http://www.bib-arch.org/ Unearthing the World of the Bible en-us webmaster@bib-arch.org (BAS Webmaster) http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#29Google’s new Digital Humanities Research Program has awarded a grant that will make ancient texts more accessible and easy to find online. The Google Ancient Places (GAP): Discovering historic geographical entities in the Google Books corpus project, led by Leif Isaksen of the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, Dr. Elton Barker from The Open University and Dr. Eric Kansa of the University of California-Berkeley, is one of twelve projects to enjoy a total of $497,000 in awards from Google. The GAP project will facilitate searching within Google Books to find content related to a geographic location and within a particular timeframe. Search results would then be visible using GoogleMaps or GoogleEarth. Thursday, July 29, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#28The 2010 summer season of excavations at Horvat Kur in Israel has revealed the western wall of a synagogue from the 5th century A.D. Situated in an area important to early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, the dig at Horvat Kur will illuminate our modern understanding of life in ancient Galilee. Wednesday, July 28, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#27The Israel Museum reopened yesterday after having undergone a three-year, $100 million refocus mission. The refurbished museum creates links across cultures and their histories by displaying fewer objects in a much larger space with deeper explanations. Museum director James S. Snyder, an American Jew who worked for 22 years at the Museum of Modern Art, did not want to display the history of the land solely from a Jewish perspective. He placed an emphasis on cultural commonalities, and sought to contextualize Jewish history within a broad context. The design minds behind the renewal of the Israel Museum include James Carpenter Design Associates of New York and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv. Tuesday, July 27, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#26A group of scientists from MIT have recently created a computer program that will decipher an ancient Biblical language. Ugaritic is an ancient language that is made up of dots and wedge-shaped stylus marks most commonly inscribed on clay tablets. This script was last used around 1200 B.C.; it was deciphered in 1932 after archaeologists found examples during excavations of Ugarit in the 1920’s. Monday, July 26, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#23In the summer of 2008, archaeologists working at Tel Tayinat in Turkey announced an extraordinary find, a tablet containing a cuneiform treaty that may have been a model for the Biblical covenant between God and the Israelites. “The language in the (Assyrian) texts is (very similar) and now we have a treaty document just a few miles up the road from Jerusalem,” said University of Toronto archaeologist Timothy Harrison. Harrison’s team has continued to work on restoration and translation of the tablet. Friday, July 23, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#22Conservation efforts have brought life back to the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq. Saddam Hussein drained the marshes of Iraq in the 1990’s as a way of punishing dissenters after his failed attempt to invade Kuwait. Since Hussein’s removal from power, Iraqis working together with environmental conservation and preservation groups such as Nature Iraq and Birdlife International have destroyed the walls Hussein constructed to drain the marshes. Thursday, July 22, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#21Two fragments of a cuneiform tablet that contain portions of a law code have recently been discovered during Hazor’s 2010 summer excavations. Archaeologists found these fragments while working in a section that shows evidence of a monumental structure dating to the Bronze Age. The text on the fragments is similar to that of the Law Code of Hammurabi and also to that of the Biblical “tooth for a tooth.” Archaeologists expect to uncover more tablets in this location after more digging. The Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael are sponsored by the Hebrew University and the Israel Exploration Society, and take place in the Hazor National Park. Wednesday, July 21, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#21Plans are underway for restoration of Jewish catacombs beneath the gardens of Rome’s Villa Torlonia to begin by the end of 2010. Archaeologists and Jewish authorities in Rome hope to eventually open the catacombs to the public. The catacombs were discovered during construction of the gardens of Villa Torlonia in 1918. Jewish iconography can be seen on the amazingly well-preserved frescos on the walls throughout the catacombs; symbols include the seven-branched menora, shofar, ark with the law tablets, etrog, lulav, circumcision knife, cruse of oil and matzot. Wednesday, July 21, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#20The summer season of excavations at Tel Megiddo in Israel has brought together various participants from around the world. So far, 27 layers of civilization have been uncovered at the site in the Jezreel valley. Dig volunteers recently received a visit from the excavation’s patron, 80-year-old Lord Michael Allenby, and his wife Lady Sara Allenby of Britain. Lord Allenby is the great-nephew of Field Marshall Edmund Allenby who was the commander-in-chief of the British troops who entered the region through the Megiddo Pass in 1918, ending the Turkish control of the region. Tuesday, July 20, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dailynews.asp#19Recent archaeological excavations in Beni-Sueif in Upper Egypt have uncovered a 3,000-year-old temple dating to the reign of Rameses II. Within this temple, archaeologists found ten cartouches (a hieroglyph indicating a royal name) of Rameses II and a relief stating that the ruler had built the temple for himself. Archaeologists also found numerous mud-brick structures, terracotta statues of gods and goddesses, pots and lamps all within the temple. Rameses II ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1213 B.C. and is acknowledged as one of Egypt’s most significant rulers and had the nickname of ‘the Great Ancestor’. Monday, July 19, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/how-bad-was-jezebel.aspFor more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. But just how depraved was Jezebel? Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/solomon-socrates-and-aristotle.aspIs it possible that the earliest existing picture of a scene from the Bible also includes the philosophers Socrates and Aristotle as onlookers? In the building known as the House of the Physician in Pompeii, excavators found a wall painting clearly depicting King Solomon seated on a raised tribunal and flanked by two counselors. Author Theodore Feder believes these two counselors to be Socrates and Aristotle. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/dogs-buried-at-ashkelon.aspWhat explains Ashkelon’s 700 partial or complete dog carcasses from the fifth century B.C., the largest animal cemetery of any kind known in the ancient world? Author Lawrence Stager examines the archaeological evidence. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/canaanites-and-philistines.aspDuring the first half of the second millennium B.C., Askhelon was one of the largest and richest seaports in the Mediterranean, with probably 15,000 inhabitants. Author Lawrence Stager discusses how a silver calf excavated at Ashkelon illuminates the period when the Canaanites and Philistines ruled the city. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/reviews/review-dead-sea-scrolls-full-history.aspJerome Murphy O’Connor reviews The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History, Volume 1, by Weston W. Fields. Even though the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered only 62 years ago, much of their early history has been shrouded in obscurity. Details of persons and places were compromised by focus on the scrolls themselves, and on occasion deliberate deception facilitated the continuation of illegal, but highly profitable, excavation. It became clear that the only way to acquire clarity would be to record critically the testimony of the original eye-witnesses. Some had already died, others were getting old, and this would be the last opportunity. Fields took up the challenge, and this is the first volume of the resulting detailed oral history of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/the-garum-debate.aspNine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Author Hershel Shanks asks: Was this God’s revenge? Did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70? Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=6Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Author Hershel Shanks asks: Was this God’s revenge? Did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70? Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=8Editor Hershel Shanks discusses the difficulties of politics, protesters and protecting the extraordinary artifacts unearthed by a bulldozer on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=10Columnist Ronald Hendel grieves the recent inclusion of Pentacostal and Evangelical groups in the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), saying, “The battle royal between faith and reason is now in the center ring at the SBL circus.” Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=11Columnist Gregg E. Gardner points out that much of what we know about Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity is drawn from literary sources, while archaeology is often relegated to the background—tasked to fill in the lacunae of the texts. But because words alone cannot express everything that is meaningful, it is also useful to promote material culture to the foreground in the study of religion. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=12Leonard J. Greenspoon finds amusing and ironic uses of the Biblical phrase “the valley of the shadow of death” in the popular news media. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/reviews/review-temple-mount-sacred-esplanade.aspBiblical scholar James F. Strange reviews two books: Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade, edited by Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar and Jerusalem’s Temple Mount: From Solomon to the Golden Dome, by Hershel Shanks. As oversized productions featuring critical texts, beautiful and informative photographs, and in the case of Shanks’s book, drawings, reconstructions, tables and charts, these two books address the same audiences, namely, those who want scholarly detail but also sumptuous photographs on almost every page. Friday, June 18, 2010 http://www.bib-arch.org/news/eshel-obit.aspHanan Eshel, a world-renowned expert in the archaeology and history of both the First and Second Temple periods passed away on April 8, 2010, at the age of 51 after a long battle with cancer. He was buried the same day at Kibbutz Ma‘ale Hahamisha. Friday, June 18, 2010