Hearing the History

The best thing about the blog world is the things I learn from it, and from the people who make up that world. I've been thinking about a post I saw on Biblische Ausbildung several weeks ago about a tiny little artifact found in Jerusalem.

It's tiny, it's shiny, it bespeaks wealth and privilege and it is beautiful. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but looks can be deceiving. This tiny thing is a bell, a gold bell found in a drain in Jerusalem, totally unexpectedly and seemingly totally out of place. There is a place on the top where a hook or loop was placed so that it could be hung, probably from the fringes or hem of a garment. It has been dated to the end of the Second Temple period (516 BCE -70 CE).

It fascinates me that something so tiny could survive the turbulent history of Jerusalem while other, much larger and supposedly more durable things have disappeared or been left only as a shell or a fragment. It looks almost perfect; it has a shape that appears functional, it has details that appear undamaged -- and it has a sound.

Sound in history is something that is hard to find. There are plenty of reconstructions and, if you think about it, that's probably the best we can ever get. What David's psalms sounded like sung to the tune of his harp we will never know even though we can build harps shaped as we have seen portrayed from decorations from jars and mosaics from cultures contemporary with Biblical times. We can chant or sing the words to the psalm, but they aren't the tunes or chants David sang. The shofar probably sounds pretty much like it did in Joshua's time, but We can't even say that the music of Bach's that we play sounds exactly the way Bach would have written and played it, and that is so much more recent than this little bell. Yet the bell gives us a sound of the past as the wearer or someone nearby would have heard it.

That is its charm and its impact to me. This little bell, hidden from the world for so long, buried in the muck and crud of the drain from which it was drawn, brings forth its sound when lifted up and lightly shaken. It speaks in its own voice, just as it did all those thousands of years ago. I am amazed how much that speaks to my soul. It isn't a loud sound, in fact, you have to listen closely to hear it, yet it resonates with me. Granted, it wouldn't sound quite so sleigh-bell like when worn on a garment, but still, it is the bell's own sound.

Listen and see what it brings into your ear,mind and heart.

Information about the bell and its discovery are found here.