DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL ANALYSES OF WOOD REMAINS DURING THE 2011-2012 SEASONS AT JAFFA Brita Lorentzen1*, Tomasz Wazny2,3, Peter I. Kuniholm2, Aaron A. Burke4, MarAn Peilstöcker5,6 1 Cornell University, [email protected]; 2Center for Mediterranean Archaeology, Tree‐Rings, and the Environment, University of Arizona; 3Nicholas Copernicus University of Torun; 4University of California, Los Angeles; 5Israel AnFquiFes Authority; 6Johannes‐Gutenberg Universität During 2011, dendrochronological and botanical analyses of wood remains began at Jaffa in collaboraAon with the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project (JCHP). The aims of this ongoing project, which is part of broader dendrochronological research in the Levant, are to: • use tree‐ring daAng to provide a precise chronological framework for building acAvity in Jaffa • use dendrochronology and wood species idenAficaAon to determine the area from which Ambers were obtained (dendroprovenancing)1 • synthesize research results into a database that can be distributed to a greater audience 2) SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH SCHOOL Our research during 2011‐2012 concentrated on three sites in Jaffa: 1) the Qishle; 2) the Sisters of St. Joseph School; and 3) Tel Yafo. 1) 1) QISHLE (Police StaAon) Figure 2. Exterior view of the Qishle. 3) Figure 6. Exterior view of the school. The Qishle (police staAon) complex is located at the northern entrance of Jaffa and consists of three orthogonal two‐story buildings and two yards (Figures 1 and 2). The Qishle was likely built in 1886/87 and was used by the Ogomans as a prison and military base. It later served as a prison and police staAon under the BriAsh Mandate and modern state of Israel unAl 2005. The complex was excavated under the direcAon of Dr. Yoav Arbel of the Israeli AnAquiAes Authority.2 Twelve secAons were cut from the floorboards of the second story of the southeastern building in the Qishle complex. All of the floorboards sampled were cut from old‐growth cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) (Figure 3), which is naAve to the mountains of Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, and Lebanon. Ten of the twelve samples were crossmatched together to form a 320‐year tree‐ring chronology spanning the years 1491‐1810. The Ambers were heavily modified during the cukng process, so the final rings of the trees (which would give the year of their cukng date) are absent from all of the samples. There is part of a ring present on the sample whose last measured ring dates to 1810, so our chronology provides a terminus post quem construcAon date of 1811 for the building, which fits well with the historical data. The Sisters of St. Joseph School is located at 25 Yefet Street (Figure 6). The French Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of the AppariAon opened the building as a school for girls in 1882, which remained in use unAl 2009. The building was constructed using European building techniques, including pre‐ assembling the roof and marking on each Amber the truss number to which it belonged (Figure 7). 2) Figure 1. Map of Jaffa showing the sites analyzed for this project: 1) Qishle complex; 2) Sisters of St. Joseph School; 3) Tel Yafo Figure 3. Floorboard sampled from the Jaffa Qishle, which was cut from old‐growth cedar. This sample was cut near the center of the tree and has 208 rings. Figure 7. Example of carpenter’s marks in the roof. The first mark of four straight lines (white arrow) indicates that the Dmbers should be assembled in the fourth truss. The second diagonal mark (yellow arrow) indicates that the Dmber should be placed on the truss’s le\ side. Konya The Qishle tree‐ring chronology has significant correlaAon with cedar forest chronologies from southwestern Turkey in western Antalya and southern Burdur provinces (Figure 4), which indicates that the cedar Ambers were imported from southwestern Anatolia. The Qishle chronology also had significant correlaAon with other cedar chronologies from the Ogoman‐era structures of Toplou Monastery in eastern Crete; houses in the Old Town of Rhodes; and the Karatay Medrese in Konya, Turkey. This chronology had strong correlaAon with, and was instrumental in daAng, a pair of post‐ ByzanAne icons from Rhodes that were painted on cedar boards (Figure 5). Rhodes Finike Toplou Monastery Figure 9. Burnt cedar from the destrucDon layer in the Area A LB gate complex . Jaffa Cedar of Lebanon Figure 12. Reconstructed Ofoman cedar Dmber trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean, based on dendroprovenancing data. The current distribuDon of cedar forests in the Mediterranean is shaded in green; major Ofoman ports are noted with a yellow dot; Ofoman‐era sites with dendrochronologically dated cedar are noted with a red dot. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 Bonde, N., Tyers, I., Wazny, T. 1997. Where does =mber come from? Dendrochronological Evidence of Timber Trade in Northern Europe. In: Sinclair, A., Slater, E., GowleM, J. (eds.) Archaeological Science 1995. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 201‐204. 2 Arbel, Y. 2009. Yafo, the Qishle. Hadashot Arkhaeologiyot–ExcavaFons and Surveys in Israel 121. Electronic document, hMp:// www.hadashot‐esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.asp?id=1051&mag_id=115. October 1, 2012. 3 Baillie, M.G.L. and J.R. Pilcher. 1973. A Simple Crossda=ng Program for Tree‐Ring Research. Tree‐Ring BulleFn 33: 7‐14. 4 Hollstein, E. 1980. MiVeleuropäische Eichenchronologie: Trierer dendrochronologische Forschungen zur Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte. Trierer Grabungen und Forschungen 11. P. von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein. 5 Herzog, Z. 2008. Jaffa. In: Stern, E. (ed.) The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological ExcavaFons in the Holy Land. Vol. 5. Simon and Schuster, New York, pp. 1791‐1792. 6 Mikesell, M. 1969. The Deforesta=on of Mount Lebanon. The Geographical Review 59: 1‐28. 7 McNeill, J.R. 1992. The Mountains of the Mediterranean World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 8 Mikhail, A. 2011. Nature and Empire in OVoman Egypt: An Environmental History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Figure 4. Map showing correlaDon between the Jaffa Qishle chronology and other cedar forest and historical chronologies in the Mediterranean. CorrelaDon is measured by the tH‐staDsDc;3,4 tH values over 5.00 are considered significant. Increasing circle size corresponds to tH value magnitude. Western Antalya province, whose forest sites have significant–and by far the highest–correlaDon against the Qishle chronology is outlined with a rectangle. Historical chronologies are labeled. Figure 5. Post‐ByzanDne icon from Rhodes depicDng the Virgin Mary’s presentaDon to the Temple. The Jaffa Qishle chronology helped confirm that it is painted on a cedar board cut a\er 1780. Cedrus libani Picea abies Cupressus sempervirens Figure 8. Building plan showing sampled Dmber’s locaDon (Arabic numerals), species, and truss number (Roman numerals). The Sisters of St. Joseph cedar chronology did not yield any staAsAcally significant fits against the available modern forest chronologies, possibly because it is a shorter chronology, or because its tree‐ ring signal is not represented by our current network of forest chronologies. The chronology does have significant correlaAon with the Jaffa Qishle chronology and the Old Town in Rhodes. Both of these chronologies are dendroprovenanced to Anatolia. Therefore it is likely that the Sisters of St. Joseph cedar Ambers were imported from Anatolia as well. 3) TEL YAFO Antalya Alanya To Egypt Ten Ambers were sampled from the Sisters of St. Joseph roof (Figure 8). Of these, 3 were cedar of Lebanon, and 1 was cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), which are both naAve to the Mediterranean; 6 were Norway spruce (Picea abies), which is naAve to Europe. The spruce and cypress Ambers are undated. Two of the cedar Ambers formed a 130‐year chronology spanning the years 1727‐1856. The bark and final rings were removed during the cukng process; if a parAal, unmeasured ring is added to the chronology, it provides a terminus post quem construcAon date of 1857, meaning that the Amber was part of the original roof. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Special thanks to Yoav Arbel (Israel AnAquiAes Authority); Peter Brewer (Laboratory of Tree‐Ring Research at University of Arizona); and Carol Griggs, Katherine Seufer, Leann Canady, and Russell Stepp (Cornell Tree‐Ring Laboratory) for their assistance with this project. This project was in part supported by the Mario Einaudi Center for InternaAonal Studies at Cornell University and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers‐American Center of Oriental Research Pre‐Doctoral Fellowship. The poster background image is available courtesy of Skyview. Figure 10. Burnt cedar from the LB gate at 12x magnificaDon . During the 2011 excavaAon season, charred Ambers were found in a destrucAon layer (ca. 15th century BCE) in the LB gate complex in Tel Yafo Area A (Figure 9, 10). The wood is likely from the main fortress gate roof and is cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), imported from Lebanon, Cyprus, Syria, or southern Anatolia. Cedar charcoal had previously been found in the gate complex during the 1997 excavaAons by Tel Aviv University.5 Wood from the 2009 excavaAons, found in a burn pit in an abandoned HellenisAc building in Area A, Unit C/6, was also examined. The material is primarily complete twigs and branches of evergreen oak (Quercus calliprinos), terebinth (Pistacia palaesDna), and olive (Olea europaea). These species are common in the Mediterranean shrublands in and around Tel Aviv even today (or could have been culAvated nearby, in the case of the olive), so the wood was likely culled from near the site. The wood was cut in late spring, since in the terebinth, the final tree‐ring had just finished developing its early growing‐ season vessels (Figure 11). Figure 11. Burnt terebinth from the HellenisDc house at 25x magnificaDon. The final ring below the bark (indicated with an arrow) had just developed its larger, early growing‐ season vessels when it was cut. CONCLUSIONS • During the Late Ogoman Period, Jaffa was connected to a widespread mariAme and overland Amber trading network that gave its inhabitants access to building materials from Europe and other parts of the Mediterranean. • Our dendrochronological data gives the first scienAfic evidence that cedar Ambers in Ogoman Jaffa were imported from western Anatolia, not Lebanon, which fits well with historical records that Lebanese cedar forests had been severely depleted by this Ame.6 In contrast, there are records of a thriving Amber trade in southern Anatolia, where logs were floated downriver from the mountains and shipped from ports like Antalya, Alanya, and Finike, to the southern Levant and Egypt (Figure 12). 7,8 • ConAnued sampling, daAng, and provenancing of Jaffa’s Ogoman and pre‐Ogoman building Ambers will give further informaAon about changes in Amber trade and forest exploitaAon over Ame–and help date and provenance Amber from other sites and from earlier periods. • The cedar from Tel Yafo gives evidence of Amber importaAon to Jaffa during even earlier periods. The conAnued excavaAon of the gate complex in 2013 will give further opportuniAes to sample wood for high‐precision daAng and study Amber exploitaAon at the site.