archaeology

This comes from the Jewish Heritage E-Report (June 27, 2008)
World News about Jewish Art, Architecture & Historic sites from the International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM)
Edited by Samuel D. Gruber / Contact and send news items to
samuelgruber_at_gmail.com

Jamaica: Documentation of 18th Jewish Cemetery at Hunt's Bay
(Ainsley Henriques, Rachel Frankel, Anne Hersh and Samuel Gruber contributed to this article)

In January (2008), Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions (CVE) sponsored a successful project to inventory and document existing conditions of the historic Hunt's Bay Jewish Cemetery, the oldest known Jewish cemetery in Jamaica. ISJM provided logistical support and funds to purchase equipment necessary for the survey. The cemetery was the burial place for Jews, many fleeing the Inquisition and anti-Semitism in Europe. They came to Port Royal, the 17th century entré port, a desolate sandy spit at the end of what is now known as the Palisadoes peninsula enclosing Kingston Harbor. They found freedom to worship with few restrictions (but higher taxes).

I have been reading two books that deal with pre-Columbian America: 1421 by Gavin Menzies and 1491 by Charles Mann. Both present controvesial but interesting theories of what happened before Columbus in the Americas. I find my self only partly convinced by each book and, in fact, think that the two theories wind up, in their extreme forms, to be mutually exclusive.

My mother was an Anthropologist and as a kid we often went to museums of all sorts. I was exposed to pre-Columbian art and archaeology, but never found it as compelling as European and Asian art and archaeology. Looking back, I felt little connection with pre-Columbian cultures. I had more connection to modern Native American culture than ancient, as if in some ways I bought the olf fallicy that Native Americans didn't really have a history of their own. I think I first awakened to the pre-Columbian cultures in graduate school when I was lucky enough to see the Treasures of Sipan exhibit at UCLA (the only US museum that got to display the exhibit...it is permanently housed in Peru). This was billed as being as spectacular as the Treasures of King Tut which I had seen and was amazed by as a kid. I scoffed at that, but still went to see it. It was just as spectacular as any ancient art and I was blown away. The Treasures of Sipan showed artifacts from a nearly untouched tomb from the Moche culture in South America. It made me appreciate just what the ancient Andean cultures were really like and was the first time I felt an affinity with a pre-Columbian culture.

Every year at Passover I write a diary focused on the origins of Jews. This year I have one new insight into the origins of Judaism, and it comes from a direction that isn't quite what I was expecting, and it both goes along with and maybe modifies what is in the bible. So if you have read this before, keep with it, because I caught on to one of the earliest signs of something new in "Israel" originating in Egypt...just like the Passover legend suggests.

Passover celebrates, supposedly, the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. This escape is considered one of the defining moments in Judaism, perhaps THE defining moment. Into this event is placed the entirety of the ancient Jewish identity, supposedly divided into "12 tribes," as well as the defining of Jewish religious law. That is a lot to put into one holiday!

The problem is that the bible account is internally inconsistent and is clearly a mixture of several traditions and myths. That does not mean that there aren't kernels of truth in it, but it is not clear how many events are covered by the Exodus story and what times those various events took place, or if any of the characters involved were real people. What is clear is that the story was written LONG after the events it claims to describe took place, which is common for ancient legends. The bible cannot be taken literally because it is often internally contradictory. That is odd if it is the revealed word of God…but it is very understandable if it is the collected lore of a small group of semi-nomadic people (Hapiru? Shasu Bedouins?) who eventually established a small state or collection of tiny states and were desperately trying to define their identity in relation to their often much stronger and very aggressive neighbors.

So some of my diaries seem poised to become traditions. This comes from last year almost without change. Hell, it has been thousands of years since this story was first told, so it is not surprising I have little reason to change it from year to year.

Passover celebrates Moses leading "his people" out of Egypt, the reception of "THE LAW" and the entry into the "promised land."

So just who was this "Moses?" What kind of name is "Moses?" And just who are his "people?" Well, it seems that "Moses" may be a pseudonym or, really, just half a name, the rest having been suppressed. Yes, suppressed because of some dark secret! His people seem to have been a rag-tag bunch of dispossesed ne'er do wells who may have heard about the idea of "one god to rule them all" from a heretic Egyptian king whose memory was being suppressed at the time that someone like Moses might have existed. And the Exodus? It may not have been so voluntary. Maybe they were trouble makers kicked out for subversive beliefs! So just what is this Passover thing anyway?

Passover celebrates, supposedly, the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. This escape is considered one of the defining moments in Judaism, perhaps THE most important defining moment. Into this event is placed the entirety of the ancient Jewish identity, supposedly divided into "12 tribes," as well as the defining of Jewish religious law. The problem is that the bible account is internally inconsistent and is clearly a mixture of several traditions and myths. That does not mean that there aren’t kernels of truth in it, but it is not clear how many events are covered by the Exodus story and what times those various events took place, or if any of the characters involved were real people. The bible cannot be taken literally because it is often internally contradictory. That is odd if it is the revealed word of God…but it is very understandable if it is the collected lore of a small group of semi-nomadic people who eventually established a small state or collection of tiny states and were desperately trying to define their identity in relation to their often stronger neighbors.

Giving someone the fig: the Renaissance equivalent of giving someone the finger.

“Don’t eat the figs.” Livia to soon-to-be Emperor Tiberius in the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius.

The development of agriculture was quite possibly the most significant event in human history. Prior to the domestication and cultivation of plants, humans across the globe were engaged in hunting and (predominantly) gathering. This is the way we evolved to eat—subsisting mainly on gathered plants with occasional meat hunted or scavenged. Once thought to be a primitive method of obtaining sustenance, hunting-and-gathering is now recognized as in many ways healthier and less time consuming than agriculture. The problem is that hunting-and-gathering cannot sustain a large population except under very unusual conditions. Northwest Coast Indians in America and the Jomon culture in ancient Japan are exceptions. Northwest Coast Indians had huge amounts of salmon, and Jomon huge amounts of shell fish to sustain them in large and happy numbers. But in general, hunting-and-gathering requires small family groups to have access to large areas of land.

The success of agriculture was not that it was easier or more nutritious. It never has been. The effort spent feeding oneself through agriculture is backbreaking and almost devoid of leisure, while hunting-and-gathering takes far less time and effort per calorie consumed. Furthermore, archaeology shows that human health declined sharply when humans switched to agriculture, probably because a rich and varied diet was usually replaced with a monotonous, grain-based diet.