This mysterious object was excavated on the site of Tell es-Sarem in northern Israel; this ruin-mound (tell in Arabic) is also known as Tel Rehov (in Hebrew); and I will call it by its original name, Rehob, which means "broad", and such it certainly was. There is a Canaanian city Rehob mentioned in the Bible as having resisted Israelian conquest by the tribe of Asher (Judges 1:31), but it is near Akko, north of Mount Carmel, and west of the Sea of Galilee; Tel Rehov is south of the Galilee Lake, in the Jordan River Valley, and may have resisted the tribe of Manasseh, like its neighbor Beth Shean (Judges 1:27). The unique feature of this particular Rehob is its large apiary, and this scary artefact was associated with Area C, where an industrial centre for the production of honey flourished for a period; of course the industrious busy buzzy bees did the work, but the animal depicted on top of the miniature edifice may have had a part to play. However, the box-house itself comes from Stratum IV in the 9th century BCE, and it was found in a building that had been constructed over the remains of the apiary, which had been destroyed by fire. My questions would be: Did this object also belong to the apiary period, and survive the fire? Also, did the depicted animal have a function in both periods, before and after the destructive blaze? Was this the home of the creature? If the animal was a lion, then it was unlikely to be employed or housed there, though Samson used a dead lion as a bee hive to produce honey (Judges 14:8-9); and a lion would not fit in a box that is 15" by 11".
This object seems to belong to a category known as "portable shrines", clay boxes in which gods were housed, as figurines (in human or other animal forms). Formerly, they were called "snake houses", based on a guess that serpents were kept in them; but one was found at Ashkelon with a bronze calf inside it, and in the sanctuary of a Philistian temple at Tell Qasile, at the foot of the altar, a clay temple model contained two naked goddesses (G 2018, 146-159, also with particular reference to examples of empty miniature shrines found at Khirbet Qeiyafa). This motif of two nude goddesses is matched at Rehob, on altars (M 2008: 42-47). However, a striking feature of the Rehob clay house is the presence of two snakes at the entrance (see the pictures above, and two more at the end of this essay).
More details about Area C of Tel Rehov can be found in this illustrated article by the archaeologists Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen (the photos are by D. Harris); it gives an account of the Rehob excavations, and at present it is available here:
Beekeeping at Tel Rehov
From that helpful source we learn that the surviving beehives are clay cylinders with a lid at one end (for the apiarist to extract the honeycombs) and a small hole at the other end (for the coming and going of the bees). The cylinders each have a volume of fifty-six litres, and they are arranged horizontally in three tiers and three rows. This pattern is still observable in modern Israel, and elsewhere. At first, there was no certainty that these excavated artefacts were beehives, but Dvorah Namdar detected beeswax in the clay walls of the cylinders. Incidentally, and felicitously, Dvorah is the modern Hebrew form of Deborah, which means "bee".
This large city-site has yielded several short inscriptions, on pots and sherds. We will work our way through these West Semitic texts, searching for clues to understanding more about the honey-industry in the complex of buildings in Area C of the ruins; and of course we want to know the purpose of that gaping box, with a seemingly unfriendly animal on top, poking out its tongue and digging its claws into two heads.
Presumably, many of the jars that have been unearthed were for storing honey, but at first glance I can not see the Hebrew words for honey (debash, dvash) or bee (deborah, dvora), nor the Canaanian and Babylonian word NBT.
When studying inscriptions, my first principle is this: only the person who wrote the message knew what the intended meaning was. Moreover, it is hard enough deciphering the handwriting of ancient scribes, even when we have a complete text, but usually the inscription has been damaged in transit or mutilated where it stood.
Sarem sherd (C2:49-50)
This is a fragment of a fenestrated stand, with a portion of an inscription that was engraved before baking. When I first published my ideas on this text (C1991:49-50) I played with the possibility that there were words indicating "incense offerings" in this assortment of letters, as would seem to be appropriate on such a cult stand (the Gezer sherd belongs to this category, and it has the word KN, "stand"); I also noted that the sign for Sh in the centre seemed to have a counterpart to its right, and if that really is a circle at the top, above the M with many waves, then the dotted eye (`Ayin) at the bottom also has a variant counterpart. Since then I have stumbled on what I am calling "the neo-syllabary", whereby the letters of the protoalphabet were employed to indicate an accompanying vowel as well as a consonant, and this sequence of signs could be showing `i and `a (or possibly `u), and shi and sha. If it really is a syllabic inscription, it joins the illustrious company of the Izbet Sartah Ostracon (a scribe reflects on how this writing system works), and the Qeiyafa Ostracon (a prophet delivers an oracle from Yahu, concerning a momentous event: a "servant of God", named "Dawid", has executed divine justice to the "`Anaq", named "Guliyut", who had cursed him). None of the other inscriptions from Rehob will turn out to be syllabic, but they will fit into the pattern of the international consonantal script (in the style of the Phoenician alphabet).
For drawings of the inscriptions from this period, refer to Finkelstein and Sass 2013.
With regard to the numbering system that the editors have applied to the Rehob inscriptions, note that they are arranged chronologically from early to late:
R 1-4 are from the lower Stratum VI;
R 5 is from Stratum V;
R 6-11 are from the higher level Stratum IV.
My presentation of them will follow a topical scheme, searching for connections.
We first consider some sherds, which have only one or two letters on them. Could they be an ancient form of "flash cards" for learning the alphabet? R3 (M 2014:41-42; Fig. 3) has L, but if inverted it could say P; R10 (M 2014:50; Fig.1) has B; R1 (M 2014:40; Fig. 1) has `Ayin and Yod. Or are these labels with abbreviations? `ay can be a word for a "heap", as possibly in a Sinai turquoise inscription, to which we will return at the end of our quest.
Moving on, it would appear that some of the Rehob pots make reference to their contents.
Rehob 8 (M 2014:47-48)
(M 2003: Fig. 4. Photo by Gabi Laron)
Mind the gap! This damaged clay jar is from what is possibly a cultic building in Stratum IV, and Area E, to the east of Area C, and thus distant from the place where the apiary used to be. What is left of the sequence of letters has a long-tailed M at each end (indicating 9th century BCE or later); we assume that the direction of writing is as normal, from right to left (neosyllabic inscriptions usually run from left to right, as in English alphabetic writing); in the middle there are two strokes that would have been the bottoms of characters with long stems (Q/q for example, or K) or tails (M or N, perhaps); the penultimate letter is `Ayin, though in this period (10th C BCE) we expect a circle to represent the eye from which it is descended, in the pictorial protoalphabet, but it is actually closer to the original (<o>) in this present form, albeit without the pupil. In the beginning the letter M was a symbol for rippling water, and I would like this message to have been MYM N`M, "lovely water" (for drinking); but mayim is generally understood to be plural (as in English "waters"), and the adjective would need to be N`MM (masculine plural). Apparently the second letter is also `Ayin, and so I offer this restoration, with M as the word for "water" in what old-school grammarians called "the construct state" (mé, not mayim): M `N N`M, "water of the N`M spring" (`ayin can mean "fountain", as well as "eye", for obvious reasons); hence "water of Naomi's spring"; or "water of the Fountain of Sweetness"; whatever the precise intention, we are probably being told that this is water from a good source, and it is a fact that Rehob had "plentiful water sources", including the Jordan River (M 2007:202); in fact there was a spring quite near Area E (M 2019:165, Fig. 2). I have an analogy for this, in M ` 'M, "water of the spring of the Mother (Goddess)", where the `ayin functions as a logogram, Sinai 357 (C 1990:37-39). However, in the case of this dismembered Rehob 8 inscription, "God alone knows the truth".
Rehob 2 (M 2011:40-41; 190, Fig. 2)
Peering into the gloom to decipher the writing, what we see is a wiggly line on the right, and a straight line on the left; between them is a cross (x) and an Aleph (glottal stop, represented by an ox-head). The same text (damaged) also appears on the other side. The first three signs could constitute a personal name MT'; the editors cite a counterpart for it on an Ammonite seal. However, if it were a label for the jar's contents, and the M was the word for "water" in "the construct state" (mé, not mayim), as in Rehob 8, and the final stroke was N (with the bends in the snake straightened out), the meaning might be "fig-water", the T'N representing the Hebrew word for "fig" (te'énâ). Accordingly, this might have been a vessel for fig-juice, perhaps pressed figs mixed with water; syrup made from figs and dates is thought to account for many of the uses of the Hebrew "honey" term debash (M 2018:40). If this was syllabic script, it could say mi ti 'i n-, but this is not absolutely decisive, even though mi could represent mé, and ti could be t + shwa, and 'i could be 'é, but the presumed N has no analogy, either syllabic or consonantal. One thing remains certain: the scribe who incised these characters (on the already baked jar) knew what they meant, and would be astonished at our incompetence.
28/11/2023
New light can be shone on this double inscription, by a fragment of a pithos from Crete (Middle Minoan, Bronze Age), found at Tel Haror in the Negev, connected with the international trading ports of the Gaza coast; it has three signs from the ancient Cretan (Kaptarian) syllabary (at its original pictorial or pictophonetic stage, not Linear A): reading from left to right, MU (a bovine head), TE (a tree), NI (a fig tree, and the symbol for FIG, after Cretan Greek nikuleon), which would be an attempt (within the limits of the system) to write West Semitic MU TE 'E NI ("fig water"). This reading also offers some more confirmation of my decipherment of the Creto-Cyprian scripts. The sugar in figs and raisins is low-calorie allulose.
Rehob 4 (M 2003:2-3, Fig. 2; M 2014:42-43)
This sherd from Stratum VI preserves part of an inscription that was incised on a jar after firing. The first two letters are discernible as L and N, but they are followed by an incomplete jumble of characters. (I have highlighted three of the letters [LNB] with a pencil, on the photograph of G. Laron.) It was found in Area B, which was not near the apiary, but if the sequence is LNB... we may have found a reference to honey: by invoking the short stroke, at the end of the sherd, as a cross (Taw) we have L NBT, "for honey"; so this would have been a honey pot. Unfortunately, this word for honey is not used in Hebrew as we know it (though there is an apparently related word, nopet, meaning "runny honey" or "honeycomb honey", in Psalm 19:11, together with debash). NBT ("honey") is attested in the West Semitic language of Ugarit, in the far north, and as nubtu ("honey-bee") in East Semitic Akkadian, in Mesopotamia (Iraq). However, if the inhabitants of Rehob were Canaanian, not Israelian, there would be no problem. Incidentally, in the West Semitic syllabary, the symbol for NU is a bee, as on the Megiddo signet ring.
I am happy to stick with the honey (it is indeed sticky stuff) but another suggestion for LNB... (M 2014:42) is "for the prophet", l nb', and this possibility leads us to the next inscription.
Rehob 9 (M 2014:48-50; Fig. 10)
Drawing by Ada Yardeni
This inscription is written in red ink on what must have been a single sherd from a jar, an ostracon, of which only two fragments have been found. It has been reconstructed as L'LYSh`, "for 'Elisha`". This name is known from epigraphic evidence from Israel, Judah, and Ammon, dating from the 8th and 7th centuries BCE (M 2014:49), and it also famously belongs to Elisha` ben Shapat, the 9th century prophet of the Northern Israel Kingdom (1 Kings 19 -2 Kings 13). Like Samuel he was widely recognized as a "man of God" (2 Kings 4:7, 9; 8:7; 1 Samuel 9:6) who moved about the realm (and beyond) for many years, passing judgement on idolaters and kings, and doing good works. He was the successor of Eliyahu (Elijah to the uncouth English): "And YHWH said to Eliyahu: Go ... to the wilderness of Damascus and anoint Hazael to be the King over Aram; and anoint Yehu ben Nimshi to be the King over Israel; and anoint Elisha ben Shapat from Abal-meholah to be the prophet to take your place"(1 Kings 19:15-16). From this we learn that Elisha was indeed a nabi', but if that word really exists in the Rehob 4 inscription, it could not refer to 9th century Elisha, because the sherd belongs to an earlier level, Stratum VI, whereas this Elisha ostracon is from the later Stratum IV, from the time when King Hazael invaded Israel and wreaked havoc; Elisha is said to have confronted Hazael in Damascus, and predicted that he would ravage Israel, burning its fortresses and slaying its soldiers and its people (2 Kings 8:7-15). This celebrated Elisha could certainly be the man on the ostracon, since his hometown Abal-meholah was situated just south of Rehob. Notice also that the patronymic ben Nimshi, of King Yehu, has the same consonants (NMSh) as appear in Rehob inscriptions 5 and 6 (see below).
But what would this pious prophet be doing in a place like this, "a dwelling that may have been a patrician house" (M 2014:63), in one of three small inner rooms, which had a clay four-horned altar at each of its two entrances, and benches on two of its walls (M 2014:49-50)? In another of the small rooms there was a mold for making female figurines, such as those attached to an altar in the apiary building, though at this time the honey factory had already been destroyed in the previous fire, and this structure would likewise be razed in the general conflagration engulfing Rehob during the war with Aram. We could imagine "the sons of the prophets" meeting there with Elisha, as they did at Gilgal (2 Kings 4:38); and he was involved when they built a more commodious house for their community, by the Jordan River (6:1-7). The story of the wealthy woman of Shunem, and her husband and son, who regularly gave Elisha hospitality and a guest-room (2 Kings 4:8-10), might provide an analogy for his presence in a secular home.
Elisha was renowned for his acts of healing (2 Kings 4-5), and there could be a hint of therapeutic action in the next text.
Rehob 7 (M 2014:45-47, Fig. 8)
The provenance of this inscription was an inner room in a small building with three rooms, in Area C. The nine letters were incised on an ovoid storage jar before it was baked, so the purpose of the vessel was already determined. If we are still looking for references to honey, we should keep in mind that we are in Stratum IV, and the apiary no longer exists in Area C; but this house may have had a private beehive or some other source, such as the wild honey that Samson found in the body of a lion (Judges 14:8-9), and the honey dripping from trees that Jonathan picked up in a forest (1 Samuel 14:25-27). The text can be transcribed thus:
' L S D [Q] Sh H L Y
This could be a personal name (son and father) but neither 'LSDQ nor ShHLY are known in the Bible; nevertheless, the first is attested at Ugarit, for example; and shahal as a common noun meaning "lion" occurs in a context of overcoming lions and serpents (Psalm 91:13), and this hints at a connection I will make for our mystery object from the Rehob apiary. Meanwhile, this leaves us with an epithet, rather than a patronymic:
"Elisedeq the Lionhearted".
Mention could be made of halla, "cake" of bread used in sacrifices, or it could be dismissed as irrelevant
Notice that the Q is not certain, and, if we ignore the vertical stroke, the letter could be restored as a B. In this case, we would be looking at a sequence DBSh (the Hebrew word for "honey"), and there is a HL root in Arabic that would allow this Rehob 7 HL to mean "sweet".
On the other hand, the pot may well have been a container for honey, but not labeled as such; and this is a statement of its therapeutic properties, as in ancient Egypt, where honey was used in medicine and ointment (M 2018:40); our New Zealand mânuka honey is famous for its supposed benefits, certainly for aid in healing wounds. Accordingly, I offer this tentative interpretation:
"Succour for a righteous person who is unwell".
The first word 'l (possibly "God", "a ram", "a deer", "a pillar", "a terebinth", or "unto", et cetera) could be a form of 'yl, "help"; in the only Biblical occurrence of this word, in Psalm 88:4 (5), opinion is divided as to whether the person who goes down to the Pit is "without strength" or "lacking help"; certainly in Syriac this word means "aid", "succour".
The L for the preposition "for" is assimilated into the previous word, presumably.
SDQ is the "righteousness" root, and here it would be for sdyq, "righteous (person)".
Sh is a relative pronoun.
HLY may be understood as "is sick", stative verb, or participle, such as Hebrew holè in Genesis 48:1, where Joseph's father Jacob "is ill"; Hebrew hly is a noun from this root, meaning "sickness".
Choices and decisions need to be made. If the "sweet honey" solution is chosen, because it is so tempting, we have to find a meaning for the 'LS that precedes it. Speaking of temptation, the only example we can find for this root is in Judges 16:16, where Delilah pressingly "urges" Samson, day after day, to reveal the secret of his strength, and he becomes extremely irritated (root QSR), and he tells her about shaving his head. If `SL means "urge", it would lead us to this solution, perchance:
"Urgent: sweet honey".
Yet again, the solution to this conundrum is hidden in the mind of God.
Rehob 5 (M 2014:43-44; Fig. 5)
This inscription was incised on its storage jar before firing, so its ownership or its contents were pre-determined. Its provenance is significant: it was found on the floor of the apiary, at the southern end of the eastern row of beehives. It belongs to Stratum V, which may have been attacked in the invasion of Israel by Pharaoh Sheshonq I, known as Shishak in the Bible (1 Kings 11:40, 14:25-26); Sheshonq included Rehob in his list of conquests; but only the beehive area was damaged, and the cause may have been simply local, possibly vandalism, or earthquake (M 2018:47). Stratum IV (above V) would have been ravaged by King Hazael of Aram, from Damascus in his campaigns against Israel and Judah and Philistia (2 Kings 9:14, 10:32-33, 12:17-18, 13:22-25). Hazael is almost certainly the ruler on the Aramaic Tel Dan stele who boasts about his victories over the King of Israel and the King of the House of David.
The text comprises four letters of the consonantal alphabet, which was being employed internationally in the ninth century, and which appears on the stele of King Mesha of Moab, and the inscriptions associated with Hazael.
L N M Sh
We are already acquainted with the preposition l, meaning "to" or "for", and that is the likely choice for the first letter in the sequence. Usually it shows that the container, and presumably its contents, are the property of the nominee: they belong "to", or are there "for" whoever is named, in the present case, NMSh. However, the "for" sense might indicate the purpose of the object: thus, if Rehob 4 says l nbt, then it might mean that the pot is a container "for honey", though Rehob 2 and 8, simply have labels announcing two kinds of water (or fluids). An example of of a "to" or "for" inscription is on the Lakish Jar Sherd (my discussions are here, and there). The text reads:
P K L S P R 5 hekat (of grain)
This could be: "PKL the scribe (spr)...".
My preference is for finding the preposition l embedded there, with pk as the designation of the jar:
"Pot (pk ) for (l) measuring (spr) 5 hekat".
Or perhaps "Pot (pk ) to (l) the measure (spr) of 5 hekat".
With regard to our L N M Sh, do we have a reference to the contents of the jar, or to the dedicatee of the "for"? Classical Hebrew dictionaries have no "nemesh" stuff, nor any NMSh word related to beekeeping. We could analyse NMSh as N (logogram for nahash "snake", but the original cobra became Nun, meaning "fish", though the fish had in the beginning been Samek, the letter that follows Nun!) and in that combination with MSh we are confronted by a "swamp-snake". This seems unlikely, but further down the line we will need to consider the possibility of snakes in the diet.
So, will NMSh work as a personal name rather than a common noun? Indeed, we can find it applied to people at Ugarit, and in the Hebrew Bible we meet Nimshi. As cited above. the founder of the dynasty that replaced the Omrides in Israel, was Yehu ben Nimshi (1 Kings 19:16); but Elisha refers to him as Yehu ben Yehoshapat ben Nimshi (2 Kings 9:2, and 14). This leads us to believe that Nimshi was the grandfather rather than the father of Yehu, but there may be another explanation. Yehoshapat (Jehoshaphat) was King of Judah (c. 873-849) in the days of Elisha, and contemporary with King Ahab of Israel (c. 869-850); he died a few years before Yehu's seizure of power (842-815); Yehoshapat, whose name means "Yahu has judged", was deemed to have done, for the most part, "what was right in the eyes of Yahweh" (1 Kings 22:43); by calling Yehu "a son of Yehoshapat", Elisha may have intended to express the prophetic hope that Yehu would bring the judgement of Yahweh to the Northern Kingdom, as Yehoshapat had done in the Southern Kingdom, and Yehu did achieve that, with immense slaughter of the Omri family and the worshippers of Baal, and he received commendation from Yahweh (2 Kings 10:28-31) But what can we say about the patronymic "ben Nimshi"? Could it be another epithet? In 1928 Martin Noth (M 2014:44) recognized the origin of Nimshi in the cognate Arabic term nims, meaning what the English call (using their ridiculous spelling system) "mongoose" (Indian manggûs). (Wikipedia supplies our needs adequately here.) This small mammal is renowned for its ability to kill venomous snakes: it can withstand their venom, and can also move out of range rapidly when attacking them. It can live for twenty years in captivity. This ferocity may have been applied epithetically to Yehu, or to his father, through the name Nimshi.
A Nimshi clan is constructed from all the NMSh occurrences (M 2014:43-44): setting aside the Ugarit evidence, we have Samaria Ostracon 56, two Hebrew seals, and the Nimshi in the ancestry of Yehu; additionally, the sequence is found incised on pottery, namely Rehob 6 (below), and Rehob 5 here, and likewise on a jar from Tel `Amal bearing the same letters as Rehob 5 (LNMSh) and with the N and M likewise in a horizontal stance, in contrast to the normal vertical, as displayed in the NMSh of Rehob 6.
Rehob 6 (M 2014:44-45; Fig. 7)
(M2003: Fig. 6, photo G. Laron)
(M2003: Fig. 5, drawing Rahel Solar)
The Rehob 6 jar from Area C, with the familiar NMSh at the end of its text, belongs to the top Stratum IV (9th C BCE), whereas the other NMSh pot was from Stratum V in Area C, when the bees were still making honey. We have considered the possibility that NMSh was a personal or family name, and perhaps this hypothetical family owned the apiary, and now also Building F, where this Rehob 6 jar stood. Be that as it may, whatever the NMSh refers to, at Tel Rehov and Tel `Amal, "it" (the unidentified entity) has survived the destruction of the beehives, apparently.
The text on this jar seems to have seven letters: NMSh at the left end; LShQ on the right (the beginning of the text); and a peculiar sign in the middle, which could well be two signs joined in a ligature, I will suggest. It might be a shorthand sign for ben, and we could try this analysis of the whole sequence:
"For ShQ son of NMSh"
Other options should be explored, though. The sequence LShQ has a possible counterpart in an inscription incised on a storage jar at Ein Gev (M 2014:44-45, Fig. 14), from the same period (9th C BCE):
LShQY'
This is understood as an Aramaic text (the final 'Alep could be the Aramaic version of a suffixed "definite article", equivalent to Hebrew ha- and Arabic 'al). The meaning might be:"for the cupbearer", a title found in Genesis 40:1, in the Hebrew form mashqeh, "one who gives someone something to drink", or "butler" for short, and in this case it is the drink-bearer of the King of Egypt. The basic root is ShQY, and looking again at our Rehob 6 jar, we might accept the middle character as a crooked Yod (y) and try "for the cupbearer". I am suspicious of this Yod, as its tail is too long, and I prefer to see a ligature, two letters bound together.
Earlier in Genesis the ShQ root is used for "watering the ground" (2:6), and for "watering the garden" (2:10). The word for "garden" is gan, and the sequence GN occurs in the inscriptions at the Sinai turquoise mines, and the longest text (Sinai 357) gives instructions for watering the garden of the West Semitic workers (though the ShQY root is not used), transferring spring-water from a skin-bag to a vessel, for pouring; the word 'B, for the bag, is also found, I suggest, on a jar from Gath (Safi), where L'B could mean "for the waterbag" (Maeir 2012:32).
In the light of all this, if we analyse the middle sign in our Rehob 6 jar as a Gimel joined to a Nun (lying flat, as in Rehob 5, and a reversal of the Nun next to it), then we have the jar as container for water:
LShQ GN NMSh "For watering the Nemesh garden".
However (28/11/2023) I now have another idea:
Rehob 6: LShQY NMSh "For the mongoose (NMSh) to drink (ShQY)"
En Gev: LShQY ' "For the jackal ('i) to drink (ShQY)"
I am having difficulty parsing ShQY; it should be causative (Pi`el or Hip'il), and have final -t in the infinitive form. In Genesis 24:14 it refers to "watering" camels.
A case of 'i as "jackal" occurs in Sinai 375a (383); a jackal is depicted on the back of the stone, and designated as guardian of the turquoise in Mine M. The golden jackal of this region can be tamed.
It is time to consider the clay box and its animal. The tongue from an open mouth is a lion motif (M 2007:210). From the Late Bronze Age period of Rehob comes a female figurine with a Hathor hairstyle and leonine face, and protruding ears, nose, and jaw. It is possibly the goddess Ashtart (Astarte), who has a lioness connection, and in this regard she is reminiscent of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet (M 2019:181-182, Fig. 21). If this is a "house shrine" for Ashtart, a consort of Baal, we can imagine a figurine of the goddess inside it, originally. Notice the two snakes at the entrance, which bring to mind the goddess holding a serpent in each hand.
The Bible has given us no information about Rehob, and perhaps we should have ignored its Nimshi, in our quest to find the meaning of NMSh in the inscriptions. If nimsh (Arabic nims) or nemesh was the lost West Semitic word for "mongoose", could this be the creature who is depicted on the roof of the house, and did a mongoose actually live in it?
The mongoose and the snake are certainly known as enemies, and the animal here is confronting two of them at the entrance to the house. The two embedded heads that its front paws are touching (whether destructively or protectively) are not identified. Could they be of the same species as the mongoose, or perhaps rats, or some other nuisance animal? Wikipedia informs us thus: Mongooses feed on rodents, reptiles, birds, fishes, insects, fruits, and eggs (they have a technique for opening them). They are not aggressive towards humans. They have a lifespan of twenty years in captivity. Accordingly, a domesticated mongoose might have protected this area against pests before and after the beehives were destroyed
This photograph shows the tongue (as with the figure on the roof of the house), though the upper and lower teeth are not visible. A multitude of mongooses can be found here, Look for the Egyptian mongoose. None of them are seen in the pose represented on the house shrine.
Indian mongoose (Marathi mangûs) and cobra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdg9gkmWsEA
We should now review the relevant inscriptional evidence. If we interpret LNMSh (R6) as meaning "for the mongoose", we must also accept that at the place now known as Tel `Amal there was likewise a mongoose functioning as a guardian of a house, given that a jar bearing the same text has been found there.
By the way, I am reminded of an inscribed plaque (mentioned above) in one of the Sinai turquoise mines: it has a drawing of a jackal on one side, and on the other side a warning that the jackal is guarding the heap of mined turquoise in the cavern. Did they have a real live jackal there, acting like a watchdog? Was it the god Anubis that they were invoking for this task?
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2008/11/sinai-proto-alphabetic-inscription-375a.html
In the case of our Rehob mongoose, was there really an animal living in the box, or only its representation on the roof? Was the mongoose identified with a deity, such as `Athtart or the ferocious `Anat? Near the apiary was a small altar (presumably for burning incense, and perhaps also food offerings): it has an incised palm tree between two nude female figures (M 2008: 42-44) and these might represent the three goddesses associated with the storm-god Baal-Hadad, namely 'Athirat (Asherah, connected with trees), `Athtart (Astarte), and `Anat, here functioning as guardians of the bees. Could incense have a calming effect on the bees, as apiarists use smoke for this purpose when disturbing the hives?
My opinion would lean towards a real mongoose in the little house, who required food and drink (hence the storage jars "for the NMSh"), and who survived the destructive fire, and continued to function in a similar capacity in Area F, in Stratum IV. If the animal was female, it could have been identified with one of the West Semitic goddesses, notably `Anat, the huntress.
Nevertheless, the idea that at Rehob there was a family bearing the name Nimshi can not be excluded; and they might well have kept a mongoose as a mascot or living symbol of their proud lineage. The animal would not simply be a pet, but would also have the role of defending the home against snakes and other pests.
C 1990: Colless, Brian E., "The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai", Abr-Nahrain 28, 1-52.
C 1991: Colless, Brian E., "The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Canaan", Abr-Nahrain 29, 18-66.
FS 2013: I. Finkelstein and B. Sass, "The West Semitic Alphabetic Inscriptions", HeBAI 2, 149-220.
A useful source of reference: includes drawings of the Rehob inscriptions.
G 2018: Garfinkel, Ganor, Hasel, In the Footsteps of King David. London: Thames and Hudson
ME 2003 Maeir, Aren M. and Eshel, Esther .“Four Short Alphabetic Inscriptions from Late Iron Age IIA Tell es-Safi/Gath and Their Implications for the Development of Literacy in Iron Age Philistia and Environs”. Pp. 69 – 88 in the same volume as M 2003.
M 2003: Mazar, Amihai.“Three 10th–9th Century B.C.E. Inscriptions from Tel Rehov,” Pp. 171 – 184 in Saxa loquentur: Studien zur Archa ̈ologie Pala ̈stinas/Israels. Festschrift fu ̈r Volkmar Fritz zum 65. Geburtstag Edited by Cornelius G. Den Hertog, Ulrich Hu ̈bner and Stefan Mu ̈nger; (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 302). Mu ̈nster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2003.
M 2007: Mazar, Amihai and Panitz-Cohen, Nava.Beekeeping at Tel Rehov “It Is the Land of Honey: Beekeeping in Iron Age IIA Tel Rehov – Culture, Cult and Economy.” Near Eastern Archaeology 70:4 (2007): Pp. 202 – 219.
M 2008 : Mazar, Amihai and Panitz-Cohen, Nava.“To What God? Altars and a house Shrine from Tel Rehov Puzzle Archaeologists.” Biblical Archaeology Review 34:4 (2008): Pp. 40 – 47.
M 2014: Shmuel Ahituv and Amihai Mazar "The Inscriptions from Tel Rehov and their Contribution to the Study of Script and Writing during IronAge IIA" , 189-
M 2016: "Discoveries from the Early Monarchic Period at Tel Reḥov", 9-68, in It is the Land of Honey, edited by Irit Ziffer, catalogue of an exhibition, also in Hebrew with numerous photographs, and an article by Dr Ziffer, "Flight of the bee: myth and art" (including information on Crete).
M 2018 : Mazar, Amihai, "The Iron Age Apiary at Tel Reh.ov, Israel"
M 2019: Mazar, Amihai and Uri Davidovich. "Canaanite Reh.ob: Tel Reh.ov in the Late Bronze Age." BASOR 381, 163-191
M and P Vols I-V: A. Mazar and N. Panitz-Cohen, The Excavations at Tel Rehov, 1997-2012.
I have no access to these volumes, and there may well be lots of relevant information that I need to see.
New Publication: The Tel Rehov Excavations
Excavations at Tel Reḥov, carried out from 1997 to 2012 under the direction of Amihai Mazar on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, revealed significant remains from the Early Bronze, Late Bronze and Iron Ages. The most prominent period is Iron IIA (10th–9th centuries BCE). Completely exposed buildings, the unique apiary and an open-air sanctuary, as well as other noteworthy contexts from this period, yielded one of the richest and most significant assemblages of finds in the northern part of the Land of Israel to date.
Five volumes comprising the final report of these excavations are published in the Qedem Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, written and edited by Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, with contributions by numerous scholars. The first three volumes are now available; the remaining two will be published towards the end of 2020. These volumes are a trove of data, containing detailed analyses of stratigraphy, architecture, pottery assemblages and many other artifacts, as well as natural-sciences studies, constituting an essential resource for all those who are interested in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant.
The volumes are printed in color and contain hundreds of plans, sections, drawings, and photographs.
<https://archaeology.huji.ac.il/qedem-0>
List price: $80 per book; $210 for the three-volume set;
Price for Israel Exploration Society members: $60 per book, $158 for the three-volume set.
A. Mazar and N. Panitz-Cohen. Tel Reḥov, A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valley, Volume I. Introductions, Synthesis and Excavations on the Upper Mound (Qedem 59). Jerusalem: The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2020. (XXIX+415 pp.
ISBN 978-965-92825-0-0)
A. Mazar and N. Panitz-Cohen. Tel Reḥov, A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valley, Volume II. The Lower Mound: Area C and the Apiary (Qedem 60). Jerusalem: The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2020. (XVII+658 pp.
ISBN 978-965-92825-1-7)
A. Mazar and N. Panitz-Cohen, Tel Reḥov, A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valley, Volume III. The Lower Mound: Areas D, E, F and G (Qedem 61). Jerusalem: The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2020. (XVI+465 pp.
ISBN978-965-92825-2-4)
To order, please contact: <ies@vms.huji.ac.il>.
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