It was perhaps ironic, in the week when one of the most important - not to
say controversial -- archaeological finds was publicly announced, (See
the previously published article: The King Jehoash Inscription) that Dr. Elie Borowski -
founder of the Bible Lands Museum -- should have died in Jerusalem aged 81. How
that stone would have intrigued him! He may even have been on the short list of
potential purchasers. Irrespective of how the anonymous owner had come by it, or
whose hands had last touched it, the main thing was that another artifact in the
giant archaeological puzzle had been (possibly) found. This is in addition to
the wide-ranging collection that Dr. Borowski had accumulated over a life time
of buying and selling in one of the world’s most labyrinthian markets - that
of antiquities.
Neither would this have been the first time Borowski would have been faced
with the dilemma of the authenticity of the item being offered for sale.
However, unlike most collectors in this market, Borowski held a doctorate in
archaeology - his thesis, on ancient cylinder seals, was written at the Sorbonne
back in the 1950s. When he scrutinized an ancient object, he did so with a solid
appreciation of its worth both, as a scholar and, as a highly experienced
antiquities merchant.
A glance at the extraordinary collection at his Bible Lands Museum is
sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt a visitor might have that what has been
laid out here is the genuine article -- times many hundred.
The museum, founded in 1992, sits on one of Jerusalem’s famous hills, and
is located between the Israel Museum and the Science Museum. In one sense it is
the perfect place to pitch the collection -- on a Biblical hill, in the foremost
Biblical city in the world, between two museums whose collections are
international in quality and scope, and which balance research and the
aesthetic. Even so, it is far from certain that the collection would have
reached Jerusalem if not for one of those twists of fate that so characterize
the city:
“It was on a visit to Jerusalem in 1981,” explains Martha Rettig, chief
guide for the collection, “that the creation of the museum took shape. Showing
off his recently published catalogue of the collection, Borowski began to argue
with a woman in the hotel where he was staying as to where he intended to build
his dreamed-about museum. Having stored the collection in Toronto, where he
lived, it seemed only natural to him to offer it to that city. He had already
set up the “Land of Biblical Archaeology Foundation,” in Canada. But his
interlocutor had other ideas: ‘Such a collection can only be located here in
Jerusalem,’ she said adamantly.”
The woman, Batya Weiss, did not stop at proffering advice. She soon involved
the then mayor of the city, Teddy Kollek, in the project. Thus Borowski acquired
a site for his museum, as well as a new wife. “And they remained the two most
productive arguers I’ve ever known,” says Amanda Weiss, the museum’s PR
director, and Batya’s daughter by her first marriage. “They complemented
each other perfectly -- the dreamer-scholar and the pragmatic business woman.”
The Bible Lands Museum eventually opened in May 1992, some ten years after
the Borowskis’ fateful meeting -- but not necessarily long by Jerusalem
standards. It soon gained a reputation for housing a unique collection that
through its polyglot objects takes the visitor through the gamut of
civilizations that inhabited the region. The twenty galleries span a period from
two millennia before the patriarchs, through the eras of the Sumerians, the
Canaanites, the Philistines and the Sea Peoples, the Assyrians, the Babylonians,
the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans and the Christian Byzantines.
It is hardly surprising that the man who put all this collection together was
something of a collector’s item himself.
Elie Borowski was born in Warsaw, Poland and raised in a comfortable middle
-class home -- his father was a successful flour merchant. The young Elie had a
traditional Jewish education, culminating in the Mir yeshiva. After earning
Rabbinic ordination in Florence, he studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute
of Rome, the Sorbonne, the Ecole de Louvre, and the University of Geneva.
His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which time he
joined a Jewish Resistance group, which became part of the Polish Division of
the French Army. Forced to retreat into Switzerland, he was to remain there to
the end of the war.
After the war, while he was completing his doctorate in Geneva, he began
collecting items of ancient vintage, particularly those that were somehow linked
to the Bible. This multi-track interest - in acquiring Biblically connected
artifacts, alongside expanding his knowledge of the ancient world -- was to set
the pattern for the rest of his life.
As a result of his doctorate, he was offered a Lady Davis scholarship in
Toronto. After ten years, he moved to Switzerland with his ever burgeoning
collection of ancient items, and set himself up as an antiquities dealer.
According to his step daughter, Amanda Weiss, he soon acquired a reputation
as an unusually honest and knowledgeable collector. In the 1970s, he returned to
Toronto with his already significant collection of objects. These reflected the
cultures and civilizations of the entire Ancient Near Eastern, which impinged in
some tangible way on the Bible - religiously, materially, linguistically or
sociologically.
Martha Rettig, an archaeologist by training, explains the ‘controversy’
of the collection and how it was acquired, within the wider contexts of similar
collections in the world at large:
“There is no ‘legal’ way to acquire antiquities. Governments which pass
laws banning the buying and selling of such items for private profit, end up
with a huge amount of artifacts in their store rooms with no way of getting rid
of them. Individual dealers are thus forced to purchase items by other means.
This is the reality of the ‘market place.’ This is the way all the great
collections of the world were accumulated and today sit in all their splendour
in London, Paris, Berlin, Petrograd and so on. The alternative is to lose these
precious findings for ever. Also political realities often make alternative
channels impossible. Sadam Hussein, for example, is erasing sites by putting
stores of ammunition under ancient tels - believing that the West won't bomb
them because they’re considered important .”
One problem, which is universal, is the fact that once an artifact has been
separated from its source, it loses most, if not all, of its scientific value.
On the other hand, state museums throughout the world - including Israel - now
have wonderful collections of ancient objects open to the public, for all to
see:
“Much of Borowski’s exhibition was collected before 1978, i.e. when the
law prohibiting private sales first went into effect in Israel (and after Moshe
Dayan had finished creating his own private haul of archaeological goodies).
Moreover, the whole idea of the collection was to offer it to the people -- all
people -- as a significant addition to the national and international heritage
-- and this is what the collection does.”
What makes this collection so special, and why has it become a major feature
for quality tourism?
For one thing when you walk into this one you go downstairs for the main
exhibits:
“There is a sense that you’re going below ground as if into an
archaeological dig. Everything is sort of open; in a normal dig nothing would be
closed off, everything would be connected to everything else. You can look from
one part of the dig into another, because that’s what the plan is. You don’t
have any room that is not somehow interconnected to other rooms. Each gallery is
arranged more or less chronologically as a cross section of time in a particular
culture. In each you can see what is going in one culture and how it will affect
the whole Biblical world.
"In the introductory gallery, for example, you can see the main idea
that inspired the collection. Borowski was in Switzerland working with ancient
objects, when he was offered one small item - a Chalcedonian seal - a cylinder
seal on which something is written and pictured on it - it represents someone -
a name, authority -- with their business (wine, oil or whatever) - to guarantee
that what you are getting has not been opened or tampered with. They all have a
hole in the middle - probably to allow the seal to be worn around the neck or
wrist. This was Elie’s first purchase, to be followed by hundreds of such
seals going back to Mesopotamia 3-3,500 BCE. They give us a glance into the
religion, society and cultures from the Biblical era or before.
“These items opened the door for Elie - they tell us about the kings,
trade, religious beliefs. His doctorate was on seals like these. His choice of
subject was not accidental. As a result of the Shoah, which devastated him - he
had lost almost everyone in those years, he came to believe that the Bible had
to be the antidote to those dreadful times. It is the basis for all the good
things in Western Civilization - particularly its values. He felt that a museum
helped illustrate the reality of the Bible -- by reliving the cultures that went
into the Biblical world through these items. It is the only Museum in the world
that does such a thing in a comprehensive way.”
This first exhibition hall also contains a map of the Ancient Near East that
lights up according to the particular part of the story being told:
“When groups are shown the location of Ur someone will remember that this
is where Abraham came from. That gets them started; it also helps them to relate
to the fact that today this is part of Iraq. We show them Abraham’s journey,
what the Fertile Crescent is, who the Babylonians were, where Syria was. These
are real places -- not just Biblical stories. Once you see it on the map, it’s
a different thing. Most people have a sense that these places are only Biblical.
This map gives the opening into the history Abraham’s trip to Israel, the
descent into Egypt, into Goshen, possible exits for the Exodus and back to Eretz
Israel. This introductory gallery has something of everything. They’re then
ready to enter the separate galleries and ‘live’ the Bible a little bit.”
The items on display do not merely testify to these early civilizations, they
show a continuous link between them:
“There is a seal here depicting lambs and lions lying together -- on an
item that predates the patriarchs by 2,000 years! This prophetic idea is right
here in a culture that may not have had our technology but certainly shared our
ideas. This connects us to all human culture.”
"There are altogether about 600 seals here. The museum staff make
impressions of them in order to show what they depict: gods, kings, animals,
sacrifices and presents, hieroglyphics - -from Sumeria and elsewhere, often with
names that we can connect with our knowledge of the Bible. Simultaneously, we
see how that the Bible developed out of a certain cultural environment, and that
the Jews were not alone."
“Egypt had a culture of many gods, an emphasis on death and the afterlife.
Despite its sojourn there, the Children of Israel somehow developed their own
way of life and beliefs -- this is what Elie was trying to show.”
A signet ring on display belonged to Amhekaton II, grandfather of
Tutenkhamen, and father of Amhekaton III, the first Monotheist, who believed in
the Sun god. His name appears on the ring. Does this ring feature in the story
of Joseph, where it relates about a ring he receives from Pharaoh, that would
give him the power of attorney for the king. This ring is in fact from about the
same time.
The next gallery shows the history and development of early writing. Some of
the earliest written items are in clay based cuneiform from Mesopotomia.
“Cuneiform were like Latin letters - shared by a number of languages -
Akkadian, Ugaritic, etc - all known from Biblical times. At the other end of the
region, in Egypt, we see the emergence of hieroglyphics (c.1500-1200 BCE). The
beginning of writing, and the meanings carried by the shapes of these early
letters, links the Israelites with these other cultures.”
Another reminder of the significance of these items is found in an economic
text from the Syrian tel at Ebla dating from about 2,500 BCE, and thus some 700
years before the patriarchs. The excavators found some 20,000 documents there,
among them many containing Hebrew names such as Jacob and place names from
Israel. When the late President Hafaz el-Assad heard about this he shut down the
dig. One of the excavators left, but another decided to change his research in
order to continue to work. Most of the items remain locked up in Syria, though
some may have found their way abroad. The text here is the only one on display
in the world. The collection by the way exists because the palace where it was
stored was burnt, thus firing and hardening all the tablets for posterity.”
Another exhibit echoes the story of the Exodus. It shows the dependency of
the ancient Egyptians on their various gods and how the plagues challenged these
beliefs - the plague of darkness, for example, was an attack on the sun god;
turning water to blood attacked the god of the Nile, etc.
“Another story which has emerged only in recent decades is also illustrated
here. These are items from the so-called sea peoples. These Agean peoples were
escaping famine and looking for food and treasure. They reached Egypt which was
always known for its food because of the Nile. Among them were Philistines,
Cypriots and others. The Torah itself tells us that the Israelites left with “erev
rav” a mixed multitude. So here is proof that the migrating Israelites were
not alone. They were one of many nations on the move. Elie knew of recent
research and felt that items like these would help illustrate Biblical times.”
Echoes of later Biblical and post Biblical books are also found here,
including a model of Xerxes II’s magnificent palace, which could well have
provided the model for Ahashverus, and coins from the Grecian and Roman periods
-- each telling a story that reflects events in Jewish history. The parallel
development of Christianity is also caught here in the mosaics from Byzantine
period up to 5th century as well as magnificent original frescos from
Pompei (Compagnia).
Some of earliest depictions of human beings in world are also found in the
collection. “Significantly,” says Rettig, “fertility gods made from
pottery preceded the making of vessels, reflecting their important to these
early communities.”
The Bible Lands Museum was never meant to be a simple monument to the past.
Elie Borowski made the educational aspect of the museum central. In fact one way
of ‘reading’ the museum is to treat it as a large intellectual labyrinth --
rather like a story by the metaphysical fiction writer Jorge Borges - in which
the links are made in the visitor’s mind, and thus creates a coherent
structure from the many discrete objects before them. This may help explain the
large number of highly trained guides that the museum offers. The museum really
works best with one of these guides at your side, a fact about which the found
seemed fully aware.
“One of Elie’s delights - even when latterly he was confined to a
wheelchair -- was to guide youngsters around his collection with the enthusiasm
characteristic of a far younger person. He would get out of his wheel chair and
almost tap the display window with his cane and say ‘See this...’ The
collection was really like his own children.”
This observation also has its own dark side, for Borowski’s only son, Zev,
was killed in a car accident aged 25. In many ways his collection became his
substitute children, and he cared for each item with deep paternal devotion.
Beyond this, too, he cared about how the past had to be preserved if humankind
is to have any future.
