Turkey Archives - Page 4 of 58

Weekend Roundup

A new study of trash and bodily wastes reveals what the Crusaders ate while living in the Holy Land.

Archaeologists have discovered Roman-era mosaics in a rescue operation in southeastern Turkey.

The excavation of a bakery in Pompeii reveals the miserable lives of slaves in the 1st century AD.

Archaeologists have published results of their 13-year excavation of the Roman city of Interamna Lirenas located between Rome and Naples. This article includes many graphics.

A scholar used “psychoacoustics” to understand how the ancient sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lykaion in Greece was used by visitors.

Bryan Windle offers some thoughts on the controversy regarding the Mount Ebal “curse inscription.”

Nathan Steinmeyer writes about the Iron Age moat recently discovered on the north side of the City of David. Haaretz has a longer report here.

Avi Abrams revisits the debate over the location of King David’s tomb.

Steve Ortiz is on the Biblical World podcast discussing Solomonic gates, the historicity of David and Solomon, and issues in the use and dating of archaeological materials.

James Grieg, who gives a tour of “The Bible in the Ashmolean Museum,” is a guest on The Book and the Spade.

New release: Locating the Tomb and Body of Alexander the Great, by Christian de Vartavan (Projectis, £115; use code DR25 for 25% launch discount)

New release: Jewish Studies on Premodern Periods: A Handbook, edited by Carl S. Ehrlich and Sara R. Horowitz (De Gruyter, $197)

“Late Ottoman Turkey in Princeton’s Forgotten Maps, 1883-1923 is a virtual exhibition presented in StoryMaps format by Princeton University Library’s Maps and Geospatial Information Center in partnership with Prof. Richard Talbert at UNC Chapel Hill’s Ancient World Mapping Center.” Part V has now been released.

Accordance is running a 50% off sale on graphic bundles for a few more days. These are very good deals for a load of excellent photo collections and image-rich tools (click through to see all the included modules):

A personal note: If you emailed me on Thursday about preaching through Genesis 1-11, please send me your email again.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis

The Broad Wall in Jerusalem, with newly constructed visitor walkways. Photo by Michael Schneider.

Tagged Discoveries, Greece, Jerusalem, Museums, Photo Resources, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed more than 2,000 clay seal impressions that ancient [Roman] officials once used to fasten government documents.”

The Imhotep Museum in Saqqara has reopened after a year of renovations.

“An ancient clay tablet at Yale has shed light on how the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ has evolved over the ages.”

Expedition Bible’s latest video goes to Nineveh in Iraq to explore the site and understand its significance for the Bible.

“A team of German researchers has figured out a new way to train computers to recognize cuneiform and even make the contents of millennia-old tablets searchable like a website, making it possible to digitize and assemble larger libraries of these ancient texts.”

“Authorities in New York have been accused by leading academics in France and Britain of repatriating fake Roman artefacts to Lebanon.” Does this mean that ancient mosaics were never stolen in the first place?

ASOR webinar on Dec 14: “The Wheat from the Chaff: What we can Learn from Studying Plants in Antiquity,” by Jennifer Ramsay ($13).

The world’s only intact Roman shield will be part of an exhibit at the British Museum opening in February.

eHammurabi provides a digital version of the Law Code of Hammurabi, including cuneiform, transliteration, normalization, English translation, some comments, and a brief bibliography.

Konstantinos Politis recalls the impact that Jonathan Tubb had in his career as an archaeologist, working at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the British Museum. A festschrift was released shortly before his death.

Will Varner explains why Hannukah is not the Jewish Christmas.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A mosaic in a 4th-century Roman villa in Cappadocia now measures 6,000 square feet, and they’re not done digging. (Most of the photos don’t seem to be showing up right now.) This article has a few images, and this one has a video made with still images.

“Turkey has unveiled a new archaeology research centre that includes the country’s first archaeometry laboratory and vast digital archive” in the city of Gaziantep.

“On the plateau overlooking the ancient Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, a major outdoor art exhibition brings together the work of 14 international contemporary artists who have created site-specific installations responding to the iconic monuments.”

Sara E. Cole writes about current research into the “Book of the Dead” texts in the Getty Collection.

New release: The Nubian Pharaohs of Egypt: Their Lives and Afterlives, by Aidan Dodson (AUC Press, $35)

New release: Women in Ancient Egypt: Revisiting Power, Agency, and Autonomy, edited by Mariam F. Ayad (AUC Press, $95)

Zoom lecture on Dec 5: “Crafting Luxury: Dress in Ancient Persia,” by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. “In conjunction with the British Museum’s recent exhibition Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece, it was decided to attempt to create the types of garments worn by the elite of the Persian court in the Achaemenid period.”

Rome Reborn 4.0 is a digital model of Rome as it appeared in the year AD 320. Users are able “to glide above the historic landmarks while listening to expert narrations about 43 monuments, temples, structures, and locations.”

One of the books highly discounted for Accordance right now is What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible, edited by Jason DeRouchie. This is my preferred textbook for Old Testament class, and I wrote the chapter on 1-2 Chronicles. On sale for $20. Amazon has it in hardcover for $47.

At a festschrift celebration, Gary Rendsburg gives a 20-minute presentation about his 45 years in academic life.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

Haaretz has an update on the season at el-Araj (Bethsaida?) that just concluded. “The archaeologists are not saying they found the house of Peter. They are saying they found a Byzantine basilica that goes back earlier than thought, to the late fifth century, that was built over a ‘venerated wall’ that the builders presumably thought had belonged to the house of Peter. It didn’t, but the wall next to it may have.”

According to a new article in the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review written by Chris McKinny and friends, the Millo of Jerusalem was not an earth filling on the slopes of the City of David but the “Spring Tower” guarding the Gihon Spring. The full article is currently available online to all.

Leen Ritmeyer reports on some inscriptions recently discovered inside the Golden Gate in Jerusalem.

Now on Academia: Leen Ritmeyer’s article, “Imagining the Temple Known to Jesus and to Early Jews,” published in The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah, edited by Steven Fine (Brill, 2011, $227).

The latest issue of Tel Aviv is now available, with several open-access articles including:

An Early Iron Age Moat in Jerusalem between the Ophel and the Southeastern Ridge/City of David, by Yuval Gadot, Efrat Bocher, Liora Freud and Yiftah Shalev. This is a significant discovery that will affect how we think about ancient Jerusalem.
A Seal Impression of ‘ShemaꜤ Servant of Jeroboam’, by Shmuel Aḥituv, Avner Ayalon, Mira Bar-Matthews, Yuval Goren, Michael Magen, Eliezer D. Oren & Orit Shamir. They argue that it is not a modern forgery.

In the final episode of the Flora & Faith series, Brad Nelson goes to the wilderness and considers the role of the rotem tree in the story of Elijah. A free study guide for the entire series is also available.

Up to 50,000 bronze coins from the 4th century AD have been discovered off the coast of Sardinia. The coins are in excellent condition.

“Investigators say they have figured out how bronze statues from a shrine built 2,000 years ago in Asia Minor to venerate the emperors of Rome ended up in museums around the world.”

The second set of fully lemmatized Amarna letters has been released on Oracc. “The online edition of the Amarna Letters aims to make transliterations, translations, and glossaries of the letters and administrative texts available to both scholars and the wider public. At this time, the project comprises 305 texts.”

Jonathan Tubb, archaeologist and curator at the British Museum, died in September.

New release: Representations of Writing Materials on Roman Funerary Monuments: Text, Image, Message, edited by Tibor Grüll (Archaeopress, £16-40)

The Albright has a number of fellowships, awards, and internships available for next year. The application deadline is December 1.

This week we released two new volumes in the Photo Companion to the Bible series: Ezra and Nehemiah. These historical books have all kinds of illustrative potential, such that we have on average nearly 200 slides per chapter. They are on sale right now as a set for only $59. We are grateful for the positive response by many, including Luke Chandler, Leon Mauldin, and Charles Savelle.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, G. M. Grena

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Galilee, Jerusalem, Photo Resources, Resources, Sad News, Turkey, 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 2

A lamassu from the reign of Sargon II was discovered at ancient Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad).

“Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient cemetery that has stone sarcophagi, coptic jars and even a ‘Book of the Dead’ scroll.”

Study of an ancient Egyptian papyrus reveals that there were more venomous snakes in ancient Egypt than when Indiana Jones visited.

Michael Denis Higgins gives a history of the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria, from present-day to the 4th century BC.

New release: Animals in Religion, Economy and Daily Life of Ancient Egypt and Beyond, by R. Pirelli, M. D. Pubblico, and S. Ikram (free pdf)

“Rock and soil samples taken from the area where the ruins of ‘Noah’s Ark’ are believed to be located in Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı were examined, and the first results of the research were announced.”

The theater of Larissa, Greece, has been opened to the public for the first time, following two decades of restoration.

Archaeologists working on the island of Salamis discovered a partially submerged stoa along the east coast.

The British Museum will spend $12 million to update its online digital catalog.

ASOR webinar on Nov 2: “Of Statuary and State Formation: The Rise and Fall of Tell Tayinat-Kunulua,” by J. P. Dessel.

New release: Judicial Decisions in the Ancient Near East, edited by Sophie Démare-Lafont and Daniel E. Fleming (SBL Press, $50-$90)

eAkkadian is an online course book designed to help the student read Sennacherib’s prism.

“The Asia Minor Research Center is excited to announce the 2024 Biblical Field Studies in Turkey. This is a funded study trip for Bible scholars and teachers in the Majority World.”

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

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Turkey, Weekend Roundup