If you’ve ever thought it strange that they call them “pottery baskets” when they’re really just plastic buckets, the photo below may help.
This photo was taken in the first season of William F. Albright’s excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim (1926). It is one of 25 photos taken at the site included in the newly published Southern Palestine volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (originally Library of Congress, LC-matpc-05733).
There are not many computer programs that I am wildly ecstatic about, but Google Earth qualifies even if no others do. If you haven’t yet downloaded it, I recommend it.
I’ve been doing some reading recently on Pompeii. I think my fascination with the city may in part be owing to my “discovery” of the site years after I thought I had been to the most important ruins of the Middle East and Mediterranean world. When I visited, I felt that I had been cheated for years.
Why had no one sat me down and told me in a most serious tone that I must discard all other travel plans and get myself to Pompeii? Apparently I do not have friends who love me enough.
Sadly I learned very little from my delay in visiting Pompeii in Real Life, for I have done no better in visiting Pompeii in Google Earth. I had no idea what a treat was awaiting me. At least for those used to staring at the fuzzy, low-resolution imagery of Israel, Pompeii is a beautiful contrast. (To find Pompeii quickly, paste these coordinates in the “Fly To” box: 40.750262°14.486046°).
Here is a comparison, with screenshots taken in Google Earth from the same elevation above the sites.
Forum and Temple of Augustus, in PompeiiI don’t know what it’s going to take before we see high-quality satellite imagery in the Middle East.
The Jerusalem Post has an interesting article on the modern map of Israel and the man in charge.
Most Israelis and Jordanians are probably unaware that the border between their countries isn’t really fixed. The boundary runs directly through the center of the Jordan River, but should the river naturally change its course, so too will the border. It is one of many secrets held by Dr. Haim Srebro, director-general of the Survey of Israel center. For decades, Srebro has been working to give the State of Israel its final borders. When the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan were signed, Srebro and his Arab counterparts worked behind the scenes, away from the limelight and photo-ops of leaders shaking hands, to draw up some of the Middle East’s best-known frontiers. "The Jordan River is constantly changing. If it alters its route naturally, according to our agreement with the Jordanians, we recognize the change. But if the river is redirected artificially and suddenly, the border remains fixed," he said this week, speaking from his spacious office at the Survey of Israel’s Tel Aviv headquarters…. Jordan is now working to develop a $27 million complex in Aqaba, complete with hotels and lagoons, funded largely by investment from the Gulf states. The proximity of the development to the Israeli border means that Srebro and Sagarat have had to be called in for advice. "The border fence isn’t actually on the border. It’s on Israel’s side, meaning that the Jordanians could have crossed into Israel without knowing it. That’s why they are now building a border fence on their side, too," Srebro explained. During the 1979 peace negotiations with Egypt, Srebro employed the cutting edge technique of using bridged straight aerial photographs (known as orthophotos) to draw up a new border between the countries following Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. "I told the Egyptians, we’ll do something together. Let’s set up a committee, so that you can check on us and we’ll check on you," Srebro recalled. At first, the Americans, who were brokering the talks, handed both sides an abstract map of the new proposed border, but Srebro said the map, which lacked any physical features, was useless. "For the first time in a peace treaty, aerial photographs were used to plan a border," he said. The Egyptians were so pleased with the result that they sent Srebro a statue of Nefertiti to thank him.
The complete article is here.
The LA Times has a good article on the recent photographing of the 5-line early Hebrew ostracon found at Khirbet Qeiyafa. One portion:
The result is hundreds of high-resolution images shot with different light filters. Using a process called spectral imaging, Boydston and Bill Christens-Barry, another imaging expert, aimed to maximize the contrast of the ink, made of charcoal and animal fat, against the terra-cotta piece.
Although they didn’t find any hidden text, the images will be sent back to Israel. Other high-tech images were produced — using slightly different imaging techniques — at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and two other technical shops on the East Cost. [sic]
Once the shard’s message is fully scrutinized and decoded, findings will be published in scholarly journals by Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, who led the dig. A few words already deciphered — “slave,” “king,” “land” and “judge” — indicate that it may be a legal text, lending weight to some scholars’ belief that King David wielded considerable power over the Israelites.
The article gives much background about the firm that took the photographs, including mention of an early digital camera that they created – that weighed 300 pounds (136 kg)!
HT: Paleojudaica (who also notes some speculation about the contents of the ostracon)
Fifteen years ago, virtually no one could see the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a few years, maybe everyone will be able to, without leaving their home. From the NY Times:
In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.
Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact….
The entire collection was photographed only once before — in the 1950s using infrared and those photographs are stored in a climate-controlled room since they show things already lost from some of the scrolls. The old infrared pictures will also be scanned in the new digital effort.
“The project began as a conservation necessity,” Ms. Shor explained. “We wanted to monitor the deterioration of the scrolls and realized we needed to take precise photographs to watch the process. That’s when we decided to do a comprehensive set of photos, both in color and infrared, to monitor selectively what is happening. We realized then that we could make the entire set of pictures available online to everyone, meaning that anyone will be able to see the scrolls in the kind of detail that no one has until now.”
The process will probably take one to two years — more before it is available online — and is being led by Greg Bearman, who retired from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Data collection is directed by Simon Tanner of Kings College London. Mr. Bearman is also using a specially made, $75,000 spectral camera that can produce a photographic image of previously illegible sections.
The rest of the story is here.
HT: Joe Lauer
A Byzantine cemetery has been discovered in construction work at the hospital of Ashkelon (JPost).
An arsonist set several fires in the Tel Dan nature reserve, burning half of the 120-acre park. They hope to re-open the park later this week (JPost).
A rare marble discus was discovered underwater at Yavne-Yam. The disk, 8 inches in diameter, was used to ward off the evil eye in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. (IAA; Arutz-7; Haaretz; JPost).
The hotel where Mark Twain stayed in Jerusalem has been identified (Haaretz).
Israeli, Palestinian, and German scholars will be studying bones unearthed at Jericho by Kathleen Kenyon in order to study the DNA so as to identify genes that made the ancient inhabitants more or less susceptible to tuberculosis (Guardian).
Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg discusses two Jewish temples known from Egypt, one at Leontopolis (Tell el-Yehudiyeh) and the other on Elephantine Island (Yeb, Aswan) (JPost).