8 Jewish Archaeological Discoveries

Over at NBC News:

It’s been decades since the first pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the caves of the Judean desert, but yet another piece of parchment bearing 2,000-year-old scriptures – verses from the Book of Leviticus – was found just recently. Such finds demonstrate that the Holy Land can still produce ancient treasures, thousands of years after the events described in the Bible…

Check them out here.

HT:  PaleoJudaica

Ancient Mosaic Floor Found Near Kibbutz Bet Qamain, Israel

It’s Byzantine and it’s spectacular:

A magnificent 1,500-year-old mosaic floor has been uncovered by archeologists  near Kibbutz Beit Kama in the south, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced  Sunday.

The mosaic was the most outstanding find in a Byzantine-era village unearthed  in the Negev during a survey conducted prior to construction of a highway.

The village, which thrived from the 4th through 6th centuries C.E.,  encompassed about six dunams – or an acre and a half – and was discovered under  the fields of the kibbutz. Among the finds was a public building measuring 12  meters by 8.5 meters (about 40 feet by 26 feet) containing the mosaic floor.  Archaeologists assume the building was a public one due to its size and relative  opulence.

The colorful mosaic includes geometric motifs and features amphorae – wine  containers— in the corners, as well as a pair of peacocks and a pair of doves  pecking at grapes on grapevines. The combination of so many motifs in one mosaic  is unusual, say Israel Antiquities Authority officials.

The building also features a system of water channels, pipes and water pools.

The site, situated on an ancient road that led north from Be’er Sheva, apparently included a large estate with a church, residential buildings, storerooms, a large water cistern, a public building and agricultural fields equipped with irrigation pools. One building appears to have served as a hostel for travelers passing through the area, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority…

The official IAA press release with more photos is here.

 

City of David

 

IDF Infographic

 

Jerusalem in 30 Seconds

 

Ancient Quarry, Key Unearthed in Jerusalem

The Times of Israel reports:

Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered a 2,000-year-old stone quarry, along with an iron key and masonry tools dating to the same period, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The large quarry adjacent to the modern-day neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo dates to the first century CE and would have been active around the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, archaeologists say.

Some of the stones cut from the rock were more than two yards long. They were likely transported downhill, on an ancient road discovered nearby, to the walled city to the south, where they would have been used in the construction of monumental buildings.

The quarry, seen here from above, is located adjacent to the north Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo (photo credit: Skyview/Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Also unearthed at the site was an iron key.

“The key that was found, and which was probably used to open a door some 2,000 years ago, is curved and has teeth. What was it doing there? We can only surmise that it might have fallen from the pocket of one of the quarrymen,” archaeologist Irina Zilberbod, the excavation director, said in the statement from the Antiquities Authority.

The excavators also found pickaxes and metal wedges used to sever the cut stones from the surrounding rock.

The excavation is a salvage dig meant to allow the construction of a new road.

Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, was built in a part of the West Bank annexed to the Jerusalem municipality after the 1967 war.

The IAA press release is here.

 

More Jews Live in Israel than in US for 1st Time

For the first time, there are more Jews living in Israel than in America, making the Jewish state the home of the largest Jewish population in the world. There are 6 million Jews in Israel and 5.5 million in America, 2 million of whom live in New York. Roughly 500,000 Jews live in France and almost 300,000 live in the United Kingdom.

Among the 8 million residents of Israel, there are 1.6 million Arabs and 350,000 non-Arab Christians or other groups.

The number six million has obvious significance to Jews the world over, since six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. But for the first time in thousands of years, it can legitimately be claimed that a plurality of Jews live in Israel — and if demographic trends continue, Jews in Israel will soon constitute a majority of Jews on the planet.

Source

 

Galilee’s Magdala Center

Uncovers well preserved Synagogue from the time of Jesus:


 

President Obama in Israel

From President Obama’s speech on arriving in Israel:

President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and most of all, to the people of Israel, thank you for this incredibly warm welcome. This is my third visit to Israel so let me just say tov lihiyot shuv ba’aretz.

I’m so honored to be here as you prepare to celebrate the 65th anniversary of a free and independent State of Israel. Yet I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic homeland of the Jewish people…

Rest here.

Old Videos of Ancient Sites

The Mount of Olives, Wailing wall, and Dome on the Rock, 1920s:


 
HT:  And some more at PhDiva