The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel is the future building of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Construction began in 2012 in Jerusalem, the building will concentrate all centralized administrative offices into one structure. The campus is being built on 20,000 square meters located between the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum. It was designed by Moshe Safdie.
When completed, the 36,000- sq.-m. building will house offices, archaeological artifacts, archeology laboratories, the National Library for the Archeology of Israel, and serve as a museum of archaeology. [1] Construction began in 2012 with the excavation of an enormous foundation cut into a hillside so that so that the roof level entrance of the large building is at ground level between the two, existing, major museums, while the lowest floor opens onto a street at the foot of the hill. [2] [3] The Antiquities Authority was formerly located in cramped quarters at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem. [3]
The roof of the building is a large plaza with views of the Jerusalem hills. Several important Byzantine-era mosaics from churches and synagogues are on permanent display; this part of the campus is open to the public while construction continues on the interior of the building the visitor's feet. [1] Displays include a 6th-century mosaic floor, discovered in an ancient synagogue in Ein Gedi featuring a curse in Judeo-Aramaic that reads: “Anyone who neglects his family, provokes conflict, steals property, slanders his friends or reveals the secret of Ein Gedi’s balsam industry is cursed.” [4] [5]
Talpiot is an Israeli neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1922 by Zionist pioneers. It was built as a garden suburb on land purchased by the Tel Aviv-based Palestine Land Development Company and other Jewish building societies.
Beit She'an, also and Beisan, and historically known as Scythopolis is a city in the Northern District of Israel, which has played an important role in history due to its geographical location at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley. In the Biblical account of the battle of the Israelites against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, the bodies of King Saul and three of his sons were hung on the walls of Beit She'an. In Roman times, Beit She'an was the leading city of the Decapolis, a league of pagan cities. In modern times, Beit She'an serves as a regional centre for the settlements in the Beit She'an Valley.
Ein Gedi, literally "spring of the kid " is an oasis and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. Ein Gedi was listed in 2016 as one of the most popular nature sites in the country.
The Israel Museum was established in 1965 as Israel's foremost cultural institution and one of the world’s leading encyclopaedic museums. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighbourhood of Jerusalem, adjacent to the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum (PAM), is an archaeology museum located in East Jerusalem that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in Mandatory Palestine, in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research. The director-general is Mr. Israel Hason and its offices are housed in the Rockefeller Museum.
The Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue previously known as the Shomrei ha-Chomos Synagogue and the Ungarin Shul is located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built in the 1870s by Kolel Shomrei HaChomos, an organization of Hungarian Jews, but was abandoned after the riots of 1938. Although the building was destroyed after 1948, it has recently been acquired by a Religious Zionist group for refurbishment and was reopened after restoration work finished in October 2008.
Ehud Netzer was an Israeli architect, educator and archaeologist, known for his extensive excavations at Herodium, where in 2007 he found the tomb of Herod the Great; and the discovery of the Wadi Qelt Synagogue, the oldest known synagogue ever found.
Givat Ram is a neighborhood in central Jerusalem. Many of Israel's most important national institutions are located in Givat Ram, among them the Parliament (Knesset), the Israel Museum, the Supreme Court, Bank of Israel, Academy of the Hebrew Language, National Library, one of the campuses of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and many government ministries' offices.
The architecture of Israel has been influenced by the different styles of architecture brought in by those who have occupied the country over time, sometimes modified to suit the local climate and landscape. Fortified Crusader castles, Islamic madrassas, Byzantine churches, Templer houses, Arab arches and minarets, Russian Orthodox onion domes, Bauhaus-style modernist buildings, sculptural concrete Brutalist architecture, and soaring glass-sided skyscrapers all are part of the architecture of Israel.
Beth Alpha is a sixth-century AD synagogue located at the foot of the northern slopes of the Gilboa mountains near Beit She'an, Israel. It is now part of Bet Alfa Synagogue National Park and managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
The Lod Mosaic is a mosaic floor dated to ca. 300 CE discovered in 1996 in the Israeli town of Lod. Believed to have been created for a private villa, it is one of the largest and best-preserved mosaic floors uncovered in the country. It depicts land animals, fish and two Roman ships. It was restored in the labs of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). After an overseas tour of several years it will be displayed in the purpose-built Shelby White and Leon Levy Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center.
Khirbat al-Minya is an Umayyad-built palace in the eastern Galilee, Israel, located about 200 meters (660 ft) west of the northern end of Lake Tiberias. It was erected as a qasr complex, with a palace, mosque, and bath built by a single patron.
Tzippori Synagogue is an ancient synagogue discovered in Sepphoris, a Roman-era Jewish city in the Galilee, now an archaeological site and a national park in Israel.
The Maon Synagogue is a 6th-century synagogue and archaeological site located in the Negev Desert near Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Nir Oz. It is noted for its "magnificent" mosaic floor.
Ancient synagogues in Israel refers to synagogues in the modern State of Israel, built by the Jewish and Samaritan communities from antiquity to the Early Islamic period.
Hamat Tiberias is an ancient archaeological site and an Israeli national park known as Hamat Tverya National Park which is located on the Tiberias-Zemach road that runs along the shore of the Sea of Galilee to Tiberias.
Dr. Michael Avi-Yonah was an Israeli archaeologist and historian. During his career he was a Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and served as secretary of the Department of Antiquities as well.
The En-Gedi Scroll is an ancient and fragile Hebrew parchment found in 1970 at Ein Gedi, Israel. It has been carbon-dated to the third or fourth century CE. It contains a portion of the biblical Book of Leviticus. It is significant as one of the oldest portions of the Bible in existence. The deciphered text fragment is identical to what was to become during the Middle Ages the standard text of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Masoretic Text, which it precedes by several centuries, and constitutes the earliest evidence of this authoritative text version.
Dimitri Constantine Baramki, often styled D. C. Baramki, was a Palestinian archaeologist who served as chief archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate government from 1938 to 1948. From 1952 until his retirement, he was the curator of the Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he served as a professor of archeology.