Technology Archives - Page 4 of 33

Weekend Roundup

The Times of Israel has the best summation of the Huqoq synagogue excavations that I’ve read.

Melanie Lidman writes a story about the University of Haifa’s School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, the only underwater archaeology certification program in Israel.

The Israeli government has a plan to protect Jewish archaeological sites in Area C of the West Bank. Of 3,000 antiquity sites in the West Bank, about 80% are in Area C.

The Times of Israel writes about the opportunity for the public to join conservation work at Gezer on Thursdays in the month of July.

Archaeologists are using chemical imaging technology in ancient Egyptian tombs to analyze the process in which the walls were painted.

So many tourists are visiting the Acropolis of Athens this summer that they will be implementing crowd control measures for the first time ever, including time-slot system for groups and electronic ticketing. There is also talk of enlarging the Propylaia.

The BBC shares the latest discoveries at Pompeii, including serpents, frescoes, and yes, more skeletons.

Charging for admission to Rome’s Pantheon may make the site like the Colosseum—impossible to visit without joining a tour at many times the ticket price.

The NY Times has a lengthy story of Shelby White’s antiquities collection, pieces she has returned, and artifacts recently seized.

BiblePics is a new AI tool that allows users to chat with biblical characters.

New release: Hesi after 50 Years and 130 Years: Beginning a New Generation of Research, edited by John R. Spencer, James W. Hardin, and Jeffrey Blakely (Eisenbrauns, $70 with code NR23)

New release: West Semitic Inscriptions & the Hebrew Bible (AOAT 410), by Bob Becking (Ugarit-Verlag, €123; Amazon)

I have not seen the new “Borderland: Israel in the Time of Jesus” exhibit at The Creation Museum in Kentucky, but the exhibit book contains hundreds of the best reconstruction artwork I’ve ever seen—everything from Herod’s temple at Caesarea to a Jewish funeral and much more. This link gives a video preview of the book, and the book may be purchased here ($30-45).

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Explorator, Ted Weis

It’s always better when artifacts stay at the site and are not transported to some distant museum. The new visitors’ center at Caesarea provides archaeological displays and visual presentations that enhance the site experience.

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Galilee, Italy, Judah, Resources, Samaria, Technology, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“A team of Israeli physicists and archaeologists is now attempting to track the movement of subatomic particles called muons to map a complex array of ancient tunnels, cisterns and other underground voids beneath Jerusalem.”

Ancient rock engravings at Timna Park are now being studied using 3-D micromorphological characteristics of the incisions.

A new study questions the view that there were Jewish gladiators in the Roman empire. The underlying journal article is here.

Noam Aharon has created a map of the kingdom of Ugarit, c. 1300 BC. Bibliographic references are here. Permission is granted for non-commercial use.

“A bronze head of Emperor Septimius Severus on display at a Copenhagen museum has become a bone of contention between the Danish museum and Turkey, which claims it was looted during an archaeological dig in the 1960s and wants it back.”

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

Ferrell Jenkins explains the possibility that Paul visited Adramyttium.

“A new virtual reality (VR) app which takes users on a journey back in time to Ancient Greece where they are able to experience first-hand what it was like to consult with the Greek god Zeus at the Oracle of Dodona has been developed by a team of academics led by the University of Bristol.”

Timothy P. Harrison has been appointed director of the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC; formerly Oriental Institute).

Open access from Brill: 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 (free pdf; hardback $174)

Free download on Academia: Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia, by Michael Roaf

Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, one of the first to engage with the archaeological research of Bethsaida, died last week.

Aren Maeir is guest on the What Matters Now podcast, discussing archaeology in the shadow of Indiana Jones. The link includes a transcript.

Nathan Steinmeyer explains why archaeologists love Indiana Jones.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Joseph Lauer, Explorator, Alexander Schick

I’m thankful that the Tabernacle Model in Timna Park is still going strong after nearly 25 years, though one could wish that the Park authorities could park their RVs somewhere else.

Tagged Jerusalem, Museums, Sad News, Syria, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Scholars at UNI Graz claim that a 3rd century BC papyrus has evidence of a binding, making it the oldest book in the world discovered. The press release is in German, but the video of the press conference is partly in English. Brent Nongbri offers some thoughts.

A network of stone walls along the Nile River provide evidence of ancient hydraulic engineering.

“A team of computer scientists and archaeologists from the University of Bologna in Italy has developed a new tool for identifying archaeological sites using artificial intelligence … [which] reached a predictive accuracy of over 80 percent.”

“A team of archaeologists and computer scientists from Israel has created an AI-powered translation program for ancient Akkadian cuneiform, allowing tens of thousands of already digitized tablets to be translated into English instantaneously.”

The square in Rome where Julius Caesar was assassinated has been opened to the public.

Renovations of the Carthage Museum will begin in 2025 and expand the exhibition space to three times the current size.

The book of Esther’s independence from classical sources makes it “more important as a historical source for Achaemenian history than has traditionally been assumed.”

“An ancient Hebrew Bible and more than 100 Roman coins were recovered by Turkish military police.” The photo with the article is not the seized manuscript.

New release: A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean, by Yaron Z. Eliav (Princeton University Press, $45; save 30% with code P321).

New release: Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilization, by Leon McCarron (Simon & Schuster, $29)

New release: Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt, by Ellen Morris (75 pages, Cambridge University Press, $22; free download until July 3).

In the latest episode of Thin End of the Wedge, Agnès Garcia-Ventura discusses the historiography of Assyriology.

Mark Janzen is guest on The Book and the Spade discussing the historicity of Moses.

Now that the Plutonium at Hierapolis (aka the gate to Hades) is open, Carl Rasmussen shares photos and explains what you are looking at and how the ancient rites were carried out.

HT: Agade, Alexander Schick

The worst experience in Jerusalem is walking through the drainage channel under the Siloam street. Unless you’re under 5 feet tall.

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

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Turkey has launched a new ship for underwater archaeology that is considered to be one of the largest archaeological vessels in the world.

NY Times: “A 2,000-year-old collection of medical tools, recently unearthed in Hungary, offer insight into the practices of undaunted, much-maligned Roman doctors.”

Melissa Cradic explains the value of the the open-access web exhibition, “Unsilencing the Archives: The Laborers of the Tell en-Naṣbeh Excavations (1926-1935).”

Zoom lecture on June 23, 10:00am ET: “Beyond Impressions: Cylinder Seals of the Neo-Assyrian Period as Experiential Object,” by Kiersten Neumann (Zoom link)

New release: Picturing Royal Charisma: Kings and Rulers in the Near East from 3000 BCE to 1700 CE, edited by Arlette David, Rachel Milstein, Tallay Ornan (Archaeopress, £32; open access ebook)

New release: Être et paraître. Statues royales et privées de la fin du Moyen Empire et de la Deuxième Période intermédiaire (1850-1550 av. J.-C.), by Simon Connor, is available for free here.

Walking The Text’s recommended resource of the month is Peoples of the New Testament World, by William A. Simmons. (Also available on Logos.)

If you are not familiar with the Lanier Center for Archaeology, you can find out more about their programs here.

New video from World History Encyclopedia: “The Famous Baths of the Roman Empire”

Mark Hoffman has been thinking about AI and biblical art.

HT: Agade, Explorator

The excavations at Shiloh are most impressive in terms of their size and enthusiastic workers. They are making good progress in achieving their goals, and I look forward to forthcoming announcements.

Tagged Lectures, Resources, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 6

The Museum of Stone Tools is a newly opened virtual museum featuring 3D models of stool tools from ancient to modern times.

The Codex Sassoon, one of the oldest complete Hebrew Bibles in existence, was sold by Sotheby’s for $38.1 million. The codex was purchased by the American Friends of ANU – Museum of the Jewish People (formerly Museum of the Jewish Diaspora) and will be donated to the Tel Aviv museum.

“The Sackler Library has been renamed the Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library following the removal of the Sackler name from various parts of the University of Oxford.”

The Chester Beatty Library is hosting a virtual tour of its First Fragments: Biblical Papyrus from Roman Egypt exhibition. The exhibition catalog is available here (€15). Available as open access: The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri at Ninety: Literature, Papyrology, Ethics, edited by Garrick Vernon Allen, Usama Ali Mohamed Gad, Kelsie Gayle Rodenbiker, Anthony Philip Royle, and Jill Unkel (De Gruyter, $143; free pdf).

The Met has changed its approach to items that entered its collection illegally.

The site onomasticon.net has been updated to include newly published personal names from the Iron Age II southern Levant.

The Bible & Archaeology Fest XXVI will be both in person in San Antonio and livestream.

New release: The Ancient World Goes Digital: Case Studies on Archaeology, Texts, Online Publishing, Digital Archiving, and Preservation, edited by Vanessa Bigot Juloux, Alessandro Di Ludovico, and Sveta Matskevich (Brill, $198).

“Yale introduces LUX, a groundbreaking custom search tool for exploring the university’s unparalleled holdings of artistic, cultural, and scientific objects.”

Mark Hoffman compares ChatGPT with BibleMate.org, an alternative whose “mission is to provide biblically accurate answers and guide users on their faith journey. It’s about ensuring AI doesn’t just offer information but contributes meaningfully to spiritual growth.”

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Stephanie Durruty, Wayne Stiles, Alexander Schick, Gordon Franz, Explorator

With the restrictive hours at Arbel making it very difficult to descend the famous cliffs, you might prefer an alternate trail that begins at the Arbel synagogue and passes through the Valley of the Doves. No time restrictions on this hike (marked green on the 1:50k map).

Tagged Lectures, Museums, Resources, Technology, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Ariel University have developed an artificial intelligence model that can automatically translate Akkadian text written in cuneiform into English.”

A 2nd-century AD statue of Buddha discovered in the Egyptian port city of Berenike is helping scholars to understand ancient trade routes between India and Rome.

“Anemia was found to be common amongst children in ancient Egypt, following analyzation of child mummies found in different museums in Europe.”

The Greek Reporter has an update on excavations at Smyrna (Izmir).

Turkish Archaeological News has a roundup of stories for the month of April.

“Crete is showcasing its rich ancient history with three new archeological museums at Messara, Agios Nikolaos and Archanes.”

“An ancient Greek settlement dating back 2,500 years was discovered beneath Naples, Italy by using cosmic rays and lasers.”

“A meticulously reconstructed Pompeii bridal chariot that eluded the ancient city’s modern-day looters is a star of an ambitious new exhibition in Rome.”

“The Colosseum [in Rome] was built to commemorate the sacking and destruction of Jerusalem, and was funded by loot stolen from the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.”

Tourists will soon be able to travel to Pompeii via a high-speed train from Rome.

“In the Roman world, although the rule of the sea was a complicated matter, and the sea itself appeared as an uncivilised, untamed wilderness, Roman law was able to provide practical solutions to deal with real-life sea problems.”

In response to controversy over Netflix’s upcoming documentary series on Cleopatra, Egypt’s leading media production company is planning to create its own documentary.

New release: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, Engineering and Technology, by Michael Denis Higgins (Oxford Academic, 360 pages, $35; Amazon)

New release: Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (Bloomsbury, 280 pages, $31; Amazon)

New exhibit at The British Museum: “Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece.” May 4 to August 13.

I’ll be traveling for the coming weeks, so there will not be another roundup until June. I hope to be able to post a book review or other update in the meantime.

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

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Mediterranean Islands, New Exhibits, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup