Who doesn’t know him; the Philistine Goliath, best known as the great giant that little David had to compete against. Until now, relatively little was known about Philistine culture. This is now changing: by analyzing plant seeds, a wealth of information has been uncovered.
Yes, the Philistines really existed. For example, Israeli researchers have been digging around Tell es-Safi for quite a number of years. This place has since been identified as the city of Gath, home of the famous Goliath. The archaeologists in this area have now arrived at the temple district. All kinds of things are found here: small bowls, but also sacrificial gifts and different types of seeds. Scientist Sue Frumin contributed to the research. She tells Scientias.nl: “Pretty much everything we discovered came as a surprise. The Philistines left no written sources regarding their culture and religion. The most fascinating find was the approximately 100 fruit pieces of the Monk’s pepper The chaste lamb’s vine. Seeds of this plant have so far only been found in one other place: in the temple of Hera on the island of Samos.” The research has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Carpology
The scientists used both quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques for the research. Frumin explains: “We conducted carpological research to identify the seeds found. We first looked at what kind of seeds were involved, after which we looked at which family these seeds belong to. By repeatedly comparing the results from the lab with the database of Israel’s national seed collection, we were ultimately able to determine which species it was and in which season it was harvested. During the archaeological investigation we discovered a number of different things. Firstly, inside the temples we discovered arranged offerings mixed with remains of many different species of wild plants, including Monk’s Pepper, Crowned Gooseflower Coronary of Glebion in Lomelosia argentea. Secondly, we discovered that there was a garden outside the temple square where the wild plants were grown. This is an important detail because it allowed us to know that there was a connection between the wild plants we found in the temple and the Philistine religion of the time.”
Temple garden
The results of the study are significant because we still know little about the Philistine religion. From previous research we know that the Philistines lived about 3000 years ago. The big problem here, however, is that the Philistines left very little evidence behind. Frumin explains: “What is particularly striking is that there are almost no written sources from the Philistines. We do have a number of icons from which we can derive information, but as yet very little is known about the Philistine religion of that time. This research shows that the Philistines mainly focused on worshiping nature, including flowing water and the seasons. They did this, among other things, by making extensive use of medicinal and psychoactive plants.”
Another final interesting find: the temple was not only a place for worship, but apparently also for production. Frumin concludes: “We also found looms in the temple buildings themselves. However, this is not completely new; Previous research already shows that the temple district was probably also the place where fabrics were produced. Not only that, right next to the temple there was metallurgical activity.”
2024-03-03 14:45:12
#Scientists #learn #Philistines #examining #Goliaths #hometown
