Thread by @MichaelDPress

The latest report on legal & political implications of excavations in the City of David is, improbably, a piece in the New York Times Opinion section by Bari Weiss
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
h/t @ChasingAphrodit @mokersel @Marianhouk

In her feature, Weiss also breaks news of a new Iron Age sealing with a biblical name on it; she also has a separate piece on the sealing (except that it doesn't really tell us much about the sealing).
nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opi…

Some scholars may roll their eyes at this description, but it is largely right.
The problem is not w/the writer but the field: biblical archaeologists have little interest in critical theory, & believe that discussion of things like ethics detracts from a focus on "the facts"

At most, archaeologists who work in Israel will note that *in the past* the field was biased, but it is no longer so -- it is no longer "conducted on behalf of any ideology" but is "pure science".
bibleinterp.com/articles/Dahar…

Given Weiss's background, I was surprised to see the discussion of international law and ethics, and a presentation that is at least somewhat sympathetic to Palestinian residents of Silwan.

https://twitter.com/AbuMrouj/status/1112348600284168193

But Weiss's discussion is ultimately from an Israeli Jewish perspective: there are many more Israeli Jewish than Palestinian voices; and so many things -- including basic international law -- becomes a matter of what "they will say"

And clearly part of the point of including Palestinian voices is to get people to attack them -- for what is often called Temple Mount Denialism -- and therefore dismiss their legitimate grievances.

And this leads to a typical right-wing misrepresentation of recent UNESCO conventions -- ignoring the substance to attack things that, in fact, mostly reinforce international law and the status quo that Israel itself proposed.

The resolutions stupidly put "Western Wall" in quotes, but always point out Jewish (and Christian) ties to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, by the status quo agreement, the Temple Mount/Haram is a Muslim place of prayer.
And under int'l law, Israel *is* obliged not to conduct these digs!

For those interested in further discussion, I went into some detail on the occasion of one such UNESCO resolution, in October 2016

https://twitter.com/MichaelDPress/status/786932756626284544

Meanwhile, today -- after Weiss's articles posted -- the IAA and City of David Foundation (aka Elad) put out a press release announcing the discovery of the sealing
Note that, according to Weiss, the sealing was discovered in October, meaning it was held back for Weiss's article

The Times of Israel subhead incorrectly reports the sealing's date as the 8th century BCE (it was actually late 7th-early 6th), after saying it could be related to an official of (the 7th century king) Josiah!
timesofisrael.com/two-tiny-first…

Of course, what appears to have been the original Times of Israel -- and the basis of their tweet -- is no better: it falsely claims that this and another sealing found with it "vastly enlarge" our picture of ancient Jerusalem.
(We already knew this area was part of the city!)

And neither the press releases nor the news reports (Weiss's or the Israeli outlets') note that a sealing of Natan-melech -- from the same seal? -- was published by Kyle McCarter 20 years ago.
It's an unprovenanced find from Shlomo Moussaieff's collection
members.bib-arch.org/biblical-archa…

The press release (and the Israeli news articles quoting it) merely makes a generic note about the many bullae (sealing) on the antiquities market.
Perhaps it's best they don't discuss an unprovenanced item from the Moussaieff collection!

One more point: unlike Weiss's NYT feature, the Israeli new outlets (except for a brief mention from Haaretz) ignore the serious ethical, legal, and political issues with digging in East Jerusalem.
haaretz.com/archaeology/.p…

Another point: The scholarly value of this sealing is real, but quite small. It is not from "proving" the existence of a biblical figure (which it doesn't do) or attesting to a bureaucratic title (which we already knew).

The real value is having another sealing from a controlled excavation, which adds to the already existing corpus. And from this corpus we can learn things about language, script, and government in Iron Age Jerusalem and how they may have changed over time.

But the value of any 1 artifact in this corpus of at least several dozen is quite small.
Why does it matter, then?
The scholarly value is small, but the symbolic value is massive.
That's why it's being publicized so heavily.

Here's the IAA's promo video for the discovery of the sealing (and the additional seal also mentioned in the news reports).
Note that it appears the video was actually produced by the City of David Foundation, aka Elad

The tagline from the promo video:
"The City of David . . . Where It All Began"