The 31st ArchaeoSciences Seminar.

The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB), in collaboration with the National History Museum of Romania, is pleased to announce the 31^st  ArchaeoSciences Seminar.

These seminars are an original initiative of our division that aims to provide a setting for professionals in the Archaeological Sciences field from different parts of the world to share knowledge and transmit meaningful information about the latest issues regarding the current methods and approaches used to study the past. It is also a chance for Romanian students to learn more about the various interdisciplinary aspects of archaeology.

This seminar will take place on 10 April 2023 at 11:30 am (EET), and our guest speaker is Professor Boaz Zissu from Bar-Ilan University (Israel).

He will give a lecture entitled “Stonecutters, Rebels and Devotees: Archaeological Explorations of the Teomim Cave, Israel”.

Dr. Boaz Zissu is a Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Dr. Zissu received his Ph.D, Summa Cum Laude, from the Hebrew University in 2002 (titled: “Rural Settlement in the Judaean Hills and Foothills from the Late Second Temple Period to the Bar Kokhba Revolt”). He accomplished his postdoctoral studies, through a Rothschild Fellowship, in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, at University of California at Berkeley, USA, and thereafter at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Zissu conducted archaeological excavations and surveys in Jerusalem, Ketef Jericho and the Judaean countryside. He has published six books and more than 200 articles concerning Judaea and its material culture during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods.

In the planned lecture he will present the explorations undertaken by his team since 2009 in the Teomim Cave, a large karst cave located on western edge of the Jerusalem Hills. The survey of the main chamber uncovered finds from the Neolithic (Yarmukian culture), the Chalcolithic (Ghassulian culture), the latter part of the Early Bronze I, the Intermediate Bronze Age, the Middle Bronze Age, the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic and Ottoman periods.

Over 120 intact oil-lamps and additional lamp fragments were collected from all sections of the cave, with the exception of the innermost hard to reach chambers, which contained coin-hoards and other artifacts from the Second Jewish War against the Romans "The Bar Kokhba Revolt", 132-136 CE.

Most oil-lamps were of styles prevalent from the late second to fourth centuries CE. All of these lamps had been deliberately inserted in narrow, deep crevices in the main chamber walls or beneath the rubble. Some crevices contained groups of oil-lamps mixed with fragments of human skulls as well as weapons and pottery vessels from earlier periods.

In the planned lecture the main finds uncovered in the cave will be presented and discussed.

We look forward to exciting discussions!

ArchaeoScience#RO Team