An Iron Age Stone Toilet Seat (the ‘Throne of Solomon’) from Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker’s 1909–1911 Excavations in Jerusalem

ABSTRACT

This paper reconstructs the history of the publications relating to the results of Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker’s 1909–1911 excavations in Jerusalem, comprising the English and French versions of the book Underground Jerusalem by Père Louis-Hugues Vincent, and four articles by that same author appearing in the pages of Revue Biblique. The significant part played by the English translator, Theodore Andrea Cook, is shown, and as it transpires, he is the reason why archival materials relating to the Parker expedition eventually ended up in the Palestine Exploration Fund’s archives. Importantly, an unpublished drawing by Vincent of an Iron Age stone toilet seat, which had been referred to by the excavators as the ‘Throne of Solomon’, was found among these archival materials. The paper investigates thirteen similar parallel stone toilet seats from the Iron Age II and examines what is known concerning issues of sanitation during that period in the Kingdom of Judah.

KEYWORDS:

• Jerusalem
• Ophel
• Louis-Hugues Vincent
• Montagu Brownlow Parker
• stone toilet seats
• Iron Age II

Acknowledgements

The materials discussed in this paper were examined in the PEF Archives in the early 1990s. My thanks to the then Executive Secretary, Dr Rupert L. Chapman, as well as to the current Executive Secretary and Archivist, Felicity Cobbing, for permission to reproduce materials in this paper. I am also grateful to Dr Jean-Michel Tarragon of the École Biblique et Archéologique in Jerusalem, for permission to publish the portrait of Père Louis-Hugues Vincent from their photographic archives. I am grateful to Dr Anna de Vincenz for translating the handwritten archival documents (see: Appendices I & II). My thanks also to Dr Nirit Shalev-Khalifa for graciously allowing me to go through the scanned ‘Parker Family’ papers which are kept at the Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 An examination of documents in the ‘Parker Family’ archive now housed at the Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, did not reveal any reference to Père Vincent, nor any clue in regard to what Parker’s initial publication plans may have been (if any such existed). The financial accounting made for the ‘Syndicate’ of the expedition clearly indicates that no payment was made to Père Vincent in any form, not even as incidental expenses.

2 A few toilet seats have also been recorded outside the region of the Kingdom of Judah and were found in Jordan at Busayra and at the Amman Citadel, but I have not including these in this discussion. For further details, see: Humbert and Zayadine 1992, 253, Pls. XIIb for the alcove, and XIVa for the toilet seat; De Groot and Bernick-Greenberg 2012a, 172, and references given there.

3 See also a typed inventory in the PEF archives entitled ‘Duncan & Macalister’s Reports, I. Bundle A’, which was made by Rupert L. Chapman in the late 1980s. The photograph of the toilet seat (No. 114.9) was labeled by the excavators: ‘Lavatory Stone Top found in front of N. Bast[ion] at 33 feet [=10 m]’. On Macalister and Duncan’s contribution to the archaeological work at the Ophel: Gibson 2015, 37–38.

4 I am grateful to Margreet Steiner for providing me with information pertaining to Kenyon’s excavations.

5 The classic book on the history of ablution and lavatories is Lawrence Wright’s highly entertaining Clean and Decent: The History of the Bath and Loo (1969). For excellent research on ancient lavatories worldwide: Antoniou et al. 2016, and in ancient Greece in particular: Antoniou 2007; Yannopoulos et al. 2017.

6 Problems with language and terminology as they appeared in Vincent’s Underground Jerusalem (1911a) mystified some reviewers and even brought him into conflict with Warren, who wrote a tough review of this work, to which Vincent responded (Warren 1912a; Vincent 1912a). Warren (1912b, 135) later wrote in June 1912: ‘I have received a most charming letter from Prof. Vincent in reply … and telling me the circumstances under which the French edition of Jerusalem sous terre and the English adaptation were published in England … ’ and he went on to indicate that they had now resumed their friendship.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted independently of any funding source.

Notes on contributors

Shimon Gibson

Shimon Gibson is Professor of Practice in the History Department of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received his PhD in 1995 from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Between 1989 and 1995 he was the Photographic Officer and Archivist at the Palestine Exploration Fund. He has directed numerous archaeological excavations and surveys in Israel/Palestine. One of his specialized fields of research is the archaeology and history of Jerusalem. His co-authored book, Tourists, Travellers and Hotels in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem, appeared as PEF Annual XI in 2013. For further information: https://history.uncc.edu/people/dr-shimon-gibson