Tag: Humanities

Two Orit books (the Torah of Beta Israel – Ethiopian Jewry) from the 15th century were discovered by the Orit Guardians program of TAU’s Department of Biblical Studies.

A Rare Discovery:  A traveling workshop of TAU’s Orit Guardians program discovered two 15th-century Orit books – the oldest found to date in the possession of Beta Israel. The Orit Guardians Master’s program was established about five years ago, with the primary goal of studying, preserving, and carrying on the Biblical heritage of Ethiopian Jewry. The workshop was held in collaboration with the Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Center and the National Library of Israel, which documented the books and established the Digital Archive of Beta Israel’s Scriptures. Recently, these books were exposed at a special event held at ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, led by the Koret Center for Jewish Civilization (a collaboration between ANU and TAU), which supports and advances the Orit Guardians program.

The program’s initiator, Prof. Dalit Rom-Shiloni from the Department of Biblical Studies, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, explains: “The Orit of Beta Israel includes the Five Books of the Torah, as well as the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. So far, we have documented four Orit books, including the two from the 15th century, as well as 13 other sacred books. All the sacred books of Ethiopian Jewry are written in Ge’ez, a language known only to the Kessim, and each manuscript has its own fascinating story. They have been passed down through generations from father to son, and some were given to Kessim by their teachers — Jewish monks who taught the sacred traditions in Ethiopia. The books were carefully guarded and preserved, with some of their owners even risking their lives to bring them to Israel. Today, most of these books are privately owned by Kessim and their families and used as “living books” in the prayer houses of Ethiopian Jewish communities across Israel. Until now, they were inaccessible to interested individuals of the general public, nor to the research world, and we intend to locate as many books as possible for preservation, digitization, and academic study.”

To this end, a unique traveling workshop was held in June 2024, with participants including: Prof. Rom-Shiloni, anthropologist Prof. Erica Weiss, linguist Dr. Anbessa Teferra, and students from the Orit Guardians program — all from Tel Aviv University, alongside representatives of the Ethiopian Jewry Heritage Center and the National Library, as well as three international experts in ancient Ethiopian sacred texts: Prof. Loren Stuckenbruck (Ludwig Maximilian University of Münich), Dr. Sophia Dege-Müller and Ted Erho (University of Hamburg). The international experts examined and dated the books using palaeography — based on script forms. To their astonishment, they found that two of the Orit books were written as early as the 15th century — the oldest discovered so far in the hands of Beta Israel. Prof. Rom-Shiloni explains: “Our discovery is causing a stir among experts in the field worldwide. While we are familiar with similar Ethiopian texts from this period or even earlier, all of those are Christian texts, not Jewish. Now, for the first time, it has been revealed that Kessim from Beta Israel possess Orit books that are over 600 years old.”

In total, the workshop yielded four Orit books — two from the 15th century and two from the 18th century, as well as 13 other sacred books from the 17th to 20th centuries. All the discovered books were documented with their owners’ consent and remain in their possession — so they can continue to serve as “living books” in their communities. The documentation now enables academic research and the establishment of a digital archive at the National Library.

Prof. Youval Rotman, Academic Director of the Koret Center and faculty member in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, added: “This is an extraordinary finding. Discovering ancient manuscripts is rare, and when they are the oldest of their kind in existence, the find is all the more exceptional. This discovery was made thanks to the Orit Guardians’ emphasis on studying the textual knowledge and interpretive tradition preserved and orally transmitted over centuries within the various Beta Israel communities. The uniqueness of the program lies not only in mapping manuscripts and training students for their research but also in doing so as an integral part of the knowledge preserved within the community — thereby continuing and expanding it. The young researchers form personal connections and earn the trust of the Kessim as successors to the tradition and oral interpretation. In doing so, they connect communal-social knowledge to academic knowledge — and this is our great pride. The program unearths hidden treasures that have so far dwelt within the four walls of local synagogues, then documents and studies them and makes them accessible. Imagine a situation in which the great Bible commentaries were passed down orally through generations.”

Prof. Rom-Shiloni concludes: “Through the traveling workshop of the Orit Guardians program we discovered 17 sacred books of Beta Israel held by Kessim across Israel and still used as “living books” in the prayer houses of Ethiopian Jewry. Among them, we discovered two Orit books — the Torah of Beta Israel — written in the 15th century, the earliest found so far in the hands of Jewish Kessim.
Alongside the excitement, we believe our discovery is only the tip of the iceberg. It is likely that many more sacred books of Beta Israel are held by families and Kessim around the country, and we will continue searching for them. It is important to emphasize that all manuscripts located (like those found through the workshop) will remain in the possession of their owners, while being photographed and documented to make them accessible to interested members of the community, the broader public, and researchers in Israel and around the world. Another, especially urgent task of the Orit Guardians is documenting the scholarly oral traditions of the Kessim in Ethiopia, which includes translation from Ge’ez to Amharic and interpretation of the Orit and other holy books. This heritage, transmitted only orally from generation to generation, has never been set down in writing. Today, only 18 senior Kessim, who were trained in Ethiopia and hold this knowledge, remain active in Israel, and they are aging. If we do not act quickly, we might lose this precious cultural treasure.”

Did Early Humans Smoke Meat Million Years Ago?

Did prehistoric humans know that smoking meat could preserve it and extend its shelf life? Researchers from the Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University believe they did. Their new study presents a fresh perspective on a question that has long preoccupied prehistory scholars: What prompted early humans to begin using fire? According to the researchers, early humans, who primarily consumed large game, required fire not for cooking, but to smoke and dry meat so that it would not rot, thereby preserving it for extended periods and keeping it safe from predators and scavengers.

Why Did Early Humans First Use Fire?

This insight fits into a broader unifying theory, developed by the same researchers, which explains many prehistoric phenomena based on human dependence on calories derived from large animals, alongside a continuous decline in the size of animals hunted throughout prehistoric periods. The study was conducted by Dr. Miki Ben-Dor and Prof. Ran Barkai of the Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University and was published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.

Prof. Barkai explains: “The origins of fire use is a ‘burning’ topic among prehistory researchers around the world. It is generally agreed that by 400,000 years ago, fire use was common in domestic contexts—most likely for roasting meat, and perhaps also for lighting and heating. However there is controversy regarding the preceding million years, and various hypotheses have been put forward to explain why early humans began using fire. In this study, we sought to explore a new perspective on the issue”.

Dr. Ben-Dor adds: “For early humans, fire use was not a given, and at most archaeological sites dated earlier than 400,000 years ago, there is no evidence of the use of fire. Nevertheless, at several early sites, there are clear signs that fire was used, but without burnt bones or evidence of meat roasting. We understand that early humans at that time—mostly Homo erectus—did not use fire regularly, but only occasionally, in specific places and for special purposes. The process of gathering fuel, igniting a fire, and maintaining it over time required significant effort, and they needed a compelling, energy-efficient motive to do so. We have proposed a new hypothesis regarding that motive”.

Fire as a Shield Against Predators and Decay

The researchers reviewed the existing literature on all known prehistoric sites dated between 1.8 million and 800,000 years ago where evidence of fire use was found. There are nine such sites worldwide, including Gesher Benot Ya’aqov and Evron Quarry in Israel, six sites in Africa, and one site in Spain. Additionally, they relied on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, aligning their behavior with the conditions that prevailed in ancient environments.

Dr. Ben-Dor: “We examined what the nine ancient sites had in common, and found that all contained large quantities of bones from large animals—mostly elephants, but also hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, and others. From previous studies, we know that these animals were extremely important to early human diets and provided most of the necessary calories. The meat and fat of a single elephant, for example, contain millions of calories, enough to feed a group of 20–30 people for a month or more. A hunted elephant or hippopotamus was thus a real treasure—a kind of meat and fat ‘bank’ that needed to be protected and preserved for many days since it was coveted not only by predators but also by bacteria”.

An analysis of the findings and calculations of the significant energetic advantage of preserving meat and fat led the researchers to a new conclusion, never before proposed: fire served two vital purposes for early humans—first, to guard the large game from other predators and scavengers seeking to seize the ‘treasure’, and second, to preserve the meat through smoking and drying, preventing spoilage and making it edible for a long period.

Prof. Barkai concludes: “In this study, we propose a new understanding of the factors that motivated early humans to begin using fire: the need to safeguard large hunted animals from other predators, and to preserve the vast quantity of meat over time. It is likely that once the fire was produced for these purposes, it was also occasionally used for cooking—at zero marginal energetic cost. Such use may explain evidence of fish roasting from around 800,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. The approach we propose fits well into a global theory we have been developing in recent years, which explains major prehistoric phenomena as adaptations to the hunting and consumption of large animals, followed by their gradual disappearance and the resulting need to derive adequate energy from exploiting smaller animals”.

Prof. Ran Barkai.

TAU study suggests that children were seen as mediators between the physical and spiritual worlds.

 A team of Tel Aviv University researchers from prehistoric archaeology has proposed an innovative hypothesis regarding an intriguing question: Why did ancient humans bring their young children to cave painting sites, deep underground – through dark, meandering, hazardous passages? The researchers explain: “Next to many cave paintings, there is clear evidence of children as young as two. So far, most hypotheses have focused on the educational aspect — learning the community’s traditions and customs. However, we believe that children also played a unique cultural role in these caves: Young children were credited with special qualities in the spiritual world, enabling them to communicate with entities from the beyond – which were believed to be accessible from the depths of the cave”.

The study was conducted by Dr. Ella Assaf, Dr. Yafit Kedar, and Prof. Ran Barkai from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. The paper was published in the journal Arts from MDPI.

Dr. Ella Assaf.

Children’s Role in Cave Art: More Than Just Education

Dr. Assaf explains: “Cave art created by early humans is a fascinating phenomenon that intrigues many researchers. To date, around 400 caves containing cave art have been discovered, mainly in France and Spain, with the artwork dated between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago. There is solid evidence of children’s participation in the artwork – handprints and finger paintings made by children aged two to twelve. In addition, footprints and handprints of children have been found in some caves, alongside those of adults. This naturally raises the question: Why were the children there? Why were young children taken on exhausting and hazardous journeys deep into the dark, meandering caves with low oxygen levels – crawling through crevices, descending shafts, and climbing rocks to reach their destination?

Finger paintings made by children in Rouffignac Cave, 14,000 to 20,000 years ago (Photo courtesy of Dr. Van Gelder).

Dr. Kedar elaborates: “Despite extensive research on cave art, few studies have focused on the presence of children. The prevailing hypothesis is that their participation served an educational purpose – passing down knowledge, traditions, and customs to the next generation. In our study, we argue that children’s involvement had an additional meaning: In fact, they played an important, unique role of their own – direct communication with entities residing in the depths of the earth and otherworldly realms. This study follows our previous works, in which we presented cave artworks as expressions of cosmological approaches, with emphasis on relationships between humans and various entities”.

Children as Mediators Between Worlds in Ancient Rituals

Dr. Assaf adds: “Based on extensive studies about children in indigenous societies, along with new insights into rituals performed in caves with cave paintings, a new understanding is emerging regarding the role of children in the creation of cave art. By integrating data from these research fields, we were able, for the first time, to propose a novel and original explanation for the inclusion of children in creating cave paintings:  The world of childhood differs from that of adults, and children possess a range of unique mental and cognitive traits. For this reason, indigenous cultures worldwide, throughout history and prehistory, have viewed children as ‘active agents’ – mediators between this world and the entities inhabiting the natural world, the underworld, and the cosmos as a whole. In this way, children made a vital contribution to their communities – hunter-gatherers who lived in nature and sought to maintain continuous, respectful relationships with various entities: animals and plants that served as food sources, stones used for toolmaking, ancestral spirits, and more”.

Children’s footprints from Basura Cave, 14,000 years ago (Photo courtesy of Prof. Marco Romano – Romano et al. 2019).

Prof. Barkai: “Many of these societies regarded caves as gateways to the underworld – where, through shamanic rituals, they could communicate with cosmic entities and inhabitants of the underworld, to resolve existential problems. In this context, young children were perceived as liminal beings – belonging to both the realm they had left just recently (before birth) and the world they currently inhabit. Thus, small children were considered particularly suited to bridging the gap between the worlds and delivering messages to non-human entities. In this paper, we connect these insights and propose that children joined adults on journeys into the depths of caves and participated in painting and rituals as part of their role in the community—as ideal mediators with entities from the beyond”.

Prof. Ran Barkai.

Research suggests: extinct animals explain Israel’s lack of cave art.

For over a century, archaeologists have puzzled over the absence of cave art in the Levant in general, and specifically in Israel. Clearly, the reason is not a lack of caves, knowledge, or artistic skill. Now, a team of archaeologists from Tel Aviv University proposes an original explanation: prehistoric humans in the Levant did not create cave paintings because many large animals, the subjects of cave art in Western Europe, were already extinct here – so there was no need to try to depict them for shamanic rituals held deep within caves.

The study was published in an editorial article of the Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society, authored by a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology & Ancient Near Eastern Cultures: Prof. Ran Barkai, Dr. Ilan Dagoni, Dr. Miki Ben-Dor, and Dr. Yafit Kedar.

Prof. Ran Barkai.

The enigma of missing cave art in Israel

“This is a century-old mystery in Israeli archaeological research”, says Prof. Barkai. “The first prehistoric cave excavation in Israel took place in 1925, but frustratingly, not a single cave painting has been found since. In other parts of the world, such as Spain and France, hundreds of spectacular cave paintings have been discovered. Here, nothing. Israel certainly has caves, and many were inhabited by humans during the same period when cave paintings were created in Western Europe – 35,000 to 30,000 years ago. Moreover, according to all material evidence, the people in both regions belonged to the same culture – the Aurignacian culture. Their tools were similar, and their artistic objects, beads and pendants, for example, were also similar. There is no doubt that humans here had the cognitive ability to paint and were no less capable than their European contemporaries”. The mystery around the absence of cave paintings in the Levant grew in recent years, as numerous studies showed that Aurignacian humans in the Levant and Europe were not only biologically and culturally similar, but also maintained contact with each other.

“These were Homo sapiens, modern humans, who probably left Africa 60,000 to 70,000 years ago”, says Prof. Barkai.

Prof. Barkai continues: “They passed through the Levant around 60,000 years ago and arrived in Europe approximately 45,000 years ago. However, new archaeological evidence shows that some returned to Israel, meaning that the migration wasn’t one-way. It seems that humans here and there kept in touch, migrating back and forth – and yet there are cave paintings in Europe and none here. To solve this mystery, we must first answer another big and much-debated question:  Why did humans in Europe paint on cave walls in the first place? We support the hypothesis that cave paintings were created as part of shamanic rituals involving altered states of consciousness, intended to convey messages to entities beyond the cave walls, in underworlds regarded as the source of abundance – asking for solutions to the extinction of large animals on which humans depended for survival”.

Reconstruction of elephant hunting using spears.

What inspired cave art?

According to the researchers, soon after modern humans first came to Europe, large animals such as woolly mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses began to disappear. These were large, fat-rich animals that prehistoric humans in Europe and elsewhere relied on as their primary food source. Watching these populations diminish, worried prehistoric Europeans ventured deep into caves and painted large animals on their walls. The practice of cave painting came to an end more or less when Europe’s large animals became completely extinct.

“It’s important to understand that cave paintings are found in many cases deep within caves – in places that are difficult and even dangerous to access. We also know from indigenous societies living today that the depths of caves are perceived as gateways to the underworld – a realm of abundance and the source of all things. Therefore, it is customary to appeal to entities from the other side in times of trouble, such as illness or inner conflict. We argue that humans in Europe went deep into caves and painted the vanishing large animals to ask these entities to bring them back, emphasizing their own dependence on large game for their survival. In Israel, we do not find such paintings because when Homo sapiens arrived the large animals were already extinct – eradicated by earlier types of humans. Here, with elephants and rhinoceroses all gone, Homo sapiens were forced to hunt smaller, faster animals. The people who migrated to Europe, on the other hand, found large game once again – woolly mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses. The newly arrived humans felt they had entered paradise, and the animals’ subsequent dwindling, in front of their very eyes, plunged them into a crisis that resulted in cave paintings. Prehistoric humans in Israel experienced no such crisis, only continuity, which is why we don’t see cave paintings here. Their anxieties were different than those of their European counterparts, and so were their rituals. This hypothesis supports our broader thesis that prehistoric humans were aware of their role in the extinction of their food sources”.

Elephant Hunting and Stone Quarries in the Paleolithic Era

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have uncovered the mystery surrounding extensive Paleolithic stone quarrying and tool-making sites: Why did Homo erectus repeatedly revisit the very same locations for hundreds of thousands of years? The answer lies in the migration routes of elephants, which they hunted and dismembered using flint tools crafted at these quarrying sites.

The research was led by Dr. Meir Finkel and Prof. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. The study was published in the journal Archaeologies.

Prof. Ran Barkai.

Prof. Ran Barkai explains: “Ancient humans required three things: water, food, and stone. While water and food are necessities for all creatures, humans relied on stone tools to hunt and butcher animals, as they lacked the sharp claws or fangs of other predators. The question is, why do we find rock outcrops that were used for the production of flint tools, surrounded by thousands of stone tools, and next to them rock outcrops containing flint that was not used for the production of tools? A study of indigenous groups that lived until recently, with some still alive today, shows that hunter-gatherers attribute great importance to the source of the stone — the quarry itself — imbuing it with potency and sanctity, and hence also spiritual worship. People have been making pilgrimages to such sites for generations upon generations, leaving offerings at the rock outcrop, while adjacent outcrops, equally suitable for stone tool production, remain untouched. We sought to understand why; what is special about these sites?”

How did elephant migration routes affect prehistoric quarry locations?

For nearly 20 years, Prof. Barkai and his colleagues have been researching flint quarrying and tool-making sites in the Upper Galilee. These sites are characterized by large nodules of flint convenient for crafting and are located within walking distance of the major Paleolithic sites of the Hula Valley — Gesher Benot Ya’akov and Ma’ayan Baruch. These sites boast thousands of quarrying and extraction localities where, until half a million years ago, in the Lower Paleolithic period, prehistoric humans fashioned tools and left offerings, despite the presence of flint in other geological formations in various places. Because elephants were the primary dietary component for these early humans, the Tel Aviv University researchers cross-referenced the database of the sites’ distribution with the database of the elephants’ migration routes and discovered that the flint quarrying and knapping sites were situated in rock outcrops near the elephants’ migration paths.

“An elephant consumes 400 liters of water a day on average, and that’s why it has fixed movement paths,” says Dr. Finkel. “These are animals that rely on a daily supply of water, and therefore on water sources — the banks of lakes, rivers and streams. In many instances, we discover elephant hunting and processing sites at “necessary crossings” — where a stream or river passes through a steep mountain pass, or when a path along a lakeshore is limited to the space between the shore and a mountain range. At the same time, given the absence of available means of preservation and the presence of predatory animals in the area, the window of opportunity for a group of hunter-gatherers to exhaust their elephant prey was limited. Therefore, it was imperative to prepare suitable cutting tools in large quantities in advance and nearby. For this reason, we find quarrying and knapping sites in the Upper Galilee located a short distance from elephant butchering sites, which are positioned along the elephants’ movement paths.”

Quarries and flint piles in the Galilee (Photo: Meir Finkel).

Subsequently, the researchers sought to apply an adapted model from the one they developed in Israel to several sites from the Lower Paleolithic period in Asia, Europe and Africa, where such a “triad” exists. These included both sites where the hunted animals were elephants or mammoths, as well as later sites where other animals, such as hippos, camels, and horses, were the prey.

“It appears that the Paleolithic holy trinity holds true universally: Wherever there was water, there were elephants, and wherever there were elephants, humans had to find suitable rock outcrops to quarry stone and make tools in order to hunt and butcher their favorite megaherbivores”, says Prof. Barkai.

“It was a tradition: For hundreds of thousands of years, the elephants wandered along the same route, while humans produced stone tools nearby. Ultimately, those elephants became extinct, and the world changed forever” – Prof. Barkai.