Tragic news comes out of Israel this week as a massive forest fire has killed more than 40 people and destroyed more than 10,000 acres on Mount Carmel.  If you’ve traveled with me in the last 7-8 years, you probably spent a night at Kibbutz Beit Oren, which suffered great damage.  For several photos of the mountain (in better days) and a map, see Ferrell Jenkins’ post.  The fire may not be put out for another week.

Archaeologists are now studying ancient sites without ever visiting them, thanks to a NASA satellite. 

Arizona State University archaeologist Stephen H. Savage has been studying Khirbet en-Nahas and with NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite been able to determine where “the ore is coming from; which parts of the site were used for smelting and which were not; and that different parts of the site were drawing ore from different regions.

Jennie R. Ebeling has an interesting and well-illustrated summary of discoveries made at Hazor in recent years.

Jweekly.com has a brief article summarizing the discoveries at Magdala.

Reading Acts has a brief summary of James Charlesworth’s presentation at NEAS in which he discussed whether the pool of Bethesda and the pool of Siloam were ritual baths (miqva’ot).

Shimon Gibson has the opportunity to publish important archaeological finds from excavations on Mount Zion in the 1970s and he is now raising funds.  Making a donation is particularly quick if you have an Amazon account.  Even a small contribution will help!

The winners have been selected for this week’s give-away of the Holy Land Revealed DVD set.  It is perhaps notable that both winners live outside of the United States. 

HT: Joe Lauer