Archaeological News - General

[Resource Manager]

Thread:

 

Archaeological News

 

News items relating to recent discoveries in other countries (uncategorised) in relation to the Jews and Jewish Nation including up-dates of past discoveries.

[Resource Manager]

CBS/AP/ January 3, 2013, 3:11 PM

 

Ancient Manuscripts Indicate Jewish Community Once Thrived in Afghanistan

 

"JERUSALEM - A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.

 

On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records.

 

Researchers say the "Afghan Genizah" marks the greatest such archive found since the "Cairo Genizah" was discovered in an Egyptian synagogue more than 100 years ago, a vast depository of medieval manuscripts considered to be among the most valuable collections of historical documents ever found.

 

Genizah, a Hebrew term that loosely translates as "storage," refers to a storeroom adjacent to a synagogue or Jewish cemetery where Hebrew-language books and papers are kept. Under Jewish law, it is forbidden to throw away writings containing the formal names of God, so they are either buried or stashed away.

 

The Afghan collection gives an unprecedented look into the lives of Jews in ancient Persia in the 11th century. The paper manuscripts, preserved over the centuries by the dry, shady conditions of the caves, include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era, which was written in Hebrew letters."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

 

By Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor | LiveScience.com – 12 hrs ago

 

"Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town's citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

 

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with "various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels" inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.

 

"The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans. They had buried their hoards inside the citadel," Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained. [see Photos of the Buried Treasure]

 

Artezian, which covered an area of at least 3.2 acres (1.3 hectares) and also had a necropolis (a cemetery), was part of the Bosporus Kingdom. At the time, the kingdom's fate was torn between two brothers —Mithridates VIII, who sought independence from Rome, and his younger brother, Cotys I, who was in favor of keeping the kingdom a client state of the growing empire. Rome sent an army to support Cotys, establishing him in the Bosporan capital and torching settlements controlled by Mithridates, including Artezian."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Top 20 Biblical Archaeology Events and Discoveries of 2012

 

Noah Wiener • 01/11/2013

 

"I hope that everyone in the Biblical archaeology community enjoyed the holidays and is having a wonderful start to the new year. I wanted to take the time to look back at some of the biggest Biblical archaeology news stories, events and discoveries of 2012. I’ve put together links to 20 stand-out Biblical archaeology moments in 2012, and I would love to hear which discoveries intrigued you most, and what you’d like to hear more about in 2013. So please, share your ideas in the comments section below!

 

-Noah Wiener

 

BAS web editor

 

**The stories below are listed in no particular order and all are available for free in Bible History Daily**"

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Interested in the future of archaeology? Learn about Cyber-Archaeology directly from the leaders in the field. A must-read for anyone directing, participating or interested in archaeological fieldwork.

 

Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past

 

In this free eBook, pioneering researchers at the University of California, San Diego’s Calit2 laboratory showcase cutting-edge archaeological methods that are helping create a new and objective future of the past.

 

By Thomas E. Levy, Neil G. Smith, Mohammad Najjar, Thomas A. DeFanti, Albert Yu-Min Lin and Falko Kuester

 

Continued

 

Note: You will have to provide an email address (also your name) to download the book. In so doing you also may receive updates from BAR - as example, current news items (usually daily)

[Resource Manager]

Searching for the Lost Royal City of Nubia in Northern Sudan

 

Published on Jan 15, 2013

 

Contact William Foreman

 

"ANN ARBOR—Geoff Emberling is doing what few archaeologists do anymore in a world that has been worked over pretty well by picks, trowels and shovels. He's searching for a lost royal city.

 

The ancient capital was ruled by the kings of Nubia, which now lies in northern Sudan, just south of Egypt. Little is known about the kings who suddenly appeared on the historical stage about 800 B.C. and conquered all of Egypt before eventually fading back into the desert.

 

"We have no idea where these kings came from," said Emberling, a research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. "They basically appeared out of nowhere."

 

Nubia, also known as Kush, was one of Africa's earliest centers of political authority, wealth and military power. But because of the lack of information about Nubia, it hasn't been part of the bigger discussion about the rise and fall of civilizations in the way that Egypt and Mesopotamia have."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Further Link:

A LOST ROYAL CITY IN NUBIA

Article created on Wednesday, January 30, 2013

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Modern Mummification Sheds Light on Ramses II

By Adela Talbot

January 31, 2013

"Some millennia ago, Yes might have been the object of worship in ancient Egypt. Today, Yes – a modern, domestic house cat – is helping shed light on the practice of mummification and the lives of ancients, such as Ramses II, the most celebrated pharaoh of Egypt.

Emerging from a study looking to determine whether Ramses II had ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a chronic inflammatory disease of the spine which makes vertebrae look dense in radiographs, the study of Yes started when a graduate student asked Western professor Andrew Nelson to mummify his pet, who passed away from pancreatitis.

Since, Nelson, associate dean of research and operations in Western’s Department of Anthropology, and associate dean in the Faculty of Social Science, has led the Yes investigation, looking to determine whether changes that happen to tissues are part of the pathological process or related to mummification."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

debbrownbyz YouTube Channel including:

 

- The Archaeological Resource Cataloging System (ARCS)

 

- Providing for Access to and Preservation of Archaeological Information using Digital Technology

 

- Digital Archaeology and the 100-Year Archive

 

- Discussion on Managing Archaeological Data

 

- Ur Digitization Project

 

- Archaeological Data and Small Projects

[Resource Manager]

A NEW CHAPTER OPENS IN THE STUDY OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

Article created on Sunday, February 3, 2013

Dr John MacGinnis, a specialist in Assyrian civilisation at Cambridge University’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, will fly to the city of Erbil in north east Iraq. En route he will stop off in Turkey where for more than a decade he has been involved in the excavation at the Neo-Assyrian site of Ziyaret Tepe, the ancient garrison town of Tushan.

The capital city of today’s Kurdish Autonomous Region, Erbil is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has retained its name (variously as Urbil, Arbil and Irbil) for more than 4,000 years. At its centre is a mound or tell that dates back more than 7,000 years. Such mounds, made by the continuous building and rebuilding of mud brick structures, are characteristic of the sites of Assyrian and other ancient near eastern cities.

Book launch

In Erbil Dr MacGinnis will launch his latest book Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources, a work documenting the history of this extraordinary city from the first references dating to the third millennium BC up until the time of Alexander the Great. He will also take part in meetings with archaeologists working for the Kurdish Regional Government which is investing substantial effort in re-establishing the cultural and social identity of a region that was for many years closed to outsiders under the Saddam regime and subsequent political upheavals.

“There is a huge amount to be learnt about the Assyrian civilisation from investigation of the thousands of Assyrian sites in north east Iraq, which was the hub of the empire. These sites reflect every aspect of the civilisation – from royal palaces to centres for worship, from farming settlements to fortifications. Some are well known to local people, others have yet to be identified,” says Dr MacGinnis.

The opening up of the Kurdish Autonomous Region – a region roughly half the size of Wales that stretches from the River Tigris to the Zagros Mountains – to archaeological enquiry was one of the key themes to emerge from a conference held at Cambridge University last December. It was the first international conference ever to focus on the provincial archaeology of the Assyrian empire."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Article:

The Origins of the Olive Tree Revealed

Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff

WriterDate: 05 February 2013 Time: 07:14 PM ET

"The olive was first domesticated in the Eastern Mediterranean between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago, according to new research.

The findings, published today (Feb. 5) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are based on the genetic analysis of nearly 1,900 samples from around the Mediterranean Sea. The study reveals that domesticated olives, which are larger and juicier than wild varieties, were probably first cultivated from wild olive trees at the frontier between Turkey and Syria.

"We can say there were probably several steps, and it probably starts in the Levant," or the area that today includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, said study co-author Gillaume Besnard, an archaeobotanist at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. "People selected new cultivars everywhere, but that was a secondary diversification later."

From biblical times, the olive tree has served as a symbol of sacredness, peace and unity. Archaeologists have unearthed olive pits at sites dating to about 8,000 years old. And dating as far back as 6,000 years ago, archaeologists find evidence of olive oil production in Carmel, Israel, Besnard said."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

More on Nubia, Kush:

Mini-pyramids of the kingdom of Kush: Archaeologists discover 35 burial chambers in Sudan desert with fascinating links to Ancient Egypt

By DANIEL MILLER

PUBLISHED: 18:17 GMT, 7 February 2013 | UPDATED: 10:06 GMT, 8 February 2013

"Archaeologists excavating a site in Sudan have discovered 35 pyramids revealing fascinating links between the bygone Kingdom of Kush that once existed there and ancient Egypt.

The pyramids, which date back around 2,000 years, are smaller than most Egyptian examples with the largest being 22 feet in width and the smallest, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being just 30 inches.

The site in Sedeinga, northern Sudan, was part of the ancient kingdom of Kush which shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire.

One factor that has surprised the team was how densely concentrated the pyramids were. In a single area of 5,381 square feet, roughly the size of a basketball court, they found 13 pyramids.

Sadly the condition of the pyramids has suffered from the presence of a camel caravan route and the long passage of time and none of the top sections remain intact.

Capstones, depicting either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb, who have originally been placed at the top of the pyramids."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

New archaeological site found in Ras Al Khaimah

Work on Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road halted to protect archaeological artefacts

By Sara Sabry, Staff Reporter Published: 21:11 February 10, 2013

"Abu Dhabi: Graves dating back to 2000BC have been unearthed during the construction of the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road project in Ras Al Khaimah, Gulf News has learnt.

The Sieh Al Herf site, next to Al Salhiya Road, just off Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road in Ras Al Khaimah, was discovered in October. It contains graves, ancient tombs and archaeological artefacts.

The Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed project passes by about ten features of the archaeological site, including two graves. The first is an 18m-long horseshoe shape, and the second is W-shaped. Other tombs are still under investigation."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Posted by sherri in Cracked Pot Archaeology, Paul's Shipwreck on Malta

CORNUKE’S FAULTY COMPUTER MODEL OF PAUL’S SHIPWRECK ON MALTA: An Exercise in Digital Guesswork

Gordon Franz

This article is dedicated to my Maltese and American friends searching for the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck on Malta.

St. Paul’s Day – February 10, 2013

Introduction

Have you ever watched a news broadcast where the meteorologist says that the next day there would be clear blue skies and it would be sunny all day? The presenter shows the radar screen, the forecast, and boasts how accurate their equipment is, so you plan a picnic at your favorite park for that day. Halfway through the picnic, however, the weather turns nasty with thunder and lightning and a torrential downpour! Forecasting weather is very unpredictable, more an art than science, even with sophisticated equipment.

Robert Cornuke presents a weather-related computer model of Paul’s shipwreck on Malta in his book, The Lost Shipwreck of Paul (2003: 184-193). I offer this objective critique of this model because of the serious nature of the issues involved.

During a Parliamentary debate on Malta in 2005, the Honorable Gavin Gulia asked the Prime Minister of Malta a Public Question (PQ 14720) about an affidavit that was sent to the United States Federal District Court in the state of Colorado for a trial between the former US Ambassador to Malta, Kathryn Proffitt, and Robert Cornuke. The reply to the Public Question states that:
 

“[The] Honourable Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said that he is informed that the affidavit was sent to safe-guard the reputation of the Armed Forces of Malta and of its officers because these had been misquoted in Bob Cornuke’s publication.“ (emphasis and highlight mine).

 

Since the issue has required the involvement of the government of Malta, let me add some additional analysis to the discussion that I hope will be helpful to interested parties.

The Computer Model on Malta

On Robert Cornuke’s third trip to Malta he gained access to “a very expensive and sophisticated computer program” at the Rescue Coordination Center of the Armed Forces of Malta on May 29, 2002. It was his hope that the data from this specialized computer model would “objectively speak to us across the millennia and trace the, until now, uncertain path of the biblical event of Paul’s journey from Crete to Malta” (2003: 184, plates 14-15; cf. Acts 27:8-28:1).

Continued

 

H/t: BiblePlaces Blog

[Resource Manager]

Geneticists Estimate Publication Date Of The 'Iliad'

Joel N. Shurkin, ISNS Contributor

 

Date: 26 February 2013 Time: 06:11 PM ET

(ISNS) -- "Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the Western world's most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written.

The text is Homer's "Iliad," and Homer -- if there was such a person -- probably wrote it in 762 B.C., give or take 50 years, the researchers found. The "Iliad" tells the story of the Trojan War -- if there was such a war -- with Greeks battling Trojans.

The researchers accept the received orthodoxy that a war happened and someone named Homer wrote about it, said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary theorist at the University of Reading in England. His collaborators include Eric Altschuler, a geneticist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in Newark, and Andreea S. Calude, a linguist also at Reading and the Sante Fe Institute in New Mexico. They worked from the standard text of the epic poem."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Heart Disease a 4000-Year-Old 'Serial Killer'

Monday, 11 March 2013

Bianca Nogrady

ABC

"The diseased arteries of ancient mummies are challenging modern assumptions about the causes of cardiovascular disease.

Whole-body CT scans of 137 mummies from different countries, cultures and lifestyles spanning 4000 years of history has found evidence of hardened arteries in at least one-third of the mummies.

The international study, published today in the Lancet, calls into question the assumption that cardiovascular disease is a uniquely modern disease resulting from poor diet and lifestyle choices.

"I'd say we've shown heart disease is a serial killer that's stalked mankind for 4000 years," says lead author Dr Randall C. Thompson, attending cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City.

The mummies included individuals from ancient Egypt, ancient Peru, the Ancestral Puebloans of the southwest America, and the Unangan of Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

Critically for the study the Unangan people lived a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

"Some people believe that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle should be more natural for our genetic machinery than the artificial food and inactivity that we have," says Thompson.

"[but] three out of the five of the Aleutian mummies had these calcifications, the sediment that forms in the arteries when the disease happens."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

March 12, 2013 1:51 pm

Centuries Ago, A Cat Walked Across This Medieval Manuscript

"While pawing through a stack of medieval manuscripts from Dubrovnik, Croatia, University of Sarajevo doctoral student Emir O. Filipović stumbled upon a familiar set of splotches marring the centuries-old pages. Years ago, a mischievous kitty had left her ink-covered prints on the book. Filipović explains the finding:"

Continued

[Resource Manager]

2,400-Year-Old Myths of Mummy-Making Busted

By Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer

LiveScience.com – Fri, Mar 22, 2013

"Contrary to reports by famous Greek historian Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians probably didn't remove mummy guts using cedar oil enemas, new research on the reality of mummification suggests.

The ancient embalmers also didn't always leave the mummy's heart in place, the researchers added.

The findings, published in the February issue of HOMO – Journal of Comparative Human Biology, come from analyzing 150 mummies from the ancient world.

Mummy history

In the fifth century B.C., Herodotus, the "father of history," got an inside peek at the Egyptian mummification process. Embalming was a competitive business, and the tricks of the trade were closely guarded secrets, said study co-author Andrew Wade, an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario.

Herodotus described multiple levels of embalming: The elites, he said, got a slit through the belly, through which organs were removed. For the lower class, mummies had organs eaten away with an enema of cedar oil, which was thought to be similar to turpentine, Herodotus reported. [see Images of Egyptian Mummification Process]

In addition, Herodotus claimed the brain was removed during embalming and other accounts suggested the heart was always left in place.

"A lot of his accounts sound more like tourist stories, so we're reticent to take everything he said at face value," Wade told LiveScience."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Cologne Revives Jewish Heritage Piece by Piece

 

By Etienne Balmer (AFP) – 1 day ago

 

COLOGNE, Germany — "After long being sidelined for Roman excavations, an archaeological dig in western Germany has unearthed myriad traces of daily life in one of Europe's oldest and biggest Jewish communities.

 

From ceramic dishes and tools to toys, animal bones and jewellery, some 250,000 artefacts have so far shed light on various periods in 2,000 years of the city of Cologne's history.

 

And they include many piecing together Cologne's little-known but rich Jewish history.

 

But plans to display the findings, discovered since 2007 by head archaeologist Sven Schuette's team at the 10,000 square-metre (32,800 square-foot) city centre dig, in a new museum have proved divisive.

 

Berlin already hosts a large Jewish museum, and critics argue that Cologne cannot afford a new cultural project when its coffers are already in the red.

 

"For a very long time, archaeologists quite simply ignored the Jewish past of Cologne," Schuette told AFP.

 

"Anything that wasn't of Roman origin wasn't excavated, since the Middle Ages were of little matter and Jews weren't supposed to have played any role," he lamented.

From the 10th to 12th centuries, Cologne, today Germany's fourth-largest city, was one of Europe's biggest cities, even ahead of Paris and London, with about 50,000 inhabitants."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Herod the Great: Friend of the Romans and Parthians?

Jason M. Schlude explores how King Herod manipulated his position between two regional powers

Jason M. Schlude   •  03/29/2013

"Often we think of Herod the Great in relation to ancient Rome. We understand the king as steadfast in his loyalty to this western imperial power – and rightly so. Herod’s behavior routinely betrayed his Roman interests, and inscriptions attest to and advertise this allegiance by identifying him with such titles as “Friend of the Romans.” It is entirely appropriate then to apply the modern label “Roman client king” to Herod, as scholars have done for so long."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Largest Palace of the Kingdom of Kush

04/04/2013

"The biggest so far recognized the royal palace from the time of the biblical kingdom of Kush discovered in early March in Sudan Mission Research Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, led by Dr. Bogdan Zurawski.

The discovery was made on the right bank of the Nile between the third and fourth cataracts in Sonijat, in the Sudanese region of Tergis.

"It's a huge building, which previously tested fragment has five thousand. Square meters. Structure is the largest known ancient buildings in the middle of the Nile valley. On the surface it mean two monumental stone blocks - the heaviest I have ever used in the Nubian architecture" - said Dr. PAP Bogdan Zurawski of the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Culture Academy.

In 1998, the same mission Sonijat stone found in the temple and the city of Cushitic. After this discovery, there was no room for Polish researchers doubt that today the name of the region Tergis be associated with the ancient town Tergedus mentioned in the description of Nero's centurions expedition of 60 AD, contained in the sixth book of "Natural History" of Pliny the Elder. Zurawski went even further, suggesting that Tergis / Tergedus the city Trgb known from expeditions to Nubia Pharaoh Psametik II in 593 years BC, which shows the royal palace."

 

(Google Translation - Full Article in Polish)

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Posted by Andrew Howley of NG Staff in Explorers Journal on May 1, 2013

The “Dialogue of Civilizations” conference in Guatemala brought together archaeologists studying five ancient cultures to discuss their similarities and differences and what they can tell us about human society as a whole. You can still be a part of the conversation, commenting on this post or tweeting using #5Civilizations.

"On the final day of the conference, after two days of individual presentations on ancient China, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Maya, all the presenters and hosts sat together on stage to discuss the nature of civilization and what we can apply today from the lessons of yesterday, or as the tagline for the Dialogue put it, how to view “the past as a window to the future.” Two days later, sitting on top of Temple IV in Tikal, looking out over the city’s ruins and miles and miles of jungle canopy, the group engaged in another conversation, centered around the collapse of civilizations."

Pulling from both of those, and the experience of recapping the presentations in these blog posts, here are the main questions and themes that seemed to arise from the Dialogue. Leaving the conference there was a distinct feeling that this was simply the beginning of the conversation. Keep it going in the comments below.

Part 1: What Is “Civilization”?

Part 2: Why Did Ancient Civilizations Build Such Huge Monuments?

Part 3: Is Every Civilization Destined to Collapse?

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Elephant's Tomb in Carmona May Have Been a Temple to the God Mithras

May 10, 2013 — "The so-called Elephant's Tomb in the Roman necropolis of Carmona (Seville, Spain) was not always used for burials. The original structure of the building and a window through which the sun shines directly in the equinoxes suggest that it was a temple of Mithraism, an unofficial religion in the Roman Empire. The position of Taurus and Scorpio during the equinoxes gives force to the theory.

The Carmona necropolis (Spain) is a collection of funeral structures from between the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. One of these is known as the Elephant's Tomb because a statue in the shape of an elephant was found in the interior of the structure.

The origin and function of the construction have been the subject of much debate. Archaeologists from the University of Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain) have conducted a detailed analysis of the structure and now suggest that it may originally not have been used for burials but for worshipping the God Mithras. Mithraism was an unofficial religion that was widespread throughout the Roman Empire in the early centuries of our era."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

News Brief

Underground Tunnel Discovered at Sobibor

June 6, 2013 7:39am

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — "Polish and Israeli archaeologists discovered traces of an underground tunnel at the site of the former death camp in Sobibor.

The tunnel, whose discovery was announced on Wednesday, ran from a barracks to outside the camp fence. It may have been dug by the prisoners of the Sonderkommando who worked in the camp burning the corpses of murdered Jews.

The archeology work at Sobibor is directed by Wojciech Mazurek of Chelm, Poland, and Yoram Haimi of Israel."

Continued


 

[Resource Manager]

Peter J Reilly, Contributor

TAXES | 6/03/2013 @ 5:03PM |592 views

A Bit Of Ancient History Dead Sea Scrolls In Tax Court

"The Dead Sea Scrolls were one of the most fascinating discoveries of the twentieth century.  They provided new grist for generations of biblical scholars like the recently deceased Geza Vermes who translated the Scrolls into English.  Not surprisingly the name of Dr. Vermes  never came up in US tax litigation, but not so the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Dead Sea Scrolls were the subject of tax litigation in the early sixties when the First Circuit upheld a decision of the Tax Court.

What Were The Dead Sea Scrolls Doing In Worcester ?

I might have been able to resist this particular trip in the wayback machine, were it not for the address I noticed in the Tax Court decision. One of the parties in the case, The Archbishop Samuel Trust, was located at 9 Piedmont Street in Worcester, Mass.  The two trustees were the eponymous Archbishop Athanasius Y. Samuel, a Metropolitan and Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and Charles Manoog who ran a plumbing supply business at the same location."

Continued