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Dating from Magnetic Particles

This AP article is about American archaeology, but the technology could be applied to the Near East, if it hasn’t been already.

You might be surprised what you can learn from a campfire. A campfire that has been cold for, say, 300 years.
Stacey Lengyel hopes she can tell, within 30 years or so, when it was used.
Lengyel, a research associate in anthropology at the Illinois State Museum, is the country’s leading authority on archeomagnetic dating, a process built around two phenomena: when heated, magnetic particles reorient themselves to magnetic north; and over time, magnetic north is, literally, all over the map.
“They call it a ‘drunken wander,’ ” said Lengyel. “Around 1600, it was real close to Earth’s rotational axis. Now, it is around 75 degrees latitude….”
In archeomagnetic dating, once potential samples have been identified, their location and orientation are precisely measured, Lengyel said. About a dozen 1-inch cubes are then excised, encased to preserve them, then taken to a lab.
The chunks are then progressively demagnetized until their natural remnant magnetism can be measured, she said. The objects may have been partially magnetized by nearby lightning strikes, for example, or if they were stored near objects with strong magnetic fields. These weaker magnetic fields must be removed.
First their magnetic fingerprint is taken, and then they are slightly demagnetized. The process is repeated several times; eventually all that is left is the baseline magnetic signal, she said. If the material is fired to about 500 degrees Celsius or more, the magnetic field will point to where magnetic north was located at the time.
“The best dates we can get are within a 30-year time period,” Lengyel said.

The complete article is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Technology

Student Finds LMLK Handle

Last month I was in Israel when a friend called and said that one of the students in a group he was leading found a jar handle with a LMLK seal impression laying on the ground at Ramat Rahel (two miles south of the Old City of Jerusalem). I’ve led student groups around Israel for 15 years and none of them has ever found a LMLK handle and my friend is three days into his first trip when one is found. Within a day or so, he had sent a photo of the seal impression to “Mr. LMLK” (who immediately published an analysis of it here) and got the expert opinion of Dr. Gabriel Barkay.

Yesterday, the story made it into the newspaper. If you’re recruiting for next year’s tour, you can try enticing your students with the hope of such a discovery. And you might take a closer look at that next potsherd before you toss it.

LMLK seal impression; photo by Steven Sanchez

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

Record Number of Tourists in Israel

My impression that there were too many tourists in Israel last month was correct. In fact, there has never been more tourists in the history of the nation. Haaretz reports:

Nearly 300,000 tourists visited Israel in May, an all-time record, the Ministry of Tourism said.
The number of tourists was five percent higher than May of 2000, Israel’s record year for tourism, and at the current pace, 2.8 million tourists are on track to visit by the end of the year, according to the ministry….
By 2012, the ministry’s goal is to attract five million tourists, have 220,000 workers employed in the tourism industry and have tourism revenues of NIS 43 billion.

Goals are good, but it might be wise for the budgeters to keep in mind that 5 months after Israel’s record-breaking May 2000, tourism nearly ground to a halt for about 3 years.

Tour buses parked near Garden of Gethsemane

If the optimists are right, you’re best to avoid the month of May in future years if possible. You know it’s going to be bad when there are no seats left for your group’s flight in a year in advance (that’s my situation for next May). Here are some advantages to going in other months:

February: no tourists (but potentially lots of rain)
March: everything is green and wildflowers are everywhere
August: no tourists (but you’ll know why as you hesitate to get off the air-conditioned bus)
October: possibly my favorite month of the year in Israel, with great temperatures and no rain
December: clearer air (less haze) means better panoramic views

Tagged Travels

Mysterious Stone Piles in Sea of Galilee

From Haaretz:

A marine scientist has discovered a series of mysterious stone patterns on the lake bed of drought-stricken Lake Kinneret.
The man-made piles of stone, which are now above water, jut out from the freshwater lake, and sit 30 meters from each other along a 3.5-kilometer stretch of the eastern shore, from the Kinneret College campus to Haon resort.
Gal Itzhaki of Kibbutz Afikim first noticed the stones while strolling along the lake’s receded shoreline. He says the patterns are a “fascinating phenomenon” and are part of an “impressive building enterprise.”
Though they have not yet been scientifically examined, there are several hypotheses as to what functions they fulfilled. One theory postulates that they were part of a boundary between the ancient lakeside towns of Hippos, also known as Sussita, and Gadara. Both towns were part of the Decapolis, a group of 10 towns that flourished in the eastern part of the Roman province of Palestina, and are mentioned in the New Testament. Others have hypothesized that the patterns were part of a string of watchtowers or small buildings, or were used to set up fishermen’s nets.

Read the rest here. The Hebrew version includes a photo.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee

DigMegiddo – Excavation Blog

Today is the first day of excavations at Megiddo, and a new blog intends to narrate the season from the perspective of archaeologist Eric Cline and 9 students. Apparently 8 of the bloggers are female, which may say something about the attitude of guys towards archaeology or perhaps the recruiting skills of Cline. You can check it out here: http://digmegiddo.wordpress.com/

Tagged Excavations

Review: Israeli-Palestinian Cultural Heritage Agreement

The subject of the “Israeli-Palestinian Cultural Heritage Agreement,” and similar subjects, has largely been ignored on this blog (for reasons of time). Joe Lauer today sent out a handy summary of the issue, which I re-post here with his permission. He also points out that there are a few additional links at Paleojudaica.

From Joe Lauer:

The recent Op-Ed by Meron Benvenisti, published in Ha’aretz, is another article or opinion piece dealing with the draft “Israeli-Palestinian Cultural Heritage Agreement” introduced by two archaeologists on April 8, 2008. The archaeologists are Ran Boytner, from UCLA, and Lynn Swartz Dodd, from USC.

As I was away from our PC from early April through mid-May, I could not share the news and opinions about the draft with those on the list, although many undoubtedly were made aware of them through their own reading or through postings on other lists.

For those who did not have access to these materials, the following mentions some of the items that appeared in early April and thereafter. I’m sure that many other article and op-eds have appeared regarding the proposal.

On April 8, 2008, UCLA issued a lengthy press release regarding the draft agreement (“Plan brokered by archaeologists would remove roadblock to Mideast peace”). This release, which has a picture of the two archaeologists, a map of the “Proposed Jerusalem Heritage Zone”, and a link to an almost eight-minute UCLA video about the draft, evidently was the basis for many of the following articles on the subject. It may be read here.

The video may be also be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkRATNj8WDo.

On April 14, 2008, ScienceDaily published the UCLA press release at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080411123057.htm. It also has a link to the UCLA video.

On April 9, 2008, The Jerusalem Post published a brief news item on the subject (“Israeli, Palestinian archaeologists draft deal to preserve historic sites”) by its staff. It may be read here or here.

On April 10, 2008, The Jerusalem Post (pg. 7) reprinted an article by Tom Tugend that first appeared on April 7 [sic], 2008 in The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles (“UCLA and USC archaeologists hope preserving the Middle East’s shared past can pave way to protecting”). It may be read here.

The Jerusalem Post article was entitled “US academics work to bridge archeological gap between Israelis, Palestinians” (and sub-captioned “Effort yields database of sites, artifacts that could be caught in legal limbo when final borders are decided”).

Unfortunately, I do not have the URLs for The Jerusalem Post article or the Letter to the Editor that responded to it from Ken Spiro, April 14, 2008, pg. 14 (“Preposterous plan”), although I have them in print form. (The letter stated: “I read with complete disbelief about a plan to return to the Palestinian Authority archaeological artifacts excavated from Judea and Samaria as part of a final peace deal (“US academics …,” April 10). If these were Muslim or Arab artifacts I could at least understand, but they’re talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls, antiquities from the First and Second Temple periods — our very history, and the physical evidence of the Jewish people’s connection to Israel! To even contemplate giving these to the PA — which continues to deny that there ever was a Jewish presence in Israel or Jerusalem — is a form of national suicide. As Israel Meir Lau, former chief rabbi of Israel and now chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, once said: ‘A nation that does not value its past has no right to dream about its future.'”)

The Jewish Journal article was also circulated by Common Ground News Service, in a slightly edited form (“Archaeologists preserve hope”), at http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=22977.

The Jewish Journal article has a picture of the two academics, a link to the “Plan” of the “Shared Heritage Project”, and a link to the UCLA video about the agreement. The Plan (including All documents (includes the cover letter, agreement, map) 5.32 MB; Agreement only 37.5 KB; High resolution Jerusalem Heritage Zone Map 2.11 MB; and Low resolution Jerusalem heritage zone map 932 KB) may also be linked to at http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/religion/arc/sh/.

Ha’aretz also had its articles and opinion pieces on the subject:

On April 11, 2008, Ha’aretz published “A separate peace”, by Meron Rapoport. It may be read at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=973870 [English; Last update – 20:38 14/04/2008]

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=973829 [Hebrew; Last update – 15:22 12/04/08]

On April 18, 2008, Ha’aretz published “Partitioning the past”, by Neil Asher Silberman. It may be read at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=976273 [English; Last update – 07:41 18/04/2008]

Silberman’s critical piece was followed by a response (“Sharing the past by dividing it”) from Raphael Greenberg, who often speaks for the “Israeli-Palestinian Working Group on Archaeology,” including in a campaign against the IAA excavations in the City of David sponsored by Elad. His article may be read at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=977945 [English; Last update – 09:19 25/04/2008].