Ancient History
Reading the Bible in its own context begins with exploring the people and cultures of antiquity, the cities and languages they left behind.
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From the blog
Puah and Shiphrah
We don’t often talk about the story of Puah and Shiphrah, though their story is one of courage and mettle, standing together against forces of evil seeking to destroy a nation. (a twenty minute tale)
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Babylonian Stew
And now for something completely different.
What’s for dinner? A nearly four thousand year old recipe from ancient Babylon!
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Shabbat
Every Friday evening, we make a special point of dressing nicely, and arriving to dinner in time for the kiddush. It’s important to be punctual, since the candles are to be lit at least 18 minutes before sunset.
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Astragali
As I carefully brushed around what seemed like a floor formation of pottery sherds and cobblestones, almost by accident, I unearthed what looked like a knucklebone—actually a bone in the ankle.
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The Forensics of Archaeology
Some people dig for gold, others for artifacts. But the true archaeologist digs for knowledge.
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Ashtoreth
Working in the Pottery Lab complex is one of several unexpected pleasures I’ve been experiencing on this excavation. As a microcosm of Israel itself, our Lab is international.
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Al Jazaar Mosque
Even as I sit here and type these words, I can hear the muezzin singing out the Adhan from the minaret of Al Jazaar mosque, the final of five calls to prayer throughout the day.
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We Went To Prison Today
The Akko prison intersects the Crusaders with the Ottoman empire, the British Mandate, and the Jewish resistance movements throughout Palestine. Today, the 12th century Crusader Hospitaller Center bears evidence of the 18th century Muslim fortress with military barracks and palaces, and the 19th century British prison. During the British Mandate, there were three major prisons: Jerusalem (Russian Compound and Kishle); Akko; and Bethlehem (women’s prison).
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Jerusalem
Part of the Tel Akko Excavation’s Total Archaeology approach is to take in the larger context of the dig—the present day city and its history, the surrounding landscape, the people groups and cultures, the land of Israel and its history. Today, to get a better understanding of the unique challenges Israel faces, we visited the capitol city, Jerusalem, another of the six “Mixed Cities” and filled with spiritual pilgrims from three of the major religions in the world: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
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Things That Go Without Being Said
In every culture, every society, there are things that go without being said. We don’t even realize those things exist, not really, because we don’t talk about them, we don’t even know we’re doing them, in our native culture.
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Reconstructing the Past
I am working on one aspect of the excavation, the “Survey.” What is currently being dug is only a small part of the whole Tel. There is much more still waiting to be discovered, so the survey team methodically digs shallow, square trenches over the rest of the site, just to see what potential there might be. Every day, the survey team brings back a good fifty or sixty buckets of samples, all of which need to be read, registered, written on and packed up.
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Tyrian Purple
An outlier in her time, Lydia made a name for herself in the Tyrian purple market, establishing her own business and household, and enjoying a level of independence only a small minority of women in her day were able to experience. The images below all come from my visit to the Hecht museum, which has a display of murex shells and the beautiful dye Tyre, Sidon, and Akko were known for.
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Baha’i’s Most Holy Place
What would it be like if followers of Jesus, who walk the Way and live filled with God’s love and grace by His indwelling Spirit, were to embrace what that really means?
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A Startling Image
Inside, we saw many of the kinds of things we’ve been digging up in Akko, amphorae, giant storage jars, ancient glass, and all kinds of pottery. We also saw finds from other local sites, and this one arrested my attention mid-step: Inside, we saw many of the kinds of things we’ve been digging up in Akko, amphorae, giant storage jars, ancient glass, and all kinds of pottery. We also saw finds from other local sites, and this one arrested my attention mid-step:
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Mary of Magdala
Refusing to abandon Jesus in His darkest hour, all four Gospel accounts describe Mary of Magdala’s faithfulness and courage, remaining with Jesus, at the foot of His cross, until His death. She had accompanied Jesus and those who had come to know and love Him, on His way to Jerusalem for the last time, to celebrate the Feast of Passover.
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Magdala
Part of our excursion last Saturday was to visit the once bustling and wealthy city of Magdala, where Mary of Magdala came from. It’s a beautiful settlement, made all of black basalt, which is plentiful in the Galilee from ancient volcanic activity.
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Synergy
I can’t publish the actual arrowhead, but this picture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0] is a pretty close facsimile. Evidently, arrowhead technology remained pretty steady for a good twelve or thirteen hundred years in the middle east and Europe.
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Thot, Scarabs, and the Assyrian Army
Second breakfast is one long table covered in a blue cloth, laden with boiled eggs, yoghurt, labneh, olives, cut vegetables, hummus, fruit, and something special—one day pancakes, another day fried eggs. All fifty of us come in from every part of the tel, dusty, hungry, and thankful for a chance to rest and eat after…
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The Crusades
As I sit here typing, the Muslim call to prayers is being sung in the minarets throughout Akko, and I think about those who are devoted to Allah, spreading their prayer rugs, standing, then bowing, then prostrating themselves toward Mecca, touching their foreheads to the ground in humility, saying “rabbanā laka al-ḥamd,” meaning “O Lord, all praise is for you.”
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May This Never End…
As I listened to Rebekah’s hauntingly beautiful voice, sitting in Zippori’s open-air amphitheater, I closed my eyes, felt the heat of Israel’s sun, and the soft current of Israel’s breeze on my skin.
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“Jesus Never Walked Among The Cactus”
…said Professor Michal Artzy of the University of Haifa, co-director of the Tel Akko Excavation, as she gave us a tour of the Tel.
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What Is It?
This morning, as we were sweeping the “top soil” off of an area in the excavation being prepared for pictures and measuring, a small, white chip caught my eye. Ordinarily, top soil is considered detritus, because it has no provenance. It could really have been swept in from basically anywhere on the site, and because it’s at the top, it has long since been separated from the time layer it originally belonged to.
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“Joanna! Look Here!”
My asthma had gotten the better of me yesterday–combination of lots of dust, hot sun, and exertion. So, today I stayed in the lab, and learned how to inscribe the pottery artifacts.
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Napoleon’s Hill
The first thing you have to do, to get an archaeological excavation ready, is to get all the sandbags up and out. When the excavation was closed the summer before, thousands of white cloth bags were filled with sifted earth from the dig, and placed all around the exposed areas to protect the site until the excavation could be reopened.
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First Day in Akko
Akko (Acre) is a living city, which has existed continuously for about 4,000 years. Its beginning was in Tel Akko, more commonly known as Napoleon Hill. From the Hellenistic period onwards the city expanded west to the area that later became the Crusader and Ottoman city.
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Akko, Israel
(Commentary on Genesis 6-11 will begin after these posts on the Tel Akko July 2019 Total Archaeology Excavation. Today’s post was actually written June 29, 2019)
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About Me
My passion for the Bible began when I was eight or nine years old, somewhere in there, when on occasion my dad would take me to synagogue, where he sang. I remember watching the men in synagogue pray the words of scripture, murmuring and weeping, lovingly touching and kissing the Torah, and I wished I could read what they were reading.
Imagine, then, my wonder when I was given a Bible of my own! Read more
Grace and Peace, Joanne 