From the Daily Democrat:

Soon, Yolo County residents won’t have to travel to Israel for a tour of the Holy Land. Locals will be able to stop by the Woodland Museum of Biblical Archaeology at Woodland United Fellowship, 240 N. West St., to visit a collection of artifacts from Biblical times.
The museum’s humble beginnings began in the foyer of Woodland United Fellowship a year ago.
Pastor Carl Morgan began a display case with a few juglets and lamps from archaeological digs he participated in, and the collection continued to grow.
“We live in a time when the Bible has come under a lot of criticism and attack as not being reliable or authoritative,” Morgan said. “Archaeology allows us to see the geography and historicity of the Bible is correct. Many times, we’ve been able to find a name or a city (on a dig) associated with a Biblical event, and we’re able to say to the critics, ‘They’re not myths. The Bible is accurate.’ It also helps build your faith.”
On the west wall of the museum artifacts from mainly the Middle Bronze Age (2200 BC to 1550 BC) will be displayed. Visitors will find sling stones, which were used as weapons and swung with a leather strap. They will also see swords from 2000 BC and a sacrificial knife from the time of Abraham.
There is pottery dated beyond 3000 BC and a battle-axe on display that dates at least 500 years before the time of Abraham.
“That’s the oldest piece of metal you’ll ever hold,” Morgan said.

The story continues here.  If they’ll let you hold it, they’ll probably let you take a picture of it as well. 

Which is something you won’t get at many other museums.  Woodland is 20 miles northwest of Sacramento.

HT: Joe Lauer

The International Herald Tribune has the story:

It may sound like the escapist indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat Khoudary opens the first ever museum of archaeology in Gaza this month, it will be an act of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad.

Now only if there was a way for non-Palestinians to get there.  If he’s depending on revenue from Palestinians interested in history, he is going to be a poor man.

The exhibit is housed in a stunning hall made up partly of the saved stones of old houses, discarded wood ties of a former railroad and bronze lamps and marble columns uncovered by Gazan fishermen and construction workers.
And while the display might be pretty standard stuff almost anywhere else – arrowheads, Roman anchors, Bronze Age vases and Byzantine columns – life is currently so gray in Gaza that the museum, with its glimpses of a rich outward-looking history, seems somehow dazzling.
“The idea is to show our deep roots from many cultures in Gaza,” Khoudary said as he sat in the lush, antiquities-filled garden of his Gaza City home a few miles from the museum. “It’s important that people realize we had a good civilization in the past. Israel has legitimacy from its history. We do too.”

Someone’s going to have to explain this one to me.  I’m not sure how Roman or Byzantine antiquities have anything to do with the legitimacy of Palestinian Arabs. 

It’s a good article with a nice photo.  I recommend reading the whole thing, and I hope the venture is successful.

HT: Joe Lauer

If you’re in Israel this summer, you may be disappointed that the Archaeology wing of the Israel Museum is closed for renovation (until 2010 or so).  But some students of mine yesterday were going through other sections of the museum and found the Tel Dan Inscription displayed in the Youth wing.  The anthropoid sarcophagi are also on display.

The Isaiah Scroll is on display now until the end of August.  While two shorter sections of the scroll have been rotated on the permanent display over the years, the two longest sections have not been displayed since 1967.  Visitors can now see Isaiah 1-28 and 44-66.

Update (5/21): The above has been corrected to reflect that the inscription is in the Youth wing.