10th Century Archives - Page 5 of 10

Weekend Roundup

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a mass slaying carried out during the reign of Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus. The article briefly mentions other updates provided at a conference this week in Jerusalem. (The conference schedule is online here.)

Breaking Israel News has created a 3-minute video about the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in Israel, located on the Mount of Olives.

The inauguration ceremony for Tel Hebron is scheduled for Tuesday.

“The Story of Ancient Glass in Israel” is a 12-minute video created by the Friends of the Israel
Antiquities Authority.

There is controversy over a new bill in Israel that would allow guides without licenses to serve pilgrims and some foreign groups.

Walking the Text has just announced a Turkey Study Trip for next August.

James McGrath visited the Museum of the Bible and shares a photo essay.

Timothy P. Harrison will be lecturing at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on Monday, Oct 29 at 7 pm in Hinckson Hall. His topic is “A Kingdom of Idols: Tayinat (ancient Kunulua) and the Land of Palastin.”

Now online: Yosef Garfinkel’s recent lecture on “Searching for the Historical King David: Excavating Kh. Qeyiafa and Kh. al-Ra’i.”

HT: Joseph Lauer, A.D. Riddle, Jared Clark

Tagged 10th Century, Jerusalem, Judah, Lectures, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Archaeologists working at et-Tell (aka Bethsaida) have been uncovering an 11th-10th century BC wall with towers this season.

The excavation season has concluded at el-Araj (aka Bethsaida) and daily updates have been posted here. An excerpt from the last day: “This year we demonstrated that the settlement was widespread, and not limited to a small area. This was no mean city. What began around 30 CE as Herod Philip’s transformation of a Jewish fishing village into a polis, evolved over the centuries into a wealthy community.”

Excavations this summer at Huqoq revealed mosaics in the synagogue’s north aisle, including a scene of the Israelite spies, a youth leading an animal, and a fragmentary Hebrew inscription reading
“Amen selah.”

Archaeologists are drawing conclusions on Christian-Muslim relations in the 7th century on the basis of a brass weight discovered at Hippos (Sussita).

The work at Tel Burna is still humming along.

From Aren Maeir’s posts, the excavators at Gath keep having one great day after another.

The wheeled cart depicted at the Capernaum synagogue is not the ark of the covenant.

Sixteen images of Qumran taken by Philip R. Davies in 1970–71 are posted online.

A new exhibit focused on life in New Testament times has opened in the Terra Sancta Museum in Jerusalem.

A rare coin from the fourth year of the Jewish Revolt has been discovered in debris from the City of David.

A complex rescue operation salvaged pottery from the Second Temple period in western Galilee.
Israel’s Good Name visited the Carmel region, with stops at Ramat HaNadiv, the Carmel Caves, Dor HaBonim, Tel Dor, and more.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project is running out of funds, and they now have a quadruple match grant.

New: A Walk to Caesarea, by Joseph Patrich. (Available only in Israel, apparently.)

Ephraim Stern’s life is remembered by Hillel Geva in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Ada Yardeni died recently.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Mike Harney

Tagged 10th Century, Dead Sea, Discoveries, Excavations, Galilee, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Museums, New Exhibits, Philistines, Resources, Sad News, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

Brian Peterson reviews the events and discoveries of Week 2 of the Shiloh excavations.

Scott Stripling is interviewed about the excavations at Shiloh on The Land of Israel Network (34 min).

Ferrell Jenkins looks at the importance of Shiloh, the longtime location of the tabernacle.

The Times of Israel has a lengthy follow-up on the study that suggests that the carbon-14 calibration scale for Israel is faulty.

ASOR has posted an update on the severe damage to the site of Ebla in Syria.

Israel is opening a new national natural history museum in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s Good Name went on a tour of the Tel Aviv Zoological Research Institute, a place not normally open to the public.

Aren Maeir has posted the lecture and field trip schedule for the Gath excavations.

The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman has posted 9,000 low- to medium- resolution watermarked images from Jordan and the surrounding region, including many taken by Jane Taylor.

Wayne Stiles writes about an important event at the Water Gate in Jerusalem.

Ron Traub writes about the Baram synagogue near the northern border of Israel.

Leon Mauldin is visiting Rome and sharing photos.

Mitchell First has written an article on “The Earliest Surviving Texts of the Torah” for Jewish Link of New Jersey.

The Vatican Library has made 15,000 manuscripts available online, with another 65,000 to come in the next couple of decades.

The ESV Archaeology Study Bible has some recent video posts of interest:

“The Biblical Archaeology Society is now accepting applications for the 2018 Joseph Aviram, Yigael Yadin, and Hershel Shanks fellowships that allow scholars to attend the annual meetings” of ASOR and SBL. (The announcement mentions that Aviram, at age 102, is still the president of IES!)

Norma Dever died on Thursday. William Dever writes an obituary that may surprise you.

HT: Charles Savelle, Agade, Joseph Lauer

Tagged 10th Century, Excavations, Israel's Coast, Italy, Philistines, Photo Resources, Sad News, Samaria, Syria, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Appian Media has released a trailer for episodes 6–10 of Following the Messiah. You can get further updates on their Facebook page.

See the Holy Land has created a mobile app that provides a guide to 110 sites in Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. The Android-only app is available for free from seetheholyland.net or for $0.99 from Google Play.

Philippe Bohstrom considers new evidence from ancient mining operations in discussing whether David and Solomon’s kingdom ever existed.

“The British Library last week launched a new website showcasing 1,300 Hebrew manuscripts, ranging from ancient Torah scrolls and prayer books to philosophical, theological and scientific works.”

“The newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi has been accused of displaying looted antiquities.”

Egyptian authorities are working to stop the illegal exporting of antiquities.
Some interesting discoveries were made during a recent excavation season at Gird-î Qalrakh in northern Iraq.

The Times of Israel provides some of the background of the making of the “Spoils of Jerusalem” relief that is now exhibited in the Arch of Titus exhibition at the Yeshiva University Museum.

Eisenbrauns has published a festschrift in honor of Israel Finkelstein: Rethinking Israel: Studies in the History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel in Honor of Israel Finkelstein, edited by Oded
Lipschits, Yuval Gadot, and Matthew Adams.

Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport may need to add a massive tent to accommodate travelers.

Chaim (Harold R.) Cohen died recently. A list of some of his publications is posted here.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Mike Harney, Agade

Tagged 10th Century, Antiquities Trade, Excavations, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Sad News, Technology, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Dyed Clothes Discovered from Time of King Solomon

Archaeologists excavating in the Timna Valley near Eilat have discovered fabric that was dyed red and blue. This is the first time that such a colored clothing has been discovered from this ancient period. The Times of Israel provides a summary of a journal article and includes some photographs and a video.

Since 2013, Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University has directed excavations in the Timna Valley where his team has found textiles dating back to the Iron Age (11-10 centuries BCE). On some of the fragments, there is a decorative pattern of red and blue bands.
In an article published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, the researchers hypothesize that the metalworkers, considered fine craftsmen, “were probably entitled to wear colorful clothing as a mark of their high status.”
According to Ben-Yosef and the IAA’s Dr. Naama Sukenik, the findings indicate that the society at Timna, identified with the Kingdom of Edom, was hierarchical and included an upper class that had access to colorful, prestigious textiles.
The concept of highly prized, skilled laborers flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which had supposed that slaves had largely manned the isolated copper mines.

Personally I think the speculation about the identification of the workers is unwarranted, given that we have essentially nothing to compare this with given the lack of preservation of perishable materials in the rest of Israel. And if the dating to the 10th century is correct, then this area was likely under the control of Israel, not Edom (2 Sam 8:14; 1 Kgs 9:26; 2 Chr 8:17). But one can certainly conclude that the workers here had access to a good shopping mall.

The official press release is posted here. The AFTAU has issued a press release here. Some high-res photos are available here.

HT: Joseph Lauer

“Slaves’ Hill” in Timna Valley;
“Solomon’s Pillars” is located on the left

Tagged 10th Century, Discoveries, Negev

Monumental Building from Time of Solomon Unearthed at Gezer

Philippe Bohstrom reports in Haaretz on the discovery of a large royal structure immediately adjacent to the Solomonic city gate.

A palatial building dating to the era of King Solomon 3000 years ago has been discovered in the royal city of Gezer, though there is no evidence which of the Israelite kings lived there, if any.
The monumental building dates to the 10th century BCE, the era associated with King Solomon, who is famed for bringing wealth and stability to the newly-united kingdom of Israel and Judah. The American archaeological team also found a layer featuring Philistine pottery, lending credence to the biblical account of them living in the city until being vanquished by King David.
The complex features a large central courtyard, like contemporary palace-like buildings found throughout the southern Levant, including at Hatzor and Megiddo. Though there’s no telling who ruled from there, if anybody did, the edifice is significantly larger than the size of ordinary houses of the time, excavation co-director Prof. Steve Ortiz, representing the Tandy Museum of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary of Fort Worth, Texas, told Haaretz. Among the features not found in usual domestic structures is ashlar masonry – large rectangular-shaped monolithic hewn stones – in the corners of rooms, Ortiz said.
[…]
The main feature is two parallel long rooms, or courtyards, surrounded on all sides by various rooms, numbering at least 15. The palace has two entrances from the east and west. The entrance from the west also connects this building to the monumental six-chambered gate associated by most scholars with Solomon. This entrance is more robustly built than the rest of the building: The walls are constructed with two to three rows of stones wide, built of roughly dressed field stones somewhat smaller in size than those used in the rest of the building.

The article contains photos and more background about the historical importance of Gezer along with a little bit of the reasoning for dating this stratum to the 10th, and not 9th, century.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Gezer from the west, showing area of palace excavations
Photo by Bill Schlegel

Tagged 10th Century, Discoveries, Shephelah