In the previous weekend’s Roundup, Todd mentioned a new book entitled Triumph and Betrayal: Assyria’s Path to Empire, 935–745 BC, by Alexander Johannes Edmonds (2025). It is available as a free download (pdf or epub) from the publisher, De Gruyter.
I began reading Edmonds this past week, and learned quite early in the book that the author makes the astonishing claim that three previously-unknown kings from the Neo-Assyrian period have been identified—two by Edmonds and one by Eckart Frahm. (I say “previously unknown,” but that is to say unknown to scholarship of the past few centuries—obviously Assyrians from the 8th–10th centuries BC would have known about them.) Edmonds states that the presence of these “new” kings “serves to explain previously enigmatic periods within Assyrian history.” It will be interesting to see what kind of response Edmonds’ work receives. Time will tell.
For comparison, here are the two lists of kings compared side-by-side. The names in pink are the newly-identified kings. If there is a new Tiglath-pileser and a new Shalmaneser, that will make quite a mess out of all my notes and teaching materials.
Earlier this week, Todd drew attention to Tutku’s new tour “The 1700th Anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 2025.” In connection to this tour, Tutku hosted an online seminar a few weeks back with the same title. The presentation was given by Glen Thompson, and moderated by Mark Wilson. I found it really interesting and informative. For those who missed it, a recording of the seminar is now ready to watch on YouTube.
If anyone wants to learn more about the Nicaean Council, the same Glen Thompson founded a website named Fourth Century Christianity. There one will find a whole host of things to explore about the council. The site contains a historical synthesis covering events leading up to the council and the council itself, primary source documents giving descriptions of the council (in both Greek and English translation), documents concerning the Arian controversy, a map of Arian’s supporters, and more.
At the beginning of this year, I made three maps to show the council’s geographical background for a class on the Nicaean Creed. It is a large PDF file (120MB) which can be downloaded here. The first map includes the entire Mediterranean and Near East, showing the furthest geographic extent of the creed’s signatories, from Cordoba in Spain to Persia (Persis). There is a black rectangle around Nicaea which corresponds to the extent of the second map. The second map shows the immediate region around Nicaea, including the Eastern capital at Nicomedia and the future capital at Constantinople. The third map zooms into the area of Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt so that nearly all of the dots could be labeled. My work on these maps was based on an appendix in the volume edited by Young Richard Kim, The Cambridge Companion to the Council of Nicaea (2021). I wish I had known about Glen Thompson’s website at the time, because I would have instead used the list of names he has compiled. (Maybe some day I will update my map to reflect Glen’s research, today is not that day).
Monday, June 17, is Ancient Anatolia Day. Due to a large number of registrations, the organizers have decided at the last minute to livestream Ancient Anatolia Day on YouTube. The livestream begins at 6:00 am (U.S. Central Time), or 12:00 pm in the U.K., on the YouTube channel for Wolfson College, Oxford. For the day’s program, see this webpage. (Note: the morning workshops are for in-person attendees only.)
For those living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, there will be a very special showing of Hebrew Scrolls this coming Saturday. Many, perhaps, have seen a Torah scroll, which contains the text of the first five books of the Bible—the books of Moses. This collection of scrolls is rare, however, in that in includes the entire Old Testament.
Dallas International University is hosting the exhibition. The event is scheduled for Saturday, January 13, at 3:00pm, in the Event Center on campus.
The exhibition will begin with a talk covering topics such as the Hebrew Old Testament (or Tanakh), unique items in the scroll collection, and techniques used by scribes to copy a scroll. After the talk, visitors will be able to examine the scrolls up-close, discuss and ask questions about the scrolls, and take photographs. Some of the scrolls are several centuries old, some were specially commissioned in more recent times. This event is free and open to the public.
To celebrate their 45 years of selling and publishing books, Eisenbrauns is offering a 45% discount on all their titles from now until December 21. This is great news for some of us who have had our eye on a volume or two but were discouraged by ever-climbing book prices. This is the largest discount I have seen, perhaps ever, so be sure not to miss this rare opportunity. To apply the discount, use the code EB45 during checkout.
To help get started, the sale page provides lists of Eisenbrauns’ recent releases, some of their most popular sellers, and 15 of James Spinti’s Favorite Eisenbooks.±
We have highlighted, and often recommended, several Eisenbrauns books on this blog over the years. More recently, they have published the first of a new series, Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This initial volume contains the royal inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk, Neriglissar, and Nabonidus, covering the period 561-539 BC. (This seems a curious place to begin since the inscriptions of these same kings were published not all that long ago by Rocio da Riva. Nevertheless we are glad to see this new series appear. UPDATE: This information was incorrect. They overlap only with Amēl-Marduk and Neriglissar who combined have few inscriptions (14 texts). Da Riva’s publication includes Nabopolassar but does not include Nabonidus. The new Eisenbrauns volume includes Nabonidus but not Nabopolassar. For Nabopolassar 13 texts are published and for Nabonidus 61 texts (± 10) are published, so the Eisenbrauns volume covers quite a bit more material.
Also of note, one can use the sale discount to pre-order the The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon IIby Grant Frame, due out next year. As mentioned here and here and here and here, I have been looking forward to this volume coming out. [UPDATE: Later on the same day I wrote this, Eisenbrauns announced the release of this title, so it is available now.]
We highlighted a small museum located in the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in the Holy Land. You may want to read that post first. The founder of this museum was Gustaf Dalman (1855-1941), a key figure in the development of the Institute. His collections populate most of the museum’s displays.
Dalman first visited the Holy Land for an extended time in 1899, and he lived there continuously from 1902 until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Though he was able to return two more times, the war essentially brought an end to Dalman’s activity in the Holy Land, and thereafter he researched it remotely from the Institute of Palestinology in Greifswald, Germany.
In last week’s post, we mentioned the aspects of Palestinian life and the various fields of study that Dalman investigated as part of his encyclopedic research. Although some of Dalman’s writings have been translated into English, his most important work was not, at least not till now. Dalman’s magnum opus was a seven-volume work (in eight parts) entitled Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, or Work and Customs in Palestine. An eighth volume was incomplete at the time of his death, and not until 2001 were the notes for this volume finally published. Below are the subjects covered by the eight volumes. At the very end of this post, you can view/download the detailed contents for Volume 1, Part 1. This should give a very good sense for the breadth and depth of these volumes.
Vol. 1, part 1: Course of the Year and Course of the Day: Autumn and Winter
Vol. 1, part 2: Course of the Year and Course of the Day: Spring and Summer
Vol. 2: Agriculture
Vol. 3: From Harvest to Flour: Harvesting, Threshing, Winnowing, Sieving, Storing, Milling
Vol. 4: Bread, Oil and Wine
Vol. 5: Textiles, Spinning, Weaving and Clothing
Vol. 6: Tent Life, Cattle and Dairy Farming, Hunting, FishingVol. 7: The house, Chicken Breeding, Pigeon Breeding, Beekeeping
Vol. 8: Domestic Life, Birth, Marriage and Death (it was also intended to include Singing and Music)
Photo source: Antiquariat an der Uni Muenchen.
Dalman, Gustaf H.
1928-1942 Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina. 7 vols. Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann.
2001 Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. 8: Fragment aus dem Nachlass. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.
Dalman’s work is perhaps the most important window into pre-modern, agricultural/pastoral world of the Holy Land. Along with photographs like the Matson Collection, this is about as close as we today can get to seeing and experiencing daily life in Bible times. Yet, for so many of use who do not possess facility in the German tongue, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina has remained inaccessible. That is why, a few years ago, it was exciting to find out that Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina is being translated into English. It is Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian to whom we are in the debt for executing the translation. Volume 1, parts 1 and 2, were published in 2013.
Dalman, Gustaf H.
2013 Work and Customs in Palestine, Vol. 1, Parts 1 and 2: The Course of the Year and the Course of the Day. Trans. Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian. Ramallah: Dar Al Nasher.
Part 1 is available here. Part 2 is available here.
While preparing this post, we discovered that Volume 2 was published just this year. We are glad to see the project is moving along.
Dalman, Gustaf. 2020 Work and Customs in Palestine, Vol. 2: Agriculture. Trans. Robert Schick. Ed. Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian. Ramallah: Dar Al Nasher.
The only place where Volume 2 appears to be available is here. (Be advised that shipping appears to take one to one-and-a-half months.)
Detailed Contents of Volume 1, Part 1: The Course of the Year and the Course of the Day
The BiblePlaces Blog provides updates and analysis of the latest in biblical archaeology, history, and geography. Unless otherwise noted, the posts are written by Todd Bolen, PhD, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s University.
