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Archaeologist Eli Shukrun gave the Jerusalem Post a tour of the recently completed excavations of the drainage channel that runs from the area of the Western Wall to the Pool of Siloam.  The article includes details that have not been previously reported.  From the Jerusalem Post:

The channel was an early drainage system for the city of Jerusalem, which emptied into the Shiloah Pools on the southern end, in today’s Silwan neighborhood. Archeologists believe that the other side of the channel is near Nablus gate [Damascus Gate]. The channel was extensively excavated more than 100 years ago by British explorer Charles Warren in 1867 and archeologists Bliss and Dickey in the 1890s. The southern section of the channel has been open to the public for many years, but this was the first time that it was discovered that it is a continuous channel, about 600 meters long altogether.
[…]
Shukron led the Post on a tour of the channel following the announcement on Tuesday afternoon. The channel is about 1/3 of a meter wide and ranges in height from one to two meters, and is between 15 to 20 meters underground. The channel’s clearing also allowed archeologists to see the lower stones of the Kotel that are currently underground, though Shukron dismissed the Kotel stones as the least exciting part of the project.
“You know the Kotel already; that’s already been overdone,” he said, hurrying past the bottom of the Kotel to point out an underground mikve (ritual bath) and an ancient manhole.
[…]
Shukron also pointed out the remnants of previous explorations, including old wires and writing on the wall in French. He stressed that the channel did not go anywhere near the Temple Mount or the mosques, in contradiction to some claims. The channel follows the Tyropoeon Valley, which is the lowest area in ancient Jerusalem. “That’s why I can’t go up to the Temple Mount, because the Temple Mount is high. There’s no way that a drainage pipe could reach there,” Shukron explained.

The full story includes a photo of the ancient manhole.  The excavations are also reported by Arutz-7 and Ynetnews.

HT: Joe Lauer

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As noted here over the weekend, archaeologists have completed excavation of a drainage channel that ran below street level in the 1st century.  It is now possible to walk along the street and then through the channel from the Pool of Siloam at the south of the City of David up to the Jerusalem Archaeological Park just inside the Old City walls.  In the future visitors will be able to exit the tunnel in the Davidson Center, the archaeological museum at the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. 

This will effectively create a protected route of passage for visitors through a sometimes dangerous Arab neighborhood.  Tourists would enter the archaeological area on the north end of the City of David, walk down to “Area G” before entering the Warren’s Shaft.  From this point, visitors have two options.  Those who are more adventurous and prepared to get wet can walk through Hezekiah’s Tunnel.  Others may choose the dry Siloam Tunnel.  Once at the Pool of Siloam, the tourist can walk along the newly excavated street (first photo below) and then through the newly excavated drainage channel (second photo below).

Excavated street in City of David, Schick, IMG_4413

First-century street in the City of David.  Photo courtesy of Alexander Schick.

Excavated drainage channel in City of David, Schick, IMG_4425

Drainage channel below first-century street in the City of David.  Photo courtesy of Alexander Schick.
From Haaretz:

The Israel Antiquities Authority has completed an archaeological dig of a tunnel that will enable visitors to cross under the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, not far from the Temple Mount.
The tunnel, which was uncovered during excavations conducted over the past few months, was formerly used for drainage and dates back to the Second Temple. It links the City of David in Silwan with the Archaeological Park & Davidson Center, which is located near the Western Wall.
The Antiquities Authority stressed that the newly uncovered tunnel does not come near the Temple Mount and that it has no plans to dig in that direction.
The digging had been going on for seven years and was delayed for about a year by order of the High Court of Justice, after Silwan residents filed a petition claiming the dig was damaging their homes.

The full story is here.  Earlier reports about these excavations are linked to in a previous post.

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One of the most exciting action stories in Scripture is the narrative of Paul’s voyage to Rome, interrupted by the shipwreck on the island of Malta (Acts 27).  The vivid detail of these events is best explained by Luke’s presence on the journey and his writing of Acts shortly thereafter.

One of the details that Luke includes is the sailors’ fear that they would wreck on the “sandbars of Syrtis.”

When the men had hoisted [the lifeboat] aboard, they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along (Acts 27:17).

What are the “sandbars of Syrtis”?  Gordon Franz has delved into the ancient sources to learn that these were dangerous bodies of water off the coast of North Africa.  He quotes Strabo:

The difficulty with both [the Greater] Syrtis and the Little Syrtis is that in many places their deep waters contain shallows, and the result is, at the ebb and the flow of the tides, that sailors sometimes fall into the shallows and stick there, and that the safe escape of a boat is rare. On this account sailors keep at a distance when voyaging along the coast, taking precautions not to be caught off their guard and driven by winds into these gulfs” (Geography 17:3:20; LCL 8: 197).

Franz concludes:

Why were the sailors afraid of the Syrtis Sands? The Syrtis is two bodies of water in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of North Africa. Even with “good luck” (Procopius’ words), the sailors on the Alexandrian grain ship carrying the Apostle Paul and Dr. Luke were terrified because they knew they were doomed if they hit the Syrtis Sands. The grain ships were the largest ships plying the Mediterranean Sea at that time, with a deep draft, and they would easily have gotten grounded on a sandbar in the middle of no-where and many miles from any shoreline! The old sailor’s axiom would hold true: “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!” They would have had plenty of grain to eat on the ship, but not a drop of water to go with it. They were afraid of a slow and painful death by dehydration.

Read the whole article for all the fascinating details.

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Alexander Schick passes on word that the excavated tunnel is now open that allows you to walk on the 1st-century street from the Pool of Siloam up the City of David to the area of the visitor’s center. 

(A previous report about these excavations is here.)

Leen Ritmeyer is in Jordan and has photos of the newly opened baptismal site at “Bethabara.”

Ferrell Jenkins reports that Egyptian authorities are now prohibiting cameras from entering the Valley of the Kings. 

The Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem was looted and vandalized during the Jordanian occupation (1948-67), but its renovation has restored some of its former beauty, as you can see in Shmuel Brown’s recent photos.

With the verdict about to be announced in the forgery trial in Jerusalem, Hershel Shanks has written an e-book entitled, James, Brother of Jesus: Forged Antiquities and the Trial of Oded Golan and Robert Deutsch. Shanks believes the James Ossuary inscription was not forged and he plans to release the e-book when the judge issues the verdict.  See the sign-up details here.

The eastern Mediterranean is overdue for a big earthquake, says the Jerusalem Post.  The area has not had a seven or eight magnitude quake in nearly a millennium.  The 1927 tremor was a mere 6.2 on the Richter scale.

The newly re-opened Israel Museum has served half of a million visitors in the last half year. 

The LandMinds radio show has interviewed the recently retired Amihai Mazar, reflecting back on the excavations he directed at Tel Qasile, Giloh, Beth Shean, and Tel Rehov.

A Swiss architect is hard at work restoring and protecting the beautiful mosaics of Hisham’s Palace in Jericho.  A new excavation began at the site last week and new Russian museum is now open.

The season’s excavations at Tall el-Hammam are wrapping up and the team has posted a couple of videos.  The first shows what they have identified as a Middle Bronze temple (with a 10-foot thick wall!) and the second summarizes the finds in the Roman area.  They suggest that this was the city of Livias in the Roman-Byzantine period.

HT: Ferrell Jenkins, Roi Brit

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The Hong-Kong based organization Noah’s Ark Ministries International (NAMI) announced in April that they had discovered Noah’s Ark.  Their press release included brief video clips showing wooden beams of the alleged ark.  Yet many noted major problems with their purported discovery.  These suspicions appeared to be confirmed with the release two weeks ago of a letter written by two Turkish brothers who confessed to constructing “the ark” for what they thought was a movie set.

The latest turn in the saga is that NAMI has announced that the confession sent to Randall Price was forged.  They have a statement by the brothers claiming that they never wrote the letter.

A few observations:

1. An outside observer can hardly judge as to what the truth is with regard to the letter.  It’s certainly possible that someone forged the letter.  It should be noted that the letter is in Turkish, and since all “ark hunters” are outside Turkey, its creation would have required more than a casual effort.  It did strike me originally that the signatures appear to have been signed by the same person, though that might not be significant if one or both was illiterate.

2. NAMI clearly believes their reputation is on the line, as is apparent from the effort they have taken to refute the letter.  Their response is currently the front page on their website.

3. NAMI has spent a lot of money in their story and they expect to reap a fortune with the production of future “documentaries” and souvenirs.  An outside investigator would certainly want to consider the possibility that they invested additional money into the Turkish brothers so that they would deny
writing the letter.

4. Randall Price has removed the letter from his website “pending further investigation of its source.”  The Google-cached page still shows the letter and translation.  (Also here and here.)

5. NAMI essentially claims that Price forged the letter.  They write, “His actions have been completely against the basic principles of a true professing Christian and defying the law.”  Did he defy the law by attacking their work or by posting the letter?  Clearly they intend to suggest that he personally was involved in its forgery.  I believe that their charge is absolutely baseless, but they are now on record for recognizing the difference between truth and error as well as the judgment men face for their actions.

6. The determination that the letter is a forgery does not constitute evidence for the validity of the discovery.

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Scientists fear that they may not be able to halt the precipitous drop of the fish population in the Sea of Galilee.  In 1999, a total of 2,144 tons of fish was caught.  Ten years later, the total was less than 10% of that (157 tons).  Contributing to the crisis are many years of drought.  From the Jerusalem Post:

The ministry wrote that “the data raised real concerns of an ecological disaster that will occur in the Kinneret following the loss of fish resources, turning Lake Kinneret into a fish-less lake.”
The announcement came only a few weeks after the Water Authority released dismal reports on the below-average rainfal that has plagued the lake for the last decade, with water levels reaching their lowest average since the 1920s.
The years 2001 to 2010 treated Lake Kinneret particularly poorly, the Water Authority said Monday. Moreover, according to its summary of 2010, Lake Kinneret has dropped back down to last year’s water level because of the severe lack of rain despite the state having reduced pumping this year.
Except for a few major showers at the beginning and the end of the year, Lake Kinneret’s water levels steadily dropped from May to December. Despite pumping less water out of the lake, the water level has dropped from what it was last year and is now significantly below the bottom red line. In fact, the water level rested below the bottom red line for most of the year, with the exception of the months of March to June.

The full story is here.

Fishermen with fish in net, mat05689Fishermen in the Sea of Galilee, early 1900s (photo source)
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