‘Atiqot 103 (2021), now online, includes articles about Iron Age pottery at Tel Eton, a fishpond at Illut, and Crusader remains at Acco.
Richard Elliott Friedman argues that Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the Edomites, not the Babylonians (Haaretz premium). An underlying journal article is available here.
A new study suggests that disruption of copper trade in the ancient Near East was not as severe as thought at the end of the Bronze Age.
The collection of 264 gold coins known as the Givati hoard were apparently minted as emergency coinage by Byzantine authorities in Jerusalem shortly before the Persian invasion in AD 614.
Archaeologists found remains of an Urartian castle dating to the 8th century BC in eastern Turkey.
Kyle Keimer and Chris McKinny conclude their podcast series on the Archaeology of Passion Week with part 2 and part 3. Accompanying visuals are available for each episode.
Zoom lecture on June 22, 11:30 am Eastern: Archaeological Sites of Iraqi Kurdistan as Tourism Destinations (Zoom link)
“Archaeologists believe that a 2,300-year-old jar from Ancient Greece containing the bones of a dismembered chicken was likely used as part of a curse to paralyze and kill 55 people in Athens.”
“A multinational team of archaeologists and scientists is reassessing the history of sea-level change in the Eastern Mediterranean based on underwater excavation and photogrammetry at sites on Israel’s Carmel coast.”
“An Egyptian archaeological mission is preparing to launch an excavation project in Saudi Arabia after several discoveries showed that ancient Egyptian King Ramses III had a presence in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Turkish Archaeological News has a roundup of stories from the month of May.
“The Covid-19 pandemic, however, has offered these thieves new opportunities to raid closed archeological sites, churches and museums [in Italy] for priceless artifacts while police are reassigned to enforce lockdowns.”
First discovered in 2015, a cache of Roman coins dating from 200 BCE to 27 BCE are now on display at the Santa Maria della Scala Museum in Siena, Italy.
A replica of Noah’s Ark has been deemed unseaworthy and is prohibited from leaving port.
Carl Rasmussen shares photos from “The Grotto of Paul” at Ephesus, including ancient paintings of Paul and Thecla.
If you’ll be at the Infusion Bible Conference this week, stop by the BiblePlaces table and say hi to Kris Udd and me. I haven’t had a chance to meet many roundup readers this past year, but our team has used the time to create some great new photo collections.
HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Explorator, Charles Savelle, Paleojudaica
The Israeli team excavating el-Araj (Bethsaida?) signed a collaboration agreement with an Italian university for the exchange of researchers and students.
“Israel has opened its first underwater national park at the ancient port city of Caesarea, where divers can tour the 2,000-year-old remains of what was once a major complex extending into the sea.”
The three-day “Caesarea Maritima Conference” will begin on June 13 at 3:15 pm and continue through June 15 at 9:00 pm (Israel Time).
Eilat Mazar will be honored on July 1 with an evening of lectures by Amihai Mazar, Gabriel Barkay, Yitzhak Dvira, and Reut Ben Aryeh (in Hebrew).
“The years of archaeological excavations Israel has conducted at the Temple Mount have yielded no proof that the Temple ever existed in Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday evening.”
A Smithsonian photographer joined a family following the ancient migration path across the Zagros Mountains in western Iran.
Certain artifacts to be loaned by the National Museum of Iran for the “Epic Iran” exhibit in London never arrived.
Portable X-ray fluorescence analysis is a rapid, inexpensive technique that may allow researchers to understand the archaeological record of a site without excavating. The underlying journal article is here.
As part of the Noah Symposium held at the University of Sirnak, Timo Roller spoke on the history of pilgrimage to Cudi Dagh, a possible landing place of Noah’s Ark. Roller has a couple of posts about the symposium (in German).
Orbis is a useful tool for exploring the Roman world, including determining travel times in 14 different modes in the New Testament era.
Bryan Windle reviews the latest edition of Mark Wilson’s Biblical Turkey. He also reveals why you may not (yet) want to get rid of your previous edition.
HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Steven Anderson, Charles Savelle
“The Tel Ashkelon National Park in southern Israel is undergoing a large-scale renovation project that will open up previously unseen parts of the heritage site, including a recently excavated 2,000-year-old Roman basilica.” More than a mile of accessible pathways will also be added to the park.
The director of the salvage excavations of Tel Beth Shemesh reports on the discoveries. One conclusion: the site was not abandoned after Sennacherib’s attack.
A study of more than 3,500 plant finds from Gath reveals that the Canaanites living there in the Early Bronze Age ate figs, olives, wheat, barley, grapes, and more. The underlying journal article is available for purchase.
Drew Longacre’s analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that some were written for community reading and others for personal use. Longacre’s recent lecture on a related subject is on YouTube.
If you’re interested in becoming immersed in the first-century Roman world in an entertaining work of historical fiction, I recommend you pick up A Rooster for Asklepios, by Christopher D. Stanley. I found the book to be the perfect combination of instruction and pleasure, and it pulled together for me so many details I have learned in classes, research, and travel.
As a scholar whose expertise is in the social and religious history of the Greco-Roman world, Professor Stanley knows well the background of the New Testament world. My common sentiment as I read was gratitude—gratitude for the author’s careful research and his ability to weave a fascinating story. Sometimes his descriptions confirmed what I knew, but he usually delved much more deeply than I ever have, and I thoroughly enjoyed soaking it in.
The story follows a master and his slave as they travel from their home in Pisidian Antioch to seek healing from the god Asklepios in Pergamum. The story always kept moving, and yet at the same time, I felt that the author was sneaking in some fascinating historical details on nearly every page. I constantly marveled at how much first-century ground he covered, and I wonder how much could be left for his second and third works of the trilogy.
Without giving away the storyline, here’s a taste of what you’ll experience:
How slaves were variously treated by their masters
The life of an aristocratic household
The morning ritual at the household shrine
Daily prayers offered to the gods
A festival to the local god Men Askaenos
The manumission of a slave woman
Class distinctions between slaves, freedmen, and aristocrats
Commerce in the marketplace
A visit to the Asklepion
The nature of patron-client relationships
The disdain for a strange new sect related to a certain Paulos
The way in which Jews navigated life in a Roman world
Food and dining customs
A wedding
Political maneuvering among city officials
Regular visits to a Roman bathhouse
Doctors, medicines, and medical treatment
Dress
Sacrificial practices
Athletic contests
Common names in the Roman world
Jewish proselytes, God-fearers, and the synagogue
Certain subjects were familiar to me, but they struck home in new ways. For instance, when you’re immersed in the life of a couple of Gentile characters, their point of view about how the “Jews undermine the unity of the city” made more sense than it ever had before. Because I usually come at matters from a Jewish or Christian perspective, I have failed to appreciate how distinctly odd Jews and Christians were in pagan cities.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the Roman world in which Paul traveled and the early church grew. The book only lightly touches on the nascent Christian movement, but you’ll understand the New Testament better if you experience its world. Once again, this journey was so greatly enhanced by my confidence in the author’s decades of research on the social world of Greco-Roman antiquity and his “obsessive concern for accuracy.”
Because the book is set in modern-day Turkey, I think that those who have traveled to these places would especially enjoy it. I would be happy recommending or requiring this for a group traveling to Turkey, Greece, or Rome as well as for courses in the New Testament, early Judaism, and the Greco-Roman world.
I have already recommended this to my college students, and I think it could be enjoyed as a family with older children, though I would note that the book does include a smattering of coarse language, largely related to the main character’s bowel disorder.
You can learn more about the book and the trilogy at the website, www.aslavesstory.com, as well as on the Facebook page. The book is available on Amazon both as a paperback and on Kindle, and it was just released last week on Audible.
I am looking forward this summer to reading the second book, A Bull for Pluto. But I would note, for those perhaps unwilling to commit to a trilogy, that the first book can be read with great enjoyment all by itself.
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.
