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

experienced several years of drought, with the result that the two could walk on land that was normally under water. They noticed the outline of a boat in the mud, and when experts examined the discovery it was determined that an ancient boat had been found dating to the turn of the era. The boat was preserved in a laborious process that took several years, and is now in the Yigal Allon Museum of Kibbutz Ginnosar.
    A single intact oil lamp was found in the boat. It is of the type L1-B, and is diagrammed above in Illus. 3.5-B . [260] We particularly note the nozzle, which is slightly longer than usual, has almost parallel sides, a flattened tip, and a large wick hole. It shares these characteristics with the “Hellenistic” nozzle of Bagatti, and furnishes a closer parallel than any furnished by the Italian. The only difference is in the underside of the nozzle. When one compares the profiles of Illus. 3.4:1 (above) with Illus. 3.5-B , one notices that the former has a more pronounced curvature, with the wick hole in a more superior position. This too, however, is readily explained. The curvature of the Bagatti shard matches the underside of three examples of type L1 found in tomb 70 at Nazareth, whose form is diagrammed in Illus. 3.5-A , above. It is evident, then, that the Bagatti lamp nozzle is a hybrid of the two variants: the underside is modeled  with the curvature of Illus. 3.5-A , while the outline is in the form of Illus. 3.5-B . Several similar hybrid lamps were found by Feig in her tomb M nearby, [261] and these represent the closest parallels to the Bagatti shard.
    In 1990, Varda Sussman published a study of the Galilee boat lamp. She commented on its dating as follows:
 
Both the shape and the ware have a great deal in common with oil lamps and other vessels dated to the Early Roman and Herodian periods, ranging in date from the mid-first century BCE to the mid-second century CE. [262]
 
    Thus, all the datings that we have assembled for this Galilean local tradition—lamp type L1—are Roman, not Hellenistic. It is all but certain that the Bagatti shard belongs among them, as seen from its form and from the presence of a number of nearby examples in and around the Nazareth basin. A chronological review of the local results for this lamp type follows:
     
     
     
     
           Locus                           Artefact(s)          Type                  Assemblage date
     
    Nazareth Tomb 70               3 lamps            L1-A                 c . 33 CE + [263]
    Feig, Tomb M                     4 lamps                        L1-A/B              50 CE –150 CE [264]
    Feig, Tomb B                      1 lamp              L1-A                 I CE (P. Lapp) [265]
    Galilee boat                                    1 lamp              L1-B                 50 BCE –150 CE [266]
     
     
     
    According to these results, seven of the above nine lamps date c . 33 CE– c . 150 CE. The other two lamps are compatible with this range, and it is clear that late I CE to early II CE was the favored era for this local lamp tradition. We shall see in Chapter Four that this is also the earliest time when one can speak with certainty of the resumption of settlement in the Nazareth basin. The dating of the lamp nozzle we have been considering is entirely compatible with that time.
    Bagatti’s so-called “Hellenistic” oil lamp nozzle, now identified as a shard from Fernandez’ Roman lamp type L1, is the most prominent of several small pieces of pottery that comprise the sum total of alleged Hellenistic evidence from the Nazareth basin. [267] This lamp nozzle alone is responsible for multiple mentions of the word “Hellenistic” in Excavations in Nazareth . [268] When we remove