Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

Reports on Latest Excavations and Surveys in Israel

The latest issue of Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel has now been published online. Most of these excavations are salvage digs, conducted quickly in advance of a building project. The list of sites is impressive and includes:

Ashkelon
Bethlehem of Galilee
Caesarea
En Gedi
Omrit
Jerusalem: Sultan’s Pool, City of David, Via Dolorosa
Kafr Kanna (Cana?)
Kinneret: Path around the Sea of Galilee
Nein (Nain of Luke 7)
Ono
Tel Dor
Tel Qasile
Tel Rekhesh
Zippori (Sepphoris)

One report, however, is missing. Last week reader Roi Brit alerted me to the report on “Jerusalem, the Old City, Wilson’s Arch, and the Great Causeway.” This is now missing from the list and the link is defunct. One can still see, however, evidence of its existence in the list of “Recently Published” on the home page (just above the notice of “Copyright Legalicy” [!]). I can only speculate why the report was removed, but given the sensitivity of the area of Wilson’s Arch and the Great Causeway, it’s tempting to suppose that political considerations are involved. The Wayback Machine is not helpful this time.

Great Causeway near Western Wall of Temple Mount

Tagged Excavations, Jerusalem

Wednesday Roundup

Hezekiah’s Pool is now clean, for the first time in decades if not centuries. Tom Powers gives the report and includes many photos. He suggests that the workers found a paved or plastered floor.

(Background here.)

Biblical Archaeology Society has a ~~brand spanking~~ new blog that includes an RSS feed and welcomes readers with a new 140-page ebook entitled the “Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries.” The new site also allows readers (upon sign-in) to control which email subscriptions they receive. The blog is part of a complete re-design of the BAS website.

Olof Pedersén has posted his list of ANE Placemarks for Google Earth.

Foreign Policy has posted a photo essay entitled, “Once Upon a Time in Damascus.” More than a dozen photos from the American Colony/Eric Matson collection are featured.

The work of Gustaf Dalman is being celebrated in a program to be held at the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem on August 18-19. I’ve been working on publishing a Dalman project myself but I will not be finished in time for the 70th anniversary of his death.

Restoration work is scheduled to be restarted at the Stepped Pyramid of Djoser (Zoser) at Saqqara (with photo). The article notes that already a second successor to Zahi Hawass is in office.

The Pantheon in Rome may have been built as a massive sundial.

In recent weeks, Wayne Stiles has visited En Gedi and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

CBN News has a 30-second video of the tunnel where they discovered the Roman sword and etching of a menorah. Ynet News posts a two-minute video of the tunnel with English subtitles (to start you may need to click the smaller button on the right side of the screen).

HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Jerusalem, Syria, Weekend Roundup

Hyraxes a Nuisance in Israel

What some people view as cute critters are becoming a troublesome pest to others. Hyraxes, also known as rock badgers or coneys, are mentioned in Leviticus 11:5, Deuteronomy 14:7, Psalm 104:18, and Proverbs 30:26. A BBC report describes how these relatives of the elephant and aardvark are leaving the crags and entering villages.

“A lot of people in the west haven’t heard of the hyrax, but it’s very common in the Middle East,” lead researcher Arik Kershenbaum told BBC Nature.
“It’s even mentioned in the Bible as one of the main inhabitants of the land.”
But, as Mr Kershenbaum explained, around Galilee the animals are no longer behaving in a “biblical way” – making their homes in the rocky hills and cliffs of the countryside.
“They’re coming into the villages and eating everything they can find,” said Mr Kershenbaum.
[…]
“It turns out that it’s the piles of boulders [created by clearing sites for building] that attract the hyraxes,” said Mr Kershenbaum.
They make their homes in the underground caverns and crevices created by these man-made rubble piles.
[…]
But early research indicates that simply filling in the boulder piles would drive hyraxes out of the villages and back to the cliffs, just as it says in the Bible.

For more information about the hyrax, see the Anchor Bible Dictionary 6:1143.

HT: The Land and the Book

The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys (Ps 104:18).

Summer 2011 at Tel Zayit

Tel Zayit is a small site in the Shephelah of Judah best known for the 10th-century abecedary discovered in 2005. Tel Zayit is 5 miles (8 km) south of Gath (Tell es-Safi), 6 miles (9 km) southwest of Azekah, and 4.5 miles (7 km) north of Lachish. The excavator, Ron Tappy, has suggested that Tel Zayit is biblical Libnah, though for that identification Zayit is competing with Tel Burna (pdf), only 2.5 miles (4 km) to the east.

Gordon Franz joined the Tel Zayit team this summer and he has posted some of his personal reflections and experiences on his blog.

There were no spectacular small finds at Tel Zayit this summer. The most important discovery, however, was a clearer understanding of the stratigraphy of the site. In K-20 it was the newly discovered Persian period level as well as another phase of the Roman period. In O-19 all indications point to the abecedary being clearly dated to the 10th century BC. If this date is correct, it would demonstrate that Israelites living in this out-of-the-way city were literate and, therefore, not a bunch of hillbillies living in some little cow town!

I’ve heard that the team will not be in the field next summer, but you may want to consider joining as a volunteer in 2013.

Important sites in Shephelah. Source: Google Earth. For other images with marked routes, see Chris McKinny’s blog.

Tagged Excavations, Shephelah

Tourism in the Middle East in 2011

Tourism in the Middle East this year is up and down, depending upon the country and the month.

Best bets: Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. From the Jerusalem Post:

Travel to the Middle East this year was supposed to reach record highs, but the Arab Spring sent the numbers tumbling, as the violence and turmoil kept many away. But there are signs of recovery in Egypt and in Israel, even as tourism continues to drop in Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas.
Egypt’s Tourism Ministry has announced special discounts for Ramadan (Muslim holy month) visitors, particularly targeting the Gulf states. Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi told Reuters that the Egyptian government forecast revenues from tourism would total $10 billion in the financial year that began on July 1, compared with $11.6 billion in 2009/10.
El-Beblawi said the tourism minister told him “occupancy in Sharm A-Sheikh and other places on the Red Sea was systemically and constantly recovering. If this trend continues, by the end of the year we will reach the normal level.”
According to the UN’s World Tourism Organization, which monitors tourism trends, recovery has already been seen through statistics showing that Egypt suffered an 80% drop in tourism in February at the height of the anti-regime protests, but that by May it had halved to 41% less.
[…]
Syria and Lebanon, on the other hand, have seen tourism die a painful death as Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad’s troops ratchet up the bloody crackdown on popular unrest that erupted in March.
“We would be happy to arrange for you a package that doesn’t take in the risky spots. The hotels are offering very many special deals now,” a travel agent at Syritours, one of the leading tour operators in Syria, said cheerfully when reached by telephone.
The Syrian Tourism Ministry’s “Damascus in August” brochure is offering Ramadan night tours in the old market sponsored by the Iranian cultural chancellery; and a film festival at the Russian culture center.
The alleys of the Damascus suk [marketplace] should have been filled with tourists this summer. Ironically, it was just a year ago that the New York Times rated Syria in the top ten of the hottest places to visit in 2010. UNESCO has cited Syria as the number one place in the world for archaeological sites.
And until this Arab Spring and the bloody, ruthless suppression of anti-regime protests during which human rights organizations say nearly 2,000 people have been killed, tourist numbers had been steadily climbing. The United States and European Union have issued severe travel warnings against visiting Syria and have urged their citizens there to “depart immediately.”

The full story is here.

Tagged Tourism

Roman Sword and Menorah Depiction Found in Jerusalem

The continued excavations of the Siloam street and drainage channel by Reich and Shukrun have revealed two important objects from the first-century AD. From the Israel Antiquities Authority press release:

During the course of work the Israel Antiquities Authority carried out in Jerusalem’s ancient drainage channel, which begins in the Siloam Pool and runs from the City of David to the archaeological garden (near the Western Wall), impressive finds were recently discovered that breathe new life into the story of the destruction of the Second Temple. The excavations are being conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority and are underwritten by the City of David Foundation.
A 2,000 year old iron sword, still in its leather scabbard, was discovered in work the Israel Antiquities Authority is doing in the channel, which served as a hiding refuge for the residents of Jerusalem from the Romans at the time of the Second Temple’s destruction. In addition, parts of the belt that carried the sword were found. According to the excavation directors Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, “It seems that the sword belonged to an infantryman of the Roman garrison stationed in Israel at the outbreak of the Great Revolt against the Romans in 66 CE. The sword’s fine state of preservation is surprising: not only its length (c. 60 cm), but also the preservation of the leather scabbard (a material that generally disintegrates quickly over time) and some of its decoration”.
A stone object adorned with a rare engraving of a menorah was found in the soil beneath the street, on the side of the drainage channel. According to Shukron and Professor Reich, “Interestingly, even though we are dealing with a depiction of the seven-branched candelabrum, only five branches appear here. The portrayal of the menorah’s base is extremely important because it clarifies what the base of the original menorah looked like, which was apparently tripod shaped”. The fact that the stone object was found at the closest proximity to the Temple Mount to date is also important. The researchers suppose a passerby who saw the menorah with his own eyes and was amazed by its beauty incised his impressions on a stone and afterwards tossed his scrawling to the side of the road, without imagining that his creation would be found 2,000 years later.

High resolution images are available at the (temporary) link for the press release, or directly in a zip file here.

Roman sword made of iron used by soldier stationed in Jerusalem in AD 66. Photo by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority.

Stone inscribed with five-branched menorah. Photo by Vladirim Naykhin.

UPDATE: An article on the discovery in Haaretz includes six additional photos.

(HT: Joseph Lauer)

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem