Free Republic

JERUSALEM – Archaeologists digging in Jerusalem have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wall that is the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday. The 26-foot-high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage built by ancient Canaanites from a hilltop fortress to a nearby spring that was the city's only water source and vulnerable to marauders. The discovery marks the first time archaeologists have found such massive construction from before the time of Herod, the ruler behind numerous monumental projects in the city 2,000 years ago, and shows that Jerusalem...

SIDON: The British Museum's excavation team in Sidon have recently unearthed a new grave containing human skeletal remains belonging to a Canaanite warrior, archeology expert and field supervisor Claude Doumet Serhal told The Daily Star on Monday. According to Serhal, the delegation made the discovery at the "Freres" excavation site near Sidon's crusader castle. "This is the 77th grave that we have discovered at this site since our digging activities has started ten years ago with Lebanese-British financing," she said. According to Serhal, the remains go back to 2000 B.C., with a British archeologist saying the warrior had been buried...

Aug. 25, 2004 23:03 | Updated Aug. 26, 2004 11:02Second Temple village uncoveredETGAR LEFKOVITS Israeli archeologists have uncovered a 5,000-year-old Canaanite city and a 2,000-year-old Jewish village from the Second Temple period alongside each other in the Modi'in area. The adjacent ancient sites, which were known to exist but previously lay untouched, lie on a barren, wind-whipped hilltop spanning 120 dunams near the present-day Israeli town of Shoham. The area of the sites was to be converted into an industrial zone, but the finds – which include the remnants of ancient streets in each city, being excavated now by archeologists...