War and Pieces

News outlets everywhere have been reporting that Israel is more determined than ever to carry out a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

On September 26 someone in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi’s office disclosed that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had reneged on a previously agreed summary of the discussions in Vienna.

The same day, the site of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group was rocked by an explosion followed by a fire. The group is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organisation. It is also responsible for Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile programme.

However, explosions have happened quite often around Iran over the last 18 months, and only three incidents have been completely confirmed as sabotage, which Iran attributed to the Mossad. However, following the September 26 incident the Islamic Republic of Iran chose not to comment on the incident.  

A news item in the Jerusalem Post asserted that sources (possibly Americans trying to deter Israel from further attacks) claimed that Israel was the perpetrator.  Apparently, Israel decided to hit the IRGC ballistic missile base after the leaked report about Raisi’s reneging on his deal with Grossi.

That reneging amounted to Iran’s demand for complete sanctions relief from the United States, a posture that portends a final collapse of talks billed as a “last chance” to rehabilitate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“From our point of view, the sanctions, which are in contradiction and inconsistent with the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], need to be removed immediately,” Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said. "These sanctions have been imposed during the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. All of them need to be removed.”

The Iranian intransigence leaves little room for any progress at all at the Vienna talks.

Maybe it was in response to news of planned Israeli and U.S simulated attack  exercises that motivated the Tehran Times to publish the target map(below) under the threatening heading- “Just one wrong move.” A closer look at the map published on Wednesday reveals that the cartographer erroneously marked targets in Lebanon, Arab towns in Israel and towns in the West Bank and Gaza.

 

Ein Harod didn't deserve a red blob, but I assume we are on the hit list

 "The Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere, just one wrong move!" The author warned in the article.

Well, that’s enough sabre rattling for now, let’s move on to something else.

I’ve prepared a supplement to last week’s account of mosaic floors in ancient synagogues and churches.

Three years ago, on a trip organised by my kibbutz to the Gaza periphery communities we stopped at Khirbet Shellal (a mound near the Gaza Strip) to get a panoramic view of the region. After our tour guide finished pointing out the landmarks, I asked him to tell us something about the hill we were standing on. “We don’t have time for that.” He said abruptly before leading us back to our bus.

Later in the day, on the return journey north I asked our driver for the microphone and ‘volunteered’ a brief account of the Shellal mosaic.

Early in April 1917 when Australian soldiers from the Anzac Mounted Division of the British armed forces arrived at the Besor Springs near Khirbet Shellal they encountered little or no opposition. The Turkish troops deserted the position just before the Aussies arrived.

I believe I mentioned the Shellal mosaic a few years ago in a different context. However, this time I’ve added more details about mosaic floors.

I found most of the information in an article written by Australian journalist and author Paul Daley for the Canadian Globe and Mail in 2012 under the title “War and

Pieces.” Read on an you will understand why.

Daley told how the Turks had positioned a machine gun post at the top of the hill. It also served as a good observation point.

When the Australian force captured the position one of the soldiers discovered part of a beautiful mosaic at the edge of one of the trenches cut into the hillside by the Turks.  

“The mosaic made up of thousands of individually hand-coloured tesserae formed a vine trellis — a popular figurative design for mosaic floors in Southern Palestine in the sixth century CE. After clearing the area around the trench 45 medallions in nine rows of five were revealed. Each circle contained figures of animals and exotic birds facing a central stem containing baskets of fruit, a chalice and a caged bird. The mosaic formed the floor of an early Christian Church.  Daley said, “The floor is remarkable on account of its delicate colours — every hue of russet and gold, subtle blues, oranges, agricultural greens and gentle eggshell blues — that render it an object of stunning beauty.”

At the eastern end of the mosaic was a tiled inscription which, translated from the Greek, reads “this temple has been decorated with a rich mosaic in honour of our most holy bishop … and the most God-loving George, priest and sacristan.”

In 1917 William Maitland Woods was the senior Anglican chaplain to the Australian Imperial Force in the Middle East. Besides being clergyman, he was a keen amateur archaeologist.

The commander of the force that captured Khirbet Shellal ordered a cordon to protect the mosaic until Woods’s arrival a few days later.

Volunteers from the Anzac Field Squadron, spent two weeks working in the searing heat to completely uncover the mosaic. Two drawings were made of the mosaic, an initial drawing by one of the sappers and a later illustration made by one of the officers. It was published in an article for The Burlington Magazine in May 1917.

A later examination revealed important discrepancies between the two drawings.

An elaborate tessera peacock at the bottom right of the sapper’s drawing was almost gone in the later drawing.

Archaeologist Arthur Trendall complained, “It is more than unfortunate that the right-hand bird is now irrecoverable, the tesserae having been carried off as souvenirs by the troops during the interval between the discovery of the mosaic and its removal…”

When the mosaic was first uncovered the pheasants were conspicuous for the glass tiles used in their plumage. But they, too, were destroyed or taken as souvenirs along, it seems, with a precious stone — a ruby perhaps —that formed the eye of one of the birds.

In the piece he wrote for the Globe and Mail Paul Daley noted that “While Woods was enamoured of the mosaic, it was a related find, that captivated him.

“Under the Greek inscription the bones of the Saint were discovered, lying feet to east and arms closed on chest. The delicate bones had to be handled very carefully before they were placed in a casket. But this had to be done when the high wind of the afternoon had died down.” Daley wrote.

The word quickly spread through the ranks that the bones were those of St George of Cappadocia, England’s patron saint. Consequently, the bones were of immediate interest to British command, not least the head of the Egypt Expeditionary Force, General Edmund Allenby, who wanted the complete find, the bones and the mosaic floor shipped immediately to London.

In a later publication Paul Daley told how even the bones of the sacristan who helped lay the mosaic floor were pilfered too by the light-fingered Aussies.

Woods was certainly, initially at least, of the view that the bones belonged to the famous St George. But he re-evaluated this upon realising that England’s saint died 269 years before the basilica at Shellal was built.

During the excavation Maitland Woods wrote “I don’t mind what happens to the pavement. But I do want (1) the wonderful Greek inscription in black and white marble mosaic … ; (2) the relics of the Saint (George of Shellal) and I want to place the inscription and the Relics in Brisbane Cathedral under the Alter there where they will be a fitting witness to the bravery of our Anzacs in Palestine . . .”

Woods managed to ship the incomplete mosaic floor to Cairo where it was stored till the wrangling between Britain and Australia was eventually resolved.

In late 1918, amid the euphoria of the war’s end, it was finally agreed that the mosaic would be shipped to Australia.

It was shown briefly in Melbourne and Sydney and stored till it was displayed in the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra when it opened in 1941.

In the article he wrote for the Globe and Mail Paul Daley claimed that Australian families, descendants of the soldiers who were at    Khirbet Shellal are still in possession of tiles from the mosaic.

But what became of George of Shellal?

By most accounts the portion of his skeleton that escaped the hot-fingered light horsemen disappeared somewhere en-route between Shellal and Cairo, never to be seen again.

But it seems George did actually make it to Australia — though not, as Reverend Woods had hoped, to his beloved St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.

While it is not clearly documented in the war memorial archives it seems that Woods left the bones of St George of Shellal for “safe keeping” with his good friend, Reverend Herbert Rose. Rose was the vicar at St Anne’s Anglican Church in Sydney for 45 years. He secreted the bones under the alter at St Anne’s where they remained in a box until they were reinterred in St Anne’s sanctuary in 1986.

George still rests there today, as a modest bronze plaque in the church attests. The parish has always treated him with appropriate reverence and dignity. This is the least George probably deserves given the way his bones were handled when they were first discovered.

I played a very modest personal role in the Anzac saga. In 2017 my kibbutz hosted some of the descendants of the Anzac Mounted Division I translated for the group and showed them around the kibbutz.

During the kibbutz trip to the Gaza periphery communities, we stopped briefly at Kibbutz Nirim mainly to see the Maon synagogue mosaic. Much like the Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic the Maon synagogue mosaic, also known as the Nirim mosaic, was discovered during the construction of a road in 1957. The mosaic was damaged, but the undamaged segment was preserved by a salvage excavation.

 

A section of the Nirim synagogue mosaic floor

After its discovery, the mosaic was removed for restoration and returned to its original site in 2009.

Incidentally, before I came to Ein Harod, I was a member of Kibbutz Nirim.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,                                                   17^th of December, 2021.