Jerusalem is not someone people usually associate with Atlantis. Having been to the Western wall I have suspected a connection just based on the size of the blocks. Much like other possible Atlantis connected sites, the blocks are significantly bigger and are better formed on the bottom of walls. Still, It wasn’t thought to be old enough so there was no connection to be made there. That was until recently. A huge 9,000-year-old Neolithic settlement — the largest ever discovered in Israel is currently being excavated outside Jerusalem.
This site, located near the town of Motza, is the “Big Bang” for prehistory settlement research due to its size and the preservation of its material culture, said Jacob Vardi, co-director of the excavations at Motza on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, according to The Times of Israel.
Among the many important findings is that 9,000 years ago, the people of the settlement practiced religion. “They carried out rituals and honored their deceased ancestors,” Vardi, an archaeologist, told Religion News Service.
Sophisticated Cities
Perhaps 3,000 people lived in this settlement near where Jerusalem is today. This made it quite a large city for the period that is sometimes called the New Stone Age. The site has “yielded thousands of tools and ornaments, including arrowheads, figurines and jewelry” said CNN. “The findings also provide evidence of sophisticated urban planning and farming, which may force experts to rethink the region’s early history, said archeologists involved in the excavation.”
The area has long been of archaeological interest. Vardi said the sheer scale of the site — which measures between 30 and 40 hectares — only emerged in 2015 during surveys for a proposed highway.
“It’s a game changer, a site that will drastically shift what we know about the Neolithic era,” said Vardi in an interview with The Times of Israel. Already some international scholars are beginning to realize the existence of the site may necessitate revisions to their work, he said.
“So far, it was believed that the Judea area was empty, and that sites of that size existed only on the other bank of the Jordan river, or in the Northern Levant. Instead of an uninhabited area from that period, we have found a complex site, where varied economic means of subsistence existed, and all this only several dozens of centimeters below the surface,” according to Vardi and co-director Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily.
Trading with Atlantis?
This site predates the first known settlement in Jerusalem by about 3,500 years. Experts had not thought that people lived in such a concentrated fashion during this time in the region. So far there is no evidence of an Atlantean connection, but there is a connection to Turkey and possibly Gobekli Tepe. For the moment I’m assuming similar unknown cultures in the same time frame knew each others.
During the 16-month excavation, archaeologists discovered large buildings, separated by well-planned alleys, used for residential and public purposes. Some of the buildings contained plaster remnants.
Pieces of jewelry, including bracelets made of stone and mother of pearl have been found. They have also found figurines, locally made flint axes, sickle blades, knives, and thousands of arrowheads were also unearthed.
Vardi said the residents buried their dead with care in designated burial locations. They also placed “either useful or precious objects, believed to serve the deceased” after they died, inside the graves.
“We have decorated burial sites, with offerings, and we also found statuettes and figurines, which indicate they had some sort of belief, faith, rituals,” Vardi said. “We also found certain installations, special niches that might have played a role in ritual.”
“This finding is evidence of an intensive practice of agriculture. Moreover, one can conclude from it that the Neolithic Revolution reached its summit at that point: animal bones found on the site show that the settlement’s residents became increasingly specialized in sheep-keeping, while the use of hunting for survival gradually decreased,” the antiquities authority said.
It’s believed that the people who lived in this town had trade and cultural connections to widespread populations, including Anatolia.
There were “unique” objects found in the tombs, made of as-yet-unidentified stone. Others were made from volcanic glass from Anatolia, which is proof that the residents traded with or traveled there.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/neolithic-settlement-jerusalem/index.html
