Ancient Israel: Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago is a new 127-page publication written by Gabrielle Vera Novacek and illustrated with 66 beautiful photographs and diagrams. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon or as a free download (pdf).
Six lectures in Hebrew are now online from the 12th Studies of Ancient Jerusalem conference held in September in the City of David. The speakers included Israel Finkelstein, Ronny Reich, Gabriel Barkay, Asher Grossberg, Eli Shukron, and Yosef Garfinkel.
“Libya’s famed ancient Roman sites, including the sprawling seaside ruins of Leptis Magna, were spared damage by NATO during the recent airstrikes, says a London-based Libyan archaeologist.”
Muslims continue to bury their dead next to the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, according to the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities.
The head of the Supreme Committee of the Grand Egyptian Museum was fired this week.
“Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as a matter of routine.” Last week a judge ruled in favor of an Armenian seminary student who fought back.
2 thoughts on “Weekend Roundup”
Once again, Arutz Sheva proves itself a disreputable news source — fearmongers, ideologues and spin-meisters — with their intentionally misleading headline: "Illegal Muslim Burial on Temple Mount". The first sentence starts to fudge that the burials are "along the walls", but the article never states that the graves are in fact outside the walled Haram/Temple Mount compound. Moreover, all the blather about a "national park", "our archaeological properties", and "illegal" burials must be viewed in the light of what the rest of the world (besides Israel), following international law, understands regarding the status of East Jerusalem: Until it is negotiated and agreed to be otherwise, East Jerusalem – all 70 sq. km – constitutes occupied territory.
"Occupied territories".
No one gave a damn about Jordan's treatment of Jewish sites in the Old City, contra the armistice agreements with Israel, between 1948-1967. Numerous synagogues were destroyed, Jewish access to the Western Wall was denied completely, the Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were desecrated.
The Muslims will never agree to share Jerusalem, except as a pretense to once again doing what they did in '48. In fact, of course, they do not want to share Jerusalem, they want it for their own, all 70 sq. km (plus West Jerusalem, but that's another discussion).
The scars of the battles are still there, as you know, Tom, but the ugly no-man's land and barbed wire, and the cesspit that the Jordanians made of the Old city is all gone.
What "international law" are you quoting? The whole world would have Israel destroyed, but in the meantime, as Arutz Sheva and other "disreputable sources" point out, the Waqf continues to destroy as much as they can on the Temple Mount that would show evidence of the Temples. Where is the international outcry about that?