Tag Archives: Louvre

Paris and the Louvre

Posted on August 30, 2014 | 4 comments

Paris is known as the City of Light. From the roof of our hotel in the St. Michel area we could see some of the significant monuments. This photo, made without tripod, shows the Eiffel Tower. I think the building to the left is the Hotel des Invalides which among other things is the burial site of Napoleon Bonaparte. The building to the right is St. Germain des Prés. In the opposite direction from the hotel we had a nice view of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Paris at Night. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Paris at Night. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

We were able to spend two of our Paris days in the Louvre. This museum displays excellent collections of archaeological artifacts from Mesopotamia, Persia (Iran), the Levant (Syria, Jordan, some sites of the current West Bank), Greece, and Rome. There is an Egyptian collection, but I do not find it as satisfactory as the other collections.

The Louvre is always closed on Tuesday and certain rooms may be closed on other days, or a half day. Years ago I learned to have two or three days in Paris in order to be able to visit all of the galleries I wanted to see. Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa, too.

The lines to get tickets for the Louvre are long. The photo below shows two of the six or more places to buy tickets, in addition to automated machines, under the great pyramid. It is best to buy tickets online or from one of the shops such as the Tourism office near the Opera. Tickets are about $20.00 per person for each day of entry. Those with tickets are able to enter through a short line while long lines wait outside just to get into the building to wait in line to buy tickets. The Museum web site explains about advance tickets under “Plan Your Visit” here.

One of the ticket lines at the Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

One of the ticket lines inside the Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

There were large crowds in the Louvre. Some galleries attract guides with tour groups. It’s fun to watch. The guide is nearly running with an umbrella or flag. The tourists are trying to keep up, but snapping their cameras or cell phones at busts they probably will not be able to identify once they are at home. I saw a young lady making a photo of the Roman Diana. I assume she had been at Disneyland Paris a day or two earlier. She did a nice job of composing her photo. When I saw her later and noted that she was a young teenager I was impressed that she wanted to visit the Louvre.

Euro Disney one day; the Louvre the next day. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Euro Disney one day; the Louvre the next day. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

I have been to China, but I think most of the citizens have come to Berlin, Paris, and London to visit the museums.

Photography is permitted in the Louvre. I even made a few shots using flash when I thought it would not damage the artifact. None of the guards seemed to object. Items behind glass always create a problem for photographers. By visiting the museum two days I was able to check the first photos to be sure they were sharp. On the second day I was able to remake some of those that were not good.

4 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Bible Lands, Bible Places, Bible Study, Culture, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Photography, Travel

Tagged , , , , ,

Traveling in Europe

Posted on August 19, 2014 | 4 comments

For the past week my wife and I have been traveling in Europe, revisiting some of the places we have enjoyed with groups over the years. Berlin is one of those places. We did some of the typical sightseeing, but the main visit was the museums with Ancient Near Eastern collections.

My first visit to the Pergamum Museum was about 1978. I returned several times when the Museum was behind the Berlin Wall, and have been there several times since the fall of the wall.

The Egyptian collection formerly was in the west, but now is housed in the Neues Museum in the building on the left of the photo below. Considerable construction is underway in the area. The former entry to the Pergamum Museum is closed. The red sign in the distance points to the temporary entry. Crowds are so large that people wait in line for four hours or more to buy at ticket and gain admission to the Museum. The only way to avoid this is to purchase a ticket online with a 30 minute time span for admission. I purchased a two day Museum pass after I arrived in Berlin and then made an appointment online for two different days. A single entry costs about 13 Euro (a little under $20 per entry).

berlin_pergamum-crowd-01fj_1

Crowds waiting in line to enter the Pergamum Museum. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The Pergamum Altar already has some scaffolding in place. At the end of September the exhibition will close for __________ years (you know about government projects).

The visit was somewhat disappointing because of the appointment requirement, but mostly because portions of the Museum are closed. Whole galleries pertaining to the the Greco-Roman world are not open. The great Ishtar Gate from Babylon is open, and the Miletus Marketgate, which was covered with netting the last time I was in Berlin, is now one of the nicest exhibits. The halls dealing with Babylon, Assyria, and the Hittites were open.

Later I hope to share some representative photos with you, but I confess that I am traveling with a Samsung Tab 4 and have had difficulty getting the single photo above loaded into the blog. I refused to pay the $20+ a day to be online at the hotel. I only ate at one place that offered time online, and they could not locate the card with the passport. 😦

We are in Paris now and I have Wi-Fi at the hotel. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, so I went to the Tourism office and purchased tickets to the museum in order to avoid the long lines the next two days. The tickets here are under $20 per entry.

If any reader has experience in loading photos from an Android tablet into WordPress I would be glad to hear about it. Who knows, maybe I will be able to load a second photo.

 

4 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Bible Places, Bible Study, Biblical Studies, Egypt, Greece, Hittites, New Testament, Old Testament, Photography, Travel, Turkey

Tagged , , , , ,

Visualizing Isaiah 14: cedars of Lebanon rejoice over the fall of Babylon

Posted on February 20, 2014 | 3 comments

Isaiah 14 continues to deal with the downfall of Babylon. In great poetic language we learn that the cedars of Lebanon will rejoice that there is no longer a woodcutter to come up against them.

The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. The cypresses rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.’ (Isaiah 14:7-8 ESV)

The Assyrians came before the Babylonians to take advantage of the wonderful cedars of Lebanon. Sargon II left a frieze on the wall of his palace at Khorsabad showing timber being transported for use in the construction of Assyrian palaces.

Assyrians transporting Cedars from Lebanon. Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Assyrians transporting Cedars from Lebanon. Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The above frieze was produced at Khorsabad during the Neo-Assyrian period, about 713-706 B.C. The Louvre website has this explanation about procuring timber.

Timber was needed to build monumental palaces, but Assyria lacked quality building timber. Lebanon was famous for its cedar forests and from the end of the 2nd millennium, the Assyrian kings imported wood
from this region as the cuneiform inscriptions explain. The trees felled in the Lebanese mountains were carted from Sidon to a port south of  Tyre. The timber was loaded on ships that sailed north along the Phoenician coast, skirting Tyre then Ruad; it was no doubt unloaded at the mouth of the Orontes River. From there the timber could be transported to Assyria by river or road.

More information about the frieze is available at the Louvre website here.

Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria and Babylon between 681-669 B.C., says he made numerous kings,

transport under terrible difficulties, to Nineveh, the town (where I exercise) my rulership, as building material for my palace: big logs, long beams (and) thin boards from cedar and pine trees, products of the Sirara and Lebanon (Lab-na-na) mountains, which had grown for a long time into tall and strong timber… (ANET)

The Cedars of Lebanon grow at an altitude of more than 5000 feet above sea level in the northern Lebanon mountains. Only about 300 of the great trees remain near Besharre. In the photo below I show a cedar that has fallen during a storm and is now being cut for use in souvenirs. The trees are protected against indiscriminate cutting.

Cedars of Lebanon are now protected from cutting. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Cedars of Lebanon are now protected from cutting. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The little village at the Cedars is built around one of the larger remaining trees. You can see the cedar wood plaques displayed at the shops along the main road.

Cedar of Lebanon in a little village at the location of the largest remaining grove. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

A large Cedar of Lebanon in a little village at the location of the largest remaining grove of trees. Only small bands of snow could still be seen on the mountains in early May. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

3 Comments

Posted in Bible Lands, Bible Places, Bible Study, Old Testament, Photography, Travel

Tagged , , , , ,

Sargon II, Ashdod, and Isaiah 20:1

Posted on August 22, 2013 | 9 comments

Ashdod was located along an international highway known as the Way of the Sea, the Way of Philistia, or the Via Maris. This was the important route connecting Egypt and Assyria. We have already discussed, in the past few posts, that the Assyrian king Sargon II captured Ashdod in 712/11 B.C. The prophet Isaiah makes reference to this event in Isaiah 20:1.

 The LORD revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. (Isa 20:1 NET)

Sometime discoveries are made, but get little attention. A discovery at Tel Ashdod in 1963 falls into this category. Tel Ashdod was excavated from 1962 to 1972 under the direction of Moshe Dothan. David Noel Freedman wrote an article in Biblical Archaeologist (26:4, 1963)) about “The Second Season at Ancient Ashdod.” He describes the fragments of a stele of Sargon II.

Fragments of another stele, commemorating the victories of Sargon, were found at Ashdod during the current season, thus offering direct confirmation and vivid illustration of the biblical and Assyrian accounts. In all, three pieces of the stele were discovered. Enough can be made of their contents to show that the inscription duplicated in content if not precisely in wording other victory steles of the Assyrian king. By comparing the Ashdod stele with the others it will be possible to reconstruct the missing parts, one of which described the actual conquest of Ashdod. The inscription was carved in cuneiform signs characteristic of Sargon and his period, on all four sides of a slab of basalt which had been imported from a region north of Megiddo. It may have served as a pedestal for an obelisk, or a statue of the emperor. It must have been erected between the year of victory at Ashdod and the death of the king in 705 B.C., perhaps in 707 when a similar stele was set up in Cyprus. With the accession of Sennacherib in 704, most of the vessel countries revolted; Hezekiah of Judah and Sidqa of Ashkelon were the ringleaders in the west. They were able to liberate Ashdod from Assyrian control, and doubtless the event was observed by the destruction of Sargon’s victory stele, symbol of foreign oppression. These fragments of a monumental Assyrian inscription are the first ever found in Palestine.

The photos below were published in an article by Hayam Tadmor (“Philistia Under Assyrian Rule.” Biblical Archaeologist (29:3, 1966). Several years ago I used a digital camera to copy the photo. Sorry it is not better, but at least you can see the pieces. A photo of the piece in the middle below is also published in a BAR article (Jan-Feb, 2007) by H. Shanks on the “Assyrian Palace Discovered in Ashdod,” but the quality is about the same.
Fragment of the Sargon II inscription found at Ashdod.

Fragment of the Sargon II inscription found at Ashdod.

For several years the fragments were displayed in a case across from the replica of the Siege of Lachish in the Israel Museum. For the past years the fragments have not been on display. I made inquiry at the Museum earlier this year without any success. I wonder if the pieces have been moved to the Corine Maman Museum of Philistine Culture in Ashdod. Can anyone help with this?

This discovery is one of those that complement the biblical record. Sargon II (721–705 B.C.) is mentioned only once in the Bible — Isaiah 20:1. Isaiah says that the commanding general of Sargon II fought against Ashdod and captured it.

The photo below shows Sargon II (right) facing a person who is generally considered to be an Assyrian high dignitary. (See the discussion in Fant & Reddish, Lost Treasures of the Bible, 133-140.

Sargon II and an attendant. Displayed in Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Sargon II and an official. Displayed in Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Jack Finegan says of the reference to Sargon II in Isaiah 20:1,

… for a long time this was the only place in extant literature where his name was known.

The palace of Sargon II was discovered by Paul Emile Botta at Khorsabad in 1843. This relief comes from that palace, and is displayed in the Louvre. Other reliefs and artifacts from the palace are exhibited in the British Museum and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Written copies of Isaiah existed in what we know as the Dead Sea Scrolls nearly 2000 years before the discovery of Sargon’s palace and archive. Perhaps we should be slow to think of Isaiah and other biblical writers as being unhistorical. To say this in a positive way, this illustrates the historical trustworthiness of the Bible. That the only reference to Sargon is specifically linked to Ashdod is even more impressive.

9 Comments

Posted in Archaeology, Bible Lands, Bible Places, Bible Study, Biblical Studies, Israel, Old Testament, Photography, Travel

Tagged , , , ,