By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post. (image: Negev Desert – Wikimedia Creative Commons)
Archaeologists excavating a burial site in Israel’s Negev Desert have uncovered what they say are rare bone and ebony figurines in three early Christian graves. The findings suggest the individuals buried there may have been African converts to Christianity who traveled to the region during the Byzantine era.
Researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Cologne published their findings in the journal Atiqot, reporting that the two ebony figurines, depicting a man and a woman with distinctly African features, could be the first of their kind to be identified in Israel, Jordan or the surrounding region.
The graves, dating to the sixth or seventh century A.D., were discovered at Tel Malhata, an ancient settlement near the Nevatim air base in the northeastern Negev.
“It seems that the figurines depicted ancestors rather than deities. If so, it is possible that the deceased were of ‘Ethiopian’ origin and that they or their ancestors converted to Christianity and moved to the Negev,” the report concludes.
“Ethiopians are known to have lived in many regions of the Greco-Roman world (Snowden 1970:217). Therefore, it is possible that the deceased were of Ethiopian origin and that they moved north to Tel Malḥata.”
Archaeologist Noé D. Michael described the find as unusual for this region, where figurines made from such exotic wood had never been documented before. The blackwood pendants, carved with detailed African-style faces, were unlike anything previously discovered in the Levant.