Museum Guide

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Permanent Exhibits

Our survey of international museums turns this month to Israel. One excellent guide that readers should know about is The Museums of Israel, by Nitza Rosovsky and Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson (reviewed in Books in Brief, BAR 15:06). Its fascinating and lively entries are much more detailed than our summaries can be and include many smaller archaeological museums. Readers may order copies by sending a check for $14.95 (plus $3 for shipping) or MasterCard or VISA information to Biblical Archaeology Society, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20008—or call toll-free 1–800-221–4644. Be sure to mention order number 7HA3.

Citadel Museum of the History of Israel

Four thousand years of Jerusalem’s history, from the Canaanite period to the present day, are on display at this ancient fortress (popularly, though incorrectly, known as the Tower of David) and the site of Jerusalem’s newest major museum. Just about every nation that ruled, or attempted to rule, ancient Israel left a mark at this site. The exhibits include replicas of Egyptian figurines bearing the earliest references to Jerusalem; a diorama of the City of David before the Temple was built; a model of Jerusalem’s ancient water networks; a hologram of Solomon’s Temple; a model, incorporating the most recent discoveries, of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period; bricks bearing the insignia of the 10th Roman Legion, which destroyed the city in 10 A.D.; and a zinc model of Jerusalem as it looked in 1872. Tours of various length are available.

Israel Museum

Israel’s leading archaeology museum. The archaeology collections illustrate the history of the land of Israel from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. Among the objects on view are the so-called Judean Desert Treasure, 429 objects from the Chalcolithic period, the majority cast in copper, discovered in 1961 in a cave near Ein Gedi; Canaanite-period finds, including Egyptian-style scarabs and faience, Mesopotamian-style cylinder seals and Mycenaean and Cypriote pottery; the Shrine of the Stelae from Hazor, carvings on basalt stelae from the 14th to 13th centuries B.C.; Philistine cult figurines and clay vessels; a reassembled Holy of Holies from Arad; finds from Lachish, the Judean city conquered by Sennacherib in 701 B.C.; and the Trumpeting Inscription, believed to mark the spot on the Temple in Jerusalem where a priest sounded a shofar (ram’s horn) to announce the beginning and end of the Sabbath (see “Reconstructing Herod’s Temple Mount In Jerusalem,” BAR 15:06).

Also part of the Israel Museum is the Shrine of the Book, housing the largely intact Dead Sea Scrolls. Amongst the complete scrolls and fragments are examples of every book of the Hebrew Bible except for the Book of Esther. The scrolls on display include the Manual of Discipline, which spells out the rules of the sect that may have copied and/or protected the texts; the Scroll of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, describing the expected apocalyptic battle by the sect against the forces of evil; a commentary on the Book of Habakkuk; the Psalm Scroll, a collection of hymns; a portion of the Isaiah Scroll; and the Temple Scroll, a description of a hoped-for, rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem (see “The Temple Scroll; The Longest and Most Recently Discovered Dead Sea Scroll,” BAR 10:05).

Rockefeller Museum

The Rockefeller Museum came under 067Israeli control following the Six-Day War in 1967. Its displays have not changed since then (it is now administered by the Israel Museum). The collection spans every period from the Neolithic to the Byzantine. Noteworthy holdings include clay effigies from Neolithic Jericho; gold jewelry from Tell el-Ajjul; large anthropoid coffins from Beth-Shean; finds from the major excavations of the British Mandate period (including those at Megiddo, Lachish and Beth-Shean); many inscriptions carved in stone; and mosaic synagogue floors. One gallery features finds from Hisham’s Palace, an eighth-century A.D. Umayyad structure near Jericho. The Rockefeller Museum is the repository for hundreds of Dead Sea Scroll fragments, many still unpublished and none of them on view.

Skirball Museum

The museum explores the history of three Biblical cities—Laish/Dan, Gezer and Aroer. Major themes of the exhibits are fortifications, burial customs and cult practices. Notable among the holdings are three large-scale models of Middle Bronze and Iron Age city gates; a large ceramic sarcophagus from Gezer; and a rich assemblage of cult artifacts from the ninth through the second centuries B.C. found in the sacred precinct at Tel Dan.

The Burnt House

This museum captures a dramatic moment in Jerusalem’s history. Several excavated rooms in what once was the Upper City, on the western hill that faced the Temple Mount, bear vivid evidence of the fiery destruction brought upon Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. Many of the finds are known to BAR readers from the article “Jerusalem in Flames—The Burnt House Captures a Moment in Time,” BAR 09:06, by the excavator, Professor Nahman Avigad. The artifacts, which include large stone jars, stone tables, pottery ovens and grinding stones, are displayed in the charred rooms where they were found. Especially ominous is an iron spear found leaning against the corner of one room and the skeletal arm of a young woman found in the burnt kitchen.

Wohl Archaeological Museum

This museum, located underneath a modern yeshiva building, encloses the remains of six mansions from a well-to-do, Herodian-period (first century B.C.-first century A.D.) residential neighborhood of the Upper City of Jerusalem. Frescoes, stucco and colorful mosaic floors attest to the wealth of the inhabitants. The well-off residential quarter met the same fate as its more humble counterparts: It was all destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum

A chronological display, from the Chalcolithic period to the era of the Mishnah and Talmud (the compilation of Jewish law and commentaries thereto, completed about 200 A.D. and 500 A.D. respectively). Religion and cult is one theme, with clay, bronze and stone figurines; chalices; pitchers; lamps; altars; and other vessels with cultic or ceremonial functions.

Eretz Israel Museum (Land of Israel Museum)

The Eretz Israel Museum may well be the only museum in the world with a major archaeological dig taking place on its grounds. A team headed by Amihai Mazar, of Hebrew University, is excavating the site of Tell Qasile here. This Philistine city dates to 1200 B.C. Visitors can tour temples, reconstructed houses and courtyards and can view artifacts displayed in a nearby building. The museum complex also features demonstrations of ancient skills such as pottery making, glass blowing, oil pressing and carpet weaving; displays ancient coins and ceramics; and explains ancient techniques of hunting, fishing, agriculture, transportation, construction and bread production.

Golan Archaeological Museum

The chronological displays highlight discoveries made in the Golan Heights area from the Prehistoric through the early Islamic periods. Displays focus on the culture of the Golan during the Chalcolithic period (including a reconstructed house); on the dramatic story of the Roman conquest of Gamla, along with finds from that first-century B.C.-first-century A.D. city; and on ancient synagogues in the Golan. A sculpture garden includes noteworthy architectural fragments and basalt sculpture from the Roman and Byzantine periods. The exquisite artifacts in this museum were featured in “Rediscovering The Ancient Golan—The Golan Archaeological Museum,” BAR 14:06. Guided tours are available by appointment.

While in Qatzrin, also be sure to visit the reconstructed talmudic village, the subject of an upcoming article in BAR.

Temporary Exhibit

London

Archaeology and the Bible

October 18, 1990–February 28, 1991

Two hundred artifacts from the museum’s own fabulous collection will illustrate the cultural background of the Holy Land from 8000 B.C. to the first century A.D. Among the objects on display will be the Black Obelisk of Shalmanesser III, showing an Israelite tribute-bearer usually identified with King Jehu; ivory furniture inlays from Ahab’s palace at Samaria (on loan from the Palestine Exploration Fund); a Philistine jug from Tell Fara; an anthropoid coffin from Lachish; the Lachish reliefs from Sennacherih’s palace at Nineveh; a statue of Ramesses II; and the inscribed lintel from the tomb of Shebna, the royal steward of King Hezekiah.

To accompany the exhibit, the museum is publishing a handsome, well-illustrated catalogue. Written by Jonathan Tubb, a well-known archaeologist and curator at the museum, and Rupert Chapman, the executive secretary of the Palestinian Exploration Fund, the catalogue contains a fascinating description by Chapman of the pioneering days of Biblical archaeology and of the people who led the efforts at discovery, as well as a detailed overview by Tubb of the results of Biblical archaeology up to the present. A description of the geographical background of the Bible by Peter Dorrell and a description of the excavation of Tell es-Sa’idiyeh by Tubb round out the presentation.

Permanent Exhibits