“They Shall Come into the Hollows of the Earth” (Isa 2:19): Bar Kokhba-Period Hiding Complexes at Biblical Tels—Tel Lavnin as a Case Study

Abstract

Hiding complexes in Judea have been objects of considerable scholarly interest since the 1970s. By now, we are well acquainted with their main features and spatial distribution. Most hiding complexes in the Judean foothills were cut beneath the houses in Jewish villages. They were entered via shafts carved out of the nari rock, leading to underground passages quarried in the soft chalk beneath. Following recent intensive looting at Tel Lavnin, a site located in ‘Adullam Park, south of the Ela Valley, inspectors of the Antiquities Theft Prevention Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority documented three hiding complexes. In this paper, we present these hiding complexes and the objects discovered in them. We discuss these complexes’ special architectural features and ponder why particular architectural methods were chosen. We then compare the complexes of Tel Lavnin to complexes documented elsewhere in Judea. We propose that they constitute an architectural subtype of hiding complexes from the Bar Kokhba Revolt and predict that others like them will be discovered in the future.