The Istanbul Archaeology Museum is a goldmine of antiquities and treasures of various sorts, including things collected over many years by the Ottomans from their Empire. There are two major problems with this museum: 1) it has nowhere near enough space to properly display its holdings (much like the problem at the old Museum of Egyptology in Cairo), and 2) also like the old Cairo museum it is not climate controlled.  Part of the result is that like other such... Read more

Right next to the Blue mosque in the central region of old Istanbul stands a long oblong corridor where the hippodrome once was.  No, a hippodrome is not a race course for hippos!  Hippus is a Latin word for horse, and there were chariot races here. We have learned from studying the original ancient descriptions of this site that there were four bronze horses at one end, which were pilfered from here and taken to Venice where they are stored... Read more

This post will focus on two of the most important churches in Istanbul, neither of which are active churches.  The one of course is Hagia Sophia, the other St. Irene (i.e. Eirene). Hagia Sophia was originally built in 360 A.D. by Emperor Constantius, the son of the famous Constantine.  Almost nothing remains of this original church (but see below) and so the building you now see was built between 532 and 537 A.D.  It did not become a mosque until... Read more

The following post involves shots I took from the top of the beautiful old hotel, the Marmara, which not surprisingly is on the small sea of Marmara, and affords some of the best views of the center of the city and its relationship to the water. In this shot you see across the Marmara sea both the Hagia Sophia on the left and the Blue Mosque on the right. You also see the Black Sea in the distance.  Closer by... Read more

There is a lot to show and tell in regard to the remarkable land we today call Turkey (which actually should be properly pronounced as a three syllable word, Turk-i-ye) and it’s going to take many, many posts to cover all the fertile ground of Turkey, and they will run surely right into 2023.   Furthermore, I’ll be combining insights from the two separate times I spent in Turkey last summer, once in late May, and a second time in late... Read more

There are many good reasons to go to see the man-made marvel that is the harbor at Caesarea Maritima. Along with the Temple in Jerusalem, the Herodium, and Masada, this was the fourth of Herod the Great’s unbelievable building projects and this one had to be the most challenging, carving a harbor out of the ocean where there wasn’t one before. He forgot one thing— the need for fresh water, so the Roman engineers and the legions had to build... Read more

We have done various posts on Capernaum, yet another site maintained by the Franciscans, so we will focus on some of the things seen under and outside the modern boat-shaped church.   First, underneath we have preserved an ancient early church site where a home was converted into a meeting room. We know early Christians met and worshipped here from some of the graffiti, but what we don’t know is whether this goes all the way back to the time of... Read more

At the same site as the Franciscan church we saw in the last post, we also have one of the more remarkable ongoing digs in all of Israel, at Migdal. What we have is a giant garum factory, making the much popular fish pickle sauce out of small fish.  So we have brine vats etc.  But what we also have is two synagogues at Migdal, and we will be concentrating on the one where the remarkable small altar was found.... Read more

Ah the sea of Galilee, or Tiberias, or Kinnert, but it’s not really a sea.  It’s just a decent sized lake fed by the headwaters of the river Jordan. It is a mere 13 miles long, and 8 miles wide at its widest.  And it is the major source of water for all the crops in the area during the dry months especially.  This year however for the first time in a very long time, the lake was full. Notice... Read more

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