Excavations Archives - Page 48 of 93

IAA Catches an Antiquities Thief

Antiquities Authority anti-theft officers and police from the Kiryat Gat station arrested a man on Sunday from Moshav Sde Moshe suspected of stealing antiquities from archeological sites in the Lachish region.
A few months earlier, Antiquities Authority enforcement officials caught him with a metal detector digging illegally in an archeological site, and they began to perform surveillance on him.
[…]
The arrest came two days after Antiquities Authority enforcement officials caught three men, two from Beit Lehem [Bethlehem] and one from Kfar Nahalin, illegally digging in an archeological site in Eila [Elah] Valley, near Beit Shemesh.
According to enforcement officials, the antiquities theft industry is a highly lucrative multi-million dollar illicit business involving illegal excavators, dealers and collectors working in Israel, the West Bank and abroad.
The most highly-skilled excavators come from villages in the South Hebron Hills, where generations have made a living illegally excavating antiquities from archeological sites within the Green Line. They search for all types of relics, but particularly coins from the Bar-Kochba era, which can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors abroad.

The full story is here. For every one they catch, there are probably 99 they miss.

UPDATE: A follow-up article is posted here.

Tekoa corner of large building, tb111706982

Illegal excavations at the biblical city of Tekoa
Photo from Judah and the Dead Sea

Tagged Excavations

Archaeology for the Kids

The Jerusalem Post reports on an excavation near the coast south of Haifa where thousands of teenagers are taught the value of archaeology each year.

The Tel Esur dig is the largest communal excavation in the country, [Dr. Shay] Bar said. “It’s a project of the community, for the community, for the education of the children of this community,” Bar said last week at the dig’s makeshift headquarters. He said that different skills involved in archaeology – from the meticulous digging required to unearth artifacts to careful record keeping – allow the teenagers to discover their talents. “Here they open like a flower,” he said. “They are flourishing.” On a typical day in Tel Esur, 150 children from four different schools work at different areas at the dig site, supervised by 20 staff members, volunteers and the students’ teachers. The teenagers don’t necessarily mix with students from other schools, in order to simplify the logistics, Bar said. Still, students from Arab and Jewish schools “can work five meters from each other” on a common project under the supervision of researchers from a variety of backgrounds, he said. At points throughout the day, students take a break from digging to hear short educational lessons about archaeology. Instead of discussions about who recently owned the land, the archaeologists attempt to instill an appreciation for the craft of the research. “They have to understand the value of history before they understand the relationship to different ethnicities that existed here,” said Netanel Petrushka, one of the archaeologists.

The full story is here.

Tagged Excavations, Israel's Coast

DigSight Summer 2013

The latest issue of the SAU Institute of Archaeology DigSight is now available online in pdf format.

Contents include:

Excavating Lachish 2013
Qeiyafa Final Celebration
New Museum Coordinator
Battle Over David in South Africa
Institute of Archaeology at ASI
Director’s Letter
Recent Sightings
Upcoming Events

The first article reports on the initial season of excavations at Lachish. The team hopes to find answers for the following questions:

When was Lachish inhabited for the first time in the Iron Age?
When was Lachish first fortified in the Iron Age?
How did the economy, administration, international connections, writing, cult, and art develop in the first 200 years of the Kingdom of Judah?
Was there a fortified city in Lachish relating to 2 Chronicles 11:5–12, which recounts Rehoboam’s rebuilding of the city?

The archaeologists are focusing their work on the northeast quarter of the site and they have already exposed part of the fortification system near the well.

Information about upcoming lectures is provided on the last page of the newsletter, including these events:

October 22, 2013, 7 p.m.

“Excavating Nebuchadnezzar’s Destruction at Lachish” Michael G. Hasel, PhD (Southern Adventist University)

February 11, 2014, 7 p.m.

“Tell Jalul: A Levitical City of Refuge in Jordan?” Randall W. Younker, PhD (Andrews University)

March 11, 2014, 7 p.m.

“Ossuaries and the Burials of Jesus and James” Jodi Magness, PhD (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Lachish from the south

Tagged Excavations, Lectures, Shephelah

Excavations on Mount Zion this summer revealed a Early Roman period mansion that archaeologists suggest belonged to the family of a priest in the first century. The story is also reported by livescience.

A summary of this year’s excavations of Tel Yafo (Jaffa) is now online. The work focused on the only Egyptian gate known in Israel.

There’s another article on the alleged discovery of Dalmanutha.

Why was Samaria made the capital of the Kingdom of Israel? Norma Franklin argues from her archaeological research that it was the city’s economic potential.

The University of Pennsylvania is celebrating a century since it received the Sphinx.

Logos Bible Software is looking for a Bible Map Designer.

“Explorations in Antiquity in LaGrange will soon open its Biblical Life Artifacts Gallery.”

Philologos explains why Sukkot is a harvest holiday, even though there’s little to harvest. For those beginning the joyous celebration of Sukkot tonight, we say hag sameah!

HT: Mark Hoffman, Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Sphinx, red granite, 19th Dynasty, from Memphis, tb072311783

The Sphinx of the University of Pennsylvania

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Galilee, Holidays, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Museums, Opportunities, Samaria, Weekend Roundup

First Season of Excavations at Abel Beth Maacah

The excavators of Abel Beth Maacah provide a summary of their first season of digging at the ASOR Blog. After an introduction, they explain what they are looking for.

For one thing, there is Abel’s Aramean connection. References to a political entity called “Aram Maacah” (1 Chronicles 19:6) and to the “king of Maacah” (2 Samuel 10:6, 8) evoke possibilities of Aramean presence at the site, allowing us to examine such an entity in relation to other presumed Aramean sites like Bethsaida, Tel Hadar, and En Gev. Even though the Arameans are specifically mentioned in ancient records, we know very little about them “on the ground,” especially within the borders of modern Israel. Can they be defined in terms of a distinct material culture? The location of Abel Beth Maacah on the northern borders of Israel (then and now) makes this site a viable candidate for the study of Aramean cultural and political influences.
Passages in the Hebrew Bible suggest that Abel Beth Maacah became an Israelite town during David’s reign, and it apparently remained so until its destruction by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III in 733 BCE. In the story of the Wise Woman of Abel Beth Maacah (2 Samuel 20:14-22), the city is enigmatically referred to as “a mother in Israel.” Her power and influence is apparent in that she directly negotiates the surrender of the Benjaminite rebel Sheba ben Bichri with Joab, David’s military commander.
The Abel Beth Maacah project is also intent on pursuing Phoenician connections in Iron Age II. The city’s location on a branch road of the International Highway leading north to Ijon (Tell ed-Dibbin) in Lebanon’s Marj Ayyun Valley, and roads leading west to Tyre and Sidon, will enable us to study cross-cultural ties with coastal Lebanon during the Bronze Age and Iron Age.

The report continues with some suggestions as to why the site has never been excavated before along with a description of this season’s prize find. I’m hoping they find another copy of the Tel Dan Inscription. Intact, of course.

We’ve written about Abel Beth Maacah previously here and here.

The Huleh valley with Abel Beth Maacah and Mount Hermon.
Photo by A.D. Riddle.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee

Weekend Roundup

This week’s edition of The Book and the Spade features Matthew Adams in a discussion of new excavations east of Megiddo (direct link here).

BibleX provides links to a new resource called ASORtv.

Ferrell Jenkins provides a new illustration for the story of the serpents in the wilderness.

Derbe is one of the last sites on Paul’s itinerary to remain unexcavated. That has now changed with a new project by Selçuk University.

A preliminary report of the 2013 excavation season at Tel Kabri is now available.

L. Y. Rahmani and Robert J. Bull died this week.

HT: Jack Sasson

Derbe from the west
Photo from Eastern and Central Turkey

Tagged Excavations, Negev, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

IAA Catches an Antiquities Thief

Archaeology for the Kids

DigSight Summer 2013

Wednesday Roundup

First Season of Excavations at Abel Beth Maacah

Weekend Roundup