Update on Book Release Party

The book release party for Judge of Israel is now scheduled for 31 July 2010. It will be held in Sequim at 343 Community Lane from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

Please join us on a journey back in time 3000 years, to an age of priests and prophets, hunters and heroes, an age when twelve tribes battled giants, merciless warriors and magic to preserve a nation surrounded by foes, a nation that guarded the most precious heritage ever known to mankind…

Judge of Israel is the thrilling sequel to Timothy S. Wilkinson’s acclaimed first novel, Prophet of Israel, and the second book in his Eternal Throne Chronicles. Pre-order the limited edition now and save $5.00 off the retail price of $29.95.

Join us for drinks, hors d'oeuvres, a presentation about life in ancient Palestine, and a reading from the new novel--and purchase a signed copy of the limited edition of Judge of Israel.

We hope to see you there!

In Living Color: Dyes and Dyeing in Ancient Israel

In Living Color: Dyes and Dyeing in Ancient Israel

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                Today we see bright, vivid colors as the product of primarily synthetic processes. We are pleasantly surprised—even awed—by neon frogs and electric blue fish. For Iron Age peoples, the reverse was true. Man-made colors were consistently inferior to their natural counterparts, and the palette available to the dyer or the painter was a tiny fraction of that which God had used to adorn the landscape around them.

                An interesting example of this is the invitation Jehovah extends to his wayward people at Isaiah 1:18: “’Come, now, you people, and let us set matters straight between us,’ says Jehovah. ‘Though the sins of you people should prove to be as scarlet, they will be made white just like snow; though they should be red like crimson cloth, they will become even like wool.’”

                Modern readers might think that the contrasts would have been made more vivid had they used black vs. white instead of scarlet/crimson vs. white. But real blacks could not be produced by the dyes of the time—only dark greys or charcoals, and these were far from colorfast. The dyes for crimson and scarlet, though, were both rich and lasting. Removing a scarlet stain from a white cloth was an impossible task, and therefore a great illustration of the extent of God’s forgiveness.

                The story behind some of the dyes and dying processes used by the Israelites are fascinating. Here are a few examples:

Yellow

Yellow dye was relatively common. It could be made from a distillation from almond leaves, pomegranate rinds, safflower blossoms, or crocus flowers. Anyone who has visited India or various regions of the Middle East will remember the yellow-orange fingers of every housewife, permanently stained by her handling of turmeric.

Black

The bark of the pomegranate tree was blended with the roots of the madder plant (Rubia tinctorum) to produce a dark, charcoal grey. Sometimes the deepest versions of the purple or blue dyes described below could appear black in less-than-direct light.

Blue

Indigo was grown in Egypt (and eventually in southern Palestine) and used just as it is today. The cerulean mussel and some mollusks from the murex family were blended with other substances for deeper blues.

Purple

The simplest (and least expensive) purples were made by steeping wool cloth in grape juice overnight and, in the morning, sprinkling powdered madder root on it to “fix” the color. The more well-known purples, though—the ones frequently referred to in the Scriptures in connection with royalty—have a more interesting origin. Along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea live the Murex trunculus and the Murex brandaris, two mollusks that range from marble- to fist-sized. In their necks is a tiny gland that, when harvested, produces a single drop of creamy yellow liquid. To produce one-and-a-half grams of dye (not enough to color a large handkerchief) required the glands of roughly 12,000 mollusks! This liquid, when exposed to light and air, gradually turned to a hue somewhere between deep violet and reddish purple (depending on where on the coast the shellfish were harvested). The people of the Phoenician city of Tyre became famous for their production of a color that came to be called “Imperial purple” because it was so expensive that only royalty could afford it. In Roman times wearing a garment of this color was forbidden by Imperial decree—violators were guilty of high treason.

Scarlet/crimson

This color, prominently featured in both the Israelite Tabernacle and the Temple, was also expensive. A parasite that the Arabian peoples call qirmiz (which is the origin of our word “crimson”) belongs to the family coccidae. The female looks like a berry about the size of a cherry pit, so the Greeks called it “kokkos,” meaning “berry.” In late spring the female swells, filled with eggs that contain purplish-red kermesic acid. Shortly before the eggs are ready to hatch, the female attaches herself to the twigs and leaves of the kermes oak by means of her proboscis. Sharp-eyed harvesters collect the grubs, dry them, and boil them to extract the dye.

The late archaeologist W. F. Albright uncovered a dyeing and weaving center during his excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim. In each of several separate dyeing rooms were two round stone vats with narrow openings and channels around their rims, masonry basins and benches in front of or between the vats, and jars full of lime and potash for fixing the dyes.

Many dyes were made by first mixing a solution of water, potash, and lime, After several days the chosen pigment was added and the dye was poured over the cloth in earthenware pots or stone basins. After the proper delay, the yarn, cloth, or skin was washed repeatedly in clear water, squeezed out, and hung up to dry.

The Giants of Palestine

The Bible, like many ancient works of literature, speaks of giants. Genesis describes the Nephilim (meaning “those who make others fall down”), and the books of the Pentateuch mention races of giants: the Rephaim and the Anakim. These are not giants of the willowy, slender type—these men were all known as warriors of great strength and skill. Og, the king of Bashan was one of the Rephaim. His height is not recorded, but he was buried in a sarcophagus that measured over 13 feet. Goliath of Gath, whom David slew, was nine and a half feet tall. Ishbi-benob, Saph, and Lahmi were other giants from the time of David’s rule.

                Are such accounts clear evidence of exaggeration or the influence of legends on Bible writers? Not necessarily. Although no conclusive evidence has been found for the existence of a giant race in Palestine, there are reasons not to dismiss the idea out of hand.

                First of all, acromegalic gigantism has produced men of extraordinary size throughout recorded history. In our modern times these have included:

                Robert Wadlow (1918-1940), 8 feet 11 inches

                John Rogan (1865-1905), 8 feet 9 inches

                Edouard Beaupre (1881-1904), 8 feet 3 inches

                Vaino Myllyrinne (1909-1963), 8 feet 2 inches

                Don Koehler (1925-1981), 8 feet 2 inches

                Sultan Kosen (1982-present), 8 feet 1 inch

                Patrick Cotter O’Brien (1750-1806), 8 feet 1 inch

                Gabriel Esevao Monjane (1944-1990), 8 feet ¾ inch

                Julius Koch (1872-1902), 8 feet

                Some of these names may be familiar. I grew up reading about Robert Wadlow in the Guinness Book of World Records. My memory of him was as a fragile-looking giant who required two canes to walk. Others on this list are similar—John Rogan could not walk, and Sultan Kosen also requires the help of two canes.

                But not all giants are weakened by their condition—at least not in their youth. Edouard Beaupre weighed over 400 pounds and worked as a professional strongman and wrestler. He would regularly entertain crowds by lifting a 900 pound horse on his shoulders. Vaino Myllyrinne was a soldier in the Finnish defense forces and later a professional wrestler and boxer. Patrick Cotter O’Brien weighed over 460 pounds. In 1826 he grabbed a heckler by the collar, held him at arm’s length and shook him.

                In the span of a mere 260 years there have been twelve people with a verified height of more than eight feet. From a purely statistical point of view, that suggests around 140 such people have lived in the past 3000 years—even if we do not allow for the possibility of a genetic anomaly that would increase the height of a given race.

                Modern Sudanese may average 6 feet 4 inches; modern Scandinavians are nearly 6 feet 2 inches. Surely it is possible that at some time there existed a race whose average height was close to 7 feet. If so, a case of gigantism in that race could certainly result in an incredibly tall person.

                Of course, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence of the remains of people of much greater stature being found all over the world. Most of this evidence has been ignored by science or has been destroyed before it could be properly analyzed. It should, though, at least allow us to consider the possibility that a race of giants did at one time live somewhere on the earth.

                It is interesting that the Bible’s most famous giant, Goliath of Gath, is not described as being twenty feet tall (or as living atop a beanstalk). His nine-and-a-half foot height is certainly extraordinary, but not beyond the realm of physical or medical possibility.

                As I said, there is no conclusive archaeological evidence of such a race. But huge stone constructions in Palestine are traditionally attributed to the Rephaim giants. In the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad before the looting, there was a display of three battleaxes that had been found in southern Palestine. I have included a photograph of them below. The heads of these axes weigh more than thirty pounds each. Most archaeologists believe them to be ceremonial weapons—but they draw this conclusion purely based on their size. The axe heads themselves are entirely functional. (The handles are re-creations for display purposes). Below them are photographs of Andre Roussimoff (7'4" and 500 lbs.) and Eduoard Beaupre.

                The possibility must be entertained that these were once weapons in the hands of one of the most feared races of warriors ever to walk to the earth: the giants of Palestine.

The Philistines

Most modern scholars consider the Philistines of the Bible to have been one of the "Sea Peoples" that probably originated in Mycenae, Cyprus, and surrounding lands. Homer's Iliad was a battle involving the Mycenaean Greeks of this time period. It is entirely possible that Odysseus and the Warriors who sacked Troy were the forefathers of (or at least related to) the Philistines who eventually settled in Israel.They traveled south (likely to escape a period of crop failures and famine), conquering peoples as they went. They destroyed the Hittite empire in Anatolia, ransacking its capital Hattusas and sacking Ugarit in Syria and the Cyprian capital, Enkomi. Fighting alongside the Libyans at the Nile delta, they were defeated by Pharaoh Merenptah. Returning to Egypt in the eighth year of Rameses III, the Sea Peoples were again defeated, but Pharaoh allowed them to settle in the north--in Palestine (the name of which comes from Philistine).

At this period in history, the Philistines become a significant problem for the people of Israel. Starting with the Battle of Aphek in the days of High Priest Eli and the childhood of Samuel the Prophet, Israel faced off against the Philistines repeatedly. Whether under the leadership of Samson, Samuel, or Saul, the Israelites could not gain a decisive advantage over these fierce coastal warriors.

It seems that a major reason for this was Philistine technological superiority--especially in the area of metalworking. In the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 13, Samuel reports that the Philistines had completely taken over the business of smithing in Israel. Samuel must have been referring here to iron working; archaeology substantiates the notion that the Philistines brought this technology with them from Anatolia, where the Hittites had been the first to master it.

The Philistines also owed their military greatness to their alliance with the most feared people of the eighth through the tenth centuries B.C.E.--the Rephaim. Although skeptics are quick to cry foul whenever "giants" are mentioned in ancient literature, there is solid, empirical data to support the notion that a race suffering/blessed with a form of gigantism was once prominent in ancient Palestine. Philistines used these super-warriors as champions, as in the famous case of Goliath.

"Philistine" has entered the English vernacular since the seventeenth century as a synonym for boorish or uncultured. Archaeology in recent decades has in many ways debunked this notion. the Philistines achieved high levels of artistic sophistication and a deep appreciation for aesthetic values. The fact that these qualities existed in a culture that also practiced child sacrifice, ritualized sex rites and barbarous military methods should not be surprising when one consider the obvious parallels in the "advanced" cultures of the world today.

The Deadliest Animal

The people of ancient Israel lived in a world filled with wild and dangerous creatures. Just as today you are statistically likely to be related to someone who has died of cancer, in Palestine in the 10th century B.C.E. you were statistically likely to be related to someone who had been killed by a wild animal.
Man-eating lions haunted watering holes (2 Samuel 23:20); Syrian brown bears ate children (2 Kings 2:23); cobras, scorpions, and pit vipers sent many unwary travelers to their deaths. Of the ten deadliest animals on earth today (in terms of numbers of people killed per year), eight of them (dogs, bears, hippos, crocodiles, lions, leopards, scorpions, and cobras) were common in Palestine in Bible times.
But the deadliest animal in ancient Israel hasn’t killed anyone in centuries. It has been extinct since Roman times, the last of them having been hunted down in Europe by the Gauls. It is the aurochs, (Hebrew re’em), the wild bull.
The aurochs stood over six feet at the shoulder and was over ten feet long. Massive and muscled, it weighed in at well over a ton. It’s razor-sharp horns spanned nearly six feet—and it is one of the few creatures in history that deliberately hunted men. As far as I know, the aurochs and the elephant are the only herbivorores to do so.
English archaeologist Austen Layard wrote: “The wild bull, from its frequent representation in the bas-reliefs, appears to have been considered scarcely less formidable and noble game than the lion. The king is frequently seen contending with it, and warriors pursue it both on horseback and on foot.” (Nineveh and Its Remains, 1849, Volume 2, page 326) Julius Caesar wrote the following description of them: “[They] are scarcely less than elephants in size, but in their nature, colour, and form, are bulls. Great is their strength, and great their speed: they spare neither man nor beast when once they have caught sight of them.”
Today, there are no non-domesticated strains of bovines left. Even the deadly water buffalo, while it may live in the wild in some areas, is descended from domestic ancestors. It is hard for us to imagine what it would have been like to face an animal of the size, speed, and ferocity of the aurochs with nothing more than sword, spear, and short bow. From the standpoint of a Bronze Age warrior, these creatures were unstoppable.
Researchers believe that the closest representation of the aurochs alive today is an Asian breed of cattle called Gaur. I have included pictures below--one of gaur, and one of a bull Photoshopped to be the size of an ancient aurochs.
I would rather face a lion any day.

The Home Stretch

Editing has entered the home stretch. I hope to order my final proof on 24 May. If all goes well, I will hold my release party on 19 June and the book will become available for sale on that day as well.

Today also begins my pre-marketing schedule. I intend to keep my blog and Twitter updated daily. I will be using Twitter to share information regarding life in Bible times and details about Bible verses that I have encountered in my research for The Eternal Throne Chronicles. I will also begin marketing to bookstores.

I hope to be invited to join the North Olympic Library System's Author Fair again this year on 22 May. (Unfortunately, this falls the day after Chelsey's and my sixteenth wedding anniversary--what were you thinking, NOLS?)

Thanks for following!