The Tell el-Ajjul gold hoards are a collection of three hoards of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

gold jewellery found at the

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

ite site of

Tell el-Ajjul Tall al-Ajjul or Tell el-'Ajul is an archaeological mound or '' tell'' in the Gaza Strip. The fortified city excavated at the site dates as far back as ca. 2000-1800 BCE and was inhabited during the Bronze Age. It is located at the mouth of Wad ...

in Gaza. Excavated by the British archaeologist

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

in the 1930s, the collection is now mostly preserved at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London and the

Rockefeller Museum The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum A museum ...

in Jerusalem. The treasure ranks amongst the greatest Bronze Age finds in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

Discovery

During the 1930s, the renowned Egyptologist Sir William Matthews Flinders Petrie led a British archaeological expedition to Tell el-Ajjul, in the expectation that they would discover the remains of an outpost of the Egyptian New Kingdom Empire. In 1933, various pieces of gold jewellery were found on the Tell. In all, five large deposits were unearthed in several buildings on the mound, including the so-called palace. No other site in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

has yielded so many items made in precious metal. The British Museum's share of the treasure was purchased in 1949 from

Hilda Petrie Hilda Mary Isabel, Lady Petrie (née Urlin; 1871–1957), was an Irish-born British Egyptologist and wife of Sir Flinders Petrie,Margaret S. Drower, 'Petrie' Sir (William Matthew) Flinders (1853–1942)', Oxford Dictionary of national Biograph ...

, the widow of Flinders Petrie. British Museum Highlights
/ref>

Description

The jewellery from Ajjul was made almost entirely from gold (both sheet and solid), by

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...

, hammering or pressing. It must have belonged to a wealthy elite who benefited from the settlement's location on the trade routes between

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

. Twenty six different types of jewellery have been classified, the principal groups being earrings, circlets, bracelets, beads, Egyptian scarabs and toggle pins. Most are plain ornaments cast from solid gold, although some are decorated with minute gold beads by the

granulation Granulation is the process of forming grains or granules from a powdery or solid substance, producing a granular material. It is applied in several technological processes in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Typically, granulation invo ...

process. A few items are in the form of animals such as

falcons Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

s and

flies Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

but the most impressive objects in the hoard are the Egyptian-style pendants of the deity

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Ashtart or Athtart (Northwest Semitic), a deity closely related to Ishtar (East Semitic), who was worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name i ...

and gold

diadem A diadem is a type of crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of royalty. Overview The word derives from the Greek διάδημα ''diádēma'', "band" or "fillet", from διαδέω ''diadéō'', "I ...

s with

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

florets.

References

{{reflist

Bibliography

* A. Kempinski, 'The Middle Bronze Age' in ''The archaeology of ancient Israel'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992) * J. N. Tubb, ''Canaanites'' (London, The British Museum Press, 1998) 1933 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in the State of Palestine Middle Eastern objects in the British Museum Sculpture of the Ancient Near East History of Palestine (region) Archaeology of the Near East Treasure troves of Asia Collections of the Israel Museum Gold objects Astarte Ancient art in metal