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Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Italian scientists have confirmed a large underground complex beneath the Giza Plateau using satellite data.

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

Reporters were invited to view renovation work in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Some areas will reopen in 2027.

The Times of Israel interviewed Thomas Levy in connection with the release of his graphic autobiography.

Ben and Ann Witherington are hosting a tour of Egypt in early 2027.

Appian Way has produced a 7-minute video explaining why the Madaba Map is so important for biblical studies.

New release: Jehu’s Tribute: What Can Biblical Studies Offer Assyriology?, edited by Jeffrey L. Cooley and Rannfrid I. Lasine Thelle (Eisenbrauns, $100, or cheaper at Amazon)

New release: Narrating Archaeological Sites and Places: Fifty Years of the Madaba Plains Project at Tall Hisban, Tall al-‘Umayri, and Tall Jalul, edited by Douglas R. Clark, Øystein S. LaBianca and Randall W. Younker (Equinox, $120; Amazon)

New release: Past Perfect? The Archaeologies of Mandate Palestine 1917-1948, by Raz Kletter (90 euros)

The Biblical Archaeology Society is offering several classes in 2026:

“Women in the New Testament and Early Christianity,” taught by Elizabeth Schrader Polczer
“Historically Confirmed Figures in the Hebrew,” by Lawrence Mykytiuk
“Ancient Texts and Scribes,” by Alice Mandell

A seminar of Ancient and Medieval Middle East (AMME) at the University of Helsinki will feature two talks on ancient waste:

“Trash and Treasure: Con-textualizing Trash at Oxyrhynchus,” by AnneMarie Luijendijk (Zoom)
“Down the Drain: What Trash Reveals about Bathing Culture in Late Antique Jerash,” by Louise Blanke (Zoom)

The Ancient Near East Today lists the top archaeological discoveries of the year.

Archaeology Magazine identifies the top 10 discoveries of 2025.

The AP posts drone footage of the Colosseum of Rome.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis, Alexander Schick, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Italy, Jordan, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A new study using two radiocarbon dates puts Ahmose’s reign later than previously believed and places the Thera eruption 60-90 years earlier.

New excavations in Pompeii reveal that some slaves ate better than ordinary people.

A cuneiform tablet dating to the end of the 4th millennium BC was discovered at the Sumerian city of Niĝin (Tell Zurghul).

Archaeologists working at Blaundus in western Turkey have discovered a Roman stadium, temple, and more.

The Luwian Studies Foundation has published an up-to-date map of Luwian sites from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

“A pioneering robotic system is set to revolutionise the painstaking task of reassembling Pompeii’s ancient Roman frescoes.”

Iraq is planning a $14 million renovation of the ancient city of Ur.

New release in open-access: The Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit, by Philip J. Boyes (Oxbow, £50; open-access)

A one-minute BBC video explains that the reason why Roman buildings last for millennia is the type of concrete they used.

Tickets to the Louvre are increasing sharply for non-Europeans.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Explorator, Baruch Kvasnica, Paleojudaica, Wayne Stiles

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Mesopotamia, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A Roman sarcophagus was discovered in Hungary, “untouched by looters and sealed for centuries … with its stone lid still fixed in place, secured by metal clamps and molten lead.”

“Five theatrical mask reliefs have been discovered during excavations in the theater area of Kastabala, an ancient city in Osmaniye, southern Türkiye.”

Excavations at Ugarit have resumed after a 14-year hiatus.

Remember the Jordan Lead Codices? A new scientific analysis provides some answers about their dating. (James Davila gives some background.)

“A stunning replica of an ancient trireme will be displayed as the centerpiece of the new Greek Underwater Archaeology Museum” in Piraeus, opening next year.

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition opens at The Museum of the Bible this weekend. “The exhibition will feature biblical texts and scrolls from the community at Qumran, as well as hundreds of artifacts that reveal details about life and Judaism during the Second Temple period.”

“More than 40 precious artifacts from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem are currently on display at the Frick in New York City.”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art just launched a virtual reality tour of the 1st-century BC Egyptian Temple of Dendur.

New release: Assur 2024: Continuing the Excavations in the New Town and Other Research across the Site, edited by Karen Radner and Andrea Squitieri. Exploring Assur 2. (PeWe-Verlag; 59 €; open-access)

New release: Excavating Ancient Egypt: Fifty Years of Archaeological Memories, by Jeffrey Spencer (Archaeopress; £16-£32)

In the latest episode on the Biblical World podcast, Mary Buck explains the importance of the Achaemenid Empire, including figures like Cyrus and Darius.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Alexander Schick, Gordon Franz, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Dead Sea Scrolls, Discoveries, Egypt, Jerusalem, Jordan, Mesopotamia, Museums, Persia, Resources, Syria, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Archaeologists in Gölyazı, Turkey, have uncovered a Greek inscription carved into a seat in a Roman-era theater, revealing the name of a female priestess who lived nearly two thousand years ago.”

“Examination of an ancient alabaster vase in the Yale Peabody Museum’s Babylonian Collection has revealed traces of opiates, providing the clearest evidence to date of broad opium use in ancient Egyptian society.”

Six archaeological artifacts were stolen in a burglary of the Damascus National Museum.

“One hundred years after Tutankhamun’s body was first unwrapped, the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford launches a new database bringing together every archaeological record from the tomb’s discovery.”

Itiner-e is a new digital atlas of Roman roads. “Itiner-e aims to host the most detailed open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire. The data creation is a collaborative ongoing project edited by a scholarly community. Itiner-e allows you to view, query and download roads.” The Times of Israel and Gizmodo have stories about this new resource.

New release: Scenes from a Provincial Life: Memoirs of a Biblical Scholar, by David J.A. Clines (Sheffield Phoenix Press, $30)

New release: Contacts of Languages and Peoples in the Hittite and Post-Hittite World, Volume 2, The 1st Millennium and the Eastern Mediterranean Interface, edited by F. Giusfredi, A. Matessi, S. Merlin and V. Pisaniello ($109; free pdf)

New article: “The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition: The 2023 and 2024 excavations at the Late Bronze Age cemetery of Hala Sultan Tekke,” by Peter M. Fischer and many others (free pdf).

The latest DigSight, a newsletter from the Southern Adventist University Institute of Archaeology, reports on the museum’s 25th anniversary, a study tour to Cyprus and Greece, the temple model from Khirbet Qeiyafa, and more.

The AP has many nice photos of the Parthenon without scaffolding.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Ted Weis

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Greece, Mediterranean Islands, Museums, Resources, Syria, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

The NY Times has a well-illustrated story about the exhibits in the Egypt’s newly opened Grand Museum (gift link). The AP reports on the grand opening event.

There is no evidence that the short-lived capital of Akhetaten was abandoned because of a catastrophic plague.

A new study indicates that ancient Egypt’s gold production was much higher than previously believed.

Did the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid with a hidden pulley system?

“Egyptian authorities opened a criminal investigation after a 4,000-year-old limestone relief vanished from the Sixth-Dynasty mastaba of Khentika in the Saqqara necropolis.”

The Netherlands will return a statue of Thutmose III that was apparently stolen from Egypt during the 2011 Arab Spring.

“A tablet made in ancient Babylon around 1500 B.C.E. may be the earliest known depiction of a ghost.”

A large and intricate Roman-era mosaic has been discovered in Iznik, Turkey.

Turkish Archaeological News rounds up the top stories for the month of October, including:

The authentic restoration of tombs in the northern necropolis of Hierapolis
The opening to the public of a cave with a fresco of St. Paul opening near Antalya
The remains of a hippodrome discovered in Kayseri in Cappadocia
On-going discoveries by the American archaeologists working at Sardis

“The top three reports in biblical archaeology in October 2025 featured a tomb in Egypt, a necropolis in Turkey, and an inscription in Israel.”

BibleStock has released a new coaching video for Thanksgiving based on Psalm 100.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Ted Weis, Explorator

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Museums, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists have found remains of 95 dolmens from the Early Bronze Age in the Madaba region of Jordan.

“Archaeologists have discovered a 3,500-year-old military fortress with a zigzag-style wall in the north Sinai Desert of Egypt.”

Egyptian officials are worried about a ceiling crack in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

“Greece said on Thursday it had agreed with Egypt on the future of St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Egypt’s Mount Sinai.”

Archaeological work is progressing on a large, “circular, labyrinthine building [that] has no known parallel in prehistoric Crete or the wider Aegean region.”

Expedition Bible’s latest video is about the Amarna Letters, which Joel Kramer states in the introduction are “the most powerful evidence outside of the Bible for the Israelite conquest of the Promised Land.”

Clinton Arnold and Sean McDowell discuss the recent excavations at Colossae on the Think Biblically podcast. Fox News has some new photos of the excavation.

The first results have been published from “Pompeii Reset, a non-invasive program that used three-dimensional recording and modeling to re-examine the House of the Tiaso.”

“3D models of the Sela inscription of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus (556-539 BCE) can be seen at the Sketchfab’s page of the GRACPE-UB research group.”

Hybrid lecture at Harvard on Nov 12: “Decoding the Pyramid Statues of King Menkaure,” by Florence Dunn Friedman

The ESV Archaeology Study Bible Notes are available for pre-order at Logos.

Amazon is listing for pre-order two long-awaited volumes in the Lexham Geographic Commentary series – Historical Books, volume 1 (Joshua–Ruth) and volume 2 (1 Samuel–Esther). They are also available for pre-order on Logos (vol 1, vol 2).

Open-access: The South Palace Archives in Babylon: Administrative Records in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, by Olof Pedersén (Harrassowitz)

The Johns Hopkins University Archaeological Museum has re-opened after a three-year renovation.

HT: Agade, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Lectures, Mediterranean Islands, Museums, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup