Two days ago, we highlighted the brand-new maps which are included in the revised Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. Today, we will illustrate some of the steps involved in creating the maps.

The key to making a map is layers. One layer contains all the dots and names of sites; another layer includes rivers and wadis; the terrain is yet another layer; and so forth. Each of these layers of data has first to be created or obtained from somewhere, and then they are compiled into a map.

The base maps are created from a DEM, or digital elevation model. A DEM is like a digital photograph from your camera, except each pixel records an elevation. (In this case, the DEMs come from NASA.) From this one DEM, two separate images are generated: one image which shows a continuous color gradation from dark-to-light (showing elevation change), and a second image which shows “hillshading,” that is, the shadows that would be cast if the sun were in a particular position.

The first image was colorized according to the scheme used for the Pictorial Library maps. Then, the sea was colored blue.

After the base map is completed, it remains to add all the streams, lakes, sites, and other lines and dots that make up the map. The linework and dots began by looking like this.

The final step is to “clean up” all the lines and dots and add name labels. The linework is given the right colors, widths and sizes, and any unnecessary elements are removed. The final map comes out like this.

The Jerusalem maps are special. The base map that was used comes from the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, by Sir Charles Wilson. The map was scanned, and then colorized by Bill Schlegel. We added the pools, lines and labels.

The Missing Map


As a final note, when the revised Pictorial Library of Bible Lands was first released, we were not able to include a map of the island of Patmos, because the resolution of the NASA data was too coarse–the island is simply too small. Here is what it would have looked like.

Since then, we have obtained higher resolution DEMs from NASA (via the Oriental Institute’s CAMEL Lab). The resultant map looks much better and now is fit to be included in the PowerPoint for Patmos, in Volume 12 “The Greek Islands” of the Pictorial Library.

In our next post, we will highlight another brand-new feature which was added in the revised edition of Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. As with the maps, it makes the thousands of photographs in the collection more accessible and enhances their usability.

The Pictorial Library of Bible Lands is an extensive collection of high-resolution photographs. The photos come two ways: in folders of jpeg images and in pre-made PowerPoint presentations. With the massive revision of the collection some brand new features were included which were not in previous versions, and I would like to highlight two of them. The first of these new features is maps which are included in each PowerPoint presentation.

A total of 43 maps were created for the revision of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. There are altogether 383 PowerPoint presentations among the 18 volumes of the Pictorial Library, and about 77% of these contain maps. (The exceptions are volume 15—no map was made of the city of Rome—and volumes 16, 17, and 18, which do not lend themselves to mapping.)

The Pictorial Library contains all the familiar sites, but it also has many biblical and historic sites that are not as well known. The maps are provided to help the user find where a site is located, without having to consult a separate source. Virtually every site and geographic feature which appear in the Library‘s photographs are marked on the maps. This results in maps with a mixture of both modern place names and ancient ones. The places which appear in any given PowerPoint are marked by a red star on the map(s) next to the name so that users can quickly locate that particular site or feature.

Second, the labels and linework also have a color scheme. The white labels are used for cultural features, that is, features which have been created by human beings, such as settlements, tumuli, or temples. Yellow labels and lines indicate routes, either natural or man-made; green labels indicate geographical features (plains, valleys, mountains); and blue labels indicate water features (rivers, lakes, springs). The yellow dots indicate cities, springs, or other sites such as aqueducts or tumuli.

One thing that cartographers have to consider is changes in coastlines and lakes over time. Will the map represent a historical state, the modern one, or perhaps a mixture of both? The maps in the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands show the modern coastline and the modern Sea of Galilee and Lake Huleh. But the shape of the Dead Sea, as with the majority of maps of Bible lands, dates to 1975 and before. If we had used the modern shape of the lake, only the northern basin would be blue, because today the southern basin is dry due to lowering of the lake level.

The maps are an important new feature in the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and are one of the ways in which we have tried to make the collection more user-friendly. In a follow-up post, we will describe some of the steps in the map-making process.

The main spring was located at the northeast foot of the hill. Here, early explorers visited the entrance to a water system, though because of bats and debris/wash only a small part of a tunnel could be accessed. About the first 100 feet (30 m) of the tunnel were described in great detail by Gottlieb Schumacher in 1910, and it was excavated in 1973 on a small-scale by Z. Yeivin. The main excavation of the tunnel took place in 1996 and 1997 under the direction of Hamdan Taha.

(Excavations were also conducted on top of the hill, but publication is still forthcoming.) The location of the tunnel is marked in green on this site plan.

What raised my interest in this were reports the last two years of the water system outside Al-Walaja, near Bethlehem. In three seasons, the excavators at Khirbet Bal’ama cleared a total of 380 feet (115 m) of tunnel, but since they did not reach a shaft-entrance at the top of the hill, they suspect a long section of tunnel remains to be explored. Of the tunnel sections which were excavated, archaeologists discovered three entrances to the tunnel, the lowest of which provides access to the cistern/spring of Bir es-Sinjil (or Sinjib). The photo below shows the lowest entrance. The stairs with metal handrails on the right lead up to the second entrance.

The tunnel was apparently constructed in the Iron Age, though this is based largely on inference rather than clear, direct evidence. It was secondarily used in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The cistern/spring was in use all the way up to the modern period. Nearly all of the explored tunnel is rock-cut. The tunnel has a parabolic ceiling between 10 and 16 feet high (3-5 m), and there are 57 rock-cut steps and lamp niches in the walls. The plan below shows the three entrances, steps, and slope of the tunnel. The three excavated entrances are approximately equidistant from one another, with about 100 feet (30 m) of tunnel between them.

I look forward to publication of the excavations conducted on top of hill, and hope for future work to be carried out on the tunnel and the site. The main publication of the tunnel was very difficult for me to locate in the U.S.:

Taha, Hamdan and Gerrit van der Kooij.
2007  The Water Tunnel System at Khirbet Bal’ama. Khirbet Bal’ama Archaeological Project Report of the 1996–2000 Excavations and Surveys, volume II. Ramallah: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage.

A perhaps more-accessible report can be found in:

Taha, Hamdan.
2000  “Excavation of the Water Tunnel at Khirbet Belameh, 1996-1997.” Pages 1587–1613 in Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Rome, May 18th-23rd 1998. Ed. P. Matthiae and E. Enea, Alessandra. Rome: Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza,” Dipartimento di scienze storiche, archeologiche e antropologiche dell’antichità.