June 18, 2012

Capernaum, Israel: The Yigal Alon Center; things to do

The Yigal Alon Center  

Kibbutz Ginosar 1490, 972-4-672-770. 

"Jesus Boat" reconstruction at The Yigal Alon Center in Capernaum, Israel
"Jesus Boat" reconstruction at The Yigal Alon Center in Capernaum, Israel


A decade ago, a 2,000-year-old fishing boat (from the 1st century A.D.) was discovered buried in the Sea of Galilee mud.  Nicknamed the “Jesus Boat,” it is displayed in a protected environment in the grand new Yigal Alon Center where it is still undergoing conservation.  Jerome Hall, from U.C. San Diego, is documenting the boat.  “I’d like to get into the mind of the person who built the boat,” he says.  “Laying under here for 16 years I’ve heard everything,” he adds.  Hall is currently finishing a book about the boat.  “The boat has its own story to tell in its wood.”  He thinks the boat was built from pieces of other boats and that it was sitting on the shore being taken apart when something cataclysmic happened and it was covered with mud.  He thinks the boat builder was brilliant but limited by what was available.  “He built the boat he could, not the one he wanted.”



More things to do in Galilee area of Israel.

More ideas for exploring the Middle East.


image c2012 Carole Terwilliger Meyers

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