Strata: New Dig Reports: After the Dust Settles—Two Veteran Excavations

In this issue, we highlight two impressive archaeological volumes—both from sites in Israel, one in the Negev, the other in the Golan Heights. These volumes represent decades of excavation and analysis.

Gamla

Gamla III: The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations 1976‒1989, Finds and Studies Part 1. IAA Reports 56

By Danny Syon (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2014), 259 pp., 103 images, $30 (paperback)

A city on a hill in the Golan Heights, Gamla has a superb vantage of the surrounding area and the Sea of Galilee below. No wonder it was one of the main Jewish strongholds against the Romans during the First Jewish Revolt. Now in ruins, the hillside features houses made of black basalt stone and a synagogue that functioned while the Temple still stood in Jerusalem.

The site has remains from the Chalcolithic through Roman periods. During the Early Bronze Age, Galma was a large settlement, but it eventually fell out of use and was not settled again until the Hellenistic period. By the time of the First Jewish Revolt, Gamla was “the strongest city in those parts [Galilee],” according to Josephus.