Tel Rechov beekeeping
The Tel Rechov beekeeping is part of an archaeological site in Tel Rechov in the Bet She'an Valley in Israel .
Find place
The site is located on the plateau of a mountain that was populated over a large area and probably housed an important city around 3000 years ago. The first excavations were carried out in 1989 by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . The excavations have been financed by sponsorship funds since 1997 and a total of eight excavation campaigns were carried out by 2007. The excavation results produced a very densely populated plateau with the remains of numerous adobe buildings. The excavated building structures show buildings of different sizes, public and stately buildings. The finds include foundation walls, walls, settlement ceramics , equipment made of ivory, wood, metal and stone, as well as seals , seal impressions, house altars , figurines and other objects made of organic material. At the foot of the mountain were other settlements that were abandoned after a devastating catastrophe. The mountain settlement was only finally abandoned later, probably in connection with the Assyrian invasion , and also after a destructive event.
beekeeping
The first remains of beehives ( hives ) were discovered in 2005. They lay under a three-foot-thick layer of fallen walls, fire rubble and ashes. The beekeeping was in the northwest of the Iron Age settlement. The beehives were set up in a courtyard about seven meters wide and nine meters long, about 1.5 meters below the walking horizon of the surrounding buildings and surrounded by high walls made of unfired adobe bricks . In total, the remains of 30 sticks were found. The tubular beehives are 80 centimeters long and 40 centimeters in diameter and are made of unfired clay , heavily thickened with straw . Its front end only has an opening measuring about four centimeters as a flight hole through which the bees can fly in and out. For easy wax and honey harvest , the rear ends of the clay tubes are open and could be closed with a removable lid made of clay. The lids have a small tab in the middle and are attached to the hives with strings. The beehives were lined up on three terrace-shaped bases made of unfired clay, each with two long, prepared wooden beams. Between the pedestals were corridors from which the beekeepers could work on the beehives. The remains that have been preserved show that the beehives were stacked in at least three rows. Based on the previously excavated base, it was possible to set up up to 180 beehives. The unearthed remains showed that at least 70 to 100 beehives were set up.
According to previous knowledge, the city and beekeeping burned down. During this fire, the mud walls collapsed and buried the beehives in the courtyard. Due to the development of heat, parts of the beehives were burned from clay. The beehives positioned in the lower rows were the best preserved. Remains of bees, brood and honeycombs were found inside two beehives . However, these remains were so damaged by the effects of heat that their DNA structure was destroyed. The remains of the bee bodies could be assigned to the breed Anatolian bee ( Apis mellifera anatolica ).
Based on typological comparisons of the ceramic vessels found, beekeeping was started in the 10th or 9th century BC. Dated. This dating could be made possible by radiocarbon dating of some wheat grains from the same find layer in the 10th century BC. Be delimited more precisely.
Beekeepers estimate that beekeeping with an estimated 100 hives enabled an annual yield of more than 500 kilograms of honey and around 50 to 70 kilograms of beeswax. The industrial size of the beekeeping and its location in the city center suggest that it was under the control of a local ruler. In addition to its properties as a sweetener , honey had, above all, a high medicinal and cultic value, while beeswax was used in cosmetics, metal and leather crafts, and also for the production of writing tablets .
meaning
Ceramic vessels are known from the Greek and Roman times, which served as beehives, but never before has an entire beekeeping facility like the one in Tel Rechov been identified. In addition to the bee dwellings, remains of honey bees, traces of wax and pollen, as well as an altar with images of the fertility goddess and an artistic drinking cup were found.
From the Egypt of the Pharaohs there are several picture descriptions of the honey harvest from clay hives. Apiaries with lined-up clay tubes as apiary, as found in Tel Rechov, are still in use today in Africa, the Mediterranean region, as well as in Arabia and other regions of the world.
Trivia
While the term honey appears over fifty times in the Old Testament of the Bible , honey is only mentioned twice. The research assumed that honey mostly meant wild honey or the juice of figs and dates .
See also
literature
- Amihai Mazar , Nava Panitz-Cohen: It Is the Land of Honey: Beekeeping at Tel Rehov . In: Near Eastern Archeology . tape 70 , no. 4 , December 2007, pp. 202–219 (English, rehov.org [PDF; 8.4 MB ; accessed on July 6, 2010]).
Web links
- Gilbert Brockmann: Biblical honey: 3,000 year old beekeeping found in the Promised Land. In: haGalil.com. 2007.
- Beekeeping in Rehov engl.
Coordinates: 32 ° 27 ′ 30 ″ N , 35 ° 29 ′ 50 ″ E