More on the Egyptian mummy's Iliad excerpt

OXYRHYNCHUS WATCH: The mummy, the Iliad, and a mysterious death ritual. Archaeologists in Egypt unearthed a sealed packet of the epic poem resting atop a Roman-era mummy, suggesting they may have been used as a magical ward for the afterlife (Taylor Mitchell Brown, National Geographic).

[Professor Serena Perone] agrees that ritualistic use is one possible interpretation.

“Several literary sources mention incantations utilizing Homeric verses for protective or healing purposes,” she says. But in those instances, the texts cited specific lines, not “extensive passages” like an excerpt from the Catalogue of Ships as found atop the Oxyrhynchus mummy.

That sounds about right. One Greco-Egyptian incantation (PGM VII.1-148) consists just of a long list of unconnected lines from Homer. It calls itself "the Homer oracle."And there are other examples using just one or a few lines; notably PGM IV.2145-2240, which quotes three Homeric lines with instructions for using them as a spell inscribed on an iron lamella.

That said, an extended passage from the Catalogue of Ships does not seem like a good candidate for a ritual incantation. But the passage was excerpted and buried with the deceased for some reason. I suspect that our imagination is what is limiting us here. If we do find the reason, it will seem obvious in hindsight.

Background here.

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Dr. Oswaldo Arteaga, 1942-2026

SAD NEWS: Dr. Oswaldo Arteaga, a world reference for Phoenician archaeology in the Axarquía, dies. The archaeologist's relationship with the eastern Costa del Sol began in the 1970s when he became director of the Phoenician-Punic Project within the German Archaeological Institute (Eugenio Cabezas, Sur in English).

Dr. Oswaldo Arteaga Matute, archaeologist, researcher and professor considered a key figure in the knowledge of the Phoenician past of the Axarquía area of Malaga province has died aged 84.

Vélez-Málaga town hall has announced a day of official mourning on Friday 15 May as a sign of recognition and tribute to the man who was named 'adopted son' of the eastern Costa del Sol town in May 2022. ...

His main contributions include excavations at the Mainake-Maenoba sites, in the area of Los Toscanos and Cerro del Mar, as well as the geoarchaeological reconstruction of the ancient mouth of the River Vélez. His work demonstrated that a large part of the current aricultural area around the River Vélez was once a large maritime inlet used by Phoenician navigators more than 2,500 years ago.

Arteaga's pioneering application of geoarchaeological techniques in the Axarquía was one of the most valued contributions by the scientific community. This research model would later be exported to numerous European archaeological projects.

Requiescat in pace.

Cross-file under Phoenician Watch and Punic Watch.

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Was the Great Isaiah Scroll originally two independent "Isaiah" scrolls?

SCROLL MATERIAL CULTURE: The oldest complete biblical scroll ever found was originally split in 2, scholar finds. Study comes as ‘Great Isaiah,’ a 24-foot-long text parchment found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, set to be displayed by the Israel Museum in full for the first time since 1968 (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

In the past, some suggested that the discrepancies between the two parts apparent to the naked eye might have resulted from the scribe transcribing the scroll by copying from different manuscripts. A groundbreaking 2021 study employing artificial intelligence to examine minute differences in the way letters were written suggested that the scrolls were compiled by two scribes who sought to match their styles to each other.

Taking the scholarship a step further, Dead Sea Scrolls expert Prof. Marcello Fidanzio of the Università della Svizzera Italiana says his research shows that the incongruities between the two sections stem from the fact that they were created as two separate scrolls and became one at a later point in time.

“I can now show that the two parts of the scrolls present a different manufacture,” Fidanzio told The Times of Israel in a phone interview ahead of the publication of “The Great Isaiah Scroll: A Voice From the Desert,” which he edited.

If so, the obvious next question is, Why did people make two scrolls of different halves of Isaiah at different times? The ToI article says:

While modern scholars typically view the Book of Isaiah as having two distinct parts — from chapters 1-39 and chapter 40-66 — the division seen in the parchments does not mirror that split.

Hmmm ... not exactly. There is a good case that Second Isaiah commences with chapters 34-35. And chapters 36-39 are obvious imports from the Deuteronomistic History. If in antiquity scribes wrote two different scrolls of Isaiah, one with chapters 1-33 and one with chapters 34-66, that may mean that they had a tradition that the book consisted of two (or more) different books by different authors. Maybe.

For that 2021 AI study mentioned in the quote, see here.

Background on the current Great Isaiah Scroll exhibition at the Israel Museum and (if you keep going) on the scroll itself, is here and links.

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Does West Bank and Gaza antiquities bill violate Israel's international agreements?

ARCHAEOLOGY AND POLITICS: West Bank, Gaza antiquities bill breaks Israel’s international obligations – legal official. As Knesset committee gears up to bring legislation for final votes in plenum, panel’s legal adviser warns it reinforces ‘creeping annexation’ claims; army also opposes it (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

A controversial bill seeking to extend Israeli civilian control over antiquities in the West Bank and Gaza would violate Israel’s international commitments and reinforce claims of “creeping annexation,” according to a position paper by the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee legal adviser.

The bill, which establishes a “Judea, Samaria, and Gaza Heritage Authority” under the Heritage Ministry, was discussed on Sunday to prepare it for its final readings in the Knesset plenum, where it could be voted into law. The committee is set to resume its discussion on Monday and vote on sending the bill to the plenum.

[...]

Background here and links.

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Lost books or just misplaced?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: How Lost Scriptures Hide In Plain Sight (Philip Jenkins).

I have been posting on texts and scriptures as they are lost and found, with an emphasis on gospels and sacred writings. Today, I want to complicate the story by asking how “lost” some texts ever get to be, when they might actually be hiding right in front of us, in plain sight.

[...]

For notices of related posts by Prof. Jenkins, see here and links.

A new edition of the Hymn of the Pearl has come out recently.

I linked to a British Library blog post on Barlaam and Josaphat (various spellings) here, but they have evaporated the post. Shame on them. The link to the Language Hat Blog preserves some of it.

Earlier posts in Prof. Jenkin's current series are noted here and links. Cross-file under Lost Books

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Hussain, Wisdom in the Qur'an (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Wisdom in the Qur'an

Law and Morality from the Bible to Late Antiquity

Saqib Hussain

Oxford Studies in the Abrahamic Religions

£104.00
Hardback
Published: 24 February 2026
288 Pages
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780198911760
[An e-book version is also available.]

Description

This work is the first detailed study of what the Qur'an means by 'wisdom.' It argues that the Qur'an, when it uses the term, is engaging with biblical wisdom discourse as it had been interpreted and understood in late antiquity. Biblical wisdom texts are a category of books in the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, such as Proverbs and Sirach, that emphasize the importance of acquiring wisdom through contemplating the natural world and one's own life experience. The presence of this wisdom genre in the Bible encouraged Hellenistic Jews and early Christians to embrace the Greek philosophical notion of natural law, the idea that what is morally right and wrong is known innately, and confirmed through divine revelation.

Over subsequent centuries, church fathers and rabbis continued to debate what the relationship between divine revelation and natural law / wisdom ought to be. While the church fathers argued that much of the legal content of the Hebrew Bible should no longer be followed now that Jesus had restored natural law to its rightful position as arbiter of right and wrong, the rabbis insisted that God is at liberty to impose through Scripture whatever laws he wishes onto humanity. This book asserts that when the Qur'an invokes wisdom, it engages in that debate, and ultimately presents a relationship between Scripture and natural law that is close to the Christian conception, insisting that law must be interpreted within an ethical framework that is innate to human morality.

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Orlov, Cursed Creation in the Book of Job and the Book of the Watchers (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Cursed Creation in the Book of Job and the Book of the Watchers

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 205

Author: Andrei A. Orlov

This study constitutes the first comprehensive analysis of the connections between the Book of Job and Jewish apocalypticism. It examines the motifs of creation’s corruption through curses and its restoration through the revelation of cosmological knowledge, as depicted in one of the earliest Jewish apocalyptic texts, the Book of the Watchers, and their thematic parallels in the Book of Job. The study demonstrates that both the Book of Job and the Book of the Watchers exhibit striking similarities in their portrayals of the corruption and restoration of God’s creation.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-76074-5
Publication: 20 Apr 2026
EUR €109.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75925-1
Publication: 21 May 2026
EUR €109.00

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Archaeologists have excavated First-Temple-era remains on the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeologists spotlight first Solomon’s Temple-era artifacts ever found on Temple Mount. Carried out in rare cooperation with Muslim authorities, series of digs in recent years at flashpoint site yielded unprecedented proof of biblical-time activity, scholars say (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

Israeli archaeologists on Thursday presented new details of what they said were the first tiny artifacts, unearthed in situ on the Temple Mount, ever conclusively dated to the time of the First Temple over 2,600 years ago. The discoveries were made during limited scientific excavations carried out atop the flashpoint Temple Mount in the past decade, the first of their kind since the British Mandate.

The highly sensitive Israeli excavations were conducted with minimum publicity in cooperation with the Islamic Waqf which manages the incendiary holy site. The artifacts excavated from the mount, detailed in a paper and presentations at a conference at Hebrew University, are said to include olive pits, animal bones and pottery fragments dating to the time of the First Temple, between the 8th and 6th Centuries BCE.

[...]

As the article notes, the Temple Mount Sifting Project has been doing great work for many years sifting ancient artifacts out of the rubble that was illicitly excavated and dumped by the Waqf. I have posted on its discoveries many times.

But this article is about actual scientific archaeological excavations quietly undertaken on the Temple Mount since 2007. Given the nature of the site, the original strata would likely have been very mixed up anyway, but archaeological excavation can at least recover whatever stratigraphic information there is.

I know that I have said many times, No excavation on the Temple Mount until we have non-invasive and non-destructive technologies to do it. But in this case the Waqf was undertaking authorized infrastructive maintenance that required some digging. It was quite right for the IAA to use the opportunity to do some archaeology in the process.

I am pleased, but not surprised, to learn that the archaeologists have recovered material from the First Temple period in these excavations.

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How far does textual criticism of the Torah get us?

FOR SHAVUOT: Do We Know the Original Text of the Torah? (Emanuel Tov, TheTorah.com).

Well, we can theoretically arrive at a 3rd century B.C.E. archetype by using the conservative Masoretic Text (MT) as the default and comparing it with non-harmonistic variants in the Septuagint (LXX), Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and Qumran fragments. But textual criticism offers little help in understanding what the text of the Torah looked like at an earlier stage, or how and when it was composed.

I agree that textual criticism can, at best, only take us back to an edition of the Pentateuch from the late Persian or early Hellenistic periods. To get behind it we have to resort to source criticism, where the temptation is to atomize the text beyond the surviving evidence.

Incidentally, I edited 4QGenesis^h and 4QGenesis^k in my doctoral dissertation and published them in DJD 12 (1994).

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West Bank and Gaza archaeology bills in the Knesset

ARCHAEOLOGY AND POLITICS: Knesset panel ends without advancing West Bank and Gaza antiquities bill, will resume discussions next week (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

The Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee ends without a vote to send the controversial “West Bank and Gaza” antiquities bill, which many say amounts to de facto annexation, to the plenum for its final approval.

[...]

My interest is in ancient Judaism rather than Israeli or other politics, so I try to stay out of these things. But for those interested, these articles fill out the current picture:

Government approves NIS 250M plan to develop heritage sites in the West Bank (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel)

West Bank, Gaza antiquities bill advances as government okays $86 million heritage plan. Knesset committee working to finish controversial legislation, which critics say would mark an unprecedented step toward annexation, for final votes in the plenum on Sunday (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

The bill aims to establish a “Judea, Samaria and Gaza Heritage Authority” under the Heritage Ministry. The body is also set to have the power to operate in parts of the West Bank governed by the Palestinian Authority (Areas A and B).

'De Facto Annexation' Despite Professional Opposition, MKs Propose West Bank Antiquities Authority Operate in Gaza. The army's representative told the Knesset Education Committee meeting that applying the law to Gaza 'could be perceived as characteristics of de facto annexation.' She added that the plan is not 'consistent' with the Trump plan for the Gaza Strip's rehabilitation (Noa Shpigel, Haaretz). Most of this article is behind a subscription wall.

Background here and links. Related post here.

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Shavuot 2026

THE FESTIVAL OF SHAVUOT (Weeks, Pentecost) begins tonight at sundown. Best wishes to all those celebrating.

Last year's Shavuot post is here, linking back to previous years' posts. For biblical references, see here.

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Redating an Iron Age fortress at Ein Hatzeva

ARCHAEOLOGY: How ancient seeds are rewriting the history of biblical-era trade with Arabia. New radiocarbon dating of Ein Hatzeva fortress on ancient trade route in the Arava suggests it was built 2,800 years ago by the Kingdom of Israel, shoring up Bible’s account (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

New research from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) uses C14 dating of preserved organic samples taken from one of two ancient fortresses in the Arava in southern Israel. The findings suggest they were built by the biblical kingdom of Israel almost 2,800 years ago, and not by the Assyrian empire decades later.

The underlying article in Levant is behind the subscription wall, but the ToI article has a link to the abstract.

PaleoJudaica posts dealing with (other periods at) Ein Hatzeva are here and here.

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Rogue Classicism reloaded

THE ROGUE CLASSICISM BLOG, run by David Meadows, is undergoing refurbishment. Regular reader know that I consult this blog and refer to it frequently. It's still under construction, but go and have a look.

I like the new formatting. More compact and easier to follow. Sad to see the Latin headings go, but probably better for overall clarity. Well done, David!

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