The Church of "Marys Seat"

The remains of a large Byzantine church (5th 7th century), octagonal in shape and with multicolored mosaic pavement, was discovered near the highway leading from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. A flat rock in the center of the church is believed to be the Kathisma the seat where the pregnant Mary rested on her way to Bethlehem mentioned in early Christian sourses.

Beitsaida

A stone stela was exposed at the Iron Age II (9th 8th century BCE) Beitsaida city gate on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It bears an engraved depiction of a bull-headed warrior armed with a dagger probably representing the Aramean god Haddad, also known by his biblical name Baal, god of rainfall and fertility.

Hatzor

At Tel Hatzor in Galilee, site of the largest Canaanite city in biblical times (Joshua 11:10), a carved basalt orthostat depicting a lion was uncovered. Dated to the Late Bronze Age (15th 13th century BCE), it was in secondary use in the Israelite level of the upper city. The orthostat weighs about a ton and is perserved in extremely good condition. It was probably one of a pair of lions that once guarded the entrance to the Canaanite royal palace of Hatzor (an identical lion was exposed in the Canaanite temple of the lower city of Hatzor during excavations in the 1950s).

Beit Shean

Two monumental Arabic inscriptions, in square Kufic script, were uncovered on the door jambs of the gate to the citys bazaar, built at the beginning of the 8th century by the Umayyad Caliph Abdallah Hisham. The letters are formed by green glass tesserae covered by gold foil and a thin layer of glass. The inscription reads:

Jerusalem, City of David

The remains of an impressive structure of the monarchy period, founded on bedrock and built of very large, roughly hewn rectangular stones, was discovered above the Gihon spring in the Kidron Valley. It is believed to be part of the fortifications built at the end of the First Temple period (8th-7th century BCE) by Menassah, King of Judah, to defend the entrance to the Gihon spring: Now after this he built a wall without the City of David on the west side of the Gihon, in the Valley...

(2 Chronicles 33:14)

Hillel Geva studied archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, participated in excavations in the Jewish Quarter and the Citadel in Jerusalem, and is author of the entry: "Jerusalem" in the New Encyclopedia of Archeological Excavations in the Holy Land and editor of Ancient Jerusalem Revealed.

Photographs courtesy of:

M. Ben-Dov: 28
R. Ben-Haim: 35
H. Geva: 20 (top left), 21 (top right)
Z. Greenhut/Israel Antiquities Authority: 23
A. Jelinek: 16
Z. Maoz 7, 8
A. Ronen: 15
B. Rotenberg: 33, 34, 36
D. Syon: 11 (bottom right)
V. Tzaferis/Israel Antiquities Authority: 13 (left and right)
Albatross/Duby Tal: 11 (top left), 30
Israel Antiquities Authority: 22 (left and right)
Z. Radovan: 20 (bottom left), 25 (left and right), 27, 31 (top)