Model

• Tuesday we had a 2.5 hour guided tour of the Jerusalem model (photo at http://www.israelimages.com/files/11879.htm ) designed by Michael Avi-Yonah for outside the Holyland Hotel and now outside the Israel Museum. There's lots more to learn about it (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/time-well-spent.html ).
• Miniatures have been built in various places (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurodam and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Europe ), but building a model of something that existed, but of which we have only partial descrptions poses difficulties.
• Our guide, who had been a student of Avi-Yonah's, described how the archaelogist decided what to put in the city and where to place each building. Avi-Yonah, he said, made changes in response to archaeological discoveries, but there is still controversy over whether to change the model as more is discovered.
• The neighborhood with red-tile roofs, the guide said, represents the homes of the wealthy, above the flat-roofed houses of the poor. But, he added, further research indicates that there were no tile roofs in Jerusalem at the time. Making tile requires heat,and heat required trees. Until the Romans entirely took over the country entirely, the government conserved trees. And until someone decided to bring tiles eastward as balast on ships sent to bring grain back from Egypt, there were few imported tiles.
• So the guide said (but http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/even-licensed-guides.html ).

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox