Tourism Archives - Page 80 of 96

Wednesday Roundup

Tom Powers describes the City of David excavation over which Eilat Mazar is up in arms.

The Jerusalem Post has ten photos of the Samaritan celebration of Sukkot.

Joe Yudin recommends five family hikes in Israel for the holiday: Nahal Zavitan, Nahal Oren, Nahal David, Nahal Zin, and Mount Zephahot.

Wayne Stiles explains the importance of the Pool of Siloam to an event in Jesus’ life besides the healing of the blind man.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg provides the Archaeology in Israel Update: September 2011, with summaries of the Two-Horned Alter [sic] from Tell-es Safi [sic], Damascus Gate Restored, Kenyon Institute, Continuous Occupation at Yavne Yam, the Underground Passage from Robinson’s Arch to Siloam Pool, and TCorpus of Graffiti Inscriptions.

A Palestinian archaeologist is attempting to bring Israel to trial at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their excavations near the Temple Mount. Professor Hamdan Taha is also the Palestinian Authority minister responsible for antiquities and culture and he is currently leading the restoration of Shechem (Tel Balata) previously mentioned here.

The Art Newspaper reviews some of the latest political goings-on in Turkey with regard to archaeology, permits, and Germany.

All is not well with the Dead Sea Scroll digitization project, say some scholars.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Tagged Jerusalem, Palestinian Revisionism, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

Michael S. Heiser, at the Paleobabble blog, shares an article on limestone quarrying in Spain that may shed light on how similar activity was carried out in Israel. From the abstract:

It appears that one of the quarrying methods used was based on the chemical dissociation by fire of standing stone blocks at their attachment points,a technique hitherto unknown or unreported in the literature.

Israel has its first crocodiles in the wild since the last one was shot in 1912. Fortunately the 50 escapees from the crocodile farm in the Jordan Rift have now been captured. Bonus question: where is the Crocodile River located in Israel?

Paul’s first preaching stop in what is today Turkey was at Perga (Acts 13:13). Archaeologists there are now celebrating 65 years of excavation.

An archaeological park has opened at Claros (Klaros), not far from Smyrna (Izmir).

The Jordan Times is reporting an uptick in the number of visitors to the “Bethany Beyond the Jordan” baptismal site.

Archaeological sites in Syria are apparently not faring well in the current bloodletting. The danger to Mari is noted in a recent story.

The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History, by Weston W. Fields, is reviewed by Jaqueline Du Toit. She writes,

“In conclusion, volume 1 of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History is an inestimable contribution to scrolls historiography. It will appeal to scholars and students of biblical scholarship, but also to academia in general and a popular audience. Despite its price, which curtails its mass appeal, it is highly recommended. And, based on the riveting narrative still unfolding, volume 2 is awaited with great anticipation.”

Joe Yudin takes readers on a tour of part of the Old City of Jerusalem, focusing on remains of the Tenth Roman Legion. He gives a good tour but he makes a significant mistake in dating the Cardo to the Roman period. While the northern portion (beginning at Damascus Gate) was constructed by Hadrian, the southern portion was only built in the time of Justinian in the Byzantine period.

(Excavator Nahman Avigad was surprised to make this discovery in his excavations; he discusses it at length on pages 225-27 of the excellent Discovering Jerusalem. I was about to write this is a very difficult work to find, for indeed it was for many years, but now Amazon has used copies starting at $4.63. I’ve bought several over the years for $60.)

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a camera that lets you focus after you’ve taken the shot?

Answer to the crocodile question: the Nahal Taninim (Crocodile River) runs on the northern end of the Sharon Plain, just below Mount Carmel.

HT: Explorator, Joseph Lauer, G. M. Grena

Nahal Taninim and Sharon Plain from Mount Carmel

Tagged Jerusalem, Jordan, Resources, Syria, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Campaigns against Privatization of Israel’s National Parks

From the Jerusalem Post:

Both the Society for the Protection of Nature and liberal NGO Ir Amim have launched in the past two days parallel but unrelated campaigns against government plans to privatize 120 national parks.
Led by MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima), the government bill that would make the parks available for sale passed by majority vote in its preliminary Knesset reading on July 27.
Among the parks slated for privatization, SPNI expressed specific concern about Palmachim Beach, the Judean Mountains National Park, Mekorot Hayarkon National Park, Hof Hasharon, the Carmel, Mount Tabor, the Alexander River and Masada.
While the two campaigns against the bill have no direct affiliation to each other, they have nearly the same names – SPNI’s movement is called “Nature is not for sale” and Ir Amim’s operation is called “Not for sale” – and both argue that natural, public space must remain under national control.
“The goal of the campaign is to convey the unequivocal message that it is forbidden to sell nature and to arouse the public to oppose the bill and sign a petition,” a spokesman from SPNI said in a statement.

The story continues here.

Masada National Park may be sold by the government of Israel.

Tagged Tourism

Google Street View To Photograph Jerusalem Today

If you are around and about Jerusalem and want to be immortalized in Google Street View, you might spend more time walking on the sidewalk in the coming days. From Janglo:

If you spend your days in Jerusalem, you might want to try spending as much of them outdoors as possible. That is, if you want to have a chance at ending up in Google Street View maps of Jerusalem. Google recently received permission to start imaging cities in Israel and including them in the street view maps. This afternoon they are firing their opening shots, having decided to begin their imaging in Jerusalem. They will be holding a ceremony in Jerusalem with Mayor Nir Barkat to kick off the process.. So, if you hang out in the great outdoors of Jerusalem enough in the immediately near future, you might just end up as a pedestrian in Google Street View maps.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Tuesday Roundup

Masada is profiled by Elad Benari and accompanied by a five-minute video produced by Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

CitySights has created a one-minute wordless video of the Ramparts Walk atop the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The accompanying article includes a few statistics:

The walls stretch for some 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles), rising to a height of up to 15 meters, (49 feet), with an average thickness of 3 meters (10 ft). Along the course of the walls are 11 gates to the Old City, seven of which are open: New Gate, Damascus Gate, Herod’s Gate, Lions’ Gate, Dung Gate, Jaffa Gate, and Zion Gate.

Ferrell Jenkins uses one of his aerial photos to make a powerful point about what is “known but mostly unknown.”

A five-year old boy and a 25-year-old woman drowned in separate incidents in the Sea of Galilee earlier this week.

The Israel Museum has welcomed one million visitors since the renovated campus reopened last year.

HT: ShalomIL, Paleojudaica

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Museums, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Google Street View Approved in Israel

Today’s government decision is reported in the Jerusalem Post:

The Justice Ministry announced on Monday its decision to allow the controversial Google Street View service to run in Israel. A function of Google’s existing maps service, Street View allows users to view panoramic street level photographs of city streets and other locations in the country. […] Only after lengthy negotiations with Google did the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority (ILITA), part of the Justice Ministry, agree to roll out the service here. […] To produce the images that make up Street View, for example, Google uses vehicles that drive down streets taking millions of digital photographs and recording location data using sophisticated technology. These images and data are transferred to a database held in the USA, which is outside Israel’s jurisdiction. Under the agreement ILITA has reached with Google, however, Israeli citizens will be able to file civil litigation against Google regarding the company’s Israeli operations, via Google Israel, the internet giant’s local branch. Under the same agreement, Google Israel will provide an online service for Israelis to opt out of the service by demanding that Google blur all images of their homes, license plates and themselves. Google also agreed that the cars used to take the millions of digital photographs will be clearly marked so that residents can recognize them as they pass along the streets.

More of the legal issues are discussed in the Jerusalem Post. I would like to see Street View including antiquities sites, such as the excavations south of the Temple Mount, the site of Beth Shean, and even more distant ruins such as those at Beersheba and Arad.

Tagged Tourism