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Weekend Roundup

This week’s sandstorm in Israel is the worst it has experienced since the nation was founded in 1948.

Air pollution in Jerusalem was 173 times higher than average. Carl Rasmussen shares a video showing how bad it was on the Mount of Olives.

What exactly is a 100-foot-deep shaft doing next to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem?

Andrew Bernhard posts on the End of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Forgery Debate.

Thieves in Galilee were caught removing a sixth century mosaic church floor in Gush Tefen.

The cisterns at Arad are now open to visitors.

Muslim “sentinels” protecting the Temple Mount from “sacrilege” have now been outlawed by Israeli police.

If your interest is in exotic shofars and what Jewish halakah has to say about it, Zoo Torah has a free pdf on the subject.

The BBC reports on six “lesser-known wonders of the ancient world,” including the site of Baalbek in Lebanon.

The Jerusalem Post Magazine reports on sinkholes around the Dead Sea. (At the moment of posting this, the link is not working. Perhaps it will return.)

ISIS is destroying ancient buildings in order to conceal evidence that they are looting for profit.

The Institute for Digital Archaeology plans to distribute 10,000 3-D cameras in the coming year in
order to document archaeological sites and objects in West Asia before they are destroyed.

A luncheon will honor James F. Strange at this ASOR meeting in Atlanta.

Ferrell Jenkins illustrates what David meant when he wrote about “a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Did you know that the Upper Room is located directly above David’s Tomb?

The Dead Sea Scrolls scam at the California Science Center closed this week.

“The Manar al-Athar open-access photo-archive (based at the University of Oxford) aims to provide high resolution, searchable images, freely-downloadable for teaching, research, heritage projects, and publication. It covers buildings and art in the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule (e.g. Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa), from ca. 300 BC to the present, but especially Roman, late antique, and early Islamic art, architecture, and sacred sites.”

HT: Charles Savelle, Ted Weis, Agade, Joseph Lauer, Jared Clark

Our Facebook photo with the most clicks in the past week was the final one in our “holy rocks” series.

Standing stones at Gezer

Tagged Dead Sea, Forgery, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judah, Lebanon, Museums, Negev, Temple Mount, Tourism, Weather, Weekend Roundup

“Patterns of Evidence” Screening and Panel Discussion

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

On Thursday, October 1, at 7:15 pm, the Biblical and Theological Studies Department at Wheaton College will host a screening of the film Patterns of Evidence. After the film Daniel Block will moderate a panel discussion including Daniel Master and James Hoffmeier. The event will take place in Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center 105, Barrows Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. Information about the event can be found here.

More on Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions

(Post by A.D. Riddle)

About five months ago, we wrote about (1) the series Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) and (2) the importance of the Neo-Assyrian period for biblical history.

At that time we mentioned a few advantages to having the physical volumes over the digital versions at ORACC (The Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus), namely, the introductions to the texts and bibliography.

Since then, ORACC has been expanding the RINAP Online to include more resources. Now, you can find the following:

RINAP 1 = Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V

RINAP 1 Front Matter (Forward, Preface, Editorial Notes, Bibliographical Abbreviations, Other Abbreviations, Object Signatures)
RINAP 1 Introduction
RINAP 1 Scores (When a text appears in multiple copies, the score shows variant readings among the copies.)
RINAP Sources
Tiglath-pileser III Text Introductions
Shalmaneser V Text Introductions
RINAP 1 Back Matter (Excavation Numbers, Excavation Photograph Numbers, Index of Names)

The same resources are made available for:

The following resources are provided for all three RINAP volumes:

The following volumes are in the pipeline:
RINAP 2 = The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II
RINAP 5 = The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal, Aššur-etel-ilāni, and Sîn-šarra-iškun

In our piece, we listed all the RIM and RINAP volumes. They are also listed on this page.

HT: Grant Frame via Agade List

Weekend Roundup

The excavation season at Magdala has concluded, and the wrap-up describes the major findings, including a fourth mikveh that was fed by spring water.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project has just released a video about their work, its importance, and the need to keep it going.

Leen Ritmeyer offers his thoughts and diagrams on the recent discovery of the stepped podium in the City of David.

The cross-border environmental organization EcoPeace has opened two hiking tours, a bike route, and a walking path in Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan. The two hiking tours each take eight days.

Arutz-7 reports briefly on the Studies of Ancient Jerusalem’s 16th Annual Conference in the City of David.

A study of 15 Roman-era Egyptian mummy portraits and panel paintings reveals that the artists used Egyptian blue, contrary to what has been long believed.

British conservation specialists have restored some Hellenistic-era paintings from Petra.
‘Atiqot 82 is now online.

Attempts by ISIS to blow up the Temple of Bel at Palmyra have apparently failed.

The Codex Sinaiticus will leave the walls of the British Library for only the second time since 1933, this time headed down the street for display in an Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum.

The Philistines introduced new plants to the coastal plain when they migrated from the Aegean.

HT: Ted Weis, Joseph Lauer, Agade

Tagged Egypt, Excavations, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jordan, Lectures, Museums, Philistines, Syria, Temple Mount, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

List of Sites ISIS Has Destroyed or Damaged

Andrew Curry at National Geographic has posted a review of sites in Syria and Iraq that have been attacked with bulldozers, explosives, sledgehammers, or is being extensively looted. The list includes:

Syria: Palmyra, Mar Elian Monastery, Apamea, Dura-Europos, and Mari

Iraq: Hatra, Nineveh, Mosul Museum and Libraries, Nimrud, Khorsabad, Mar Benham Monastery, Mosque of the Prophet Yunus, and Imam Dur Mausoleum

The article includes details about the significance of each site and its destruction along with several photos and a map.

HT: Agade

Tagged Mesopotamia, Syria

More Free Lectures in the Chicago Area

In addition to the free lectures that we mentioned last week, here are two more for this month.

On Saturday, September 12, at 5:00 pm, Khadiga Adam and JJ Shirley will be speaking on “ARCE Conservation Field Schools and Theban Tomb 110” at the Chicago Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt. The lecture will take place at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, LaSalle Banks Room (on the lower level). More information can be found here.

Of the more than 900 non-royal tombs located in what is today called the “Theban Necropolis” on the west side of the Nile in Luxor, few are as intriguing as “Theban Tomb 110.” Tomb 110 belonged to a man named Djehuty, who served as a royal butler and herald for two 18th Dynasty kings: the powerful queen-turned-king Hatshepsut, and her stepson and successor Thutmose III. Djehuty’s tomb was discovered and superficially published in the 1930s by one of the great early Egyptologists, Sir Norman de Garis Davies. But, the tomb was lived in during modern times, and completely blackened by fires, so Davies could not discern many of the inscriptions and scenes. Since 2012 the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) has run field schools to excavate and conserve this tomb, making it possible to conduct a new and more thorough study of the tomb by re-recording its tomb scenes and inscriptions, a process known as “epigraphy.”
This talk will present the results of the current epigraphy project in Theban Tomb 110, funded by ARCE through an AEF grant and run as field school to train Egyptian Inspectors in this specialized skill. The students’ work has already brought to light new information about the tomb’s construction, the tomb owner, and the kings whom he served.
Khadiga Adam will open the evening with an overview of the trainees’ progress during the ARCE conservation programs that started in 2007 and have trained over 300 Ministry of Antiquities conservators and technicians from Upper Egypt. The resulting impact will be illustrated by past and present projects, including the current work of ARCE Luxor archaeologists.
JJ Shirley will discuss the ARCE’s Conservation Field School at Theban Tomb 110 (TT110) that started in February 2013. The badly damaged tomb gives the trainees a wonderful opportunity to learn about the treatment and conservation of the many types of decay and damage that they will encounter during their careers. To date, ARCE has trained 24 Ministry of Antiquities (MOA) supervisors, conservators and technicians in this tomb. Each season, ARCE introduces new advanced techniques in a step by step learning process with special emphasis on building the MOA’s knowledge and use of conservation methods and materials.

On Thursday, September 24, 7:00-9:00 pm, Jeffrey H. Tigay (U. Pennsylvania) will speak on the topic “Jewish Interpretation of Deuteronomy’s Command to Annihilate the Canaanites.” The lecture will take place at Barrows Auditorium, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College. The lecture is free and open to the public.

UPDATE: More information can be found on this webpage.

Tagged Lectures