Weekend Roundup Archives - Page 18 of 148

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

Archaeologists are making progress in their second season of renewed excavations at Nimrud (ancient Calah), including the discovery of a depiction of Ishtar in a temple dedicated to her.

Royal tombs full of artifacts dating to 1500-1300 BC have been discovered near Hala Sultan Tekke on Cyprus. The site was discovered using magnetometers.

“A 2,500-year-old Phoenician shipwreck has been found underwater in the southeastern Spanish region of Murcia.”

MutualArt surveys the results of excavations and repatriations in Egypt this year.

Yigal Levin writes about the city of Dibon and the single reference to Dibon-Gad in the book of Numbers.

Marek Dospěl gives an overview of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Adam E. Miglio considers the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis.

Jessica Nitschke, the new editor of The Ancient Near East Today, explains her vision for the future of the website and newsletter.

New release: Ancient Egyptian Gold: Archaeology and Science in Jewellery (3500–1000 BC), edited by Maria F. Guerra, Marcos Martinón-Torres & Stephen Quirke (McDonald Institute Monographs; Cambridge; open access)

The Bible Mapper Blog continues to create helpful maps for Bible readers. Here are the latest:

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Explorator

The best museum in the Old City is now the Terra Santa Museum on the Via Dolorosa. Though it is not yet finished, it displays hundreds of impressive artifacts from around the country.

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Excavations, Jerusalem, Jordan, Mediterranean Islands, Mesopotamia, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

In the 11th and final season at the Huqoq synagogue, Jodi Magness discovered additional sections of the Samson mosaic panels along with a new mosaic section with an enigmatic Hebrew inscription and an Aramaic inscription identifying the synagogue’s donors or artists. The site will now be developed into a tourist attraction.

“Skulls and lamps found in the Twins Cave in the Jerusalem Hills indicate that the cave was used for necromancy rituals” in Hellenistic and Roman times.

A new study has determined that Caesarea was destroyed by a giant tsunami in the aftermath of the AD 749 earthquake.

Tim Chaffey follows up his introductory article on the location of the temple with a more extended study, arguing that Ernest L. Martin and Robert Cornuke “are highly selective in their use of source material, even to the point where they remove the most relevant details from passages of Scripture.”

Nathan Steinmeyer describes how the Central Timna Valley Project conducts experiments to determine how people in the Chalcolithic period smelted copper.

Jamie Fraser has been appointed to be the new director of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem.

New release: The Excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir: 1995–2001 and 2009–2016. Volume 2: The Late Hellenistic, Early Roman, and Byzantine Periods, edited by Scott Stripling and Mark A. Hassler (Archaeopress, £85; free download)

Chandler Collins writes about the “Russian Compound Plateau” in Jerusalem, including the recent excavation of a portion of the Third Wall there.

Carl Rasmussen has posted a new photo of the Methuselah date palm tree.

Ferrell Jenkins shares a new photo he took of the village of Nain, where Jesus raised a dead boy back to life.

Abigail Leavitt writes about her visits to the excavations at Tel Burna.

Israel’s Good Name provides a well-illustrated report on his visit to Ein Harod.

Your humble roundup writer teaches a Bible chapter a week nearly every Sunday morning (with photos), but he generally stays away from the pulpit. With the pastor on sabbatical and the situation desperate, my church lowered the standard. There’s not much geography or archaeology in a sermon on “Jesus the Servant,” but it is a subject I love very much.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Explorator

These men are hard at work restoring an ancient mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fish at Tabgha.

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Judah, Negev, Resources, Samaria, Temple Mount, 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 1

Recent excavations in front of the edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher revealed the 4th century arrangement of the rotunda.

Chris McKinny gives an overview of the results from Week 2 of excavations at Tel Burna.

Aren Maeir notes that excavations are also currently underway at Tell el-Hesi and Khirbet Summeily.

Archaeologists have invited the local community to help conserve the Middle Bronze gate at Gezer after last year’s fire.

William Hild, a participant in this summer’s excavation at Hyrcania, is guest on The Book and the Spade discussing the project.

Ruth Schuster writes about the treasures that were returned when the Israel Antiquities Authority announced an amnesty campaign. Enjoy the many photos, for you’ll never see these objects again as the IAA protects them in a vast storage center.

Ariel David reports on Garfinkel’s latest claim of Judah’s importance in the 10th century, including criticism from other archaeologists. Melanie Lidman has a similar story.

Tim Chaffey explains how Ernest Martin and Robert Cornuke “avoid key passages of Scripture, distort Josephus’ words, and ignore the findings of archaeologists” in their relocation of Solomon’s temple.

New release: Ancient Synagogues Revealed 1981-2022, edited by Lee I. Levine, Zeev Weiss, and Uzi Leibner (Israel Exploration Society, 300 NIS). You can see all the volumes in the long-running series on the IES website.

Hybrid conference on July 10-13 in Jerusalem: “Jerusalem: From Umbilicus Mundi to the Four Corners of the Earth and Back.” The conference brochure is here. The live broadcast will be here.

Zoom lecture on July 25: “Jesus in Galilee: An Archaeological Perspective,” by Eric Meyers

BBC Reel has released “Armageddon: The ancient city behind the biblical story.”

Chandler Collins considers what may be learned from 19th century travelers’ writings about their first views of Jerusalem.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Joseph Lauer, Explorator

The latest big hole in the ground opened to visitors is the Gezer water system. The descent gives you a new appreciation for the value of a secure source of water.

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Judah, Lectures, Resources, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

“Israeli archaeologists have been left scratching their heads over the discovery of a large tomb containing dozens of skeletons, many of them women, who were buried more than 2,500 years ago in the midst of the Negev desert, at an ancient crossroad far from any known settlements at the time.”

According to Yosef Garfinkel, five sites in Judah indicate that Judah was expanding into the Shephelah already in the 10th century. The underlying journal article is here.

Chris McKinny provides an overview of all of the excavation areas at Tel Burna after their first week of their 13th season.

The Greek Reporter has a well-illustrated story on the Bird Mosaic and the sigma-shaped glass-gold table found in Caesarea.

Martine van den Berg reports on the first-ever “Friends of ASOR Tour to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” They had quite a few experiences that the average tourist doesn’t get.

After a three-year renovation, Solomon’s Quarries/Zedekiah’s Cave has reopened to visitors. It now includes a multimedia show. The article includes a video report by i24 News.

Ron Simkins discusses “Creation and Ecology in Ancient Israel” on the Biblical World podcast.

Lisa LaGeorge gives a good answer to the question, “What difference does it make if I go to Israel?”

Ferrell Jenkins shares a photo of a beautiful view that he took in the Judean hill country between Bethlehem and Hebron.

Zoom lecture on July 12: “The King is Dead, Long Live the King: Murder, Poetry, and Scribal Culture in Ancient Egypt,” by Margaret Geoga ($7)

The NY Times reports on Christian tourism to Saudi Arabia, though the reporting seems limited to a single tour group.

A large Roman-period mosaic discovered near Homs, Syria, depicts Greek soldiers in the Trojan War as well as the god Neptune and forty of his mistresses.

A conference will be held at Oxford on July 5 entitled “The Aramaeans B.C.: History, Literature, and Archaeology”

The oldest completely hand-sewn boat in the Mediterranean dates to the Iron Age I and is remarkably well-preserved.

A fresco newly discovered at Pompeii looks like a pizza but is more likely a focaccia covered with fruit.

Bryan Windle reports on the top three stories in biblical archaeology for the month of June.

What do real archaeologists think of Indiana Jones?

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Israel's Coast, Italy, Jerusalem, Lectures, Negev, Shephelah, Weekend Roundup