Shephelah Archives - Page 27 of 64

Weekend Roundup

An ancient Christian “crossword puzzle” has been discovered in the agora of Smyrna.

A sewage system in the Urartian city of Van that dates to 800 BC has been fully excavated.

You missed the first-ever “Swim the Corinth Canal” event, but perhaps you can join next year.

Greece’s National Archaeological Museum is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

At the ASOR Blog, the executive producer of a new documentary about Gertrude Bell provides some background. You can also watch the trailer.

New paper at Academia: “Computer Experiments on the Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon,” by Eythan Levy and Frédéric Pluquet.

Nigel Fletcher-Jones considers the ethical problem of the public display of mummies and alternative approaches.

A French-Egyptian citizen turned over a golden mummy mask to the Egyptian government.

The November/December issue of Biblical Archaeology Review is now online.

If you’re a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal, you can read Roger Toll’s “The Real Adventurer’s Guide to the Ancient City of Petra.”

I made it into Wayne Stiles’s post this week about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Check out the great quote by Frederic G. Kenyon.

Shmuel Browns shares a couple of photos he took at Machtesh Qatan.

The extraordinary Bible collection of the late Charles Ryrie is being auctioned off by Sotheby’s.

HT: Charles Savelle, Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis, Paleojudaica

UPDATE: Next weekend’s roundup will be delayed by several days.

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Excavations, Greece, Jordan, Mesopotamia, Museums, Negev, Shephelah, Turkey

Desecrated Shrine Discovered in Lachish Gatehouse

Archaeologists working at Tel Lachish have excavated the second half of a six-chamber gate and claim to have discovered two horned altars suggested that this was a “shrine in the gate” that was desecrated in the reforms of Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4). The evidence of the desecration is a stone toilet that was never used but that recalls Jehu’s conversion of the Baal temple in Samaria into a latrine (2 Kgs 10:27). The horns of one(?) of the altars were removed in the reform as well. The gate was destroyed in the invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BC.

For more information, take a look at the IAA press release or read the reports in the Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel. The first four photos are courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority. More photos and videos are available here. I’m curious to see Aren Maeir’s take, but he has not yet posted on it.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Chris McKinny

Aerial view of the excavated gatehouse at Tel Lachish.
Photo by Guy Fitoussi.

Excavation of the gate shrine with the “altar” visible in the center. Photo by Saʽar Ganor.

Evidence of “altar’s destruction.” Photo by Yoli Shwartz.

Removal of the stone toilet. Photo by Igor Kramerman.

Reconstruction of gatehouse, taken in June, following the January–March excavations.

Tagged Discoveries, Shephelah

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

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

In work to construct a mikveh in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, archaeologists discovered a Roman bathhouse and below that a cistern connected to the aqueduct from Bethlehem.

Hundreds of Roman fresco fragments from a large building, dating to the 2nd century, have been excavated in Zippori National Park (Sepphoris).

A journalist gets a rare chance to visit Mount Ebal and its “altar.”

A site proposed as one of the Gilgals of the Bible is in danger because of the establishment of a new garbage dump.

Nadav Shragai asks why the media ignores illegal Muslim activity on the Temple Mount.

A new music video by Michael W. Smith was filmed entirely in Israel and includes some beautiful drone footage.

The Baptist News interviews a zooarchaeologist who excavated in the Philistine cemetery of Ashkelon.

A collection of Dead Sea Scroll fragments owned by the Museum of the Bible have been published in a book edited by Emanuel Tov, Kipp Davis, and Robert Duke.

It’s not just the words, but where they were spoken, argues Wayne Stiles.

Dan Warner is on the Book and the Spade this week talking about his excavation of the Canaanite water system at Gezer.

Seth Rodriquez appreciates the support he received for his trip to teach biblical backgrounds at the
Baptist Theological Seminary of Zimbabwe and he reports on his time there.

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

Mount Ebal altar from northwest, ws092213002

Proposed altar on Mount Ebal
Photo by Bill Schlegel

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Museums, Samaria, Shephelah, Temple Mount

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

The Israeli police arrested five members of the Waqf for erecting scaffolding and carrying out structural changes on the Dome of the Rock without authorization.

A new study suggests that there was widespread literacy in the kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BC. The full study is available for purchase or free through Academia.

The Temple Institute is planning to open the first school for training priests to serve in the Jerusalem temple.

Jeremy Smoak compares the silver amulets from Jerusalem with the Ekron temple inscription.

Wayne Stiles: “God inspired metaphors of biblical geography and botany to highlight one of the most important aspects in any healthy marriage.”

The Winter 2016 issue of DigSight is now online and includes stories on Qeiyafa finds, past lectures, and a new exhibit.

An article on the Inspiration Cruises website gives a little history of a Finnish moshav established in Israel in the 1970s and named in memory of Jews surrendered to the Nazis in World War II.

Frank L. Benz, longtime professor at Wartburg Seminary, died last week. Several years ago, we mentioned here his little-known New Testament marking guide to the Student Map Manual.

Martin Bachmann, the German Archaeology Institute’s deputy Istanbul director and the head of the Pergamon excavations, died this week at the age of 52.

George Mendenhall died yesterday, 8 days shy of his 100th birthday.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade

Tagged Jerusalem, Judah, Philistines, Sad News, Shephelah, Temple Mount

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Repairs inside the Dome of the Rock are complete, and when they took photos this week, it was revealed that the reconstruction of the tile floor proposed by the Temple Mount Sifting Project is accurate.

The study of fish bones found in a 7th-century AD shipwreck near Dor indicates that a now-extinct subspecies of St. Peter’s fish was being transported on the boat (Haaretz premium).

Scholars are offering competing explanations for the massive trash dump in the Kidron Valley from the first century AD (Haaretz premium).

A jogger along the shore of Ashkelon discovered a 12th-century AD oil lamp.

Aren Maeir is providing daily updates of the excavation of Gath.

The Tel Burna team gives an update from the first two weeks of their season. Chris McKinny’s work on the LB cultic building looks particularly promising in the remaining two weeks.

Jennie Ebeling and Norma Franklin discuss several important facets of their excavations at Jezreel.

Luke Chandler discusses the possibility of a Judahite water system at Lachish and the need for funds to excavate it.

If you’re interested in a brief, well-illustrated study of the world’s largest stones used in construction projects, check out Tom Powers’s latest post.

Felicity Cobbing of the PEF was present at the opening of the Palestine Museum in Ramallah and shares her perspective.

The senior staff of the Ashkelon excavations is wrapping up their final season this month and beginning a new project at Tel Shimron with a geophysical survey this summer.

Appian Media was recently filming in Israel for their upcoming Following the Messiah video series.

They are posting updates on the project and their travels on their blog.

The Fifth Gospel is a new iBook that explores the land, the culture, and the archaeology of the Bible. It was designed for high school students and features maps, interactive quizzes, photos, and short film clips. Check it out on iTunes.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Movies, Philistines, Resources, Shephelah, Temple Mount