10th Century Archives - Page 10 of 11

New Book: The ANE in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE

The proceedings of a conference at Haifa University in 2010 will soon be available in a 620-page book entitled The Ancient Near East in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History, edited by Gershon Galil, Ayelet Gilboa, Aren M. Maeir, and Dan’el Kahn.

Some chapters of particular interest to readers of this blog may include:

Walter Dietrich, David and the Philistines: Literature and History

Gershon Galil, Solomon’s Temple: Fiction or Reality?

Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor and Michael G. Hasel, The Iron Age City of Khirbet Qeiyafa after
four Seasons of Excavations

Moti Haiman, Geopolitical Aspects of the Southern Levant Desert in the 11th–10th Centuries BCE

Larry G. Herr, Jordan in the Iron I and IIB Periods

Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, Yhwh’s Exalted House Revisited: New Comparative Light on the Biblical Image of Solomon’s Temple

Dan´el Kahn, A Geo-Political and Historical Perspective of Merneptah’s Policy in Canaan

André Lemaire, West Semitic Epigraphy and the History of the Levant during the 12th–10th
Centuries BCE

Aren M. Maeir, Insights on the Philistine Culture and Related Issues: An Overview of 15 Years of Work at Tell es-Safi/Gath

Troy Leiland Sagrillo, Šîšaq’s [Shishak’s] Army: 2 Chronicles 12:2–3 from an Egyptological Perspective

Ephraim Stern, Archaeological Remains of the Northern Sea People along the Sharon and Carmel Coasts and the Acco and Jezrael Valleys

Christoffer Theis and Peter van der Veen, Some “Provenanced” Egyptian Inscriptions from Jerusalem: A Preliminary Study of Old and New Evidence

And there is much more.

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged 10th Century, Jerusalem, Jordan, Philistines, Resources, Shephelah

Eilat Mazar and Her Critics

The controversy surrounding the work of Eilat Mazar in Jerusalem is the focus of a recent article written by Morey Altman for the Jerusalem Report. At the heart of the conflict is the role of the Bible in archaeological interpretation.

Eilat Mazar readily concedes the use of Scripture as a guide but acknowledges the limitations of the Bible as an historical document. “The fact is all historical documents are biased because they are written by people.”
But she’s also critical of those who too readily dismiss the use of the Bible as a reference tool. “You don’t want to go the other extreme and ignore a document that’s potentially helpful. Information at hand, whether we’re talking about the Bible or historical documents, may direct us a certain way, but the minute you start excavating, you are obliged by very high scientific standards,” she maintains. “We can use the Bible as a starting point, just as archaeologists working in the Near East have always done,” she tells The Report. “People investigated what they knew, and they knew the Bible.”
Nevertheless, Finkelstein’s concerns go beyond the validity of Scripture. “It is not clear whether the wall was an outer wall or an inner wall within the city,” he tells The Report. “And in any event, no 10th century BCE city-wall has ever been found in Jerusalem.”

I hope that Finkelstein wasn’t trying to make the argument that Mazar could not have found a 10th-century wall because no 10th-century wall has ever been found.

The article concludes with a quotation from Mazar that she still has a few secrets.

Tagged 10th Century, Jerusalem

Weekend Roundup

Gordon Govier has an excellent article on Eilat Mazar and her work in Jerusalem over the last 20 years. Though sympathetic to this secular defender of the Bible, Govier cites some of her detractors and describes the latest twist.

According to provisional results, the Dead Sea did not receive enough votes to be named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

Donald Brake is writing a series of articles on the life of Jesus in the Holy Land. This week’s article in the Washington Times explains how one can evaluate the accuracy of tradition, specifically in connection with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Joe Yudin has a good column this week on Mount Gilboa, though I cannot agree that the witch knew the future.

This week’s radio program LandMinds with Barnea and David features interviews with the president of ASOR Tim Harrison, Yisrael “Winky” Medad, and Israel Finkelstein.

Forward reviews the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit currently in New York City.

Dan Bahat explains the political nature of archaeology in an interview with the Canadian Jewish News.

The Hagia Sophia may become a mosque again.

Every day 35,000 tons of raw sewage flow down the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, according to a video report in the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli scientists are growing trees in the Arabah in order to improve the environment.

The Biblical Archaeology Society has announced its 2011 Publication Awards Winners for Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology, Best Popular Book on Archaeology, Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible, and Best Book Relating to the New Testament.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Tagged 10th Century, Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

Jezreel is one of my favorite biblical sites and I’m happy to see that excavations will begin again under the direction of Norma Franklin of Tel Aviv University and Jennie Ebeling of the University of Evansville. A new website has the details.

The Sea of Galilee dropped nearly a foot last month and is now 17 inches below the red line.

Shmuel Browns went on a Photo Walk in Jerusalem and would like our feedback in deciding which image he should submit to the competition.

Browns is also offering a free guided tour of Khirbet Qeyiafa on October 14 at 9 am.

A volunteer at the Gezer excavation this summer writes of her experience on the ASOR blog, noting that they ended the season on what they believe is a 10th-century floor.

The Virtual Amarna Project is now online. “This archive resulted from the 3D digitisation of objects from the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna using a Konica Minolta Vivid 9i system. Data includes images, 3D PDF files, meshes (obj) and point clouds (ascii).”

Another resource is the Amarna Tablet Photograph Database Online where you can view the inscriptions held by the Vorderasiatisches Museum of Berlin.

Aaron Burke is interviewed about the excavations in Jaffa (Joppa) on the LandMinds radio show (part 1, part 2).

Jimmie Hardin will be lecturing on the archaeology of David and Solomon at the University of Mississippi on October 26.

One million visitors viewed the Dead Sea Scrolls in their first week online.

HT: ANE-2, Jack Sasson

Tagged 10th Century, Egypt, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Lectures, Museums, Shephelah

Lectures on the Historicity of Solomon

The Memory and Identity Working Group, University of California, Berkeley is hosting a lecture entitled “Mining for Solomon” by Professor Steven Weitzman (Stanford University) on Tuesday, September 6, 2011, 4:00 pm, 254 Barrows Hall.

After a century-long search for traces of the historical King Solomon, archaeologists have recently claimed to locate the possible source of his fabled wealth in southern Jordan. Has scholarship at last found evidence of the real King Solomon? Weitzman’s presentation will address this question by exploring the pre-history of the archaeological quest for Solomon, a quest with surprisingly important historical consequences that go beyond our understanding of the biblical past.

For other upcoming lectures sponsored by the group, see their website.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School invites the public to a lecture by William G. Dever entitled “The Golden Age of Solomon: Fact or Fancy?” The lecture will be held on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 7:00 pm in Hinkson Hall, Rodine Building. A flyer may be viewed here (pdf).

HT: Jack Sasson, A.D. Riddle

Tagged 10th Century, Lectures

Discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2011

The Spring/Summer 2011 issue of DigSight has just been released by the Institute of Archaeology of Southern Adventist University. The newsletter includes a good primer on biblical minimalism and its shifts in the last two decades. Another article discusses “Evident Silence or Silenced Evidence” in defense of the historicity of Daniel 5.

The lead article summarizes the major tasks and discoveries of the 2011 team:

Completion of excavation of 4th-century BC large building with olive press
Discovery of early 10th-century BC stone quarry that continued in use in Hellenistic and/or Roman times
Excavation of three Iron Age rooms with some partially restorable vessels and a standing stone (signifying a cultic area?)
Discovery of best-preserved example of Iron Age floor at the site.
Significant small finds including a faience scarab seal, a bone seal with lion and man, an iron ring, and a portion of an Aramaic ostracon
Excavation of more than 25,000 pieces of pottery in Area D alone

The newsletter notes that the Institute’s three-year excavation of Qeiyafa has now concluded and the next two years will be used for publishing the final results.

The quality of the newsletter is superb but reading it in the issuu format has its drawbacks. Unlike previous issues, downloading the newsletter in pdf format requires login and the only login I could see to use was Facebook. (And I don’t know yet what adverse effects there may be from that.)

Tagged 10th Century, Discoveries, Excavations, Shephelah