The term "antiquity" as defined by the Ordinance includes all monuments down to 1700 A.D.
Excavations.—The Palestine Exploration Fund, under the direction of Professor Garstang, has opened an extensive excavation at Ascalon which has yielded important results.
The colonnade and cloisters, with which Herod the Great endowed his birthplace, have been identified and partly cleared, some interesting statuary has been brought to light, and traces of Philistine and pre-Philistine occupation have been traced in the acropolis.
At Gethsemane the Franciscans of Terra Santa have excavated a basilica of the third or fourth century; they have also resumed excavation on the site of the synagogue of Capernaum (Tel Hûm), where efforts will be made to rebuild a portion of the fallen masonry.
At Tiberias the Palestine Jewish Exploration Society has been excavating ancient Jewish remains; and at Ain Duk, near Jericho, the Dominicans of the "Ecole Biblique" of S. Stephen, Jerusalem, have completed the clearance of an ancient synagogue, where, as a result of the war, portions of a mosaic floor had been laid bare.
A magnificent Roman mosaic of about 300 A.D. was unearthed in October, 1921, at the village of Beit Jibrin (Eleutheropolis) in the sub-district of Hebron, near which are also situated the famous "painted tombs of Marissa" of the second century B.C. (cf. § 5 below).
The University Museum of Pennsylvania began in 1921 at Beisan excavation work, which now assumes important proportions. The site of Samaria has been provisionally reserved for the University of Harvard, which organized the original excavation there, and that of Megiddo for the University of Chicago.
§ 3. The Palestine Museum.
The Palestine Museum is at present housed in the Department of Antiquities, and consists largely of antiquities found
