According to National Geographic, there was little or no damage to Lebanese antiquities from the recent war with Israel. The NG photo gallery gives 6 photos of sites including Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, with some explanation about their historical significance and the lack of damage to the archaeological remains. For more photographs of these sites from a long time ago, see Baalbek, Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, and Tyre at our sister site, LifeintheHolyLand.com.
Tyre in the 1890sYou could be forgiven for thinking that a new problem has been discovered and a rapid response is underway from the Sunday Times article, “Race is on to save the Dead Sea.” In fact, a Red Sea-Dead Sea aqueduct has been considered by Israel and Jordan for at least a decade. Whether or not the current discussions are more serious is difficult to know. The article notes that the flow of the Jordan River into the Dead Sea is 7% of what it was before the countries began diverting its flow. The declining level (cited at 1 meter/3 feet per year) is certainly causing problems with sinkholes and unstable terrain.
The article suggests that Jordan is most interested in the project because the bulk of it would be done on their side, with outside financing. Despite the hopes that a joint Arab-Israeli project would increase peace prospects, the way that this project stands the best chance of succeeding is if it is largely constructed by one country or the other.
The Israeli government is planning on investing $5 million in the development of an archaeological park in Tiberias. Excavations have been ongoing in the city under the direction of Yizhar Hirschfeld, and the new funding will go towards the excavation of the Roman theater, according to a note in Haaretz.
The theater was discovered in 1990 and was a surprise to archaeologists because no ancient sources mention the building. Tiberias was founded by Herod Antipas in 19 A.D., and scholars believe the theater was built in the 2nd or 3rd centuries and remained in use through the Byzantine period. The theater is located at the foot of Mount Berenice and has an estimated seating capacity of 5,000.
Last year Hirschfeld published a handbook about Tiberias, which pulls all of the sources about the city together into a single, easy-to-read work: Roman, Byzantine, and Early Muslim Tiberias: A Handbook of Primary Sources. The book is available for $20 from the excavator or from Amazon for double the cost. Proceeds from sales go to the archaeological excavation.
Visible remains of Tiberias theaterIsraelis are now signing up for the latest in domestic travel: tours of the battle spots of the recent war with Lebanon. From the Jerusalem Post:
Beginning at Moshav Avivim, the scene of bloody fights between IDF special forces and crack Hizbullah squads, the tour winds through the hills of the Upper Galilee, stopping to view UNIFIL posts, overlook key Lebanese villages such as Maoun a-Ras, and view the damage caused by Katyusha rockets to both forests and houses. At Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, tours visit the improvised memorial at the place where 15 reservists were killed when a rocket hit the parking lot in which they were standing….Since the end of the war, tourists have paid NIS 100 per vehicle to participate in the tours, and while Alon is certain that the excitement will drop off, more tourists keep coming. Alon said the desire to see the sites connected with the war is natural. “It is one thing to see things on television, or on radio, and another thing to see it,” he said.
Some good news for the hundreds of thousands of cyclists in Israel:
A new bike trail will allow bicyclists to ride across the Jewish State. The first 30 km (18 miles) will be opened during the holiday of Sukkot, six weeks from now….
The preliminary trail will be a circular route from the Ben Shemen Forest, near Modiin, to Nachal Sorek – the area where the villainess Delila, of the Book of Judges, lived.
The second stage of construction will create a circular route between the Elyakim interchange, near Haifa, and the Beit Kama Junction, near Sderot and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s HaShikmim Ranch.
Source: Arutz-7
Discoveries from the current season of excavations at Ramat Rahel are featured in this Jerusalem Post article. The most interesting paragraphs are these:
A highly sophisticated ancient water system dating back to the end of the Kingdom of Judah in the Seventh Century BCE….
The water system, cut deep into the rock foundation, includes large underground water reservoirs, five open pools, small canals that transported water between the pools and three underground canals. The system continued to be functional, although with some alterations, during the Persian Era, the return to Zion after the destruction of the First Temple, the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE and through the Hellenistic Era in the Third Century BCE.
Along with 18 Jewish ritual baths from the Hellenistic Period, the archeologists uncovered a bathhouse and villa, and a large Byzantine village with a church, monastery, rooms and halls.
I suspect that the journalist got the date of the ritual baths mixed up; they are almost always from the late Hasmonean or Herodian period. About a dozen were known at the site before the present excavations, dated to the Herodian period. For more about previous excavations at the site, see the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review for an article by Gabriel Barkay.
