All too often I forget that there are terms and expressions that I use all the time as a guide. I take for granted that my audience understands what I am saying, forgetting that they may not be so familiar with them. In fact it may be the first time ever they hear those expressions.

How do I know this? Often, I see it in the eyes. Like a blank expression.

So that you will not have that expression I will here explain some of these terms. If I forget some, remind me, and I will explain them another time.

Dating

Throughout the world it has been common to use the terms BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini – The year of the Lord) to designate dates.
In Israel, and in most of the academic world, two different terms are being used.
BCE (before common era) and CE (common era). Basically they say the same as the first two, but are to some more
“politically” correct, or maybe I should here say “religiously” correct.

I use these last two, mainly out of habit.

Tell

Tel Hannaton, courtesy biblewalks.com

This term is not related to Israel only, but to the whole Middle East, and maybe also other parts of the world. Tell is an Arabic word which means hill or mound, usually artificial, i.e. not a natural hill, but rather a hill that grew up through the development of history. It is very much an archaeological term.

A tell is a place where people have lived for centuries, often even millenia. The first settlement would be on a small hill for better defense, usually with easy access to water and agricultural land, even adjacent to a road . As time went on this settlement was destroyed, sometimes through natural causes, more often through war. In some instances it may have been abandoned for a shorter or longer period of time.

Whatever the reason, when the place was rebuilt, it was rebuilt on top of the remains of the previous settlement. Luckily for us they did not have bulldozers in those days. They would clear out the place, remove some of the building stones, and use them in the new structures.

A rough sketch of layers of a tell. Names have been inserted for clarification

This would continue again and again over the centuries. Since the new settlement was built on top of the old, it would now be higher. This process would cause the original hill to grow. Some tells can be very deep with up to 20 main layers, others may only have a few. They all usually have the same tell-tale signs of gently sloping sides and a relatively flat top.

For archaeologists a tell is a treasure trove. When opened up properly, the tell will show the strata (layers). Each strata belongs to a specific period, and through the artifacts and remains, even building structures, archaeologists can date each level. And through all these findings tell us how people once lived, what occupied their time, we can learn about their beliefs, and much much more.