Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about 1.5 km (1 mi) from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about 10 km (6 mi) south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjacent to the modern Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalya.
Jabalia, also spelled Jabalya, is a city in the State of Palestine located 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) north of Gaza City, in the North Gaza Governorate of the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Jabalia had a population of 172,704 in 2017. The Jabalia refugee camp is adjacent to the city to the north. The nearby town of Nazla is a part of the Jabalia municipality.
The year 1996 in archaeology involved some significant events.
Roland Guérin de Vaux was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the École Biblique, a French Catholic Theological School in East Jerusalem, and he was charged with overseeing research on the scrolls. His team excavated the ancient site of Khirbet Qumran (1951–1956) as well as several caves near Qumran northwest of the Dead Sea. The excavations were led by Ibrahim El-Assouli, caretaker of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, or what came to be known as the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
The ancient city of Halasa or Chellous, Elusa (Ελουϲα) in the Byzantine period, was a city in the Negev near present-day Kibbutz Mash'abei Sadeh that was once part of the Nabataean Incense Route. It lay on the route from Petra to Gaza. Today it is known as Haluza, and during periods of Arab habitation it was known as al-Khalūṣ and Al-Khalasa.
Wadi Gaza and Besor Stream are parts of a river system in the Gaza Strip and Negev region of Palestine and Israel. Wadi Gaza is a wadi that divides the northern and southern ends of the Gaza Strip, its major tributary is Besor Steam. In 2022 work began to rehabilitate Wadi Gaza Nature Reserve.
Anthedon, also referred to as Al-Balakhiyya, was a Hellenistic city near Gaza. It was first mentioned by Josephus as a city conquered by Alexander Jannaeus alongside Raphia. Pompey removed it from Jewish rule during his conquest of Judaea. Gabinius re-founded and repopulated the city, and later, Augustus incorporated Anthedon into Herod's realm, along with other coastal cities. Herod renamed it Agrippias or Agrippeion in honor of Agrippa, but the name did not endure.
Tell es-Sakan is a tell about 5 km south of Gaza City in what is today the Gaza Strip, on the northern bank of Wadi Ghazzeh. It was the site of two separate Early Bronze Age urban settlements: an earlier one representing the fortified administrative center of the Egyptian colonies in southwestern Palestine from the end of the 4th millennium, and a later, local Canaanite fortified city of the third millennium. The location at the mouth of what was probably a palaeochannel of the river, allowed it to develop as an important maritime settlement with a natural harbour. Its geographical location endowed it with a position of importance at the crossroads of land-based trade routes between the Canaan region, the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and Arabia. As of 2000, the early Egyptian settlement was the oldest fortified site known to researchers in both Egypt and Palestine.
The al-Bass necropolis is a Lebanese UNESCO World Heritage Site, part of the al-Bass archaeological site in the city of Tyre situated next to the el-Buss refugee camp. The necropolis, constituting the principal entrance of the town in antique times, is to be found on either side of a wide Roman and Byzantine avenue dominated by a triumphal arch of the 2nd century. Other important monumental vestiges of this archaeological area are an aqueduct, which carried water to the city, and a 2nd-century hippodrome.
École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, commonly known as École Biblique, is a French academic establishment in Jerusalem specializing in archaeology and Biblical exegesis. It is housed by the Saint-Étienne priory. Associated with the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), it is one of two major Roman Catholic biblical academies in Jerusalem, along with the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum.
The Qumran cemetery is in eastern Qumran in the West Bank, part of Palestinian area which is under Israeli occupation. It is a large area leading to a descent from which four finger-like ridges point eastward. On these ridges more tombs are located. The current estimate of tombs in the cemetery is over 1100. The largest section, that on the plateau proper, has two east-west paths which divide it into three parts. There are also two small cemeteries near Qumran, one ten minutes' walk north of the main cemetery and one to the south, on the other side of Wadi Qumran.
Jean-Baptiste Humbert is a French archaeologist who has excavated in Jordan, Palestine, Iran and Israel. He is of the order of the Dominicans and is director of the Archaeology Laboratory of the École Biblique in Jerusalem. He was responsible for publishing the notes and materials from the excavations of Qumran, which were under the direction of Roland de Vaux.
The Church of Saint John the Baptist is a small Greek Orthodox church in the Muristan area of the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem. In its current form, most of the above-ground church dates to the 11th century, and the crypt to the Late Roman or Byzantine period.
Alain Desreumaux is a French historian of religion, specializing on Syrian and Aramaic christo-palestinian communities. He has uncovered manuscripts and inscriptions and published works on codicology and epigraphy.
Khirbat Faynan, known in late Roman and Byzantine texts as Phaino or Phaeno, is an archaeological site in Wadi Faynan, southern Jordan. It lies just south of the Dead Sea in Jordan. The site was an ancient copper mine that overlooks two Wadis and is the location of one of the best and most well-preserved ancient mining and metallurgy districts in the world.
The Byzantine Church in the Gaza Strip, which today is the remains of a Christian church, includes graves and mosaic floors surrounded by marble columns on an area of 850 square meters, including 400 meters paved with mosaics. It is more than 1,700 years old, and has lived through 24 Byzantine emperors and 14 Muslim caliphs from the two Abbasid states since its inception. And the Umayyads.
The destruction of cultural heritage during the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip has included the damage and destruction by Israel of hundreds of culturally or historically significant buildings, libraries, museums and other repositories of knowledge in Gaza, alongside the destruction of intangible cultural heritage. By late January 2024, more than half of the buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed and 1.7 million people displaced.
Taur Ikhbeineh was a prehistoric settlement in what is today the Gaza Strip, Palestine. It was inhabited in the 4th millennium BC. Excavations in the 20th century provided evidence of interactions between Canaanite and Egyptian people.
The Ard-al-Moharbeen necropolis was a Roman cemetery in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. It is the largest cemetery to have been discovered in Gaza and is thought to have been in use from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. The necropolis was discovered in 2022 and excavated in 2023.
