“The tomb of an ancient Egyptian royal chamberlain was discovered in Sector A of the Bubasteum necropolis in Saqqara during its first excavation season.”
The Pyramid of Menkaure is now closed to visitors following the reopening of the Pyramid of Khafre. The closure allows for the maintenance and preservation work.
The largest Roman wall mosaic ever found, together with a colorful fresco, was opened in Rome to the public for the first time, thirty years after its discovery.
A multiyear underwater archaeology project studying ancient harbors in the Mediterranean determined that ports were larger than usually assumed because of anchoring areas beyond the built walls of the harbor.
Konstantinos Politis, excavator of the “Sanctuary of Lot” on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, died last month.
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.”
“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.”
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.”
If you plan to visit biblical sites, you will benefit from a good guidebook. For years I have recommended excellent resources such as Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land, Clyde E. Fant and Mitchell G. Reddish, A Guide to Biblical Sites in Greece and Turkey, and Mark Wilson, Biblical Turkey. These books share the same basic approach: organized by site, they explain a city’s principal features and its relevance to the Bible.
Jason Borges’s new work takes a different approach, and for travelers in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, it may be just as valuable. Instead of going site by site, Christian Life in the Greco-Roman City: The Civic and Architectural Contexts of Early Christianity goes feature by feature, teaching you how to understand what you encounter again and again in every Greco-Roman city: theaters, agoras, temples, baths, and more.
Perhaps you’ve had this experience: you visit an ancient theater, and the guide gives you the basics. At the next city, you hear the same basics. Then you arrive at a third theater, and well, here we go again. What you need is a single, in-depth exploration of what theaters were, how they functioned, how their architecture works, how they shaped society, and how they illuminate the New Testament.
Great Theater at Ephesus
In less than an hour of your time (24 pages), Borges gives you that in-depth explanation and more. You learn that there were nearly a thousand theaters across the Roman Empire, that many could accommodate more than ten thousand spectators, that seating reflected social divisions, that Roman performances were crude and erotic, and that only one theater is explicitly mentioned in the New Testament—the theater at Ephesus in Acts 19.
You also learn the differences between theaters, amphitheaters, and circuses. Borges shows how Jesus’s teaching reveals his familiarity with public entertainment, how Paul compared the faith to athletics, and what the apostle meant when he said that he “fought with wild animals in Ephesus” (1 Cor 15:32). Borges’s mastery of early church history allows him to make various connections to Christian martyrs.
I enjoyed the chapter on the agora even more. After defining what an agora is (“the central public space … akin to a modern town square … the heart of every community”), Borges explains a number of interesting ancient words and phrases related to the agora, such as:
“when the agora is full” – a time designation referring to midmorning (ca. 10 am)
“breaking up of the agora” – the end of the morning (ca. 12 noon)
being “taken to the agora” – being brought to court, especially in cases involving mob justice
agoraios – a person who “belongs to the marketplace,” usually translated “loafer” or “idler” (Acts 17:5)
If you’ve ever wondered why some cities have two separate agoras, it’s because of those loafers. Greek elites wanted to separate the riffraff in the marketplace from the civic spaces where magistrates governed the city.
Commercial agora at Ephesus
Borges explains what Jesus meant when he spoke of the “children sitting in the agora” (Luke 7:31), why Paul went to the agora in Athens (Acts 17:17), and what important feature of the agora is mentioned twelve times in the NT (the bema). He concludes the chapter with an edifying section on the verb derived from agora, agorazō, (“to buy”). Because slave markets were a common feature of agoras, the setting gives added force to the New Testament’s language of redemption: “against this sobering backdrop, the NT authors declare a divine economy with a different market transaction: Jesus purchased us for God.”
I think any one of these chapters is worth the price of the book ($25; $15 on Kindle). You’ll find much to mark and annotate in the introductory chapter on the ancient city and in the chapters that follow on agoras, temples, baths, prisons, theaters, libraries, and necropolises. I highly recommend the book to anyone who has traveled to or will travel to the Mediterranean area, along with all those just want to better understand the world so familiar to the people of the New Testament.
“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.’”
“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.”
“The concept of zero began with Sumerian accountants, who first used a blank space to denote an absence in records.”
Now online: “New Insights on Nimrud,” hosted by The British Institute for the Study of Iraq, with talks by:
John MacGinnis: Recent Work at Nimrud
Nigel Tallis: Publishing the Nimrud Bowls
Dirk Wicke: Ivories from the Burnt Palace
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq honored Gertrude Bell who died one hundred years ago in Baghdad. The 2016 movie about her life, “Letters from Baghdad,” is available for rent on several platforms.
“The French archaeological mission in Libya has concluded its 2026 field season, presenting the key results of its work, which included significant archaeological discoveries and studies at the sites of Apollonia, Lathron, and Leptis Magna.”
“A 1,500-year-old Madaba map of the Holy Land will reach a new generation through virtual reality (VR), interactive displays and traveling exhibitions under a new project at the University of Göttingen in Germany.”
Archaeopress is hosting a Summer Sale: “For the next four weeks, more than 400 archaeology, heritage and ancient history titles are available at specially reduced prices, with discounts of 30–75% across a wide selection of our backlist.”
Archaeological Paths is offering an 8-day tour of Egypt during the time of the solar eclipse for a cool $20,000. An extra day at Alexandria is only $2,000. Tips not included.
“Archaeologists excavating in the world-famous Temple of Artemis in [Ephesus] have uncovered an extraordinary 1,200-year-old Byzantine grave containing premature twin infants.”
“Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Sardis in western Türkiye have uncovered a monumental marble statue of a young man dating back approximately 2,500 years.”
A new study claims to explain the mystery of the amazing acoustics at the theater of Epidaurus. The secret is in how the limestone material of the secrets suppresses low frequencies of background crowd noise and reflects high frequencies back towards the audience.
The BiblePlaces Blog provides updates and analysis of the latest in biblical archaeology, history, and geography. Unless otherwise noted, the posts are written by Todd Bolen, PhD, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s University.
