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Haaretz (premium) has a story on the Mamertine Prison now that it has been renovated and re-opened. The history of the site goes back to the 8th century BC and was considered to be one step away from hell for its captives.

A refurbishment of the kitchens of Pompeii reveals much about ancient Roman cooking practices.

Continued restoration of the Parthenon now moves to the building’s west side.

Archaeologists working in Hala Sultan Tekke have discovered one of the most magnificent tombs ever found on the island of Cyprus. It dates to the Late Bronze Age and contains Egyptian scarabs, a diadem, and beautiful jewelry.

Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities will begin offering an annual pass to all of the country’s sites and museums.


The Times of Israel suggests the top five Jewish spots to visit in Saudi Arabia.

“Between 1,300 and 800 BC, large quantities of metal objects, including tools and weapon-like swords, daggers and arrow heads, were produced at Saruq Al Hadid” in modern Dubai. The site and its new museum are profiled in The National.

Iraq is seeking to add Babylon to the World Heritage List.

Logos users can now pre-order Barry Beitzel’s New Moody Atlas of the Bible.

HT: Ted Weis, Joseph Lauer, Agade

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The Israeli police arrested five members of the Waqf for erecting scaffolding and carrying out structural changes on the Dome of the Rock without authorization.

A new study suggests that there was widespread literacy in the kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BC. The full study is available for purchase or free through Academia.

The Temple Institute is planning to open the first school for training priests to serve in the Jerusalem temple.

Jeremy Smoak compares the silver amulets from Jerusalem with the Ekron temple inscription.

Wayne Stiles: “God inspired metaphors of biblical geography and botany to highlight one of the most important aspects in any healthy marriage.”

The Winter 2016 issue of DigSight is now online and includes stories on Qeiyafa finds, past lectures, and a new exhibit.

An article on the Inspiration Cruises website gives a little history of a Finnish moshav established in Israel in the 1970s and named in memory of Jews surrendered to the Nazis in World War II.

Frank L. Benz, longtime professor at Wartburg Seminary, died last week. Several years ago, we mentioned here his little-known New Testament marking guide to the Student Map Manual.

Martin Bachmann, the German Archaeology Institute’s deputy Istanbul director and the head of the Pergamon excavations, died this week at the age of 52.

George Mendenhall died yesterday, 8 days shy of his 100th birthday.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade

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Archaeologists working in Manisa in western Turkey have discovered a dinner set that dates to 150 BC.

Philippe Bohstrom profiles the Phoenicians and their contributions to civilization.

A map of all of Egypt’s archaeological sites and museums has been created, with a digital version to be released online next month.

An underwater Roman era basilica found only 20 meters off the shore of Lake İznik in the northwestern province of Bursa will be revived for tourism, as an “underwater museum” project at the site is underway.”

The Bolton Museum is planning to spend millions of pounds to create a new Eternal Egypt Gallery.

Michael Harbin looks at the Bible, archaeology, and modern patterns to understand what an agricultural community in the time of the Judges might have looked like.

The World Video Bible School has released the first five of a scheduled 20 programs. These include
Jerusalem, Jesus’s northern ministry, Dan, the Mount Gilboa region, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade

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A youth group working alongside archaeologists in Ibillin in northern Israel have uncovered a Canaanite fortress.

A pottery workshop from the Roman period has been excavated in western Galilee. High-res photos are available here.

After a four-year break, excavators are back at work at Tel Dan.

Jodi Magness provides an update on this summer’s excavations of Huqoq on The Book and the Spade.

Israel’s only mummy is now on display in a special exhibit at the Israel Museum that opened this week.

A project featuring ten mosaic replicas was unveiled in Jerusalem’s Cardo this week. A Jerusalem Post article indicates that the project will take a year to complete.

A group of Israeli archaeologists was attacked when touring the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount Sifting Project has a firsthand report.

Israel’s High Court is allowing the transfer of the ancient library at the Rockefeller Museum to the new IAA headquarters.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project is looking for help in identifying some of their finds.

Wayne Stiles explains the King’s Garden in Jerusalem, past and present.

CBD has a good deal going on the New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Get the original four volumes for $148, or get all five for $260. The update volume is available separately as well for $111. (Used sets at Amazon are a little more and new are $400+228.)

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade

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Earlier this morning, Hebrew University sent out this press release with photos:

In a historic find, a large fragment of an Egyptian statue measuring 45 X 40 centimeters, made of lime-stone, was discovered. In the course of the current season of excavations at Tel-Hazor, north of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. Only the lower part of the statue survived, depicting the crouching feet of a male figure, seated on a square base on which a few lines in the Egyptian hieroglyphic script are inscribed.
The archaeologists estimate that the complete statue would equal the size of a fully-grown man. At present only a preliminary reading of the inscriptions has been attempted, and the title and name of the Egyptian official who originally owned the statue, are not yet entirely clear.
The statue was originally placed either in the official’s tomb or in a temple – most probably a temple of the Egyptian god Ptah – and most of the texts inscribed on the statue’s base include words of praise to the official who may have served and most probably practiced his duties in the region of Memphis, the primary cult center of the god Ptah. They also include the customary Egyptian funerary formula ensuring eternal supply of offerings for the statue’s owner.

The monumental Egyptian statute of a high official from the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, found in the administrative palace at Hazor, north of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. (Photo credit: Shlomit Bechar)
The three volunteer excavators who found the statue, from left to right: Valentin Sama-Rojo from Spain, Bryan Kovach from the United States, and Elanji Swart from South Africa. (Photo credit: Shlomit Bechar)

This statue, found this year, together with the sphinx fragment of the Egyptian king Mycerinus (who ruled Egypt in the 25th century B.C.E.) discovered at the site by the research team three years ago, are the only monumental Egyptian statues found so far in second millennium contexts in the entire Levant.
The discovery of these two statues in the same building currently being excavated by the research team, indicates the special importance of the building (probably the administrative palace of the ruler of the city), as well as that of the entire city of Hazor.
[…]
In the course of close to 30 years of excavation, fragments of 18 different Egyptian statues, both royal and private, dedicated to Egyptian kings and officials, including two sphinxes, were discovered at Hazor. Most of these statues were found in layers dated to the Late Bronze Age (15th-13th centuries B.C.E.) – corresponding to the New Kingdom in Egypt. This is the largest number of Egyptian statues found so far in any site in the Land of Israel, although there is no indication that Hazor was one of the Egyptian strongholds in Southern Canaan nor of the presence of an Egyptian official at Hazor during the Late Bronze Age.
Interestingly, most Egyptian statues found at Hazor so far date to Egypt’s “Middle Kingdom” (19th-18th centuries B.C.E), a time when Hazor did not yet exist. It thus seems that the statues were sent by an Egyptian king in the “New Kingdom” as official gifts to the king of Hazor, or as dedications to a local temple (regardless of their being already “antiques”). This is not surprising considering the special status of the king of Hazor who was the most important king in Southern Canaan at the time. The extraordinary importance of Hazor in the 15th-13th centuries B.C.E. is indicated also by the Biblical reference to Hazor as “the head of all those kingdoms” (Joshua 11:10).
All the statues at the site were found broken to pieces and scattered over a large area. Clear signs of mutilation indicate that most of them were deliberately and violently smashed, most probably in the course of the city’s final conquest and destruction sometime in the 13th century B.C.E. The deliberate mutilation of statues of kings and dignitaries accompanying the conquest of towns, is a well-known practice in ancient times (I Samuel 5:1-4; Isaiah 11:9) as well as in our time.

The full press release is here, and the story is being covered by the Jerusalem Post and other outlets.

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Forty-five shipwrecks, many dating back to ancient times, have been discovered off a Greek archipelago that is one of the Mediterranean’s richest underwater archaeological sites.”

A large and Roman mosaic has been discovered in Larnaca, Cyprus. A short video shows the excavation.

“A large number of expansive rock tombs which could constitute part of the world’s largest necropolis have been discovered during work carried out by the Şanlıurfa Municipality around the historic Urfa Castle in southeastern Turkey.”

“Excavation teams at an ancient site [Side] in the southern province of Antalya are struggling to find sponsors after it emerged that the site contains an ancient brothel.”

The Lion of Babylon is not faring well in part because of the visitors that keep climbing on its back.

The oldest writing found on papyrus is now on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Scholars believe that have identified an ancient security system that protected the pharaoh’s burial chamber in one of the pyramids of Giza.

Philippi is in the latest group of sites to be named a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Some British MPs are proposing the return of the Elgin Marbles to smooth Britain’s departure from the EU.

Two Hellenistic marble sculptures from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin will remain on loan for the next two years at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The ancient Mamertine Prison in Rome will soon be open after three years for restoration and excavation.

After a $73 million renovation, Yale will soon be re-opening the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

“Dendrochronological and radiocarbon research by an international team led by Cornell archaeologist Sturt Manning has established an absolute timeline for the archaeological, historical and environmental record in Mesopotamia from the early second millennium B.C.”

Ben Witherington III has more than 20 posts on his recent trip to Turkey. Highlights include visits to the Miletus Museum, the Izmir Museum, and the Zeugma Museum (which has a splendid mosaic).

New book out from Eisenbrauns: “Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?” Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives, edited by James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and Gary A. Rendsburg.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Explorator, Daniel Wright

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