The Semitic Museum has installed a new exhibition that brings the world of biblical Israel into vivid, three-dimensional reality. "The Houses of Ancient Israel: Domestic, Royal, Divine" immerses the viewer in Israelite daily life around the time of King Hezekiah (8th century B.C.), creating an experiential environment based on the latest archaeological, textual, and historical research.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a full-scale Israelite house, open on one side, filled with authentic ancient artifacts that show how life was lived by common inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem. Agricultural tools, a cooking area, and a stall occupied by a single, scruffy ram fill the ground floor of the cube-shaped, mud-brick structure, which, thankfully, is not olfactorily authentic. The upper story, reached by a ladder, is devoted to eating and sleeping.
Harvard Gazette: Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah