Archeology

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Were the Greek Gods Actually Minoan?

Long before the world of classical Greece, the island of Crete was home to the Minoans, one of the great civilizations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Flourishing especially during the second millennium BCE, the Minoans built impressive palace centers at places like Knossos and participated in extensive trade networks that linked Crete with the Aegean, Anatolian, Egyptian, and Levantine worlds.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/were-greek-gods-actually-minoan/?

Paul and the Slave Girl in Philippi

According to Greek mythology, the god Apollo killed the massive snake Python at Delphi, Greece. Some traditions claim Python to be the child of the goddess Gaea (Earth), who had a sanctuary at Delphi. Following Apollo’s victory, a temple dedicated to him was set up at the site, which replaced Gaea’s earlier sanctuary and appropriated her oracle. For more than a millennium, people sought the prophecies of Apollo’s famous oracle at Delphi: Pythia, a priestess at the temple, who was said to have the spirit of the god.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/paul-and-the-slave-girl-in-philippi/?

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Sacred Circles in Christianity and Buddhism

Archaeologists have discovered dozens of eight-spoked wheels scratched into the floors, walls, and architectural elements of Greco-Roman temples, fountains, and street intersections. A circle divided by lines radiating from a central point, an eight-spoked wheel is a simple form, yet also one that has mystified interpreters. It also happens to be one of the most famous religious symbols of Buddhism.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-rome/sacred-circles-in-christianity-and-buddhism/?

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Who Was Cornelius the Centurion?

Luke, the traditionally accepted author of Acts and the gospel bearing his name, often expanded and further developed theology through the story of a named character. In Acts 10–11, he did so with the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion whose story helped the council in Jerusalem accept that salvation now included both Jews and gentiles.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/who-was-cornelius-centurion/?

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Roman Sanctuary Hidden in “Cave of the Women”

Recent discoveries at Cova Dones, in Spain’s province of Valencia, offer a fascinating glimpse into Roman religious practice, and potentially women-centered worship. Archaeologists have identified around 120 Latin inscriptions dating primarily to the first and second centuries CE, several of which invoke a goddess called Domina, “Lady,” while feminine names and objects associated with textile production add further evidence of women’s presence. According to the University of Alicante, the 120 inscriptions make Cova Dones (“Cave of the Women”) the largest known collection of Latin inscriptions in a cave-sanctuary found anywhere in the Roman Empire.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-rome/roman-sanctuary-hidden-in-cave-of-women/?

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Four Early Rabbis You Should Know

Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Judaism underwent a radical transformation. In the wake of the crisis, a new question loomed large: How were people to express devotion to the God of Israel without the Temple? Ultimately, a reimagined form of Judaism (“rabbinic Judaism”) would take shape in small informal disciple circles centered around Torah study. Although hundreds of rabbis contributed to this development, four figures represent key aspects of the transition.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/four-early-rabbis-you-should-know/?

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Snakes and Lizards as Food and Foe

The Bible has a complicated relationship with snakes and lizards. The serpent tempts Eve in Genesis 3. Fiery serpents afflict the Israelites in Numbers 21. Leviticus 11 places various reptiles within its laws about animals, food, and ritual impurity. However, long before any of these biblical texts were written, prehistoric people living in the southern Levant—identified by archaeologists as the Natufian culture—seem clearly to have thought about reptiles as food.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/snakes-and-lizards-as-food-and-foe/?

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Rings Before Marriage in Hellenistic Jerusalem?

A recent ‘Atiqot article draws attention to a small number of remarkable finds from Hellenistic Jerusalem: four gold ornaments and three bronze earrings recovered from Building 110 in the Givati Parking Lot excavations. Dating to the late third and early second centuries BCE, these objects show some aspect of domestic life in Jerusalem during a period of increased interaction with the wider Hellenistic world.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/rings-before-marriage-in-hellenistic-jerusalem/?

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Fragment of World’s Oldest Peace Treaty Found

On World Peace Day, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced a spectacular find from the world’s oldest surviving peace treaty. A portion of a tablet was discovered near the E building on Büyükkale, the site of the royal palace at the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern-day central Turkey). After a year of study, scholars identified it as part of a copy of the mid-13th century BCE treaty between the famed pharaoh Ramesses II and Hittite king Hattusili III. The fragment joins pieces of the Hittite version (written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time) already discovered at Hattusa, some of them during the earliest excavations of the site between 1906 and 1912.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/fragment-of-worlds-oldest-peace-treaty-found/?

Mind the Gap!

If one were to open a modern printed edition of the Hebrew Bible to a random page, one would encounter a complex layering of information. In addition to the 22 consonants of the Hebrew alphabet, one would see a variety of dots and other markings around, between, and within the letters that convey crucial information about pronunciation, sentence structure, and even the proper way to sing the text.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/dead-sea-scrolls/mind-gap/?

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Second Temple Era Mikveh Found…then Moved

A remarkable archaeological discovery has been made in Kiryat Gat (southern Israel), during excavations ahead of construction in the new Carmei Gat neighborhood. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) uncovered a large ritual bath (mikveh) dating to nearly 2,000 years ago, at the end of the Second Temple period. The IAA says the discovery provides evidence for a previously unknown early Jewish settlement in an area between the Judean lowlands and the northern Negev.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/second-temple-era-mikveh-found-then-moved/?

Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City

It’s made such an enormous impact on Western civilization that it’s hard to fathom how small its population really was—small compared even to the centers of contemporaneous empires to the east and to the west. Of course, I’m talking about Jerusalem.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/ancient-jerusalem/?

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Piety and Prestige in Late Second Temple Jerusalem

For centuries, travelers and pilgrims entering Jerusalem from the north and east had gazed upon the monumental tombs cut into the cliffs of the Kidron Valley. Traditionally, local folklore and religious traditions assigned these towering structures to important figures of the Hebrew Bible, hence the Tomb of Absalom, the Tomb (or Cave) of Jehoshaphat, the Tomb of Benei Hezir, and the Tomb of Zechariah. Modern biblical archaeology offers a very different picture.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/piety-and-prestige-in-late-second-temple-jerusalem/?

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Mining and Merchants in Ancient Arabia

Archaeological work at the site of Al-Ma’mala in Al-Aqiq Governorate, Al-Baha (Saudi Arabia) is beginning to reveal a substantial early Islamic settlement associated with mining, trade, and movement across southwestern Arabia. Reporting after the Heritage Commission’s fourth season of excavation, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) describes Al-Ma’mala as a center for the extraction of gold, silver, and copper across different historical periods. For readers of the Bible, the site presents a picture of economic activity that is consistent with earlier descriptions of the Arabian Peninsula found in the Bible.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/mining-and-merchants-in-ancient-arabia/?

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The Origin of Christianity

Today the concept of “Jewish Christians” may sound like a confusion of two religions. However, to understand the origin of Christianity, one must begin with the population of Jewish Christians who lived during Jesus’ lifetime. In the November/December 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Dead Sea Scroll and early Christianity scholar Geza Vermes explored the origin of Christianity by examining the characteristics of the Jewish Jesus movement to see how it developed into a distinctly gentile religion.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-origin-of-christianity/?

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The Face of God

When people today say, “God sees me,” they are often communicating their sense that God knows what they are going through, e.g., they do not suffer alone. Likely giving rise to that turn of phrase, ancient Near Eastern texts use similar language of divine sight, though complimented by more concrete  formulations where deities literally turn their faces toward humans. A god who looks upon someone turns powerful divine attention toward that person, which was understood to have various consequences: blessing, protection, healing, judgment, or destruction.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/face-of-god/?

The Hidden History of Jerusalem’s Upper Room

Just outside Zion Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City sits a small building considered by many Christians to be the location of Jesus’s Last Supper, and by Jews and Muslims to be the place of King David’s burial. Known today as the Upper Room or Cenacle, it has been a pilgrimage site for nearly a millennium. Now, an Israeli-Austrian archaeological team has identified more than 40 medieval inscriptions and graffiti carved into the walls of the Upper Room, several of which belong to important historical figures.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-places/the-hidden-history-of-jerusalems-upper-room/?

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Love, War, and Diplomacy and the Bronze Age

In an age of social media and 24/7 news coverage, politics has never felt more personal. Yet in his new book, Eric Cline argues that ancient rulers and diplomats were as invested as their modern counterparts in managing their own images, responding to perceived slights, and reading between the lines of official communication (even if dense cuneiform writing often made this difficult!).

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/reviews/love-war-and-diplomacy-and-the-bronze-age/?