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Weekend Roundup

A new study based on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 will allow scholars to more accurately date other ancient volcanic eruptions.

“The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan (U-M) has opened its first new permanent gallery in nearly two decades: The Byzantine and Islamic Worlds: 400–1800.”

CBN News has produced a 25-minute special on the first-century street from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount.

CBN News has created a 10-minute video on the special exhibit of the Great Isaiah Scroll at the Israel Museum.

The Colosseum in Rome was closed for two days after a worker fell to his death.

Elon Gilad surveys the major views on the origins of the Samaritans.

Indiana Jones is the best and worst thing to happen to archaeology.

James Hoffmeier talks about the historical and archaeological context of the exodus on The Week in Bible Prophecy.

Steven Notley is on The Book and the Spade to discuss finding Bethsaida.

Free hybrid lecture at Harvard on Oct 21: “The Many Lives of Theban Tomb 16,” by Suzanne Onstine

The program is online for last week’s conference, “The Medes: 25 Years Afterwards.” The recordings are posted on YouTube.

New release: Bible Mapper Atlas, Volume 1 (Old Testament) – includes nearly all the online maps along with 90 photographs and a timeline. A second volume will include all of the New Testament maps.

Jason Borges has posted an updated version of his “Public Inscriptions at the Seven Churches of Revelation: A Historical Introduction for Guides, With Translations and Explanations.”

Bible Odyssey has published some new short articles:

Horses in the Hebrew Bible, by Kirsty L. Jones
Patmos, by Ian Boxall
The James Ossuary, by Jonathan L. Reed

If you are planning to be at the Annual Meetings in Denver, I’ll be giving a couple of papers and would be happy to see you:

Evangelical Theological Society, Nov 17, Psalms and Hebrew Poetry section, “Psalm 69 and the Messianic Context of Psalms Book II”
Society of Biblical Literature, Nov 22, Historical Geography of the Biblical World Section, Celebrating the Publication of the Lexham Geographic Commentary, “The Palace at Susa and the Geographical Setting of the Book of Esther.”

HT: Agade, Alexander Schick, Explorator

Tagged Dead Sea Scrolls, Egypt, Galilee, Italy, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Persia, Resources, Samaria, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists in Turkey have identified another fragment of the treaty between pharaoh Ramesses II and the Hittite king Hattusili III. A larger photo is here.

“An ancient fortress that guarded Egypt’s western frontier more than 3,000 years ago has yielded a rare horse burial, inscriptions linked to Ramesses II and evidence of military and daily life.”

Underwater explorers are returning to the submerged Phoenician and Roman remains off the coast of Tyre.

Laser scans of ancient temple walls at Kition Kathari revealed 23 previously unrecognized ship carvings that are nearly invisible to the human eye.

On the Biblical World podcast, Jason Borges interviews Turkish archaeologist Prof. Ilker Mimiroglu about the excavations at Lystra.

Restoration of Istanbul’s Museum of the Ancient Orient has been completed after three years.

“Excavating Antioch: The Archaeology of an Ancient City” is a new exhibition at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.

The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is offering three excavation and conservation opportunities for students next year: (1) Agora excavation; (2) archaeological conservation; (3) Corinth excavation.

Greece’s Ministry of Culture is beginning three projects to protect and display archaeological remains at Olympia.

An upcoming exhibition, “Athena, the Stage is Yours: The Parthenon Puzzle,” will attempt “to document a new, archaeologically sound proposal for the complete reconstruction of the sculptures on the east pediment of the Parthenon.”

A four-year project to improve the visitor experience at Athens’s Kerameikos archaeological site has been completed.

“Charles K. Williams II, the renowned American archaeologist who devoted more than three decades to excavations at Ancient Corinth, died on September 16, 2026, at the age of 96.”

“A new study of nearly 300,000 kilometers of Roman roads shows how geography and major cities shaped movement across the empire. The findings challenge the old idea that Roman roads formed a simple system leading toward Rome.”

Recent release: Ancient Persian: A Linguistic History, by Kevin T. van Bladel (Cambridge University Press; open access)

A new project has been announced for the digital encoding of the Leningrad Codex.

Scientists working to decipher the Herculaneum papyri are burning modern papyrus scrolls to test methods for reading the ancient carbonized texts.

A mathematician is challenging the idea that the Parthenon’s subtly curved stylobate was designed to make the building appear straighter to the human eye.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Greece, Italy, Mediterranean Islands, Museums, New Exhibits, Persia, Resources, Sad News, Technology, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

South of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, archaeologists have uncovered a monumental complex with three ritual baths, a rectangular pool, and an elaborate drainage system, along with two nearby plastered vats.

The seven-day festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles) began last night. Hag sameah! Rabbi Steven Bob explains the history of when building a sukkah became a requirement for this feast. Rabbi David Z. Moster gives five other interpretations of the verse that is traditionally understood as referring to an etrog.

Lauren K. McCormick writes about four gold ornaments and three bronze earrings recovered from the Givati Parking Lot excavations in Jerusalem.

Multispectral imaging of Dead Sea Scroll fragments in the Martin Schøyen collection is being used to answer questions of authenticity.

“The Golan Antiquities Museum is moving to the Ancient Katzrin Park, where a new complex combining archaeology, technology, artificial intelligence, and a planetarium will be established.”

Shmuel Browns writes about hiking at En Prat as an alternative while most of the En Gedi Reserve is closed.

“Jerusalem’s wealthiest families in the early Roman period built monumental tombs along the roads approaching the city, placing their wealth and status on display. Yet pilgrims heading to the Temple had to avoid entering or coming into contact with these tombs, lest they become impure and be barred from the very Temple they came to visit.”

Ute Wagner-Lux, former director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in the Holy Land, died last week.

Carl Rasmussen shares some of David Padfield’s AI-generated Bible scenes for the book of Acts, all available for free. I will underscore what Carl says: the research behind each image is exceptionally strong, making these images as historically realistic as any I know.

I am very grateful for the kind words about the new Minor Prophets volumes in the Photo Companion to the Bible by Luke Chandler, Mark V. Hoffman, and Charles Savelle.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Dead Sea Scrolls, Golan Heights, Holidays, Jerusalem, Judah, Museums, Photo Resources, Sad News, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

During excavations of the agora at Smyrna, archaeologists discovered three rooms with wall paintings and mosaics.

“For nearly 180 years, archaeologists studying Nimrud in northern Iraq have focused on palaces, temples, and royal buildings. A new project is shifting attention to the vast lower city, where most of the Assyrian capital’s people lived.”

Archaeologists have discovered at Saqqara the tomb of a judge who heard the appeals of ordinary people.

“A scientific journal has retracted a study that claimed satellite radar could reveal hidden structures inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, finding ‘serious methodological flaws and statistical errors’ that undermined its conclusions.”

“The Egyptian Museum in Cairo completed restoration work on a stele of Ramesses II.”

Scientists are stomping grapes in an ancient reconstructed winepress in order to determine “whether ancient Judean winemakers let the juice flow directly into the adjacent collection vats to ferment, or instead left it to ferment on the treading floor itself.”

ASOR has teamed up with the Libyan Department of Antiquities to restore the archaeological site of Cyrene. The article includes many photos.

Turkish Archaeological News rounds up the top stories for the month of August.

The Museum Fine of Arts, Boston, is presenting the exhibit “Maverick Kings,” highlighting the reigns of three Egyptian rulers of the 18th Dynasty: Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, and Akhenaten.

New release: The Animals of Ancient Egypt: Then and Now, by Richard Hoath and Salima Ikram (AUC Press, $22)

On Digging for Truth, Ted Wright discusses a panel from Sennacherib’s palace that may depict Jerusalem.

Friends of ASOR Webinar on Sept 24: “Digging into The Odyssey: An Epic Reimagined or a Misinterpretation of Epic Proportions?,” with Eric Cline, Kim Shelton, and Alex Joffe

Zoom lecture on Oct 6: “When Worlds Collide: Mediterranean Mercenaries and Israel’s Genesis,” by Aaron Burke (BAS Scholars Series, $10)

Writing for Bible History Daily, Robin Gallaher Branch explores the significance of Cornelius and his conversion.

Carl Rasmussen explains how to easily find images on his website.

The Friends of ASOR Tours is offering a 15-day tour of Tunisia, led by Andrew G. Vaughn.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Judah, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

“A team led by Israeli researcher Yoav Vaknin has developed a method to distinguish genuine clay artifacts from modern fakes by reading faint magnetic signals locked into the objects when they were fired thousands of years ago.”

A new study by UCLA professor Catherine Bonesho concludes that a copper ring once identified as Pontius Pilate’s—and then not—likely belonged to a slave involved in administrative work in Judea.

Aren Maeir visited the new excavations at Tel Qana, on the northern bank of the Yarkon River, and the Jerusalem Post published a video.

The latest Jerusalem Tracker lists “every new academic publication” that Chandler Collins “can find that is relevant for the study of historical Jerusalem,” including new books, excavation reports, articles, and book chapters.

Elon Gilad writes about another Jewish revolt, one between the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, about which little is known.

Shmuel Browns, a tour guide in Israel, has begun a Substack that features his areas of interest: History & Archaeology, Hiking & Nature, Photography, and a Field Report.

Libby Backfish and Cynthia Shafer-Elliott are on the Biblical World podcast to discuss their recent book, Grounded Theology in the Hebrew Bible: Exploring the Cultural Context that Formed Ancient Israel.

The Badè Museum’s 2026–2027 online lecture series is entitled “Affordability in the Iron Age: Household, Regional, and Interregional Economies in the Levant.” The first lecture, on September 24, is by Erin Hall on “The Economy of the Northern Israelite Kingdom in the Iron Age II.”

Eric Cline asks (and answers) the questions of who the Sea Peoples were (there is no simple answer) and whether they caused the end of the Bronze Age (they have been set up as a scapegoat).

Bryan Windle reports on the top three archaeological reports for the month of August.

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review includes articles on a harbor town in the days of Israel’s judges, monumental tombs in the Kidron Valley, tombs in the Negev, gaps within the text of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and an advertisement for a new book (p. 65).

HT: Agade, Explorator, Paleojudaica

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Jerusalem, Judea, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Technology, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A Roman-era street is being excavated at Troy.

“On a Turkish hillside overlooking the olive-covered slopes outside Izmir is a cave known to generations of locals as the place where Homer penned ‘The Odyssey.’”

The Gaziantep Archaeology Museum has reopened after renovations following the 2023 earthquakes.

Ben Witherington suggests that Paul and Barnabas traveled from Cyprus to Pisidian Antioch at the request of Sergius Paulus.

Brent Nongbri writes about a sarcophagus lid in Athens “that shows papyrus rolls with a surprisingly high level of detail.”

“Athens’ U-shaped Panathenaic Stadium — made entirely of white marble — is getting its first systematic cleaning in more than a century.”

“The remains of an ancient bridge [from the time of Caligula] have emerged in Rome’s Tiber River, near St. Peter’s Basilica, as weeks with virtually no rain caused water levels to plunge.”

“Some households in Pompeii burned incense that likely came from Asian or African forests, connected via a global trade network, according to a new study.”

“A cave in eastern Spain is revealing new clues about the ritual lives of Roman women, after archaeologists documented more than 120 Latin inscriptions — the highest number known anywhere in the Roman Empire — at an underground sanctuary.”

Dante Muhammad has done a lot of detailed study to reconstruct the physical setting where Jacob crossed the Jabbok. His related book is entitled We Were Not Looking: Reconstructing the Patriarchal World Through Ancient Near Eastern Context.

With cracks appearing in the walls, the Altes Museum in Berlin is now scheduled for a complete renovation in the 2030s.

Carl Rasmussen shares some remarkable before/after photos of the odeum at Laodicea.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Joseph Lauer, Explorator

Tagged Greece, Italy, Jordan, Museums, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup