Weekend Roundup, Part 2

An attempt to smuggle into Britain an ancient Babylonian kudurru as a “carved stone for home decoration” with a value of “300” failed.

“Music was ubiquitous in Ancient Greece. Now we can hear how it actually sounded.”

Israel has become the first country to list all cemetery tombstones online.

The February 2019 issue of the Newsletter of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities includes the latest discoveries, repatriations, and news.

A Greek archaeologist has been working in Alexandria for 15 years in an effort to find the tomb of Alexander the Great.

A 3-minute video shows an animation of what the hanging gardens of Babylon may have looked like.

The Museum of the Bible is hosting a two-session lecture series on “Jerusalem and Rome: Cultures in Context in the First Century CE,” featuring Eric Meyers, Mary Boatwright, Lawrence Schiffman, and Steven Notley.

Eric Meyers will be lecturing on March 28 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on “Holy Land Archaeology: Where the Past Meets the Present.”

Six speakers will address the subject of “Egypt and Ancient Israel: Merneptah’s Canaanite Campaign—History of Propaganda?” in a conference at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on March
26.

Chris McKinny’s recent lecture on “Tel Burna—After a Decade of Investigation” is now online. The video includes all of his visuals.

This is fascinating: Predators in the Thickets: A Film Interview with Two Botanists and a Zoologist in Israel. You’ll learn more about lions, bears, forests, thickets, the Zor, and the Ghor. The film is intended an introduction to the newly launched Dictionary of Nature Imagery of the Bible.

Amos Kloner died yesterday.

HT: Agade, Chris McKinny, Joseph Lauer

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Weekend Roundup, Part 1

A Greek inscription found at the Nabatean city of Halutza confirms previous scholarly identification of the site as Elusa. The Times of Israel article provides more information about the results of the excavation.

Aren Maeir made a visit to Gath/Tell es-Safi this week, where everything is very green.

Tel Tzuba (Belmont) is the latest destination for Israel’s Good Name.

Cesares de Roma is a Spanish art project that has brought to life silicone images of Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, and Nero.

The Romans attempted to ban wild Purim parties in the year 408.

In light of the present controversy, Leen Ritmeyer explains the history of the Golden Gate of Jerusalem.

Egypt has opened a 105-mile hiking trail called the “Red Sea Mountain Trail” that west of Hurghada.

40,000 runners from 80 different countries ran 42 kilometers in the Jerusalem Marathon.

David Moster explains biblical geography in a 9-minute video entitled, “If an ancient Israelite had Google Earth.”

This isn’t new, but I haven’t seen it before: Flight of Faith: The Jesus Story is a 48-minute documentary with lots of aerial footage.

The Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has opened a new exhibit entitled “Highway through History.” As part of the launch, they have created a five-minute drone video of Beth Shemesh and the excavations in preparation for the road expansion.


The New York Times reviews “The World Between Empires” exhibit now at the Met.

The “Alexander son of Simon” ossuary is possibly related to the man who carried Jesus’s cross. It is on display now at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, and this week they recorded a short video about it. Apparently they were so inspired by an inquiry from your roundup writer.

HT: Agade, G. M. Grena, Chris McKinny, Ted Weis, Steven Anderson, Paul Kellogg, Charles Savelle

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Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Egypt has preserved a unique Greco-Roman catacomb in Alexandria through a groundwater-lowering project.

The Egyptian site of Heliopolis is “a black hole in our knowledge of ancient Egypt.”

“A ram-headed sphinx carved from sandstone more than 3,000 years ago has been found in Egypt.”

The new exhibit “Ancient Egypt: From Discovery to Display” at the University of Pennsylvania Museum walks the visitor through the archaeological process.

John DeLancey shares photos he recently took inside the pharaohs’ tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

The top archaeological finds from Greece in 2018 include the oldest known excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey and the most intact ancient Greek vessel ever found.

Carl Rasmussen goes to Rome in search of an answer to the question, “Where did the Jerusalem Temple treasure go?” (Part 1, Part 2)

This year’s Friends of ABR Fundraising Banquet will honor Bryant Wood.

HT: Explorator, Ted Weis, Agade, Paleojudaica

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Weekend Roundup, Part 2

New clues to the lost tomb of Alexander the Great are being unearthed in Egypt (National Geographic).

“Sinai’s 500 plus photographic entries from mid 19th to mid 20th centuries . . . are now published online with detailed geography and history description . . . based on the 19-year field survey and maps of Sinai Peninsula Research (SPR).”

Erin Blakemore recounts the tale of how a modern attempt to play King Tut’s trumpets went awry.

Somehow John DeLancey is able to post summaries every day for his tours, including their recent days in Egypt.

Iraq is seeking World Heritage List status for the ancient city of Babylon.

Tourists are apparently returning to the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq.

Esagil, Treasure Hunt in Babylon, is a a board game with a real-scale map of ancient Babylon.

The opening of a spectacular ancient Jewish catacomb in Rome continues to be delayed.

What is “biblical archaeology”? Owen Jarus provides some definitions and an introduction to some of the controversy surrounding its use.


Smithsonian Magazine profiles Wendell Phillips, sometimes known as America’s “Lawrence of Arabia.”

The majority, or perhaps even all, of the 75 new “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments that have appeared on the market since 2002 are modern forgeries, according to Årstein Justnes and Josephine Munch Rasmussen. UPDATE: I am told by someone I trust that this article has many errors, including in its basic assertions.

ASOR has begun its March Fellowship Madness 2019 to raise funds to help students and scholars.

Ferrell Jenkins explains why he is fond of an “unattractive” photo taken at the Corinth Museum.

Two new videos with Aaron Brody: Introduction to the Bade Museum and Repatriating Antiquities.

HT: Ted Weis, Agade, G. M. Grena

IMG_20190301_134514_thumb[1]
Destroyed baptismal site on the Jordan River after recent flooding
(Photo by Alexander Schick)
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Weekend Roundup

“A Ptolemaic workshop for boat construction and repair has been uncovered in the Sinai Peninsula.”

“Six Old Kingdom mastaba tombs, two Old Kingdom shaft tombs and one rock-cut tomb with multiple burials that were previously unknown were discovered last month by the Qubbet El-Hawa Research Project (QHRP) in Aswan.”

Archaeologists working in Pompeii on Valentine’s Day found a fresco of Narcissus.

Construction work on the new subway in Rome has led to discoveries of military barracks and an ancient home.

An Israeli tour guide discovered a rare Bar Kochba coin while hiking near Lachish.

Haaretz premium: “A recent article by Dr. Milka Levy-Rubin . . . says the Dome of the Rock was built in order to restore Jerusalem’s place on the regional map of holy sites, not vis a vis Mecca, but rather as a rival to Constantinople, the Byzantine capital.”

The January 2019 issue of the Newsletter of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities is now online.

Federica Spagnoli provides a history of the pomegranate in the ancient Near East.

“The Schloss Karlsruhe Museum [in Karlsruhe, Germany] is hosting the largest exhibition ever held on Mycenaean Greece’s cultural history.”

James Hoffmeier: What was Atenism and why did it fail?

 The Washington Post shares some of Kevin Bubriski’s photographs taken in Syria before the civil war broke out.

John DeLancey has announced an Israel tour that includes a sign-language interpreter. He also recently posted a 5-minute video on Life Lessons from the Elah Valley that includes some drone footage.

Shmuel Browns shares some photos he took at the Dead Sea at sunrise.

Ferrell’s favorite photos this week are of the Garden of Gethsemane and Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Charles Savelle

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Weekend Roundup

An inscription written in the Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian languages has been discovered at Naqshe-Rustam, the royal necropolis of Persepolis.

Work on the sewer system in Kition, Cyprus, keeps revealing ancient remains from the Classical and Roman periods.

A decade of restoration work of King Tut’s tomb has been completed. The History Channel has many photos.

The vase that the British Museum realized was a mace is in fact a vase.

The BBC reports on several women whose interest in archaeology began with a childhood fascination with mummies.

Eisenbrauns is running a sale of 30-50% off of titles in the Duke Judaic Studies and Sepphoris Archaeological Report series.

Beit Shemesh and Kiriath Yearim are the subjects of discussion in this week’s The Book and the Spade.

Shmuel Browns shares several photos he took along the Alon Road in eastern Samaria.

If you have been to Israel before, answer a few quick questions to help Wayne Stiles as he puts together a video series to help travelers prepare for a Holy Land Tour.

It’s a slow week, so here’s a bonus quotation:

“My definition of archaeology, shared with students during almost forty years of teaching historical geography, is that archaeology is the science of digging a square hole and the art of spinning a yarn from it” (Anson Rainey, “Stones for Bread: Archaeology versus History.” Near Eastern Archaeology 64 (2001): 140.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis

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About the BiblePlaces Blog

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.

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