BiblePlaces Blog - Page 472 of 555

Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription Photographed

The LA Times has a good article on the recent photographing of the 5-line early Hebrew ostracon found at Khirbet Qeiyafa. One portion:

The result is hundreds of high-resolution images shot with different light filters. Using a process called spectral imaging, Boydston and Bill Christens-Barry, another imaging expert, aimed to maximize the contrast of the ink, made of charcoal and animal fat, against the terra-cotta piece.
Although they didn’t find any hidden text, the images will be sent back to Israel. Other high-tech images were produced — using slightly different imaging techniques — at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and two other technical shops on the East Cost. [sic]
Once the shard’s message is fully scrutinized and decoded, findings will be published in scholarly journals by Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, who led the dig. A few words already deciphered — “slave,” “king,” “land” and “judge” — indicate that it may be a legal text, lending weight to some scholars’ belief that King David wielded considerable power over the Israelites.

The article gives much background about the firm that took the photographs, including mention of an early digital camera that they created – that weighed 300 pounds (136 kg)!

HT: Paleojudaica (who also notes some speculation about the contents of the ostracon)

Tagged Shephelah, Technology

Bible Times Center and Heritage Garden

Visitors to Israel may remember the Biblical Gardens located at Tantur, founded by Jim Fleming (Biblical Resources). That wonderful center lost its lease in the late 1990s, and moved to a smaller facility in Ein Karem. The location was more off the beaten track and the steep decline in tourists that started in late 2000 bode ill for the center. Several years ago I read that all of its large archaeological replicas were going to be purchased by Bridges for Peace. The center then “moved” to Georgia (about 70 miles sw of Atlanta), where it provides similar instruction about biblical life and times those who may not be able to travel to Israel.

The facility at Ein Karem has a new tenant carrying out a similar work as its predecessor. Haaretz reports on the Bible Times Center and Heritage Garden.

Before she moved to Israel, Hannah Trasher used to be a professional fashion designer. Today, she spends most of her days dressed up as an ancient Israelite, sporting sandals, a robe and a turban-like head wrap worn by upper class Jewish women during the Second Temple period.
Two years ago, Thrasher, 57, came from the United States to Ein Kerem, the picturesque village in southwest Jerusalem, to become the executive director of the Bible Times Center and Heritage Garden, which she founded and built largely with her own savings. Nestled in the green hills surrounding the capital and tucked away between small streets and rustic churches, the center allows groups of tourists and curious Israelis, tourists and school children to travel back in time to experience how Jews – and non-Jews – lived in the land of Israel in biblical times…
The center, which is housed in a ten-room multistory building from the days of the Ottoman empire, also includes a threshing floor, a stone quarry, a stable with mangers, a wine press, a watch tower, a wedding canopy and a replica of an ancient gravesite.
Trasher, who was born in Louisiana but lived in Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Texas before settling in Jerusalem, started learning about Jewish history about 30 years ago, and has since led many study groups from the U.S. to Israel. On her tours, she often stopped by at the World of the Bible Archaeological Museum and Pilgrim Center, which until 2006 operated in the same house where she later built the Bible Times Center. But when the director of the old center, biblical archaeology and history scholar Jim Fleming, was given an enormous grant to build a similar project in Atlanta, Thrasher suddenly found the site abandoned.
“I was just crushed, as were many people, that this place wasn’t available anymore,” she said about her decision to move to Israel to establish her own bible center. Although she had always appreciated her predecessor’s work, she found that he approached the topic too intellectually. “It was a place that attracted many scholars from all around the world,” she said, “but that was not my vision for the place.”

The rest of the story is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

UPDATE: The current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review arrived in my mailbox today and it includes an article on the new “Explorations in Antiquity Center” of Jim Fleming/Biblical Resources. Based on the write-up and what I remember from the center in Israel, it sounds like a worthwhile visit for any interested in the biblical world and passing through Georgia. One strange thing: the BAR article starts in the first-person, but I cannot find the author’s name listed. It begins, “I have never been to Israel,” so that rules out Shanks. The online version includes the first three paragraphs of the article and the author’s name: Dorothy Resig (a BAR editor).

Tagged New Exhibits, Resources

National Geographic on Qeiyafa

The Book and the Spade radio program just posted the first of two interviews with Qeiyafa excavator Yosef Garfinkel (the link there is updated every week for the current program).

National Geographic reports on the Qeiyafa excavation. Much of the story reports what has been covered elsewhere, but there are some problems with the article. (Does mentioning these help to prevent their perpetuation by journalists or others?)

The article begins:

The remains of an ancient gate has pinpointed the location of the biblical city Sha’arayim, say archaeologists working in Israel.
In the Bible, young King David is described as battling Goliath in the city, before eventually killing him in the Elah Valley.

Ahem. Is it really that hard for the NG journalist (Mati Milstein) to open the Bible (1 Samuel 17) and read the story of David and Goliath? The battle did not occur in a city, and Shaaraim is mentioned only as a point on a road that the Philistines used to flee. It’s quite a creative re-telling that puts the battle in the city, but Goliath’s eventual death in the valley. Even if the writer couldn’t find a Bible (or locate one on the Internet), couldn’t he have asked the archaeologist he was interviewing? Since this is the entire reason why anyone cares about this excavation as opposed to the hundreds of others in Israel (and this is evidenced by its placement in the first two paragraphs), shouldn’t NG try to get at least this right? If they can’t, can you trust anything in the article?

Later in the article, archaeologist Amos Kloner comments on the site identification:

“This is an initial idea, all aspects of which must be examined,” he said. “[But] it doesn’t matter if there is a second gate … This provides no indication of a Judean population there.”

Apparently Garfinkel hasn’t convinced everyone that the mere presence of a second gate absolutely and infallibly confirms that Qeiyafa is Shaaraim. I think, however, that Kloner is wrong if he follows Garfinkel in the idea that Qeiyafa must be a Judean site in order to be Shaaraim. In fact, as I argued before, I think a better case can be made from the only source that we have that at the time of the
battle, Shaaraim was in Philistine hands.

The article closes with this quote from Garfinkel:

Garfinkel said he will continue to explore the Elah site in search of further evidence.
“Maybe we’ll find an inscription on the gate indicating who built the city: ‘I David, son of Yishai, built this city,'” he said with a laugh.

That’s a typical archaeologist kind of joke, and it wouldn’t be worth a response, except that Garfinkel has suggested elsewhere that he is serious about the possibility that David built the Qeiyafa fortress.

I think it is entirely possible that David built the Qeiyafa fortress, but if he did, Qeiyafa is not Shaaraim. You can have one, but not the other, unless you believe the biblical account is completely confused. This is the big problem with those scholars who want to claim the “middle ground” between maximalists and minimalists: they claim validation for their results based upon data which they believe is faulty. In other words, the scholar says, our evidence that Qeiyafa is Shaaraim is the biblical text which mentions this site (Shaaraim) in this area (Elah Valley). The Bible says that Shaaraim existed before David became king. We can believe the Bible that Shaaraim was a city in this area, but we can’t believe the same biblical story that Shaaraim existed before David. This is very typical scholarly logic, but it is usually dressed up in fancy language, and supported by one questionable hypothesis built upon another dubious theory.

UPDATE (10 p.m.): The initial paragraphs of the NG article have been changed:

The remains of an ancient gate have pinpointed the location of the biblical city Sha’arayim, say archaeologists working in Israel.
In the Bible young David, a future king, is described as battling Goliath in the Elah Valley near Sha’arayim.

Tagged Analysis, Shephelah

Qeiyafa, Looting, and Buried Secrets

Owen Chesnut has blogged about Archaeologist Yosi Garfinkel’s presentation (and questions) yesterday at the ASOR meeting about Khirbet Qeiyafa.

The excavators have posted a “chronicle” of events related to the discovery of the Kh. Qeiyafa ostracon, including when they celebrated with a beer and when (and by whom) details leaked to the public. (HT: Yitzhak Sapir).

National Geographic has a good article on the problem of the looting of archaeological sites in Israel.

If you’ve ever bought an antiquity, you help to create the demand, and perhaps this article will help shed light for you on just how destructive the antiquities market is.

PBS broadcast a special earlier this week on the Bible and archaeology, entitled “The Bible’s Buried Secrets.” You can watch the entire 2-hour show online, get a summary, or read the whole transcript.

The perspective was decidedly mainstream, with no indication that there is a large group of conservative scholars who reject many of the conclusions of mainstream scholars. The program was well produced and featured interviews with many scholars.

Tagged Resources, Shephelah

Jerusalem, Rome, and Alexandria

Zachi Zweig recently produced photographs of a Byzantine mosaic floor discovered under Al Aqsa Mosque between 1938 and 1942. Zweig is certain that this was part of a Byzantine church on the Temple Mount. To this point, it has generally been held that the Byzantines left the Temple Mount in ruins. The 6th century Medeba Map does not show any buildings in this area. Underneath the mosaic floor was a Jewish ritual bath (mikveh). The story is in the Jerusalem Post, and Leen Ritmeyer comments at his blog.

Google Earth has added a layer for Ancient Rome as it stood in A.D. 320. Judging from a 2-minute video preview, this is an extraordinary resource. As with the rest of Google Earth, it is free. It probably would not be difficult to remove a few buildings and create a layer for Rome in the 1st century. Perhaps someone will be so motivated.

Leen Ritmeyer has created a less detailed Jerusalem layer that shows the city in the 1st century.

(UPDATE 11/20: This layer is no longer available.)

This story has been around before, but perhaps its re-circulation indicates that progress is being made.
The JPost reports that plans are underway for the world’s first underwater archaeology museum in Alexandria.

“The whole Bay of Alexandria actually still houses the remains of very important archeological sites. You have the place of the Pharaohs – the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria – which is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. You have the Polonike Palace, which was the palace of Cleopatra, and there might also be the grave of Alexander the Great,” she said.

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Jerusalem, Resources, Temple Mount

New Discoveries at Herod’s Tomb

In advance of the upcoming National Geographic special on Herod’s tomb, as well as the cover story of the same on the December issue of NG, archaeologist Ehud Netzer held a press conference today announcing the most recent discoveries. You can read the Hebrew University press release (with photos) and articles in Arutz-7, Haaretz, and National Geographic. Below are selected portions of the articles.

Summary

The findings include coffins of Herod’s family, a theater with a VIP room, and two coffins containing the remains of most likely Herod’s wife and the wife of Archelaus, Herod’s son. The new findings further support the idea that the grave discovered last year belongs to Herod the Great. (Arutz-7)

Netzer described the winter palace, built on a largely man-made hill 680 meters high, as a kind of country club, with a pool, baths, gardens fed by pools and aqueducts and a 650-seat theater. (Haaretz)

Herodium with lower pool

Theater

A theater that could hold an audience of 750 was discovered not far from the mausoleum. In front of the seating area is a large room for VIPs, from which the king and his close friends would watch the shows. (Arutz-7)

“In Herod’s private box at the auditorium, the diggers discovered delicate frescoes depicting windows opening on to painted landscapes, one of which showed what appeared to be a southern Italian farm,” said Roi Porat, one of Netzer’s assistants on the digs. Just visible in the paintings, dating from between 15-10 B.C., are a dog, bushes and what looks like a country villa. (Haaretz)

“Normally in Judean art you wouldn’t paint scenes such as these with animals. The style is so similar to what is known from Italy, it really looks like a team came over to do the painting,” said Rachel Chachy-Laureys, a surveyor working with Nezter. “It fits the context.” (National Geographic)
The theater, its two side rooms and VIP section, were intentionally destroyed when Herod constructed the cone-shaped artificial mountain, which enclosed the round structure that stood at the top of the hill. (Arutz-7)

Tomb

“What we found here, spread all around, are architectural fragments that enable us to restore a monument of 25 meters high, 75 feet high, very elegant, which fits Herod’s taste and status,” [Netzer] told The Associated Press. (Haaretz)

In the excavation that took place this year in the area of the mausoleum, the remains of two white-colored tombs were found, most likely belonging to Herod’s family. The bright red and elegant coffin of Herod, which was displayed last year, is now completely restored, along with a large tomb. Prof. Netzer ascertains that the red coffin is the burial coffin of Herod. In contrast to the white coffins, the red coffin was shattered into hundreds of pieces, and spread throughout the mausoleum area. Prof. Netzer estimates that Malthace the Samaritan was buried in the larger of the two white burial coffins. (Arutz-7)

One big question remains: Where is Herod’s body? “We have only found a very small number of human bones at the site and have not been able to come to any conclusions,” Netzer said. “We have not yet finished digging and have only uncovered a small area.” But he does not believe the king’s remains will ever be recovered. (National Geographic)

Previous discussion and photos of Herod’s tomb can be found here.

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Herod's Tomb