Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Luke Chandler reports on the first week of excavations at Lachish. They made some significant finds in his square on each of the first three days.

They had a fantastic third week of excavations at Tel Burna.

A Roman theater (or amphitheater?) has been discovered in ancient Smyrna as the municipality demolishes a poor neighborhood. This may have been the place where Polycarp was martyred.

Beit Guvrin National Park has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Wayne Stiles captures the beauty and historic significance of Nahal Zin with photos, a video, and Google Street View.

“The truth about Jesus’ tomb, romance and the Holocaust” is a rather flashy title for an update of Simcha Jacobovici’s lawsuit against Joe Zias.

ABR has created a new video series, Is It Time To Throw Away Your Bible? They have now shared a couple of free episodes: King David and Solomon: Men or Myths? Part One and Part Two. The video set is on sale for only $20.

Robert Cargill reflects on the passing of Yuval Peleg.

Bet Guvrin cave with view to sky, tb022807541
Cave at Beit Guvrin National Park
Photo from Judah and the Dead Sea
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Yuval Peleg Killed in Archaeology Accident

Very sad news out of Israel today. Archaeologist Yuval Peleg was conducting a salvage excavation ahead of the construction of a road in the West Bank when he was killed by falling rocks.

From The Jerusalem Post:

A 46-year-old man was killed in an accident at an archaeological dig site between Homesh and Karnei Shomron in the West Bank on Thursday. He was later identified as Yuval Pelleg.
An initial investigation into the incident found that an Israeli and several Palestinian workers were digging at the entrance to a cave when rocks began falling down the mountain, trapping the man.
People on the scene succeeded in removing some of the rocks from on top of the man. A military medical crew attempted to resuscitate him while his lower half remained trapped under the rocks, but were forced to pronounce him dead on the scene.

From Jerusalem Online:

Gershon Mesika, the head of the Shomron Regional Council, stated, “In the framework of building a new road, a new cave was discovered. According to the procedure, an archaeologist was sent to survey the cave and to study it. Then, there was the disaster. We are sorry for the loss of the senior level archeologist doing research in Samaria.”

The Times of Israel has a map of the area in which was working. Jerusalem Online has a photo of the accident scene. Arutz-7 has another here. Robert Cargill has a photo of Yuval here. A lecture that he gave in 2012 about recent excavations at Qumran is online here. The preliminary report that he wrote with Yitzhak Magen of Qumran excavations from 1993 to 2004 is online here. Jim West notes that Yuval had a wife and two small children.

HT: Joseph Lauer

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The Sacred Bridge, Second Emended and Enhanced Edition

I noted on the Weekend Roundup that Carta had released a second edition of The Sacred Bridge but it was not clear what changes had been made.
I have since learned from sources at Accordance Bible Software what those changes include:

1. Many typographic corrections, both in the text and in the map descriptions. That’s good, since I don’t think I’ve seen a book with more typos than this one.
 
2. A few newer or updated pictures and maps.
 
3. A few places with rewritten text or updates in the archaeological information, especially from Steven Notley.
 
4. In the Accordance version, the detailed graphic timelines in the inside covers are now added, which were omitted in the first edition on Accordance.

Here’s the kicker: if you purchased the first edition in print, you have to pay full price for the second edition. (That’s the way it’s always been with print publishing.) But if you had purchased the electronic edition from Accordance, the second edition is a free upgrade. I think that is great business practice, but I don’t recall seeing it implemented very often. Kudos to Accordance for taking care of their customers!

I have praised the first edition previously here.

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Weekend Roundup

Yad HaShmonah and its Biblical Village are profiled in The Times of Israel. Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am treat their subject honorably.

Wayne Stiles explains the connection between Horeshat Tal National Park and the Bible.

The video of the “Roast and Toast” for retiring Albright director Sy Gitin is now online with handy links to each segment.

Popular Archaeology looks forward to the coming season of excavations in Jaffa, including new work in the harbor looking for ancient shipwrecks.

Progress in the Ashkelon excavations is being reported on the Dig Ashkelon blog.

A summary for week 2 is posted at the Tel Burna excavation blog. Two more weeks remain this season.

Luke Chandler has arrived in Israel to join the new excavations at Lachish. Watch his blog for updates. There’s more information about the Fourth Expedition to Lachish at the website of Southern
Adventist University.

Bible History Daily has published the first of several studio-quality videos about excavations of Tell Timai in the Nile Delta.


The Sacred Bridge is out in a second “emended and enhanced” edition. Eisenbrauns and Carta list it for sale but do not provide details for what has changed. (Anson Rainey died in 2011.)

Suzanne Marchand provides some interesting background on German-Turkish relations in archaeological work and how that was affected by World War I.

A number of scholarly teams are working on archaeology survey maps of northern Iraq.

“Authorities now know that ISIS is partially funded by pillaging ancient artifacts from Iraq and Syria to sell on the black market.” (International Business Times)

Mick Jagger was spotted at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The-Samaritans.com website is back online after a lengthy absence.

Amazon is now listing a book I contributed to: Jesus, A Visual History. It is due to be released in November.

HT: Jack Sasson, Craig Dunning, A.D. Riddle

Tabor oak, Horeshat Tal, tb032905182
Tabor oak at Horeshat Tal
Photo from Trees, Plants, and Flowers of the Holy Land
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Nava Panitz-Cohen: Excavating Abel Beth Maacah

One of the directors of the Abel Beth Maacah excavation writes about the site and previous results on the eve of the second season. From the Jerusalem Post:

The site commands the narrow passageway from the Lebanese Beq’a to the north towards the Huleh Valley to the south, as well as the road to the east towards Damascus – via nearby Tel Dan – and Mesopotamia. This strategic border location has determined much of its occupation history until modern times. Curiously, despite its biblical and topographic prominence, the site has never been excavated before. Perhaps this is because of its border location, where Lebanese farmers, U.N. personnel and local kibbutzniks are all in pretty close eye contact. Short surveys were conducted and plans were made; Yigael Yadin was going to dig there, but turned his sights to nearby Hazor; but excavations never materialized. In 2012, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – in partnership with Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles (who provided the critical funding and support for the project) and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York – took up the initiative. A preliminary survey took place in 2012, and a full-blown month-long season was conducted in 2013. The second season is set to begin in July and will also last a month. The full story includes biblical connections and discoveries made last year.

Joseph Lauer has sent along a series of related links from the last few months:

The Book and the Spade episodes:

Mount Hermon and Abel Beth Maacah from Misgav Am, adr08070895011 Huleh Valley, Abel Beth Maacah, and Mount Hermon
Photo by A.D. Riddle

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Weekend Roundup

The Western Wall prayer plaza will have a smaller version of a museum and office building after the planning committee listened to opponents.

A Muslim crowd on the Temple Mount attacked police when they opened the site to visitors yesterday afternoon.

A Jewish journalist describes his visit to the Temple Mount with Rabbi Chaim Richman.

The first week of excavations at Tel Burna has concluded.

Luke Chandler explains how a discovery from Khirbet Qeiyafa may help us to understand some details of Solomon’s temple described in 1 Kings 6. He includes a link to the Israel Exploration Journal article by Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu.

Shmuel Browns’ photo of the week is of Nahal Zavitan in the Golan Heights.

Where did Jesus change the water into wine? And what was the purpose of this miracle? Wayne Stiles explains and illustrates.

Scott Stripling is on The Book and the Spade this week, talking about last month’s excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir (Ai?). Direct link here.

Tourism to Israel is at record levels, with 1.5 million visits from January to May this year.


The Sacred Bridge is on sale for Father’s Day at the Biblical Archaeology Society store. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it lower than $79.95. (Amazon has it for $118 used or $125 new.) This is the standard reference for historical geography. These photos give a sense for how detailed the work is.

The Biblical Archaeology Society has a new free eBook: Masada: The Dead Sea’s Desert Fortress.

And BAR is now available for the iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire.

The ASOR Blog has more from the broader world of archaeology.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Temple Mount aerial from west, bb00030096
Jerusalem’s Temple Mount from the west
Photo by Barry Beitzel, from the Pictorial Library, volume 3
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About the BiblePlaces Blog

The BiblePlaces Blog provides updates and analysis of the latest in biblical archaeology, history, and geography. Unless otherwise noted, the posts are written by Todd Bolen, PhD, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s University.

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