Visit to Herod Exhibit in Israel Museum

Today, I visited the excellent exhibit on King Herod, currently on display in the Israel Museum. The exhibit is truly magnificent, as befitting any of the top-notch museums in the world. The excellent choice of exhibited objects (from many excavations in Israel and other Mediterranean countries, as well as from many private collections), very nicely arranged and explained, the beautiful reconstructions of architecture and wall paintings, and very very impressive digital reconstructions of many of sites, makes a visit to this exhibit truly memorable! This is an absolute must for all those visiting Israel – and might even be a justification for a special trip – if you have not seen the exhibit. The exhibit also has a very nice catalogue.

Although this was meant to be a Safi lab team tour, in the end, only Debi and I appeared at the museum in the morning! I hope the others, who have not yet had a chance to see the exhibit will go and see it.

Truly something not to miss!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s view of Debi in front of the digital reconstruction of Herod’s tomb on the slope of Herodian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a view of the reconstructed inner room of the small theater on the slope of Herodian (see mentioned here), which was later covered over when Herod’s tomb was built. The walls are decorated with exquisite frescoes and architectural ornamentations –  which are very nicely reconstructed in the exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a partial view of the reconstruction of part of the royal tomb at the very end of the exhibit.

Do make an effort to see this exhibition!

Aren

P.S. We also went to take a quick peek at the Safi objects in the permanent exhibit (the awlt/wlt inscription; the lion-headed “head-cup”; and two phallic-shaped vessels) and although they were lonely and missed us, the seemed in the best of health… :-)