Free Republic

The coin, the first of its type discovered in Israel, was minted by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, whose edicts led to the abolishment of the Sanhedrin Council and to the large-scale emigration of Jews to the Diaspora.1,600 years after the edict of the Emperor Theodosius II led to the abolishment of the post of the 'Nasi,' the Head of the Sanhedrin, school pupils found a rare piece of evidence reflecting this dramatic moment in Jewish history.In February 2019, four ninth grade students from the Haemeq Hamaaravi High School in Kibbutz Yifat in the Jezreel valley were orienteering in the...

...A couple of years ago while hunched over her microscope at the University of Haifa, graduate student Rikva Chasan began to notice on the inside rims of countless stone bowls a plethora of previously undocumented, methodically incised small triangles.Chasan is working as part of a multi-year international interdisciplinary project conducted by the university’s laboratory for ground stone tools research that is tracking the provenance of these basalt vessels across the ancient Levant in order to show socioeconomic changes in the Chalcolithic period, circa 4,500 BCE – 3,900 BCE...Chasan postulates that the clearly coordinated decorations depict the start of a crafts...

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a rare sarcophagus featuring a slender face and a scarab ring inscribed with the name of an Egyptian pharaoh, Israel's Antiquities Authority said Wednesday. The mystery man whose skeleton was found inside the sarcophagus was most likely a local Canaanite official in the service of ancient Egypt, Israeli archaeologists believe, shining a light on a period when pharaohs governed the region. "This is a really beautiful face, very serene," said Edwin van den Brink, an Egyptologist and archaeologist with Israel's government antiquities authority. "It's very appealing." Van den Brink said archaeologists dug at Tel Shadud, an...

Archaeologists unearth 3,300-year-old coffin at Tel Shadud thought to hold Canaanite official in service of Egyptian pharaoh :snip: Found alongside the new sarcophagus was a scarab seal ring encased in gold, carved with the name of Pharaoh Seti I, who ruled ancient Egypt in the 13th century BC. Seti I conquered the region of today's Israel in the first year of his reign in order to secure Egyptian trade routes and collect taxes for Egypt, said Ron Beeri, an archaeologist who participated in the dig. The man buried in the sarcophagus might have been a tax collector for the pharaoh,...

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have unearthed an ancient well dating to the Neolithic period some 8,500 years ago in the Jezreel Valley. "The impressive well that was revealed was connected to an ancient farming settlement and it seems the inhabitants used it for their subsistence and living. The upper part of the well was built of stones and its lower part was hewn in the bedrock. Two capstones, which narrowed the opening, were set in place at the top of the well. It is about 8 m deep and its upper part measures about 1.3 m in diameter,"...