The Glass Slab

A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...

Well, yesterday's news is grim...the Tennessee assassin going about in self similar fashion to those I wrote about in yesterday's post...it would be unsettling to me if I wasn't already unsettled!...hmmph

I don't have tv, and I've seen all the shows available on the web that I wanted to see, so I miss my tv, my 'opiate for the masses', which makes me sober in a way, and sensitized to news...I play my video game, but my thoughts are else ware, and too, while walking my dog, which I haven't been able to do...Maya's learned to escape the harness, and once loose, I can't get her back...so, until the new 'escape proof' harness comes in the mail from amazon, Maya is confined to the porch, and backyard...which is ok...it's too hot for walks for me...

The Glass Slab

Reading along in the Archaeology book at the Laundry, I happened on the story of the Glass Slab...while a bulldozer was clearing some land in one of the old Israel Towns, it ran into a large rectangular immovable object that looked like stone...the bulldozer gave up, and the slab was covered up with dirt, until someone studied it, and realized it was glass, ancient glass, and as big as a barn door, and more than a foot thick...it was discovered that it was sitting in a kind of stone fish pond like tank used to melt glass...the tank at one time being covered over by a kiln like oven...just how the glass was made I think they are unsure of, but there have been more ancient glass manufacturing places like it found...and Corning Glass Company, with an interest in the making of glass, has a site about it:

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The Mystery Slab of Beth She'arim

Beth She'arim was a cemetery located in Galilee. It was one of the most sacred places in the ancient Jewish world. Just adjacent to its catacombs is a natural cave that had long ago been made into a large cistern for storing water. It apparently fell into disuse at the end of the 4th century and filled up partially with four or five feet of clay-like silt.

In 1956 it was decided to convert the cave into a small museum. A bulldozer was taken in to clear the rubble and level off the surface.

http://www.cmog.org/article/mystery-slab-beth-shearim

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The slab is a curio, and the history of how glass making came into being too!, but what caught my fancy is the cemetery.  Buried there are the last of the Sanhedrin.  The Sanhedrin were the governing body of ancient Israel, and after the fall of Jerusalem, they moved to Beth Shearim, where they continued awhile until opposition by Rome to their existence became too much, and they disbanded.

There, that story would lie, but it was in the news yesterday too!...for goodness sake...there are those trying to revive ancient Israel, the establishment of the Nation of Israel just one step...there are other things that need returned...like red hefers for Temple rituals...one has been discovered on an American Farm, and is to find it's way to Israel...and another thing is the Sanhedrin...there have been some attempts to revive it...Napoleon tried, I learn...and some Israeli groups are trying currently, making a new Sanhedrin, though Israel doesn't recognize it as such...but, this new Sanhedrin has issued what looks to be like a Muslim fatwa against Pope Francis....Pope Francis, I gather, is arguing that Israel has no current right to the property, the land they took from the Palestinians-- a theft of sorts...well, that's a back and forth in the news all the time, but the Pope being from the long line of Popes, and this new Sanhedrin thinking it is the old one, well, they've had their differences!

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Pope Francis, Alison Weir and the Sanhedrin

An Israeli media outlet reported last week that The Jerusalem Sanhedrin –a Jewish religious ‘High Court composed of 71 sages’, has declared that it is putting Pope Francis on trial unless he retracts his statement that the Jews have no right to the land of Israel or to Jerusalem.

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2015/7/15/pope-francis-alison-weir-and-the-Sanhedrin

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I liked the cow story...

Red Heifer Found in America

The Red Heifer is an extremely rare creature. According to Jewish tradition, during the two thousand years from the time this commandment was given until the destruction of the Second Temple in the first century AD, only nine red cows that met the biblical criteria were ever found.

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24701/


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But the Pope/Sanhedrin story graced my thoughts while thinking about the Battle of the Fallen Trees (Timbers)...

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Battle of Fallen Timbers

After the American Revolution, however, the United States maintained that the Indian nations no longer owned the lands in the Ohio area, citing an article in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 in which Britain agreed to cede the lands owned by indigenous nations. Native Americans rejected the notion that the British or Americans could dispose of their tribal lands without their consent. They said they did not have a representative at the Treaty negotiations, did not sign the treaty, and did not recognize its giving away rights to their lands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fallen_Timbers

I'm gonna make some popcorn and watch 'Terminator Salvation'...

DavidDavid