Wednesday, June 24, 2009

THE GOOD SAMARITAN MOSAIC MUSEUM has opened:
Israel opens mosaic museum in the West Bank
The $2.5m Museum of the Good Samaritan houses mosaics and antiquities at a Christian pilgrimage site


By Lauren Gelfond Feldinger | Web only
Published online 24.6.09 (Museums)

jerusalem. Hours after US president Barack Obama’s historic Cairo speech on 4 June called on Israel to stop building in the West Bank, Israel inaugurated a mosaics museum at a West Bank site.

The opening was planned without consideration for or connection to the speech, said the museum’s planner, archaeologist Dr Yitzhak Magen of Israel’s Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

The $2.5m Museum of the Good Samaritan, housing nearly 50 mosaics and a collection of antiquities, was opened at the Christian pilgrimage site where the Bible’s “Parable of the Good Samaritan” is believed to be set. The site also comprises the restored Good Samaritan Inn, a reconstructed Byzantine church, and Second Temple-era dwelling caves.

The museum’s preserved and restored mosaics and other relics from the fourth to the sixth centuries originate from Christian, Jewish and Samaritan historic sites, based on themes in the parable, Dr Magen said. He also said that excavations at the site show it to be the location where King Herod’s palace once stood.

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Background here.