The rain in Israel has turned to snow. Jerusalem is all but closed. A meter of snow fell on Mount Hermon overnight. The Sea of Galilee is up 6 inches. Haaretz is calling this the biggest storm in a decade with Israel’s main highway closed for 9 hours. Wind gusts in Haifa reached up to 75 miles per hour.

BBC reports that Gaza’s archaeological treasures are at risk from war and neglect.

Ferrell Jenkins explains the significance of Gaza.

Artifax and The Book & The Spade Radio program have posted their Top Ten 2012 Discoveries.

They are similar to our (unnumbered) list. Leen Ritmeyer picks his top two.

The conclusion from the 2012 excavations south of the Temple Mount (aka “Ophel”) is posted in an 11-minute video, concluding with a tour by archaeologist Eilat Mazar.

Thirty Days in the Land with Jesus: A Holy Land Devotional, by Charles H. Dyer, is for sale on Kindle for $1.99 this week. The 248-page book was released in 2012.

HT: Charles Savelle

Ophel Walls Iron Age tower, tb010112136

Iron Age tower in Ophel Excavations
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

From the Daily Herald (Provo, UT):

Calvary Chapel of Salt Lake will be hosting a weeklong presentation by Biblical archaeologist Bryant G. Wood next [this] week. Wood will present a “college level” overview of Biblical archaeology at three different workshops; Wood’s “Biblical Archaeology Seminar” is free and open to the public.

The first session will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a session from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday.

The concluding session will be held Jan. 12 from 8 a.m. to noon, and will be preceded by a complimentary breakfast.

Wood, a specialist in Canaanite pottery, has pursued Biblical archaeology since 1973. He received international media attention in the 1990s for his study of the ancient city of Jericho. Wood disputed earlier findings that suggested the city was not inhabited at the time of the Old Testament account of its destruction and capture by the ancient Israelites.

See the article for contact information. Bryant Wood is director of Associates for Biblical Research and excavator of Khirbet el-Maqatir, a possible location of biblical Ai.

Jericho fallen mudbrick with Bryant Wood, tbs94229709
Bryant Wood examining ancient walls of Jericho

Arutz-7 is reporting today on the excavation of biblical Shiloh.

A new archeological find at ancient Shilo fits in with the Biblical narrative regarding the war at Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer], and could confirm scholars’ conjectures as to how Shilo was destroyed.
The First Book of Samuel does not say when and how Shilo, which served as the Israelite capital for 369 years, was destroyed. The latest archeological find at the Shilo site – a broken vase and remains of ashes from a fire – indicate large scale destruction. The remains are from the same period in which the War of Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer] against the Philistines was waged.
Israel suffered a crushing defeat in that war, which is believed to have been waged near present-day Afek. The two sons of Eli the High Priest were killed, and Eli himself died upon hearing the news. Worst of all, the Holy Ark, which the Israelites had brought to the battleground, was taken by the Philistines.
Archeologists and scholars now have more evidence to back the assumption that after defeating the Israelites at Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer], the Philistines advanced upon Shilo and sacked it.
Other Biblical passages, in Psalms and Jeremiah, confirm that Shilo was destroyed by Phlistines [sic].

Shiloh aerial from east, bb00120068-labeled
Shiloh from east. Screenshot from the new Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. Photo by Barry Beitzel.

A few comments:

1. The minimalistic reporting makes it impossible to evaluate the claim. The discovery of a broken vase and remains of ashes could indicate nothing more than the presence of a family hearth. Perhaps the archaeologists did find a destruction layer, but you have to believe that the journalist has evidence he was unwilling to share.

2. A destruction layer from the time of Samuel was already identified in Israel Finkelstein’s excavations in the 1980s. “This complex of buildings [in Area C] was destroyed by a violent conflagration whose traces were visible everywhere: charred floors and heaps of fallen bricks, sometimes more than one meter deep….As suggested by Albright following the Danish expedition’s excavations, this may be attributable to the Philistine destruction of the site (mid-eleventh century BCE)” (NEAEH 4: 1368).

3. The theory that the Philistines destroyed Shiloh in the aftermath of their capture of the ark at Aphek seems to be supported by the absence of Shiloh in the biblical narrative in the years of Samuel, Saul, and David. Its destruction by Philistines is suggested by its mention in two passages.

Psalm 78:60 — “He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among men.”
Jeremiah 7:12–14 — “‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. While you were doing all these things, declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers.”

The Arutz-7 story, with a photo of a jar, is here.

One archaeologist is calling the 900-seat arts center built by Hadrian the most important Roman discovery since the discovery of the Forum in the 1920s. There is a photo of the dig site here.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project blog has a series of posts on the recent debris removal from the
Temple Mount. Nadav Shragai provides a summary in Israel Hayom. Leen Ritmeyer provides a brief commentary.

A baptistery has been discovered in the Byzantine monastery of Khirbet el-Maqatir.

Ferrell Jenkins has wrapped up his series of photo illustrations for the book of Acts.

The BBC has a month-by-month review of archaeological stories in 2012.

Our Archaeological Surveys Bibliography has been significantly expanded.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis

From ScienceDaily:

A team of international archaeologists including Christian Cloke of the University of Cincinnati is providing new insights into successful and extensive water management and agricultural production in and around the ancient desert city of Petra, located in present-day Jordan. Ongoing investigations, of which Cloke is a part, are led by Professor Susan Alcock of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP).
Using a variety of tools and techniques, including high-resolution satellite imagery and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of soils, Cloke, a doctoral student in the Department of Classics at UC, and Cecelia Feldman, classics lecturer at UMass-Amherst, have suggested that extensive terrace farming and dam construction in the region north of the city began around the first century, some 2,000 years ago, not during the Iron Age (c. 1200-300 BC) as had been previously hypothesized. This striking development, it seems, was due to the ingenuity and enterprise of the ancient Nabataeans, whose prosperous kingdom had its capital at Petra until the beginning of the second century.
The successful terrace farming of wheat, grapes and possibly olives, resulted in a vast, green, agricultural “suburb” to Petra in an otherwise inhospitable, arid landscape. This terrace farming remained extensive and robust through the third century. Based on surface finds and comparative data collected by other researchers in the area, however, it is clear that this type of farming continued to some extent for many centuries, until the end of the first millennium (between A.D. 800 and 1000). That ancient Petra was under extensive cultivation is a testament to past strategies of land management, and is all the more striking in light of the area’s dry and dusty environment today.

The full story is here.

HT: David Coppedge

Mampsis Nabatean dam in Nahal Mampsis, tbs72039211
Dam from Nabatean period in Wadi Mampsis
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands