JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found.

One of the ancient beehives found at Tel Rehov in Israel.

The findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov this summer include 30 intact hives dating to around 900 B.C., archaeologist Amihai Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University told The Associated Press. He said it offers unique evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.

Beekeeping was widely practiced in the ancient world, where honey was used for medicinal and religious purposes as well as for food, and beeswax was used to make molds for metal and to create surfaces to write on. While bees and beekeeping are depicted in ancient artwork, nothing similar to the Rehov hives has been found before, Mazar said.

The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, have a hole at one end to allow the bees in and out and a lid on the other end to allow beekeepers access to the honeycombs inside. They were found in orderly rows, three high, in a room that could have accommodated around 100 hives, Mazar said.

The Bible repeatedly refers to Israel as a "land of milk and honey," but that's believed to refer to honey made from dates and figs -- there is no mention of honeybee cultivation. But the new find shows that the Holy Land was home to a highly developed beekeeping industry nearly 3,000 years ago.

"You can tell that this was an organized industry, part of an organized economy, in an ultra-organized city," Mazar said.

At the time the beehives were in use, Mazar believes Rehov had around 2,000 residents, a mix of Israelites, Canaanites and others.

Ezra Marcus, an expert on the ancient Mediterranean world at Haifa University, said Tuesday the finding was a unique glimpse into ancient beekeeping. Marcus was not involved in the Rehov excavation.

"We have seen depictions of beekeeping in texts and ancient art from the Near East, but this is the first time we've been able to actually feel and see the industry," Marcus said.

The finding is especially unique, Marcus said, because of its location in the middle of a thriving city -- a strange place for thousands of bees.

This might have been because the city's ruler wanted the industry under his control, Marcus said, or because the beekeeping industry was linked to residents' religious practices, as might be indicated by an altar decorated with fertility figurines that archaeologists found alongside the hives.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09 … topstories

While the Bible mentions honey, many have assumed that it was "honey" made from figs and dates, not from honeybees. There is no mention of a beekeeping industry in the Bible. But now we know that advanced honeybee cultivation was taking place in Bible lands at least 3000 years ago. This may have some minor interest for Book of Mormon students, since Ether 2 refers to the Jaredites bringing swarms of honey bees with them during their travels in the Old World. This latest find may increase the plausibility of the account in Ether of ancient Old World travelers having access to honeybee cultivation technology.

Interestingly, the anti-Mormon buzz on the topic of bees seems exclusively focused on the alleged anachronism of honey bees being unknown in the Americas before Columbus. As a reminder, the Book of Mormon does not state that the Jaredites brought honey bees to the New World, and the list of items taken to the New World in Ether 6:4 does not include the honey bees they had used during at least part of their Old World journeys. Some anti-Mormon sites seem to think that the alleged absence of honey bees in the Americas before Columbus is slam-dunk evidence against the Book of Mormon, but that argument is truly without sting - just like the stingless honeybees that the Mayans and other Native Americans knew and used before the coming of Columbus (different species than the Old World bees we rely on for honey now).

http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2007/09/l … salem.html

Хотя в Библии упоминается мед, некоторые считали, что этот "мед" на самом деле был рукотворным блюдом, производимым из фиг и фиников. В Библии не упоминается производство меда. Но теперь стало достоверно известно, что пчелиный мед был известен в библейских местах 3000 лет назад. Это может немного заинтересовать и тех, кто изучает Книгу Мормона, потому как во 2-ой главе Ефера иаредийцы носят с собой пчелыные ульи во время своего путешесвия по Старому Свету, хотя в КМ и не говориться, что они взяли их собой в Америку, антимормоны называют ошибкой Книги Мормона то, что она упоминает пчел, которые якобы не были известны в Америке до прихода Колумба. Однако майя и другие коренные жители знали и использовали медоносных пчел (отличные от пчел Старого света используются в Америке и сейчас).

Отредактировано VIC (07-09-2007 23:17:40)