Al-Jib Heritage Exhibition

Yesterday Prof P and Mo visited the Al-Jib Heritage Exhibition in the Al-Jib Womanly Centre. Al-Jib is a Palestinian village in the West Bank where the ancient biblical site of Gibeon is thought to be located. During the early Iron Age, a massive wall was constructed around the crown of the hill of Gibeon and a huge pool was cut in the rock just inside the wall. The pool is over 10m deep and has a spiral staircase of 79 steps cut into the walls of the pool, continuing downwards into a tunnel that provides access to a water chamber 24m below the level of the city.
It is thought that this structure is the "pool of Gibeon" mentioned in the Bible (2 Samuel 2:13). Recently the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE) was awarded an Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation (from the US Department of State) grant to establish some small community museums in the Ramallah area. The Al-Jib Heritage Exhibition is one of these museums.
This is the director of PACE with Prof P - explaining some of the highlights of the museum. Last summer Prof P and Mo went to visit the potential museum sites with PACE and this year we did a follow-up.
The exhibit is made up of artifacts from the site, some ethnographic material and some local handicrafts made by the women from the Womanly Center. Some of the artifacts are donated by the local villagers.
Any good visit to the West Bank involves many cups of tea and coffee and usually some sweets.
On this visit we were treated to a strange jelly and chocolate pudding concoction and more coffee!
This image is for our pal JE who is doing a study on museums, groundstone and the work of women in the Middle East.
As many of your know traveling to the West Bank can be long and involved. We leave you with some of the graffiti on the wall near the Ramallah check point. Tomorrow we leave for Marj Rabba in the Karmi'el region - look for more posts on the dig in the coming days/weeks!