ARCHAEOLOGY:
Roman-era canal system unearthed near Dead Sea.
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) An ancient canal system used 2,000 years ago to irrigate terraced agricultural plots has been unearthed in an excavation near the Roman-era fortress of Metzad Bokek in southern Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority jointly conducted the excavation.
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Regarding the reference to "persimmon" later in the article, Joseph Lauer commented as follows (
inter alia) in his e-mail circulating the article:
We’ve been through this before regarding articles that confuse the afarsemon plant of antiquity, balsam or balm, with the modern Hebrew word for persimmon, also afarsemon. See, e.g., TB Berachot 43a, and Jastrow, Dictionary 109a.
The English article does note, in a translated quote, that the trees “were different from the persimmon trees we know today”.