From The Temple Mount Sifting Project: On Thursday evening this week, September 6, 2012, the City of David will be hosting their 13th Annual Research Conference sponsored by the Megalim Institute. The program begins with an open house from 16:00 to 18:30 to give you an opportunity to visit the City of David and see all the newly excavated areas including the Second Temple Period street and water channel from the Siloam Pool up to the Temple Mount. The formal part of the program begins at 18:30. Admission is free and no registration is required, but space is limited. During the open house from 16:00 to 18:30, the Temple Mount Sifting Project will host an exhibit of finds recovered during the past 7 years of work.  The display, in the courtyard just inside the entry gates of the City of David, will include ancient seals and coins, personal items such as hair combs and jewelry, arrowheads, dice and game pieces, clay idols, weights, Herodian architectural elements and paving tiles that were once part of the Temple Mount plaza. This is the first time that these artifacts have been available for public viewing. Later in the evening as part of the Conference, at about 21:00, we will give a presentation [in Hebrew] of the Sifting Project’s important finds since our last Research Conference report, given in 2007. We will also be updating the public on our ongoing research and our new understandings about the Temple Mount’s past. Please stop by the City of David on Thursday evening to view this amazing exhibit of artifacts that helps tell the history of the Temple Mount. More information about the City of David Archaeological conference is here. HT: Joseph Lauer Sifting Temple Mount debris, tb110906729 Temple Mount Sifting Project

Subway construction has revealed two ancient roads from ancient Thessalonica.

Iraq will not cooperate with the US on archaeological exploration because Washington has not returned the Jewish archives.

A lecture by Tom Levy at TEDx on his excavations at Khirbet en-Nahas is now online.

Eleven sections of the Israel Trail are briefly described in this article at JPost.

The bronze statue of a she-wolf feeding the founders of Rome is actually 1500 years younger than previously thought.

HT: Al Sandalow

Capitoline she-wolf suckling Remus and Romulus, tb112102016
She-wolf suckling Remus and Romulus

The first season of excavations at Tel Azekah in more than 100 years begins in a few weeks and the directors have announced an impressive schedule of guest lectures:

The Lautenschläger Azekah Expedition and its Directors—Prof. Oded Lipschits, Prof. Manfred Oeming and Dr. Yuval Gadot—are proud to present the program of the guest academic lectures for the coming excavation season, starting July 15th. The lectures will be held at 6:00 p.m. in the academic hall of the Nes-Harim Guesthouse. Scholars and students are warmly invited.

Monday, July 16th, Prof. Aren Maeir (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan) The Excavations of Philistine Gath

Wednesday, July 18th, Prof. Shlomo Bunomovitz (Tel Aviv University) The Excavations of Beth-Shemesh

Monday, July 23rd, Prof. Yosef Garfinkel (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) The Excavations of Kh. Qeiyafa

Wednesday, July 25th, Mr. Ido Koch (Tel Aviv University) The Judean Lowland under Judahite Hegemony: The Great Eighth Century BCE

Monday, July 30th, Dr. Izhak Shai (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan) The Excavations of Tel Burna

Wednesday, August 1st, Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef (Tel Aviv University) Iron Age Copper Production of the Southern Levant

Monday, August 6th, Dr. Yuval Shahar (Tel Aviv University) Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Period Hideout Systems in the Judean Lowland

Wednesday, August 8th, Ms. Shirley Ben-Dor Evian (Tel Aviv University) Egypt, Philistia and the Judean Lowland during the First Millennium BCE

Monday, August 13th, Dr. Ran Barkay (Tel Aviv University) The Pre-History of the Judean Lowland

Wednesday, August 15th, Prof. Bernard Levinson (University of Minnesota, USA) The Neo-Assyrian Influence upon Deuteronomy

Monday, August 20th, Prof. Manfred Oeming (Heidelberg University, Germany) David against Goliath (1 Sam 17) – an Old Fight in Modern Research

Wednesday, August 22nd, Prof. Konrad Schmitt (Zurich University) [TBA]

See the Azekah website for more information.

HT: Jack Sasson

Shephelah view southwest from Jarmuth panorama, tb030407652
Shephelah of Judah from Jarmuth (Yarmut)
Azekah is visible on horizon on right side
(photo source)

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary opens an exhibit next month entitled “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible.” In addition to the display of 16 fragments, the Fort Worth school is also hosting a weekly lecture series on Tuesday evenings. Tickets for the lectures are $20 and details are available at the exhibition website.

July 10: Shalom Paul, “The Ever-Alive Dead Sea Scrolls and their Significance for the Understanding of the Bible, Early Judaism and the Birth of Christianity

July 17: Steven Ortiz, “The Search for Solomon: Recent Excavations at Tel Gezer

July 24: Matthias Henze, “A Dead Sea Scroll on Stone? The Gabriel Revelation and its Significance?

July 31: Randall Price, “Evangelicals and the Dead Sea Scrolls

August 7: Peter Flint, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible: Ancient Texts and New Readings

August 14: Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism

August 21: Ryan Stokes, “Satan in the Dead Sea Scrolls

August 28: Steven Collins, “Sodom: Discovery of a Lost City

September 4: Ziad Al-Saad, “The Lost Archaeological Treasures of Jordan

September 11: Emmanuel Tov, “The Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls

September 18: Jim Hoffmeier, “Where is Mt. Sinai and Why It Does Not Matter

September 25: Bruce Zuckerman, “New Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls

October 2: Yosef Garfinkel, “Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavations: New Light on King David

October 9: Kenneth Mathews, “The Living Among the Dead: The Dead Sea Scrolls

October 23: Martin Abegg, “The Influence of the Modern New International Version of the Bible on the Ancient Jewish Scribes

October 30: Tom Davis, “Archaeology, Cyprus and the Apostle Paul: New Evidence on the Transformation of Christianity

November 27: Amnon Ben-Tor, “Archaeology (Hazor)-Bible-Politics—the Unholy Trinity

December 4: Weston Fields, “100 New Dead Sea Scroll fragments from Qumran Cave 4: How Did It Happen?

In excavations beginning at Abel Beth Maacah this summer, Robert Mullins expects to find a very large citadel at the northern end of the site and possibly an Assyrian siege ramp.

Now online: A lecture by Sy Gitin on “Ekron of the Philistines: From Sea Peoples to Olive Oil Industrialists.”

A 3D model of the Giza pyramids and necropolis was unveiled this week at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

An investigation into the eBay sale of stones from the Western Wall determined that the seller was offering only gravel.

A medieval “monk’s mill” near Sepphoris was vandalized last week.

Can the Dead Sea be saved? A $4 million project, financed by the EU, is being launched this weekend to draw up a plan to make the area a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

What is ORBIS? “The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World reconstructs the time cost and financial expense associated with a wide range of different types of travel in antiquity. The model is based on a simplified version of the giant network of cities, roads, rivers and sea lanes that framed movement across the Roman Empire. It broadly reflects conditions around 200 CE but also covers a few sites and roads created in late antiquity.” Very impressive.

If you like to be the very first to know, here’s your chance.

HT: Wayne Stiles, Luke Chandler, BibleX, Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Dead Sea shoreline with salt crystals, tb022806387

Dead Sea shoreline
THE TRINITY BIBLICAL AND ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY LECTURE
Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.
Emeritus John A. Wilson Professor of Hittitology
The Oriental Institute
The University of Chicago
“Getting to be King and Staying There: David of Israel Seen in Comparison with Selected Hittite 
Monarchs”
Monday, April 23, 2012
7:00 p.m. – Hinkson Hall, Rodine Building
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois

More details about the speaker are given on the university’s announcement flyer.

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