Archaeologists are excavating a large defensive moat at an 9th-8th century BC Phoenicia colony in Spain.

“Curator St John Simpson reveals what happened after he saw a rare plaque from ancient Iraq on an online auction site.”

“Researchers have found evidence of the oldest gynaecological treatment on record, performed on a woman who lived in Ancient Egypt some 4,000 years ago.”

The first-ever archaeological replicas factory in Egypt is under construction.

Preparations are underway for transporting 22 royal mummies to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

A neurologist in Iraq has spent more than 15 years photographing his country and sharing those pictures with the world.

Don McNeeley reports on the annual meeting of the Near East Archaeological Society held last month.

Michaeline Wilkins divided the Hebrew of the Song of Songs into male and female parts and then she and her husband read the text.

Zoom webinar on Dec 22: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, by Lawrence H. Schiffman. Registration required.

Zoom lecture on Dec 23: Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity, by Karen Stern

Thin End of the Wedge podcast: Nicolò Marchetti: Nineveh 2020. How and why archaeology?

A Roman warship is the latest Legos Ideas project to reach 10,000 supporters.

Susan Masten identifies the 10 most important ancient coins ever minted.

Ferrell Jenkins looks at three strata of paganism at Pergamum, the city “where Satan dwells.”

Tutku Tours has a few spots left for familiarization trips for professors this spring to Turkey and Jordan. Two great reasons to consider joining: (1) Mark Wilson is leading; (2) $1,990 includes air. (It costs almost that much just for the entrance ticket to Petra!)

HT: Ted Weis, Agade, Joseph Lauer, Mark Hoffman, Explorator

The statue of a priest’s head was discovered in the western theater of Laodicea.

X-rays are revealing the insides of an Egyptian mummy.

Restoration of a 2,000 year old burial cave in Croatia revealed the tomb of a Greek warrior.

National Geographic runs a well-illustrated piece on the Emperor Hadrian’s relationship with the city of Athens.

New: The British Museum’s Excavations at Nineveh, 1846–1855, by Geoffrey Turner

“Nineveh’s renowned cultural heritage museum, known for the Islamic State’s disastrous attack on its treasures, has finally reopened to the public.”

A 3-D model recently made of the site of Mari “showed major vandalism of the Royal Palace and a huge amount of illegal excavation throughout the site.”

A collection of 25 photographs illustrate important archaeological sites in the UAE.

Assyriologist Veysel Donbaz is interviewed about ancient languages and tablets discovered in Turkey.

Chariots in ancient Egypt were ridden not only by men, but also certain women as well.

Online seminar: “‘An even more unexpected find’: The Synagogue of Dura-Europos and its place in local history,” with Ted Kaizer on Dec 16.

David Moster has posted the first video in a new series: “American Cities Named for the Bible.”

V. M. Traverso writes about the four earliest NT manuscripts, though the 1st century dates he gives are earlier than generally accepted.

An unparalleled collection of Judaica amassed by one of the greatest Jewish dynasties in the world and not seen in public for over a century is to be sold at auction.”

Phillip J. Long reviews A Rooster for Asklepios, by Christopher D. Stanley, the latest in the genre of scholarly novel. He highly recommends it as one of the best with “an interesting plot line which is rich in details illustrating the Greco-Roman world of mid-first century Asia Minor.”

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Explorator

A seal impression of an official of King Jeroboam II has been discovered. It is a smaller version of the famous seal found at Megiddo in 1904 (and later lost). UPDATE (Aug 2021): This item is actually a common tourist replica.

An archaeologist has brought to light a menorah engraved in a Second Temple period tomb on the outskirts of Mukhmas (biblical Michmash), home of Jonathan the Hasmonean. The press release is here, and a journal article is available here.

Authorities are opening several new areas to visitors to Herodium, including the arched stairway, foyer, and private theater.

The underground excavations in Jerusalem took top prize for “Oddities of the Underground” at the International Tunneling and Underground Space Association Awards.

Israel21c photographs 10 eye-catching sculptures around Tel Aviv.

Wayne Stiles looks at traditional sites associated with Jesus’s flight to Egypt.

Bridges to the Bible has created their first series of videos, focusing on the communal culture of the biblical world.

Jerusalem University College will be hosting its first-ever online seminar on January 10 and 11. The event is free and open to the public.

Now available from ACOR (free pdfs): Archaeology in Jordan 2: 2018 and 2019 Seasons, edited by Pearce Paul Creasman, John D.M. Green, and China P. Shelton. This publication features over 50 reports on archaeological fieldwork, conservation initiatives, and publication projects in Jordan.

New: My Nine Lives: Sixty Years in Israeli and Biblical Archaeology, by William G. Dever

Favorably reviewed in the NY Times: A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology, by Toby Wilkinson.

Ferrell Jenkins has a lengthy, informative post about the problem of emperor worship faced by the seven churches in Revelation.

Leen Ritmeyer’s post on the synagogue of Capernaum includes a number of beautiful reconstruction drawings.

Wrapping up her long-distance internship with the PEF, Jade Dang explains how the maps of the Survey of Western Palestine provide a fascinating snapshot of history.

December is the perfect month for an archaeological biography on Herod the Great.

“Who Were the Maccabees, Really? Hannukah, the Hasmoneans and Jewish Memory,” A Conversation with Prof. Joseph Angel and Prof. Steven Fine, Dec 15, 11 am EST.

In asking why Jews today do not read a scroll for Hanukkah, David Golinkin recalls that historically the Scroll of Antiochus was read, but he proposes beginning a new custom by reading 1 Maccabees 1-4.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis, Charles Savelle, Explorator

An Egyptian mummy with a woman’s portrait turned out to be a 5-year-old girl, based upon a study using high-resolution scans and X-ray microbeams.

SURA is a new project that will make available to the public 7,000 historic glass plate negatives from the Egyptological library of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels.

“New analysis of a First Book of Breathing papyrus sheds light on its derivation from the Book of the Dead and postmortem deification in ancient Egypt.”

Wayne Stiles shares photos and looks at lessons to be learned from the pyramids of Giza.

Archaeologists are using artificial intelligence to analyze satellite images to identify ancient structures.

The Greek Reporter has created a short video showing the conservation and transportation of the mosaic of the Villa of Dionysus at Dion.

Carl Rasmussen shares photographs of Sinope, a likely recipient of Peter’s first epistle.

Gordon Govier asks, “Where are the other fake fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls?”

I just learned about thebiblesleuth.com, a weekly blog that links the Pentateuch with archaeological findings, following the Jewish annual reading cycle of the Torah. The blog is written in serial format, with the focus this year on the Iron Age IIA period (early Israelite monarchy).

In a three-minute video, John Currid answers the question, “Why is archaeology useful to Christians?”

Louise Pryke: “Nebuchadnezzar Explained: Warrior King, Rebuilder of Cities, and Musical Muse”

“Owning the Past: From Mesopotamia to Iraq” is a new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

Accordance’s Black Friday sale includes big savings on collections, including a number of graphics collections.

James Sanders died last month.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Keith Keyser, Ted Weis, Ferrell Jenkins, Alexander Schick, Arne Halbakken

An analysis of ancient teeth shows that people in ancient Israel suffered lead pollution (Haaretz premium; or see Aren Maeir’s website). The underlying journal article is here.

“The restoration of a soot-filled ancient Egyptian temple has revealed the previously unknown names of ancient Egyptian constellations.”

“The skeletal remains of what is believed to have been a rich man and his male slave fleeing the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago have been discovered in Pompeii.”

An ancient marble statue of Hermes was discovered beneath a street in Athens.

A study of the theater at Epidaurus has determined that it is “the most perfect theatre in the world in terms of aesthetics and acoustics.”

Cyprus plans to renovate 19 historical monuments this year.

Petra is the latest stop in John DeLancey’s video series.

Ancient Egyptian Architecture Online provides vetted and standardized architectural drawings of a selection of ancient Egyptian buildings. These represent architecture from modest workmen’s houses to temple complexes, dating from the Old Kingdom through Late Antiquity.”

A new digital platform allows visitors to tour ancient Olympia virtually.

In a new series focused on problems faced by the seven churches of Revelation, Ferrell Jenkins first considers the worship of Artemis at Ephesus.

Mark Hoffman links to a collection of chronologies, genealogies, and maps of the biblical world by Ian Mladjov.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, G. M. Grena, Charles Savelle, Explorator, Ted Weis

More than 100 sarcophagi from the Ptolemaic period have been discovered at Saqqara in Egypt.

“More than 200 years after the rediscovery of an Egyptian temple [at Esna], a German-Egyptian research team has uncovered the original colors of inscriptions that are around 2,000 years old.”

CT scans are providing new information about two Egyptian mummies buried in the Roman period.

The American Research Center in Egypt has released two new virtual tours: the C-Ware Vessel and the KV 55 Coffin.

A 17 million euro renovation at the Giza Pyramids includes a new visitor center, an electric bus, and a restaurant.

Archaeologists working in southern Turkey have dubbed a newly discovered mosaic “the Mona Lisa of Kadirli.”

Mathematical models to determine the missing lengths of ancient scrolls are untrustworthy. The underlying journal article is here.

On this week’s The Book and the Spade, Jeffrey Kloha provides a virtual tour of the revised Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Museum of the Bible.

Logos has released an audio version of the Hebrew Bible, read by Abraham Shmuelof, available for free.

Ferrell Jenkins shares a map and photographs illustrating the island of Patmos, the place of John’s exile when he wrote the book of Revelation.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis