Lecture on “New Light on the Hellenistic Kingdoms: Excavations at Tel Kedesh”

The Department of History and Archaeology at BZU organized on 21 February 2011 a lecture titled "New Light on the Hellenistic Kingdoms in Palestine: Excavations at Tel Kedesh", delivered by Dr. Andrea Berlin. Who is currently a fellow at the American Albright Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem, and a lecturer at Boston University.

Dr Berlin presented the results of the new archaeological excavations conducted at Tel Kedesh (Tel Qadas) in the Upper Galilee by a joint University of Michigan/University of Minnesota team during 1997-2010. During these excavations an unknown and very large administrative building was discovered. It was first constructed in the Persian period (6th century BC), and then used under the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms that ruled Palestine in the Hellenistic Period (3rd - 2nd centuries BC).  During the Selucid Period, the building served as an official archives which contained 2,400 clay seal impressions, or bullae., with both Phoenician and Greek writing.