The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus by Rene Salm Read Free Book Online

but not completely unusual.” We are dealing, then, with an atypical Hellenistic oil lamp.
    To support his thesis, Bagatti offers several “Hellenistic” parallels in a footnote. [241] One parallel is to a nozzle found at the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. [242] Comparison of the two shards, however (placed side-by-side in Illus. 3.4:1 and 3.4:2 ), shows that they are quite different: the Nazareth nozzle has almost parallel sides, a flat tip, and large wick hole. On the other hand, the Jerusalem example has a triangular shape with strongly slanting sides, a rounded tip, and small wick hole. Though the scales may not match precisely, the shapes are clearly dissimilar.
    In fact, it is not likely that the Jerusalem parallel is itself Hellenistic. Without wishing to open yet another can of worms, I note that Bagatti claims on p. 117 of his book, Gli Scavi del Dominus Flevit (from which the Jerusalem parallel is drawn), that “nn. 1–7 of fig. 25” belong to the Hellenistic period. This claim is hardly tenable. [243] No. 1 is a small folded lamp of the Early Roman period; [244] nos. 3–5 date I BCE–I CE; [245] and nos. 5–8 are bow-spouted (“Herodian”), that is, I CE–early II CE. [246]   All these lamps are of the Early Roman period. Only Bagatti’s no. 2 is indeterminate—it is too fragmentary to tell. It is precisely this shard that the Italian uses as a “Hellenistic” parallel to the Nazareth nozzle. The nozzles are quite different, in any case, as we readily see in Illus. 3.4 .
    Another parallel offered by Bagatti is to a 1964 article on Hellenistic pottery written by Nancy Lapp. [247] Lapp’s photo presents not one, but three nozzles from Shechem ( Illus. 4:3 ). All three are quite distinct, and only her middle example has a flattened tip and approximately the same proportions as the Nazareth shard. But it is not a close parallel—the Shechem example is noticeably wider at the base than at the tip. Lapp calls these “plain, wheel-made delphiniform lamps” whose “nozzles are rounded and carelessly formed.
     
     
     

    Illus. 3.4 . The “Hellenistic” nozzle and its alleged parallels.
    (1) The “Hellenistic” nozzle (2) The Jerusalem parallel (3) The Shechem parallels
    (i. Exc . Fig. 235:2; ii. Bagatti-Milik, Fig. 25: 2; iii. N. Lapp 1964, Pl. 1:29–31)
     
     
     
     
    Bagatti did not realize that his “Hellenistic” lamp nozzle is related to a lesser-known type indigenous to the Galilee in Roman times. He needn’t have gone as far afield as Shechem and Jerusalem for parallels. In 1983 the Spanish scholar F. Fernandez published a book-length treatment of the Roman pottery of Galilee, Ceramica Comun Romana de la Galilea . The Spaniard reviews a considerable number of Bagatti’s finds and sometimes reaches different conclusions. Fernandez mentions Exc . Fig. 235:2 (the “Hellenistic” nozzle) in a footnote, and includes it in his lamp-type L1, which he calls the product of a “local pottery tradition.” [248] The body of type L1 has a strikingly elevated rim around the filling hole which forms a small bowl sitting atop the lamp (readily seen in profile). The nozzle of this curious lamp ranged between two extreme forms, shown in Illus. 5A and 5B . We shall see below that there were also intermediate variants in which we can locate the “Hellenistic” nozzle under discussion. The bowl on top of the lamp is an elaboration of the ridge around the filling hole, commonly seen in the bow-spouted lamp. [249]
            Variant A . Bagatti discovered three examples of lamp type L1–A (= Illus. 3.5A ) in Tomb 70 at Nazareth. He calls them “very unusual.” [250] Four more examples were discovered in 1980–81 by Israeli archaeologist Nurit Feig when she excavated a number of tombs 2.6 km from the Church of the Annunciation. [251] These tombs are beyond the eastern edge of the basin, on the far side of the hill called Jebel el Maskaub (summit 438 m). Lamp type L1–A was also found in