerusalem, and it has been dated between six and 700 bc.
i asked the bedouin sheik one time what happened to lehi. and he said, i don't know. nobody knows. he and his family just vanished. we have no record of him. he just vanished. and so we're trying to find out who this lehigh or this prophet who wrote this particular sayings inscriptions in these rocks. and as we've gone ahead and tried to found it, we have found a complete complex, a huge village with enough infrastructure to support 30,000 people. now jerusalem had anywhere from 25 to its high day of maybe 50. so this was a very significant or could have been a very significant settlement. and yet we have no name for it before 500 a.d.
when we started excavations in 2005, wasn't sure where to to start excavations. with the help of 50 students from utah, we found a shaft carved in the rock declared into a subterranean tunnel and it was full of dirt and walks and i couldn't go inside. so i sent my son who was 10 years old then and he went down and found this tunnel and called into the tunnel and described me what he saw. and he reached into a chamber who led to another three rooms. then he told me, look dad, there's a hole in the ground in the floor. do you want me to go down? i said, no, no, don't go down. i don't know if you'll be able to go back. and he came back. and after two days, i went down and we found one of the best examples of hellenistic olive press, well preserved with all the installations inside waiting to be excavated.
[Music] between two walks, we saw a small hole and we started to clean it and to make it bigger and found the entrance to this vault. we went inside and there's a subterranean complex inside, one of many. then we saw the triangular niches and immediately understood that we found a big columbarium. we didn't know how big, but apparently it's the biggest in israel. we started to call inside and after 30 feet, we arrived over here. but you have to remember again, everything was covered with dirt. and we continue to call inside until we arrived to the large columbarium.
[Music] the colombian world made in the hedonistic period in the third century bce and used as a columbarium. there we have something like 1100 triangular niches in the walls, which means they were in high capacity, 2200 pigeons over here. that's a lot.
[Music] we know for sure that this site was abandoned completely in the 14th century. we don't know why yet. we know that the mamluks, who were muslims, built their dwelling. they built their houses on top of a byzantine village that probably connects to the church with the beautiful mosaic flow over there. and this whole area is a mosaic floor. you'll see that it was divided into three areas. columns here and most of the original columns are still here. we'd like to reconstruct it. the middle room and then off to the side were side rooms. you see a man here with his hand raised high, maybe to the square. this is one of the few faces that remains. the people that donated the money to build this, these are their names in greek. so that's how people can date it. you get some idea what it looks like.
[Music] about an hour after they started their survey, one of the students came to me and told me that they found a cistern with a fig tree going for minute and that there is inscription on the wall. so i ran over there and there was a huge inscription. then i remember that dr. glenn kimber told me about his system that they knew from many years ago with the greek inscription, but he didn't remember where it is anymore. so i was glad to find it again. and it's very, very important inscription in ancient greek, starting with the course and says, jesus ode, jesus is here. above the inscriptions, there's a depiction of a boat with the men standing and holy sail in the front, probably jesus in the sea of galilee. and below the inscription, what we called constantine cross with he and wall for christ.
we have found a large christian village. we have found a muslim village. we have found a jewish village. this village is sacred to all three peoples. and there is something special about this place. and it may take years. it takes a lot of money. it takes a lot of time because we're going through all things that we need to do to make this a proper archaeology site. it is under the auspices of hebrew university, who is intimately involved. they get all of the artifacts we find. they categorize them, wash them. we also work under the auspices of the iaa, israeli antiquity authority, and they come out here quite often and are very happy. we have so far rewritten the maps of jerusalem. israel had no idea that there was a settlement of jews this far south.
[Music] there is also a belief under the archaeology community here that this is the home of lehigh, where samson slew the thousand philistines, which may be a reason why it it also got its name lehigh, which means jawbone. we know that samson killed a thousand philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. not far from here, perhaps 400 yards, is a well that many arabs and jews and antiquity authorities believe is the spring that sprung up and gave samson water to quench his thirst. this is all tradition. what we want to find out is if there is any truth or we can find any scientific proof that any of those things existed.
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