Museums Archives - Page 6 of 94

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

A new dataset of radiocarbon dates from Gezer “provides an independent source of absolute dates that will allow researchers to better understand the events at Gezer and to place them in a regional perspective.” Of particular interest is that the Solomon gate dates to the time of Solomon, contrary to the Low Chronology promoted by Finkelstein who calls the study “meaningless.” The underlying journal article is here.

When the war began in Israel on October 7, Israel’s museums acted quickly to protect their most precious artifacts.

Avshalom Halutz writes a “short history of Gaza,” reviewing the last 5,000 years of the coastal city’s conflicts (Haaretz premium)

Ariel David reports on the recent study that argues that Jerusalem’s Millo was “defensive complex that protected the ancient water spring of Jerusalem for centuries.”

Online lecture in the BAS Scholars Series on Dec 6: “The Life of Jesus Written in Stone: The Earliest Commemorative Churches in Roman Palestine,” by Jordan Ryan, Wheaton College ($10)

Online “gala event” on Dec 10: “New Discoveries in the Temple Mount Sifting Project Research,” with Zachi Dvira, Gabriel Barkay, Haim Shaham, Anat Mendel-Geberovich, and Mordechai Kedar

New release: From Nomadism to Monarchy? Revisiting the Early Iron Age Southern Levant, edited by Ido Koch, Oded Lipschits and Omer Sergi (Eisenbrauns, $100)

Jerusalem Seminary is offering a 6-week audit-only version of “Israel Matters: A Theology of People and Land,” with Gerald McDermott, for only $79. A full description is here.

Now online: A Biblical Archaeology Conference held last Saturday, hosted by the Institute for Creation Research, with presentations by Randall Price and Tom Meyer

Bible Mapper Atlas has added a number of new maps in the last few months:

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken

Tagged 10th Century, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Nearly 400 Roman forts across the northern Fertile Crescent have been identified through declassified satellite images.

Greg Beyer has written a short illustrated biography of King Sennacherib.

Nathan Steinmeyer explains what Akkadian is.

Three thousand photographs taken of Palmyra before its destruction by ISIS are being used in a UCSD project to create a digital model of the site.

Wayne Stiles is leading a 13-day tour of biblical Turkey that, unlike most such trips, visits all of the sites Paul traveled to on his first journey.

What route did Paul take when he left Berea in a hurry and went “to the coast” and on to Athens (Acts 17:14)? Mark Hoffman has scouted out the area and provides walking instructions for the possible paths. You can also use his maps to find your way in a car.

Breakthrough has produced a 20-minute documentary on the quest to decipher the scrolls from Herculaneum.

Jonathan Klawans makes a case that a relief of a goddess on display at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East is a forgery.

New release: Weights and Measures as a Window on Ancient Near Eastern Societies, edited by Grégory Chambon and Adelheid Otto (PeWe-Verlag, €65; free pdf).

A YouTube channel is using AI to recreate the sound of ancient languages.

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

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Greece, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Technology, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Researchers at New York University have proposed that wind played a major role in the formation of Egypt’s Great Sphinx.

Nathan Steinmeyer writes about a new inscription from Elephantine that “might finally provide a glimpse of how Israelite religion developed after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.”

The sarcophagus of Ramses II will be going on display in three exhibitions in Australia.

Leon Mauldin reflects on Rehoboam’s journey to Shechem. He has also posted some photos of the tabernacle model at Timna.

Suzanna Millar and Sébastien Doane discuss the Bible and animal studies on the Biblical World podcast.

Bible Archaeology Report highlights the top three stories from the month of October.

Preserving Bible Times has just released Digging Deeper Video Series III: Familiar Passages, a collection of twenty two-minute videos featuring Doug Greenwold. You can also find it Spotify.

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

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Museums, New Exhibits, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Part of an ancient gateway believed to have been constructed by Cyrus the Great has been discovered near Persepolis.

A hoard of bronze coins dating to the 1st century BC or 1st century AD has been discovered at Alexandria Troas.

“An iron trident, believed to be used for fishing, dating to the 3rd or 4th century A.D. has been discovered in the ancient Aegean coastal resort town of Assos in northwestern Turkey.”

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient statue of a man and a statue of life-size wild boar at the sites of Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey.

A Persian-era storage jar with finds similar to keşkek, the ancient dish of Anatolia, was discovered in northern Turkey.

“Some of the 3,500-year-old hieroglyphs discovered last year in the Yerkapı Tunnel in northern Turkey’s Çorum province have been deciphered.”

An augmented reality app “supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago.”

As a follow-up to his piece on walking from Corinth to Cenchreae, Mark Hoffman now provides detailed instructions and photographs for walking the route between Corinth and its western port at the Lechaion harbor. (That’s one more reason to start planning your next trip to Greece!)

Italian authorities plan to reduce congestion at Pompeii by promoting tourism to the nearby sites of Boscoreale, Oplontis, and Stabiae. They will reopen the Antiquarium, add free shuttles between the sites, and sell all-in-one tickets.

“Rome has launched an international design competition to create a New Archaeological Walk, reimagining the public spaces and pedestrian routes linking the city’s ancient Roman sites.”

In conjunction with the “Legion: Life in the Roman Army” exhibit opening in February, the British Museum blog gives an introduction to the subject.

New release: Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship, by Lynette Mitchell (Routledge, $128; $53 Kindle)

The official portal of the Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies Network, is now online.

“Open Educational Resources for the Ancient Near East” has received a recent translation of the Laws of Hammurabi.

“The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) is proud to announce that the number of external resource links, namely curated hyperlinks from catalogued cuneiform artifacts to their corresponding record in other digital projects and collections, now exceeds 400,000 individual links associated with more than 150 different online resources.”

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Explorator, Paleojudaica

Tagged Discoveries, Greece, Italy, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

The Vesuvius challenge has produced its first result: the reading of a single word from a burnt papyrus using the help of AI.

An untouched chamber tomb with well-preserved frescoes was discovered near Naples.

“Archaeologists have discovered political graffiti among the ancient remains of Pompeii.”

Royalty Now Studios has reimagined the face of Roman emperor Augustus as it might look today.

Turkish Archaeological News rounds up the top stories for the month of September.

The British Museum is asking the public for help in getting back artifacts that were sold.

A tourist was arrested for breaking off pieces of marble on the Athens Acropolis.

A new study has determined that the Parthenon sculptures (aka Elgin Marbles) were originally painted with bright colors.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

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

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

New rooms have been discovered in the Sahura Pyramid. Detailed surveys have been made using 3D laser scanning.

Archaeologists in Jordan are using a remote controlled car to investigate a network of underground water channels in the desert.

The Domus Tiberiana on Rome’s Palatine Hill has been reopened 50 years after it was closed for restoration.

The Following Hadrian blog takes a look at the only surviving copy of Hadrian’s autobiography.

An AP story explores the enduring strength of Roman concrete.

Lidar Sapir-Hen and Deirdre N. Fulton explore “the role of dogs in the social fabric of the Iron Age through a comparative study of the evidence from settlements.” They conclude from archaeological evidence that dogs served villagers as herders, guards, and occasionally hunters. The underlying journal article is also available.

Zoom lecture on Nov 6: “Tree-ring and radiocarbon refinements towards more precise chronology for the Near Eastern Bronze Age,” by Charlotte L. Pearson. Register here.

For the 200th anniversary of Champollion’s cracking the code of hieroglyphics, Jessica Phelan tells the story of how it happened.

Wired: Scientists Have an Audacious Plan to Map the Ancient World Before It Disappears

New release: Living Communities and Their Archaeologies in the Middle East, edited by Rick Bonnie, Marta Lorenzon, and Suzie Thomas (Helsinki University Press, open access)

“This fall, the Penn Museum will begin construction of its new $54 million Ancient Egypt and Nubia galleries.” Work is slated to be completed by late 2028.

Two of Doug Greenwold’s audiobooks are now available on Audible.

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

Statue of a griffin grasping Nemesis’s wheel of fate, from Erez, AD 210-11, as displayed in the Israel Museum this summer before the attack

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Tourism, Weekend Roundup