If you’ve been looking for photos of Iran/Persia, you won’t find any in the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. Maybe one day I’ll make it there, but I don’t have any plans in the near future. In the meantime, Stephen Jones has sent a link to a terrific collection of photos on flickr, including Susa, Persepolis, and some from the Iranian National Museum. The photos include helpful historical descriptions.
Leen Ritmeyer mentions that the current (December) issue of National Geographic includes a poster supplement of the Temple Mount. He includes a picture of the poster and tells a little bit about his role in its creation. He links to the NG website, but I cannot find a way to buy just a single issue. My guess is that a newstand copy would not include the poster, and that a subscription ($15/year) ordered now would not include this issue. But if you already have a subscription, don’t discard the poster insert before realizing what a resource you have.
- Tagged Jerusalem, Resources, Temple Mount
Visitors to Israel may remember the Biblical Gardens located at Tantur, founded by Jim Fleming (Biblical Resources). That wonderful center lost its lease in the late 1990s, and moved to a smaller facility in Ein Karem. The location was more off the beaten track and the steep decline in tourists that started in late 2000 bode ill for the center. Several years ago I read that all of its large archaeological replicas were going to be purchased by Bridges for Peace. The center then “moved” to Georgia (about 70 miles sw of Atlanta), where it provides similar instruction about biblical life and times those who may not be able to travel to Israel.
The facility at Ein Karem has a new tenant carrying out a similar work as its predecessor. Haaretz reports on the Bible Times Center and Heritage Garden.
Before she moved to Israel, Hannah Trasher used to be a professional fashion designer. Today, she spends most of her days dressed up as an ancient Israelite, sporting sandals, a robe and a turban-like head wrap worn by upper class Jewish women during the Second Temple period.
Two years ago, Thrasher, 57, came from the United States to Ein Kerem, the picturesque village in southwest Jerusalem, to become the executive director of the Bible Times Center and Heritage Garden, which she founded and built largely with her own savings. Nestled in the green hills surrounding the capital and tucked away between small streets and rustic churches, the center allows groups of tourists and curious Israelis, tourists and school children to travel back in time to experience how Jews – and non-Jews – lived in the land of Israel in biblical times…
The center, which is housed in a ten-room multistory building from the days of the Ottoman empire, also includes a threshing floor, a stone quarry, a stable with mangers, a wine press, a watch tower, a wedding canopy and a replica of an ancient gravesite.
Trasher, who was born in Louisiana but lived in Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Texas before settling in Jerusalem, started learning about Jewish history about 30 years ago, and has since led many study groups from the U.S. to Israel. On her tours, she often stopped by at the World of the Bible Archaeological Museum and Pilgrim Center, which until 2006 operated in the same house where she later built the Bible Times Center. But when the director of the old center, biblical archaeology and history scholar Jim Fleming, was given an enormous grant to build a similar project in Atlanta, Thrasher suddenly found the site abandoned.
“I was just crushed, as were many people, that this place wasn’t available anymore,” she said about her decision to move to Israel to establish her own bible center. Although she had always appreciated her predecessor’s work, she found that he approached the topic too intellectually. “It was a place that attracted many scholars from all around the world,” she said, “but that was not my vision for the place.”
The rest of the story is here.
HT: Joe Lauer
UPDATE: The current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review arrived in my mailbox today and it includes an article on the new “Explorations in Antiquity Center” of Jim Fleming/Biblical Resources. Based on the write-up and what I remember from the center in Israel, it sounds like a worthwhile visit for any interested in the biblical world and passing through Georgia. One strange thing: the BAR article starts in the first-person, but I cannot find the author’s name listed. It begins, “I have never been to Israel,” so that rules out Shanks. The online version includes the first three paragraphs of the article and the author’s name: Dorothy Resig (a BAR editor).
- Tagged New Exhibits, Resources
Owen Chesnut has blogged about Archaeologist Yosi Garfinkel’s presentation (and questions) yesterday at the ASOR meeting about Khirbet Qeiyafa.
The excavators have posted a “chronicle” of events related to the discovery of the Kh. Qeiyafa ostracon, including when they celebrated with a beer and when (and by whom) details leaked to the public. (HT: Yitzhak Sapir).
National Geographic has a good article on the problem of the looting of archaeological sites in Israel.
If you’ve ever bought an antiquity, you help to create the demand, and perhaps this article will help shed light for you on just how destructive the antiquities market is.
PBS broadcast a special earlier this week on the Bible and archaeology, entitled “The Bible’s Buried Secrets.” You can watch the entire 2-hour show online, get a summary, or read the whole transcript.
The perspective was decidedly mainstream, with no indication that there is a large group of conservative scholars who reject many of the conclusions of mainstream scholars. The program was well produced and featured interviews with many scholars.
Zachi Zweig recently produced photographs of a Byzantine mosaic floor discovered under Al Aqsa Mosque between 1938 and 1942. Zweig is certain that this was part of a Byzantine church on the Temple Mount. To this point, it has generally been held that the Byzantines left the Temple Mount in ruins. The 6th century Medeba Map does not show any buildings in this area. Underneath the mosaic floor was a Jewish ritual bath (mikveh). The story is in the Jerusalem Post, and Leen Ritmeyer comments at his blog.
Google Earth has added a layer for Ancient Rome as it stood in A.D. 320. Judging from a 2-minute video preview, this is an extraordinary resource. As with the rest of Google Earth, it is free. It probably would not be difficult to remove a few buildings and create a layer for Rome in the 1st century. Perhaps someone will be so motivated.
Leen Ritmeyer has created a less detailed Jerusalem layer that shows the city in the 1st century.
(UPDATE 11/20: This layer is no longer available.)
This story has been around before, but perhaps its re-circulation indicates that progress is being made.
The JPost reports that plans are underway for the world’s first underwater archaeology museum in Alexandria.
“The whole Bay of Alexandria actually still houses the remains of very important archeological sites. You have the place of the Pharaohs – the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria – which is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. You have the Polonike Palace, which was the palace of Cleopatra, and there might also be the grave of Alexander the Great,” she said.
- Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Jerusalem, Resources, Temple Mount
National Geographic is promoting its upcoming special on “Herod’s Lost Tomb” with a number of special features on its website, including photos, reconstructions, video clips, and a game.
HT: BibleX
The Gath expedition has produced a DVD of the 2008 season with dozens of photographs and a couple of PowerPoint presentations. You can get it for $15 including shipping.
If you’ve ever needed a quick, colorful map of a biblical site, bibleatlas.org can help. When you arrive at the website, you may be put off with a block of apparently endless text. Don’t give up though – simply search for the name of your city, click the link, and you’ll have a map. Click the map box itself and you can get a high-resolution version of the region. The maps are made using BibleMapper (which we’ve praised before here), and the quality is excellent. To summarize, on the positive side: incredibly fast, pre-made maps, with liberal usage allowances. On the negative side, it gives maps labeling cities, not events. The Bible Atlas is part of a much larger site, Biblos.com, which has many free resources, and more coming.
- Tagged Herod's Tomb, Resources, Shephelah