The eleventh season at Khirbet el-Maqatir has concluded with word of a spectacular find that cannot yet be revealed. The team excavated several Roman-period silos, a first-century ritual bath, and an Iron Age house.

The season at Tel Burna is coming along nicely. The First Week Wrap-up provides an overview of the known stratigraphic sequence of the site. The report for days 6-7 include a photo of a large monolith and a beautiful Iron IIB pavement.

John Black shows how archaeological work in Jerusalem has undermined historical criticism of the Gospel of John.

A Picasso drawing is being raffled to raise money to preserve the archaeological remains of Tyre.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo was recently closed to tourists by striking employees.

Leon Mauldin illustrates Jeremiah’s message of the cursed man who will be like a “shrub in the desert.” He follows that up with a photo of a “land of salt.”

Barry Britnell shows with photos why the Cilician Gates are important for Paul’s journeys.

Douglas Petrovich provides a summary of his recent article that serves as a “John the Baptist” role for his forthcoming book, Evidence of Israelites in Egypt from Joseph’s Time until the Exodus.

Pools of Bethesda southern pool from west, tb011612879 Southern pool of Bethesda
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

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If you want to see more of the Herod exhibit than the Israel Museum put online, you can watch a 13-minute video tour. The audio is in German, but everyone can get a feel for the displays.

A blogger on Forbes gives some of the tax history of the first four Dead Sea Scrolls.

If you have missed Chris McKinny’s recent series Secret Places, he will be back. He has been teaching an intensive course in Israel and is now supervising excavations at Tel Burna. You can follow the results there as he and others post on the day’s finds, beginning with Day 1 and Day 2.

It’s never occurred to me that the Hinnom Valley has been redeemed, but Wayne Stiles makes a case.

Luke Chandler’s blog hosts the world premiere of a new short film titled “Khirbet Qeiyafa: A Fortified City in the Kingdom of Judah.”

Some tourists are starting to return to Greece as the rioting subsides and the prices go down.

In fact, you can now book a tour of Greece with the Associates for Biblical Research. The 12-day trip in March 2014 will be led by Gordon Franz. The cost is $3199.

A Chinese tourist who left his mark on an Egyptian temple got in trouble.

Israel Today has a 2-minute video tour of Jaffa (biblical Joppa).

HT: BibleX, Alexander Schick

Corinth plain and excavations from Acrocorinth, tb050803135
Plain of Corinth from Acrocorinth
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
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Gary Byers summarizes the result of the first week of excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir. He thinks it may have been the best first week of finds at the site. Shimon Gibson will be resuming his excavations on Mount Zion from June 16 to July 11. Volunteers are welcome. A list of papers for the Noah’s Ark conference at Sirnak University in Turkey has been announced. Among the list is this one by Gordon Franz: “Did Sennacherib, King of Assyria, Worship Wood from Noah’s Ark?” Don Wimmer, director of excavations at Tall Safut in Jordan, died last week. Worsening conditions at the Cairo Museum are causing concern. The Green Scholars Initiative Series on Early Jewish Texts is a new book series to be published by Brill and led by Emanuel Tov. Scholars are using artificial intelligence programs to help reassemble more than 100,000 manuscript fragments from across the Mediterranean world. Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg has written the latest Archaeology in Israel Update—April 2013. Luke Chandler is leading a tour of Italy this fall. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols.) is now marked down 78% to $90. Until Friday. HT: Jack Sasson, Bill Soper Pompeii Consolare Street and Modesto Street intersection, tb111505131 Preserved ruins of Pompeii
Photo from Pictorial Library, Italy and Malta

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Barry Britnell has the scoop on the forthcoming update to Google Maps and he shares some impressive examples.

Following the discovery of the mosaic near Bet Qama, Miriam Feinberg Vamosh provides a “flying [mosaic] carpet”-themed itinerary through Israel.

Matti Friedman follows up on an article in Biblical Archaeology Review to find out whether wooden beams on the Temple Mount might date back to the time of Solomon’s or Herod’s temples.


Smithsonian magazine reports on the Rise and Fall and Rise of Zahi Hawass.

Two months of excavations annually for the last 56 years is not enough, so a Turkish team will join the Italians and excavate the ruins of Hierapolis year-round.

Phase 2 of Eilat Mazar’s Ophel Excavation is now underway.

The University of Liverpool’s second annual conference on Archaeology and the Bible focused this year on “Egypt and the Bible” with lectures by James Hoffmeier and others.

HT: Daniel Wright, Jack Sasson

Hierapolis view from east, tb041305832
The ruins of Hierapolis
Photo from the Pictorial Library, Western Turkey
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Matti Friedman posts new photos and information about the royal (proto-Aeolic) capital discovered in a water tunnel not far from Bethlehem.

The first official Israeli exhibit in the Louvre is the Lod Mosaic. It opens tomorrow and runs through August 19.

Wayne Stiles explains why Nazareth Village is not just another tourist trap.

The Jewish Voice suggests 13 Must-See Museums in Israel.

Jerusalem Experience has a new video of the Pools of Bethesda.

All of the articles of the latest issue of Atiqot are now online.

Ferrell Jenkins recommends the new Satellite Bible Atlas for tours anywhere in Israel.

Rockefeller Museum entrance, tb042403209
The Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem
Photo from the Pictorial Library, volume 3
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Our picture of the week is one of the most surprising images in any of the collections available on BiblePlaces.com and LifeintheHolyLand.com.  It was taken on April 11, 1931 and displays a German dirigible floating over Jerusalem.

Several familiar landmarks can be clearly seen in the photograph. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)  The dirigible is hovering over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Dome of the Rock can be seen in the background just above the church’s dome.  To the right is the tower of the German Lutheran Church, and framing the whole scene in the background is the Mount of Olives.

The photo comes from Volume 2 of the American Colony and Eric Matson Collection which focuses on Jerusalem.  There is another photo of this zeppelin in that collection which shows a clear profile of the airship as it passed by the Citadel of David near Jaffa Gate.

How and why did a zeppelin get here in 1931?  The PowerPoint® notes in the collection provide the following explanation (hyperlinks in the quote were added for the convenience of our readers):

The viewpoint is a rooftop, or perhaps the city wall, in the Christian Quarter, west of the Holy Sepulcher. The photo documents the visit of the German dirigible “Graf Zeppelin” to Jerusalem on April 11, 1931. The famous airship began its journey on April 9th in Friedrichshafen, Germany and it landed at Heliopolis near Cairo at dawn on the 11th. It then set off on a one-day, round-trip excursion to Jerusalem, reaching there at 10 a.m. The airship reportedly hovered for some time, with its engines stopped, about 100 meters above the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and that seems to be exactly what was captured in this photo. That date–April 11, 1931–being Holy Saturday in the Eastern calendar, the dirigible’s passengers were almost certainly viewing the colorful spectacle of the annual “Holy Fire” ceremony being played out in the streets below.  Without touching down in Palestine, the Graf Zeppelin (average speed approx. 60 miles (100 km) per hour) returned to Egypt and landed in Cairo at 4 p.m. the same day.  [Source: web-site of the German Embassy in Cairo, www.kairo.diplo.de]

This particular zeppelin traveled the world over the course of a decade.  It crossed oceans, traversed hemispheres, made a “round the world” voyage, and even helped explore the Arctic.  With such a colorful career, I guess it couldn’t resist squeezing in a quick trip to Jerusalem at some point.

This photograph and over 650 others are available in Volume 2 of the American Colony and Eric Matson Collection, and is available here for $25 (with free shipping).  Further information and images of Jerusalem in the 1800s and early 1900s can be found on LifeintheHolyLand.com here, here, and elsewhere.  Further information on the Graf Zeppelin can be found here and here.

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