Mesopotamia Archives - Page 4 of 27

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists working at Pompeii discovered the remains of a pregnant tortoise with her egg.

“Archeologists at the ancient Greek city of Kelenderis on the Turkish coast have, for the first time, discovered burial gifts, including glass bracelets, at a child’s grave along with a furnace for tile production.”

The National News has an illustrated story about a beautifully decorated tomb discovered a few years ago in the Decapolis city of Capitolias.

Asshur, the ancient capital of Assyria, will be flooded if construction work on a nearby dam is completed.

Hierapolis’s Plutonium (aka “gate to hell”) is now open to tourists for the first time. The vapors are still deadly, but visitors can approach the gate “from a safe distance” to peek into the portal to the underworld.

The Biblical Language Center is offering a number of live video classes in biblical Hebrew and Koiné Greek in the coming months.

Zoom lecture on July 14: “Food and Alcohol in the Hebrew Bible,” by Rebekah Walton

UCSD received a gift of $1 million to expand its program of archaeological studies of Israel and the eastern Mediterranean (subscription). Much of the money will go toward supporting cyber-archaeology.

Carl Rasmussen shares more photos of the only completely preserved building dedicated to the worship of Roman emperors in the 1st century.

Bryan Windle identifies the Top 3 Reports in Biblical Archaeology in the month of June as “stories related to the ancient empire of Mitanni, a Roman emperor, and a Jewish proselyte.”

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Italy, Jordan, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Tourism, Turkey

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“An ongoing underwater archaeological project [near Antikythera Island in Greece] most recently recovered a large marble head of a bearded male figure believed to be part of a statue of Hercules.”

Archaeologists discovered granite blocks from the time of Khufu at the temple of the Sun in Heliopolis, along with many other remains.

A study of cattle teeth discovered at Ur sheds light on the economy, health, and diet of ancient Mesopotamia.

Isabella Segalovich gives a brief history of women’s eyebrows in art.

Robyn Ramsden gives workshops on how to create your own Nag Hammadi codex.

“Italy has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them.”

“The funerary portraiture from the city of Palmyra, in the eastern Roman Empire, is a rich and heterogenous display of identity dating to the first three centuries CE.”

“A new exhibit at the Israel Museum uses VR technology to bring back to life the rich heritage of the destroyed Great Synagogue of Aleppo.”

New release: The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire, by Roger Matthews and Hassan Fazeli Nashli. Also available as a free download.

New release: A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases, by John Howard Oakley (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020). Summarized and reviewed here.

Carl Rasmussen shares photos of the only completely preserved chapel for emperor worship in the Roman world.

Joel Kramer’s latest video is about his visit to Babylon and how the prophecies against the city were fulfilled.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Paleojudaica

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Mesopotamia, Museums, Persia, Resources, Syria, Technology, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists have excavated two Late Bronze tombs belonging to wealthy families near Hala Sultan Tekke on Cyprus.

“New excavations of the ancient complex of Girsu in Iraq, led by the British Museum, have the potential to rewrite accepted histories of the development in Mesopotamia.”

“The pyramids in Egypt are more famous, but the ones in Sudan hide royal burial sites that archaeologists can explore—as long as they don’t mind swimming.” (National Geographic; requires email registration)

“The Lost Heritage Atlas initiative is dedicated to collecting the history and memory of those archaeological sites, monuments, sacred places or cultural items that have been completely destroyed.

A rapid change of climate did not cause the fall of the Akkadian empire.

New releases: The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume II: From the End of the Third Millennium BC to the Fall of Babylon and The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume III: From the Hyksos to the Late Second Millennium BC, by Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and D. T. Potts. $150 each (slightly cheaper at Amazon)

thetruesize.com allows you to easily compare the sizes of countries. Israel, for example, is smaller than any of its neighbors.

“Jordan’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry plans to encourage visits to Madaba after the Arab League designated the city as the Arab Capital of Tourism” for 2022.

The Greek Reporter lists six lesser-known archaeological sites to visit near Athens.

Carl Rasmussen shares about a funny thing that happened on his way to the temple of Apollo at Didyma.

Mark Hoffman reports on the creation of three new Pauline pilgrimage paths in Greece to open in the next couple of years. Anyone want to go hiking?

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Greece, Jordan, Mediterranean Islands, Mesopotamia, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Carl Rasmussen reports that the Classical Archaeology section of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum has reopened after a long closure, though the all-important upper floor is still not open. On his visit he discovered the “Assos Tablet” that he’s long been looking for.

Babylonian cuneiform texts are shedding light on the life of the ancient Judeans who were living in exile in Babylon.

Emlyn Dodd shares the ancient Egyptian recipe that he used for making olive oil.

A British tourist was given a 15-year jail sentence in an Iraqi prison after picking up a few potsherds as souvenirs.

“New York prosecutors have seized five Egyptian [antiquities] from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an international trafficking investigation involving the former head of Paris’s Louvre Museum.”

Hybrid workshop on July 1: Performing Tutankhamun: One Hundred Years of Retellings

Turkish Archaeological News has a roundup of stories from the month of May.

Clyde Billington is on The Book and the Spade to discuss Jewish perspectives on the exodus, including recent research by Lawrence Schiffman and Joshua Berman.

Accordance Bible Software is offering their best deals ever on graphics collections, including our Cultural Images of the Holy Land and Trees, Plants, and Flowers of the Holy Land. I would also recommend The Virtual Bible: 3D Reconstructions of the Biblical World ($20) and the bundle of five resources (including tabernacle and temple) from Rose Publishing ($40). See all the discounts here.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Egypt, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Photo Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Egypt has unveiled a major new archaeological find of 250 sarcophagi, 150 small bronze statues of gods and goddesses and other antiquities at the Saqqara necropolis.”

One of the more remarkable finds from the excavations of Satala in Turkey is an ornate bronze belt from an Urartian warrior.

Turkish authorities raided sites in 38 provinces in culmination of a yearlong investigation of an antiquities theft ring.

“The lost [Mittanian] city of ‘Zakhiku’ has resurfaced after spending decades underwater in the Mosul reservoir on the River Tigris in Iraq.”

Joel Kramer has found lots of sulfur balls at Numeira, a possible location of biblical Gomorrah.

Elon Heymans looks at the factors that led the use of silver and other precious metals as a form of currency at the beginning of the Iron Age in the ANE.

Greek Reporter: “Antioch on the Orontes, an ancient Greek city on the eastern side of the Orontes River, was one of the most glorious of all the Greek cities in the world.”

The Unsilencing the Archives Lectures from Badè Museum “explore the often-overlooked contributions made by Middle Easterners to archaeological excavations during the period of the British Mandate in Palestine.” The full series of 11 lectures is now online.

A 21-year-old punk broke into the Dallas Museum of Art and caused $5 million in damage, including the destruction of three ancient Greek vessels.

“Like us, the Romans were adept at scrolling — except they used actual, unwieldy scrolls. They would have loved OmnesViae, a handy online route planner, just for Roman roads.”

The Babylon Bee: “Archaeologists Have Just Discovered CONCLUSIVE PROOF Of The Bible.”

New release: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle McCarter Jr., edited by Christopher Rollston, Susanna Garfein, and Neal H. Walls (SBL Press, $99). Free pdf download here (via AWOL).

BibleTelling’s Christian Storytelling Conference is being held in Jacksonville, Illinois, on June 23-25. The Story Concert will be broadcast live on Friday evening.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Ted Weis, Arne Halbakken, Deborah Hurn

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Jordan, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a temple to the god Zeus Kasios in North Sinai at the Tel al-Farma archaeological site, the ancient city of Pelusium.”

“Subterranean limestone vaults have been discovered in Osuna, where the Phoenicians who lived on the Iberian peninsula 2,500 years ago laid their dead.”

The Wall Street Journal has a number of photos of the new underground city discovered in Midyat, Turkey.

“For centuries, historians believed that any physical evidence of the pivotal Battle of the Aegates was long gone. Then came a chance discovery – which led to dozens of shipwrecks.”

Enrico Giovanelli writes about scarabs that have been discovered in pre-Roman Italy.

“Tel Aviv University (TAU) renewed its academic relations with Turkey this week,” with plans to corroborate on various regional matters including archaeology.

Just released: “Paul’s Passion Renewed: A Visit to Corinth,” with Randall Smith. Filmed on location and produced by Kerugma Productions.

New in Tyndale Bulletin: “The Hebrew Exodus from and Jeremiah’s Eisodus into Egypt in the Light of Recent Archaeological and Geological Developments,” by James K. Hoffmeier

ASOR is offering members significantly discounted prices on some of its books.

Esagil Games provides “fun games and teaching tools about ancient Mesopotamia.”

“Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World” is a new exhibit at the Getty Villa, with artifacts from the British Museum and the Louvre on display until August 8.

Bryan Windle: “This month, the top three reports in biblical archaeology were about a New Testament-site, an Old Testament-era female Pharaoh, and one of the most famous relics of all-time.”

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Brian Morley

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Persia, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup