Researchers in Israel believe they have identified the site of the biblical city of Neta’im, mentioned in 1 Chronicles.

Based on its proximity to another biblical town, and archaeological ruins dating from the time of the biblical King David’s rule, researchers think Neta’im might have been located at the modern site called Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Israel.

Khirbet Qeiyafa contains the ruins of an ancient fortress city on top of a hill overlooking the Elah Valley. Pottery shards and burned olive pits at the site date to about 1,000 B.C. Most scholars think King David ruled during this time.

Archaeologists have previously associated Khirbet Qeiyafa with the biblical city Sha’arayim, which means “two gates,” because of the discovery of two gates in the fortress ruins, and because Sha’arayim was also associated with King David in the Bible. But now researchers claim this site is really Neta’im, a town mentioned in the book 1 Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.

“The inhabitants of Neta’im were potters who worked in the king’s service and inhabited an important administrative center near the border with the Philistines”‘ said Gershon Galil, a professor of biblical studies at the University of Haifa in Israel.

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A wine press, dating back 1,400 years, has been found in Israel. Is it one of the largest ever found in the country.

One of the largest wine presses ever revealed in an archaeological excavation in the country, which was used to produce wine in the Late Byzantine period (sixth-seventh centuries CE), was recently exposed in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The excavation was carried out in a region that will be the farmland of Ganei Tal, a new community slated to be built for the evacuees from Gush Katif.

The impressive wine press is 1,400 years old and measures 6.5 x 16.5 meters. It was discovered southwest of Kibbutz Hafetz-Haim and was partly damaged during the installation of the infrastructure there.

According to Uzi Ad, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “What we have here seems to be an industrial and crafts area of a settlement from the sixth-seventh century CE, which was situated in the middle of an agricultural region. The size of the wine press attests to the fact that the quantity of wine that was produced in it was exceptionally large, and was not meant for local consumption. Instead it was intended for export, probably to Egypt, which was a major export market at the time, or to Europe. An identical wine press was previously exposed north of Ashkelon, about 20 kilometers from the wine press that was just found in Nahal Soreq and we can assume that the two installations were built by the same craftsman.” Ad adds that “The wine press’ collecting vats were neither circular nor square as was the custom, but octagonal. And since this method of construction is far from being practical because sediment would accumulate in the corners of the vats, it seems that they were built in this manner for primarily aesthetic reasons.”

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An Israeli exhibition about antiquities which have been recovered from thieves has been robbed.

Organisers of the “Antiquities Theft in Israel” in Jerusalem could not have chosen a more fitting name for their exhibition.

On Wednesday burglars broke into the a museum in Ashdod where hundreds of artefacts recovered from the black market were on show and snatched several valuable items, including a silver ring belonging to Alexander the Great.

The newspaper Haaretz said the robbers also took ancient silver coins and other items from archaeological digs including a bronze spear, two gold earrings, some pottery and coins from the Hellenistic period.

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The remains of an 8,000-year-old building as well as hippopotamus bones and shards of pottery have been found near Tel Aviv, Israel.

The remains, found on the banks of the Yarkon river, are the earliest discovered in the Tel Aviv region.

“This discovery is both important and surprising to researchers of the period,” said Ayelet Dayan, who led the excavations.

“For the first time we have encountered evidence of a permanent habitation that existed in the Tel Aviv region about 8,000 years ago.”

That places it in the Neolithic period when man went from a nomadic existence to living in permanent settlements.

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Jordan has complained to the United Nations in a bid to retrieve the Dead Sea Scrolls, which it claims Israel stole from them in 1967 during the Six-Day War.

Jordan has asked Canada to seize the scrolls, invoking the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which the two countries are signatories.

“So far, Canada has reservations. We are still studying our options,” Tourism and Antiquities Minister Maha Khatib told AFP, without elaborating.

A Canadian foreign ministry spokesman told AFP earlier this month that “it would not be appropriate for Canada to intervene” in differences between Jordan and Israel over the scrolls.

In April, top Palestinian officials called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to step in to cancel the exhibition.

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