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Archeologists call this period the Chalcolithic
(from the Greek: khalkos = copper, lithos = stone)
The Museum's Chalcolithic Age exhibits are displayed
against the background of a reconstructed dwelling
house typical of the period.
Scores of such houses have been excavated on the
Golan in twenty-five farming villages. They were
sizable structures, roughly 6 m. by 15 m. The walls,
built from locally found, undressed blocks of basalt,
rose to above head height. They were crossed by
wooden beams carrying a roof of compacted mud and
straw. Each dwelling had a storage section, containing
tall storage jars (pithoi) and other pottery vessels,
as well as basalt grindstones and mortars, and flint
tools.
A wonderfully interesting find was the numerous
basalt pillar-form statues with incised ears and
eyes and a large protuberant nose. The top of the
head - of what must be idols - was cut into the
shape of a bowl for offerings. Some of the idols
had horns and goatee beards - they are presumably
shepherd gods - while the others, we may assume,
represented the gods of the wheat fields and olive
groves.
We have no idea what happened in the end to the
people who lived in these houses. They left never
to return (perhaps a long drought drove them away)
but seem to have meant to return, for they left
all their heavy belongings behind.
The first of these twenty-five villages was discovered
in 1973 when the Waterfalls Route road was being
cut and paved. Dr. Clare Epstein led the team which
surveyed and excavated it and, afterwards, all the
others, as they came to light all over the Central
Golan. The Antiquities Authority published the results
of all her work in 1998 in book form and since then
a smaller, bi-lingual Hebrew-English booklet on
the same subject has come out, liberally illustrated
with color photos. |
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