An agricultural complex one mile northeast of the Church of the Nativity of Bethlehem in Khirbet el-Qatt was in use during the Roman period and included cisterns, terrace walls, watchman’s huts, winepresses, olive presses, and a coin from the time of Herod.

Some ancient pits excavated in Ramat Aviv in Tel Aviv had remains of mountain gazelle, dogs, and a donkey.

A quarry of unknown date and sections of plastered wall and floors from a Byzantine monastery were excavated along Nablus Road north of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Two squares were excavated on the western slope of Jonah’s hometown of Gath Hepher, revealing remains from the Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, and Iron II. If the excavators were a little more media-savvy, they could have made their fame and fortune showing off the cooking pot and jar that were certainly used by Jonah’s mother.

Excavations on the edge of Tel Yafo (biblical Joppa) revealed lots of Iron Age pottery (the canteen Jonah dropped on his way to the boat?) as well as finds from the Hellenistic, Early Islamic, Crusader, and later periods.

Vandals excavated a winepress in Horbat Pezaza but they left a second one untouched for those paid by the day rather than the piece. The archaeologists dated the winepresses to the Late Roman and Byzantine period.

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Winepress in Horbat Pezaza. Photo by IAA.

The blog for Eilat Mazar’s excavations south of the Temple Mount has some new posts, including one reporting the discovery of a 10th-century Egyptian scarab. Mazar asks if the scarab belonged to Solomon’s wife.

The largest Egyptian sarcophagus ever identified belonged to Merneptah and is now being re-assembled.

The Harvard Gazette: “In a high-tech project that would have been impossible even four years ago, technicians are attempting to re-create a 2-foot-long ceramic lion that likely flanked an image of the goddess Ishtar in a temple in long-ago Nuzi.”

NY Times: “The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology . . . is undertaking an ambitious effort to become more accessible to the public.”

Seth Rodriquez continues his biblical geography series with the Coastal Plain – Plain of Dor.

SourceFlix records a funeral procession in front of the tomb of Lazarus and reflects on the meaning of Jesus’ miracle.

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus is $2.99 on Kindle for a few days (recommended previously here).

Glo is now available for $35 (reg. $90).

Logos has several new Archaeology sets available at a discount. All of them include the standard surveys by Mazar and Stern. The medium size includes the “Cities of Paul” images volume.

HT: Jack Sasson

Dor harbor area from north, tb090506883
View of Dor’s harbor from the tell
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
What is Archaeology? Trends and Currents in Contemporary Archaeological Discourse in Israel. 
Thursday, December 27, 2012. Room 496, Gilman Building, Tel Aviv University

9.00-9.30: Reception

9.30-9.45: Opening statement – Assaf Nativ and Mark Iserlis

9.45-10.00: Shlomo Bunimovitz, Children of three paradigms: my generation in Israeli archaeology


Session One: Archaeology and the personal; Chair Shlomo Bunimovitz

10.00-10.30: Yifat Thareani, Margins’ Girl: On frontiers as multi-cultural archaeological spaces

10.30-11.00: Haggai Misgav, Archaeology and contemporary religious conceptions

11.00-11.15: Recess


Session Two: Archaeology as profession; Chair Oded Lipschits

11.15-11.45: Ianir Milevski, What is archaeology? A materialist dialectic approach

11.45-12.15: Alon Shavit, Community archaeology in Israel: on the connection and discord between the archaeological community and society

12.15-12.45: Eran Arie, Archaeology in a museum: visit and Critique

12.45-14.00: Lunch break


Session Three: Archaeology as a discipline; Chair Yuval Goren

14.00-14.30: Steve Rosen, Archaeology: a personal perspectivemarshalltown_46114s_trowel

14.30-15.00: Amihai Mazar, The rusty Marshalltown

15.00-15.30: Yuval Yekutieli, Archaeology as a story

15.30-15.45: Recess


Session Four: Summary and discussion; Chairs Mark Iserlis and Assaf Nativ

15.45-16.15: Summaries: Rafi Greenberg, Avi Gopher, Snait Gisis

16.15-17.00: Discussion

HT: Jack Sasson

“Scattered throughout Israel are dozens of archeological exhibits, indoor and outdoor, that anyone can visit at no charge.” Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am recommend three of those sites to visit.
Iraqi authorities captured two smugglers in possession of rare statues and coins.

The Dallas Museum of Art is sending one of its 2nd century mosaics to Turkey after determining that it was probably stolen years ago from the area of Edessa.

The Jewish philanthropist who funded the excavation of the bust of Nefertiti was expunged from the records by the Nazis but is now being honored for his contributions.

Shmuel Browns has opened a new online store for products with his photographs and artwork.

El Al is offering reduced rates on winter flights to Israel.

Charles Savelle on the new Pictorial Library of Bible Lands: If you teach the Bible, plan to go to the
Bible lands, or have been there before, I would suggest you check this resource out.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Amarna, limestone, gypsum and rock crystal bust of Nefertiti, 18th dynasty, adr070511363
Bust of Nefertiti.
Photo by A.D. Riddle.

Accordance Bible Software has just announced an End of Year Sale which includes $40 off the American Colony Collection. This is one of the “staff favorites,” and Martha Holladay writes,

My favorite module is the BP American Colony.  The ability to view photos which illustrate the way the land looked in Biblical times helps bring Bible study alive.  Also, the historical views of Israel before modern technology and the founding of the nation are fascinating.  This module is an excellent resource for teaching illustrations as well.

I agree! The Accordance edition of this collection has a number of improvements over the original edition, and this is a great deal for a limited time.

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Recreation of feast in fields of Bethlehem, such as described in the book of Ruth

From the Christian News Network:

Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is a road that was traveled by Jesus and the disciples in the ancient town of Bethsaida.
In conducting a dig near the Northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, which was originally meant to serve as a mission to find artifacts from the Roman period, archaeologists came across a distinctive discovery.
“We uncovered a paved street from the time of Jesus’s disciples, which runs westward through the residential area from the corner of the Fisherman’s House down toward the Jordan valley,” Nicolae Roddy of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, one of the leaders of the dig, told the publication Popular Archaeology. “I tell people that Andrew, Peter and Phillip almost certainly walked on it because they would have had to have gone out of their way to avoid it!”

The article does not include a photo, and I don’t see any other reports on this besides this brief one.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Bethsaida house of fisherman, tb060105684

Newly discovered road ran from the “house of the fisherman” shown above toward the Jordan River. Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.