Italy Archives - Page 14 of 35

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A well-preserved Roman arena, partially buried and hidden by vegetation, has been discovered in the ancient city of Mastaura, in Western Turkey.

A new study suggests it only took fifteen minutes after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius for the city of Pompeii to be engulfed in its lethal plume.

The ancient Diolkos of Corinth is being restored. The stone-paved road was once used for transporting ships across the isthmus. The well-illustrated article includes a video showing the Diolkos in operation.

Restoration work has begun at Alexandria, Egypt, on the sea wall, lighthouse, and ancient bridge.

NewScientist has a brief report on the excavations of Berenike, ancient Egypt’s southernmost port.

The NY Times has a feature on the forgotten pyramids of Sudan, with some beautiful photos.

BBC: “Kelly Grovier explores how images depicting a staged lion hunt were used to proclaim a king’s greatness.”

Webinar on April 12 and 13: “Jehu’s Tribute: What Can Biblical Studies Offer Assyriology?” Free registration is required.

Now online: The Archaeological Gazetteer of Iran: An Online Encyclopedia of Iranian Archaeological Sites, a free open-access online encyclopedia maintained by UCLA.

Ancient Iran: A Digital Platform provides various resources including timeline, maps, teaching tools, and photos.

The Louvre announced it now has more than half a million objects from its collection available to view online. The museum has hundreds of important objects related to biblical history.

Mark Wilson is on The Book and the Spade discussing the latest excavations at Laodicea, including an alleged house church.

“For Israelis, this year, Passover marks a celebration of freedom from virus.”

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Explorator, Arne Halbakken

Tagged Egypt, Greece, Italy, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Persia, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists working in Egypt’s Western Desert have discovered a monastery complex dating to the 4th to 8th centuries.

“Twenty-two royal Egyptian mummies are set to be transferred to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) in a much-awaited parade in the streets of Cairo on 3 April.”

King Tut’s war shield has been restored so that it may be displayed to the public for the first time.

A small bronze bull was discovered after a rainfall near the temple of Zeus in Olympia.

Dimitris Tsalkanis describes his goals in creating “Ancient Athens 3D,” a collection of hundreds of digital models from seven historical periods from 1200 BC to AD 1833.

Some people are not happy with the proposal to loosen governmental control over five major museums in Greece.

There are a number of similarities between the chariot recently discovered chariot near Pompeii and five chariots discovered in Greece in 2002.

A beautiful, long-lost mosaic that once adorned a ship belonging to Caligula has found its way into an Italian museum.

A collection of 24 studies by Cyrus H. Gordon, published in a variety of books and journals between 1933 and 1982, have been compiled in pdf format by Robert Bedrosian.

In response to Peter J. Parr, Aren Maeir explains why preliminary reports and prompt publication of excavation results are essential.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Alexander Schick, Explorator, Steven Anderson

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Greece, Italy, Museums, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“The Book of the Dead in 3D” will open later this year at Berkeley’s Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology. The interactive display will use virtual reality headsets to provide an immersive tour of Egypt’s death culture.

A robot captured 9 hours of video footage in traveling through the shaft of the Great Pyramid, discovering at the end a small chamber with elaborate symbols, but not yet solving the question of how the pyramids’ construction relates to the stars.

More has been published about the large animal cemetery located at the Roman port city of Berenice, Egypt.

The Alexander mosaic discovered at Pompeii will undergo a six-month process of restoration.

A man with a metal detector found a 2nd century AD Roman coin in British Columbia.

Mid-Atlantic Christian University and the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City, NC have partnered together to exhibit artifacts from Khirbet el-Maqatir, March 19 to November 13. The exhibit is entitled “Joshua, Judges, & Jesus: An Archaeological Journey Through the Bible.”

Preserving Bible Times’s 2 Crowns film premieres on March 29 (reservation required, but there is no charge). Watch the trailer here. Pastors can sign up for a sneak preview on March 22 here.

Sidnie White Crawford will be lecturing on “Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran: A New Synthesis” on Mar 17, 11:30 am (EDT; Zoom link). Her book on the subject is on Amazon.

With Palm Sunday approaching, Wayne Stiles looks at the road descending down the Mount of Olives and the walls on either side of it.

Clyde Billington is on The Book and the Spade this week, talking about olive oil, DSS DNA, and bananas.

Accordance Bible Software is offering a number of historical and cultural resources on sale now, including the American Colony Collection, Views That Have Vanished, Cultural Images of the Holy Land, and Carta’s “Understanding” Series.

George Bass, often called the father of underwater archaeology, died on March 2. His article on “The Development of Maritime Archaeology in The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology is online.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Arne Halbakken, Keith Keyser, Explorator, Charles Savelle

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Movies, Museums, Photo Resources, Sad News, Technology, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A statue of Ramesses II has been placed in the Grand Hall of the Great Egyptian Museum so that the rays of the sun will illuminate it on February 22 and October 22 each year.

Closing on March 14: “Queen Nefertari’s Egypt,” at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Carole Raddato provides a list of the top 5 archaeological sites in Lebanon.

The British Museum identifies the top 10 historical board games, beginning with the Royal Game of Ur.

Duncan Howitt-Marshall explains how the ancient Greeks set us on the path to Mars.

Police recovered a rare bronze plate with a decree from Emperor Tiberius.

The renovated mausoleum of Emperor Augustus in Rome has reopened after being closed for many years.

Tyler Rossi writes about portraiture on ancient Roman coinage, noting that Julius Caesar was the first living person depicted on a Roman coin. Was this why he was assassinated?

in AramcoWorld’s well-illustrated article “The Quest for Blue,” Tom Verde explains that the color blue, while pervasive in nature, is much harder to reproduce and required considerable ingenuity in the ancient world.

Now in paperback from Oxford University Press: Archaeology and the Letters of Paul, by Laura Sarah Nasrallah.

HT: Agade, Explorator, Ted Weis, Paleojudaica

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Sixteen rock hewn burial tombs were found at Taposiris Magnain, Egypt, with one mummy having a golden tongue.

Some Egyptian scholars are arguing over whether it is acceptable to excavate and display ancient mummies.

Bones allegedly of St. James the Younger housed in the Santi Apostoli church in Rome are not old enough to have belonged to the apostle.

“New burials discovered inside the Roman necropolis of Santa Rosa, standing under what is now Vatican City, have shed light on burials that housed the servants and slaves of the Roman Caesars.”

Excavations are resuming at Herculaneum after 40 years, with work focused on the ancient beach.

After working hard to get Babylon chosen as a World Heritage Site, Iraqi officials have stopped working to protect the site.

The Getty Research Institute is presenting an online exhibition on the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, including more than 100 rare images.

“An anonymous philanthropist gave more than £11 million ($15m) to University College London to support the teaching and research of the heritage, history and languages of ancient Mesopotamia.”

Now online: Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 19 (2020) — Special Josephus Issue

Now on YouTube: Gilgamesh Lament for Enkidu (with subtitles)

David Moster has just released a new video on “Coups in the Bible.”

Online lecture on Feb 10: “House Hunters: Babylon, 1300 BCE,” by Susanne Paulus

The new Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire (DARE) is available for broad use, including in web applications.

The German Archaeological Institute has created a digital map of Pergamum that represents all known archaeological remains.

New podcast on This Week in the Ancient Near East: “The Other Kind of Throne, or, What’s the Deal with Toilets in the Iron Age?”

Hershel Shanks, founder of Biblical Archaeology Review, died of Covid on February 5 at the age of 90.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Charles Savelle, Keith Keyser, Ted Weis, Alexander Schick

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Italy, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Two female statues from the 4th century BC have been discovered near the Athens airport.

The removal of two millennia of detritus has revealed the beautiful colors of the temple of Esna.

More than 13 types of inscriptions from various civilizations are known in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Antiquarium at Pompeii has now been reopened permanently.

A remorseful thief returned some fake coins he stole from the Paestum museum.

National Geographic has a feature on what may have been the Roman empire’s most enduring contribution: a road network covering more than 200,000 miles.

CSNTM has announced a brand new manuscript viewer.

Smithsonian Magazine: Who Invented the Alphabet?

Judeans in Babylonia: A Study of Deportees in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE, by Tero Alstola, published by Brill in 2019 in Culture and History of the Ancient Near East series. Available for free as a pdf.

Reviewed: Libraries before Alexandria: Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, by Kim Ryholt and Gojko Barjamovic.

Sinclair Hood, best known for his excavation of the Minoan Palace of Knossos, has died just shy of his 104th birthday.

I join John DeLancey to talk about the Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries of 2020. This interview builds on a list I wrote, but with added commentary and a few photos.

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

Tagged Arabia, Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Museums, Resources, Sad News, Weekend Roundup