Among many important discoveries, 2010 Kinneret Regional Project (www.kinneret-excavations.org) discovered an ancient synagogue, in use at around 400 CE.

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.

In area A – situated on the hill-top – a narrow test trench dug in 2008 was expanded to a larger area (three squares, 5x5 m each), now being fully excavated. At this location, remains of an elaborately built monumental wall were discovered already at an early stage of excavation. This wall, preserved up to 80cm, runs North-South for at least 10m and clearly divides the excavated space into two different areas. To the west of it, a cobblestone pavement covered what we think was a small courtyard. In 2008 a large number of coins were found on the surfaces of this open space, indicating that the building represented by the above mentioned monumental wall might already have been in use at around 400 CE. During the 2010 campaign, another large amount of coins came to light in the same area which are likely to corroborate this dating once numismatic analysis of the newly found coin material is completed. Fragments of pilasters and other architectural elements were found close by in tumble, which will eventually contribute to the reconstruction of layout and design of the building.
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.

In area C on the fringe of the topmost plateau of Horvat Kur, parts of two courtyards with work installations and a room full with dumped pottery from the middle of the 1st millennium CE came to light that allow fascinating insights into social and economic life in a Galilean village during this period. Recycled architectural elements (spoliae) and broad walls made of fieldstones or reused ashlars demonstrate how frequently village space changed to adapt buildings to the needs of their inhabitants. Future excavations will expose the entire structure and allow analysis of the use and organization of space of the inhabitants. The expedition will aim to unearth traces of earlier habitation to clarify the development of the village.

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.

Analyzing Finds from Tel Kinrot
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.

KRP will henceforth also be committed to its educational field programme for international students of all disciplines to bring them into hands-on contact with the history and material culture of a region that is at the foundations of both Judaism and Christianity.

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.

On June 21, 2010 Kinneret Regional Project resumed its archaeological activities. Apart from continuing to analyze finds from Bronze- and Iron Age Tel Kinrot and preparing them for eventual publication, the first systematic excavation was carried out on Horvat Kur, a village from the Hellenistic through Byzantine period. Follow these activities on our weblog: kinneret.weblog.leidenuniv.nl. Our team consists of 30 team-members from The Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, Israel and Germany. In addition to them, 12 field archaeologists and other specialists work on the site and in the lab.

Based upon preliminary results from the 2008 and 2009 seasons, the 2010 season of the Kinneret Regional Project will continue its archaeological activities on Horvat Kur, a small rural site inhabited between the Late Hellenistic and Early Arab periods. Apart from excavations on Horvat Kur, we will conduct surveys in the vicinity. In addition to these endeavors, a small group of specialists will continue processing data and finds from Tel Kinrot, the major site of the Project until excavations have been concluded in 2008.
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...

Between June 19 and July 5, Kinneret Regional Project held its working season 2009, analyzing and processing material excavated at Tel Kinrot during recent excavations until 2008 and at Horvat Kur during the pilot excavation in 2008. The aim was to make substantial progress towards “Kinneret II”, the final publication of Kinneret Field I, and to prepare a preliminary report on the excavations and surveys at Horvat Kur.
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).

A short season report on our work at Horvat Kur and Tel Kinrot in summer 2008 was today published in the online journal «Hadashot Arkheologiyot – Excavations and Surveys in Israel (HA-ESI)». It summarizes the most important results and discusses a few finds. English readers find it here; a Hebrew version is available here (note that these pages are best viewed with Firefox for Windows or Mac).

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.

Visitors may have noticed that a new section entitled ‘Presentations’ has been added to this website. There you not only find a list of past presentations and lectures we gave around the globe, but you may also have a sneak peek at a sample paper that was delivered recently at a professional conference (this part will only be updated sporadically since we don’t want to shoot our wad in advance...). Consider it as the field report on the 2008 field season!

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!

...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...!)

Staff member Juhana Saukkonen (UCL London) will present a lecture on the 2007 Season of the Kinneret Regional Project at the 6ICAANE in Rome on May 8th, 2008, 11:00-11:30 am.

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...

Registration for the coming field season of the Kinneret Regional Project was opened today. We welcome students (and non-students) from all over the world to participate as team-members. From July 6 to July 25 you will explore the fascinating world of ancient cultures on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee and bring back to life the stories of the past. Applications must be submitted until May 1st, 2008. To apply click here.

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.

Fieldwork started already early this year. At the end of January and beginning February 2008, a small team of students headed by Prof. Dr. Michael Heinzelmann (Institute of Archaeology, University of Bern) conducted together with Jürgen Zangenberg, co-director of the Kinneret Regional Project, a geophysical prospection at Horvat Kur and Tel Kinrot at. Currently, we are eagerly awaiting the results.

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.

Juha Pakkala, co-director of the Kinneret Regional Project, presents on behalf of the project at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools in San Diego. The title of the lecture is “Kinneret Regional Project – The 2007 Field Season.”
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».