CDHM The Miniature Way
April 2011, Issue 15
Dollhouse Tourism, Israel
Page 75

concentration of them was found around a central fireplace containing burned animal bones. Previous research has shown that the cave's early humans cooked their meat. "These hominids were barbecuing... and then maybe eating the cooked meat while sitting around the fire," Barkai says.

Another, more artistic, type of stone cutting was recently uncovered at the Tel Dor excavations.

A miniature Hellenistic gemstone carving of Alexander the Great is being hailed by archaeologists as a rare and important find that indicates great artistic skill.

For more than 30 years, scientists have been excavating in Tel Dor, identified as the site of the Biblical town of Dor. The town's location, on Israel's Mediterranean Sea coast some 30 kilometers south of Haifa, made it an important international port in ancient times. According to the archaeologists involved in the Tel Dor excavations, the discovery of the miniature Alexander in Israel is fairly surprising. The Land of Israel was not, for the Greek Empire, a central or major holding.

"It has been accepted to assume that first-rate artists - and whoever carved the image of Alexander in this gemstone was certainly one of them - were primarily active under the patronage of the large royal courts in Greece itself or in major capitals," the scientists explained. "It turns out that local elites in secondary centers such as Dor could allow themselves - and knew to appreciate - superior artwork."