Leen Ritmeyer has photos from Alexander Schick of a wooden version of the formerly Holyland Hotel model of Jerusalem, now on display at Ben Gurion Airport.

Haaretz has a story about a Canaanite banquet hall discovered at Tel Kabri.

The Samaritans are using genetic testing (and abortion) to reduce the chances of birth defects caused by inbreeding.

The first snow of the season has fallen on Mount Hermon.

Vandals have attacked the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem for the second time this year.

You can now purchase the high-resolution artwork from the ESV Study Bible. The maps, illustrations, and charts/diagrams are available in packages for $10, or you can download everything for $25.

Eisenbrauns has a 30-50% off sale on the 4 volumes of the Ashkelon reports.

HT: Jack Sasson

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Model of Jerusalem at Ben Gurion Airport.
Photo by Alexander Schick.
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Eisenbrauns has a one-day special on The Uttermost Part of the Earth: A Guide to Places in the Bible, written by Richard R. Losch. Until about mid-day tomorrow, the book is marked down from $16 to $1.60 (90% off).

Here’s the publisher’s description of the 260-page book:

Richard Losch sets the stage with a brief history of the Holy Land from ancient LOSUTTERMtimes to the present. Writing clearly and vividly, he then offers alphabetically listed entries on dozens of locations found in the Old and New Testaments. He devotes considerable attention to the Roman Empire because of its prominence in the world of early Christianity. Also included are a number of places not specifically named in the Bible that nonetheless played significant roles in shaping biblical events.

I not read the book but a few minutes of flipping through suggests that it is a generally reliable guide to about 75 sites and regions mentioned in the Old and New Testaments.

HT: Daniel Wright

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From the Times of Israel:

Israeli archaeologists digging under a road in Jerusalem have uncovered the remains of an agricultural community that could yield new information on the lives of residents before and after the rise of the Hasmonean dynasty around 2,200 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday.
The excavation in the city’s modern-day Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood has yielded a perfume bottle, wine press, bread oven and the remains of houses and agricultural buildings, according to an IAA statement.
Archaeologists also found a hand-made lead weight with a letter carved on it — seemingly the letter “yod,” the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the equivalent of the English letter “y.”
The community seems to have been active both before and after the Maccabees took Jerusalem and re-dedicated the Temple in 164 BCE, marking the beginning of Hasmonean rule, according to the IAA.
That victory is commemorated this week by the festival of Hanukkah.

The story continues here. Kiryat Hayovel is three miles southwest of the Old City.

HT: Joseph Lauer

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Excavations in Kiryat Hayovel. Photo by Israel Antiquities Authority.
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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.
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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

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View of Dor’s harbor from the tell
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
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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

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