Session 4 - Iron Age Part II

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Also in archaeology, once again what's so important in actually dating an excavation, or dating the strata at an excavation, at a particular layer of a tell, is to know your artifacts. So what I have here on the table is a selection of artifacts that is unique to the time period of the Iron Age II period, 1000 to 586 BCE. First of all, we have a decanter made out of terracotta. They come in different sizes. This is a very small one, but they can be three, four times this size. And it could be that some of the prophets anointed kings, biblical kings, with this type of a vessel, because it could store olive oil, and olive oil was used to anoint. Actually, the word anoint means to Messiah, the Messiah, the anointed one. I'm not going to say that every prophet was anointing king with this particular style of vessel. This is very likely, because it's very useful. It was found, also similar items like this, decanters, are found both in the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah. So a decanter. Also we have what is called a chalice. This is an Iron Age chalice. And you can see on the top rim right here, we have, it's very hard to see, but you can see how the rim actually cuts in like this. Not outward, but inward. So we call that inverted. If it goes out, it's everted. So it's an inverted rim. Why? Because as the solution, the libation was actually rolled around in the vessel, it would not slosh out, because the inversion of the rim would keep it inside. So a chalice, not just used for drinking, but for libation services, and you could say a religious cultic ritual. Also the vessel to my left right here, I'm going to bring over, this is almost like a giant teapot. What's kind of interesting about this, you can actually put another vessel in the spout of it, because the spout actually has a hole, and there's a lid that you could use for pouring. Think about this, we could reinvent this and sell it for $9.99 on TV. And the spout is actually a container for a second vessel. How about that? These are very unique to the Iron Age period. Once we see those, here's the lid, once we see these vessels, we know exactly what time period we're at. The terra cotta. Okay, also when we look at a particular time period, we can also look at cultic material. Cultic material, not just the chalice, but also idols, which I'd like to name this little section of the Iron Age period, My Idol Pleasures, because this is when the prophets are ranting and raving about all the idols that they're finding in the land, such as Baal and Asherah, especially in, you could say, during the time period of kings, such as 1 Kings and chapter, we could say 17 and verse 1. So if you want to go to 1 Kings chapter 17, verse 1, and read about Elijah and his confrontation with Ahab and that notorious woman Jezebel, who brings in the cult of Baal worship into the northern kingdom of Israel. So what I have here is a bronze statue of Baal. And secondly, another female statue, looks like Dolly Parton, of an Asherah.