Archeology Israel

To fundamentalist Christians, the Bible is an inerrant source of wisdom whose basis in reality should be unquestioned. To those whose faith is perhaps not quite as strong, independent corroboration of biblical events and people buttresses their beliefs. Unfortunately, such corroboration has been rare, despite the pursuit by generations of archeologists.

The ancient tales present glorious scenes of a united monarchy of Israel familiar to every Bible reader: King David, so brave that he slew a giant. Solomon, so wise that he ruled a vast empire and built the first Jerusalem temple. But 3,000 years after the great monarchs are thought to have lived, their epic stories are at the center of a vitriolic debate today over how much is actually history.

Archeologists excavating an ancient fortress-city have discovered a figurine they believe was a precursor to the biblical golden calf that enraged Moses when he descended from Mt. Sinai. The archeologists said the tiny statue, which predates the biblical Israelites' exodus from Egypt, suggests that the Hebrews drew upon an ancient Canaanite tradition when they betrayed Moses by worshiping a pagan deity in his absence. "Hebrews came out of the Canaanite milieu," said Laurence E.

The first time they met, Amy-Jill Levine from Nashville recognized Ziony Zevit immediately: He was the only man at LAX reading a book with a Hebrew title. In the world of biblical archeology, where Levine and Zevit spend a lot of their time, the closer modern life gets to the ancient Middle East, the better. To help make that happen, Zevit does much more than read Hebrew.

One of the great mysteries for biblical scholars and believers is exactly where the Ark of the Covenant stood in the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem nearly 3,000 years ago. The Ark of the Covenant itself--the wooden chest used to store the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are believed to have been written--has been lost in the dust of history.

Archeology, one of Israel's biggest tourist attractions, suffered a blow Tuesday when most of the country's excavations were shut down. The Israel Antiquities Authority halted its salvage digs after the Supreme Court ruled that developers and building contractors cannot be billed for the costs of these excavations. The antiquities authority carries out a salvage dig before most construction projects begin.

Maryland archeologists digging at the ancient city of Caesarea in Israel have uncovered the foundations of King Herod's celebrated temple, dating from the 1st Century B.C. The temple is the pagan counterpart to Herod's widely acclaimed temple to the Jewish God in Jerusalem. The size of the stone-block foundation, which measures about 100 feet by 180 feet, indicates that the temple was one of the largest in Israel and surrounding countries.

Archeologists said they misidentified a tomb recently uncovered in central Israel as that of the Maccabees, Jewish rebels who inspired the Hanukkah holiday. In a terse statement, the Israel Antiquities Authority said a laboratory analysis showed archeologists had misread an ancient Hebrew inscription on the tomb. Discovery of the burial site, during road-widening work, touched off protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews who charged the archeologists were defiling Jewish graves.

The bones of a 1st Century man named Caiaphas have been discovered in an ancient burial cave in Jerusalem, and archeological evidence indicates they may be the remains of the high priest who handed Jesus over to the Romans. The age of the bones, the elaborateness of the ossuary in which they were found and the inscriptions with the name Caiaphas found on the side of the casket-like box point to the man described in the Gospels.

An Israeli archeologist said that the first intact remains from the period of the Biblical Second Temple have been found. Dan Bahat said that a street adjacent to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and pieces of stone and pottery vessels on it survived because Christian and Muslin conquerors built new structures on top without clearing the debris. The street in the Temple Mount promenade is about 25 feet underground.

Archeology, one of Israel's biggest tourist attractions, suffered a blow Tuesday when most of the country's excavations were shut down. The Israel Antiquities Authority halted its salvage digs after the Supreme Court ruled that developers and building contractors cannot be billed for the costs of these excavations. The antiquities authority carries out a salvage dig before most construction projects begin.

A British scholar has concluded after a 10-year study that the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem contains stone remnants dating to the time of Jesus. Many scholars have believed the present-day tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was essentially only an outer structure erected in the 19th century, said Martin Biddle, an Oxford professor of medieval archeology. "We are sure now that inside here are the remains of three successive houses and the original stone-cut tomb," Biddle said.

The hand-lettered signs began appearing recently on the walls and community bulletin boards of this city's ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. The fliers list the names and phone numbers of several prominent Israeli archeologists, including the head of Israel's Antiquities Authority, and urge community members to harass and threaten the men, who are described as "grave robbers." The message ends with a chilling wish: "May their bones be ground into dust."

Israeli archeologists have found what is believed to be the world's oldest synagogue in the ruins of a 2,000-year-old palace outside the West Bank city of Jericho. The synagogue, which dates between 50 BC and 70 BC, was uncovered by archeologists in the ruins of a Maccabean winter palace, archeology professor Ehud Netzer said Sunday. Netzer said worshipers would have sat on a bench running along pillars in the synagogue's basilica-shaped hall.

Archeologists have uncovered the spot where early Christians believed Mary rested on her way to Bethlehem to give birth to Jesus. The large octagonal church now being excavated was discovered last month while contractors were laying a water pipe for construction workers at nearby Har Homa, a planned Jewish settlement on the edge of traditionally Arab East Jerusalem. The site is midway between the Old City of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Israeli archeologists have discovered a mass grave in Galilee dating from a Jewish revolt against Rome 19 centuries ago. "We uncovered in a cistern many, many people, including young children and teenagers about 16 years old," archeologist Mordechai Aviam said Tuesday. "Those are probably families that died in the siege," he said. Roman forces besieged the city of Yodfat in their march on Jerusalem in AD 67 and captured it after 47 days.

An unusual ornament from King Solomon's biblical temple--a thumb-sized ivory pomegranate inscribed in Hebrew--is on display in Jerusalem after the Israel Museum acquired it for $550,000. It was the first artifact to be attributed to Solomon's temple, built 3,000 years ago on a site now in the heart of the walled Old City of Jerusalem.

For 11 years, Seymour Gitin had been digging at Tel Minque, 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem, in the hope that the remains he was uncovering were the city of Ekron, one of the five capitals of the Philistine confederation mentioned in the Old Testament. All the evidence suggested that Tel Minque was indeed Ekron--a site that is now changing the image of one of history's most vilified societies.

Israeli archeologists have performed DNA analysis on the skeletons of 100 infants retrieved from a sewer under a 4th century Roman bathhouse in Ashkelon and found, to their surprise, that many of the infants were male. Infanticide of girls was common during the period, and researchers had expected that all of the skeletons would be female. Inscriptions in the bathhouse and erotically illustrated lamps from the site suggest that the bathhouse also served as a brothel, the team reports in the Jan.