Resources Archives - Page 121 of 151

Recent Journal Articles

There have been a number of articles published within the past few months, all of which are related to the content of this blog.

Galil, Gershon.
2009 “The Hebrew Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa/Neta’im: Script, Language, Literature and History.” Ugarit-Forschungen 41: 193-242.

I have not read this article yet, but presumably this is Galil’s formal publication of his reading of the Qeiyafa ostracon and of his identification of Kh. Qeiyafa as Netaim, both of which were mentioned previously by Todd (inscription and identification).

Beitzel, Barry J.
2010 “Was There a Joint Nautical Venture on the Mediterranean Sea by Tyrian Phoenicians and Early Israelites?” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 360: 37-66.

de Canales, F. González; L. Serrano; and J. Llompart.
2010 “Tarshish and the United Monarchy of Israel.” Ancient Near Eastern Studies 47: 137-164.

Both of these articles argue for the plausibility of Phoenician nautical trade on the Mediterranean Sea in the 10th century B.C. Beitzel argues that the Hebrew expression ’onî taršîš in 1 Kings 10:22 is better translated “ships of Tarshish” as in the ESV, and not “trading ships” as in the NIV. He gathers together the evidence for early Phoenician trading on the Mediterranean and suggests Tarshish was located in the western Mediterranean. De Canales et al. identify Tarshish more specifically with Huelva, Spain, and date the earliest excavated levels to 900-770 B.C., while proposing an even earlier Phoenician presence.

The latest issue of Israel Exploration Journal contains three articles which may be of interest to our readers.

Rendsburg, Gary A. and William M. Schniedewind.
2010 “The Siloam Tunnel Inscription: Historical and Linguistic Perspectives.” Israel Exploration Journal 60/2: 188-203.

Rendsburg and Schniedewind argue that three linguistic peculiarities of the Siloam inscription point to the dialect of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (referred to as Israelian Hebrew). They go on to speculate that the inscription was authored by a refugee from the northern kingdom, and that the purpose of the tunnel may have been to divert water to the refugee population on the Western Hill.

Siloam Tunnel Inscription in Istanbul, Turkey.

Two more cuneiform inscriptions from Hazor are published in this issue of IEJ as well, one a fragment of an administrative docket and the other a fragment of a clay liver model. (Neither of these are the tablet fragments found last year that Todd reported on here.)

Horowitz, Wayne and Takayoshi Oshima.
2010 “Hazor 16: Another Administrative Docket from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 60/2: 129-132.

Horowitz, Wayne; Takayoshi Oshima; and Abraham Winitzer.
2010 “Hazor 17: Another Clay Liver Model.” Israel Exploration Journal 60/2: 133-145.

These two inscriptions supplement the handy volume of all cuneiform inscriptions found in Canaan (up to the date of publication), Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times, by Wayne Horowitz,; Takayoshi Oshima; and Seth Sanders (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006). We should also add to the list:

Horowitz, Wayne and Takayoshi Oshima.
2007 “Hazor 15: A Letter Fragment from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 57: 34-40.

Mazar, Eilat; Wayne Horowitz; Takayoshi Oshima; and Yuval Goren.
2010 “A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem.” Israel Exploration Journal 60/1: 4-21.

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Resources, Shephelah

LSJ Online Out of Commission

Two weekends ago, we reported that Thesaurus Linguae Graecae had made available an online edition of the Classical Greek lexicon Liddell-Scott-Jones, with hyperlinks to texts in the TLG database. Three days ago, TLG announced on their website that the lexicon was no longer available due to misuse.

The Online LSJ was released on February 24, 2011. Within hours of its release, our site became the target of individuals attempting to download our data. By March 1 our server was bombarded by hundreds of coordinated pirate attackers seeking to break into our server security. As a consequence, we were forced to suspend access to LSJ while we are taking steps to address the security of our servers.
We are working to reestablish access gradually and hope that LSJ will be back up within the next few days.
We regret the inconvenience this action has caused to our legitimate users.

Tagged Resources

Featured Accordance Module: American Colony Collection

This month, Accordance’s Featured Product is the American Colony Collection module. They are offering the module at a discounted price of $109 (regularly $149) through the month of March. You can read Todd’s introduction to the collection here and learn more about the Accordance module from Todd and Accordance’s David Lang. If you have already purchased the collection from BiblePlaces.com and are an Accordance user, you may want to consider the crossgrade option.

Tagged American Colony Photos, Resources

Free Books on Archaeology & Ancient History Available in Kindle Form

Let me start by saying that you do not need an Amazon Kindle to read Kindle books. Amazon offers free reading apps for iPads, iPhones, PCs, Macs, Androids, BlackBerries and Windows Phones, so you can read Kindle books on any of those devices. Personally I recently entered the world of Kindle by purchasing a Kindle Wi-Fi, and I would recommend the device to anyone who enjoys reading.

(There is also a 3G version and a version with a 9.7″ display.) But you don’t need to spend $139 or more to get the books referenced below. They are available absolutely free through the use of one of the free reading apps.

One of the things that attracted me to the Kindle was all of the free books that are available in Kindle form. Amazon advertises: “Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are available.” Many of these books are “Popular Classics” such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. However, some of the free books are out of copyright works related to archaeology and ancient history that I think would be of interest to readers of this blog. Here are the works that I have found so far that fit this category:

Jacob Abbott, History of Julius Caesar, (c) 1904.

E. A. Wallis Budge, Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian Texts, Edited with Translations, (c) 1912.

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, (c) 1914.

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Babylonian Legends of the Creation and the Fight Between Bel and Dragon, Told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh, (c) 1921(?).

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead, (c) 1920(?).

Herodotus, An Account of Egypt, translated by G. C. Macaulay, (c) not listed.

Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, translated by William Whiston, (c) not listed.

Flavius Josephus, The Life of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, (c) not listed.

Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, translated by William Whiston, (c) not listed.

L. W. King, Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition, The Schweich Lectures of 1916, (c) 1920.

G. Maspero, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt, revised and enlarged edition, translated by Amelia B. Edwards, (c) 1895.

Isaac Myer, Scarabs: The History, Manufacture and Religious Symbolism of the Scarabaeus, in Ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Sardinia, Etruria, etc., (c) 1894.

Robert Franklin Pennell, Ancient Rome: From the Earliest Times Down to 476 A.D., revised edition, (c) 1890(?).

W. M. Flinders Petrie, ed., Egyptian Tales, Translated from the Papyri: First Series, IVth to XIIth Dynasty, 2nd edition, (c) 1899.

W. M. Flinders Petrie, ed., Egyptian Tales, Translated from the Papyri: Second Series, XVIIIth to XIXth Dynasty, 2nd edition, (c) 1913.

W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Religion of Ancient Egypt, (c) 1906.

Various authors, How to Observe in Archaeology: Suggestions for Travellers in the Near and Middle East, (c) 1920. The authors include J. G. C. Anderson, T. P. Droop, H. R. Hall, G. F. Hill, D. G. Hogarth, F. G. Kenyon, R. A. S. Macalister, J. L. Myres, and W. M. Flinders Petrie.

Let me also point out that this is not an exhaustive list. In addition to the fact that there are probably other books available on Amazon’s website that I missed, works from the Internet Archive, Open Library, Project Gutenberg, and ManyBooks.net can be delivered to your Kindle or Kindle App as well. More information on how to do that can be found here. Also, I did not include books that are available for very little money through the Kindle Store. Perhaps we’ll explore those titles at a later date.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that these books are free, and to some degree “you get what you pay for.” So don’t expect too much. For example, in many (if not all) cases, the illustrations that were included in the original book are not included in the free Kindle book. At the same time, if I had to choose between having a free Kindle version of a book and not having the book at all, I would choose the Kindle book. After all, if I find that the work is particularly valuable, I can always track down a physical copy of the book to use in serious research or a writing project. In that sense, these free books serve as a great introduction to some of the classic works on Middle Eastern archaeology and ancient history.

Also (although it is not exactly free) I should mention that there is a subscription available to the BiblePlaces Blog through the Kindle store for 99 cents a month. Unlike an RSS feed which only sends a stub about new posts, this subscription service delivers new posts in their entirety. The first 14 days of service are free, if you would like to try it out.

Anyone else know of any free books that would be of interest?

Tagged Resources

Chart: The Kingdom(s) of Israel

The following chart represents my baseline understanding of the kingdoms of Israel. I use this chart (or one of its cousins) as a “big picture” tool when my students get bogged-down in the minutiae of the Kings/Chronicles narrative. I also find this tool to be helpful in facilitating discussion regarding a comparison of different periods (i.e. David to Josiah or Hezekiah to Uzziah) or contemporaneous Israelite and Judahite kings.

For instance, one of my major research goals is to understand and contrast the relationship between Jehoshaphat king of Judah (873-848 BCE) and Ahab king of Israel (874-853 BCE) – while at the same time comparing the allied front of Ahab/Jehoshaphat to the Solomonic kingdom. Were their respective reigns a return to Solomonic glory? Something more? Something less? Was Jehoshaphat merely a vassal to the almighty Ahab? This chart does not answer these questions – but it allows the researcher and student alike to take into account the biblical, epigraphic, and archaeological data in the form of a “peak” or “valley.”

This chart represents my own understanding of the biblical and archaeological history of ancient Israel (i.e. very conservative). It would be exceptionally helpful if the other side would create their own “peaks and valleys” chart – then we could compare geography. Admittedly, their chart would not be quite as interesting (think Texas compared to California) – since it would be one long arduous climb out of the “valley” with only a couple “peaks” at the end.

Tagged Resources

Weekend Roundup

Iraq
Efforts are underway to resurrect Iraq’s tourism industry. CNN reported in January on conservation work at the site of Babylon, and the Global Heritage Fund has been involved in similar work at Ur. In 2009 and 2010, the Iraqi government reported 165 tourists visited the country.

The online edition of Archaeology magazine has posted a piece entitled “Letter from Iraq: The Ziggurat Endures.” It was written by Michael Taylor, a National Guardsman who visited Ur in May, 2008. There are a few photos of the ziggurat and one of the royal tombs.

Last fall, American archaeologists returned to southern Iraq for the first time in 25 years. A report at PhysOrg outlines the research of Jennifer Pournelle. She is studying the importance of marshland resources, and how proximity to marshlands may have helped determine where ancients cities were founded in southern Iraq. A short video can be seen here.

Egypt
Last Sunday, the Cairo Museum reopened, along with five other museums and all of Egypt’s antiquities sites. On Wednesday night, looters attempted to make off with a 160-ton, red granite statue of Ramses II located at Aswan. Their efforts were thwarted by security personnel (and maybe the size of the statue).

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, has claimed that a 3,200 year-old funerary mask owned by the Saint Louis Art Museum was stolen from Egypt. The mask was discovered in excavations at Saqqara in 1952 and purchased by the museum for half-a-million dollars. The museum has filed suit to prevent seizure of the mask by the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis.

Beginning today and running through September 4, the Tennessee State Museum is featuring a three-part exhibition entitled Egyptian Relics, Replicas & Revivals: Treasures from Tutankhamun. The exhibit brings together objects and replicas from the University of Memphis, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Vanderbilt University, and the International Museum Institute of New York.

Admission is free. Details are available at the museum’s website.

Anson Rainey Tributes
A week ago Saturday, Anson Rainey passed away at the age of 81. This past week, the radio program LandMinds produced a four-part tribute to Rainey in which they conducted interviews with Paul Wright of Jerusalem University College, and Yigal Levin and Aharon Demsky of Bar-Ilan University.

Audio of the program can be found here. Biblical Archaeology Review also has a brief note about Rainey’s passing on their website.

Miscellaneous
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae has made available an online edition of the Classical Greek lexicon Liddell-Scott-Jones, with hyperlinks to texts in the TLG database. The lexicon can be found here and an account of its print and digital versions here.

On Monday, March 21, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, Thomas Levy will speak at George Washington University’s Capitol Archaeological Institute in Washington, DC. His lecture is entitled “Quest for Solomon’s Mines: Cyber-Archaeology and Recent Explorations in Jordan,” and will be presented at the Elliott School, 1957 E St. NW, Room 113. Both the lecture and a reception are free and open to the public. Some information is provided here.

HT: Joe Lauer and Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Tourism