At the invitation of Monica Valley, the director of education programs at the Terra Sancta Museum, Frs. D. Neuhaus, J. Briffa, R. Wtorek, W. Jonczyk, and G. Schultze visited the new archeological wing of the Museum.  Our tour guide was Fr. Eugenio Alliata, OFM, the director of the Archeological Section and an archeologist.  

 

The multimedia and archeological sections are a part of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum complex at the Monastery of the Flagellation, which is the start of the Via Dolorosa.  The multimedia center contains various building stones, columns, battlefield projectiles, and capitals that were all found at the at the Museum’s site.  Many of the artefacts were spolia brought from other locations of Jerusalem and used for construction of distinct structures over the centuries.  The Franciscans have served as custodians and guardians of the Holy Land sites since 1217, studying and collecting artefacts related to the various faiths and cultures of the region.

The tour included explanations of Byzantine mosaics, household items, perfume bottles, jewelry, purification vessels, and coins. Franciscans collected the items in archeological digs or received them as benefactors’ gifts.  The coins were stamped in various parts of the Holy Land and the wider Roman world. The display started with the small copper widow’s mite, included denarii (“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”), and ended with a silver shekel.

Although the archeological section provides a rich understanding of the time of Jesus, Fr. Alliata and the Museum are close to completing two more sections focused on the specific period of Jesus’ life.  It will contain items from the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, and other places in Galilee that were of his time.

The visit was enjoyable and offered an opportunity to recall the past work of Franciscans and Jesuits in the Holy Land and think of the future. Thank you, Fr. Eugenio Alliata and Monica Valley, who arranged the visit for us.