Rachel's tomb, located south of Jerusalem on the outskirts of Bethlehem in the West Bank, is widely considered the third holiest site in Judaism. Considered the burial spot of Biblical "eternal mother" Rachel, it's marked by a building shaped like a cube topped with a dome. The shrine is a popular pilgramage destination for Jews, particularly women unable to give birth, although access is severly restricted.
Because of security tensions, the shrine is surrounded by a fortified compound, and seperated from the rest of Bethlehem by an extension of the West Bank separation barrier. Only bullet-proof buses are allowed direct access. Palestinians refer to the tomb as Bilal ibn Rabah, and claim it has Muslim origins. They consider the placement of the wall as a land grab, and reject Israeli claims that it's a defensive structure intended to keep attackers out.
In 2010, the shrine was controversially added to Israel's list of national heritage sites by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Archaeologists from USC, UCLA and the Middle East have developed a searchable online map that details 7,000 archeological sites on the West Bank and Jerusalem - many of them never publicy disclosed. The map - an effort to identify Israeli archaeological activity since 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem - is freely accesibly online at the USC's Digital Library.
Built over several years through hundreds of hours of research, bolstered by freedom of information requests and, when necessary, a lawsuit in Israeli courts, the Web site provides interactive satellite maps showing locations of about 7,000 archaeological sites in the region, including:
Combining religion and science is impossible unless you're willing to get err... creative? Not quite true: although they might quarrel about the details, archaeologists and the scriptures do quite agree on major historical facts such as the destruction of Jericho, the rule of Herod the Great as well as King David's. Archaeology can help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times and such shed light upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The biblical archaeology school focusses on doing exactly this, and Professor Don Benjamin in his book 'Stones and Stories: An Introduction to Archaeology and the Bible' presents an overview of what archaeology has shown us regarding the worlds of the Bible. From the introduction of the book:
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 14:03
The excavations in the City of David, Jerusalem, which uncovered a third-century AD Roman villa just weeks ago, have now found something much older. Israeli archaeologists have found what they believe to be the region's earliest fort: a wall dating back 3,700 years.
Thought to have been built by the Canaanites, its original purpose was to protect the city's water supply and shows that they had considerable engineering skill and were able to construct major buildings – the wall is eight metres high.
The dig director, Ronny Reich, an archaeology professor at the University of Haifa, told the BBC: "The wall is enormous, and that it survived 3,700 years - this is, even for us, a long time.”
Submitted by Sean Williams on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 18:50
Israeli authorities are raging this week, after what they perceive to be their deliberate exclusion from a World Archaeological Congress on Wednesday. The conference, which concerned 'overcoming structural violence' and the negative impact of politics on archaeology, was held in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. The Israeli Antiquities Authority is outraged on three fronts: that their experts weren't informed of the event; that it was held in Palestine, which has a notoriously bad record on preserving ancient remains; and that the WAC conducted a tour of the Temple Mount and City of David Archaeological Park - even though both currently reside within Israeli hegemony.
A city lying 100 km south east of the Syrian capital Damascus, Canatha (now the village of Qanawat) was one of the ten cities that made up the Decapolis, as the name suggests a ten city confederation that enjoyed a degree independence within the Roman province of Palestine. In the 1st century AD it was annexed to the province of Syria, before moving yet again to become part of the province of Arabia when it was known as Septimia Canatha.
One of the regions's commercial centres, Canatha features a Roman bridge and a rock-hewn theatre (with nine tiers of seats and an orchestra nineteen meters in diameter) as well as a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, a large prostyle temple with portico and colonnades, and a peripteral temple of the Helios preceded by a double colonnade. The city also boasts a site known as Es-Serai, which dates from the 2nd century AD and was originally a temple before becoming a Christian basilica.
Archaeologists from USC, UCLA and the Middle East have developed a searchable online map that details 7,000 archeological sites on the West Bank and Jerusalem - many of them never publicy disclosed. The map - an effort to identify Israeli archaeological activity since 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem - is freely accesibly online at the USC's Digital Library.
Combining religion and science is impossible unless you're willing to get err... creative? Not quite true: although they might quarrel about the details, archaeologists and the scriptures do quite agree on major historical facts such as the destruction of Jericho, the rule of Herod the Great as well as King David's. Archaeology can help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times and such shed light upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The biblical archaeology school focusses on doing exactly this, and Professor Don Benjamin in his book '
