A German Jewish Iranologist, who lost his University of Berlin post in 1935 after officially declaring that his grandparents were Jewish, is one of several focuses of an exhibit about Asian travel at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. “The Traveler’s Eye: Scenes of Asia” is on view through May 31. Ernst Herzfeld…
In the 1830s, the Egyptian governor of Palestine, Ibrahim Pasha, built a police station near Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate — just one step needed to put down the Peasants’ Revolt of 1834. Like many buildings in the Old City, this structure has maintained its original purpose; the Ottomans, British, Jordanians and Israelis have all used it…
Christian tradition has it that Mary journeyed 75 miles from her home in Nazareth to give birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, the storied town near Jerusalem in what is today the occupied West Bank. But what if she actually traveled less than 5 miles to give birth to Jesus in what is now a tiny…
Archaeologists in Egypt believe they have discovered the remains of a previously unknown pharaoh who reigned more than 3,600 years ago. The skeleton of King Senebkay were uncovered at South Abydos in Sohag province, about 500 km (300 miles) south of Cairo, by a University of Pennsylvania expedition working with the government, the Egyptian antiquities…
A house dating to the Hasmonean period was uncovered in eastern Jerusalem near the Temple Mount. The building, which was discovered a few months ago but announced for the first time on Tuesday, is located in the the City of David area, a few dozen yards from the Temple Mount. It was the first time…
(Haaretz) — It looks like an ordinary lice comb, with wider teeth on one side for untangling knots and finer teeth on the other for removing nits. Except that this one happens to be made of wood, rather than metal. And it also happens to be about 2,000 years old. Holding the recently unearthed artifact…
A 1,700-year-old curse was discovered recently in the ruins of a luxurious Roman villa in Jerusalem’s City of David. A few months ago, excavators led by Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets of the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered a rolled-up lead tablet in the villa and sent it to the authority’s laboratories to be opened. When…
Between 1250 and 1100 B.C.E., all the great civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean – pharaonic Egypt, Mycenaean Greece and Crete, Ugarit in Syria and the large Canaanite city-states – were destroyed, ushering in new peoples and kingdoms including the first Kingdom of Israel. Now scientists are suggesting a climatic explanation for this great upheaval: A…
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