Mosaic Museum and the Beautiful Lod Mosaic

The discovery of one of the largest and most beautiful mosaics ever found in Israel was announced 13 years ago, during one of our Book & The Spade tours. We missed seeing it then, the itinerary wasn't flexible enough, but now we're looking forward to seeing it during a future tour. After being covered up for more than a dozen years, Israeli officials are finally preparing to refurbish the mosaic and then put it on display. This beautiful mosaic graces the cover of the latest issue of our ARTIFAX magazine, and is one of our main topics of discussion on this week's program.

But there's more. It was announced just a few weeks ago that a mosaic museum, highlighting some of the beautiful mosaics found around Israel, is now open on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. If you're ever been on that road, you probably remember there's not much there, except for a few bedouin tents and the building they called the Inn of the Good Samaritan. Well that building and its environs has an interesting history (even if it wasn't the Inn of Jesus' parable), and now it has been converted to a mosaic museum.

We also spent some time on the programming discussing how our coverage of archaeology has changed over the past 26 years. When we started there were only a couple of sources we were able to rely on. Now the internet gives us all kinds of options, including social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Learn more about some of this season's excavations by checking these websites:

• The Elah Fortress


• Blogger at Elah Fortress dig


• Tel es Safi-Gath


• Tel Kabri


• Ashkelon


• Mt. Zion/Jerusalem


• Khirbet El-Maqatir


• Tall Jalul in Jordan

Other excavations have websites also, but these are the ones (except for the Tall Jalul story) that seem to be updated more frequently.

1185 - Sarcophagus of Paul and Seal of Saul

Recent news stories have reported on discoveries related to Paul and Saul. One is the Paul of the New Testament, the other is someone named Saul who lived about 800 years earlier.

The Vatican recently announced details of the latest archaeological investigation into the traditional burial place of the Apostle Paul, under the altar at the St. Paul Outside the Walls church in Rome. At almost exactly the same time, it was announced the oldest image believed to depict the Apostle Paul had been identified in the catacombs of St. Thecla. Both of these announcements marked the end of the Pauline year, declared by the Roman Catholic church to mark the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul.

In other recent archaeological news, there was a story of a bone seal found in Jerusalem, with the name of Saul engraved on it, dated to roughly the 9th century B.C. The identity of this particular Saul is not known but this is another example of the many seals and seal impressions that are surfacing in the many archaeological excavations in Jerusalem. These are the kinds of finds that would be extremely rare elsewhere in Israel, but in Jerusalem they are not rare.

1184 - New Quarries Sited

Several reports of discoveries of ancient quarries are discussed on this program. One is an underground quarry just north of Jericho. The other is in Jerusalem, one of three quarries discovered in the last few years that have been linked to the building of the Second Temple under Herod. These Jerusalem quarries are linked to the temple in part by pottery and coins that are found that date to that era, but also because of the massive size of the stones that seemed to have been quarried there. No other site in Jerusalem needed stones that big.

I had a chance to visit one of the other of those three quarries during last year's trip to Jerusalem. It was in an area called Ramat Shlomo, the Heights of Solomon. Hence, the photo.