Tourism Archives - Page 63 of 97

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists found Egyptian artifacts from the Late Kingdom period in a cave in southern Israel near Kibbutz Lahav.

Arad would like to become a tourist destination in southern Israel.

A researcher believes that the famous “Meidum Geese” painting from ancient Egypt is actually a modern fake.

The 2,000-year-old date palm known as Methuselah has turned out to be male, but there is hope that another seed may produce a female plant. The scientist would like to produce an orchard of ancient date palm trees.

A large Iron Age fortification has been discovered at Ashdod-Yam, the port of the ancient Philistine city of Ashdod.

Eisenbrauns is having a big sale on excavation reports, including works on Ashkelon, Tel Malhata, Megiddo, Tell el-Borg, Timnah, and Dothan.

Tel Burna – The Late Bronze and Iron Age Remains after Five Seasons, by Chris McKinny, Deborah Cassuto, and Itzhaq Shai.

New from Zondervan: The Most Significant People, Places, and Events in the Bible: A Quickview Guide, by Christopher Hudson.

Larry G. Herr favorably reviews Biblical Lachish, by David Ussishkin.

A £2 million statue looted from Cyrenaica, Libya, was confiscated upon entry to the UK.

A new video shows ISIS destroying Iraq’s UNESCO World Heritage city of Hatra.

The British Museum has proposed lending the Elgin Marbles to Greece.

They’re using drones in Jordan to track the looting of ancient tombs.

Test your knowledge of Bible numbers with the BAR Anniversary Bible Quiz.

HT: Charles Savelle, Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Jordan, Museums, Negev, Philistines, Resources, Shephelah, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Just before Palm Sunday, Jesus made the trek from Jericho to Jerusalem. What did he see?

A good book to read this week in the days leading up to Good Friday is The Final Days of Jesus, now $3.99 on Kindle.

The Temple Institute has built a sacrificial altar to be used in the Third Temple. Leen Ritmeyer comments.

Who is buried in the Prophetess Hulda’s tomb on the Mount of Olives? Miriam Feinberg Vamosh considers the question in a premium article at Haaretz.

The city of Afula plans to preserve its archaeological remains which span from the Chalcolithic to the Crusader periods.

Aren Maeir visited Hebron and took some photos of the ancient fortifications.

Leon Mauldin is in Athens now and shares some photos from the acropolis museum.

A large underground city has been discovered in Cappadocia.

You can vote for your favorite excavation photo in this year’s AIA Photo Contest. (No registration required.)

Now $0.99 on Kindle: The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament, by Eugene H.
Merrill, Mark Rooker, and Michael A. Grisanti. Also $0.99 on Vyrso.

HT: Agade

Tagged Excavations, Greece, Holidays, Jerusalem, Judah, Museums, Resources, Temple Mount, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 3

Now online: Secrets of the Bible: The Fall of Jericho with Dr. Bryant Wood. (55 min)

Malerie Yolen-Cohen suggests 11 things to do in Israel that you may not have considered before.

The Holy Land Magazine is directed towards Christian tourists to Israel.

Ferrell Jenkins writes about Solomon’s Quarries in Jerusalem and the American missionary who discovered them in the 19th century.

Jenkins also shares a great quote from André Parrot who writes that “knowledge gained from books is certainly not enough, for names which are not attached to any reality are nothing more than ghosts.” Read the whole paragraph (and then book your next trip, or start a fund for your grandkid).

Turkish authorities are trying to figure out how to increase religious tourism to the site of ancient Ephesus.

The LA Times provides some background on the making of the Jerusalem 3D IMAX movie.

“The Siege of Masada” premieres on March 27 on the Smithsonian Channel. The one-hour special examines the evidence behind Josephus’ account.

Gerald McDermott addresses the question of whether the land of Israel should still be significant for Christians in a chapel message DTS.

HT: Agade, Jay Baggett, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Wayne Stiles

Tagged Exodus-Conquest, Jerusalem, Movies, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Iraq’s government reports that ISIS has bulldozed ancient Calah (modern Nimrud).

In light of ISIS’s recent destruction of Mosul, Iraq is vowing to protect ancient Babylon.

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has issued a statement.

Citizens of Iraq and Syria are working to protect their historic treasures from destruction by ISIS.

A project has begun to “use crowd-sourced imagery to digitally reconstruct the heritage that has been destroyed.”

Daniel Pipes argues that “the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims.”

The U.S. government has returned more than 60 artifacts illegally smuggled out of Iraq, including the head of an Assyrian lamassu from the palace of Sargon II.

Egypt will no longer grant visas to individual tourists upon arrival. You will need to apply in advance from an Egyptian embassy. Or travel instead to Israel, Jordan, Turkey, or Greece.

The Associates for Biblical Research has just released a new video, Digging Up the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

How was Trajan’s Column in Rome constructed? National Geographic features a stop-motion video that suggests an method. It is quite an extraordinary accomplishment.

We’ll have more links tomorrow.

HT: Agade, Charles Savelle

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Egypt, Italy, Mesopotamia, Movies, Museums, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Bible Marathon Traces Route of Shiloh Runner

The 26-mile race to be held on April 9 follows the path of the Benjamite who ran to tell Eli of the capture of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 4). From the official website:

One of the first runs recorded in human history—long before the “marathon” told of in Greek mythology—is mentioned in the Bible, in the beginning of the book of Samuel. At the end of the war between the Israelites and the Philistines, the “man of Benjamin” runs from the battlefield at Eben Ezer (modern day Rosh Ha’ayin) to Shiloh, city of the shrine. His runner’s mission is to inform Eli the priest of Israel’s defeat in this war, the falling of his sons, and the capture of the Ark of the Covenant.
Many centuries later, after the Six Day War, the founder of the Maccabiah games, Yosef Yekutieli, set out to measure the length of the course from Rosh Ha’ayin to Shiloh, in the Benjamin region. He was amazed to find that the length of this historic path precisely matched that of the modern marathon – 42 kilometers (the official length of the Olympic running contest, determined in 1908 at the London Olympics). In the 1970s, Yekutieli initiated various marathons in the wake of the Biblical “man of Benjamin”. It is truly amazing, the thought that if only someone had informed the Baron de Coubertin, founder of the 42 km Olympic run, of the Biblical story, then perhaps instead of “marathon” it would be called one of the following: Shiloh Race, Man of Benjamin, or Bible Race.

More details here.

Shiloh aerial from the east
Photo by Barry Beitzel, available in the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Holidays, Samaria, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

Chris Jones has a careful assessment of the damage at the Mosul Museum. Some of the items destroyed were replicas but many were originals.

The Iraqi Prime Minister has condemned the destruction of antiquities from Nimrud and Nineveh by IS. The United Nations Security Council has condemned the latest “barbaric terrorist acts.” Some experts see the video primarily as propaganda. Ferrell Jenkins provides some background and photos he took in 1970.

Militants have also taken control of Ezra’s tomb in Iraq.

Syria is blaming Turkey for the flow of artifacts out of the country.

What are Judean Pillar Figurines? Erin Darby explains our interest, their importance, and their use for protection and healing.

One of the divers gives his account of the discovery of the treasure of golden coins in the Caesarea harbor.

The downside of such discoveries is increased looting by everyone who thinks that they’ll be the next to find buried gold.

D. Scott Stripling: 2014 Excavations at Kh. el-Maqatir: A Proposed New Location for the Ai of Joshua 7–8 and Ephraim of John 11:53-54

The Jezreel Expedition used airborne LiDAR to prepare for an old-fashioned foot survey that showed that Jezreel is much larger than previously thought.

Dothan appears only twice in the Bible, and Wayne Stiles explains the lesson we can learn from Joseph and Elisha.

The Biblical Museum of Natural History recently opened in Beit Shemesh and it includes a skull of what they identify as behemoth.

Popular Archaeology has a profile of the recent excavations of Tel ‘Eton (biblical Eglon?).

Haaretz: What does it mean when a biblical figure “sat in the gate”?

Shmuel Ahituv has been awarded the 2015 Israel Prize for Bible Studies.

Israeli and Jordan authorities have signed a historic agreement on water sharing that includes sharing water from a desalination plant to be built in Aqaba.

The city of Jerusalem plans to build seven public swimming pools.

Newly released: I. M. Swinnen and E. Gubel, eds., From Gilead to Edom. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Jordan, in Honor of Denyse Homès-Fredericq on the Occasion of Her Eightieth Birthday. Akkadica Supplementum XII. Wetteren: Cultura, 2014.

I’ll be traveling the next couple of weekends and unable to collect stories or write round-ups. If you see anything of interest, send me an email and I’ll include it at the next opportunity.

HT: Ferrell Jenkins, Charles Savelle, Agade, Joseph Lauer

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Samaria, Shephelah, Syria, Technology, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup