Excavations Archives - BiblePlaces.com

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Excavations of the Shamash Gate at Nineveh shows evidence of the city’s fall in 612 BC. The work being done is part of a project to conserve and restore the gate.

Turkish Archaeological News rounds up the top stories for the month of April, including:

Excavations are revealing more of the city of Aspendos
Urartian water engineering may have been superior to early Roman systems
A Roman coin dating to AD 192–253 may depict Noah’s ark, making it the earliest depiction of a biblical scene on currency.
The third season of excavations at Lystra has begun, with new work in the necropolis.

Recent claims of the discovery of Noah’s Ark are refuted in this 1992 article by Andrew Snelling.

Archaeologists have used AI to reconstruct the face of one of the victims of Pompeii.

Fifty US students will be volunteering in the first year of the Kenchreai Coastal and Marine Survey, studying the area of New Testament Cenchreae.

New release: On the Face of the Deep: The Sea in Scripture, by Linford Stutzman (Baker Academic)

The Classical Association of Scotland is offering online classes in the month of June in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Egyptian, Hurrian, Sumerian, Ugaritic, and Latin.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Excavations, Italy, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Resources, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

Rossella Tercatin writes about the exhibition, “The Girl Who Wrote,” that will open at the Israel Museum when the war restrictions are lifted.

With the museums in Israel currently closed, visitors can take advantage of online offerings, including activities for children.

The Times of Israel writes about the Purim holiday in light of current events.

Bryan Windle concludes his series on Jericho, arguing that it was City V, not City IV, that Joshua conquered.

Katharina Schmidt gives an update on the archaeological excavations at the Amman Citadel in the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Archaeologists working in Luxor’s West Bank have found a cache of painted coffins with a collection of rare papyri that dates to Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period.

A tour guide in Egypt was arrested for drawing a stick figure into the wall of an ancient pyramid.

A 14-minute video shows how Pompeii looked before its destruction.

Bryan Windle discusses the top ten archaeological discoveries related to Esther on Digging for Truth.

“This past month, the most significant news stories from the world of biblical archaeology all involved stones: a stone seal, a stone vessel workshop, and limestone blocks related to a biblical Pharaoh.”

Zoom lecture on March 9: “Sensing the Synagogue,” by Karen B. Stern ($10). You can get a preview in this BAS article.

New release: Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt, Volume 2, edited by Marie Svoboda and Caroline R. Cartwright (Getty Museum; open-access, including pdf)

The eBook of Bringing Heaven Here is on sale through Sunday for $3.99 (Kindle, B&N, Apple, Google, Kobo).

Jodi Magness has written a retrospective piece about her career as an archaeologist.

HT: Agade, Explorator, Paleojudaica

Tagged Egypt, Excavations, Holidays, Italy, Jordan Rift, Museums, New Exhibits, Persia, Resources, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

The Israel Museum has relocated some of its significant archaeological artifacts to a secure location. A few photos are posted on Facebook.

Excavations at Emesa (modern Homs, Syria) “reveal the slow transformation of a powerful pagan city into a Christian and then Muslim one.”

Margreet L. Steiner explains why the Assyrian presence in the Levant in the 9th-7th centuries BC left its mark not in material culture but in economic transformation.

Carl Rasmussen shares a link to his recent online seminar on “The Early Church’s Encounter with the Roman Imperial Cult.” His post includes timestamps for each topic.

Hybrid lecture on March 11 at Harvard: “The Future of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife,” by Rune Nyord (in-person registration; online registration)

ASOR webinar on March 11: “Anatolian Futures: Archaeologies of Anatolia within the Larger Mediterranean,” by Müge Durusu-Tanrıöver

New release: Sex and Sexuality in the Ancient Near East, by Stephanie Lynn Budin (Cambridge Elements; open access through March 10)

New release: For Those Who Sleep in the Dust: Essays on Archaeology and the Bible, by William G. Dever (SBL Press, $56)

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Charles Savelle, Alexander Schick

Tagged Egypt, Excavations, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Resources, Syria, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

“A stone tool workshop from the Second Temple period was discovered on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem during an investigation by the Israel Antiquities Authority into a gang of antiquities thieves.”

“A rare bronze scale pan was discovered during excavations in the ancient Jewish town of Sussiya by a father and daughter participating in an educational dig.”

A seal discovered in the Temple Mount Sifting Project is a rare find “from Jerusalem’s ‘Second Persian Period,’ the brief 14-year window of Sassanid rule between 614 and 628 CE.”

A Roman cemetery was discovered in the village of Jifna, north of Ramallah.

“The elderly patriarch and matriarch of a prominent Israelite family living in an imposing building in the Judean lowlands nearly 3,000 years ago appear to have enjoyed their own spacious room in a strategic part of the large home, suggesting they continued to play a prominent role within the multi-generation household into their golden years.”

The latest Jerusalem in Brief looks at the history of Absalom’s Pillar through a 19th-century photo, and more.

Hybrid lecture on Feb 26: “A Book in Two Scrolls: On the Bisection of Isaiah,” by Marcello Fidanzio (registration required). This lecture is in conjunction with the Great Isaiah Scroll exhibit which opens to the public on Tuesday (through June 6). The exhibition book is now available for sale in e-book (pdf) format.

Hybrid lecture at the Albright on March 4: “Current Research on the Holy Sepulchre and Faunal Remains,” by Luca Brancazi (Zoom link)

New release: Ashkelon 10: The Philistine Cemetery, by Daniel M. Master, Adam J. Aja, and Rachel Kalisher (Eisenbrauns, $91 with code NR26).

New release: Lahav VIII: The EB III and LB II to Iron II Strata in the Western City at Tell Halif: Excavations in Field III, 1977–1987, by Oded Borowski and Joe D. Seger (Eisenbrauns, $91 with code NR26).

Following the British Museum’s review of the anachronistic use of the term “Palestine,” PaleoJudaica explored what language Second Temple-era Jews used for the land.

Israel’s Good Name describes his visit to the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem.

Bible Mapper Atlas has created a free poster map of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Explorator, Alexander Schick

Tagged Dead Sea Scrolls, Discoveries, Excavations, Jerusalem, Judah, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Samaria, Shephelah, Temple Mount, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

The opening of the Pilgrims’ Path from Siloam to the Temple Mount is reported by The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, and Israel HaYom.

“A rare 2,000-year-old stone vessel recently uncovered in the Galilee is on display for the first time as part of the exhibition, ‘From the Great Assembly to the Knesset’ at the Knesset in Jerusalem.”

Vanessa Linares writes about the discovery of vanilla-spiced oil in a Middle Bronze Age tomb at Megiddo.

John DeLancey made a video of his walk on the new trail that runs from Chorazin to Capernaum.

Aren Maeir notes his visit to the excavations at Tel Goren (En Gedi), now in their second season.

A Ram for Mars, the third book in Christopher D. Stanley’s “A Slave’s Story” trilogy has been released ($5 on Kindle; paperback coming soon). I highly recommend the first two in the series and look forward to this one.

New release: Gaza: Archaeology and History, by Wolfgang Zwickel (Ägypten und Altes Testament, Zaphon, € 160)

Gordon Govier writes about Gabriel Barkay, the “Jewish archaeologist who inspired a generation of American Christians.”

HT: Agade, Keith Keyser

Tagged Dead Sea, Excavations, Galilee, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley, Museums, Resources, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Archaeologists believe they have identified the remains of a Roman basilica in Fanum Fortunae built by the late first-century BCE architect Vitruvius.”

“Archaeologists in northern Turkey say they have uncovered the long-lost Temple of Kubaba, a 2,600-year-old religious complex that is reshaping understanding of belief and ritual in ancient Anatolia.”

“Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Lystra in central Türkiye have restored a rare medieval bronze reliquary cross discovered intact and permanently sealed.”

“A groundbreaking archaeological discovery in eastern Türkiye is reshaping historians’ understanding of the ancient Kingdom of Sophene, a little-known Hellenistic-era polity that once stood at the crossroads of Anatolian, Iranian, and Greek civilizations.”

Newly published texts shed light on Nebuchadnezzar’s accomplishments.

Zoom lecture on Feb 3, 10am Eastern: “200 Years of Archaeology in Türkiye,” by Tuba Ökse. The recording will be posted a few days later on the ARWA channel.

New release: Materials from Karkemish I. The Numismatic Finds from the 2011-2024 Excavations, by Aliya Erol (OrientLab Series Maior 9; 35 euros; open access)

HT: Agade, Paleojudaica

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Italy, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup