Archaeologists working at Philippi have uncovered a large public building, workshops, residences, and bathhouses.

An intact Roman-era bridge was discovered at the site of Elefsina (ancient Eleusis) in Greece.

“Twenty-six sites have been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, designating their cultural and natural importance,” including the Minoan palatial centers on Crete and Sardis and the Lydian tumuli in Turkey.

“When some residents of Athens, Greece, turn on their sinks, showers and public fountains later this month, water will flow to some taps from an ancient source: a 2,000-year-old underground aqueduct originally built by the Roman Empire.”

“A handful of broken oil lamps could shed light on a small and long-vanished Jewish community that lived in southern Spain in the late Roman era as the old gods were being snuffed out by Christianity.”

Brent Seales has been awarded a $13.5 million grant to support his work in deciphering the carbonized scrolls of Herculaneum.

“A new A.I. tool developed by Google DeepMind helps scholars fill in words missing from ancient inscriptions and estimate historical data about the textual artifacts, making educated guesses based on context and similar inscriptions.”

More than 120 dodecahedrons have been discovered throughout the Roman empire in the last three centuries, but though dozens of theories of their function have been proposed, scholars are still at a loss.

“Caligula, the notoriously erratic Roman emperor known for his bloodthirsty cruelty, probably also possessed a nerd’s knowledge of medicinal plants, according to a new Yale study.”

Thomas J. Derrick explores the smells, both good and bad, of ancient Rome.

The archaeological collection of the late James F. Strange is benefiting students at the University of South Florida.

ReferenceMapper is a new, free tool “that will fetch all related Bible Mapper maps and articles for each Bible reference on your page and link them to a map icon next to the Bible reference.”

Available for pre-order for Logos:

Carmen Joy Imes discusses her favorite historical fiction books written by biblical scholars (8 min). I’ve read most of the seven books she mentions, and I agree with her recommendations.

HT: Agade, Explorator

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The Israel Antiquities Authority: “To the best of our knowledge, no damage has been caused thus far to archaeological artifacts under the responsibility of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and no reports have been received regarding damage to exhibits in museums.” Some precautions have been taken.

The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum will be delayed until later in the year due to the Israel-Iran war.

The Garden of Hercules in Pompeii has been restored and reopened to the public following “the planting of 800 ancient roses, 1,200 violets, 1,000 ruscus plants, cherry trees, vines, and quince trees.”

A team of researchers is working to recreate Egyptian blue, and they created 12 different recipes for the endeavor.

Officials in Rome have unveiled a new piazza around the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Looting and trafficking of ancient artifacts has increased in Syria since the fall of the government.

Bible History Daily asked a few scholars for their perspective on a new study dating the Dead Sea Scrolls earlier than previously believed. Rollston, for example, knows that the calibrated dates are in error since we know that Daniel 8-11 cannot be dated to earlier than the events occurred in 167 BC.

New website: Iron Age Hebrew Ostraca in the Silicon Age – Computerized Paleography – “our research in the last few years has focused on solving some problems, avoiding others and shedding new light on literacy in biblical Israel and Judah through statistical analysis.”

Conference on June 25-27: “Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective,” at UC San Diego, with a YouTube livestream.

New from Preserving Bible Times: Encounters with Jesus, by Doug Greenwold, in audiobook format

Preston Sprinkle invited me on to his Theology in the Raw podcast to talk about archaeology and the Bible, including Jericho, David, and Hezekiah’s Tunnel (YouTube, Apple, Spotify). He kicked it off by recalling comments I wrote on his archaeology paper 25 years ago.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Alexander Schick, Explorator

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Excavation work continues at Khirbat Balu’a, a Moabite site with a monumental Iron Age structure.

The digging of a well in western Syria resulted in the discovery of a Roman mosaic depicting Tyche.

Archaeologists in Rome have found evidence of a bath complex that was transformed into an early church.

Glenn J. Corbett writes about the threats to the heritage of ancient Cush.

Aaron Koller explains how and why post-exilic Judeans adopted the Aramaic script for writing in Hebrew.

In a new pdf resource, John DeLancey explains how Jesus used remez in the Gospels.

YodAlpha is a search engine exclusively dedicated to Religious, Theological, and Biblical Studies. Its index is built from crawling the websites of various academic institutions that support open access scholarship.”

New release: Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ, by T. C. Schmidt (Oxford University Press, $130; Amazon; free download).

Should have taken an Uber: “A German tourist has been arrested in Rome on Wednesday after being caught riding down the street on a rented electric scooter with the marble base of a Roman column on the footplate.”

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Alexander Schick, Mark V. Hoffman, Gordon Franz, Arne Halbakken

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Archaeologists uncovered portions of a monumental relief of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in the throne room of his palace in Nineveh.

Christopher Jones explores questions related to Sennacherib’s assassination.

Scientists have discovered the evidence for leprosy that dates to the third millennium BC.

In a new study on Pompeii, “scientists documented events at one home in the doomed city where a family sought refuge inside a back room by pushing a wooden bed against a door in a vain attempt to stop a flood of volcanic rocks from the sky.”

Turkish authorities arrested four individuals who had discovered a Roman mosaic during illegal excavations at their house.

“Gojko Barjamovic, a lecturer at Yale University, along with a team from Harvard, deciphered and even attempted to recreate some of the dishes detailed on Babylonian clay tablets dating back nearly 4,000 years.”

David M. Pritchard explains why “sport in ancient Athens was much more than the Olympics.”

Aish.com has published a primer on the Cairo Geniza.

“The ancient bilingual inscriptions of Karatepe Aslantas Open-Air Museum in Osmaniye, Türkiye, have been officially inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register.”

“Friends of ASOR is pleased to announce its first tour of some of Chicago’s greatest museums on September 18 and 19 for an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience.”

Live Science explains how archaeologists can determine the sex of a skeleton.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Ted Weis, Arne Halbakken

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Researchers have uncovered graffiti from the Middle Ages in the traditional Upper Room in Jerusalem.

Bryan Windle has written an archaeological biography for Caiaphas the high priest.

Leen Ritmeyer shares photos of the cave of Gethsemane where Jesus may have spent the night with his disciples.

Jeffrey P. Arroyo García wonders whether Jesus was hung from the cross, not nailed.

On a double episode on Digging for Truth, Dr. Jonathan Moore discusses the anatomy of crucifixion and especially how their feet were positioned on the cross.

Biblical Backgrounds has announced the “Gospel Companion,” a 44-page book with unique 3D maps and interactive map marking illustrating the Way of the Cross. They also have released new wall maps.

The latest episode of This Week in the Ancient Near East looks at the recent excavations at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Ynetnews suggests five excursions in Israel that recall the twelve tribes’ departure from Egypt.

A royal purple dye was being produced at Tel Shiqmona at industrial levels during the time of the Israel’s monarchy, according to a new study.

A new article “examines how vassal kingdoms, elite consumption, and imported luxury goods shaped Iron Age Lachish and Jerusalem.” And I’m not sure what’s going on at The Jerusalem Post, when the headline on the article, now more than a week old, misspells Jerusalem.

The NY Times runs a story on the recently deciphered Bar Kochba-era papyrus that documents a “tax-evasion scheme involved the falsification of documents and the illicit sale and manumission, or freeing, of slaves — all to avoid paying duties in the far-flung Roman provinces of Judea and Arabia.”

Jacob Sivak addresses two frequently asked questions about Roman-era synagogues: how were Jews able to thrive under Roman oppression, and why were the synagogues decorated with pagan iconography?

“Hezekiah” is a new documentary miniseries, and its first episode premieres this weekend.

In Jerusalem in Brief, Chandler Collins writes about two pools that have been filled in and two books of interest.

Archaeologists have discovered a quarry that may have supplied the construction of Darius’s palace in Susa.

Reconstruction of the 87-foot tall Roman lighthouse at Patara has been completed. AI was used to identify the original locations of the 2,500 stones.

Construction will begin next year on an Alexander the Great theme park at Amphipolis in northern Greece.

Italian authorities levied $22 million in fines on ticketing agencies for buying up tickets for the Colosseum to resell to tourists.

A new study suggests that the gears of the Antikythera Mechanism jammed frequently, making the device not very useful.

Aaron Burke writes about avoiding the ethnicity trap in a new article entitled “The Amorites: Rethinking Approaches to Corporate Identity in Antiquity.”

A new exhibition opened this week at the ISAC Museum: “Staging the East: Orientalist Photography in Chicago Collections”

Members of the American Oriental Society have voted to change the society’s name to “American Society for Premodern Asia” (ASPA).

John Van Seters, a biblical scholar known for his minimalist approach, died last week.

HT: Agade, Keith Keyser, Gordon Franz, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

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A new study of a Bronze Age tomb in Turkey reveals that female teenagers were the victims of human sacrifice.

Two almost lifesize sculptures of a man and woman, who was believed to have been a priestess, have been found during the excavations of a huge tomb in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.”

Scientists are arguing over the claims that technology has identified chambers far below the Giza pyramids.

Zoom lecture on April 7: “Jesus’s Parables as Jewish Stories,” by Amy-Jill Levine

Hybrid lecture at Harvard on April 23: “The Daily Lives of Ancient Egyptian Artists,” by Hana Navratilova (Zoom registration)

New release: The Amarna Letters: The Syro-Levantine Correspondence, by Jacob Lauinger and Tyler R. Yoder (Lockwood, $100-$125)

Farmers in Sicily are cultivating a resin that some identify as biblical manna.

Bryan Windle summarizes the top three reports in biblical archaeology in the month of March.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Ted Weis, Arne Halbakken

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