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The Eretz Israel Museum was established in 1953 in Ramat Aviv, Israel. The museum displays comprehensive archeological, anthropological and historical artifacts. The Museum Park comprises many exhibition pavilions within a huge campus. Each pavilion is dedicated to a different subject: glassware, ceramics, coins, copper and more, as well as a planetarium. The Man and His Work section features live demonstrations of ancient methods of weaving, jewelry and pottery making, grain grinding and bread baking. Tel Quasile, an excavation in which 12 distinct layers of culture have been uncovered, is part of the museum, as well the Museum of the History of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Independence Hall, where the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, both of which are in central Tel Aviv.

From the 2005 exhibit of early Israeli metalwork at the Eretz Israel Museum, this bronze laurel branch oil-burning menorah was designed by sculptor and industrial designer Maurice Ascalon and manufactured by his Pal-Bell company in Tel-Aviv, Israel, circa 1948.

Nechushtan Pavilion

Reconstructed mine

Inside the pavilion, visitors find themselves in a reconstructed mine from the Chalcolithic period and the Late Bronze Age, showing marks of mining tools such as the stone hammers, flint blades and copper chisels displayed in their respective showcases.

Smelting furnaces

Four smelting furnaces are on display:

• Bowl furnace from the Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BCE)
• Domed furnace of the Late Bronze Age (14th–13th centuries BCE)
• Authentic Late Bronze Age furnace (12th century BCE)
• Shaft furnace of the Iron Age (10th century BCE).

The Egyptian-Midianite Mining Temple

In the 14th century BCE, the Egyptian pharaohs dispatched mining expeditions to Timna. Alongside expert metalsmiths from the Land of Midian, they extracted copper at Timna until the early 12th century BCE This pavilion in the museum houses a Midianite temple model.

Of special interest is the copper snake with gilded head, found in the naos of the Midianite shrine, perhaps pointing to the biblical Nehushtan (2 Kings 18:4) ("a brazen thing").

The Glass Pavilion

This pavilion exhibits collections of ancient glass vessels. The exhibition is divided into three sections, representing three chapters in the history of glass vessel production:

Pre-Blown Glass (Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic period—15th-1st centuries BCE)

The Pavilion display vessels made by the core-forming technique—the most ancient method of manufacturing glass utensils.

Blown glass of the Roman and Byzantine periods (1st–7th centuries CE)

Glass-blowing is an important technology, whose discovery facilitated the production process of glass, and made glass vessels cheap and popular.

In the center of this section, two rare and important vessels are displayed: a delicate drinking horn with two openings, known by its Greek name "rhyton", and "Ennion's Blue Jug" bearing the signature of its maker, is one of the most famous and beautiful creations by that artist, who lived in the first half of the 1st century CE.

Blown glass of the Islamic period (7th–15th centuries CE)

This section is devoted to glass vessels made in Eastern Mediterranean countries after the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE.

The Glass Furnace from Khirbet Samariyah

Remnants of a glass furnace from the 13th century CE, discovered alongside the Crusader fortress at Sommelaria, north of Acre.

Postal and Philatelic Museum

The Pavilion recounts the history of postal service in the Land of Israel.

The first section deals with the history of postal service in the Land of Israel from the mid-19th century until the founding of the State of Israel. It includes envelopes and letters, photographs and posters, mailboxes and telephones, as well as a postal vehicle from 1949.

The philatelic display wing displays valuable and rare stamps.

External links

• The Eretz Israel Museum
• Eretz Israel Museum at ilMuseums.com