by AP and Israel Hayom Staff
Settlement believed to pre-date pharaonic rule by 1,000 years
Tel Es-Sakan site, south of Gaza City, on Sept. 26
Photo: AP
This
undated image, provided by the Palestinian Department
of Antiquities, shows an aerial view of the excavations at
Tel Es-Sakan
Photo: Gaza Archaeology
Palestinian and
French archaeologists began excavating Gaza's earliest archaeological
site nearly 20 years ago, unearthing what they believe is a rare
4,500-year-old Bronze Age settlement.
But over protests that grew recently,
Gaza's Hamas rulers have systematically destroyed the work since seizing
power a decade ago, allowing the flattening of this hill on the
southern tip of Gaza City to make way for construction projects, and
later military bases. In its newest project, Hamas-supported bulldozers
are flattening the last remnants of excavation.
"There is a clear destruction of a very
important archaeological site," said Palestinian archaeology and history
professor Mouin Sadeq, who led three excavations at the site along with
French archaeologist Pierre de Miroschedji after its accidental
discovery in 1998. "I don't know why the destruction of the site was
approved."
Tel Es-Sakan (hill of ash) was the largest
Canaanite city between Palestine and Egypt, according to Sadeq. It was
named after the great amount of ash found during the excavations, which
suggests the settlement was burnt either naturally or in a war.
Archaeologists found the 10-hectare
(25-acre) hill to be hiding a fortified settlement built centuries
before pharaonic rule in Egypt, and 1,000 years before the pyramids. But
the excavations stopped in 2002 due to security concerns.
When calls on Hamas to stop the recent
flattening intensified last month, the nearest available expert to gain
access to Gaza was Jean-Baptiste Humbert, a Jerusalem-based
archaeologist at the Ecole Biblique and who had excavated other sites in
Gaza.
"Today the complete southern facade of the
Tel is erased," said Humbert. In previous years, faces and ramparts on
other sides were also destroyed. "Now it is destroyed all around," he
said.
It's among the earliest sites indicating
the emergence of the "urban society" concept in the Near East, when
communities were transforming from farming villages around 4,000 B.C.E.,
and it was on trade routes between Egypt and the Levant, according to
Humbert.
Humbert shared an aerial photo from 2000
showing patterns of walls from atop the mound. The area "was the first
city of Palestine to have a city wall," he said. Now, "the field work
you see in the photo is totally destroyed."
Gaza is home to numerous ancient treasures, but politics have long complicated archaeological work.
The French excavations stopped in 2002
because of the violence of the Second Intifada around the nearby
Netzarim settlement. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. But Hamas won
the 2006 election and drove out the Western-backed Palestinian Authority
in 2007. The excavations never resumed.
Unlike some other Islamic groups, Hamas has not deliberately destroyed antiquities for ideological reasons.
But with little open space in Gaza, a
fast-growing population and a stifled economy, Hamas officials say they
have no choice but to develop the area, making archaeology a low
priority.
But the group has also seized ancient sites
to build terrorist training camps, including the 3,000-year-old
Anthedon Harbor, parts of which were bulldozed in 2013.
In 2009 and 2012, the expansion of
universities destroyed the western and northern facades of Tel El-Sakan.
Gazans displaced in the three operations Israel has waged against Hamas
terrorists since then set up temporary dwellings on the eastern side.
The southern front remained, but Hamas says
it needs the land to compensate some of its senior employees, who have
only received partial salaries from the cash-strapped group.
When the bulldozer work started in early
August, the Hamas-run Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities appealed for
help. Humbert rushed to Gaza, and with the help of colleagues from
Gaza's Islamic University, he succeeded in stopping the work for two
weeks while the ministry and Hamas' Land Authority worked to settle the
dispute.
Jamal Abu Rida, the ministry's director of
antiquities, said Tel Es-Sakan is a protected archaeological site, but
that his ministry could not stop the more powerful Land Authority from
destroying another 1.2 hectares (three acres).
The work resumed last week. Bulldozers
loaded a truck with soil that contained fragments of jars. When the
workers saw Associated Press cameras, they quickly left the scene.
Abu Rida said they recovered an early
Bronze Age jar from the site during the most recent leveling. Fadel
al-Outul a Gaza archaeologist, salvaged fragments that he used to
reassemble two thirds of another jar. He also found a flint knife blade.
Junaid Sorosh-Wali, an official with the
U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, inspected the damage at the site Tuesday
after the bulldozers left.
What happened was "disastrous for the
archaeology and cultural heritage in Palestine," he said. He said UNESCO
had raised concerns with "the relevant authorities."
Amateur videos showed ramparts crumbling
under the bulldozer's treads. The rampart of the southern facade was
also uncovered and is slated for destruction.
Dozens of ancient sites have been found in
Gaza, and excavations have revealed temples, monasteries, palaces,
churches and mosques and mosaics. But most of the sites have been lost
to urban sprawl and looting. UNESCO is struggling to preserve some of
remaining ones.
In 2016, the remains of a Byzantine church
were discovered in Gaza, but authorities are believed to have destroyed
them. And in 2014, a rare Apollo statue went missing and is believed to
be held by a terrorist group.
At St. Hilarion monastery in the central
Gaza Strip, which spans from the late Roman Empire to the Islamic
Umayyad period, a breach in the fence suggested looters were trying to
get in. Private construction is taking place next door. Someone recently
dumped brick debris in the site from over the fence.
The birthplace one of the 4th century
founders of Christian monasticism still has the clear remnants of a
baptism hall, a church and an atrium.
Sorosh-Wali, the UNESCO official, said it
is among around a dozen locations in the West Bank and Gaza that the
Palestinian Authority wants to be listed as a UNESCO world heritage
site.
AP and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/10/08/hamas-levels-bronze-age-archaeological-treasure-in-gaza/
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