Middle East Focus: Ancient Halal ‘Bread Stamp’ Discovered Near Acre and Akko and Akka, Jews under Islam………………

Arabia Deserta

Ancient Halal ‘Bread Stamp’ Discovered Near Acre and Akko and Akka, Jews under Islam………………

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF

“A 1,500-year-old seal with the image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah has been discovered near the city of Acre. The ceramic stamp, which dates from the Byzantine period in the 6th century CE, was found during ongoing Israel Antiquities Authority excavations at Horbat Uza, east of Acre, which are being undertaken before the construction of the Acre-Carmiel railroad track. It is thought the stamp was used to mark baked goods, and is known as a “bread stamp.” “A number of stamps bearing an image of a menorah are known from different collections. The Temple Menorah, being a Jewish symbol par excellence, indicates the stamps belonged to Jews……….”

Fifteen centuries: that means just before the Arab Muslim invasions, or maybe about that time. These Jews were possibly some of those evicted from Madinah and Khaybar in Hijaz (Western Arabia) by early Muslims. They were finally and completely expelled during the reign of the Caliph Omar I. Apparently Omar did not believe in ethnic diversity: he reportedly wanted all Jews out of the Arabian Peninsula. They went (back) to Palestine, only to have the Muslim Arabs follow them up there. I bet some of them whispered: ‘there goes the neighborhood’. Enough to have one lose faith, no?

In fact Omar just wanted the Jews out of the Arabian Peninsula for some reason. I doubt that he knew about the petroleum reserves or the internal combustion engine. After that they were left alone, unmolested, as were the Christians. They did pretty well under both the Umayyads and the Abbasids (if you don't mind slightly higher taxes and are not a Tea Party type). They did even better under the Muslim Arabs in Spain, until the Catholic Inquisition crashed the party, reconquered Iberia, and started the fiery mass persecutions in earnest. Muslim Arabs of that era did not know much about torture: the rack, the tourniquet, the knife, and the burning of humans alive. These were exclusively European skills developed in Europe, until later centuries. It took more recent Arab regimes (post-Inquisition, post-Nazism)to master the ‘technologies’ of torture.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com