Judah Archives - Page 33 of 39

Weekend Roundup

More photos and a video of the gold treasure from Apollonia have been released. The value of the coins is now given (in at least one article) as $500,000.

The “Egyptian Antiquities’ Renaissance Project” has been launched in order to turn archaeology into a major source of income in Egypt.

The Museum of the Bible, featuring the collection of the Steve Green family, will open not in Dallas and not in New York, but in Washington, DC.

I wonder if you could name 6 Christian Sites in Rome You Should Know About.

Shmuel Browns describes and illustrates the newly opened archaeological site on Mount Gerizim.

Joe Yudin visits “Genesis Land” in the Judean wilderness.

The owner of a bed-and-breakfast in Sepphoris was convicted of damaged antiquities when carrying out renovations on his property.

“Israel’s Tourism Ministry is planning to upgrade the hotel strip area at the southern end of the Dead Sea….The Dead Sea was the most crowded leisure destination in Israel in 2011, with some 857,000 visitors during the year.”

Itzhak Beit-Arieh, Associate Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, has passed away.

HT: Daniel Wright, Jack Sasson

Dead Sea from the northwest
(photo source)

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Judah, Samaria

Weekend Roundup

In the 1920s, archaeologists had the chance to study remains underneath Al Aqsa Mosque. The findings of a Jewish mikveh, Byzantine mosaic, and other pre-Islamic items were not made public until recently. Nadav Shragai describes their importance and connects them with the discoveries made in the Temple Mount Sifting Project.

Shragai mentions in that same article that rebar and other construction material is now laying on the Foundation Stone, the holy rock inside the Dome of the Rock. Leen Ritmeyer has photos.

“The Palestine Archaeological Databank and Information System is now accessible openly without registration.”

The Tel Burna team has aerial photos showing the great progress they have made.

“The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Friday became the first World Heritage Site to be listed under the name of Palestine.” (JPost)

Four caves in Mount Carmel with early evidence of human occupation were also designated as a World Heritage site.

The ESV Concise Bible Atlas is now available. The 64-page paperback sells for $10, and both size and price may be attractive to the weak and the poor. (See here for my comments on its big brother.)

John Monson is interviewed this week on the Book and the Spade, with attention given to his upcoming participation in the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation and the shrines discovered there.

The widening of Highway 1 will slow down traffic from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for many years.

Matti Friedman retells the story of the discovery of the Cave of the Treasure, a cache of more than 400 copper objects more than 5,000 years old.

“An ancient Phoenician port in Beirut dating back to at least
500 B.C. was destroyed Tuesday,” said archaeologists. There’s no port there, according to the
Archaeological Assessment Report.

The Day of Archaeology 2012 was yesterday, but posts will continue to be added for another week.

HT: Charles E. Jones, Jack Sasson

Fortifications, silos, and architecture from the 9th-8th centuries at Tel Burna

Tagged Jerusalem, Judah, Lebanon, Resources, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Giveaway: The Israel Collection (5 Volumes)

This week we are going to give away two copies of the Israel Collection (volumes 1-5) of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. Just as any father likes all of his children, I like all 18 volumes. But since these are not children, I can say without hesitation or fear of repercussion that the first five volumes are my favorite ones.

Israel is not only the center of God’s redemptive plan for the world, but it was my home for a long time. These photos reflect that, not only in terms of comprehensive coverage, but also in quality of photos because of repeated visits in various seasons and at different times of the day.

If you asked a father to describe a few characteristics of his children, he would beam with joy and respond immediately. I’m not going to tell you about my five children, but I will offer a few words about these five volumes.

Galilee and the North – my favorite place in Israel is on the shore of a lake where Jesus walked, talked, and gave us a tiny taste of the kingdom to come.

Samaria and the Center – this volume easily wins the “most improved” award because so many of the sites had restricted access during the years I was making the previous editions (Shiloh, Shechem, Samaria, Jericho, etc.).

Jerusalem – the “city of the Great King” is my favorite city in the whole world. I could teach a whole course on it. But I enjoy even more a quiet stroll along the walls in the early morning.

Judah and the Dead Sea – this really is a 3-in-1 volume, with about 700 photos of the Judean Wilderness and the Dead Sea area, another 300 photos of the Hill Country, and another 500 of the Shephelah and Coastal Plain.

Negev and the Wilderness – I added a lot to sites previously included (Beersheba, Arad, tabernacle model, etc.), but a LandRover and some great friends got me to beautiful places you’ll probably never see. Indeed, the wilderness is “vast and dreadful,” but it also is majestic and inspiring.

This week you can sign up to win one of two free copies. One will be given away to entrants who use the email form. The other will go to those who enter with PunchTab. You can enter either or both. If you don’t win, you can purchase the Israel Collection with all of its 6,000 photographs for $149.99. If you do win and you already own the collection, we’ll refund your purchase or surprise you with something else. The drawing ends this Friday at 10 am Pacific Time.

(We need your email address to notify you if you win. We will not use it for anything else.)

Loading…

Tagged Galilee, Giveaway, Jerusalem, Judah, Negev, Photo Resources, Samaria

Seal Impression from Bethlehem Discovered in Jerusalem

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced today the discovery of a seal impression with the name of Bethlehem.

The first ancient artifact constituting tangible evidence of the existence of the city of Bethlehem, which is mentioned in the Bible, was recently discovered in Jerusalem.
A bulla measuring c. 1.5 cm was found during the sifting of soil removed from archaeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the City of David. The sifting is underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation’ in a project being conducted in the Emek Tzurim National Park.
A bulla is a piece of clay that was used for sealing a document or object. The bulla was impressed with the seal of the person who sent the document or object, and its integrity was evidence the document or object was not opened by anyone unauthorized to do so.
Three lines of ancient Hebrew script appear on the bulla:
בשבעת Bishv’at [in the seventh]
בת לחם Bat Lechem [Bethlehem]
[למל]ך [Lemel]ekh [for the king]
According to Eli Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “it seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (it is unclear if the king referred to here is Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem. The bulla we found belongs to the group of “fiscal” bullae – administrative bullae used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE. The tax could have been paid in the form of silver or agricultural produce such as wine or wheat”.
Shukron emphasizes, “this is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible, in an inscription from the First Temple period, which proves that Bethlehem was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods”.

Too much can be made from this discovery, especially with the emphasis of the last sentence above.

The existence of Bethlehem in the period of the Old Testament is not disputed, and an inscription this late is not as helpful as one would be from the time of Ruth or David. Nonetheless, it is a nice discovery which adds another piece of data to our understanding of the Judean kingdom.

The closest biblical connection that one can make to this time period (late 8th or 7th century) is the prophet Micah, who derided the failed leadership of his day (chapter 3), predicted a restored Davidic kingdom (chapter 4), and expected that Bethlehem would produce the awaited king, one whose origins are from ancient times and who would “be their peace” (chapter 5).

The full press release is here and a high-resolution photo is here (also below). The story is reported by the Jerusalem Post, Reuters, the Associated Press, and many others.

Bethlehem bulla.
Photograph by Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem, Judah

Cave for Demeter Worship Identified in Judean Hills

From Haaretz:

We often hear about how Jerusalem is holy to followers of the three major monotheistic religions. But what is less well-known is that the surrounding Judean hills were home to pagan ritual sites involving Greco-Roman gods. One such site, linked to the harvest goddess Demeter, has been identified at the Twins Cave, according to a study released by the Yad Ben-Zvi historical research institute last week. In Greek mythology, Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped by Hades, king of the underworld. After Zeus intervened, Hades agreed to send Persephone back aboveground – but first he convinced her to taste the seeds of the pomegranate, an underworld fruit. Once she tried them, she could not remain completely cut off from Hades’ realm, to which she had to return for three months every year. And how do you reach the underworld? In Greco-Roman thought, dark, deep pits or caves were considered gateways to hell and were often used for rituals dedicated to pagan gods, say Boaz Zissu, who teaches classical archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, and Eitan Klein, one of Zissu’s graduate students. Zissu and Klein said in the study that the Twins Cave was used for just such pagan rituals between the second and fourth century C.E. The 42 clay lamps from the late Roman period discovered in the cave were used as part of a pagan rite, apparently meant to guide Demeter’s way as she searched underground for her daughter, they said.

The full story is here. For directions to the cave located east of Beth Shemesh, see here.

Tagged Discoveries, Judah

Herod’s Tomb Reconstruction Defended

A month ago, a plan was announced to construct a 1:1 scale model of Herod’s tomb on location at Herodium. Haaretz ran a story on it with a misleading headline (later revised): “Top archaeologists condemn Israeli plan to rebuild ancient tomb.”

This weekend The Bible and Interpretation published an article by two on the planning team, giving their motivation for proposing the reconstruction. While much of the article reviews the historical importance of the Herodium, Zeev Margalit and Roi Porat conclude with the rationale for the plan that they concede is “unique, extraordinary, and unprecedented at an archaeological site.” They describe their principles as follows:

1. Construction of the model will not damage the antiquities!
2. New construction will be clearly separated from the original remains.
3. The principle of reversibility will be strictly observed at all times; after implementation is complete, the model will be able to be dismantled and the site returned to the previous state.
4. Conservation of all archaeological findings at Herodium will be carried out together with the construction of the model, including the nearby structures – the royal chamber, the theater, the monumental steps, etc.

The full article is here.

Upper and Lower Herodium from the north

Tagged Herod's Tomb, Judah