Archaeological News - General

[Resource Manager]

Earliest Recorded Use of Zero is Centuries Older Than First Thought

 

 9/14/2017 10:00:00 PM

 

"The concept and associated value of the mathematical symbol ‘zero’ is used the world over as a fundamental numerical pillar. However, its origin has until now been one of the field’s greatest conundrums."

 

Continued

 

[Resource Manager]

The Phoenician Alphabet in Archaeology

 

What did the Phoenicians record with their innovative script?

 

Josephine Quinn   •  09/12/2017

 

These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus…brought with them to Greece, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks.—Herodotus 5.58

 

"Herodotus’s story of the foundation of Greek Thebes by the Tyrian prince Cadmus may be more myth than history, but the detail about the alphabet is true: in fact, the Phoenician script was borrowed by the Greeks and then the Romans, as well as the Israelites."

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[Resource Manager]

PUBLIC RELEASE: 22-SEP-2017

 

Ancient Textiles Reveal Differences in Mediterranean Fabrics in the 1st Millennium BC

 

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

"Textiles represent one of the earliest human craft technologies and applied arts, and their production would have been one of the most important time, resource and labour consuming activities in the ancient past."

 

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[Resource Manager]

Of interest:
 

PUBLIC RELEASE: 22-SEP-2017

 

700-Year-Old Saint Myth has been Proven (Almost) True

 

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN DENMARK

 

"Scientists confirm that the age and content of an old sack is in accordance with a medieval myth about Saint Francis of Assisi.

 

For more than 700 years the Friary of Folloni near Montella in Italy has protected and guarded some small fragments of textile."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Black Sea Ghostly Graveyard

Ghostly graveyard of 60 perfectly preserved ancient shipwrecks is found by climate scientists at the bottom of the Black Sea

 

• The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project has been scouring the sea bed of the Black Sea
• The primary focus is to carry out geophysical surveys, but 60 ancient shipwrecks have also been found
• Galleys hail from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, with some ships dating back 2,500 years
• They are almost perfectly preserved due to the lack of oxygen in the Black Sea's 'dead zone' 

 

By Harry Pettit For Mailonline

 

PUBLISHED: 19:42 +10:00, 19 September 2017 | UPDATED: 04:05 +10:00, 20 September 2017

 

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[Resource Manager]

Sargon II, "King of the World"

 

"He believed he had been endowed by the gods with an exceptional intelligence, superior to that of the previous kings, including the famous Sargon of Akkad himself. He was convinced that his gods approved his policies. He was a king of justice and, therefore, his wars were just. He was a warlord, who personally led numerous military campaigns, but sometimes delegated the command of an expedition to one of his generals, contrary to what is written. It was natural decorum for him to describe the atrocities as normal episodes in battle descriptions. He used intimidation tactics, a kind of "psychological" warfare in the modern sense of the term: for example, to demoralize the inhabitants of the city that he wanted to conquer, he would display decapitated or flayed victims. He was highly effective in terms of military intelligence and strategy in his quest for victory."

 

See Also: Sargon II, King of Assyria (SBL Press, 2017).

 

By Josette Elayi

Editor of Transeuphratène

Honorary researcher, CNRS

Paris

 

September 2017

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Of interest:

 

The Christian Monks Who Saved Jewish History

 

By: Malka Simkovich

 

September 2017

 

"Many Jews view the Second Temple period as a “filler” period that bridges the biblical period and the rabbinic period. Some figures who appear in the latest strata of the Hebrew Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah are viewed by many of these Jews as proto-rabbis who forged the way into the rabbinic period. Yet it was during the late Second Temple period—the second century BCE through 70 CE—that Jews became especially prolific, writing a vast body of diverse literature that includes the entire body of the Dead Sea Scroll library, the voluminous treatises written by Philo of Alexandria, and the writings of Josephus, not to mention the many other Jewish texts written in Greek.

 

And this only comprises the material that survives to the present day. One can barely imagine how many thousands of other documents were composed and did not survive the two millennia."

 

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[Resource Manager]

@ The Conversation
 

Friday Essay: The Recovery of Cuneiform, the World’s Oldest Known Writing

 

October 6, 2017 6.05am AEDT

 

"It is a little-known piece of history that Saddam Hussein was a great fan of ancient Mesopotamian literature. His enthusiasm for epics written in cuneiform – the world’s oldest known form of writing – can be seen in his own efforts at writing political romance novels and poetry. Hussein’s first novel, Zabibah and the King, blended the Epic of Gilgamesh with the 1001 Nights, and was adapted into a television series and a musical."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Of interest:
 

Second Campaign of Excavations Completed on Roman Wreck Carrying Tin Ingots off the Coast of Brittany

 

10/08/2017 09:00:00 PM

 

"A rare and exceptional site", is how Olivia Hulot, in charge of mission at DRASSM (Department of Underwater and Submarine Archaeological Research), described the Roman wreck of the 3rd century, found 20 m deep, east of Batz Island located off the coast of Brittany in north-western France, where a second campaign of excavations has just ended."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW

 

OCTOBER 11, 2017

 

“Curiosity Cures the Reb:’” Studying Talmudic Medical Discourses in Context

 

by Lennart Lehmhaus in Articles

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Using Parchment to Reveal the Ancient Lives of Livestock

 

Posted by Kathryn Krakowka

 

October 13, 2017

 

"Innovative methods of utilising ancient protein and DNA analysis have revealed new information about medieval parchment and the animals from which they are made.

 

A group of researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the University of York have taken eraser rubbings – left over from the cleaning of medieval manuscripts – and extracted DNA and proteins from the waste. This method means that parts of the manuscript no longer need to be removed for destructive testing."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Skeleton With Oldest Known Case of Leprosy Discovered in Hungary

 

October 22, 2017

 

"A skeleton with the most ancient example of leprosy has been discovered in Hungary. The human remains, which feature a rare set of bone lesions thought to indicate the possible presence of leprosy, were found among 400 historical artefacts during an archaeological dig near the town of Abony-Turjányos dűlő, central Hungary."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

More on:
 

Who Were the Phoenicians?

 

Exploring the Phoenician Empire

 

Megan Sauter    •  10/20/2017

 

"Who were the Phoenicians?

 

Where did they come from? Where did they live? With whom did they trade?"

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Examining Hidden Text in a New Light

 

January 13, 2017

 

" Thousands of years from now, when archeologists unearth the remains of modern civilization, chances are they will focus on our devices. After all, an unbelievable amount of daily life is managed by computers and stored on hard drives and servers—from economic transactions to health records and population data. But like a cassette tape without a player, the challenge will be whether that information can be extracted in a meaningful way." 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Why Written Languages Look Alike the World Over

 

By Michael PriceNov. 16, 2017 , 8:00 AM

 

"What do Cyrillic, Arabic, Sanskrit, and 113 other writing systems have in common? Different as they appear at first glance, they share basic structural features, according to a new study: characters with vertical symmetry (like the Roman letters A and T) and a preference for vertical and horizontal lines over oblique lines (like those in the letters X and W). The explanation appears to be rooted in the wiring of our brain."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Museum of the Bible: A First Look

 

On the high-tech, new museum and the agenda of the family behind it

 

3:00 AM, NOV 17, 2017 | By CHRISTINE ROSEN

 

"What role does the Bible play in Americans’ lives? A century ago the answer to that question would have been straightforward: It was the most important book in the home, perhaps read daily, and the place where major events in a family’s history (births, deaths, marriages) were recorded. It was then—and is now—the most-bought and most-read book in the world."

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[Resource Manager]

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND STATUE OF EGYPTIAN GODDESS ISIS, SATYR’S HEAD AT ROMAN VILLA, NYMPHAEUM IN BULGARIA’S KASNAKOVO

 

November 17, 2017 · by Ivan Dikov · in Ancient Rome / Roman Empire, Ancient Thrace, Antiquity

 

"A 2nd century AD marble statue of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, who was also worshipped in the wider Greco-Roman world, and a marble head of a satyr, a male companion of ancient wine god Dionysus, have been discovered by archaeologists at a Roman villa and nymphaeum near the town of Kasnakovo in Southern Bulgaria."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Why Ancient Mapmakers Were Terrified of Blank Spaces

 

Inventing cities, mountains, and monsters to fill the empty spaces on maps is a centuries-old tradition in cartography.

 

By Greg Miller

 

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 20, 2017

 

"The Indian Ocean is teeming with sea monsters in Caspar Vopel’s 1558 map of the world. A giant swordfish-like creature looks to be on a collision course with a ship, while a walrus with frighteningly large tusks emerges from the water, and a king carrying a flag rides the waves on a hog-faced beast."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

First Greek Fragments of a Nag Hammadi Text Discovered Among Oxyrhynchus Papyri!

 

11/19/2017

 

"Very exciting news came out of a session at the 2017 annual Society of Biblical Literature conference in Boston: Geoff Smith and Brent Landau announced their discovery of the first known Greek fragments of the First Apocalypse of James, a Coptic text known from a Nag Hammadi codex (Codex V) and the famous Codex Tchacos. This early Christian text consists of a dialogue between Jesus and James the brother of Jesus. Scholars have argued that this Coptic text was probably translated from Greek, but until now, no Greek witnesses have been known to exist."

Continued

[Resource Manager]

British Library Publishes Treasure Trove of Hebrew Manuscripts

 

New online collection is venerable library's first bilingual online project, letting users search among 1,300 items in English and Hebrew

 

By RAPHAEL AHREN

 

21 November 2017, 9:33 am

 

"The British Library last week launched a new website showcasing 1,300 Hebrew manuscripts, ranging from ancient Torah scrolls and prayer books to philosophical, theological and scientific works.

 

The new site is the library’s first bilingual online collection, allowing users to search for scans of the manuscripts in Hebrew and English."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Were Israel’s Canaan Dogs Man’s Best Friends 9,000 Years Ago?

 

Rock art in Saudi Arabia showing what appears to be Israel's national breed depicts vivid scenes of man's earliest known use of canines in taking down prey

 

By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN

 

24 November 2017, 8:57 am

 

"Saudi Arabia and Israel may not have formal diplomatic relations today, but some 9,000 years ago there was evidently an open border policy — at least for Israel’s national breed, the Canaan dog."

Continued

 

Also @: Science

These May Be the World’s First Images of Dogs—and They’re Wearing Leashes

 

By David Grimm

 

Nov. 16, 2017 , 8:00 AM

 

"Carved into a sandstone cliff on the edge of a bygone river in the Arabian Desert, a hunter draws his bow for the kill. He is accompanied by 13 dogs, each with its own coat markings; two animals have lines running from their necks to the man’s waist."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Life-Size Relief Replica Stars in Arch of Titus Show in New York

 

Massachusetts sign carver uses 3-D scans and and hi-tech machinery to make striking copy of famous 'Spoils of Jerusalem' bas-relief

 

By RENEE GHERT-ZAND

 

24 November 2017, 10:12 pm

 

"Lindsay Neathawk first saw the Arch of Titus on a visit to Rome in 1998. A teenager at the time, she could not have imagined that two decades later she would make the first hi-tech replica of the ancient monument’s famous “Spoils of Jerusalem” panel commemorating Roman forces’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Holy Temple in 70 CE."

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[Resource Manager]

DUBAI COMBATS ISIS DESTRUCTION WITH 3D PRINTED ARTEFACT RECONSTRUCTIONS AT UN HQ

 

RUSHABH HARIA 

 

NOVEMBER 24TH 2017 - 11:40AM 

 

"When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) wreaked havoc across regions of Syria and Iraq, they also destroyed countless Assyrian, Greek and Roman artefacts in museums and on site.

 

In an effort to preserve the cultural heritage and archaeological sites of the region, institutes such as the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) are 3D printing some of the destroyed objects. Some of the foundation’s work is to be displayed at the “The Spirit in the Stone” digital archaeology exhibition at the UN New York headquarters, inaugurated this week."

 

Continued

[Resource Manager]

Archaeologists May Have Found a Mikveh Near Marseille

 

French researchers say cellar found two decades ago in the town of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux is potentially a medieval ritual Jewish bath

 

By JTA

 

24 November 2017, 10:58 pm

 

"Two decades after the discovery of an ancient cellar near the French city of Marseille, local archaeologists said it is probably the remains of a mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath."

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[Resource Manager]

ASOR

 

Not Just for the Birds: Pigeons in the Roman and Byzantine Near East

 

November 2017

 

By Jennifer Ramsay

 

"When we think of pigeons today, it is generally not with admiration but rather annoyance or even dread of being targeted by them. The original meaning of ‘for the birds’ was that something was worthless, which may be where we get our modern conception of pigeons. Nonetheless pigeons have played a unique role in human history."

Continued