Those in Jerusalem this month have a rare opportunity to visit the Kishle prison inside Jerusalem’s Old City. For two thousand years, this site atop Jerusalem’s Western Hill has served the city’s rulers as a fortress and police station. King Herod’s palace was constructed on the site and guarded by three towers. After the Romans destroyed the palace, the Tenth Roman Legion placed their encampment on the site. The Ottoman rulers constructed the present prison in the 1800s, and the British occupiers continued its use. From 1948 to 1967 the Jordanians used the site as a police station, and the Israelis have followed suit. According to the AP article, the jail has never been open to visitors.

An old Turkish prison in Jerusalem is briefly opening to the public this weekend, allowing visitors a rare glimpse inside an infamous local landmark.
[…]
Israeli archaeologists dug underneath the Kishle a decade ago and found important remains dating back nearly three millennia, including walls built by King Herod and medieval facilities for dyeing fabric.
“On this tiny spot we have the whole story of Jerusalem, from the Judean kings to the British mandate,” said Amit Re’em, the Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist who excavated the Kishle.
The prison sits next to the Tower of David, an ancient fortress on the western flank of Jerusalem’s Old City. The tower complex, used as a stronghold and palace by Herod, early Muslim rulers, Crusaders and the Jordanian army, among others, is now a museum dedicated to Jerusalem’s history.

The full story is here.

If I was in Jerusalem this month, I’d get a group together and hire an expert like Gabriel Barkay or Shimon Gibson to give an archaeological tour.

HT: The Bible and Interpretation

Police station Kishleh in Armenian Quarter, tb042403893

Kishle police station from north

From the Jerusalem Post:

A special Knesset session of the Jerusalem Lobby on Wednesday was dedicated to exploring the feasibility of a cable car leading to the Old City, which supporters claim will improve accessibility for tourists with disabilities and reduce traffic. “I remember the cable car on Mount Zion during the War of Independence,” Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said at the opening of the session. “There are things that seem impossible – like a cable car passing over us – because they require more effort on behalf of future generations.” Rivlin added that the traffic from the 150,000 tourists per month in the Old City creates “unbearable crowding” that also stops Jerusalemites from moving freely around their city. Rivlin proposed an economic feasibility study to examine the cost of such an initiative in greater detail. According to a plan from the Transportation Ministry, a cable car could carry up to 4,000 passengers an hour, eliminating the need for some of the 3,000 buses that drive in and around the Old City each month. The plan also stipulated that the cable car would be environmentally friendly and would not harm the view or surroundings of the historic area. The cable car would stretch across the Kidron Valley, from the building that houses the Government Printing Office on Rehov Miriam Hashmonaite, to the Dung Gate. The 1,030-meter-long ride would take approximately 3 minutes, 30 seconds.

The full story is here. I perceive a few obstacles and I wouldn’t rush to buy stock in the company just yet. As best as I can determine, the cable car would begin near the old train station (Miriam HaHashmonait is on its south end and intersects with Hebron Road). In that case, the cable car does not pass over the Kidron Valley at all, but travelers would cross over the Hinnom Valley. A more impressive route would be several hundred meters above the Old City. Jerusalem-cable-car-route Possible cable car route over Hinnom Valley; screenshot from Google Earth

I would not have guessed that there are so many. In an area the size of New Jersey, the land of Israel is blessed with an extraordinary amount of natural beauty and variety. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes the abundance in an article posted yesterday.

Looking at Israel on a map, it’s hard to imagine how hundreds of nature reserves could fit into this tiny country along with 7.7 million people. In fact, the roster of about 250 designated Israeli nature reserves and national parks – covering more than a million acres of land — is growing every year.
In addition to well-known sites such as Masada, Ein Gedi, the Hula Valley or Caesarea, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) oversees close to 20 sites each in the Golan Heights/Upper Galilee, Negev/Eilat and Sea of Galilee/Mount Carmel regions; a dozen in central Israel; eight in the Judean Desert and Dead Sea area; and a handful in Judea and Samaria. Overnight camping facilities are available in 26 of Israel’s national parks.
These areas represent an unusually wide variety of landscapes and climates for a single country. In the far north is Mount Hermon with its snow-capped peaks in the winter. In the west is the green Mediterranean-fed landscape and wetlands. In the south are arid expanses of desert. Israel also is home to two unique natural wonders: the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth; and Makhtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater), the world’s largest natural crater.

The article continues here.

What is your favorite national park or nature reserve in Israel? We’ve put together a little poll in which you can give your opinion. Since we cannot list all 250 parks, we have chosen ten of our favorites. Feel free to suggest others in the comments.
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You can see a list of some of the parks in each region of the country (numbered listed in parentheses):

En Gedi Nahal David with waterfalls, tb052307908

En Gedi Nature Reserve

From a press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority:

In a festive ceremony to be held Today – Tuesday, June 21, 2011, the Ophel City Wall site, a complex of buildings uncovered along the route of the fortifications from the First Temple period (tenth-sixth centuries BCE), and the display of the earliest written document ever uncovered in Jerusalem will be inaugurated. The opening of the site, located in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park, and the exhibit in the Davidson Center are made possible through the generous donation by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman.
[…]
Upon completion of the excavation and conservation work at the Ophel City Wall site, visitors will now be able to touch the stones and walls whose construction tells the history of Jerusalem throughout the ages. It is now possible to walk comfortably through the built remains, in places that were previously closed to the public, to sense their splendor and learn about the history of the region by the signage and the different means of presentation and illustration.
[…]IAA-IMG_1588
The highlight of the excavations is the complete exposure of the gate house. The plan of this impressive building includes four rooms of identical size, arranged on both sides of a broad corridor paved with crushed limestone. The plan of the gate house is characteristic of the First Temple period (tenth-sixth centuries BCE) and is similar to contemporaneous gates that were revealed at Megiddo, Be‘er Sheva’ and Ashdod. The excavator, Eilat Mazar, suggests identifying the gate house here with the ‘water gate’ mentioned in the Bible: “…and the temple servants living on Ophel repaired to a point opposite the Water Gate on the east and the projecting tower” (Nehemiah 3:26). The ground floor of a large building that was destroyed in a fierce conflagration can be seen east of the gate. Mazar suggests that this structure was destroyed by the Babylonian conquest of the city in 586 BCE. Twelve very large, clay store jars (pithoi), which probably contained wine or oil, were discovered on the floor of the building. Engraved on the shoulder of one of these pithoi is the Hebrew inscription “לשר האו…”. The inscription indicates that this pithos belonged to one of the kingdom’s ministers, perhaps the overseer of the bakers.
During the course of the excavation the earliest written document to be exposed to date in Jerusalem was discovered. This unique find, which is of extraordinary importance to the history of the city, will now be on permanent display to the public in the Davidson Center. This is a very small fragment of a clay tablet engraved in Akkadian cuneiform script, which was the lingua franca of the time. Among the very skillfully written words that can be read are the words: “you were”, “later”, “to do” and “they”. The tablet and the writing are typical of the tablets that were used in antiquity throughout Mesopotamia for international correspondence.

The full press release, along with 19 photographs (including the one above), is available at the IAA site (temporary link). I’d be curious to know if there are any other archaeologists who agree with Mazar’s identification of the structure she excavated as a gate. Some years ago it seemed that even those most sympathetic to her views did not follow her on this, but perhaps that has changed. I note that the press release does not state that this is a gate but that “Mazar suggests” that it is a gate.

Southern-Temple-Mount-Excavations-aerial-from-sw,-tb010703227sr

Temple Mount of Jerusalem from the southwest

UPDATE: Joseph Lauer sends along links to the story in the Jerusalem Post, Bloomberg, and Arutz-7.

UPDATE (6/22): Leen Ritmeyer provides his response to my question about the identification of the building.

Antiquities thieves were caught in the act of pillaging a site in the Shephelah. The specific site is not identified, but the article references “a severe wave of theft digs in the area of the Elah Valley near Beit Shemesh.” One is reminded of the recent Israeli archaeologist squabble in which Oded Lipschitz apparently accused Yosef Garfinkel of illegally excavating Socoh. Perhaps the authorities have now discovered the real culprits.

In the latest CitySights video, Danny Herman explores the suggested locations for the tomb of King David.

Leen Ritmeyer’s book on the Jerusalem temple is the best on the subject. David Lang reviews The Quest: Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the Accordance Blog.

The Wild West (Jerusalem): If you’re a tourist who wants to get a look at Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, you might want to think twice before venturing in. Apparently Israeli police consider the ultra-orthodox neighborhood a “no-go zone” because they are attacked when they enter. If you get in trouble, don’t expect the police to come to your rescue.

John Byron explains “Why Biblical Scholars Should Participate in at Least One Dig.” I think he only scratches the surface on the value of joining an excavation, but I believe there is at least one thing every biblical scholar (and full-time teacher of the Bible) should do: Go on a Study Tour of Israel. I wouldn’t say that one cannot teach the Bible without such a study, but neither would I say that a one-legged man cannot snow ski.

HT: BibleX