Conference on Jerusalem at HU

Today, I sat in at one session at the annual joint HU/IAA conference on Jerusalem, which was held at the Mt. Scopus campus of the HU. In the session, I heard three lectures. One dealt with the new rural temple recently found in Jerusalem, near the village of Walaja (in the Rephaim Valley), which I had mentioned that I had visited awhile ago.
The 2nd lecture, by Ronny Reich, was primarily about the discovery of a few Iron IIB rooms, quarried out in the bedrock, just to the south of Warren’s Shaft near the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem. Although most of these features had been previously excavated by Parker, some very interesting features were noted.
And finally, the last lecture that I heard was about a fascinating miniature bone icon box, less than 2 cm long, which opened up and inside there were two pictures of a man and a women, most probably of Jesus and Mary. The icon, which was found in the Givati Parking excavations in the City of David, dates to the Byzantine period.
There were other lectures at the meeting – but I was not able to attend them.

Aren