Ein Ganim and Anem - A Tale of Two (?) Cities
*For those anxiously anticipating the continued adventures of the Danites (not) at sea, that will be B"H a later post, some time.
Besides for exams, I also need to hand in my first academic paper, for my academic writing course. The topic I'm researching is whether the Levitical Cities may have also been border-defense cities. Naturally, part of the research includes attempting to identify the locations of the cities and examining any archeological evidence uncovered so far. Which brings me to the topic of this post: The list of the cities appears in two places: Once in Yehoshua 21 and once in Chronicles 1:6. The lists are not exactly the same and there are many theories on why this is so, which we won't get into now. My focus in this paper is the cities given by the Tribe of Yissachar. The list in Yehoshua reads: Kishyon, Dovrat, Yarmut and Ein Ganim, while the list in Chronicles reads: Kadesh, Dovrat, Ramot and Anem. Once again, there are different theories on the differences. In this post, I'll focus on two names: Ein Ganim (עין גנים) and Anem (ענם).
Some scholars identify Ein Ganim with Anem, suggesting that Anem is a short-form of Ein Ganim. Linguistically, this is plausible - Anem contains letters from Ein Ganim. However, not all scholars agree with this interpretation. This is where things get interesting and complicated:
Several scholars have identified Ein Ganim/Anem with the Arab city of Jenin. There used to be a tel in Jenin, called Tell et Tell (א-תל) by the British. The tel itself was first discovered by PLO Guy in 1926, during the British Mandate. Subsequently, it came to be identified with both Ein Ganim and Beit Hagan. The British Antiquities Authority (AA) worked hard to reach an agreement with the local Arab populace and authorities to respect the tel and not destroy it, but didn't have much luck. Already during the Mandate, part of the tel was built over, according to documents left by the AA. In the 60s, the remainder of the tel was examined by an Israeli archeologist, Nechemiah Tzori. In the late 70s, Albert Glock, an American archeologist who founded the archeology department at Birzeit University excavated part of the tel. Some of his findings were published in a number of non-Palestinian sources, but the artifacts themselves are locked up at BZU. By the early 2000s, it was reported that large parts of the tel were either destroyed or covered by buildings. In 2009 a report by the World Archeological Congress mentioned a resolution to ask the Palestinians to stop destroying archeological sites in Judah and Samaria, specifically citing this tel. Sure, like that'll ever work. One may assume that pretty much none of the tel still exists. Perhaps one day, B"H, we will be able to dig under the pavement and maybe find some remains. Who knows.
But before you walk away from this post thinking: Oh, great, now we'll never know what the Levitical city of Ein Ganim/Anem looked like, see the caveat:
There are other theories on the location of Ein Ganim and Anem.
One proposed theory is that Ein Ganim/Anem is to be identified with Khirbet Beit Jann, which is near the Druze town of Beit Jann - in purely Israeli territory. Excavations conducted at the tel have led to some interesting Iron Age I remains, as well as significant Iron Age II remains and also from later eras.
A third theory proposes that both Ein Ganim and Anem are scribal errors and the real name is Unam, which is to be identified with Ulam.
Then there are those that think that Ein Ganim and Anem aren't even the same cities. So far, for those who differentiate, I haven't really seen suggestions for where Anem is, but I thought up of a personal theory, which is that perhaps Anem may be identified with Umm el-Ghanam (אום אל-ע'אנם). A survey of the area so far has only led to Byzantine and Islamic period findings, but perhaps directly underneath the Arab village there's an older site? Who knows. It's difficult to tell. Ha, get it? Tel...okay, I'll go.
Comments
Post a Comment