Jane Recker has written for Washingtonian Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds degrees in journalism and opera.
Posted on 07/03/2022 7:55:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Near the newly-discovered mosque are the ruins of a very different structure: a “strangely magnificent mansion” that may have belonged to wealthy Byzantine Christians, per Haaretz. At around 10,000 square feet, it had frescoed walls, stone pavement, plaster floors and expensive tableware and glassware.
The structure also had two ovens, one of which was quite large. Because of its size, along with the fact that it was beside a water cistern, excavation director Elena Kogan-Zehavi hypothesizes that the inhabitants were making soap—which perhaps explains their wealth.
“Israel, according to Islamic historians, is one of the areas where soap was made and exported throughout the Islamic world,” she tells Haaretz. “The actual recipe for the soap would be kept secret and passed down through generations, and made some families very rich.”
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Jane has beautiful teeth!
I wholeheartedly ag- oh, teeth... yeah, that too...
Never to be used.
Yes, her teeth caught my eye immediately. Then I looked at them more closely and was so impressed. Gorgeous clackers. She’s a very pretty lass and I love that tilt of the head, over the shoulder smile. Sigh.
Read the title too quickly. I thought it said mosquitoes.
...two ovens, one of which was quite large...
Heh Jane, mebe the Islamist’s were burning the Jews, ever think of that....
““Israel, according to Islamic historians, is one of the areas where soap was made and exported throughout the Islamic world”
Never to be used.”
I heard the same thing about toilet paper.
Thomas Crapper invented the toilet and exported throughout the Islamic world, but muslims never got further on installing them than making the hole in the floor.
While Islam began around 610 in today’s Saudi Arabia, it wasn’t until the ninth century that it became the majority religion in Israel.Funny thing, that beginning:
was it blown up?
There’s two of these tiny mosques, so, probably they regarded each other as apostate, and fought toward mutual extinction, until some big dog came into the area and annihilated both. :^)
And at leasr one attractive dimple.
There is only one region in Israel and that is Judism. And it is the solitarty religion in Israel by history and also by right of conquest.
May the temple fo Solomon be rebuilt on the Tmple Mount of Jerusalem.
Nothing that archeologists dig up will change that fact.
She definitely looks Not Guilty.
Who knew Arabs used soap?
Also, the apse isn't facing due south. You can tell from the compass rose on the diagram from the Israeli Antiquities Agency (here) that it's a little east of south, about 175°. The compass heading from there to Mecca is 154°.
That's a 19° difference. Archaeologists state the Muhammadans were unusually precise (for the period) with the orientation of the apses, 50% being within 3° of the compass heading to Mecca and 80% within 5°. So either this was an outlier or it was never intended to be pointing toward Mecca.
In his documentary, Islam: The Untold Story, author Tom Holland is shown to the ruins of an early mosque (+/- 100 years after Muhammad's death) in Israel by Antiquities Authority archaeologist Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini (about 40 minutes into the video). That particular mosque has its apse facing to the east, which she remarks was not uncommon among early mosques, giving her to speculate that they simply might not have yet decided which direction they were supposed to be praying in.
There is no surviving evidence linking the desert sanctuary mentioned in the Quran with the city of Mecca until more than a century after Muhammad's death. Holland speculates that the location of Mecca was chosen out of political expediency by early 8th century Arab leaders who were intent on co-opting Islam to use as a social control over the masses. He offers that Mecca in particular might have been chosen because at that time it was free from any contamination from Jews or Christians.
In any case the Muhammadans have nothing but camp fire stories to support their claim that Mecca was this desert sanctuary.
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