General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
JERUSALEM — A series of exceptional 1,700-year-old Roman mosaics have returned home to Israel, where the collection went on public display for the first time Monday after more than a decade touring the world’s top museums.
The mosaics were first discovered in the central city of Lod in 1996 but the Israel Antiquities Authority only fully unearthed the enormous, well-preserved artworks in 2009.
The collection stretches 17 meters by nine meters (56 feet by 30 feet). The mosaics feature a menagerie of animals, from fish and fowl to beasts that would have been exotic to ancient residents of Lod: an African elephant, rhinoceros and giraffe. Archaeologists believe the mosaics adorned an affluent villa in the 3rd or 4th centuries, after Lod was rebuilt as the Roman city of Diospolis.
But for more than a decade, while Israeli authorities raised funds for a museum, the mosaics had no permanent home. They went on display at museums around the globe, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Museum in Paris and The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The mosaics’ new home at the Shelby White and Leon Levy Mosaic Lod Archaeological Center features guided tours and interactive exhibits in Arabic, English and Hebrew. The museum is free for residents of Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city that saw bouts of sectarian violence in May 2021 during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“Like a mosaic which brings many pieces together to be one wonderful picture … we are trying to bring all the local people — Jews and Arabs,” the museum’s project manager, Raanan Kislev, told The Associated Press.
The museum hopes it will be a key attraction for tour groups, as Lod is strategically situated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and next to the country’s main international airport. The museum is designed to recreate an ancient Roman villa like one that would have housed the mosaics.
“Our dream for this city — itself a mosaic of cultures — is being realized today right before of our eyes, as we dedicate this most important museum, placing Lod on the world tourism map,” said Mayor Yair Revivo.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — More than 100 long-finned pilot whales that beached on the western Australian coast Thursday have returned to sea, while 29 died on the shore, officials said.
On Monday, April 22, 2024, history was being written in a Manhattan courtroom.
PARIS - With heavy security set for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games during a time of terrorism, France has asked to use a Greek air defense system as well although talks are said to have been going on for months.
PARIS (AP) — Paris has a new king of the crusty baguette.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A tiny Philip Morris product called Zyn has been making big headlines, sparking debate about whether new nicotine-based alternatives intended for adults may be catching on with underage teens and adolescents.