Galilee Archives - Page 75 of 84

Volunteers Needed at Magdala

Volunteer coordinator for the excavations at Magdala has written that they are preparing to excavate around the newly discovered synagogue and they are looking for volunteers. But they’re offering something that few (or no?) excavations do: free room and board.

The dig will finance accommodations (meals and transportation) for volunteers for up to one month, if you wish to stay more, we can prepare a special price for you. The accommodations will be in Tiberias, a town 5km /3 mi from Migdal, right in the center of town in a house in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, great location, near shops and restaurants, it’s beside the hospital and right across the street is the information center.
All rooms have bathrooms with towels, Air Conditioning system, internet and there are 2 small kitchenettes. A big dining room an outdoors dining area with TV, washing machine, refrigerator, freezer and parking lot.

Volunteers are responsible for their own transportation costs. Excavations begin next month and are scheduled to go through 2013.

A new blog has lots of information, including several videos (in Italian) of previous discoveries.

This could be a great opportunity to uncover a town very close to the center of Jesus’ ministry and dating from his time (unlike most of the excavations at nearby Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida). If you’re already in Israel (student or otherwise), you might consider a “summer vacation” in Magdala/Tiberias as a nice chance to get away and serve, learn, and make new friends.

View towards Magdala and Arbel from east

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Opportunities

Nazareth Graves Excavated

Construction in Nazareth required a salvage excavation, and the presence of graves required quick action in order to minimize protests of ultra-orthodox. From the Jerusalem Post:

In one day of intense work, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) completed on Sunday the excavation of ancient burial caves, uncovered at a construction site on Paulus Road in the center of Nazareth.
Groups of haredim, who arrived at the site in the early morning hours, protested what they considered disrespect to the dead. Police detained 49 of them for disturbing the peace and trespassing on the private property of the entrepreneur who is erecting a commercial center there.
A variety of bronze tools and bones, some of them human, were found in a series of caves from two periods in the Middle Bronze Age (2,200 BCE and 2,000 BCE), and in a series of caves from the Iron Age (1,000 BCE).

The story continues here. For some reason, the photo posted is the same as that from yesterday’s story of the Tel Kasis excavation. My guess is that the photo belongs here and not to the Kasis story.

I do not recall any previous evidence for Iron Age settlement in Nazareth. The city is first mentioned in the New Testament, and even then ignored by all other contemporary sources.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee

That Torrid Basin

George Adam Smith, 1909:

In that torrid basin, approached through such sterile surroundings, the lake feeds every sense of the body with life. Sweet water, full of fish, a surface of sparkling blue, tempting down breezes from above, bringing forth breezes of her own, the Lake of Galilee is at once food, drink and air, a rest to the eye, coolness in the heat, an escape from the crowd, and a facility of travel very welcome in so exhausting a climate. (Source)

Mount Hermon rises above the lake. The trees of Tabgha are visible on the left shoreline.

Tagged American Colony Photos, Galilee

Desalination Plant Dedicated in Israel

Besides providing the people of Israel with much needed water, the completion of the third of five planned desalination plants may save the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River. From Arutz-7:

A huge new desalination plant dedicated this week is planned to help end Israel’s constant worry for enough water for farms, factories and homes. “Water, water everywhere and more to drink” may be a new phrase for Israel as the new plant begins to pump 10 percent of Israel’s water needs. The facility on the Mediterranean Coast at Hadera, located between Haifa and Tel Aviv, is the largest of its kind in the world and the third largest in Israel. Two more plants are on the drawing boards, with all five of them projected to provide two-thirds of the nation’s water. The desalinated water will be cheaper than the cost of pumping from the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to the national water carrier, according to Teddy Golan, CEO of the IDE Technologies group that built the 1.5 billion shekel ($400 million) desalination plant. […] If all goes according to plan, the Kinneret will return to flood levels in several years after all of the desalination plants come on line. The desalinated water from the Mediterranean also will allow the dams to the Kinneret to be opened and help replenish the drying Jordan River and the rapidly depleting Dead Sea.

The complete article is here.

Tagged Galilee

Weekend Roundup

The “Jesus Trail” is the subject of an article in last month’s issue of Christianity Today. The author and his photographer son (the pictures in the print magazine are great) walked the trail and talked politics and religion with the people they encountered. The “Jesus Trail” runs from Nazareth to Capernaum.

Photographs of Jerusalem in the early 1900s from the collection of Hannah and Efaim Degani are described and displayed in this YnetNews article.

The wife of the founder of the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem is profiled in this Jerusalem Post article. Batya Borowski reflects on the museum, her husband, and her early years in Mandatory Palestine.

Israel is minting gold 20 NIS coins depicting the symbol of Jerusalem. The one-ounce coins are for sale for approximately $1,467.

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Museums, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

Tours of the ancient sites in Iraq will begin this summer. A nine-day tour costs $3,375.

Hamas plans to regulate the trade of antiquities in Gaza. Of 25,000 gold and bronze coins unearthed since 1990, 14,000 were sold on the black market.

The Washington Post has the best article I’ve read on the restoration of Jaffa Gate.

Christianity Today has a story on the discovery of the “Miracle Boat,” also known as the “Jesus Boat.” (Why not “Galilee Boat”?) The article also mentions the recent campaign to increase the number of visitors to the boat. My suggestion: lower the outrageous entrance fee.

Tourists can now bring their iPad to Israel without fear of it being confiscated by customs authorities.

Israel’s Tourism Minister is vowing to stop the country’s degrading treatment of visitors.

Leon Maudlin has been posting “two views” of Miletus, showing the dramatic differences in the ancient city in different seasons.

HT: Explorator, Paleojudaica, and Joe Lauer

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Tourism, Weekend Roundup