Using Ancient Fingerprints to Interpret Jerusalem’s History

A forensics expert for the local police department, Ido Hefetz has been working with the archaeologist Shulamit Terem to study the fingerprints left many centuries ago on ceramics found in the Motza neighborhood of Jerusalem. Hillel Kutler writes:

Beginning in November 2019, excavations at the three-acre site uncovered traces of structures and artifacts from the early Byzantine period (the end of the 4th century CE to the beginning of the 7th century): a church, an olive press, a wine press, and a kiln. An alcove adjacent to the kiln contained clay fragments of lamps and roof tiles, with remnants of jugs and bowls lying nearby. . . . More than one-third of the 230 shards were covered in centuries-old fingerprints.

The clay used to make the pottery was of fine quality, ensuring the prints were well preserved. Hefetz could plainly see that the fingerprints were predominantly of the left and right thumbs, with their depth revealing something of the potters’ technique: oth thumbs were pressed hard into the clay to compress it into a mold.

Furthermore, the same adjacent thumbprints appeared on both the top and bottom sections of each lamp, suggesting that one person had multitasked. Scores of the fingerprints were identical, leading Hefetz to conclude that one individual was the primary potter. One or possibly two additional people produced the rest of the lamps. Most revelatory on a fundamental level was Hefetz’s realization that fingerprint patterns today are virtually unchanged from 1,500 years ago.

With further work, Hefetz hopes to be able to draw conclusions about the age and sex of the potters.

Read more at Smithsonian

More about: Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Byzantine Empire, Israeli technology

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa