New Exhibits Archives - BiblePlaces.com

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Archaeologists have discovered the first Middle Kingdom tomb in the Asasif region of Egypt, with many undisturbed remains.

A scholar claims that the “Passover Letter” from Elephantine has little or nothing to do with Passover.

Israel has been criticized for targeting Hezbollah forces located near Roman sites in Baalbek and Tyre.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, is hosting an exhibition until February 2 entitled, “Kingdom of Gods and Demons. Mesopotamia 1000-500 BCE.”

The final episode in Walking The Text’s “Life in the Roman Empire” series is on “Walking the Roman Street,” with Randall Smith. The link includes a pdf with comprehensive notes. You can also download the full Roman Empire study guide here.

Hybrid lecture at the Albright on Dec 11, 10:00 EST: “Man-Hunting in the Desert: The Ill-Fated Palmer Sinai Expedition of 1882,” by James Fraser (Zoom). A list of future events at the Albright is posted here.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology is on sale for Logos ($18, reg. $75)

Everyone can take advantage of Wipf and Stock’s 50% off sale in conjunction with the AAR/SBL conference.

Ralph Jackson, long-time curator at the British Museum, died recently.

Carl Rasmussen shares a number of photos form the newly reopened The Museum Hotel in Antakya (biblical Antioch on the Orontes), which preserves the remains of extensive mosaics from the Hellenistic, Late Roman, and Byzantine periods.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Arne Halbakken

Tagged Discoveries, Lebanon, Lectures, New Exhibits, Resources, Sad News, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A royal fort or palace from the reign of Thutmose III was discovered in northern Sinai.

An Assyrian scholar believes that he has interpreted five “mystery symbols” inscribed in various locations at Dūr-Šarrukīn, the capital of Sargon II. “He argues the Assyrian words for the five symbols (lion, eagle, bull, fig tree and plow) contain, in the right sequence, the sounds that spell out the Assyrian form of the name ‘Sargon’ (šargīnu).”

“Conservators Verena Kotonski and Barbara Wills took on the challenge of conserving a unique 2,300-year-old ancient Egyptian coffin.”

“An ancient Egyptian mummified head displayed in a school library in Australia now has a fresh face, thanks to a meticulous scientific reconstruction.”

“Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs” is a new exhibit opening in Cologne, Germany in July.

“Elephantine: Island of the Millennia” is now open at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, with a major focus on the writings discovered there. The museum has posted a related documentary on the Elephantine Project (50 minutes).

Marek Dospěl explains what Coptic is.

New release: Assur 2023: Excavations and Other Research in the New Town, edited by Karen Radner and Andrea Squitieri (PeWe-Verlag; print and open-access)

New release: The Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Isparta Archaeological Museum, by Asuman Coşkun Abuagla (199 euros)

Arkeonews has a story about the Diolkos, with a photo of a well-preserved section on a Greek army base.

Titus Kennedy explains major archaeological discoveries in Anatolia, Greece, and Rome, in the latest episode of Digging for Truth.

HT: Agade, Gordon Franz, Arne Halbakken, Alexander Schick

Tagged Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed more than 2,000 clay seal impressions that ancient [Roman] officials once used to fasten government documents.”

The Imhotep Museum in Saqqara has reopened after a year of renovations.

“An ancient clay tablet at Yale has shed light on how the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ has evolved over the ages.”

Expedition Bible’s latest video goes to Nineveh in Iraq to explore the site and understand its significance for the Bible.

“A team of German researchers has figured out a new way to train computers to recognize cuneiform and even make the contents of millennia-old tablets searchable like a website, making it possible to digitize and assemble larger libraries of these ancient texts.”

“Authorities in New York have been accused by leading academics in France and Britain of repatriating fake Roman artefacts to Lebanon.” Does this mean that ancient mosaics were never stolen in the first place?

ASOR webinar on Dec 14: “The Wheat from the Chaff: What we can Learn from Studying Plants in Antiquity,” by Jennifer Ramsay ($13).

The world’s only intact Roman shield will be part of an exhibit at the British Museum opening in February.

eHammurabi provides a digital version of the Law Code of Hammurabi, including cuneiform, transliteration, normalization, English translation, some comments, and a brief bibliography.

Konstantinos Politis recalls the impact that Jonathan Tubb had in his career as an archaeologist, working at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the British Museum. A festschrift was released shortly before his death.

Will Varner explains why Hannukah is not the Jewish Christmas.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Lectures, Mesopotamia, Museums, New Exhibits, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

Researchers at New York University have proposed that wind played a major role in the formation of Egypt’s Great Sphinx.

Nathan Steinmeyer writes about a new inscription from Elephantine that “might finally provide a glimpse of how Israelite religion developed after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.”

The sarcophagus of Ramses II will be going on display in three exhibitions in Australia.

Leon Mauldin reflects on Rehoboam’s journey to Shechem. He has also posted some photos of the tabernacle model at Timna.

Suzanna Millar and Sébastien Doane discuss the Bible and animal studies on the Biblical World podcast.

Bible Archaeology Report highlights the top three stories from the month of October.

Preserving Bible Times has just released Digging Deeper Video Series III: Familiar Passages, a collection of twenty two-minute videos featuring Doug Greenwold. You can also find it Spotify.

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Ted Weis, Keith Keyser, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, Museums, New Exhibits, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

Part of an ancient gateway believed to have been constructed by Cyrus the Great has been discovered near Persepolis.

A hoard of bronze coins dating to the 1st century BC or 1st century AD has been discovered at Alexandria Troas.

“An iron trident, believed to be used for fishing, dating to the 3rd or 4th century A.D. has been discovered in the ancient Aegean coastal resort town of Assos in northwestern Turkey.”

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient statue of a man and a statue of life-size wild boar at the sites of Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey.

A Persian-era storage jar with finds similar to keşkek, the ancient dish of Anatolia, was discovered in northern Turkey.

“Some of the 3,500-year-old hieroglyphs discovered last year in the Yerkapı Tunnel in northern Turkey’s Çorum province have been deciphered.”

An augmented reality app “supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago.”

As a follow-up to his piece on walking from Corinth to Cenchreae, Mark Hoffman now provides detailed instructions and photographs for walking the route between Corinth and its western port at the Lechaion harbor. (That’s one more reason to start planning your next trip to Greece!)

Italian authorities plan to reduce congestion at Pompeii by promoting tourism to the nearby sites of Boscoreale, Oplontis, and Stabiae. They will reopen the Antiquarium, add free shuttles between the sites, and sell all-in-one tickets.

“Rome has launched an international design competition to create a New Archaeological Walk, reimagining the public spaces and pedestrian routes linking the city’s ancient Roman sites.”

In conjunction with the “Legion: Life in the Roman Army” exhibit opening in February, the British Museum blog gives an introduction to the subject.

New release: Cyrus the Great: A Biography of Kingship, by Lynette Mitchell (Routledge, $128; $53 Kindle)

The official portal of the Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies Network, is now online.

“Open Educational Resources for the Ancient Near East” has received a recent translation of the Laws of Hammurabi.

“The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) is proud to announce that the number of external resource links, namely curated hyperlinks from catalogued cuneiform artifacts to their corresponding record in other digital projects and collections, now exceeds 400,000 individual links associated with more than 150 different online resources.”

HT: Agade, Arne Halbakken, Explorator, Paleojudaica

Tagged Discoveries, Greece, Italy, Museums, New Exhibits, Resources, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

“Temples for the Egyptian god Amun and the Greek goddess Aphrodite were found off of Egypt’s coast by a team of archaeologists.”

“A new Indo-European language was discovered during excavations in the Boğazkale district of Çorum, which is home to Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites.”

“A group of researchers has successfully extracted DNA from an ancient cuneiform brick for the first time, identifying over thirty species of plants present in the brick’s clay.”

“Back to School in Babylonia” is a new exhibition at the University of Chicago.

BAS Scholars Series online lecture on Sept 28: “Free Health Care Is a Miracle: Psalm 8, Jesus, and the Jerusalem Temple,” with Amy-Jill Levine ($10)

Hybrid lecture on Sept 29: “Babylon under the Achaemenids: The Greek Sources Re-considered,” by Johannes Haubold. Hosted by The Center for the Ancient Mediterranean (CAM) at Columbia University. Remote participants must register.

The Institute of Biblical Culture is launching a new Biblical Hebrew course. You can save $300 with the code BIBLEPLACES.

All of Doug Greenwold’s books from Preserving Bible Times are now available on Amazon Kindle.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken

Tagged Discoveries, Egypt, New Exhibits, Resources, Technology, Turkey, Weekend Roundup