Jezreel Valley Archives - Page 16 of 19

Weekend Roundup #1

The Times of Israel is reporting that Muslim authorities moved tons of illegally excavated earth from the Temple Mount into a city dump.

Aren Maeir posts an astounding video of a flood in the Harod Valley this week.

Frankincense has returned to Israel after 1,500 years.

More tourists visited Israel in 2012 than in any year before.

An Israeli committee will review modern prohibitions against mixed prayer at the Western Wall.

Jean Perrot died this week. Among other things, Perrot excavated several Chalcolithic sites near
Beersheba.

Marked down to $1.99 for Kindle: The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the
Pursuit of an Ancient Bible, by Matti Friedman. These sales are brief.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Western Wall prayer area from south, amd042108530

Segregated prayer areas at Western Wall.
Photo by Austen Dutton (source).

Tagged Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Resources, Temple Mount, Weather, Weekend Roundup

Recent IAA Excavation Reports

Most of the settlement layers of Tel Afula were destroyed by construction activity in the 1950s, but a recent salvage dig found remains from the Early Bronze I and Roman period.

Archaeologists working in the Ir Gannim neighborhood of Jerusalem excavated a winepress possibly first used in the Iron Age II and again in the Hasmonean period. A large storage pool was built here in the first century AD.

A preliminary report from the 2011 season at Horbat Huqoq describes the project’s goals (synagogue and 2-3 houses) and reports on the initial progress including the excavation of a mikveh. This report does not describe the beautiful mosaic floor depicting Samson that was found in the 2012 season.

Excavations near a site that Charles Wilson incorrectly thought was Capernaum have exposed three strata from the 13th-14th centuries. The dig at Huqoq Beach is 80 meters east of the entrance to the Khirbet el-Minya Umayyad palace.

Excavations on the east side of the Mount of Olives were prompted by the chance discovery of a relatively rare Armenian mosaic from the Byzantine period.

Two adjacent quarries were excavated in Beit Hanina north of Jerusalem. They provided Jerusalem with maleke limestone from the time of Jesus until modern day.

Quarry K in Beit Hanina, looking north. Photo by IAA.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley

Rare Neolithic Well Revealed in Jezreel Valley

From the IAA press release:

A rare well dating to the Neolithic period was uncovered in recent excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority carried out at ‘Enot Nisanit’, along the western fringes of the Jezreel Valley prior to enlarging Ha-Yogev Junction (Highway 66) by the National Roads Company. Archaeologists estimate the well was built approximately 8,500 years ago.
During the excavations the skeletal remains of a woman approximately 19 years of age and a man older than her were uncovered deep inside the well. How did these come to be in the well? Was this an accident or perhaps murder? As of now the answer to this question remains a mystery.
According to Yotam Tepper, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “What is clear is that after these unknown individuals fell into the well it was no longer used for the simple reason that the well water was contaminated and was no longer potable”. Tepper adds, “The impressive well that was revealed was connected to an ancient farming settlement and it seems the inhabitants used it for their subsistence and living. The upper part of the well was built of stones and its lower part was hewn in the bedrock. Two capstones, which narrowed the opening, were set in place at the top of the well. It is c. 8 meters deep and its upper part measures about 1.3 meters in diameter”.
Tepper says, “Numerous artifacts indicating the identity of the people who quarried it – the first farmers of the Jezreel Valley – were recovered from inside the well. The finds include, among other things, deeply denticulated sickle blades knapped from flint which were used for harvesting, as well as arrow heads and stone implements. The excavation of the accumulations in the well shaft yielded animal bones, organic finds and charcoal which will enable future studies about the domestication of plants and animals, and also allow researchers to determine the exact age of the well by means of advanced methods of absolute dating”.

‘Enot Nisanit is located one mile north of Tel Megiddo. The full press release and six high-res photos are here.

UPDATE: The story is being reported, with some sensational titles, in the Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, The Times of Israel, and Reuters.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Well discovered in Jezreel Valley. Photo by Yotam Tepper, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Skeletal remains discovered inside well. Photo by Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Tagged Excavations, Jezreel Valley

Animal Attractions in Israel

The Jerusalem Post suggests six tourist attractions you might have missed:

1. Camel Riders—Mamshit

2. Alpaca Farm—Negev Highlands

3. Deer Farm—Gush Etzion

4. Robotic Cowshed—Kfar Yehezkel

5. Hai Park—Kiryat Motzkin

6. Ma’ayan Zvi Fishing Park—Sharon Plain

The full article is here.

Gazelle in Nahal Paran.
Photo from Cultural Images of the Holy Land.

Tagged Israel's Coast, Jezreel Valley, Judah, Negev, Tourism

Newly Discovered Canaanite Cultic Collection on Display

Objects from a 13th-century BC cultic pit discovered in 2010 near Jokneam go on display this week at Haifa’s National Maritime Museum. More than 200 items were found in a favissa near Tel Qashish during construction of a pipeline. From the Jerusalem Post:

The treasure trove contains pottery vessels from the Late Canaanite Age IIB (1300-1200 BCE), which were stored in an elliptical pit of limestone rock – 3 meters high by 1.5 meters wide by 3 meters deep – containing more than 200 items, mostly previously unknown and quite rare, according to a statement from the exhibition. Inside the pit were items made locally, in Mycenae and in Cyprus. The locally-made products presumably for cult use included goblets – one with a man’s face sculpted on it – tall cylindrical stands, small stands, incense burners and chalices for libation, burning oil and incense. According to the exhibition, they indicate that the trove belonged to a local temple that has not yet been discovered and were items brought by worshipers. However, researchers have neither been able to identify the specific deity nor the worshipers themselves. “The pottery was either buried in haste for fear of damage by enemy forces, or stored in the pit when there was no more room elsewhere, or discarded,” the statement from the exhibition said. Among other more common local items were bowls, jugs, juglets, cooking pots, oil lamps, Canaanite jars and cup-andsaucer sets. From Cyprus, the favissa contained bowls of white-slip and base-ring wares, as well as white-shaved juglets.

The full story is here. We noted the original discovery in June 2010. The IAA press release includes a few photos and six high-resolution images are available here. The original audio slideshow is still available at Discovery News. HT: Joseph Lauer Cultic objects at time of discovery.
Photo by Assaf Peretz, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Tagged Jezreel Valley, Museums, New Exhibits

First Season of Jezreel Expedition

The results of the first season of the Jezreel Expedition are summarized at The Bible and Interpretation. The regional survey this summer was successful in preparing the team for beginning excavations next year. The article begins:

Members of the Jezreel Expedition headed by co-directors Norma Franklin (Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa) and Jennie Ebeling (Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville) conducted an intensive landscape survey of “greater Jezreel” in June 2012. The main goal of the inaugural season was to record surface features in a three square kilometer area to the west, north, and east of Tel Jezreel in order to identify areas for excavation in summer 2013 (Figure 1). The Jezreel team documented more than 360 features, including cisterns, cave tombs, rock-cut tombs, agricultural and industrial installations, terrace and village walls, quarries and more; most of these features had never been systematically recorded before. The results of this survey shed light on the extent of different settlements at Jezreel from late prehistory through to the 20th century CE Palestinian village of Zer’in.

The article also includes an image from the recent LiDAR scan. The city of Jezreel is best known as the location of Naboth’s vineyard and Jehu’s coup. Here Jehu ordered the deaths of the kings of Israel and Judah as well as Queen Jezebel (2 Kings 9-10). In a 2008 article, co-director Franklin argued that the fortified enclosure of Jezreel was constructed not by Ahab but nearly a century later by Jeroboam II. Tel Jezreel and Mount Gilboa from the west (photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands, volume 2)

Tagged Discoveries, Jezreel Valley