Leen Ritmeyer continues his Temple Mount series with a look at the Early Muslim period. He has many illustrations, but the one I’ve always found most helpful in teaching is the comparison of the
Temple with the Dome of the Rock.

Two Egyptian mummies were found in a sewer near Minya.

Morgan Freeman will star in a remake of Ben-Hur.

The IAA arrested three men for antiquities theft at Ashkelon.

The International Business Times has a short profile of Tel Burna (Libnah?) with many graphics.

For the 40th anniversary of Biblical Archaeology Review, Hershel Shanks recounts the story of how the magazine began.


Pontius Pilate, by Paul L. Maier, is on sale for Kindle for $0.99. I recommend it.

Here’s a unique subject for a blogpost: Salem—What We Can Learn from Abraham’s Visit to Jerusalem, by Wayne Stiles.

Wayne is also offering signed copies of two of his excellent books. This is a great gift idea for yourself or someone else who has recently traveled to the Holy Land or who wishes that they could.

Eisenbrauns has reprinted all 11 volumes of the State Archives of Assyria (SAA) and State Archives of Assyria Studies (SAAS) and they are on sale this month.

The exhibition catalog for the new Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem exhibit is now available: By the Rivers of Babylon, The Story of the Babylonian Exile Jerusalem, by Filip Vukosavovic.

The Al-Arish National Museum in the North Sinai has been damaged in an attack by the militant group State of Sinai.

Ancient Romans ate meals that most Americans would recognize.

On Monday we’re beginning a series on Twitter of our 15 favorite places in Jerusalem. Follow us @BiblePlaces or on Facebook.

HT: Agade, Jay Baggett

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The Big Picture has 13 great photos of the declining level of the Dead Sea.

Why visit the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem? Bible History Daily points out 10 great biblical artifacts.

That same museum is hosting a new exhibit “By the Rivers of Babylon” that is profiled in Haaretz.

The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem is using iPads and phones to improve the visitor’s experience (NYTimes).

The Melbourne Museum has produced a recreation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii.

Illegal excavations in Alexandria have revealed a Graeco-Roman necropolis.

An update on the Nineveh destruction from Agade: “Reliable reports from the Mosul that for good reason cannot be attributed are that the fortifications of Nineveh have not been damaged in any way.

Unfortunately, Nabi Younis, however, is now completely destroyed.”

HT: Agade

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They now think they know who was buried in the Amphipolis tomb. This article has more details and illustrations.

King Tut’s beard was knocked off and then re-attached with epoxy glue. Here’s a close-up of the botched repair.

Leen Ritmeyer suggests a location for the stairs of the Antonia Fortress where Paul went up and down.

Medical imaging technology has been put to use in reading burned papyri from Herculaneum.

Approval has been given to re-open the old Acropolis Museum.

You can subscribe to the weekly podcast of The Book and the Spade at christianaudio.com. This week Clyde Billington gives an update on Temple Mount archaeology. Last week I addressed the problem of sensational stories in biblical archaeology.

The latest issue of Ancient Near East Today is now available.

Ferrell Jenkins shares photos of Aphek/Antipatris and the “other Aphek.” I particularly like his aerial photo of the northern site.

Miriam Feinberg Vamosh describes the history of Jezreel and its recent excavations in an illustrated pdf article at The Bible and Interpretation.

Iraq is seeking to have the ruins of Babylon put on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

ICYMI: Accordance photo collections are on sale through Monday.

HT: Ted Weis, Agade

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Archaeologists working at Bethsaida have discovered a possible escape tunnel from the time of the Israelite monarchy.

Leen Ritmeyer explains the recent construction work on the Temple Mount and its potential significance for archaeology.

“The Egyptian Antiquities Ministry recently announced the excavation of a 3,000-year-old fortress at the site of Tell el-Habua (also known as Tel Habuwa and Tell Huba) near the Suez Canal in Egypt.”

Egypt’s Prime Minister recently visited the Grand Egyptian Museum to check on its progress for a slated August 2015 opening.

The works of the famous glass maker Ennion are now on display at the Met.

The Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas is hosting a temporary exhibition of old maps of the Holy Land. Wayne Stiles shows a few photos from his visit and explains the value of using maps in your
Bible study.

Monday lecture at the British Museum: Rupert Chapman, Ahab’s Ivory House: When Was It Destroyed?

Plans are underway to allow visitors inside the Erechtheion of the Acropolis.

The most visited museum in 2014 was the Louvre, with 9.3 million visitors.

HT: Explorator, Agade

Ennion's blue glass jug, 1st c AD, tb031114560
Blue glass jug made by Ennion, first century AD
From the Eretz Israel Museum
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(Post by A.D. Riddle)


The “Roads of Arabia” exhibition ends its U.S. tour on January 18, 2015, at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. The website does not indicate any further venues for the exhibition, so this might be the last chance to see it. Here are some of our posts about it on this blog (from most recent to earliest):

Roads of Arabia Volume in PDF (July 02, 2014) [The pdf is still available as far as we can tell]
Roads of Arabia Exhibition (June 24, 2014)
Roads of Arabia in Houston (January 08, 2014)
Roads of Arabia Exhibition: Update (April 23, 2013)
Museums and Cultural Heritage (April 05, 2011)
Archaeology of Saudi Arabia (February 27, 2011)

The official website of the “Roads of Arabia” exhibition is online here. I did not notice before that the site has a downloadable “Roads of Arabia Bibliography” at the bottom of this page (direct link). This looks like a helpful resource to have on hand. The first two items of the bibliography are exhibition catalogs. The first of these can be downloaded at the link given above. The second one looks very similar to the first catalog, but it is not exactly the same. Poking around online, I was able to locate a few of the individual chapters. These appear to have better quality images than the full-volume pdf.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art also has a downloadable bibliography related to the exhibition. 
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The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem is hosting a special exhibition entitled By the Rivers of Babylon beginning next month. An international conference on Jerusalem in Babylonia will be held on February 2-3.

Now online: the Fall 2014 issue of DigSight, published by Southern Adventist University’s Institute of Archaeology.

See the Holy Land has published new articles on Kathisma and the Church of St Alexander Nevsky (the Russian excavations), and an updated article on Magdala.

Free video lecture online: Doctors, Diseases and Deities: Epidemic Crises and Medicine in Ancient Rome, by Sarah Yeomans of the Biblical Archaeology Society.

Matthew Karsten hiked portions of the Israel National Trail and has some spectacular photos to show for it.

Aren Maeir will be giving a lecture on the latest work at Gath at the Albright Institute on January 15.

Registration for MEMRA’s ancient language courses ends soon.

G. M. Grena shares some personal thoughts and more from his time at the ASOR 2014 conference.

The British Museum explains why it was so pleased to be involved in the latest Night at the Museum movie.

The new Exodus movie is “an unimaginative, mind-numbing bore,” according to Michael Heiser.

Egypt has banned the movie “Exodus: Gods and Kings” for being historically inaccurate.

ISIS is threatening to blow up the walls of ancient Nineveh.

Vassilios Tzaferis has died in Athens. Among Tzaferis’s excavations was the tomb of the crucified
man.

HT: Agade, Exploring Bible Lands

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