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2010 on Track for Tourism Record in Israel

From ICEJ News:

Israel’s Tourism Ministry announced on Monday that 1.9 million tourists visited the country between January and July, keeping 2010 on track to be a record year for incoming tourism and breaking the magic number of 3 million. The numbers are already a 34% improvement over last year, and also include data indicating tourists are highly satisfied with the quality of local tour guides, the historic sites they were taken to see, and services offered in restaurants, bus lines, gift shops and hotels. “The consistent growth in incoming tourism over recent months, alongside the increasing satisfaction tourists feel toward the service they receive in Israel, should not be taken for granted,” said Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov. “This is the result of large investments in marketing, public relations, infrastructure development, encouraging investors and upgrading the training and service frameworks.

Tagged Tourism

Hellenistic Gold Coin Found at Kedesh

From the Israel Antiquities Authority (temp link):

An extremely rare 2200-year old gold coin was uncovered recently in the excavations of the University of Michigan and University of Minnesota at Tell Kedesh in Israel near its Lebanese border. The coin was minted in Alexandria by Ptolemy V in 191 BCE and bears the name of the wife of Ptolemy II, Arsinoë Philadephus (II).
According to Dr. Donald T. Ariel, head of the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “This is an amazing numismatic find. The coin is beautiful and in excellent preservation. It is the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel. The coin weighs almost one ounce (27.71 grams), while most ancient gold coins weighed 4.5 grams. In Ariel’s words, “This extraordinary coin was apparently not in popular or commercial use, but had a symbolic function. The coin may have had a ceremonial function related to a festival in honor of Queen Arsinoë, who was deified in her lifetime. The denomination is called a mnaieion, meaning a one-mina coin, and is equivalent to 100 silver drachms, or a mina of silver.
The obverse (‘head’) of the coin depicts Arsinoë II Philadelphus. The reverse (‘tail’) depicts two overlapping cornucopias (horns-of-plenty) decorated with fillets. The meaning of the word Philadelphus is brotherly love. Arsinoë II, daughter of Ptolemy I Soter, was married at age 15 to one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Lysimachus, king of Thrace. After Lysimachus’ death she married her brother, Ptolemy II, who established a cult in her honor. This mnaieion from Tel Kedesh attests to the staying power of the cult, since the coin was minted a full 80 years after the queen’s death.
According to Ariel, “It is rare to find Ptolemaic coins in Israel dating after the country came under Seleucid rule in 200 BCE. The only other gold Ptolemaic coin from an excavation in Israel (from `Akko) dates from the period of Ptolemaic hegemony, in the third century BCE, and weighs less than two grams.”
The excavations at Tell Kedesh, conducted since 1997, has uncovered a large Persian/Hellenistic administrative building, complete with reception halls, dining facilities, store rooms and an archive. While the documents in the archive were not preserved, the excavations yielded 2043 bullae, from which the flourishing of the Hellenistic phase of the building can be dated to the first half of the second century BCE.

Gold Coin from Tell Kedesh; photo by Sue Webb (via IAA)

The full release and high-resolution photo are here. In earlier days, Kedesh was one of the three cities west of the Jordan River designated as a city of refuge (Josh 20:7). More information about the biblical site is here. I noted a story about these excavations last week.

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee

Weekend Roundup

The Turkish government is building a 10-foot high wall around a cemetery along the eastern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, according to signs posted there. The municipality has confirmed the report.

John the Baptist’s bones have been found in a monastery on a Bulgarian island in the Black Sea, according to government officials. They have everything to prove the identification except for evidence.

Extracts of the Cyrus Cylinder have been found in China carved on horse bones. The question is when the copies were made.

The French will finance a “national museum” in Bethlehem and train museographers, in a one million dollar deal signed recently. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

The Jewish Tribune has a story on the woman who discovered the Jerusalem cuneiform tablet.

Contrary to what I wrote before, the tablet was actually discovered during sifting in March. I mixed up a couple of different unannounced sensational discoveries.

Raphael Golb, accused of impersonating Dead Sea Scrolls scholars, has rejected a plea offer in Manhattan Criminal Court. For background, see here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Judah, Pseudo-Archaeology

Holy Sepulcher To Be Billed for Water

Who should pay for the water drunk by visitors to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem?

The church should, according to a new decision by the city’s water company.

From the Jerusalem Post:

“We are providing water to the pilgrims and tourist for free,” says doorkeeper Jawal Hussein. “It’s not fair. We should not have to pay.”
Slumped on a small stone bench at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Hussein reflected on reports that the Jerusalem water company had decided to end a centuries-old tradition and is now demanding the church pay for its water.
Gihon, the public water company in Jerusalem, has also reportedly demanded the church pay its back bill dating to 1967, when Israel assumed control of east Jerusalem and the walled Old City from the Jordanians. According to AsiaNews.it, a Christian news site, the decision would break a tradition honored by both the British and Jordanian rulers who had controlled the site in the past century.

There is, however, a significant problem: who do they send the bill to? There is no single authority over the property, and the various church groups are hardly able to work things out between them.

There is also the question of fairness.

A Franciscan monk aiding a group of pilgrims from South Korea through the church paused to contemplate the water bill.

“I have heard about it but I don’t understand why the government wants to discriminate against us,” said the monk, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. “Are the synagogues and the mosques paying?” “We are doing a favor to the pilgrims and tourists,” he added. “The government must be earning something from [their visit]. We are doing them a favor.”
“But if the synagogues and mosque have to pay, then I guess we have to pay as well,” the monk added.
The Gihon water company issued a statement saying that they have not, “as of this moment,” cut off the water supplies of any religious institution.
It added that it was charging a standard price of about $4 dollars per cubic meter for water from all religious institutions in the Old City, including mosques, synagogues and churches.
“It should be stressed that this is a uniform fee for all,” the statement said.

Is this true? Does the rabbinate pay for the water that comes from the fountains at the Western Wall?

It seems to me that the rules should be the same for the two places, as both are religious landmarks freely open to the public.

Holy Sepulcher rotunda with visitors for Ceremony of Holy Fire (source)

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Determining the Origin of Ancient Letters

X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry can help researchers to determine where a letter was written. An analysis of the recently discovered cuneiform tablet from Jerusalem reveals that it was written on local clays. This supports the theory that Jerusalem in the 14th century BC was ruled by kings with an educated class of scribes. From the American Friends of Tel Aviv University:

But Prof. Goren’s process, based on x-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry, can go much further. Over the years, he has collected extensive data through physical “destructive” sampling of artefacts. By comparing this data to readouts produced by the XRF device, he’s built a table of results so that he can now scan a tablet — touching the surface of it gently with the machine — and immediately assess its clay type and the geographical origin of its minerals.
The tool, he says, can also be applied to coins, ancient plasters, and glass, and can be used on site or in a lab. He plans to make this information widely available to other archaeological researchers.
[…]
Its style suggests that it is a rough and contemporary tablet of the Amarna letters — letters written from officials throughout the Middle East to the Pharaohs in Egypt around 3,500 years ago, pre-biblical times. Using his device, Prof. Goren was able to determine that the letter is made from raw material typical to the Terra Rossa soils of the Central Hill Country around Jerusalem. This determination helped to confirm both the origin of the letter and possibly its sender.
“We believe this is a local product written by Jerusalem scribes, made of locally available soil. Found close to an acropolis, it is also likely that the letter fragment does in fact come from a king of Jerusalem,” the researchers reported, adding that it may well be an archival copy of a letter from King Abdi-Heba, a Jesubite king in Jerusalem, to the Pharaoh in nearby Egypt.

The full release is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Jerusalem, Technology

Gag Order on Temple Mount Report

From the Jerusalem Post:

A gag order is being maintained on a sensitive state comptroller’s report believed to blast the lack of Israeli oversight on the Temple Mount, but most of the report is expected to be cleared for publication before the Knesset reconvenes in mid-October, The Jerusalem Post was told Tuesday. The report, which discusses Israel’s authority on the Temple Mount, including governmental oversight of excavations and construction on the site, is viewed as highly sensitive for diplomatic and security reasons, and the first Knesset debate on the report was held Tuesday behind closed doors. The report probes, among other bodies, the performance of the Jerusalem Municipality, the Antiquities Authority, and the Israel Police in enforcing laws and regulations pertaining to the site, as well as the roles of the attorney-general and respective prime ministers in confronting and shaping policy in the face of the challenges posed by the site in recent years. MKs who read the report described it as “all-encompassing” and “very serious”, but noted that the report only concerns the performance of governmental bodies covered within the mandate of the State Comptroller’s Office. The report does not examine the activities of non-governmental bodies, except regarding official bodies’ responses to their actions. “The report revealed many problems that cannot be accepted in a democratic state that tries to prevent – by law – the destruction of a cultural site that is significant, as a world cultural site and a Jewish one,” said MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima), who heads the State Control Committee subcommittee on security, foreign affairs and international trade relations, which was tasked with reviewing the report.

The full story is here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount