In the 1990s, Prof. Dr. Klaus Bieberstein (Chair of Old Testament Studies, Bamberg University), as part of the SFB 19 "Tübingen Atlas of the Middle East" of the University of Tübingen, published an annotated map of the excavations in and around Jerusalem of the prececing one hundred years (Bieberstein 1992, and 1994). An English summary on the city's history until 70 AD was published in 2017, following a paradigm shift in the understanding of Jerusalem's historic development (Bieberstein 2017). Most of these extensive data sets were previously only available in analog form and are now being digitized by Digital Geoarchaeology as part of a jointly organized teaching and research project. The focus of the cooperation is on the virtual presentation of the the settlement development according to historical epochs on the basis of the archaeological excavations,upplemented with knowledge gathered in the past decades. In a GIS introductory exercise in the winter semester 2019/20, the base map of the previously only partially digitized information was mapped by archaeology students, and was completed by student assistants from Digital Geoarchaeology.The next task was to the digitize the archaeological maps and their revise them accordingly in accordance to recent publications. For this reason we organized a seminar in winter semester 2020/21, where literature on surveys and excavation of the last 30 years was reviewed, and the excavation plans were integrated into an online database.
- WiSe 2019/20: Übung - GIS-Kartierung und Analyse archäologischer Daten als Projektarbeit (Dozent: T. Sonnemann, in Zusammenarbeit mit K. Bieberstein) (applied exercise)
WiSe 2020/21: Seminar/Proseminar - Diskussion und Einbindung neuester archäologischer Erkenntnisse in die digitale archäologische Karte von Jerusalem (Dozenten: K. Bieberstein & T. Sonnemann) (seminar with student presentations and discussions)
Literature on this topic:
- Bieberstein, Klaus. 1992. Jerusalem Karten 1-4. Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO). Wiesbaden: Reichert.
- Bieberstein, Klaus/ Bloedhorn, Hanswulf. 1994. Jerusalem: Grundzüge der Baugeschichte vom Chalkolithikum bis zur Frühzeit der osmanischen Herrschaft. Tübinger Altas des Vorderen Orients, Nr. 100, Bände 1-3, Wiesbaden: Reichert.
- Bieberstein, Klaus. 2017. A brief history of Jerusalem: from the earliest settlement to the destruction of the city in AD 70. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Online-Informationen:
Jerusalem: Article in 'WiBiLex - Das wissenschaftliche Bibellexikon im Internet (in German) (https://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/22380/) [K. Bieberstein]