Excavations Archives - Page 66 of 97

Weekend Roundup

Using satellite images, a researcher has identified potentially 9,000 new sites in northeastern Syria.

“With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years.”

The Jezreel Expedition “just released three-dimensional LiDAR models detailing the site’s architecture and ancient landscape taken from recently collected LiDAR data.”

The spring season at Tel Burna has ended.

A writer for the Detroit Free Press describes one day on a dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

A New York Times article describes problems facing archaeologists returning to Iraqi sites.

Travelujah tells the “beautiful and tragic” story of Naharayim and Peace Island.

Joe Yudin visits Chorazin this week.

The Winter 2012 issue of DigSight is now online (pdf). Topics include: The “Jesus Family Tomb”
Revisited, The Oldest Egyptian Reference to Israel?, Recent Sightings, and Upcoming Events.

James Tabor: “Discovery TV has confirmed that the one hour special titled ‘The Resurrection Tomb’
will air on Thursday, April 5th, at 10pm EST.”

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, the previous work by Lois Tverberg and co-author Ann Spangler, is
available for $3.99 for Kindle for a few more days.

HT: ANE-2, Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Chorazin from the west

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Jezreel Valley, Syria, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Three Articles at The Bible and Interpretation

Excavations at Kh. el-Maqatir 1995–2000, 2009–2011: A Border Fortress in the Highlands of Canaan and a Proposed New Location for the Ai of Joshua 7–8. In this 11-page report, Bryant G. Wood surveys the major results of his excavations from the Late Bronze, Iron I, Late Hellenistic/Early Roman, and Byzantine periods. The well-illustrated article provides diagrams of the Late Bronze I fortress (Ai?) and the Byzantine monastery.

The Ossuary of James the Brother of Jesus: From Trial to Truth? Paul V. M. Flesher argues that “the trial produced no truth,” wonders whether Yuval Goren has changed his mind about the inscription’s authenticity, and concludes that unprovenienced objects must be ignored lest they distort the historical record.

Archaeology in Israel Update–February/March 2012. Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg reports on some recent stories.

Cultivation of ancient citrons (etrogim) at Ramat Rahel, Jerusalem
Restoration of historic sites, the Montefiore Windmill in Jerusalem
Another controversial find by Simcha Jacobovici
Sale of ancient shekel in New York auction
Forgery trial verdict announced

Tagged Excavations, Forgery

A Summer at Tel Dan

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of more appealing places to excavate than the beach or Tel Dan. Summers can be hot in Israel and Jordan and instead of baking at Tel Rehov or Feinan, you can excavate at Ashkelon, with its cool ocean breezes, or at Tel Dan, a lush garden “which lacks nothing whatsoever” (Judg 18:7).

While the registration window is quickly closing for this season’s dig at Dan, there is still time to get in at the site where the famous Tel Dan Inscription was found and where the high place of Jeroboam still stands.

The official website lists the Goals of the 2012 season:

1. We will continue digging in Area B, into the early Iron Age levels (circa 1200-1000 BCE), to flesh out the architectural plans and to facilitate spatial analysis of houses and neighborhoods, to understand lifestyle, economy, social identity (ethnicity) and political organization. We are especially interested in retrieving carbonized grain from the Strata V and IVA destruction levels and to submit them for C14 dating (we have dates from wood, but the wood might already have been old when the town was destroyed).
2. We will continue digging in the new area in the center of the site, Area L, in the 8th cent. BCE levels destroyed in an earthquake. What does a town look, one minute before disaster strikes? How to people react to such a catastrophe? We will also be emphasizing “household archaeology” here. Is the earthquake mentioned in the book of Amos (Chapter 1)?
3. We will continue working in the area outside the city gate, Area A, in an attempt to date and understand the phantom gate of the Iron Age. Was it constructed in the 10th century BCE, the 9th century or even later? Will we find more pieces of the famous victory inscription of Tel Dan?

You can download an application here.

HT: Alexander Schick

Iron Age gate at Tel Dan

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Opportunities

Franz: Let’s Get Our Facts Straight

Gordon Franz was at today’s press conference and has written a short piece on the experience and his amazement at some of the responses he has read. He writes:

I was at the press conference at Discovery Times Square on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 for the unveiling of the new book The Jesus Discovery by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici.

I am not a supporter of Simcha’s ideas, in fact, I have critiqued some of them on my website (see the Cracked Pot Archaeology section at www.lifeandland.org). But what I have found amusing is the misstatements and misunderstanding on some of the blogs by leading scholars. First of all, you should get the book and read it before you comment, or at least look at the pictures! It will save you some embarrassment.

Simcha had an exact replica of both ossuaries in question made by the museum staff at Discovery Times Square. This was accomplished by the measurements and photographs taken with the impressive robotic arm. I am grateful for Walter Klassmen for showing me how it worked. This tool will have many applications in the archaeology of Israel and Simcha should be commended for working closely with this expert to produce such a valuable tool.

The first thing that struck me on the ossuary is the orientation of the “fish.” On all the blogs and news articles I have read, the picture of the “fish” is facing the wrong way. Sometimes it is horizontal, either facing left or right, and made to look like a swimming fish. Or the “fish” has the round ball (Jonah, according to Simcha) facing upwards, thus making the “fish” look like a funerary monument.

Usually pictures of Absalom’s Pillar are shown to bolster the case for this view. The fact of the matter is that the “fish” is facing down! So we should orient the picture correctly before we continue the discussion.

My initial impression is that the “fish” looks like an ornamental glass vessel, perhaps a pitcher or flask of some sort. The Ennion vessel found by Prof. Avigad in the Jewish Quarter comes to mind (page 108 in Discovering Jerusalem). Perhaps some glass expert might suggest a better parallel from this period than the Ennion vessel, but this is worthy of consideration.

Ossuary etching compared with Ennion pitcher, both from Jerusalem. Left image: Associated Producers Ltd./Haaretz; Right: Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, p. 108.

Tagged Analysis, Excavations, Jerusalem

Interview with Thomas Levy

Foundation Stone has posted a three-part interview from their LandMinds radio show with the UCSD professor who is excavating copper mines in the Arabah south of the Dead Sea.

“There is no Turning Back!” Prof. Thomas Levy, UCSD, says the trowel and a good eye are no longer enough in the field. Tom rode the wave of an immense California investment in technology applied to Hirbet en-Nahas in Jordan.
The kicker is, unexpectedly, his excavations showed a rise of copper industrial production in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, with a falling off in the 8th. This may be in conflict with the Low Chronology, requiring a new look at the textual and archaeological interface, about which he has written and edited a book.
Everyone is talking about his work and its implications – hear Prof Levy himself! (Barnea overloaded his circuits here in the late night Skype recording, he was so fascinated, pardon him…).

You can access the mp3 files via these direct links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

LandMinds also has a facebook page.

HT: Jack Sasson

Four-room workshop, Khirbet en-Nahas

Tagged 10th Century, Excavations, Jordan

Biblical Archaeology in 2011

For several years now, Brian Janeway has reported on major presentations and discussions at the Annual Meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research in order to engage the armchair archaeologist who is unable to travel to the November conference. He has now posted his review at the website of the Associates for Biblical Research, summarizing sessions on the Philistines, the state of biblical archaeology, the Conquest narratives, biblical meals, Caesarea, and the wine of Jesus.

One subject of particular interest is Joshua’s conquest and how this is interpreted by one self-identified “maximalist.”

Perhaps it was fitting then, that Dr. Daniel Browning from William Carey University, following in the Rainey tradition, mounted a spirited critique of the findings of Dr. Bryant Wood in “Hazor versus Jericho and Ai: Dealing with Mixed Archaeological Data in Evaluating the Joshua Narrative.” Coming from a scholar who styled himself a “maximalist” regarding the Biblical text, the paper was both surprising and disappointing—the former for its contemptuous dismissal of any “maximalist” (literal) reading of Joshua—and the latter for its utter lack of reference to physical evidence presented by Wood and others. All attempts by evangelicals to interpret the data (at Jericho, Ai, and Hazor) differently than Kenyon and others are reduced to “tactics,” all of which fail on the level of presupposition—failing to see the text as a theological and not a historical one. The real key to understanding Jericho and Ai is in the figures of Rahab and Achan, who are juxtaposed to drive the underlying theological agenda. Only at Hazor can archaeological finds be made to fit the conquest narrative. In singling out Bryant Wood, Browning’s failure to cite the ceramic and stratigraphic basis of Wood’s thesis is intellectually dishonest. His largely literary approach deserves a learned archaeological response, which was not provided in San Francisco. Perhaps it is time for Dr. Wood to mount a defense of his own at the next ASOR Meetings?

In my opinion, it is an elementary error to assume that literary artistry precludes accurate historical recording.

Janeway’s full report is here.

Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) from the east

Tagged Excavations, Exodus-Conquest, Lectures