In Tel Roei in Kiryat Shmona, for the first time in Israel, a statue of a human head from about 9,000 years ago was discovered
The stone is carved in the shape of a human head. A custom imported from Anatolia
Photo: Danny Nedel
At first glance this looks like a simple stone. Round, not particularly large, one of dozens that make up the wall of the 9,000-year-old house in Tel Roei in Kiryat Shmona. At a second glance it becomes clear that the stone is looking back at the observer. It is carved as a face - two eyes and a nose between them - that were integrated into the wall and watched what was going on inside the house.
Sculptures of this type - stone carved as a schematic human head, but clear and precise - have been found for decades and hundreds in Anatolia, which was a significant cultural center at the time the house was built at Tel Roei. The house was part of a village built in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic period B, about 9,000-8,500 years ago. Dr. Danny Nadel from the Zinman Institute of Archeology at the University of Haifa, who is managing the excavation at Tel Roei, had the privilege of being the first to find such a statue in Israel as well.
According to him, sculpture, carving and stone carving were developed arts in Anatolia at that time. Apart from heads carved in stone, human-sized statues and large carved stone pillars were found there. In Israeli sites from that period, skulls were found that were burned in mortar and painted. The sculptures from Anatolia testify to a developed cult that was probably related to death or some deity, but its nature is not clear.
Dr. Nadel, who excavated at Tel Roei with a team of research students from the University of Haifa, speculates that the head sculpture was part of the customs that the local residents brought from Anatolia. The influence of the Anatolian culture is also evidenced by vessels made of obsidian - a kind of dark glass made of volcanic material - which originated in Anatolia and were brought to Israel.
The house where the head carved in stone was found stood on the edge of a village, whose area was about ten dunams and whose houses were built with basalt stones that were brought to the place from a distance of several hundred meters. Next to the house, a retaining wall was uncovered a meter wide, which was apparently the boundary of the settlement. In a test excavation made at a distance of about 15 meters from the wall, no archaeological remains were found.
The excavation at Tel Roei began after Amnon Asaf, director of the Museum of Ancient Man in Mein Baruch, discovered the remains of a settlement from the Neolithic period. An access road to a new neighborhood of Kiryat Shmona, which is currently being built, should pass through there. The Israel Land Administration, which paves the road, financed the rescue excavation.
In the two months they stayed at the site, the diggers found many knives, arrowheads and axes of flint, which were typical of the Neolithic period, the last phase of the Stone Age. At that time, humans began to domesticate animals and plants and gradually moved from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to permanent settlements.
At the time when the settlement was established in Tel Roe'e there were already very large villages in Turkey and permanent settlements were also in Israel, Jordan and Syria. Above the settlement from the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic period, the excavators at Tel Roei found remains of a settlement from the Ceramic Neolithic period (8,000-7,000 years ago), when pottery began to be used.
The village uncovered in this excavation joins other settlements of the period that were discovered in the area - near Kibbutz Gosherim, in Tel Tao and in the north of Emek Hula - and enriches the knowledge about the settlement in the area about 9,000-8,000 years ago.
