Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

Top Ten Archaeology Discoveries Related to the Bible

Several months ago Tim Kimberley posted an excellent series of over at the Parchment and Pen Blog. Though I missed the initial posting, I did not want to let it pass. His top ten list of biblical discoveries in archaeology corresponds closely to what I would suggest.

Introduction

10. Assyrian Lachish Reliefs (Sennacherib’s Siege Reliefs)

9. Jehu’s Tribute to Shalmaneser III (Black Obelisk)

8. Caiaphas Ossuary

7. Hezekiah’s Tunnel

6. Pontius Pilate Inscription

5. The Crucified Man

4. Ketef Hinnom Silver Amulet Scroll

3. Jericho

2. House of David Inscription (Tel Dan Inscription)

1. Dead Sea Scrolls

Where can you see these great finds? Your first stop is the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where you can see #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8. The British Museum holds #9 and 10. For #3 and 7, you’ll have to get dirty.

Thanks, Tim, for this valuable presentation. If you have not benefited from Tim’s BibleMap.org, I highly recommend it as a quick way to identify locations mentioned in Scripture.

In looking up the last link, I discovered that Tim has put his research into handy book form. You can purchase a copy of Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology for yourself or a friend here.

Tagged Discoveries, Resources

Weekend Roundup

Israel Finkelstein has written a brief article explaining why he believes conclusions based on the lack of archaeological evidence trumps the biblical text every time. “Archaeology as a High Court in Ancient Israelite History: A Reply to Nadav Na’aman” (pdf) is published in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

James Tabor has posted an update on the Mount Zion excavation project, including news that the 2011 dig season will be conducted at Suba (“Cave of John the Baptist”) instead of on Mount Zion.

Ferrell Jenkins explains why you should check out his extensive collection of links to Biblical Studies resources, especially the Bible Places and Scholarly categories.

Aren Maeir has posted the schedule for the Aharoni Symposium, to be held on February 17 at Tel Aviv University.

In response to the recent story about the “Small Kotel,” Leen Ritmeyer observes:

It is ironic to see that Haaretz is worried about a strong reaction from the Waqf (the Muslim religious trust), while the praying Jews are apparently oblivious to the fact that they are touching stones laid by Muslims, which may have been taken from a destroyed Christian church, in order to repair the ancient Jewish Temple Mount walls.

The “Small Kotel”

Tagged Jerusalem, Lectures, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Jaffa Road Closed to All But “Bus 11”

The latest nightmare for residents (and some tourists) in Jerusalem begins tomorrow. From Arutz-7:

This weekend, the main street in Israel’s capital city will bid farewell to vehicular traffic and take on the official status of a pedestrian walkway.
Jaffa Road was constructed 150 years ago during the reign of the Ottoman Turks and so named because it then led travellers out of the city to where the road to Jaffa port began and vice versa. It, runs from the Old City’s Jaffa Gate through the center of Jerusalem to the Central Bus Station and the main intercity highway to Tel Aviv-Jaffa. There is not an inch of space along its length without a commercial establishment, many of which serve the millions of tourists who pass through the capital each year.
For the next four months, until the Jerusalem Light Rail project is completed, “Bus 11” – Israeli slang for a person’s two legs – will be the only means of transportation on the road. The sole light rail line, which will run from Pisgat Ze’ev, through the city center via Jaffa Road to Mount Herzl, is not expected to make its debut until April.
Mayor Nir Barkat is hoping that four months of free rides for residents – the light rail will begin charging fares in August — will ease the rage that is swelling among vendors, consumers and anyone else who is used to working and traveling on Jaffa Road.
It’s not at all certain that his plan will be a success, however, because that’s not all.
Due to the changes along Jaffa Road, traffic patterns on the two parallel streets – Rehov Agrippas, behind the Mahane Yehuda open-air market and which runs along the newly gentrified Nachlaot neighborhood, and Rehov Neviim, which runs along the super hareidi religious Geula neighborhood on the other side – are also going to be changed.
[…]
“Neviim is wide enough for two horses and wagons, approximately,” observed a Jerusalemite who asked not to be identified. “Agrippas will only have buses. No trains for another four months at least? Shopkeepers are aghast.”

The full story is here. The Jerusalem Post has a similar story here.

Jaffa Road, view towards Jaffa Gate, in the quieter days
of the early 1900s Credit: Library of Congress, LC-matpc-06541/ www.LifeintheHolyLand.com

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

How to Date Pottery by Rehydroxylation

The method of rehydroxylation dating was first announced nearly two years ago, but this story in the Michigan Tech News may make the process more understandable than the earlier technical articles.

And it reveals some of the complexities.

If you are an archaeologist, determining when a pot was made is not just a matter of checking the bottom for a time stamp. Dating clay-based materials like ceramics recovered from archeological sites can be time consuming, not to mention complex and expensive.
Patrick Bowen, a senior majoring in materials science and engineering, is refining a new way of dating ceramic artifacts that could one day shave thousands of dollars off the cost of doing archaeological research.
Called rehydroxylation dating, the technique was recently developed by researchers at the University of Manchester and the University of Edinburgh. It takes advantage of ceramics’ predictable tendency to bond chemically with water over time.
“It’s simple,” says Bowen. First, dry the sample at 105 degrees Celcius. This removes any dampness that the ceramic might have absorbed.
Then, weigh the sample and put it in a furnace at 600 degrees Celsius. The chemically bonded water, in the form of hydroxyl groups (single atoms of hydrogen and oxygen bound together), forms water vapor and evaporates. “When you do that, you mimic what the sample was like when it was originally fired,” says Bowen.
Then weigh the sample again and leave it alone. Over the next several weeks, the ceramic will react with water in the air and gain weight. Plot the gain against a time constant, and the shape of the curve tells you the age of the ceramic. Theoretically.
But it ain’t necessarily so, Bowen discovered, working with his advisors, Jaroslaw Drelich, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, and Timothy Scarlett, an associate professor of archaeology and anthropology. “The dating process turns out to be more complicated than the literature suggests,” he says.

The story continues here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Technology

Earliest Winery Discovered in Armenia

From the Associated Press:

The earliest known winery has been uncovered in a cave in the mountains of Armenia.
A vat to press the grapes, fermentation jars and even a cup and drinking bowl dating to about 6,000 years ago were discovered in the cave complex by an international team of researchers.
While older evidence of wine drinking has been found, this is the earliest example of complete wine production, according to Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, co-director of the excavation.
The findings, announced Tuesday by the National Geographic Society, are published in the online edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
“The evidence argues convincingly for a wine-making facility,” said Patrick McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, who was not part of the research team.
Such large scale wine production implies that the Eurasian grape had already been domesticated, said McGovern, author of “Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages.”

The full article is here.

The National Geographic News article has more details and a larger photo. Some reports have noted the proximity of this discovery to the traditional place where the Ark landed and Noah planted a vineyard (Gen 9:20).

Tagged Discoveries

American Colony in Jerusalem Collection at the LOC

Readers here are likely familiar with the American Colony in Jerusalem, a “a non-denominational utopian Christian community founded by a small group of American expatriates in Ottoman Palestine in 1881.” Their photographic enterprise was a thriving industry serving tourists for the first half of the 20th century. The original glass negatives were donated by the heir of the collection to the Library of Congress in the 1970s and the digitized versions were posted online about five years ago. That formed the basis of a series of specialized collections that we created here.

Last week the Library of Congress announced the online publication of a new collection of historic documents from the American Colony.

The materials presented in the new American Memory site were donated to the Library in December 2004 by Valentine Vester and the board of directors of the American Colony of Jerusalem, Ltd. The bulk of the collection—received by the Library between 2005 and the present—comprises more than 10,000 items and is housed in the Library’s Manuscript Division.

Many of these items were collected by Bertha Spafford Vester as she wrote her memoir Our Jerusalem: An American Family in the Holy City. The digitized version includes a selection of the full collection, namely that which was displayed in a 2005 Library of Congress exhibition. The full press release is here. The full collection is described as follows:

The physical collection focuses on the personal and business life of the colony from the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, through World War I and the British Mandate, and into the formation of the state of Israel. It includes draft manuscripts, letters, postcards, telegrams, diaries or journals, scrapbooks, printed materials, photographs, hand-drawn maps and ephemera. Most collection items are in English, with some material in Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Swedish.
Items in the collection begin in 1786 and date to 2006. The bulk of the materials date from 1870 to 1968. Included are items related to the leadership of the colony by members of the Spafford, Vester, and Whiting families. There is information as well pertaining to the colony’s Swedish members and other residents, as well as neighbors, friends, diplomats, dignitaries, associates in Jerusalem and sponsors in the United States.

This is akin to finding an old chest in the attic full of precious heirlooms, except that in this case there are many such chests and they are available to anyone with a computer. I look forward to rummaging through this treasure trove of fascinating information about some momentous years in the history of the holy land.

The doorway to the attic is here, and the browse and search features will get you where you want to go quickly. You can read more about the collection and its origin here. The catalog record is here.

Tagged American Colony Photos, Resources