Archaeologists from the Haifa Pre-historic Museum believe they have reconstructed in detail a domestic accident that occurred a bout 9,000 years ago in what is now Lower Galilee. The sequence of events has been extrapolated from the remains of a skeleton uncovered on the final day of this year’s dig at the Yiftahel site near Kibbutz Hasolelim.
According to the archaeologists, the skeleton is probably that of a young woman of about 20 –though it could have belonged to a man –who was chopping flint stone in a roofed-over yard when the roof collapsed and buried her in the rubble. The debris showed evidence that a pile of lentils had been drying on the roof.
Some time later, persons, probably members of the woman’s — or man’s — family, cut off the head of the victim for ritual burial as was the custom of the time. The archaeologists say the woman was kneeling, facing east, with her left hand resting on her thigh and her right hand holding chips of flint, when the roof fell in. She was killed instantly of a broken neck, they say. The archaeologists have given the woman the name Yifaat, after the site of the dig. If it were a man, the name would be Yefet.
That detail may be determined if the missing head is found when the digging is resumed at Yiftahel next year.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
