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Tuesday Roundup

Masada is profiled by Elad Benari and accompanied by a five-minute video produced by Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

CitySights has created a one-minute wordless video of the Ramparts Walk atop the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The accompanying article includes a few statistics:

The walls stretch for some 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles), rising to a height of up to 15 meters, (49 feet), with an average thickness of 3 meters (10 ft). Along the course of the walls are 11 gates to the Old City, seven of which are open: New Gate, Damascus Gate, Herod’s Gate, Lions’ Gate, Dung Gate, Jaffa Gate, and Zion Gate.

Ferrell Jenkins uses one of his aerial photos to make a powerful point about what is “known but mostly unknown.”

A five-year old boy and a 25-year-old woman drowned in separate incidents in the Sea of Galilee earlier this week.

The Israel Museum has welcomed one million visitors since the renovated campus reopened last year.

HT: ShalomIL, Paleojudaica

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Museums, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Google Street View Approved in Israel

Today’s government decision is reported in the Jerusalem Post:

The Justice Ministry announced on Monday its decision to allow the controversial Google Street View service to run in Israel. A function of Google’s existing maps service, Street View allows users to view panoramic street level photographs of city streets and other locations in the country. […] Only after lengthy negotiations with Google did the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority (ILITA), part of the Justice Ministry, agree to roll out the service here. […] To produce the images that make up Street View, for example, Google uses vehicles that drive down streets taking millions of digital photographs and recording location data using sophisticated technology. These images and data are transferred to a database held in the USA, which is outside Israel’s jurisdiction. Under the agreement ILITA has reached with Google, however, Israeli citizens will be able to file civil litigation against Google regarding the company’s Israeli operations, via Google Israel, the internet giant’s local branch. Under the same agreement, Google Israel will provide an online service for Israelis to opt out of the service by demanding that Google blur all images of their homes, license plates and themselves. Google also agreed that the cars used to take the millions of digital photographs will be clearly marked so that residents can recognize them as they pass along the streets.

More of the legal issues are discussed in the Jerusalem Post. I would like to see Street View including antiquities sites, such as the excavations south of the Temple Mount, the site of Beth Shean, and even more distant ruins such as those at Beersheba and Arad.

Tagged Tourism

Caesarea’s Seven Aqueducts

In the weekend edition of Haaretz, Moshe Gilad reports on a tour that explored the water sources of ancient Caesarea.

Two thousand years ago, Herod’s engineers devised a way to bring water to what was then the second largest city in the land, after Jerusalem, in terms of population. These were wise, exacting professionals who figured out the best route, and optimal height, for an aqueduct, so that the water would flow smoothly and calmly, without pumping systems, from the springs at the foot of Mount Carmel to the seashore.
[…]
The impetus for our tour was the recent publication of a book called “Water at the End of the Tunnel: To Tour the Ancient Waterworks” (published jointly by the Ben-Zvi Institute and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, in Hebrew). Author Tzvika Tzuk, an archaeologist, studied the subject for years, and this serious and comprehensive work presents the information he gathered about the impressive engineering feats that allowed residents of this desert land, thousands of years ago, to enjoy a ready supply of drinking and bathing water. Tzuk’s guidebook proposes 40 routes for touring ancient waterways. Seven aqueducts reached Caesarea, he explains, and vestiges of many parts of them can still be seen. What is more, these days, any hike that ends at the beach will be particularly popular.

The article continues with recommendations of sites to visit, one of which is the section of aqueduct shown below.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Roman aqueduct near Beit Hanania

Tagged Tourism

Weekend Roundup

Haaretz has a more complete story of the renovations of the Damascus Gate. This ten-month project is part of a larger four-year plan to study and restore all of the Old City walls.

Did Hatshepsut poison herself with skin lotion? A new study of an ointment bottle suggests that she may have.

The ASOR Blog reviews recent stories in the broader world of archaeology.

Eugene Merrill gives a brief summary of his experience excavating Khirbet el-Maqatir (Ai?) this summer.

Ten years and $1 billion dollars later, the Jerusalem Light Rail gave passengers their first ride yesterday.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg offers his “Archaeology in Israel Update” for July.

A new book on the expedition of William Francis Lynch down the Jordan River and around the Dead
Sea in 1848 is reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. The conclusion: David Haward Bain’s Bitter Waters: America’s Forgotten Naval Mission to the Dead Sea does not advance the story much beyond Lynch’s own account. If you have not read Lynch, however, you will not find it repetitive.

UPDATE (8/22): Booklist has a brief review of the book here.

HT: Jack Sasson, Charles Savelle

Tagged Dead Sea, Egypt, Jerusalem, Weekend Roundup

Great Deal: William M. Ramsay Collection

The Logos collection of 16 volumes by William Mitchell Ramsay is about to close in Community Pricing. Currently the price is $30, though a few more bids will push everyone’s price down to $25 (or even $20). After it closes, the selling price will probably be around $200 (though retail is listed at $800).

For less than $2 each, you get these electronic books in Logos’ superior format:

I’ve recommended this collection before and do so again.

Tagged Resources, Turkey

Transfiguration Celebrated on Mount Tabor

I am not very familiar with this annual observance. From the Jerusalem Post:

On August 18 and 19 the Greek Orthodox Church will celebrate the annual Feast of the Transfiguration, which celebrates the transfiguration of Jesus that is traditionally thought to have occurred at Mount Tabor in the Galilee. The Catholic Church celebrated the holiday earlier this month on August 6 with a festive mass at the Church of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor.
[…]
During this feast a night vigil occurs in the Greek Orthodox Church, which is the most unique experience associated with the holiday. Arab Christians camp in the woods surrounding the church and spend the night there, during which time the Divine Liturgy is celebrated outside the church. The Divine Liturgy is celebrated inside the Church on the August 19.
To commemorate Jesus’s climb up the mountain, some pilgrims will ascend Mount Tabor by foot.

The full article gives some details about the Transfiguration from the New Testament. It does not mention that most scholars reject Mount Tabor as the location for this event or give any of the reasons why. Three reasons may be suggested:

1. The Gospels record that Jesus was in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi before the Transfiguration (Matt 16:13). Nothing suggests that he traveled southward to Mount Tabor.

2. The event was intentionally private, and a setting on Mount Hermon or even in the mountains of Upper Galilee would be more suitable than a location on Mount Tabor. The international highway traveling through the Jezreel Valley passed next to the Mount Tabor and would have made privacy unlikely.

3. A military fort on the summit of Mount Tabor during Hasmonean and Roman times was probably in use during Jesus’ ministry and would have precluded the site as a get-away for Jesus.

Nevertheless, early Christian pilgrims were attracted to Mount Tabor as the location for this event. It is possible that its convenient location on the way to Capernaum was a factor. This would have eliminated the need for a multi-day trek up to the environs of Caesarea Philippi.

For more information (and links), see the Mount Tabor page at BiblePlaces.com (also in Spanish and French).

Summit of Mount Tabor. Nazareth is visible in the distance.

Tagged Galilee, Holidays, Jezreel Valley