Wednesday, August 09, 2006

It's Tu B'Av at Shiloh







Tu B'Av? Yes, the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av.

More info here, and here and here.

So, at Shiloh we had a minor festival and my part was leading a guided tour of the Tel. And a surprise awaited me. At the southern entrance to the Tel, we have a Muslim site called Wali Yeitam. A few years ago, the area around it was excavated and another Byzantine church was exposed with beautiful mosaics and now, they enlarged and deepened the digging and found another church floor, under the other.

As the pictures above illustrate, there are Greek incriptions and one of them, ,I was informed, actually spells out "SHILOH" in Greek! So, 1500 years ago, before the Arabs came here, Shiloh was known.

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