Galilee Archives - Page 78 of 84

Favorite Water Hike: Nahal Yehudiyeh

One of my favorite hikes in Israel is along the Nahal Yehudiyeh in the Golan Heights. You have to swim, and in non-summer months the water is a bit chilly. But it’s an exciting hike in many ways.

Arutz-7 has a story which includes the details you need to know before you go. One sample:

Hiking the upper section of Nahal Yehudia is considered to be appropriate for good hikers who can swim, as there are a couple of places where you have to climb down the rock face with the help of handholds or a ladder into a deep pool that you have to swim across. Note that you must start out on the well-marked trail by noon.
The hike starts above the wadi on the red trail, walking through a deserted Syrian village of basalt field stones built on the remains of an earlier Jewish town from the Roman-Byzantine period.
Remains of a wall have led archaeologists to suggest that Yehudia is Soganey, one of the three fortresses (the other two are Gamla and Sele’ukya) in the Golan built by Josephus at the time of the Roman Revolt.

I don’t know how easy it is to find any more, but a great resource for adventures like these is the book by Joel Roskin, Waterwalks in Israel (Jerusalem Post, 1996).

Nahal Yehudiyeh waterfall

UPDATE: The author of the article, Shmuel Browns, has commented below. Take a look at his website for a more comprehensive article and photos.

Tagged Galilee, Tourism

Magdala Project Blog

A recent comment on a previous post has alerted me to the existence of the Magdala Project Blog. It appears to be current (the most recent post was 4 days ago), and it is loaded with lots of information and photos. Recent posts include:

Another one that may be of interest to readers are statistics of the Sea of Galilee, with data from the Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection.

You can also see a slide show from the Magdala excavations here.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee

Menorah Cave Opened at Beth Shearim

The cave previously known as the “Cave of the Coffins” has been restored and renamed. From Arutz-7:

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin unveiled a huge ancient relief depicting a seven branched menorah at Beit Shearim in the Galilee Tuesday. The menorah, which is 1.90 m. (75”) high, is one of the major tourist attractions at the renovated ancient burial cave site.
The burial caves were discovered decades ago but their recent renovation took place largely thanks to Rivlin’s initiative. In 2004, during his first term as Knesset Speaker, Rivlin visited the site and was stirred by the site of the numerous depictions of the menorah, which is the modern State of Israel’s symbol as well.
He took action to make sure that the site received special preference and that funds were allocated to its restoration and preservation. A team, which included restoration expert Jacques Neger and architect Ram Shoef, got rid of roots that had invaded the caves and restored the wall carvings, and the renewed site was opened to tourists.

The rest of the article, with photos, is here.

The Haaretz report adds this note:

Another two newly discovered burial caves not far from the current archaeological site will be opened to the public in three months.

Another Haaretz article notes the claims of a 93-year-old architect that he discovered the necropolis of Beth Shearim and not the famed watchman Alexander Zaid.

Beth Shearim Cave of Coffins menorah, tb040603019

Menorah decoration before restoration, Beth Shearim

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Galilee, New Exhibits

Hazor 2009 Report

Amnon Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman have posted a brief summary of the excavation results of this year’s season at Hazor. The focus was on Iron Age material in Area M. Among other things, they report:

One wide wall, built with a mudbrick superstructure on a stone foundation, was uncovered in the final week of this season. This wall, 1 m. wide and 15 m. long, oriented east–west, is the first of its kind in the area. It must have belonged to a large public structure. The two central rows of worked limestone pillars are parallel to this wall, and most probably form the inner partition walls of an administrative structure. This assumption will be further checked in the next season.
The main finds attributed to the Iron Age phases in the area are pottery sherds and some complete and restorable vessels. In addition, several scarabs and seals, three Egyptianised beads made of faience, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic clay figurines, iron and bronze objects and an incised bone lid were found.

Unfortunately the website was created using frames, so you have to click this link and then select “Report of 2009 Season” unless you want to see the page without the header.

A promo video created by SourceFlix heads the page with information about the 2010 season.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee

Biblical Archaeology Conference in Omaha

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is hosting a Biblical Archaeology Conference from October 29-31. From the press release:

Scholars from around the world will present the latest research on excavations at Bethsaida, an ancient city located near the north coast of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO).
The 11th annual Batchelder Biblical Archaeology Conference is Oct. 29-31 at the Thompson Alumni Center on the UNO campus.
Biblical scholars from the U.S. and around the world will host presentations about their research. This year’s conference will welcome Dr. Oded Borowski as one of two keynote speakers. Dr. Borowski found and chaired the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Languages and Literatures, now the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies. He is professor of Biblical Archaeology and Hebrew Language, and director of Mediterranean Archaeology at Emory University.
[…]
The other keynote presenter is Dr. Dan Bahat…. Dr. Bahat served the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) as the Chief Archaeologist of Jerusalem for 35 years, then as a scholar at Bar-Ilan University, and is currently affiliated with the University of Toronto.
In 1991, the Consortium of the Bethsaida Excavations Project (CBEP) was formed and has been housed at UNO since its inception. Its mission is to excavate the ancient city of Bethsaida, research the data discernible from the remains and disseminate the conclusions to both academic and popular audiences.

Significant objections have been raised by others of the identification of et-Tell as biblical Bethsaida.

Lecture titles are not given, but apparently they will be related to Bethsaida. Last year Eisenbrauns published Cities through the Looking Glass, a collection of articles from this conference in 2003 (see contents at Google Books).

For the full press release, including more details about the two speakers and registration details, see here.

Tagged Galilee, Lectures

Counting Birds in Israel

From the Jerusalem Post:

Volunteering for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel’s annual survey of migrating birds in Israel’s skies is not for the novice bird-watcher. First, the watcher has to spot the flecks hundreds of meters up in the air, then identify them and then estimate their numbers – all while the birds are flying overhead at around 50 km per hour.
For experienced bird-watchers, like Nico Noondhof and Erwin Booij – who flew here from the Netherlands especially to volunteer for the survey – it is a chance to see flocks of eagles and pelicans that simply do not grace the skies of any other country in such numbers.
“It’s amazing,” Noondhof told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, in a field near Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley. Outfitted with his own equipment – telescope, binoculars and camping chair – Noondhof has been counting birds of prey and pelicans for hours on end daily.
Noondhof has traveled widely to watch birds, throughout Europe and Asia and the Middle East, “but it cannot compare to Israel during the migrating season.”
In the few hours during which the Post joined the survey line, 700-800 eagles flew by and about 2,200 pelicans winged their way south in one giant flock.
[…]
On Tuesday, survey project coordinator Jonathan Meyrav was constantly on the phone to his contact in the air force, warning him of impending flocks. The birds are tracked from the Hula Valley in the North down through the Jezreel Valley. The air force plans its take-offs and landings from the nearby base as best it can in light of Meyrav’s reports.
At one point, the planes didn’t take off at all as the pelicans flew by. At another, they took off the other way to avoid the birds. And at still another point, they took off into the birds’ flight paths but then banked sharply away, to train in another area of sky.
Israel is in a unique position to observe bird migrations, as it is a way station between Europe and Asia and Africa. Over 500,000 birds traverse its length each season.
It is the only place in the world to see so many birds of prey, like the greater spotted eagle, the lesser spotted eagle, the kite and others, as well as pelicans flying over, Dan Alon, who coordinates all of SPNI’s birding centers explained.

The complete article is here.

Birds above Jordan River north of the Sea of Galilee

Tagged Galilee