Seeking the Peace of Jerusalem—or a Piece of Jerusalem?

There is no end of controversy about Jerusalem, old and new.  Archeology has become a full-fledged battlefield in the dispute over who has the superior claim to the city, Jews or Muslims…

Read on here.

 

Archaeological Archive of Israel Online

Todd Bolen on his Bible Places Blog:

The first stage of the archive is now available online, but my first impression is not positive. The viewer is clunky and the server is slow. They’ve also made it difficult to save any of the files for personal study. Perhaps improvements will come; the project is certainly a worthy one. Here’s the full press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority:

The archaeological archive of Israel, which is administered by the Israel Antiquities Authority and amasses data on all of the activity of the archeological entities in the country, is computerized and will go online in the coming days. This is being underwritten with joint funding provided by the “Landmarks” heritage program in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Israel Antiquities Authority. The scientific archive has its beginnings in the British Mandatory Department of Antiquities. It was continued by the Israel Department of Antiquities and is managed today by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which invests considerable thought and resources in its operation. [Yes, they really said that about themselves!]

The first stage, containing tens of thousands of documents, photographs, maps and plans from the years 1919–1948 from Akko and Jerusalem, is already available for viewing online at www.iaa-archives.org.il. Most of this material was written in English.

Uploading the old and valuable material to the website required special preparations. In order to scan the material, the Israel Antiquities Authority engaged the services of ImageStore Systems Ltd. This is because the archival material is especially delicate and sensitive and cannot be scanned with industrial equipment; rather it can only be done individually and manually. The documents in the archive include texts photographs, maps, and plans etc. on many different kinds of paper.

According to Israel Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hausner and Reuven Pinsky, director of the heritage project in the Prime Minister’s Office: “The Mandatory archive constitutes the principal foundation of archaeological research of the past one hundred years. This program, as part of the Israel Archives Network project for scanning and digitalization of the material on file in the archives, will make it possible for the public in general and particularly scholars in Israel and abroad to access these resources of knowledge”.

According to Dr. Uzi Dahari, Deputy Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The scientific importance of the archive is invaluable, and it is the only one of its kind in Israel and in the world. In Israel there are approximately 30,000 known and declared antiquities sites that constitute our cultural heritage – the largest and most important asset of the State of Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority declares, treats, surveys, and researches the antiquities sites in the country. One of the many activities of the Israel Antiquities Authority is the management and running of the scientific archive. The Israel Antiquities Authority decided to transfer the archive to the digitalized media, in order to disseminate the information throughout the world”. To this end, all of the information was scanned and it was indexed according to rules that are suitable for research needs”.

According to Ephraim Reich, director general of ImageStore Systems Ltd., “We are proud to have been given the opportunity by the Israel Antiquities Authority to take a significant part in preserving this important information for the public. The utilization of advanced technology for the purpose of accessing enormous amounts of information that were stored until recently in libraries and archives not sufficiently accessible to the average user is a matter of utmost importance to ImageStore Systems Ltd. We are confident that this work will help preserve this important archival material for our benefit and that of future generations”.

Aerial photograph of Jerusalem, undated. From the Archaeological Archive of Israel.

Discovery May Help Explain Ancient Biblical Mystery

Tel Shiloh archaeological dig pitcher suggests Biblical City in Israel burned to ground.

The Huffington Post:

A pitcher found during an Israeli archeological dig may shed light on a biblical mystery that has gone unsolved for thousands of years.

The broken clay pitcher, discovered in a bed of ashes in the Tel Shiloh dig site in Samaria, Israel, suggests that the ancient city — once the de facto capital city and spiritual center of ancient Israel — was burned to the ground, the Tazpit News Agency reports.

From the news outlet:

The ashes found attest to a devastating fire the occurred at the site. The dating of the clay pitcher, 1,050 BCE, correlates with the dating of the events depicted in Book of Samuel.

As the Oxford Biblical Studies archive notes, the city of Shiloh was a religious sanctuary around the 12th century B.C.E., until it was captured by the Philistines. The Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments, was also kept in Shiloh during this time.

The Book of Samuel writes of this battle between the Israelites and the Philistines, but has never explained how exactly the city was destroyed, according to the Tazpit News Agency.

Archeological research has been conducted at Shiloh by the Archaeological Staff Officer for Judea and Samaria as well as the Binyamin local authority, Arutz Sheva previously reported.

Past finds at the site have indicated that after the disastrous loss to the Philistines, the area was inhabited until 722 B.C.E., when Assyria defeated the Kingdom of Israel.

Israel has announced numerous archeological finds in the past few years. In May, it was announced that evidence seemed to support the existence of Bethlehem before the birth of Jesus.

There is a nice photo gallery here too.

 

Whiter Than Snow

 

Look at Jerusalem! Brrr…

Source

 

Snow in Bethlehem

Source

 

A Future for the Archaeology of Jerusalem

The present excavators in ancient Jerusalem consider their work relevant to their own community, but not to that in whose back and front  yards they are digging, i.e. the Palestinian inhabitants of the Old City and nearby villages. They prefer to see only a distant past, thus helping their political sponsors imagine an Arab-free Jerusalem. In such a setting, the very act of talking about the past has to be decolonized. If ethical practice demands that archaeologists enter into a meaningful dialogue with the local community, then we surely must avoid settler and government agendas and discourses like the plague, stop taking their money,  and actively concern ourselves with the present and the contemporary past, i.e., the archaeology and ethnography of the inhabitants of the historical basin itself.

Read the rest of the paper by Raphael Greenberg who is Associate Professor in Archaeology University of Tel Aviv over at The Bible and Interpretation here.

 

Pic of the Day

And it comes via the IDF on Twitter:

Massive rainfall in Israel today. Snow on Mt. Hermon. Most Israelis are staying indoors. Not us.

Ophel Excavation 2012

The excavation area is on the south side of the Temple Mount.



This video and others are available on the blog of The Key to David’s City here.

HT: Ferrell Jenkins

 

Judean Temple Discovered Near Jerusalem

The Bible Places Blog has the news:

A Judean temple from the 10th-9th centuries BC has been discovered four miles northwest of ancient Jerusalem. The structure has massive walls, faces east, and contained a cache of sacred vessels. The site of Tel Motza may be the town of Mozah mentioned in the city list of Joshua 18:26 and some believe the Emmaus mentioned in Luke 24 was located nearby.

Location of Moza in relation to Jerusalem.      Map from Google Earth.

Archaeologists have dated the building to the Iron Age IIA, a period dated by most scholars to 980–830 BC, contemporary with the reigns of Solomon, Rehoboam, Asa, and Jehoshaphat. Each of these kings was faulted for not “destroying the high places” (1 Kgs 11:7; 14:23; 15:14; 22:43). Few such illicit worship sites are known from the land of Israel; the best preserved ones were excavated at Dan and Arad.

According to Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple. The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site’s proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom’s main sacred center at the time.”

The site was excavated as part of road construction works on Highway 1, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road.

The press release of the Israel Antiquities Authority is here and six high-resolution photos are available from this link. The story is reported by the Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, and other sites.

Aerial view of excavation site. Photograph: Skyview, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Figurines of bearded men. Photograph: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Figurine of horse. Photograph: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.