Horvat Kur
Press Release: International Team Explores Rural Galilee and Finds Ancient Synagogue – Kinneret Regional Project Back in the Field!
05/07/10 13:45

Kinneret Regional Project (KRP, an academic consortium of the Universities of Bern [Switzerland], Helsinki [Finland], Leiden [Netherlands] and Mainz [Germany]) returned to the Galilee on June 21, the 2010 campaign will last until July 16 and is sponsored by the Universities of Bern (co-director Stefan Münger), Helsinki (co-director Juha Pakkala) and Leiden (co-director Jürgen Zangenberg).
New Discoveries at Horvat Kur
This year’s archaeological focus is the first systematic excavation on Horvat Kur, a village inhabited from the Early Roman through the Early Mediaeval periods located on a gentle hill 2 km west of the Lake of Galilee. 30 volunteers (mostly students of theology, religious studies and archaeology) and staff from the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, Spain, Israel and Germany explore the material remains of village life in Galilee, a region that features very prominently in Early Christian and Rabbinic tradition.
Already after two weeks of excavation KRP the hardships of digging in the blazing Galilean sun were rewarded. Archaeologists worked in two different areas.

To the east of the monumental wall we found a totally different situation, indicating that this space was inside the building. Here, a low bench made of hewn stones and covered with grey plaster, runs alongside the wall, only interrupted by an entrance roughly in the centre of its excavated part. The floor was made of grey, hard plaster. It will need to be checked in the future if there are additional floor layers below.
Taken all the available evidence together, it seems very likely, that KRP 2010 has discovered a part of the western wall of yet another ancient Galilean synagogue. Together with the well-known synagogues at Capernaum and Chorazin (both ca. 5th / 6th c. CE) and the recently discovered ones at Khirbet Hammam (2nd / 3rd c. CE) and Magdala (1st c. CE), the new synagogue at Horvat Kur (tentatively dated to the 4th / 5th c. CE) adds new evidence for a very tight net of synagogues in a relatively small area on the Northwestern shores of the Lake of Galilee.

Remains from the domestic quarter in C and the public area in A will substantially add to our knowledge of ancient rural Galilee and thus substantially contribute to solve current research questions like population growth and economic status or cultural interaction of indigenous and external influences in rural Galilee throughout the classical period. In addition, the new finds and findings at Horvat Kur will contribute substantially to the ongoing, fierce debate about the chronology of Galilean synagogues.

KRP also continued its work on the material remains of Tel Kinrot, a large site situated directly on the shore of Lake Kinneret ca. 11 km north of modern Tiberias. To date archaeological investigations revealed settlement layers from the Chalcolithic throughout the Ottoman periods (ca. 5th millennium BCE to 2nd millennium CE). The site was under excavation by KRP until 2008. After that a small, in-lab team of experts continuously analyzed the finds and findings from the various settlement layers in order to prepare them for subsequent publication (for most recent articles on different subjects cf. the publications section on this site).
During the 2010 study season special focus was laid on the examination of the city layout and the analysis of the architecture in the domestic quarters dating to the Iron Age I period (11th and 10th c. BCE). In addition, the catalogue of the hitherto retrieved small finds, especially those relating to textile industry, could be further completed. As in previous years, the restoration of the uniquely well preserved pottery assemblage of the Iron Age I period was continued.
Prospects
Future campaigns will return to surveying the region around Horvat Kur and record agricultural installations (already started in 2008), explore the many caves and cisterns on the site to better understand Horvat Kur’s water supply system and – of course – to continue excavations on the hill itself. A lot remains to be discovered on Horvat Kur!
After final publication of the results of the first phase of KRP’s activities at Tel Kinrot, fieldwork at this important site will be resumed. At the same time, the site’s preservation and conservation or restoration of excavated areas will be continuously pursued in collaboration with the authorities.

All these activities, of course, require money; raising sufficient funds will therefore have top-priority to make our plans happen.
Kinneret Regional Project 2010 wishes to thank the Israel Antiquities Authority for granting the excavation license and various logistic support, the owner of the land on which Horvat Kur is located, the Deutscher Verein vom Heiligen Land, the Schröter Foundation (Neustadt/Germany), the Universities of Bern, Helsinki and Leiden for generous support and our colleagues Benjamin Arubas, Mordechai Aviam, Dina Avshalom-Gorni, Hava Katz, Uzi Leibner, Eric Meyers, Yinon Shivtiel and Yosef Stepanski for advice and encouragement.
Jürgen Zangenberg and Stefan Münger (acting field directors of Kinneret Regional Project 2010)
Raimo Hakola (representative of the University of Helsinki team)
j.k.zangenberg@religion.leidenuniv.nl, in Israel +972-52-6479265
stefan.muenger@theol.unibe.ch, in Switzerland +41-797549726
raimo.hakola@helsinki.fi, +358-504155260
For information about the Kinneret Regional Project, please consult: www.kinneret-excavations.org.
The 2010 Field Season Is On Its Way
27/06/10 19:28

Back in the Field! — Excavation and Survey Season at Horvat Kur and Study Season at Tel Kinrot: June 20 - July 16, 2010
04/01/10 23:00

Volunteers will participate in all stages of investigations, be able to take part in a Field School and earn ECTS credits. At the end of the season team members will have a basic knowledge of relevant artefacts, their form and function, classification systems, production and finishing techniques and different excavation and survey methods and be familiar with important sites in the region.
We are looking for 20 - 25 enthusiastic volunteers:
- who will take part in excavating the small Galilean village site at Horvat Kur and in the systematic field survey of its surroundings, want to learn how to analyze and interpret finds and data and are eager to get to know the region and its material culture.
- who will help processing finds and data from Tel Kinrot, a neighbouring Iron Age I-site that has extensively been excavated by Kinneret Regional Project until 2008. Now, analysis and preparation for publication are underway, so volunteers will get an insight into how archaeological publications are written and can help in that process with various supportive tasks.
Click here to apply...
Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together - The 2009 Study Season
05/07/09 11:00

During the entire two weeks, both the Kinrot and Kur teams worked through different kinds of material, checked the documentation and supplemented the vast electronic database. For the Horvat Kur team, the campaign started with taking part in a symposium on “Graeco-Roman Galilee”, organized by Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee and Tel Hai Academic College between June 21-23, during which Jürgen Zangenberg presented a paper on “Exploring Galilean Village Culture. The Kinneret Regional Project Trial Excavations on Horvat Kur 2008”, co-authored by Lucas Petit, Mark van der Enden and himself (all Universiteit Leiden, NL). The paper will be published in the proceedings of the symposium.
Architect Bärbel Schöneweiss-Mehring and co-director Stefan Münger analyzed the architecture of “Field I” on Tel Kinrot, a massive and exceptionally well-preserved Iron Age-I domestic complex at the foot of Tel Kinrot, and produced a detailed reconstruction of the original building, including reflections about construction methods and a spatial analysis. The results of her work will be integrated into the final report. Several area reports written by staff members during previous seasons were checked and edited by the co-directors. They will form important parts of the final report. Daniella Vos (Research Master Student from Leiden) – assisted by Stefan Münger – worked with small finds and pottery and at the same time collected data for her research master project. Irina Gutman continued restoring pottery from Field I, this time with the help of volunteer and MA student Ellen van der Heide (Leiden University). Our experienced draftsperson Christa Lennert drew pottery and small finds, thereby adding important supplements to the database. Lukas Butscher (Master Student from the University of Berne) photographed many small finds and did an especially great job with the 82 coins found at Horvat Kur last year. The coins had been cleaned by the laboratories of the Hebrew University before the campaign and were now identified and catalogued by co-director Jürgen Zangenberg with the help of Leiden University volunteer Petra van den Berg. With the assistance of volunteers Tine Rassalle (MA student Leiden University) and Juho Sankamo (University of Turku/FIN) Lucas Petit and Mark van der Enden carried out ceramic and small finds analysis that will help putting Horvat Kur and surroundings on the archaeological map of Roman and Byzantine Galilee. Raimo Hakola represented Helsinki University and explored possibilities to open the Kinneret Regional Project excavation and field school programme to especially train students of the New Testament from Scandinavia.
The study season has been very effective, we plan to return and continue next year, possibly adding some more excavation and survey activity on Horvat Kur.
We thank the fantastic staff of Karei Deshe Guest House who again made life very pleasant for us and we are grateful to our generous sponsors that made the 2009 campaign possible: University of Berne, University of Helsinki, Leiden University and Schröter Stiftung (Neustadt/Germany).
Preliminary Report on the 2008 Season Available!
05/05/09 12:00

BTW: We are quite often asked whether we found the fishermen’s village «Gennesaret» mentioned in the New Testament. – The short answer is: no.
The long answer is by co-director Jürgen Zangenberg: “Observations on the Function, Character and Location of the New Testament Toponym Γεννησαρέτ (Mk 6:53; Mt 14:34),” in: R. Buitenwerf, H.W. Hollander and J. Tromp (eds.), Jesus, Paul and Early Christianity. Studies in Honour of Henk Jan de Jonge (NovT.S 130), Leiden: E.J. Brill 2008, 439-470.
(Web)site Revamped
08/12/08 22:45

In view of the image to the right, we would like to ask all visitors of Tel Kinrot to be very vigilant when visiting the site. We invested a lot to protect the now beautifully conserved «Field I» from unwanted guests, especially donkeys. These long-eared fellows love the shades of the high-standing walls and the soft and clean dust covering the floors. But - alas - they heavily damage the ruins. So please: close the gates to the excavation field after entering and leaving the site!
Same procedure as every year, James...!
28/10/08 21:45
...and we’ll do our very best, Miss Sophie... –
The directors of the Kinneret Regional Project will
report on the results of the 2008 season at the
Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental
Research, which will take place from Wednesday, 19
November until Saturday 22 November at the Westin
Waterfront Hotel in Boston/USA. The title of our
paper is “Kinneret Regional Project—The 2008 Field
Season” and the session we’re in is scheduled for
Saturday 22, from 4:15-6:15 pm (for the academic
program of this congress click here).
Additionally, we will present our project during the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in a session called “Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World” (SBL23-5) with a paper “Kinneret: A Nonbiblical City in the Land of the Bible” scheduled for Sunday November 23, 2008, 9:00-9:35 am (for an abstract click here and search for ‘Kinneret’). Both papers will be presented by Stefan Münger. – We would be happy to meet you there, if you are in the area (BTW: if you did not get the title of this post, click on the picture...!)
Additionally, we will present our project during the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in a session called “Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World” (SBL23-5) with a paper “Kinneret: A Nonbiblical City in the Land of the Bible” scheduled for Sunday November 23, 2008, 9:00-9:35 am (for an abstract click here and search for ‘Kinneret’). Both papers will be presented by Stefan Münger. – We would be happy to meet you there, if you are in the area (BTW: if you did not get the title of this post, click on the picture...!)
Kinneret Meets Rome
21/04/08 23:11

6ICAANE is the sixth International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, which is this year hosted from May 5th to May 10th, 2008 by the La Sapienza – Università di Roma. The aim of 6ICAANE is to promote cooperation and information exchange between archaeologists working in all fields and areas of the Ancient Near East, from the Eastern Mediterranean to Iran and from Anatolia to Arabia, from prehistoric times to Alexander the Great.
The congress venue is the Museo dell’Arte Classica in the basement of the Facoltà di Scienze Umanistiche, Piazzale A. Moro 5. – If you happen to be in the region you should not miss...
2008 Field Season Approaching...
09/04/08 17:27

This year, we will conduct a surface survey and soundings at Horvat Kur with remains from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine periods (3th c. BCE to 6 c. CE). Furthermore, we intend to excavate (and conserve) the last remaining portion of a large domestic complex dating to the end of the Iron Age I (ca. 950 BCE) at Tel Kinrot. Work in the field will be accompanied by evening lectures and field trips on weekends. No tuition fees are charged.
Winter Activities of the Kinneret Regional Project
31/03/08 00:00

A few weeks later, Wolfgang Zwickel (project coordinator) visited Tel Kinrot and shot the image to the right. The Tel is in good shape and the vegetation is flourishing.
Presentation at ASOR Annual Meeting
14/11/07 22:00

This is the published abstract: The paper reports on the recent results of archaeological investigations at Tel Kinrot/Tell el-Oreimeh (ancient Kinneret) and its environs undertaken by the Dutch-German-Finnish-Swiss «Kinneret Regional Project» under the auspices of the Universities of Bern, Helsinki, Leiden and Mainz.
Kinneret – located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Israel) – is emerging as one of the major sites for the study of urban life in the Iron Age IB in the Southern Levant in the dawn of the first Millennium BCE. Its material culture witnesses a lively and multilayered urban culture and shows a variety of cultural influences on the ancient population of the city.
Work concentrated in the past years on a large excavation field in the lower city with well-preserved Iron IB structures and installations. The architecture of those areas, belonging to the main Iron Age IB phase at Tel Kinrot, was fully exposed and subsequently prepared for conservation. The paper also presents the most recent finds, the results of current research programs and future developments within the «Kinneret Regional Project».












