Ricerc@Sapienza

During Autumn 2016 the Italian-Palestinian joint team of Sapienza University of Rome and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Palestine carried out further rescue excavations and surveying in the city of Bethlehem and in its surroundings. These activities were conducted in order to protect the archaeological and historical patrimony of this area of Palestine, and to prevent looting, sites destruction, vandalism and illegal trade of archaeological items. A provisional report on finds and activities is offered below.

An Early Bronze IVB tomb was discovered by the MOTA-DACH on June 2009 in the city of Bethlehem, nearby the Milk Grotto. Its architectural features, burials and associated funerary equipment are here considered and compared with those of other Early Bronze IV cemeteries and necropoleis of Southern Levant to grasp the historical-archaeological meaning of this discovery.

La Necropoli dell'antica Cirene cinge in ogni direzione l'abitato dell'odierna Shahat e si estende ordinata e incommensurabile per un raggio di circa 2 km, con più di 1400 tombe monumentali che riempiono i terrazzamenti degli uidian. Questa città dei morti racconta la storia di Cirene e dell'interazione tra l'elemento locale e la presenza greco-romana, ponendosi a testimonianza di una complessa cultura funeraria evolutasi per oltre un millennio.

Rescue excavations in Bethlehem undertaken by the Sapienza University of Rome and the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities-Department of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage-have revealed four Bronze Age necropolises. These newly discovered sites illuminate the development of pre-Classical Bethlehem.

In Spring 2019 the Italian-Palestinian joint team of Sapienza University of Rome and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Palestine Dept. of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage resumed rescue excavations at the Necropolis of Khalet al-Jam’a, 2.2 Km south-east from the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. Works were focused on Tomb A7, identified in 2015, a huge underground burial place, dating back to the Iron IIC (8th-7th century BC), but also including earlier depositions dating from the EB IVB-MB.

The attempt of this paper is to re-examine Early Bronze IV attestations recorded by the four
expeditions that operated at Tell es-Sultan over more than one century, and to outline some general
features in the light of recent discoveries made by Sapienza-MOTA-DACH Joint Expedition.