Weekend Roundup Archives - Page 27 of 154

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

According to Haaretz, the recent excavations have found no traces of the Pool of Siloam.

Chandler Collins investigates “artificial platforms of massive proportions [that] altered Jerusalem’s landscape while also destroying or concealing remains of former times.”

Google Arts & Culture’s collections include a story on the Holy Places of Jerusalem, with many large, beautiful photographs.

Bible History Daily summarizes a recent study that argues that it is very unlikely that a ring bears the name of Pontius Pilate.

Daily Mail tells the story of the Shellal Mosaic, discovered by ANZAC soldiers near Tell el-Farah (South) during World War I.

Haaretz profiles the research of Guy Bar-Oz in his efforts to study the cultural history of trees in Israel.

As Adolfo Roitman nears retirement as curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Shrine of the Book, Israel21c reports on how he ended up in the position, with no museum experience or expertise in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

New episode on This Week in the Ancient Near East: “New Jerusalem Inscription Points to (Previously Known) Iron Age Spice Trade, Or, Solomon and Sheba Get Spicy?”

Hybrid conference on May 21-23: “Epigraphy in Judah: The Second International conference of the Roger and Susan Hertog Center for the Archaeological Study of Jerusalem and Judah”

The Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies is offering free Modern Hebrew Ulpanim courses on Zoom.

Bible Mapper continues to produce and release free maps of the biblical narrative and world:

If you have not entered the drawing for more than 30 prizes of the Photo Companion to the Bible, you have until tomorrow to do so. Everyone who enters receives the new “Top 50 Sites from Dan to Beersheba” PowerPoint.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Mark Hoffman, Explorator

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Tomb of Jesus, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Archaeologists in Southern Italy uncovered a trove of historical treasures in a temple in the ancient city of Paestum. The treasures include a statue of the Greek god of love Eros, Terracotta bull heads and dolphin statues.”

Art & Object reports on excavation work around the Colosseum.

“A team of marine archaeologists working off the coast of Italy has identified a submerged Nabatean temple dating to the early first century CE.”

“Ancient Babylonian treasures, painstakingly unearthed, are slowly disappearing again under wind-blown sand in a land parched by rising heat and prolonged droughts.”

Eckart Frahm is guest on The Ancients podcast to discuss the “Rise of the Assyrians.”

David Moster found a Babylonian Kudurru at Goodwill and made a video about it.

Tom Davis discusses Pauline archaeology on the latest episode of Biblical World.

New release: Ramesses II, Egypt’s Ultimate Pharaoh, by Peter Brand (Lockwood Press, 575 pages, $40)

New from Eisenbrauns: The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630–627 BC), and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612 BC), Kings of Assyria, Part 2, by Joshua Jeffers and Jamie Novotny. Price reduced to $91 with code NR23.

The latest BAS OnSite video tours Petra, with BAR editor Glenn Corbett as guide.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Keith Keyser, Alexander Schick, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Mediterranean Islands, Mesopotamia, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

“Thousands of animal bones, ceramic animal figurines, wall stones and limestone altars have been found at an Iron Age temple in Khirbet Al Mudayna,” possibly biblical Jahaz.

Lawrence Schiffman explains why he believes that Gershon Galil’s discovery of new inscriptions from the time of Hezekiah is the product of scholarly imagination.

“The Inscriptions project seeks to collect and make freely accessible all of the previously published inscriptions (and their English translations) of Israel/Palestine from the Persian period through the Islamic conquest (ca. 500 BCE – 640 CE).”

The New York Public Library has available for viewing online Charles W. Wilson’s Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem (1865).

Grunge’s list of “female archaeologists who changed history forever” includes Kathleen Kenyon.

Jonathan Moore is a guest on Digging for Truth to discuss the archaeological evidence for the destruction of Jericho.

Zoom lecture on May 2: “The Antiquities Trade in Israel and Palestine: Same as It Ever Was?,” by Morag Kersel and Michael Press, sponsored by PEF and AIAR.

Zoom lecture on May 4: “Exploring the Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth,” by Professor Ken Dark, sponsored by Jerusalem University College

Bryan Windle begins a new series entitled “Weighing the Evidence.” In the first post, he evaluates the evidence both for and against the authenticity of the James Ossuary and its inscription.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Keith Keyser, Alexander Schick, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem, Jordan, Lectures, Resources, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Neo-Assyrian reliefs in the provinces tend to present the sacred using standardized Assyrian court motifs. A recently discovered relief at Başbük, however, offers a rare depiction of local gods in Assyrian court style but with traditional Syro-Anatolian motifs.”

“After the recent massive earthquakes, Türkiye’s Hatay Archaeology Museum stepped up efforts to protect its valuable artifacts from aftershocks by employing an in situ protection formula for heavy items and sending smaller artifacts to another museum for safekeeping.”

Archaeologists excavating a 2nd century AD villa in Rome discovered two mosaics depicting Medusa. The article does not include photos of the mosaics.

A previously unknown palimpsest fragment of Matthew 11-12 in Old Syriac has been found in the Vatican Library.

Drawing on James Hoffmeier’s recent BAR article, Marek Dospěl provides an overview of the archaeological and geological evidence for Jeremiah’s travels to Egypt.

The most lavish Mesopotamian tomb ever discovered belonged to a woman.

The Greek Reporter has the oldest photo of the Acropolis of Athens, taken in 1842.

Kim Phillips: “The sale of Codex Sassoon raises questions about what’s real and what’s hype about this important manuscript.”

New release on Logos: Manna Bible Maps Plus: Maps, Timelines, and Movies to Help Students Visualize Their Study of the Bible ($63). I have not used these and cannot offer an opinion as to their value.

Zoom lecture on April 19: “Evidence for Judean Exiles in Babylonia, 572–474 BCE,” by Laurie Pearce. Free but registration required.

The Database of Religious History is “a massive, standardized, searchable encyclopedia of the current best scholarly opinion on historical religious traditions and the historical record more generally.”

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

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Excavations have uncovered an ancient farming system from the Middle Ages in the sand dunes next to Caesarea.

The Washington Post reviews the archaeological evidence for crucifixion.

In reporting on the recently published inscription from Jerusalem with possible ties to the Queen of Sheba, Bible History Daily notes some resistance by Christopher Rollston to the interpretation.

A new paper argues that Jews in the Roman army could have kept kosher.

Chandler Collins reviews proposed locations for Jerusalem’s Gennath Gate, often connected with the place of Jesus’s crucifixion and tomb.

A spring storm dropped snow on Mount Hermon and caused flooding that nearly cut off Eilat from the rest of the country.

In its Summer Institute this year, Jerusalem University College is offering three courses:

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Myth and Reality, taught by Adolfo Roitman, Curator and Director of The Shrine of the Book
Genesis 1-3 in its Ancient Near Eastern Context, taught by Oliver Hersey, President of Jerusalem University College
The Zionist Idea, taught by Jonathan Kaplan, Former Vice Provost of the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This month only, Accordance Bible Software is offering the full version of Accordance 13 to everyone for free.

New resource: 14 Fresh Ways to Enjoy the Bible, by James F. Coakley. Though only one chapter is directly about Bible geography, the whole of this book looks like an excellent guide to better reading (Moody, 208 pages; $15).

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

Tagged Discoveries, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Lectures, Resources, Weather, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

A new study suggests that a 10th-century BC inscription discovered near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem may have been written in the Ancient South Arabian language, providing a possible link with the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon.

Gold jewelry discovered in a Roman-era tomb on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem in 1971 is now on display for the first time. The jewelry “bears the mark of the Roman goddess of the moon Luna.”

Ruth Schuster investigates the earliest Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land and how they knew were to go.

It’s a Passover tradition for journalists to write about the exodus, and Judith Sudilovsky’s article in The Jerusalem Post is not entirely negative.

You can find the full series of Passion Week devotionals written by Will Varner and illustrated with our photos here.

Megan Sauter considers the question of how Jesus’s tomb was sealed.

Chris McKinny and Kyle Keimer discuss the archaeology of the Passion Week in a three-part series on the Biblical World podcast.

John DeLancey is on The World and Everything in It talking about the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (23:40; transcript at link).

Israeli police detained several individuals with lambs or goats near the Temple Mount.

Jordan Ryan’s recent BAR article, “Jesus in the Synagogue,” is excerpted online, including a list of 16 synagogues in Judea and Galilee that date before AD 135.

Ellen White writes about Israelite attitudes toward dogs.

Peter Lacovara attempts to explain why ancient ivory cosmetic spoons were made in the shape of a young girl swimming.

Archaeologists excavating the Hyksos palace at Tell el-Daba have discovered 12 severed hands.

“Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Ottawa, Canada are learning more about ancient graffiti and their amazing comparisons with modern graffiti as they produce a state-of-the-art 3D recording of the Temple of Isis in Philae, Egypt.”

New release: Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire, by Eckart Frahm (Basic Books, 528 pages, $35; Amazon).

New release: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume IV: The Age of Assyria, edited by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts (Oxford, 1288 pages, $150; Amazon)

Turkish Archaeological News has a roundup of stories in the month of March.

Greek City Times has a survey of the (many) Greek theaters in Turkey.

“The Asia Minor Research Center is pleased to announce a new study program in Turkey for people in the Majority World.”

The Gospel of Matthew in the LUMO Project has been dubbed using a restored Koine Greek pronunciation.

WarGamer’s April Fool’s prank was about the world’s first trading card game.

The Oriental Institute is being renamed to the “Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia and North Africa.” Pretty catchy.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, A.D. Riddle, Andy Cook, Ted Weis, Gordon Dickson, Keith Keyser, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Holidays, Jerusalem, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Tomb of Jesus, Turkey, Weekend Roundup