Work at an archaeological dig in Jerusalem provides evidence that the technology and construction methods described in the Old Testament stories of Kings David and Solomon existed. The excavations found walls and fortifications just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City and are dated to being around 3,000 years old. More details can be found here.
Tags : Israeli archaeologists think they've discovered King Herod's tomb. (The original article has video and a map.)
Herod, elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate, was a prolific builder. He expanded the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem. But he's also, according to the New Testament, the king who ordered the slaying of all infants in Bethlehem.
No skeletons or other remains have been found, but the archaeologists did uncover a sarcophagus--smashed to pieces by ancient vandals. The scientists think that Jewish rebels--in an act of symbolic vengeance against the Roman rulers they came to hate--probably destroyed the tomb some 70 years after Herod's death.
Check out the May "Object of the Month"--it's a Roman glass bottle found in Caesarea Maritimas, in Israel. (You can see photos of the ruins, and a map.) Caesaria was one of several cities built by King Herod
Darkness: What the prehistoric cave looked like before its discovery.
A prehistoric ecosystem, sealed off from the rest of the world for millions of years, has been discovered in a cave in Israel. Animals found in the cave are unknown to science, and include at least eight new species. Located more than 320 feet beneath the surface near the central Israeli town of Ramle, the cavern runs for about one and half miles and contains an underground lake.
The new species found in and around the lake include four crustaceans and four terrestrial creatures. The largest is a two-inch long albino crustacean with a cigar-shaped body, six legs and pincer claws. Oddly, two of the crustaceans are salt-water variety, and two are freshwater species. Scientists think this indicates they arrived from two different sources and at two different times. And because they evolved in an environment of total darkness, all the creatures are blind.
"Every species we examined had no eyes which means they lost their sight due to evolution," said Dr. Hanan Dimentman of the Hebrew University Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences.
Since sunlight never reaches the cave, photosynthesis can't take place so there are no plants in the system. However, bacteria found in the lake are thought to serve as a food source for the life forms.
Dimentman expects further exploration will produce even more new species. "This is the first discovery of terrestrial animals found only in a cave and not on the surface," he said. "Ecologically, this is a unique cave unparalleled anywhere else in the world."
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