Israelite Tel Suite (3): Hazor, 1983

Hand-pulled collagraph on 100% rag paper, edition 85/100, 30 × 22 in. (76.2 × 55.9 cm)

Gift from a private collection

The Israelite Tel Suite is a collection of four intaglio collagraphs depicting four important archaeological sites related to biblical Israel. A tel is a mound covering the site of an ancient settlement, generally consisting of many layers of rubble and artifacts left by successive civilizations. Each of these prints is itself a
kind of tel, featuring three horizontal strata that divide the image into a kind of cross-section of archeological time. Bowden visually incorporates imagery of each tel’s current landscape with artifacts from that site embedded in the earth, including, near the center of each composition, an especially important object relating to the tel’s history.

Hazor was a major Canaanite and Israelite city in Northern Galilee near Mount Hermon, and it is today one of the largest archaeological sites in Israel. The Bible repeatedly refers to Hazor in the time of Joshua’s battles (esp. Josh 11:10-15), and then it reappears in various other biblical books (e.g., Judg 4:1-24; 1 Kgs 9:15; Jer 49:28-33). A Canaanite “high place” (or bamah) for the worship of Ba’al was found in the lower city of Hazor, which contained several basalt pillars flanking a central stele with a carving of two hands raised toward a symbol of a lunar deity, a disc representing the full moon within a crescent moon.