Archive for July, 2008

Pompeji – General view and Vesuvius One of the most innovative museum exhibitions of which I have heard is currently touring Canada and will later move on to China and Japan. It presents the archaeologist in his role of Sherlock Holmes, using his discoveries to piece together the human stories associated with them.
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In the latter part of the 1800s, when the French and Italians were building their empires in north Africa, they became aware of the importance of the ruins with which they were surrounded. Unfortunately this awareness was not always intelligent and there are ample records of Roman buildings being demolished so that their stones...
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Pula, in Istria, has a splendid collection of Roman remains – the Zlatna Vrata or Golden Gate, the sixth largest amphitheatre in the world, several splendid mosaics and a hill-top crowned with a maze of ruins that include a lovely theatre and various other buildings. At the bottom of the hill, however, is the...
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Salvage excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in Kfar Kana, in northern Israel, have uncovered an ancient city that dates back to the time of the Biblical kingdom of Israel. Excavations exposed a section of the city wall and remains of buildings. The IAA has dated the site to the 10th-9th centuries...
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This fragment of animal skin is inscribed in Hebrew with verses from Leviticus. Photo / AP JERUSALEM – A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll – the first such finding in decades, an Israeli archaeologist said today. The finding...
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Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrectionBy Ethan Bronner, Published: July 5, 2008 JERUSALEM: A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will...
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Salvage excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in Kfar Kana, in northern Israel, have uncovered an ancient city that dates back to the time of the Biblical kingdom of Israel. Excavations exposed a section of the city wall and remains of buildings. The IAA has dated the site to the 10th-9th centuries...
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Two very early inscriptions were found in excavations in the Shephelah this summer and word leaked about them both this week, in advance of the annual SBL/ASOR meetings in Philadelphia. Since lots of news reports and bloggers have written about them, I am not motivated to say more, though both are more interesting to...
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(Photo: CBN News) Treasure Maps Found Among the Dead Sea Scrolls Keep Archaeologists and Historians in Suspense “What would be most dramatic is if in fact the treasures that are described by the Copper Scroll—and perhaps revealed more fully in the Key Scroll—are in fact from the second temple. Finding them would in fact...
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