BiblePlaces Blog - Page 383 of 555

Discoveries at Khirbet al-Mudayna, possible Jahaz

Excavations at Khirbet al-Mudayna (Medeiniyeh) have been slowly and steadily peeling back the history of this large site on the southern side of the Medeba Plateau in Jordan. Some have suggested that the site be identified with Jahaz, the scene of the encounter between the Israelites under Moses and Sihon the Amorite (Num 21:23; Deut 2:32; cf. Judg 11:20; Isa 15:4; Jer 48:34). From Exchange Magazine:

For two decades, Laurier archaeology professor Michèle Daviau has led international teams of scholars and students abroad to uncover the hidden lives of people who existed thousands of years ago.
During her most recent excavation in Jordan, Daviau was astounded by the discovery of a limestone statue and several high-status objects that appear to have been imported from outside the region.
The objects were made from a variety of materials: three small black ware vessels, one with an incised design of triangles, two faience cosmetic containers, two faience bottles, one calcite cosmetic vessel, two alabaster vessels, one fine-grain basalt bowl and a steatite cosmetic mortar were discovered in an ancient house dating back to about 600 BC.
The objects were in the same room as a 40-centimetres statue of a male with red paint preserved on his left leg and his hands. Such finds have no parallels in Jordan although their source may be Egypt or Phoenicia, said Daviau.
“The alabaster and faience objects suggest influence from the two superpowers in the region, Egypt and Assyria, but the dynamics whereby these objects arrived at the site are a mystery,” she said. “They may reflect a period of about 30 or 40 years when Egypt controlled this area.”
The principal sites under excavation by Daviau in the Wadi ath-Thamad area are Khirbat al-Mudayna and the Roman fortress of Zuna. The former is a walled Iron Age town (1,000 to 600 BC) situated on a hill with the Nabataean/early-Roman period settlement (100 BC to 150 AD) at the hill’s base. More than 150 sites that date from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman period have been located in the dig’s 10- by 11-kilometre survey area.

The story continues here. You can read more about the site at BAS’s Find a Dig, learn more about the archaeologist on her university profile page, or check out the Facebook group.

HT: Joe Lauer

Khirbet al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Jordan

Byzantine Mosaics at Shikmona

Tel Shikmona (Shiqmona) sits on the tip of Mount Carmel next to the Mediterranean Sea. Its location within the modern city of Haifa has made it very accessible to scholars over the last century, beginning with the work of Moshe Dothan in 1951. Seventeen seasons of excavation were conducted by the Haifa Municipal Museum of Ancient Art (1963-79), with strata discovered from the Late Bronze, Iron I-II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Recently archaeologists have uncovered beautiful mosaics from a Byzantine church building. The University of Haifa has issued a press release with photos.

Researchers at the Institute of Archaeology from the University of Haifa excavating at Tel Shikmona have exposed magnificent mosaics dating back to the Byzantine Period (sixth century C.E.), which were part of an ecclesiastic structure. The excavations are taking place as part of a project funded by the Hecht Foundation, to expand the Hecht Park in Haifa, Israel, annex it to Tel Shikmona, and transform Shikmona into a public archaeological park.

The story is also reported by the Jerusalem Post.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations

James Ossuary Case Goes to Judge

Final arguments have been offered in the James Ossuary forgery case against Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch and all that remains is for the judge to issue a verdict. Matthew Kalman, the only reporter covering the case, writes that “the feeling in the tiny courtroom, where fewer than a dozen people (including only one reporter) have followed the proceedings, was that the prosecution had failed to prove that the items were forgeries or that Golan and Deutsch had faked them.” It may be several months before the judge rules on the case that began five years ago. The story at AOL News has the background and quotes from one of the defendants.

Tagged Forgery

Hazor 2010 Season Report

The archaeologists working at Tel Hazor have posted a brief summary of the 2010 season results. Work was focused on a large structure similar to Yadin’s stable/storehouse complex.

The whole area [M] is divided by seven parallel wide walls, about one meter wide each, running through the area from west to east (Fig. 1). It appears that these walls belong to two large buildings, similar in plan to the Three Halls Structures known from Yadin’s excavations and the renewed excavations in area A-2. The two buildings share a common wall with a 4 meters wide entrance in its center, and thus form one administrative complex of unparalleled size at Hazor and even elsewhere in the period.

The archaeologists conclude that this one functioned as a storehouse. The report mentions the basalt workshop and cuneiform tablet and includes several good photographs of Area M.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee

Lecture Series at Givat Yeshiahu

The Israel Antiquities Authority and Jewish National Fund are sponsoring a series of lectures described in this flyer (HT: Joe Lauer). Givat Yeshiahu is in the Shephelah, not far from Khirbet Qeiyafa. From the flyer:

The Israel Antiquities Authority and JNF invites the community at large and local residents to a series of lectures in English on a variety of archeological themes focusing on our regional heritage – past and future.

Oct 13 New Discoveries from Excavations in the Jerusalem Region, by Jon Seligman, Jerusalem Regional Archaeologist, Israel Antiquities Authority

Oct 27 Tel Kaifa – the Ayelah [Elah] Fortress, by Professor Yossi Garfinkel, Hebrew University

Nov 3 Stories of plunder: treasures and forgeries, by Shai Bartura, chief investigator for illegal sale and theft of antiquities

The lectures will be held on Wednesday evenings at 20:00 at the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Center near Givat Yeshiahu in the Ayelah [Elah] Valley.

Cost of individual lectures:20 NIS

For further information and registration call: 02-9921136 or 1-800-350-550.

Tagged Jerusalem, Lectures, Shephelah

Western Wall Underground Plaza Approved

Approval of massive renovations at the Western Wall prayer plaza bodes ill for any who like a place for quiet reflection. On the other hand, the changes will better accommodate the increasing crowds visiting the site. From the Jerusalem Post:

A new plan to completely renovate the Western Wall Plaza was approved by the Jerusalem Local Planning and Building Committee on Monday, paving the way for the most drastic changes to the layout of the area since the plaza was created after the Six Day War.
“The goal of expanding the entrances and exits of the Western Wall plaza and will give us a solution for allowing large numbers of worshipers and visitors to enter at once, as well as emergency exits,” Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the chief rabbi of the Western Wall, told The Jerusalem Post.
[…]
The new plan, which is still in the very initial stages of approval, calls for a large underground plaza to replace the current main entrance, located at Dung Gate. A new visitor’s center will replace the current police building, with areas for educational programming, additional bathrooms, an auditorium, lecture halls, and an exhibition space for the archeological discoveries in the area.

The full article is here. Other stories about the decision can be found here.

Western Wall prayer plaza

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount