The blog for Eilat Mazar’s excavations south of the Temple Mount has some new posts, including one reporting the discovery of a 10th-century Egyptian scarab. Mazar asks if the scarab belonged to Solomon’s wife.

The largest Egyptian sarcophagus ever identified belonged to Merneptah and is now being re-assembled.

The Harvard Gazette: “In a high-tech project that would have been impossible even four years ago, technicians are attempting to re-create a 2-foot-long ceramic lion that likely flanked an image of the goddess Ishtar in a temple in long-ago Nuzi.”

NY Times: “The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology . . . is undertaking an ambitious effort to become more accessible to the public.”

Seth Rodriquez continues his biblical geography series with the Coastal Plain – Plain of Dor.

SourceFlix records a funeral procession in front of the tomb of Lazarus and reflects on the meaning of Jesus’ miracle.

Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus is $2.99 on Kindle for a few days (recommended previously here).

Glo is now available for $35 (reg. $90).

Logos has several new Archaeology sets available at a discount. All of them include the standard surveys by Mazar and Stern. The medium size includes the “Cities of Paul” images volume.

HT: Jack Sasson

Dor harbor area from north, tb090506883
View of Dor’s harbor from the tell
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
Share:

Archaeologists working at Acco have discovered harbor remains and four shipwrecks from the early 19th century.

Deane Galbraith summarizes a new article in which Yigal Levin rejects the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa as Shaaraim and proposes instead that it is the Israelite encampment.

Bible History Daily has a short story on a new exhibit about Famous Americans Who Made Holy Land Tours. Featured tourists include Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The Muriel and Jeremy Josse Collection of Holy Land Maps includes more than 250 maps of late 19th- and early 20th-century Palestine and the African continent.

Harvard University is returning to archaeology in Iraq after nearly a century, but they’re doing so without touching the ground.

National Geographic has word (and photos) of the Oldest Pharaoh Rock Art Rediscovered in Egypt.

Bible History Daily posts more than a dozen high-res images of “King David’s Tomb.” You need a subscription to read Jeffrey Zorn’s related article, but the images are available to all. And if you ever teach about the subject, you should grab the nicely colored drawings from Weill’s excavations while they’re available (below the photos).

The city of Jerusalem has approved plans for rebuilding the second of two domed synagogues in the Old City. Both were destroyed in the 48 war, and the Hurvah Synagogue was rebuilt several years ago. A donation of $12 million is launching the rebuilding of the Tiferet Israel Synagogue.

For a look at what’s going on in the broader world of biblical studies in the past month, head over to the Carnival.

HT: David Coppedge

Tiferet Israel Synagogue, tb010312424
Tiferet Israel Synagogue in Jerusalem
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
Share:

SourceFlix has just released a new video short, “Follow Me,” with some great footage of sheep and shepherds.

Hezekiah’s Pool (aka Patriarch’s Pool) in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem has long been a swampy dump. The area was cleared last year and recently it held what Tom Powers believes is the first public gathering in its history.

Wayne Stiles: Beersheba epitomizes the faith God required to live in the Holy Land….God used this unassuming, barren place to shape some of the most significant lives in the Bible.

Heavy rains in the Eilat mountains and southern Aravah led to flooding of the Hai-Bar Yotvata Nature Reserve. Workers safely evacuated animals in danger of drowning.

Peter James answers some difficult questions about the Step Pyramid of Saqqara and the Bent
Pyramid of Dashur based on his years of repairing damaged structures in Egypt.

The Penn Museum is opening to visitors its conservation process of ancient Egyptian mummies.

Back issues of Christian History magazine are available as free pdf files.

Here is what looks to be like an interesting lecture this evening (in Hebrew): “The Tomb of David on
Mount Zion? Pierotti’s Cave?”

Amit Reem, IAA. At the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, 7:30pm. Free with museum admission.

HT: Jack Sasson

Dashur Bent Pyramid northeast corner, tbs102049811
The Bent Pyramid of Dashur
Share:

The University of Oxford and the Vatican Library plan “to digitize 1.5 million pages of texts from their collections and make them freely available online.”

A large 3rd or 4th century poolside mosaic has been uncovered in southern Turkey, not far from biblical Attalia.

The Saqqara Serapeum was inaugurated this week.

The Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project has received a 3-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Hebrew University will begin offering online courses for free.

Check out Wayne Stiles’ descriptive and devotional thoughts about Tel Dan. “By providing alternative places of worship [at Dan and Bethel], Jeroboam appealed to the laziness of the human spirit.”

If you’re looking for full-color, poster-size maps of biblical history, take a look at WordAction’s Bible Teaching Maps. The $35 set includes 10 large maps bible-teaching-mapsand 10 reproducible charts. The maps were produced by Zondervan and Oxford University Press.

They are easily mounted on foam board for display and transport.

Christianbook.com has many Bible atlases on sale this week, as well as Gary Burge’s The Bible and the Land for $1.99.

A number of distinguished scholars passed away this week, including Manfred Goerg, Bahnam Abu As-Souf, and Itamar Singer.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Share:

Eilat Mazar has resumed excavations in the (so-called) Ophel, and her partners at Armstrong College plan to provide regular updates. They begin with an on-location interview of Mazar.

Excavations continue to reveal Egyptian presence in Joppa from the New Kingdom period.

Mark Fairchild’s search for ancient synagogues in Turkey is profiled in the local press. The article includes an interesting video by Fairchild of his discoveries.

In light of an article in the Wall Street Journal, Charles Savelle reflects on the value of knowing biblical geography.

Ferrell Jenkins is back in Israel and he shares a rare photo of Jacob’s well.

King Tut and his predecessors may have been afflicted with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Did you forget to celebrate the 2000th anniversary of Caligula’s birthday?

Clean-up of the polluted Kishon River is finally scheduled to begin, 12 years after divers were found
to have contracted cancer.

The cedars of Lebanon are threatened by climate change.

As Rosh HaShanah (the New Year) begins in Jewish homes around the world at sundown on Sunday,

Wayne Stiles reflects on the Gezer Calendar and other ways we keep time.

The 50th anniversary of Lawrence of Arabia inspires Anthony Horowitz to travel to Jordan.

HT: Explorator, Jack Sasson
Wadi Rum Jebel el Qattar, df070307712
Wadi Rum. Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.
Share:

The north of Israel received a surprise August rainfall this week. Haaretz has more about the rabbi who was accused of stealing bones from an archaeological site near Beth Shemesh. Israel will return two sarcophagi lids stolen from Egypt. The BBC describes Lidar archaeology and some debate about its value. Joe Yudin recommends the view from an inactive volcano in the Golan Heights. I think that Wayne Stiles somehow managed to get all of my favorite Masada photos in this article. The ABR bookstore is now offering free shipping on all orders over $35. They offer a number of books under $10. HT: Jack Sasson, Paleojudaica Syrian city northeast of Quneitra from Mount Bental, tb121802203 View towards Damascus from Mount Bental (photo source)

Share: