Academic literature on the topic 'Ophel Archaeological Garden (Jerusalem)'

Статья посвящена неизвестной ранее российской части истории открытия важного протестантского археологического памятника в Иерусалиме - Садовой могилы генерала Гордона, а также участию в ее изучении Конрада Шика, иерусалимского архитектора и археолога, одного из основных исследователей древностей на Русских раскопках у храма Гроба Господня. The paper describes a previously unknown Russian part of the story relating to the discovery of the Garden Tomb also known as Gordon’s Calvary, which is an important Protestant archaeological site in Jerusalem, as well as participation of Conrad Schick in its research. Schick was a Jerusalem-based architect and archaeologist, he was one of the main researchers of antiquities during the Russian excavations near the Holy Sepulcher.

Today, citrus orchards are a major component of the Mediterranean landscape and one of the most important cultivated fruits in the region; however, citrus is not native to the Mediterranean Basin, but originated in Southeast Asia. Here, the route of the spread and diversification of citrus is traced through the use of reliable historical information (ancient texts, art, and artifacts such as wall paintings and coins) and archaeobotanical remains such as fossil pollen grains, charcoals, seeds, and other fruit remains. These botanical remains are evaluated for their reliability (in terms of identification, archaeological context, and dating) and possible interpretations. Citrus medica (citron) was the first citrus to spread west, apparently through Persia and the Southern Levant (remains were found in a Persian royal garden near Jerusalem dated to the fifth and fourth centuries BC) and then to the western Mediterranean (early Roman period, ≈third and second centuries BC). In the latter region, seeds and pollen remains of citron were found in gardens owned by the affluent in the Vesuvius area and Rome. The earliest lemon (C. limon) botanical remains were found in the Forum Romanum (Rome) and are dated to the late first century BC/early first century AD. It seems, therefore, that lemon was the second citrus species introduced to the Mediterranean. The contexts of the botanical remains, in relation to elite gardens, show that in antiquity, both citrus and lemon were products representing high social status. Sour orange (C. aurantium), lime (C. aurantifolia), and pummelo (C. maxima) did not reach the Mediterranean until the 10th century AD, after the Islamic conquest. Sweet orange (C. sinesis) was introduced during the second half of the 15th century AD, probably via the trade route established by the Genoese, and later (16th century AD) by the Portuguese. The mandarin (C. reticulata) reached the Mediterranean only in the early 19th century. While citron and lemon arrived in the Mediterranean as elite products, all other citrus fruit most probably spread for economic reasons.

Chapter 3 explores the search, during the 1920s, for the origins of David’s city and a monotheistic Jerusalem. It recovers international, metropolitan, and local mandate initiatives for verifying the location of Jerusalem’s oldest part, Mount Ophel, known as the City of David, by considering the activities of the Anglo-American press, organizations such as the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), and Palestine’s antiquities administration. It also considers the effect of the excavations on the mount on local landholders and owners. The chapter relates the excavations to mandate policies in regard to town planning (which reached its vogue during the interwar period), and to the visions of British urban planners and designers, like William McLean, Charles Robert Ashbee, and Patrick Geddes, administrators such as Ronald Storrs, Jerusalem’s military governor, and archaeologists. It examines how they sought to integrate the city’s antiquities and archaeological remains and their notion of a walled city into a vision of its modernization. The chapter recoups the early limited attempts to excavate the Davidic city and discusses the complex negotiation over access to Ophel and other historical monuments, between the mandate authorities, archaeologists and their institutions, and local landholders who cultivated the excavation sites. The negotiation and disputes about who owned land were also clashes over the worth and value of antiquity.