Dyed Cotton Fibers Found at Neolithic Village Site in Israel

Around 7,000 years ago, somebody arrived in a prehistoric village in today’s northern Israel with a luxurious novelty: cotton.

Cotton was not known to the earliest civilizations rising in the Near East because it isn’t indigenous to the region, and where and when it was first domesticated remains a mystery. But now traces of this alien plant with its exquisitely soft bolls have been detected in Tel Tsaf.

This is the earliest trace of cotton found in the Near East to date by centuries, the researchers say. They believe it originated in the Indus Valley, though do not rule out an African origin.

How did cotton get to Tel Tsaf 7,000 years ago from the Indus Valley (or North Africa)? By trading, suggest Li Liu of Stanford University, Maureece Levin of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Florian Klimscha of the Lower Saxony State Museum (Hannover, Germany) and Danny Rosenberg of the University of Haifa, writing in Frontiers in Plant Science.

Good times in the Late Neolithic

Tel Tsaf contains the ruins of a village that arose about 7,300 to 7,200 years ago and would thrive for about 500 years, after which it was deserted for reasons that remain unknown. That in itself is quite the mystery given the abundance of its environs in the central Jordan Valley, south of the Sea of Galilee, Rosenberg notes. But for its time, this had been some settlement.

The wonders found during half a century of excavation there include the most ancient copper object in this part of the Middle East (there’s somewhat older in Iraq), a clay model of a grain silo – possibly indicating ritual involving food cultivation and storage – and a stamped sealing from around 7,000 years ago. This all suggests, the archaeologists surmise, that Tel Tsaf was an extraordinarily wealthy place as Late Neolithic settlements went.

Now Liu, Rosenberg and colleagues have detected cotton microfibers, at least some of which were dyed, from 7,000 years ago. This may provide further indication of trading relationships at the cusp of the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Early Chalcolithic in the valley.

It bears adding that the earliest cotton reported previously was in Dhuweila, eastern Jordan, and dates to centuries later – sometime between 6,450 years ago to around 5,000 years ago.

To be clear, it isn’t that humans strolled around in the altogether with their bits flapping in the breeze until discovering the delights of cotton. The thinking, says Rosenberg, is that the earliest garb was animal skins, whether worn to preserve modesty, for reasons of status, for warmth or for some other reason.

But hmo-kind discovered plant fibers at least tens of thousands of years ago. In 2020, archaeologists found no less than three-ply cord in a Neanderthal context in France, taking the crown from 23,000-year-old string found in Ohalo, Israel. What the Neanderthals or humans from Ohalo were doing with string, we do not know. However, the archaeologists note that the ability to create cord is the prerequisite for a host of potential developments, including textile weaving.

Textiles do not preserve well in the archaeological record, to put it mildly. Yet moving on from the Ohalo cord, evidence of early weaving pops up here and there – including an extremely complex woven basket found in a cave in the Judean Desert from 10,500 years ago. Material made of oak bast (the innards of bark), meanwhile, was found in Çatalhöyük, Turkey, from 8,500 years ago.

In short, before cotton, people in the region were using bast and flax fibers. And now Liu, Rosenberg and the team report on cotton in Tel Tsaf – definitely from afar, and seemingly before the plant had even been domesticated. And it was dyed, to boot.

What colors were the fibers tinted, and can they speak to Neolithic tastes? They cannot. Rosenberg stresses that the sample of fibers from Tel Tsaf is small (123 microfibers in total), and 16 being observed to be cotton in shades of blue, three pink, one purple, one green and three brown/black means precisely nothing about their preferences. What it does mean, the professor qualifies, is that these late prehistoric peoples were not just making textiles and fibers – they were doing further manipulation and coloring their cloths.

By the way, the most frequently used fiber in ancient Tel Tsaf was bast, and they also used flax and jute, the archaeologists report.

A story from Pakistan

Let us move onto the cotton’s origin. Why couldn’t the cotton fibers of Tel Tsaf be local? And why do they think it’s Pakistan, not North Africa?

It isn’t likely to have been grown locally because cotton is happiest in tropical and subtropical regions with ample water. It apparently didn’t grow in prehistoric Israel, and the thinking is that like the “invention” of agriculture itself – the cultivation of cotton arose independently around the world, including in the Indus Valley and North Africa. “But cultivation in North Africa was later,” Rosenberg explains.

The earliest archaeological evidence of cotton’s use is in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period at the Mehrgarh burial site in central Balochistan, Pakistan. Cotton threads were used to string copper beads about 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. It bears clarifying that the earliest known cotton fabric is a tiny fragment of actual cloth (albeit stuck to the lid of a silver vase), which was discovered at Mohenjo-daro, also Pakistan, from 5,000 to 4,750 years ago.

So, cotton was known in some context in prehistoric Pakistan at the time of its appearance in Tel Tsaf, Rosenberg says.

What cotton? Wild cotton. The plant apparently wouldn’t be domesticated for at least 2,000 years more, he explains. “Based primarily on evidence from seeds, domestication is thought to have occurred during the time of the Harappan civilization (2600-1900 B.C.E.),” the authors write.

And how might the wild cotton have been used, aside from making threads to string crude copper beads? Weaving textiles is a reasonable assumption, because cotton isn’t the stuff for baskets. As for another clothing source staple, the sheep did join our human story about 10,000 years ago, in parallel with the start of the Neolithic Revolution. However, the archaeological record of perishables is spotty at best and the earliest recognition of the charms of wool as opposed to mutton stew is not clear. Some think wool-shearing and related technology arose in the Chalcolithic; some think that in Mesopotamia it began as much as 9,000 years ago.

The invisible technology

Now let us confuse the issue. Archaeological evidence of microfibers – mainly bast but wool too – have been detected going back tens of thousands of years: for instance, in 30,000-year-old Upper Paleolithic deposits in Georgia, and from 28,000 to 13,500 years ago in northern China. Traces of bast have been found in the weird Natufian “boulder mortars” in Israel’s Rakefet Cave from about 13,000 years ago. Uses of these fibers remain mysterious, ditto the mortars.

The thing is that in contrast to stone tools and even bones, textiles decay really fast under most circumstances. It’s extraordinary for any of this “invisible technology” to survive the eons, Rosenberg says. One of the earliest examples of real-McCoy fabric was found in the so-called warrior’s grave by Jericho, from the late Chalcolithic or Early Bronze Age. He was buried with a bow and a big piece of fabric.

As for the thought that the cotton could have reached Tel Tsaf by trade thousands of years before the horse was domesticated – it isn’t a stretch. An obsidian blade originating in Turkey was found in a Neolithic settlement next to Jerusalem from 9,000 years ago and other examples of ancient stuff being where it shouldn’t abound. Asked if there’s any evidence whatsoever of trade between Tel Tsaf specifically with prehistoric Pakistan, Rosenberg has an intriguing answer: maybe.

“The only thing is beads made of olivine crystals, which we think were from Africa from around 7,000 years ago. Chemical testing shows they’re like olivine in Africa – but olivine also exists in Pakistan,” he says. “Maybe we were wrong and the olivine was from Pakistan.” Tel Tsaf also has obsidian beads hailing from Turkey and there’s also that ancient copper artifact: its origins aren’t clear, but they think it’s probably Anatolian.

“Trade” doesn’t have to mean that merchants were walking from Tel Tsaf to Anatolia or Baluchistan; artifacts may change hands over centuries before being lost or otherwise winding up in ruins that we thrill at finding thousands of years later.

In the late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic, there were massive movements of peoples, and there may have been good reason why Tel Tsaf was so prosperous in that early time – hundreds of years before metals and other accoutrements of advancing civilizations would seriously arrive. It was smack on the route of long-distance exchange networks in the southern Levant. Including, maybe, with the Indus Valley.

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue in Israel

The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at a Jewish synagogue at Huqoq in Israel,

A team of specialists and students led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness recently returned to Israel’s Lower Galilee to continue unearthing nearly 1,600-year-old mosaics.

The team continues its 10th season of excavation this summer at a synagogue in the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Lower Galilee. Discoveries made this year include the first known depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael as described in the book of Judges.

This season, project director Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor of religious studies in Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences, and assistant director Dennis Mizzi of the University of Malta focused on the southwest section of the synagogue, which was built in the late fourth-early fifth century C.E.

The newly discovered mosaic panels depicting the heroines are made of local cut stone from Galilee and were found on the floor on the south end of the synagogue’s west aisle.

The story of Deborah, a judge, and prophet who helped Israelite general Barak defeat the Canaanite army, is found in the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges.

After the victory, the passage says, the Canaanite commander Sisera fled to the tent of Jael (Yael-a Kenite woman), where she drove a tent peg into his temple and killed him.

The uppermost register of the newly-discovered Huqoq mosaic shows Deborah under a palm tree, gazing at Barak, who is equipped with a shield. Only a small part of the middle register is preserved, which appears to show Sisera seated. The lowest register depicts Sisera lying deceased on the ground, bleeding from the head as Jael hammers a tent stake through his temple.

A fragmented Hebrew dedicatory inscription inside a wreath is also among the newly unearthed mosaics, which are flanked by panels measuring 6 feet tall and 2 feet wide and depicting two vases with budding vines. The vines form medallions that frame four animals eating clusters of grapes: a hare, a fox, a leopard, and a wild boar.

Sponsors of the project are UNC-Chapel Hill, Austin College, Baylor University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Toronto.

Students and staff from Carolina and the consortium schools participated in the dig. Financial support for the 2022 season was also provided by the National Geographic Society, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Kenan Charitable Trust, and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Excavations are scheduled to continue in the summer of 2023.

Discovery of a rare lead sling bullet bearing a magic inscription for victory

During excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Yavne, a rare lead sling bullet was discovered – possibly belonging to a Greek soldier, bearing a magic inscription for victory.

On the sling bullet was the Greek inscription “Victory of Heracles and Hauronas”.

“The inscriptions were part of psychological warfare, the main purpose of which was to terrorize the opponent, and in addition, to unite the warriors and raise their spirits,” says Prof. Yulia Ustinova of Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

Was the projectile used for warfare against the Hasmoneans?

New research has revealed a lead sling bullet from the Hellenistic period, a rare of its kind in Israel, with an inscription in Greek intended to ensure victory in battle.

The 2,200-year-old sling bullet, which bears the inscription – “Victory of Heracles and Hauronas,” was uncovered in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Yavne as part of the Israel Lands Authority’s initiative to expand the city, in cooperation with the Yavne Municipality. The length of the sling bullet is 4.4 cm, and it was intended to be used in an early sling.

“The pair of gods Hauron and Heracles were considered the divine patrons of Yavne during the Hellenistic period,” says Prof. Yulia Ustinova from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, who deciphered the inscription.

“The inscription on a sling bullet is the first archaeological evidence of the two guardians of Yavne, discovered inside Yavne itself. Until today, the pair was only known from an inscription on the Greek island of Delos.”

As a couple, the gods Heracles and Hauron were a perfect team of victory-givers. “The announcement of the future victory of Heracles and Hauron was not a call addressed to the deity, but a threat directed towards the adversaries,” says Prof. Ustinova. “Lead sling bullets are known in the ancient world beginning in the 5th century BCE, but in Israel, few individual sling bullets were found with inscriptions.

The inscriptions convey a message of unifying the warriors to raise their spirits, scare the enemy, or a call intended to energize the sling bullet itself magically. These inscriptions were part of psychological warfare, the main

Purpose of which is to terrorize the opponent, and in addition, to unite the warriors and raise their spirits.”

It seems that we will not be able to know for sure if the sling bullet belonged to a Greek soldier,” said Pablo Betzer and Dr. Daniel Varga, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “but it may be related to the conflict between the Greeks and the Hasmoneans.

In the 2nd century BCE, pagan Yavne – an ally of the Seleucids (the Greeks who ruled Eretz-Israel), were subject to attacks by the Hasmonean armies.

The Hasmoneans sought to subjugate the other nations and create a homogeneous and ‘pure state’ from a religious-ritualistic point of view. The tiny lead sling bullets, announcing the imminent victory of the gods of pagan Yavne, are tangible evidence of a fierce battle in Yavne at that time.

“One can only imagine what that warrior who held the sling bullet 2,200 years ago thought and felt as he held on to the hope of divine salvation,” says Eli Escusido, Director-General of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Yavne excavation is a ‘mega’ excavation – one of the largest conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority, has yielded fascinating discoveries that testify to a rich and varied history of 7,000 years, and we eagerly await future findings.”

‘Highway of ancient world’: Part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road found in Galilee

Antiquities Authority says it was paved during the reign of emperor Hadrian; excavation works also unearth pottery shards, metal vessels and coins.

Archeologists have uncovered part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, built in the time of emperor Hadrian, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.

In a statement, the IAA said the road section, measuring some 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 25 meters (82 feet) long, was found near the village of Rumat al-Heib, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. It was discovered during development work on a walking trail.

The IAA branded the road as “the Highway 6 of the ancient world,” referencing Israel’s major north-to-south highway.

It said the road, which runs between Acre, Sepphoris and Tiberias, was paved in the 2nd century AD during Hadrian’s rule. The road was completed by his successors and later renovated in the Byzantine period.

The Roman empire established several major roads in the area as part of a need to quickly move military forces, mail and goods, the IAA said in its statement Thursday.

During excavation work in the area of the new road section, pottery fragments from the Roman and Byzantine periods were found, as well as metal items and coins dating back to the Roman period, the IAA said.

The excavation works are part of the development works of the Sanhedrin Trail, a 70-kilometer (43-mile) walking path that passes between sites associated with the assembly of 71 sages of the ancient supreme court of Israel.

How researchers unearthed 20 cities – ‘welcome to Armageddon’

Researcher Eric H. Cline has studied the excavation sites of Israel for decades, and writes in his book ‘Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon’ of the fascinating finds made in a historic region.

The most revealing excavations were made between 1925-1939, when Egyptologist James Henry Breasted went to Israel in search of artefacts linked to the legend of Armageddon.

In the New Testament, Armageddon witnesses the ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil before the Day of Judgement — evolving into its use today as a term describing the end of the world.

At the site of Tel Megiddo, located just southwest of Nazareth, the remains of more than 20 cities have been unearthed. Megiddo is the Hebrew word for Armageddon, and is home to a mound in Northern Israel on which ancient forts were built.

The region according to some was built by King Solomon, and in 1928, researcher Breasted claimed he found stables belonging to the legendary king.

He cited the Old Testament, which states that Solomon had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen stationed in “chariot cities”.

Mr Cline acknowledged in his book that today tour guides will welcome visitors to the site saying “welcome to Armageddon”.

The Tel Meggido site remains date back from about 5000 BC to the fourth century BC, and tourists often go to the region to pray and sing hymns. But the discoveries made there have also sparked debate between historians.

The stables of King Solomon were no different, as no remains from horses such as bones or conclusive evidence of grains have ever been shown.

Some excavators think the structure is not stable, but storehouses or barracks. Overall, Cline cautions: “Solomonic Megiddo has been extremely difficult to find.”

Some also believe the construction date of the stables was in the first half of the eighth century BC. Even the destruction of the city of Meggido has caused debate, as some scholars have proposed that Alexander the Great destroyed the city.

However, Cline highlights in his book that there is “no evidence for such a cinematic finale.”

Another revealing excavation site in Israel lies at Tel Lachish, where between 2013 and 2017, archaeologists were overwhelmed with stunning discoveries as they dug through a Canaanite temple from 12th century BC.

Among the artefacts was a pair of “smiting gods”, which took the form of unhewn standing stones representing temple deities.

According to the project report titled ‘The Level VI North-East Temple at Tel Lachish’, they were discovered inside the temple’s inner sanctum.

The author of the report, archaeologist Professor Yosef Garfinkel, tells of how the figurines are commonly identified with two Canaanite gods, Baal or Resheph, who are both known as war gods.

Mr Garfinkel said: “They are made of bronze with remains of a silver coating, especially on their faces.

“Both figurines represent a male figure in a marching stance with his right hand raised.

“Figurine A’s arm was preserved; it holds a weapon that seems to be a mace or club that is attached to the figure’s forehead. Both figurines wear a short kilt and a tall hat.

“Below their feet are pegs that were used to attach the figurines to wooden stands, as attested by the remains of wood.”

Fish fossils show first cooking may have been 600,000 years earlier than thought

Early human ancestors living 780,000 years ago liked their fish well done, Israeli researchers have revealed, in what they said was the earliest evidence of fire being used for cooking.

Exactly when our ancestors started cooking has been a matter of controversy among archaeologists because it is difficult to prove that an ancient fireplace was used to prepare food, and not just for warmth.

But the birth of the culinary arts marks an important turning point in human history because, by making food easier to chew and digest, it is believed to have greatly contributed to our eventual expansion across the world.

Previously, the first “definitive evidence” of cooking was by Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens 170,000 years ago, according to a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution on Monday.

The study, which pushes that date back by more than 600,000 years, is the result of 16 years of work by its first author, Irit Zohar, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.

During that time she catalogued thousands of fish remains found at a site called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in northern Israel.

The site near the banks of the Jordan River was once home to a lake, where a treasure trove of ancient fish fossils helped the team of researchers investigate exactly when the first cooks started getting inventive in the kitchen.

“It was like facing a puzzle, with more and more information until we could make a story about human evolution,” Zohar told AFP.

The first clue came in an area that contained “nearly no fish bones” but lots of teeth, she said.

This could point to cooking because fish bones soften and disintegrate at temperatures under 500C (930F), but their teeth remain.

In the same area, a colleague of Zohar’s found burnt flints and other evidence that it had previously been used as a fireplace.

And most of the teeth belonged to just two particularly large species of carp, suggesting they had been selected for their “succulent” meat, the study said. Some of the carp were over two metres (6.5 feet) long.

The “decisive” proof came from studying the teeth’s enamel, Zohar said.

The researchers used a technique called X-ray powder diffraction at the Natural History Museum in London to find out how heating changes the structure of the crystals that make up the enamel.

Comparing the results with other fish fossils, they found that the teeth from the key area of the lake were subjected to a temperature of between 200-500C (400-930F). That is just the right range for well-cooked fish.

Whether our forerunners baked, grilled, poached or sautéd their fish remains unknown, though the study suggested they may have used some kind of earth oven.

Fire is thought to have first been mastered by Homo erectus some 1.7 million years ago. But “because you can control fire for warming, that does not mean you control it for cooking – they could have eaten the fish next to the fire”, Zohar said.

Then the human ancestors might have thrown the bones in the fire, said Anaïs Marrast, an archaeozoologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study.

“The whole question about exposure to fire is whether it is about getting rid of remains or a desire to cook,” she said.

Sentence of Canaanite language found in Israel for the first time on the ivory comb

The alphabet was invented around 1800 BCE and was used by the Canaanites and later by most other languages in the world. Until recently, no meaningful Canaanite inscriptions had been discovered in the Land of Israel, save only two or three words here and there.

Now an amazing discovery presents an entire sentence in Canaanite, dating to about 1700 BCE. It is engraved on a small ivory comb and includes a spell against lice.

The comb was unearthed at Tel Lachish in Israel by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) and Southern Adventist University in the United States, under the direction of Professors Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel and Martin Klingbeil. The inscription was deciphered by semitic epigraphist Dr Daniel Vainstub at Ben Gurion University (BGU). The ivory was tested by HU Prof. Rivka Rabinovich and BGU Prof. Yuval Goren and was found to originate from an elephant tusk. Their findings were published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

The letters of the inscription were engraved in a very shallow manner. It was excavated in 2017 but the letters were noticed only in subsequent post-processing in 2022 by Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu. It was cleaned and preserved by Miriam Lavi.

The ivory comb is small, measuring roughly 3.5 by 2.5 cm. The comb has teeth on both sides. Although their bases are still visible, the comb teeth themselves were broken in antiquity. The central part of the comb is somewhat eroded, possibly by the pressure of fingers holding the comb during haircare or the removal of lice from the head or beard. The side of the comb with six thick teeth was used to untangle knots in the hair, while the other side, with 14 fine teeth, was used to remove lice and their eggs, much like the current-day two-sided lice combs sold in stores.

There are 17 Canaanite letters on the comb. They are archaic in form — from the first stage of the invention of the alphabet script. They form seven words in Canaanite, reading: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

“This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel. There are Canaanites in Ugarit in Syria, but they write in a different script, not the alphabet that is used today. The Canaanite cities are mentioned in Egyptian documents, the Amarna letters that were written in Akkadian, and in the Hebrew Bible.

The comb inscription is direct evidence of the use of the alphabet in daily activities some 3700 years ago. This is a landmark in the history of the human ability to write,” shared Garfinkel.

Ancient combs were made from wood, bone, or ivory. Ivory was a very expensive material and likely an imported luxury object. As there were no elephants in Canaan during that time period, the comb likely came from nearby Egypt — factors indicating that even people of high social status suffered from lice.

The research team analyzed the comb itself for the presence of lice under a microscope and photographs were taken of both sides. Remains of head lice, 0.5-0.6 mm in size, were found on the second tooth. The climatic conditions of Lachish, however, did not allow the preservation of whole head lice but only those of the outer chitin membrane of the nymph stage head louse.

Despite its small size, the inscription on the comb from Lachish has very special features, some of which are unique and fill in gaps and lacunas in our knowledge of many aspects of the culture of Canaan in the Bronze Age.

For the first time, we have an entire verbal sentence written in the dialect spoken by the Canaanite inhabitants of Lachish, enabling us to compare this language in all its aspects with the other sources for it. Second, the inscription on the comb sheds light on some hitherto poorly attested aspects of the everyday life of the time, haircare and dealing with lice.

Third, this is the first discovery in the region of an inscription referring to the purpose of the object on which it was written, as opposed to dedicatory or ownership inscriptions on objects. Further, the engraver’s skill in successfully executing such tiny letters (1-3 mm wide) is a fact that from now on should be taken into account in any attempt to summarize and draw conclusions on literacy in Canaan in the Bronze Age.

Lachish was a major Canaanite city-state in the second millennium BCE and the second most important city in the Biblical Kingdom of Judah. To date, 10 Canaanite inscriptions have been found in Lachish, more than at any other site in Israel.

The city was the major centre for the use and preservation of the alphabet for some 600 years, from 1800-1150 BCE. The site of Tel Lachish is under the protection of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

‘Extremely rare’ Rameses II-era burial cave found in Israel

A mechanical digger has uncovered a burial cave from the time of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II at an Israeli beach.   The square, man-made cave was found last week at Palmahim National Park when the digger hit its roof. 

In a video released by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), archaeologists shine flashlights on pottery that dates back to the reign of the ancient Egyptian king, who died in 1213 BC.

It showed bowls — some containing bones — chalices, cooking pots, storage jars, lamps and bronze arrows or spearheads.

The objects were burial offerings to accompany the dead on their journey to the afterlife, untouched since they were put there about 3,300 years ago.

At least one relatively intact skeleton was also found in two rectangular plots in the corner of the cave.

“The cave may furnish a complete picture of the Late Bronze Age funerary customs,” said Eli Yannai, an IAA Bronze Age expert.

He said it was an “extremely rare … once-in-a-lifetime discovery”.

The provenance of the vessels — from Cyprus, Lebanon, northern Syria, Gaza and Jaffa — showed “lively trading activity that took place along the coast”, Dr Yannai said.

Rameses II controlled Canaan, a territory encompassing modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Another IAA archaeologist, David Gelman, said the people buried there may have been warriors. 

“The fact that these people were buried along with weapons, including entire arrows, shows that these people might have been warriors, perhaps they were guards on ships — which may have been the reason they were able to obtain vessels from all around the area,” he said.

“Burial caves are rare as it is, and finding one that hasn’t been touched since it was first used 3,300 years ago is something you rarely ever find.

“It feels like something out of an Indiana Jones movie: just going into the ground and everything is just laying there as it was initially — intact pottery vessels, weapons, vessels made out of bronze, burials just as they were.”

The cave has been resealed and is under guard while archaeologists develop a plan to excavate it, the IAA said.

It said, “a few items” had been looted between its discovery and when it was closed.