M. Fischer and R. E. Jackson-Tal, A Glass Pendant in the Shape of Harpokrates from Yavneh-Yam, Israel. Journal of Glass Studies 45 (2003), 35-40. A Glass Pendant in the Shape of Harpokrates from Yavneh-Yam, Israel Moshe Fischer and Ruth E. Jackson-Tal D URING THE 1995 season of excavations at Yavneh-Yam, Israel,1 a glass pendant in the form of Harpokrates was found. Harpokrates is the Greek version of the Egyptian word for “Horus the child.” He is the son of the goddess Isis and the god Serapis. Horus is known from the end of the New Kingdom, but he became extremely popular in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.2 Yavneh-Yam (Iamneia-on-Sea), which is about equidistant (20 km) from Ioppe/Yafo and Azotus/Ashdod (Fig. 1), was the harbor of the inland town called Yavneh (Iamneia). Pliny the Elder mentions “the two towns Iamneia, one of them inland,” in a list of towns in Palaestina.3 An almost complete list of coastal towns and their inland counterparts is provided by the Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy, including ’⌱␣␮␯⑀␫␶␻ˆ ␯ ␭␫␮␩´␯ (the harbor of the people of Iamneia) between Ioppe/ Yafo and Azotus/Ashdod.4 The pendant was found among the remains of a building unearthed in Area A, which had been violently destroyed and abandoned. Masonry covered with colored stucco give some idea of the luxurious character of this building. Pottery (Fig. 2), glass artifacts, metal objects, and artistic items,5 most of which were imported from abroad, create the impression of a strongly Hellenized and well-established society that became a victim of the struggle with the Maccabees toward the end of the second century B.C.E. Stamped amphora handles, mainly from Rhodes, and coins of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus VII Sidetes (r. 138–129 B.C.E.) enable us to date this destruction to the days of the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus (r. 135–104 B.C.E.). As is related several times in 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Maccabean policy was a decidedly iconoclastic one,6 and it seems to have been carried out in the case of Yavneh-Yam as well. Several figural items that were found scattered around in the destruction layer are evidence of this. One of them was a mutilated marble head. The pendant (Fig. 3) is almost complete, but small pieces are missing from the base and headdress.7 It is made of translucent deep blue glass that is covered with thick black and silver layers of weathering, shiny iridescence, and pitting. The technique used to produce the pendant is well known. It was made in a two-piece mold that left vertical seam marks along the length of the figure. An unevenly rounded loop with a 1. The excavations at Yavneh-Yam are directed by Moshe Fischer on behalf of the Department of Classics and the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Five seasons of excavations were carried out by the Yavneh-Yam Archaeological Project between 1992 and 1999, revealing remains from the late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. See Moshe Fischer, “YavnehYam, 1992–1999: Interim Report,” Qadmoniot, v. 35, 2002, pp. 2–11 (in Hebrew). We thank Maud Spaer, Natalya Katsnelson, and Alexander Fantalkin for their bibliographical assistance. 2. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, v. 4, no. 1, pp. 415–416. 3. Pliny Natural History 5.14, 68: “oppida Rhinocolura et intus Rhaphea, Gaza et intus Anthedon . . . oppidum Ascalo liberum, Azotus, Iamneae duae, altera intus.” 4. Ptolemy Geography 5.16.2. 5. The pottery finds include a wide variety of imported and local vessels, such as amphoras with stamped handles, molded bowls, Eastern sigillata wares, and molded oil lamps. Among the glass vessels found in this context are a fluted bowl and a grooved bowl. A preliminary report will be published in the journal Tel Aviv of the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, in 2003 (v. 30). 6. 1 Macc. 13:47. 7. The pendant was drawn by Rodica Pinchas and photographed by Yoram Weinberg. 1 FIG. 1. Yavneh-Yam and its environs. horizontal perforation (possibly drilled) is located at the back of the figure, probably so that it could be placed in a necklace. The figure (H. 2.75 cm), W. [around hips] 0.7 cm) has protruding eyebrows, a wide nose, styled curls, and a peaked headdress. It stands in the usual pose, with a finger of the right hand below the mouth and the left hand alongside the body. The hands are not portrayed naturalistically, and there is no real depiction of the entire palm. The navel is large, and the male genitals are visible below it. The hips are wide, and the kneecaps are well defined. The feet, like the hands, are schematic, depicted only in contour, and the figure stands on a rounded podium. This object belongs to a well-known group of pendants defined as molded “full figure in the round,” a subtype of pendants “in the round.” 2 Spaer dates these pendants from the first century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.8 They usually depict miniature figures of deities (Horus, Cybele, Hecate, Bes, and possibly Isis), squatting female figures (Baubo), and three maids around a column, birds, and bunches of grapes.9 These pendants are widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean and other areas, but most of them do not come from excavated contexts. There are a few examples from excavated sites in Israel, and one Baubo pendant was discovered in an excavation at Ptolemais/‘Akko.10 All of these pendants are very similar in design, and they are decorated with popular cult figures of the Hellenistic world. For this reason, it is plausible to suggest that they were made in one or a very few production centers. Barag cited the coast of Phoenicia as one possible provenance, and he believes that these pendants are part of the group of monochrome and colorless cast glass vessels and small objects of the second and first centuries B.C.E.11 Spaer notes that the pendants may have originated in Egypt and the Aegean.12 The choice of Egyptian and Oriental deities and the reputation of Alexandria as an important glassmaking center during the Hellenistic period support the idea that these objects were produced in an Egyptian workshop. Similar glass pendants in the shape of Harpokrates were found in domestic contexts at De- 8. Maud Spaer, Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: Beads and Other Small Finds, Jerusalem: the museum, 2001, p. 162. Spaer distinguishes a subgroup of “full figure in the round” pendants in a group of pendants “in the round.” She dates the headshaped (e.g., Negro, bull, and theater masks) pendants from the second half of the second century to the first half of the first century B.C.E., and the full-figure pendants (e.g., deities, animals, and fruit) from the first century B.C.E. to the first half of the first century C.E. 9. Dan Barag (Catalogue of Western Asiatic Glass in The British Museum, v. 1, London: British Museum Publications Ltd. in association with Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1985, p. 88) mentions 20 examples in the museum’s Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Some of these objects, such as the Negro head pendant, do not belong to the “full figure in the round” pendant group. 10. Spaer [note 8], fig. 75. 11. Barag [note 9], no. 113. 12. Spaer [note 8], p. 169, no. 331. FIG. 2. Pottery finds from building in Area A, Yavneh-Yam. los. They are dated from the late second to early first centuries B.C.E.13 Spaer notes additional examples from the western Mediterranean, the necropolis of ancient Ibiza, Western Asia, ancient Qasr-i Abu Nasr near Shiraz in Iran, and the northern Black Sea sites of Tyramba, Kerch, and Chersonesus in Ukraine.14 Nenna mentions a comparable glass pendant from Amathous in Cyprus,15 while Barag cites an example from Jerusalem that is now in the collection of The British Museum, but it was not found in a controlled archeological excavation.16 Other comparable pendants, which have no recorded provenance, are found in the Israel Museum,17 The British Museum,18 the former collection of Ray Winfield Smith,19 and the Museum of Alexandria.20 A gold-glass bead with the figure of Harpokrates is in the collection the Israel Museum, where it is dated from the second half of the first century B.C.E. to the first half of the first century C.E.21 Harpokrates pendants were also produced in other materials, such as gold, silver, bronze, and faience.22 The cult of Isis is known to have existed in Israel’s coastal cities from the Iron Age to the Roman period. This knowledge is based on archeological finds and on such historical sources as a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, which presents a list of honorary names for the goddess both in Egypt and elsewhere. This source is dated by 13. Waldemar Deonna, Le Mobilier Délien, Exploration Archéologique de Délos, v. 18, Paris: Ecole Française d’Athènes, 1938, pl. 89:786–787; Marie-Dominique Nenna, Les Verres, Exploration Archéologique de Délos, v. 37, Paris: Ecole Française d’Athènes, 1999, p. 141, nos. E168–E170. 14. Spaer [note 8], p. 169, no. 331. 15. Nenna [note 13], n. 13. 16. Barag [note 9]. 17. Spaer [note 8], p. 169, no. 331. 18. Barag [note 9], no. 114; Veronica Tatton-Brown, “Some Greek and Roman Pendants and Beads in The British Museum,” in Glass Beads: Studies in Technology and Culture, v. 2, ed. M. Rasmussen, U. Lund Hansen, and U. Näsman, Lejre: HistoricalArchaeological Experimental Center, 1995, pp. 39–40, fig. 6b. 19. Ray W. Smith, Glass from the Ancient World: The Ray Winfield Smith Collection, Corning: The Corning Museum of Glass, 1957, pp. 115–116, no. 191. 20. Nenna [note 13], p. 141, n. 13. 21. Spaer [note 8], p. 137, no. 235. 22. Christian Herrmann, Ägyptische Amulette aus Palästina/ Israel. Mit einem Ausblick auf ihre Rezeption durch das Alte Testament, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, v. 138, Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1994, pp. 106–109, nos. 9–15; Marie-Dominique Nenna, “La Petite Plastique en faïence du Musée Gréco-Romain d’Alexandrie,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, v. 118, no. 2, 1994, pp. 293–295, figs. 1–2; Nenna [note 13], p. 141. 3 FIG. 3. The Harpokrates pendant from Yavneh-Yam. H. 2.75 cm. A. Sadeh Collection, Museum Beth Miriam, Kibbutz Palmahim. its editors to the early second century C.E., but it reflects both the first century C.E. and the earlier Egyptian-Hellenistic tradition. The list includes Ascalon/Ashqelon, in the vicinity of Yavneh-Yam, where Isis is called ␬␳␣␶␫´␱␶␩ (the strongest).23 It also mentions Dora/Dor, Straton’s Tower/Caesarea, Gaza, Raphia, and Rhinocorura as cities where Isis was worshiped.24 Harpokrates, the son of Isis, became a companion and symbol of the goddess.25 Isis and Harpokrates often appear together, but they are also shown separately. Harpokrates is represented mainly on pendants, but he is also found on ceramic vessels. Harpokrates pendants made of faience and bronze are well known in Israel from the Iron Age and the Persian period. Herrmann, who lists examples from Gezer, Megiddo, Lachish, Ascalon/Ashqelon, and ‘Atlit, dates them to the Hellenistic period based on their contexts.26 An anthropomorphic ceramic juglet 23. Oxyrhynchus Papyri 11, no. 1380. See Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, pt. 11, London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1915, p. 197, col. 5, line 96. 24. Ibid., lines 93–99. 25. See note 2. 26. Herrmann [note 22]. The specimens from Ascalon/ Ashqelon, however, are dated to the fourth century B.C.E. in John H. Illife, “A Hoard of Bronzes from Askalon,” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, v. 5, 1936, pp. 61–62, pl. 29:1–7. 4 FIG. 3 (cont.). Scale of drawings is 4:1. depicting Harpokrates (Fig. 4), a surface find from Yavneh-Yam, was probably made during the Hellenistic period.27 Other evidence in Israel includes a Hellenistic shrine or temple dedicated to the cult of Isis and Serapis (including Harpokrates?) at Samaria, which derives from inscriptions, architectural elements, and stamped pottery with Isis attributes.28 A Roman pilaster depicting Isis comes from the Basilica of Ascalon/Ashqelon, implying her role as Isi-Tyche.29 The Harpokrates pendant is significant because it is one of only a few examples excavated anywhere, and it is the only object of its type discovered to date in Israel. The context in which it was found represents the Hellenistic destruction layer at the site. This destruction is dated to the late second century B.C.E., and it is attributed to the conquest of the southern coastal plain by John Hyrcanus, which was completed about 110 B.C.E. The well-dated context in which the pendant was found ena- 27. Moshe Fischer and Batya Dashti, “The Ceramics,” in Yavneh-Yam and Its Neighborhood, ed. M. Fischer and B. Dashti, Jerusalem: Kibutz Palmhim Press with Ariel Press, 1991, pp. 50–51, figs. 10 and 11. 28. Jodi Magness, “The Cult of Isis and Kore at SamariaSebaste in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” Harvard Theological Review, v. 94, no. 2, 2001, pp. 291–297. 29. Moshe Fischer, “The Basilica of Ascalon: Marble, Imperial Art and Architecture in Roman Palestine” (with contributions by Antje Krug and Zvi Pearl), in The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research, Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series, v. 14, 1995, pp. 121–150. 5 FIG. 4. Anthropomorphic ceramic juglet depicting Harpokrates, found at YavnehYam. H. 3.9 cm. A. Sadeh Collection, Museum Beth Miriam, Kibbutz Palmahim. bles us to state that the group of molded “full figure in the round” pendants originated in the late second century B.C.E., earlier than has been suggested. The glass pendant and the clay juglet from Yavneh-Yam could hint at the existence of a domestic cult dedicated to Harpokrates during the Seleucid occupation of the site, probably the continuation of a tradition from the Ptolemaic period. This could be related to the prac- 6 tice among Phoenician/Sidonian populations, both along the Syro-Palestinian coast and in adjacent inland regions, of adopting Egyptianoriginated cults during the late Iron Age, Persian, and Hellenistic periods. As noted earlier, the pendant was most likely produced in Egypt. It was probably worn around the neck, and it may have served as an apotropaic charm, since the goddess Isis is known as the protector of seafarers.