BiblePlaces Blog - Page 204 of 555

Photos from the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology

The Times of Israel runs a story today on the early work and photographs of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology located on the Mount of Olives. While many of the photos published in the story are not new or exclusive, the article itself has some interesting information about the institute’s first director Gustaf Dalman. For instance, Ilan Ben Zion informs us that:

Though a renowned scholar of the land and its customs, Dalman only lived in Palestine for 12 years.
Though director of an archaeological institute, Dalman was forbidden by the board from conducting excavations.
Dalman blasted the British when he resigned from the Palestine Exploration Fund. “Deeply saddened by the British government intention, in alliance with barbarians and idolaters, to destroy German cultural work in the world…”
After World War I, the British forbade Dalman from returning to Palestine.

Some other notes about the photos:

The article includes two different slideshows, with a total of 29 images.
The images are from multiple collections and are not all from the German photographers, despite the copyright notice.
The image identified as “a well in Silwan” is actually a rare photo of Ein Rogel, the location of Adonijah’s attempted coup (1 Kgs 1:9).

The story also reports on two important current excavations of the German Protestant Institute, Tell Zira’a and Jerusalem’s Church of the Redeemer.

For some years we’ve been working on another set of German photographs published by Dalman and we hope to have that completed and available before the year is out.

HT: Antonio Lombatti, Mike Harney

Ein Rogel, early 20th century
Photo © DEIAHL, Jerusalem

Tagged Jerusalem, Photo Resources

Preparing for the Pope

Today’s Caspari Center Media Review has two notes related to the upcoming papal visit to Israel.

The first concerns closure of the Western Wall prayer plaza and the second anticipated attacks against Christians by Jewish extremists.

From HaMevaser, May 5, 2014: Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, rabbi of the Western Wall and the holy places, is deeply disturbed by demands from the police and the Shabak [domestic intelligence organization] to close the Western Wall to prayer and to public transportation during the entirety of Pope Francis’ visit later this month, as well as to close the entire Old City to vehicles even before the visit. This closure will disrupt early prayer services as well as bar mitzvah services, usually held in the morning as well. Rabinovich, along with Rabbi Chaim Miller of the Movement for Jerusalem and Her Inhabitants, are opposing the demand also because of rumors regarding a possible handover of control over David’s Tomb on Mount Zion.

From Haaretz, Yediot Ahronot, May 9, 2014: The police and Shabak are making extensive preparations to prevent a possible wave of hate crimes against Christians and Christian holy sites, and also against Muslim sites, in connection with Pope Francis’ upcoming visit. Among other things, they are preparing to guard holy sites, making special arrangements for investigating nationalistic crimes and gathering related intelligence. A suspect has been detained. On April 7, graffiti was discovered on the walls of the Vatican offices in Jerusalem, saying, “Death to the Arabs, to the Christians and to all those who hate Israel.” The Franciscan order responsible for the holy sites has published a protest, calling officials “to deal urgently with those radical elements.” Some inhabitants of Wadi Ara are also preparing to guard their local mosques.

A previous Caspari Center Media Review provided an update on the possible handover of the Upper Room/David’s Tomb to the Vatican.

From Makor Rishon, April 18, 2014: In this three-page article, Yehuda Yifrach relates the bitter conflict in progress at the moment regarding David’s Tomb. The structure, near the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion, was built around 1330, and has been a source of dispute between Jews, Christians, and Muslims almost ever since, as the second story of the building has also been identified by the Vatican as the site of the Last Supper. Now there are rumors of a possible treaty between the Israeli government and the Vatican. This treaty would crystallize the long-term standing of the Catholic Church in Israel, but in particular, would give control over the Last Supper Room into Catholic hands. Jewish organizations are bitterly opposing this move, saying that a flood of Christian pilgrims will stop any Jewish activity at the site, and give de facto ownership to the Vatican. These organizations are also concerned because of the mentality the Vatican has displayed in the past regarding the sovereignty of the state of Israel, and the Vatican’s attempts to present the Holocaust as a Catholic event. Neither the Israeli government nor the Israel Antiquities Authority could speak as to possible details of the treaty, except to deny that any sort of handover was contemplated, but a recent article in the formal Vatican newspaper appears to regard it as almost settled.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Using PLBL with Picasa (Part 2)

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

This posting will focus on two ways that Picasa can help you deploy the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands in classroom teaching. (See our first post on “Using PLBL with Picasa” here.)

First, we will show you how to use Albums to create a presentation on-the-fly using photographs that are located in multiple folders. This could be helpful if you are short on time, and the topic you are teaching or studying (such as Paul’s missionary trips) involves places or events across the Pictorial Library. First, browse or search for the photographs(s) that you want to include in your presentation.

When you click once on the photograph, it will be “selected” and two things will happen: a blue frame will appear around the selected image as below,

Left image is selected and has a blue frame.

and a thumbnail of the thumbnail (is there a name for this?) will appear in the lower left window of Picasa, in an area called the selection tray.

Selection tray with three selected images.

You can select more than one image at a time from a single folder using Shift or Control/Command keys. To select photographs from another folder without losing your selections from previous folders, click the “green thumbtack” button to “hold” the items in the selection tray. The red circle will remove items from the selection tray.

Selection tray buttons.

Once you have selected all the photographs you want to use in your presentation, click the “blue book” button for “albums.” It will open a menu that allows you to select an existing “album” or create a new “album” where you want to send the photographs. The images will not actually be moved.

Rather, albums are like “Smart Playlists” (or Dynamic Folders); you can add or delete albums without touching the original images. They allow you to mix-and-match into a single folder a variety of photographs that are located in several folders. All of the images in the selection tray will be “sent” to the album that you choose or create.

Albums button menu.

Albums can be viewed by clicking on “Albums” at the top of the left-side browser.

Albums browser with an album for “Gates.”

With your photographs in an album, you can now arrange the order of the photographs by clicking-and-dragging the thumbnails in the main screen. Once you have the photographs in the sequence you want them, double-click the first photograph to go the “Edit Picture” screen. At the top is a Play button which will begin the slideshow presentation.

Play slideshow button.

Moving the cursor in slideshow view will cause a control bar to appear at the bottom. Here you can rotate a photo, zoom in, exit the slideshow, or make other adjustments.

Slideshow controls.

To return to the main screen from the “Edit Picture” screen, click the “Back to Library” button at top left.

Return to main screen button.

Second, we will show you how to use Picasa to create a Google Earth kmz file of locations containing image thumbnails. The secret to doing this is Geotags. Geotags are location coordinate information contained within the actual photograph. By clicking the blue “information” button in the Show/Hide Panels toolbar at the bottom right of the screen, you can view the photograph metadata. If a photograph is geotagged, the metadata will include a GPS Latitude and GPS latitude.

Show/Hide Panels buttons.

To geotag a photograph, click the red “balloon pin” button on the Show/Hide Panels toolbar. A window will expand on the right which looks just like Google Maps.

Places Panel.

Select the photograph(s) you want to geotag. (You can tag multiple photographs at the same time.)

Next, you need to find the location in the Google map. (Just like with Google Maps, you can switch to satellite view and zoom in/out.) There are a few ways to find the location. You can do this manually by dragging the screen with the cursor and using zoom controls, and then clicking the green “balloon pin” to drop it on the location. You can use the search bar under the map to enter the name of a location. The best method, though, since so many Pictorial Library places are archaeological sites, is to copy/paste the coordinates from the Pictorial Library’s Site Index into the search bar.

Once a photograph is geotagged, the thumbnail in the main screen will have a red “balloon pin” in the lower right corner.

Photograph with red “balloon pin” indicating

it has been geotagged.

To create a Google Earth kmz file, select the geotagged photographs you want to include. Again, you can use the selection tray as described above. For Windows computers only, go to Tools > Geotag > Export. This will create a kmz file from the photographs you selected. The kmz file can be opened in Google Earth or Google Maps, and it will contain yellow “pushpins” with thumbnail images of the photographs which have been geotagged to that location. (The kmz export feature is not available in the Mac version of Picasa. Instructions are here for accomplishing the same task.)

I can imagine this being useful, for example, if one is teaching on the life of Abraham. You can have “pushpins” at Haran, Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, etc. with thumbnails of Pictorial Library photographs. The kmz file can be distributed to students, or it might be used in classroom instruction. Perhaps a teacher might craft an exercise where students have to make a “map” of a biblical account using photos from the Pictorial Library.

This completes our series on “Using Pictorial Library of Bible Lands with Picasa.” Picasa can be a very helpful tool for locating and deploying the wealth of images in the library.

We close with a comment about the limitations of using the Pictorial Library only with Picasa (or similar applications). The photographs of the Pictorial Library come in pre-made PowerPoint presentations which contain the maps, abundant annotations in the Speaker’s Notes (see here and here), helpful labels, and have the photographs arranged in a logical order. Picasa misses out on all these features, so our recommendation is not to bypass the PowerPoints, but use Picasa in conjunction with them.

Tagged Techniques, Technology

Was David’s Citadel Discovered in Jerusalem?

A new AP story promotes the claim by Eli Shukrun that he discovered King David’s citadel. For someone familiar with these excavations, the AP account is anything but straightforward. Here’s a simple explanation: Shukrun is identifying the fortifications around the Gihon Spring with the Jebusite fortress of Zion.

What is the Jebusite fortress of Zion? It’s not very clear from the biblical account. Either it is the city as a whole or the king’s palace. Here is the relevant passage from 2 Samuel 5:6-9:

The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion, the City of David. 8 On that day, David said, “Anyone who conquers the Jebusites will have to use the water shaft [tsinnor] to reach those ‘lame and blind’ who are David’s enemies.” That is why they say, “The ‘blind and lame’ will not enter the palace.” 9 David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built up the area around it, from the supporting terraces inward.

Didn’t Shukrun and Reich excavate this beginning about 15 years ago and concluding about 2 years ago? Yes.

What makes this news? While these fortifications have always been ascribed to the Canaanite inhabitants of Jerusalem from 1800 BC, Shukrun is now making a direct claim that these were protecting the city when David arrived in 1004 BC.

What fortifications did they find? They excavated a massive tower protecting the Gihon Spring, another tower built next to a pool (see photo in the story), and a parallel set of walls leading up the hill.

Is this the same thing as Warren’s Shaft? Not quite. It’s the same idea—David’s men entered the city through a subterranean tunnel—but they believe that the vertical portion of Warren’s Shaft was not known until after the time of David. Instead, Shukrun believes that David’s men came via another section of the multi-part water system.

What does Shukrun’s partner Ronny Reich think? He is more hesitant to apply the biblical name, in part because of the lack of tenth-century pottery found in the excavations. But the walls didn’t disappear for a few centuries and then re-appear, so he suspects that the tenth-century pottery was removed by later inhabitants.

Do you agree? Yes and no. First, I find it quite reasonable that the water system and defensive towers were in use when David arrived. It seems likely that the tsinnor that Joab entered the city through is part of this complex. Second, the water system should not be equated with David’s palace. It’s not clear to me that this is what the article is saying, but the lack of clarity creates confusion. Shukrun is not saying that he found David’s home; he is claiming that he discovered a portion of the city that David conquered. That’s not news and it’s only controversial for those who don’t believe the biblical account of David’s conquest is accurate.

What is behind this recent announcement? The article claims that the visitor center only opened last month. I’m not sure what that means, since the site has been open continuously for the last 15 years, but it may explain why the news reporter chose to do the story. Shukrun is now working as a lecturer and tour guide and free publicity is always good. (If your group is looking for an extra special thing to do in Jerusalem, I would certainly recommend hiring Shukrun to guide you around the City of David.)

What’s the best book to read on the subject? Ronny Reich’s Excavating the City of David is excellent.

Pool Tower excavations with superimposed reconstruction

Tagged Analysis, Discoveries, Jerusalem

Using PLBL with Picasa (Part 1)

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

In a previous post, we made mention of the 17,683 photographs that comprise the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands (PLBL). That is a lot of photographs! And it is a lot of places! To help the user find what they are looking for and to navigate the library, we added some brand-new features such as maps (here and here) and a Site Index, in addition to the already-helpful Image Index, the organization of the library into volumes/regions, and the descriptive filenames for every single photograph.

In this post, we would like to draw attention to a free program named Picasa, by Google. I have found this to be one of the most helpful tools for digging into the hidden corners of the Pictorial Library. Picasa works on both Windows and Mac computers.

Once you download and install Picasa, you can specify what folders you want Picasa to scan (or index). The index database is sort of like an address book—it does not make a duplicate copy of the images, rather it tells Picasa where to go look to find the images. NOTE: Picasa will work best if you have copied the Pictorial Library to your hard drive.

Under the File menu, select “Add Folder to Picasa…” Here you can specify which folders you want Picasa to see (i.e. scan or index) and which ones you want Picasa to ignore. The window looks like this:

Folder Manager window.

Once you have selected the folders you want Picasa to scan, it will begin to index the files. This could take quite some time since the Pictorial Library has lots of images, but Picasa has only to do it once.

In the lower right corner of your screen, a slide-out window like this will appear to notify you that Picasa is indexing the images:

Indexing slide-out window.

When Picasa has indexed the Pictorial Library, the main screen will look something like this:

On the left side, you see a tree diagram of all the folders Picasa has scanned/indexed, and in the main window, you see thumbnails of the photographs in the selected folder. Try double-clicking on one of the image thumbnails. (Once you do, a button will appear in the upper left corner with a blue arrow and the words “Back to Library.”)

At this stage, we can point out the first two benefits of using the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands with Picasa. First, you can quickly browse thumbnails of all the photographs in the entire Pictorial Library. Images will catch your eye that you may not have ever noticed before, or you may find yourself discovering whole portions of the library that were unknown.

Second, in the top right of the Picasa window is a search bar. Thankfully, every single photograph in the Pictorial Library has been given a descriptive filename. When you type in places or other terms, the search engine will look for image filenames and folder names to isolate the relevant photographs—all at Google speed! You can search for a placename, a type of construction (e.g. gate), an object (e.g. lamp), an event (e.g. winnow), and so forth. The search bar looks like this:

Search bar.

Here are the search results for “gate.” You can see on the left side which volumes and folders have images of gates, and in the main window, you can scroll through the thumbnails.

We will discuss one other feature of Picasa in this post. When you search for a name or term in Picasa, the program is not only looking at filenames and folder names, but also “tags.” In a previous post about the Pictorial Library‘s Site Index, we highlighted that index’s usefulness because it allows you to find alternate names for a site that might not have been used in the image filename. The example we used was Ptolemais (Acts 21:7), which does not appear in the image filenames (Acco does instead). Well, all of the names from the Site Index have been added to the photographs as tags, so that in Picasa, you can perform a search for Ptolemais (or Akko or Acre or any of the other names or spellings) and all the photographs of Acco will appear. This makes it quick and easy to find places, even if you are using a different name or spelling!

In the lower right corner there is a row of four buttons that looks like this:

Show/Hide Panel buttons.

The third button has a cream-colored “shipping tag” icon. Clicking on it will reveal all the tags that have been added to a photograph. The Acco photographs have been given the following tags:

Tags panel.

Of course, Picasa is not the only program that can be used to browse and search the Pictorial Library.
Other such programs include Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, iPhoto (for Mac), and ACDSee Pro, as well as perhaps some lesser-known ones such as ShotWell, XnView, FastStone Image Viewer. And there are others.

In a future post, we will highlight two more features of Picasa that make it such an excellent tool for use with the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. Of course, there is so much more that can be done with Picasa, but we leave that for you to explore and discover.

[Click here for Part 2]

Tagged Techniques, Technology

Lecture at Northwestern University

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

On Wednesday, May 7, at 7:00pm, Karen Radner will give a lecture entitled “Brain Drain: Foreign Experts in the Heartland of the Assyrian Empire.” The lecture will take place at Guild Lounge, Scott Hall, Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.

A description of the lecture given in March reads as follows:

The Neo-Assyrian Empire (9th–7th century BC) routinely used deportations as a key tool of establishing and maintaining control over its holdings. But deportation was by no means a blanket strategy, as the deported population groups were carefully selected to include craftsmen and specialists. Most of them were relocated in the Assyrian Heartland (today North Iraq) which was developed into the unrivalled economic and cultural centre of the Middle East. My paper which will focus on the “brain drain” experienced by the peripheries of the Assyrian Empire, including regions such as Egypt and Iran.

The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception is to follow. More information is here.

Karen Radner has written a number of essays and articles that are helpful for understanding the history of the Neo-Assyrian period, especially the centuries when Assyria came into direct contact with Israel and Judah. (In fact, the Bible mentions by name all Assyrian kings from Tiglath-pileser III through Ashurbanipal.) Radner was part of the team that created “Assyrian Empire Builders” and many of her articles are available through her Academia.edu page, including

“Assyrians and Urartians”
“The Assur-Nineveh-Arbela Triangle: Central Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian Period”
“After Eltekeh: Royal Hostages from Egypt at the Assyrian Court”
“Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Musasir, Kumme, Ukku and Šubria – the Buffer States between Assyria and Urartu”
“Assyria and the Medes”