Collections

Local archaeology

Excavations carried out in the Kibbutz's vicinity revealed crafts' worksites, graves, agricultural installations and rural settlements, all of which constituted the fringes and agricultural hinterland of the principal cities in past centuries such as Yokneam and Megiddo. The important factors, which made continuous settlement in this area possible were the prevailing suitable physical conditions in addition to a temperate climate, abundant water sources, fertile land and furthermore, its location close to main roads, both national and international. The vessels and objects, for work in the home and the fields, as well as for rituals express the interactions between man, nature and land – the source of man's subsistence.

The ritual vessels and figurines, which connect the closed space with the open space, between the material and the spiritual, between the daily routine and the sacred practice, are the areas where man moves since time immemorial to the present day.

In excavations and surveys, which were conducted at the site known as Ein El-Jarba (Tel Abu Zureiq) within the Kibbutz's lands, the findings discovered included the remains of a settlement belonging to the culture called "Wadi Rabah", which is considered as the transitional period between the Neolithic age and the Chalcolithic age (4800 – 4200 BCE), in the earliest stratum on virgin soil. In addition to clay vessels, sections of walls were discovered, as well as fire cores, pits, a plastered floor and the remains of a human skull from a secondary burial. Additionally, tools made from bone, flint tools, stone tools, flakes and small blades made from obsidian were found. The findings at the site illustrate the links between the "Wadi Rabah" culture and the other cultures, which flourished during the fifth millennium [BCE] in North Eastern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia.

The Museum's collection includes a hole mouth jar (a rare pitcher), decorated with a relief of a man with an animal's head. This vessel was found in the area around Hazorea and dated to 4200-4800 BCE.

ARC1997 – 7018 - Figurine in a man's shape, but only the body's upper part. Clay. Hazorea, late bronze B period.

ARC 80-97 - Vase with a brown decoration with a date and a doe beside it. Clay. Hazorea, burial cave, Late Canaanite B period.

ARC 80-109 Pilgrim flask, with a body in the shape of a lentil. Clay with a decoration featuring white lines crossing the flask's body with a grayish-brown background. ("Ring-base" type). Hazorea, burial cave, Late Canaanite B period.

ARC 80-243 Juglet (a body shaped like a beehive). Pottery with brown reddish burnishing Hazorea, burial cave, Middle Canaanite B period, stage A.

ARC 1997-7102 - Bottle Glass. Hazorea, grave, Roman period.

Pottery with residues of brown-reddish burnishing. Hazorea site, circa 4800-4200 BCE. A jaw and human bones were found beside the hole mouth jar and therefore it may be assumed that it was placed there as a vessel to accompany the dead. The jar was built from two parts different in size and shape. The lower part was shaped like a bowl and the upper part shaped like a hole mouth jar. On both sides of the upper part two almost identical reliefs shaped like a man with an animal's head (or with an animal mask) were molded. These images, in a dancing posture, were apparently the prototype for a ritual linked with fertility and it seems possible that they were also intended to protect the dead from evil spirits. The decoration on the vessel as well as the forms of the other pottery vessels found at the site, indicate that the source, from which this culture absorbed, was in North-Eastern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia.