Greece Archives - Page 5 of 31

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists working in the temple of Dendera discovered a Sphinx-like statue that may depict Emperor Claudius.

“Egyptian officials have released photos of an ancient scroll, the 52-foot-long (16 meters) Book of the Dead papyrus recently discovered in Saqqara. The 10 images show ancient illustrations of gods and scenes from the afterlife, as well as text on the document, which is more than 2,000 years old.” The released photos were first posted on the government’s Facebook page.

The British Museum’s Curator’s Corner provides a lesson in how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (27 min).

New release: Ancient Egypt, New Technology: The Present and Future of Computer Visualization, Virtual Reality and Other Digital Humanities in Egyptology, edited by Rita Lucarelli, Joshua A. Roberson, and Steve Vinson. (Brill, $174; free download)

The first-ever detailed study of the theater at Pergamum reveals that it is larger than the theaters at Smyrna, Ephesus, Miletus, or Aspendos. An aerial photo shows the locations of the theater, stadium, and amphitheater in relation to the acropolis.

Turkish Archaeological News has a roundup of major stories for the month of February. They also provide a damage assessment of cultural properties one month after the earthquake.

“The revamped archaeological museum of Argos in the Peloponnese and its upgraded display collection will soon reopen to the public.”

Archaeologists have discovered for the first time wooden stakes described by Julius Caesar and used as a kind of ancient barbed wire.

New research suggests that humans may have first begun riding horses around 3000 BC.

New exhibition at the San Antonio Museum of Art: “Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth from Rome and Pompeii”

The Global Smyrna Meeting on the Seven Churches of Revelation will be held June 4 to 10, featuring many scholars in the field including Mark Wilson, Mark Fairchild, James Hoffmeier, David deSilva, and Ben Witherington.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Mark Hoffman, Explorator

Pool of Siloam excavations in late February. Photo courtesy of John DeLancey.

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Lectures, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Scholars have long wondered if an Amorite language existed, until the discovery of two tablets written at least partially in the language.

“An archeological site at Girsu, in modern-day south-central Iraq, a major city in the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, has been unearthed revealing a palace and a temple that date back over 4000 years.”

Egyptian police discovered a fake tomb created to defraud antiquities traffickers.

Kim Phillips addresses questions of what’s real and what’s hype in the sale of Codex Sassoon.

Eric Cline explains how the recently discovered evidence of a drought in 1198-1196 adds to our knowledge of the collapse of the Hittite Empire and other societies.

France 24 shows drone footage of the earthquake damage to Turkey’s Gaziantep castle.

“It’s still an open question among scholars whether Mycenaeans participated in long-distance metallurgical trade in the Bronze Age. The mythological narratives found in Greek literary tradition suggest they did.”

“The UK is working on a new arrangement with Greece through which the Parthenon Sculptures could be seen both in London and in Athens.”

Greece has announced a four-year renovation project of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Online lecture on Feb 28, 10am: “Excavations at Nineveh and Nimrud in 2022.” Join by Zoom here, or watch the recording a few days later here.

New York tells the story of Michael Steinhardt and the investigation of his antiquities collection.

New release: The Most Extraordinary Life: Discovering the Real Jesus, by Bob Rognlien. Also on Kindle.

My colleague William Varner has just published his latest work, The Preacher and the Song: A Fresh Look at Ecclesiastes & Song of Songs.

HT: Agade, Explorator, Arne Halbakken, Gordon Dickson, Alexander Schick, Ted Weis

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists working in Egypt found the body of a child buried together with 142 dogs, most of them puppies who apparently died in a flood.

A copy of the Book of the Dead was recently discovered in Egypt.

“Archaeologists have uncovered a 4,300-year-old mummy wrapped entirely in gold near the Step Pyramids – and it could be the oldest ever found.”

“A 2,300-year-old mummy that was originally found in 1916 but left unexamined, recently underwent CT scans whereby scientists found him wearing 49 ritually-significant amulets and sandals.”

“Egyptian archaeologists announced Wednesday the discovery of the first burial site in the city of Luxor that dates back to the ancient Egyptian 13th Dynasty.” They also discovered a Roman city located near the Luxor Temple.

“Egypt has completed the restoration of 37 columns as part of the Karnak Temples’ Great Hypostyle Hall restoration project.”

Egyptian archaeologists are now engaged in 50 archaeological excavations around the country. This is a shift from previous reliance on foreign expeditions.

Egyptian archaeologist and filmmaker Ramy Romany discusses his fascinating life in an interview with Jordan Harbinger.

The Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen is showing a special exhibition entitled “Amarna – City of the Sun God” from January 26 to June 18.

An 11-minute video explains why Tyrian purple dye is so hard to make and so expensive.

Valerie Abrahamsen looks at how the worship of the Egyptian god Isis influenced the veneration of Mary in the early Christian eras.

Catherine E. Pratt considers the centrality of oil and wine to the people of Greece through the ages.

Efforts to uncover the so-called “first mile” of the Appian Way in Rome have been thwarted by a powerful flow of groundwater. The entire length of the Appian Way is a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“A sword in Chicago’s Field Museum that was previously thought to be a replica has been revealed to be an actual Bronze Age sword from between 1080 and 900 B.C.”

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Museums, New Exhibits, Technology, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 5

“Two 3,800-year-old cuneiform tablets found in Iraq give first glimpse of Hebrew precursor.”

Asshur, the ancient religious capital of Assyria, will be flooded once construction is completed on a dam on the Tigris River.

Arab News looks at evidence of early Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mohy-Eldin Elnady Abo-Eleaz looks at how kings of the Late Bronze Age dealt with various kinds of “fake news.”

A Greek blacksmith is creating replicas of ancient armor for display in museums. I saw about a dozen of these last week in the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology in Athens.

Mark I. Pinsky reviews Eric M. Meyers’s autobiography, An Accidental Archaeologist: A Personal Memoir. Only $9.99 on Kindle.

Eric Meyers is interviewed by Eve Harow on the Rejuvenation podcast.

Alex Joffe grew the readership of ANE Today from zero to 42,000 over the last decade, and now he is stepping down. This provides him with the occasion to reflect on the challenge of getting archaeologists to write for normal people.

The Met has closed its galleries for Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art for a two-year, $40 million renovation project.

“The H.A.P.S. summer scholarship is possibly the first crowd-funded grant aimed at helping humanities Ph.D. students – specifically, those studying the Ancient Near East.”

New release: City of Caesar, City of God: Constantinople and Jerusalem in Late Antiquity, edited by Konstantin M. Klein and Johannes Wienand (De Gruyter, 2022; $127; free download).

New release: Naming and Mapping the Gods in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by: Thomas Galoppin, Elodie Guillon, Max Luaces, Asuman Lätzer-Lasar, Sylvain Lebreton, Fabio Porzia, Jörg Rüpke, Emiliano Rubens Urciuoli, and Corinne Bonnet (De Gruyter, $196; free download)

New release: The Scribe in the Biblical World: A Bridge Between Scripts, Languages and Cultures, edited by Esther Eshel and Michael Langlois (De Gruyter, $100)

New release: The Solid Rock Hebrew Bible – “this edition prints the entire Hebrew text (in a traditional two-column layout and an easy-to-read 13-point font, with vowel points included for readers’ convenience) and includes adjustments made to the base text (the Leningrad Codex) in over 2,500 places.” $35 per printed volume, and free download.

ASOR webinar on Jan 26: “Antiquities Trafficking in the Age of Social Media: How Big Tech Facilitates and Profits from the Digital Black Market,” featuring Katie A. Paul and moderated by Eric Cline ($12).

Video recordings from the “Yahwism under the Achaemenid Empire” conference are now available (also on YouTube).

Speakers at the online Spring Bible & Archaeology Fest 2023 include Erez Ben-Yosef, Shimon Gibson, James Hoffmeier, Chris McKinny, Gary Rendsburg, Sarah Parcak, and others.

Amélie Kuhrt died on January 2.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Gordon Dickson, Ted Weis, Wayne Stiles, Mondo Gonzales, Alexander Schick, Charles Savelle, Keith Keyser, Explorator

Tagged Arabia, Discoveries, Greece, Jerusalem, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Persia, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 4

Archaeologists have uncovered cultic buildings and materials at what they believe may be the Hittite cultic center and royal city of Zippalanda.

A new decade-long study reveals that the Luwian culture extended further and lasted longer than those of Mycenean Greece or the Hittites.

Nearly two thousand Hittite tablets are being read for the first time using artificial intelligence.

A German undersecretary has called for the return of the Pergamon Altar and the bust of Nefertiti.

Turkish Archaeological News provides a summary of the major stories of 2022.

Archaeologists believe they have discovered a temple of Poseidon near Samikon, Greece.

Large-scale excavations in Thessaloniki are revealing impressive finds from the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Greek authorities have announced an upgrade masterplan for the archaeological site of Corinth. The plan includes the building of a new museum.

“A team of international researchers analyzing the genomes of ancient human remains has discovered that, unlike in other European societies of the period, first cousins in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece frequently married each other.”

NY Times: “The British Museum and Greece’s prime minister are getting closer to a deal on returning the so-called Elgin Marbles to Athens.”

“The archaeological park of Pompeii has found a low-tech way to prevent the site from being overrun by vegetation: hungry sheep.”

A new study of Roman concrete reveals that its longevity owes to its ability to “heal” its own cracks when exposed to water.

After 20 years of restoration, the House of Vettii in Pompeii was opened to the public.

This excellent two-minute video explains explains how the ancient Romans built roads.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Gordon Dickson, Ted Weis, Wayne Stiles, Mondo Gonzales, Alexander Schick, Charles Savelle, Keith Keyser, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Greece, Italy, Museums, Technology, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“The ruins of an ancient Greek city [Skepsis] in Asia Minor have become visible for the first time in three decades due to a drought that has caused the water of the Bayramiç Dam to recede.”

“The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is implementing a project to restore the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak Temple in Luxor, in a bid to reveal the original colors of the Pharaonic inscriptions and subsequently draw more tourists and increase the country’s revenues.”

This year’s excavations have concluded at ancient Kition in Cyprus.

Egypt is calling on the British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone.

Ferrell Jenkins marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of King Tut’s tomb with several photos he took of the tomb in about 1978.

Jaafar Jotheri proposes reforms to the excavation license sections of the heritage law in Iraq.

The coins of “Roman emperor Sponsian” are still fake, says Koen Verboven. He gives seven reasons why.

The table of contents for the latest issue of BASOR is online.

Phillip Long has posted the biblical studies carnival for November.

The Appian Media team recently traveled to an authentic brick-making facility outside of Luxor, Egypt. They have released a completed scene of the “Out of Egypt” film for everyone to enjoy.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Joseph Lauer, Explorator, Paleojudaica

Tagged Egypt, Greece, Mediterranean Islands, Mesopotamia, Museums, Tourism, Weekend Roundup