BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW now has its May-June issue out. Nothing in the online version is of immediate paleojudaic interest, but there are discussions of the "Jehoash Inscription," debates about the "minimalist" school of biblical studies, and an announcement of a $10,000 contest for a convincing forgery (really).

MORE ON THE MUSEUM PLUNDERING:

"Plunder of museums began a decade ago" (Gulf News via the Command Post)

This article by Paul Watson appears to have come out in the Los Angeles Times, which I'm not registered to access, and it has been picked up in a couple of other places. Lots of interesting rumors involving a belly dancer, gold artifacts, a chained skeleton, and the usual brutalities of Saddam's regime. I link, you decide.

FLYSERVER, where I keep my files for PaleoJudaica, is currently down - I presume temporarily! This means that you can't access the "About PaleoJudaica" link to the right. However, at this moment (no promises for the next moment), Blogger's archives are working, so any readers who are so moved can access the "About" file here in my first posting for this blog.

Technology. Bah!

THE DINUR CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN JEWISH HISTORY (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has an online Jewish Resource Center with more that 6000 links to 30 areas of Jewish history, including:

Archaeology
Biblical History
The Second Temple Period
Online Texts
Journals Relating to Jewish History
Bibliographies

and more. Highly recommended.

LOST CUNEIFORM ARCHIVE:

"Looters May Have Destroyed Priceless Cuneiform Archive" (via the Biblical Archaeology Society)

Excerpt:

Looters at Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities pillaged and, perhaps, destroyed an archive of more than 100,000 cuneiform clay tablets -- a unique and priceless trove of ancient Mesopotamian writings that included the "Sippar Library," the oldest library ever found intact on its original shelves.

Experts described the archive as the world's least-studied large collection of cuneiform -- the oldest known writing on Earth -- a record that covers every aspect of Mesopotamian life over more than 3,000 years. The texts resided in numbered boxes each containing as many as 400 3-inch-by-2-inch tablets.

The Sippar Library, discovered in 1986 at a well-known neo-Babylonian site near Baghdad, was one of the archive's crown jewels. Dating from the sixth century B.C., it comprised only about 800 tablets, but it included hymns, prayers, lamentations, bits of epics, glossaries, astronomical and scientific texts, missing pieces of a flood legend that closely parallels the biblical story of Noah, and the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian lawgiver.

"This is the kind of discovery that one waits 100 years to see," said Yale's Benjamin Foster, curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection. "And now we'll never have another chance. It's a tragedy of the first order." Foster said only about two dozen of the Sippar Library tablets have been fully analyzed and published.

MORE ON IRAQI ANTIQUITIES

"Let the Market Preserve Art" (OpinionJournal, via the Arts and Letters Daily)

"Iraq's 'most wanted' stolen relics" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Chalabi's men hand 'rescued' artefacts back to museum" (The Independent)

"Barbarians at the gates" (The Guardian)


"Officials convinced museum was looted to order"(The London Times)

"Research in Iraq still a dubious possibility" (The Daily Northwestern)

"Ancient Samarra Stands Largely Untouched" (Newsday.com via Archaeologica News)

And from the satire file:

"Iraqi artifacts returned by Winona Ryder" (Tallahasse Democrat)

A WATERING SPOT FOR ANCIENT NAZARETH IS DRYING UP:

"Mary's Well waters down to a trickle" (Times Picayune)

NAZARETH, GALILEE -- After a bumper season of winter rains, the streams and rivers of Galilee are brimming with water for the first time in a decade. But there is one sacred and mysterious Galilee water source, Mary's Well in Nazareth, whose waters are a mere trickle of what they were in Jesus' time.

Nazareth is the Galilee town where Jesus grew to manhood, and the place from which he set out across the nearby hills and valleys in his brief but revolutionary ministry. Mary's Well marks the site in Nazareth where Orthodox Christians believe the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus. And it is undoubtedly a place Jesus often visited with his mother in his childhood.

This is a Christian pilgrimage site, but it seems there is some archaeological evidence that the pool does go back to the Roman era:

Yardena Alexandre, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, supervised two seasons of excavations at the site, undertaken during the renovations.

"We found remains from the Mameluke, Crusader and Roman period," she said. "The Roman finds were very minimal, remains of a few wall stubs and the remains of an ancient water channel. But from the Crusader period, there was an impressive structure, a well house built over the water cistern. Among the finds were hundreds of broken glass bracelets and hundreds of coins, which were most likely thrown into the well house by pilgrims and visitors. The coins indicate a presence at the well house from the Roman, Crusader, Mameluke and Ottoman period."

THE WEB PAGE OF THE JEWISH NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY has an online searchable catalogue and displays of "ancient" (i.e., medieval to modern) maps of Jerusalem, a collection of ketubbot (marriage contracts) going back to the eleventh century, and an "Online Treasury of Talmudic Manuscripts." I can't get the last item to work. Your browser needs to be configured to handle Hebrew fonts, but mine is and that's not the problem.

TORAH SCROLLS IN THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM:

An article found in lots of places (I've taken this from CNN on 23 April: "TV employee charged with smuggling Iraqi art") has the following interesting photo and caption:

Civilians inspect Torah scrolls in a vault of Iraq's National Museum after looters broke in and went on a rampage.

Torah scrolls in the Baghdad Museum. And they seem to have survived. Wish I knew more about them.

IRAQ ANTIQUITIES ARTICLES:

"Iraqis say US ignored pleas to halt museum looting" (ReutersAlert)

(This is the first account I've seen of the looting of the Baghdad museum which takes testimony from the commanding officer in charge of securing the area. Despite the article's title, it sounds to me as though it will be pretty hard to maintain negligence.)

Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schwartz, commander of the tank battalion which fought Iraqi forces around the museum as Saddam Hussein's rule crumbled, said the U.S. military was "absolutely not" to blame for the thefts from the world-renowned museum.

[...]

The "Battle of the Museum" began on April 7 when U.S. forces took control of an intersection less than 500 metres (yards) away. They met fierce resistance and three days of fighting with Fedayeen militia and Special Republican Guard followed.

By the time it was over, looters operating right under the nose of U.S. forces had emptied the museum of priceless antiquities documenting the development of mankind in ancient Mesopotamia, one of the world's earliest civilisations.

[...]

"I was responsible for securing this site," Schwartz said outside the museum on Thursday. "But you can't just charge into a city straight to the museum, you have to secure the zone first, and we were taking some pretty heavy casualties."

Schwartz said he was aware the museum was a protected site and had orders to "identify it and ensure its integrity".

[Dr Donny] George [director-general of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities] said one of his staff had run to a U.S. tank to tell them about the looting, only to be told: "It is not our responsibility".

Schwartz recalled a similar incident but said the man had been suspected of belonging to the Fedayeen.

Schwartz said his men from the 3rd Infantry Division around the museum came under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. He said one U.S. soldier was killed and 35 wounded.

"There were 30 to 50 Fedayeen defending the compound. Once it was defended, it lost its protected status," he said.

In other words, the U.S. troops were under fire and facing "fierce resistence"- in which many were wounded and one died, and in the fog of combat they could not even be sure who were allies and who were enemies. If this account turns out to be accurate, I see no way they could be blamed for making the museum a low priority.

Another article:

"Iraq and Ruin" (Christian Science Monitor)

UPDATE (17 June): The URL for the first article has gone dead, so I have replaced it with the Google cache link.

"SECOND TEMPLE SYNAGOGUES" is a cool website owned by Donald D. Binder. It includes the full text of his book Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period (Atlanta: The Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), an image gallery of Second Temple synagogues, and many other goodies. I don't have time to profile his library of resources in detail right now, but I'll try to say more about parts of it later.

BY THE WAY, today is PaleoJudaica's one-month anniversary. Time flies and all that.

IRAQ ANTIQUITIES (ETC.) UPDATE:

"Some looted artifacts find way home" (San Mateo County Times)

"IRAQ MUSEUM LOOT SHOWS UP HERE" (New York Post)

"Assyrian statue, going cheap" (The Guardian)

"Iraq: The Next Adventure Travel Destination?" (Frommer's)


"Iraq's Dead Teacup" (Tech Central Station)

"Experts Call for Guards at Iraqi Museums" (The Guardian)

ARCHAEOLOGY ONLINE is a blog by Anita Cohen-Williams. There's an article on the blog and its owner in Archaeology Magazine.

HERSHEL SHANKS AND BEN WITHERINGTON III will be speaking about the "James Ossuary" on April 30th in Washington D.C.:

An evening with Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III about the headline-making archaeological discovery, the "James ossuary," the oldest evidence of Jesus.

What: The authors of the new bestseller The Brother of Jeusus (Harper SanFrancisco, 2003), Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III, will discuss major new archaeological evidence for Jesus at a talk Wednesday evening, April 30, at Washington National Cathedral.

Earlier I noted their new book on the ossuary. The $%&£(%^ Blogspot permalink isn't working at the moment, but it was on Monday, 21 April, so just scroll down.

TIME MAGAZINE has an article in its current issue on the Iraq antiquities lootings:

"The Taking of Iraq's Heritage"

Could the U.S. have stopped the looting of the country's priceless antiquities? The answer is not that simple

It's balanced and covers most of what we know or guess at present. Worth a read.

SOME OF THE LOOTED ANTIQUITIES ARE TURNING UP:

"FBI: Looted Iraqi Antiquities Surfacing" (ABC News)

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE BIBLE: I wasn't going to link to the two reviews of the following book in the Review of Biblical Literature because the book didn't seem particularly relevant to this blog. But after reading the reviews I see that it at least does move into the period of paleojudaic interest and the topic, after all, is very relevant to current events (and how often can you say that about Mesopotamian studies?). So here it is:

Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations
Younger Jr., K. Lawson and Mark W. Chavalas, editors

"CAESAR TO THEODOTUS: 'LET IT BURN'":
a survey of recent commentary on the Iraqi museum lootings from a Slate bulletin board. Is this looting like the burning of the library of Alexandria? Should Saddam's government have armed the museum staff? Should American soldiers have shot a few looters to maintain order? Scroll down to Friday, Apr. 18.

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION is a website on biblical studies which tracks breaking news daily and which also gets major scholars to contribute essays. Some recent examples of the latter include:


"Flavius Josephus and the Pharisees"
By Steve Mason

"Another look at the James Ossuary"
by Bruce Chilton


"Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity"
by Larry Hutado


"Petra"
by Philip Hammond


"The Myth of a Gentile Galilee"
by Mark A. Chancey

There's more, so do have a look.

"LOST TREASURES FROM IRAQ" - a slide show of looted antiquities, under construction on the website of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

HIDDEN ARTIFACTS?

The article "U.S. Set to Rebuild Iraq Banking System" (the Mercury News, etc.) has the following intriguing paragraph:

One vault was in the Central Bank, which had caught fire before the looting. By some accounts, it holds some of Iraq's most precious items: ancient gold artifacts that were taken from the National Museum. It may also contain an accounting of Iraq's nebulous debt burden and possibly records of Iraq's overseas deposits or hidden accounts.

RECENT ARTICLES FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS:

"Bible-Era Artifacts Highlight Archaeology Controversy" (on the "James Ossuary" and the "Joash Inscription")


"Jesus' Brother's 'Bone Box' Closer to Being Authenticated"

Also, on Ioudaios-L, Torrey Seland has noted the publication of The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus & His Family by Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III

IRAQI ANTIQUITIES UPDATE:

"Iraqis return 20 looted treasures" (MSNBC)

"Iraq to rid ancient Babylon of Saddam brick by brick" (Reuters AlertNet UK)

"TREASURE HUNT HAS ITS REWARDS" (New York Post)

MORE ON BAR KOKHBA REVOLT COINS

Rare coins from second Jewish rebellion found (Atlanta Journal Constitution via Archaeologica News)

DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT IN TENNESEE:

"Dead Sea Scrolls fragments highlight Murfreesboro exhibit of historic biblical texts"

The Tennessee exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls has been mentioned off-and-on in the press recently. This article gives more detail on it than the others I've seen.

THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has a searchable website that has abstracts of articles but, alas, not the articles themselves.

BAR KOKHBA ERA FIND:

"Archaeologists find coins from Bar Kochva era in Ein Gedi Reserve" (Jerusalem Post �requires free registration; via Archaeologica News

A wallet containing nine coins from the period of Bar Kochva was discovered in a small cave at the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve on the eastern periphery of the Judean Desert.

Thrilled archaeologists reported that amongst the find, three coins were minted by Jewish authorities from the period of Bar Kochva.

Haaretz has an article with a photograph of one of the coins:

"Bar Kochba era mint coins found in Ein Gedi Nature Reserve"

The BBC also has an article on the find (with a photo of a coin, but it doesn't say it's one of the discovered coins):

"Israeli caves yield ancient coins"

BUSY WEEKEND: family and social stuff, plus I have twenty-some essays from my Old Testament class to get started on, and the lawn kind of needs to be mowed. But I'll try to slip in a little blogging. The war seems to be winding down and I hope there will be no more major upheavals worth blogging on. I will still try to note interesting stories, but not with the same vigor as in the last week. Francis Deblauwe and Nicholas Postgate also have websites that are keeping track of media coverage of Iraq's antiquities. (Links via the wesite of Ralph W. Klein).

Meanwhile, here are some recent Iraq pieces:

"Why a Museum?"(Opinion Journal via Tim Blair)

"The history of Ur"(Christian Science Monitor)

"Taking Stock in Baghdad" (Archaeology Magazine)

"Iraq back on the tourist map" (London Times; requires paid registration outside the U.K.)

"The new dark age" (the Guardian)

"Editorial: Iraq's rebirth at biblical Ur" (The Globe and Mail)

"Pennsylvania archaeologists to help Iraq museum" (the Mercury News)

DISPIRITED IRAQI JEWS TRY TO CELEBRATE PASSOVER (newsobserver.com)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - "Next year," they say, "in Jerusalem."

The rallying cry of centuries of Jews is a fading echo this Passover in Baghdad, among a disappearing, dispirited remnant of an ancient and important Jewish community.

"Somebody used to know how to make 'seder'" - the traditional Passover dinner - "but not me," a sad young woman, at 37 one of youngest Iraqi Jews in Baghdad, said Thursday, first day of the seven-day holiday commemorating the Jews' flight to freedom from Egypt.

...

What of Baghdad's Jews? Will they leave now that they're freer to do so?

"They're too old," he [Sasson Salah] said. "I think in five years, at the most, there will be no Jews left in Baghdad."

If so, it will sound the knell for a community that stretches back millennia, to the "Babylonian captivity" of 10,000 Jews seized from the conquered kingdom of Judah and brought here in 597 B.C.

SADDAM AND NEBUCHADNEZZAR -- the end of the matter.

(From Day by Day).

A BOOK REVIEW from the Denver Journal:

Jobes, Karen H. and Mois�s Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Richard S. Hess)

"ACCUSATIONS SWIRL AROUND IRAQI LOOTING" (The Globe and Mail)

As they picked through the smashed pottery and ransacked cabinets inside Iraq's National Museum this week, curators at the internationally famous facility noticed disturbing evidence that the worst thefts were not the work of random looters.

They found glass-cutting tools on the floor. Replica artifacts that the curators had switched with genuine treasures were left untouched in their display cases while the genuine artifacts that had been hidden in vaults were missing. The vaults had been opened with keys.

This suggests an organized heist that was likely planned in advance by conspirators outside Iraq, according to leading academics who gathered in Paris yesterday at the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Where did the looters get the keys?

UPDATE ON UNESCO MEETING IN PARIS:

"UNESCO Chief Urges Iraqi Artifact Embargo" (Washington Post)

Looters had keys to Iraqi antiquity vaults (Baltimore Sun)

MORE ON THE RENOVATION OF THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK (from Art Museum Network News):

Israel Museum Announces Project to Restore and Upgrade Historic Shrine
Tuesday, April 1, 2003 � Monday, June 30, 2003

The Israel Museum

JERUSALEM, (amnnews.com) � Israel, Jerusalem, March 2003 - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem today announced plans to restore its Shrine of the Book, the building which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are considered to be among the most important archeological treasures uncovered in the last century and perhaps the most important patrimonial treasures of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The renovation project will refurbish the Shrine, ensuring an optimal environment for the preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and enhancing its display facilities to improve the experience of viewing the Scrolls. Construction begins on April 1, 2003, and will require that the Shrine remain closed to the public for approximately one year. During this time, treasures from the Shrine will be on display in a comprehensive exhibition, Envisioning the Temple: Scrolls, Stones, and Symbols, which opens on May 30, 2003, at the Israel Museum.

CURRENT NEWS AND EDITORIALS ON IRAQI ANTIQUITIES:

"Museum says theft planned" (Charlotte Observer)

"The thief of Baghdad" (Washington Times)

"Pilfered treasures a hard sell?" (News24)

"U.S., scholars spar on looting of artifacts" (Philadelphia Inquirer)

"Barbaric Iraq results" (Charleston Gazatte)

"Bush Panel Members Quit Over Looting" (Washington Post)

"Victims of Civic Passivity" (Washington Post)

"Museum Pillage Described as Devastating but Not Total" (New York Times)

"A Job for Unesco" (New York Times)

"An Army for Art" (New York Times)

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I have time to dig up right now. The UNESCO panel meets today in Paris. I'll post info as it comes it.

HAPPY PASSOVER! (And Easter, coming up. And - belatedly - vernal equinox for any neopagan readers. Etc.)

IRAQI ANTIQUITIES ROUNDUP FOR TODAY:

Some interesting editorials and articles can be found at the following links:

GlennReynolds.com

"Rumsfeld Denies U.S. Blame for Iraq Museum Plunder" (Reuters)

"Yale-driven petition aims to protect Iraq antiquities" (New Haven Register)

"Curators Appeal for a Ban on Purchase of Iraqi Artifacts" (New York Times)

"Plundered Iraqi treasures head for illegal market" (SwissInfo)

"How Iraq Can Recover its Plundered Treasures" (Pacific News Service)

"Ancient Conflict Played Out in Ur" (about a meeting of the Iraqi opposition at this ancient site, perhaps with an eye to its historical significance; Washington Post)

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT SOCIETY now has a call for papers up for its September meeting in Birmingham. I am co-chair of the NT and Second Temple Judaism Seminar for the conference.

TC: A JOURNAL OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM has the following article in its most recent (2002) issue:

Johann Cook, The Translator(s) of the Septuagint of Proverbs

MUSEUM LOOTING THE WORK OF BAATHIST OFFICIALS? Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi dissident now back in Iraq, reports the following in his War Diary in the New Republic online (via Instapundit again:

I spoke by sat-phone with friends in Baghdad... One friend told me that the looting of the National Museum--something that cut deeply into me--was the work of newly deposed Baathist officials, who had been selling off our patrimony as they saw their days were numbered. As the regime fell, these (ex-)Baathists went back for one last swindle, and took with them treasures that dated back 9,000 years, to the Sumerians and the Babylonians. One final crime perpetrated by Saddam's thugs.

If true, this puts the whole episode in a rather different light.

PALEOJUDAICA BREAKS 1000! We're now at a little over 1000 visits since PaleoJudaica opened three weeks ago. Greetings new readers from Google and other searches! For more information on this blog see the "About PaleoJudaica" link to the right. Do come back. I sometimes even actually talk about ancient Judaism!

MORE EDITORIALS on the museum lootings by Michele Catalano, the "Mother of All Webloggers," from the Command Post Op/Ed page:

"a 7,000 year old text or a seven year old child?"

and in the Boston Globe:

"Crimes Against History"

UPDATE ON MASADA ANNIVERSARY: the news items I mentioned yesterday appear to have been wrong. According to Josephus, the fall of Masada was on 15 Nisan (either 73 or 74 C.E.), which this year is this Thursday, 17 April (also the first day of Passover). You can read Josephus' account of the fall of Masada by following this link to book VII of the Jewish War and starting at chapter 8.

@�&*$^*% BLOGGER froze my screen three times this afternoon and is now refusing to publish more than a screen at a time. I'll have more when they get the problem fixed.

IN DEFENSE OF THE TROOPS AND THE LOOTERS (from the New York Post, again via Instapundit). Some excerpts:

As Col. Eric Wesley, executive officer of the 3rd Infantry's 2nd brigade (the mechanized unit that was the first to reach Baghdad and which controls most of the city), said yesterday, "You've got to look at the looting in the context of almost 30 years of oppression. It's orderly. It's mostly directed at government buildings, and it has already attenuated to a significant degree."

Capt. Greg Robertson of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, explains the true situation in detail: "To say there that there is anarchy is not true, to say that there is looting is true. But if we shot looters, we'd be shooting women and children left and right."

...

In the meantime, real stories have been missed or swamped - including the true security situation here in the city, which is far more tenuous than the anti-American left or celebratory right seem to understand. Says Capt. Greg Robertson, "Baghdad is 'under control,' but it is not 'secured' in a technical military sense. (The definition of 'secured' is when you can maintain maneuverability in all areas without opposition.)"

...

That's why the American forces here cannot devote more troops to police work in liberated areas, and why they deem the city unsafe for the return of relief agencies.

Yes, even the most benign and directed looting can quickly turn ugly - and some of it is indeed quite awful (obviously, the looting of the National Museum and Library is a tragedy). Still, you can surely forgive the people of Baghdad for taking advantage of the disappearance of a brutal and oppressive state to (in the words of Col. Willie Williams) "take back some of what had been stolen from them."

As I said earlier, I can see this, although I am glad that the locals are displaying adaptability - as Neal Stephenson would say - in finding ways to restore order (see previous post).

"NO STONE UNTURNED IN HUNT FOR LOOTED TREASURES" (from the London Times):

THE British Museum, accused in the past of being one of the world�s leading looters of imperial treasures, is to come to the aid of a sister institution devastated by war.

Downing Street has asked a leading academic from Britain�s national archaeological collection in Bloomsbury to draw up a list of antiquities that may have been looted from the Baghdad museum so that details can be distributed to soldiers patrolling the borders of Iraq.

Iraq�s priceless national collection traced the origins of modern civilisation in ancient Mesopotamia - the birthplace of writing, cities, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. Its virtual destruction in little more than a day of lawlessness is seen as a disaster comparable to the 5th-century destruction of the library at Alexandria, or an earlier sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258.

The pillage of the collection is considered to be not just Iraq�s loss but the world�s, and has distressed Western archaeologists and historians as much as those in Iraq. One � Professor John Russell, of the Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston - broke down in tears yesterday as he described the treasures lost.

There are hopes, however, that at least some of the collection may be recovered if the looters can be intercepted before they leave Iraq.

The United States will take a "leading role" in protecting Iraqi antiquities and will help to repair damage to artefacts and the National Museum of Iraq, which was looted last week, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said.

"The United States will be working with a number of individuals and organisations not only to secure the facility, but to recover that which has been taken and also to participate in restoring that which has been broken.

"The United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general, but this museum in particular."

TWO CHEERING NOTES:

"Muslims save Baghdad's Jewish community centre from looters" (via Instapundit):

Iraqi Muslims came to the aid of Baghdad's tiny Jewish community yesterday, chasing out looters trying to sack its cultural centre in the heart of the capital.

"At 3am, I saw two men, one with a beard, on the roof of the Jewish community house and I cried out to my friend, 'Hossam, bring the Kalashnikovs!'" said Hassam Kassam, 21.

Heither Hassan nor Hossam, who is the guard at the centre, was armed at the time but the threat worked in scaring off the intruders.

Two hours later, the looters returned again and Hassan Kassem used the trick once more.

and Lysistrata vs. the looters (via the Command Post):

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Some people are surrendering the booty they took in the Dura district of Baghdad, perhaps in response to a rumored edict by a Muslim cleric forbidding Iraqi wives from having sex with looter husbands.

Muslim clerics have been demanding that ill-gotten goods be surrendered, though none here could confirm the sex-ban order, said to have been issued in Najaf. One cleric said the rumor of the edict was widespread and that it would be consistent with Islamic teaching.

It seems the Iraqis are coming up with creative strategies for solving their own problems. Bully for them.

ONE MORE: According to CNSNews.com and other sources, tonight (14 April) is the anniversary of the suicides of the defenders of Masada (at least according to Josephus) in the early 70s C.E.

BLAIR COMMENTS ON LOOTED MUSEUM in an address to Parliament (from Voice of AmericaNews):

Mr. Blair also expressed concern about the looting of Baghdad's archeological museum, and he said efforts are on to deal with the problem.

"There is a conference happening this Thursday at which the director of the British Museum will attend in order to see what we can do and of course we will also be making provisions to make sure that no stolen works of art can come onto the market," he said. "So we will do everything we possibly can in relation to this and we understand that it is a serious responsibility for us."

UNESCO also hopes to enter Iraq soon to assess the damage (from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). There is a meeting in Paris scheduled for Thursday (from Reuters) - presumably the one the Prime Minister refers to above.

Meanwhile, "US Forces and Iraqis Begin Joint Patrols of Baghdad" (from the New York Times).

Enough for now! Goodnight.

"U.S. 'WILL REPAIR' IRAQI HERITAGE" (from the BBC via the Command Post):

The United States has pledged to recover and repair the priceless antiquities looted from Iraq's national museum in the wake of the entry of US troops.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Baghdad museum was "one of the great museums in the world" and that the US would take a leading role in restoring it.

Read the whole thing, as the saying goes.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Grossfield, Bernard
Schiffman, Lawrence H., ed.
Targum Neofiti 1: An Exegetical Commentary to Genesis, Including Full Rabbinic Parallels

Rowland, Christopher
Christian Origins: The Setting and Character of the Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism

Roddy, Nicolae
The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context

ROUNDUP OF BAGHDAD MUSEUM COVERAGE:

These links have some commentary on the looting of the Baghdad Museum:

The Independent
CNN
FindLaw's Legal Commentary
Interview with Donald Rumsfeld which discusses the looting
The Guardian
The Washinton Post

They are generally much harder on the U.S. troops than I have been. I think I agree with the comment of art historian John Russell in the Washington Post:

"I wasn't there [when the looting took place], and I don't know what the situation was, but I do know what's at stake," Russell said. "The need for policing should have been obvious. If it was impossible to do, then I'm sympathetic; if it wasn't, then I'm really irritated."

There needs to be an investigation.

A small positive note from the Guardian article:

Books seemed to have escaped, and in a remote corner a few Islamic manuscripts and even some Hebrew texts remained unscathed. So too do the items in basements the looters failed to penetrate.

This is the only item of good news, though the museum staff were unwilling to say exactly what was saved, perhaps for fear of prompting more looting.

And, finally, some indication from Fox News that the situation in Baghdad is improving:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With lawlessness easing in Baghdad, several hundred Iraqi policemen volunteered Monday to take part in joint patrols with U.S. troops to quell looting and violence in the capital.

A SMALL RAY OF HOPE?

The New York Times reports

American archaeologists said that they had lost contact with their Iraqi colleagues in recent weeks. The last they had heard was that several antiquities officials and researchers had barricaded themselves in the Baghdad museum. They had hidden some of the most precious artifacts elsewhere, and protected others with sandbags.

My emphasis. Let's hope that at least the hidden items are still secure.

A PROFILE OF BIBLICAL SCHOLAR AMY-JILL LEVINE is in the Denver Post. Last week Professor Levine was the speaker for the Theologian in Residence program, a consortium in Kansas. Professor Levine,

a self-described "Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt," is committed to exposing anti-Jewish, sexist and heterosexist theologies.

Read it all.

INSIDE THE WRECKAGE OF THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM:

A civilisation torn to pieces

Baghdad, reports Robert Fisk, is a city at war with itself, at the mercy of thieves and gunmen. And, in the city's most important museum, something truly terrible has taken place

13 April 2003

They lie across the floor in tens of thousands of pieces, the priceless antiquities of Iraq's history. The looters had gone from shelf to shelf, systematically pulling down the statues and pots and amphorae of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks and hurling them on to the concrete.

Our feet crunched on the wreckage of 5,000-year-old marble plinths and stone statuary and pots that had endured every siege of Baghdad, every invasion of Iraq throughout history only to be destroyed when America came to "liberate" the city. The Iraqis did it. They did it to their own history, physically destroying the evidence of their own nation's thousands of years of civilisation.

Not since the Taliban embarked on their orgy of destruction against the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the statues in the museum of Kabul perhaps not since the Second World War or earlier have so many archaeological treasures been wantonly and systematically smashed to pieces.

Lots more information in the article, but this gives you the general picture. I've been thinking all morning about what to say about this. [Blogger was down this morning so I'm posting in the afternoon.] I am profoundly saddened by the loss of all these precious relics. But I also don't think that Robert Fisk, is being very fair in his analysis (nothing new there). I don't exactly blame the looters: they're going after anything that represents the Baathist government to them and not being very discriminating about it. And perhaps they're running amok beyond that � it's hard to tell from the news reports. If we'd spent decades under a ruthless dictatorship, I'm not sure we'd be behaving much differently. So what exactly are the American troops supposed to be doing about the looting? I hardly think that putting one tank and two soldiers in front of the museum would have prevented it- as suggested by the deputy director of the museum according to today's London Times (requires paid registration outside the U.K.), unless those soldiers were prepared to shoot the looters � but current rules of engagement have"prohibited the use of deadly force to prevent looting", and rightly so. The antiquities are not worth the price of even a single human life. Allied forces are trying to recruit local leaders to help, but many of these are tainted by past connections (as Fisk points out). I see very little, if anything, that could have been done to prevent the looting in the short term, and it's the short term in which the massive damage is being done. The bottom line, in my humble opinion, is that this is yet another consequence of the evil of Saddam and the Baathists, and if it's part of the price of liberating the Iraqi people from them, then it's worth it. I say that with a heavy heart indeed.

What do you think?

BAGHDAD MUSEUM STRIPPED (from the New York Times via The Command Post):

Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum Of Its Treasure

By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 12 � The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.

...

Nothing remained, museum officials said, at least nothing of real value, from a museum that had been regarded by archaeologists and other specialists as perhaps the richest of all such institutions in the Middle East.

I feel sick.

"The U.S. in the Bible
Are America and Great Britain mentioned in Bible prophecy?"

Uh, no.
Apologies for some of the banner ads above.

THE CURRENT ISSUE OF BIBLICA online has an article of paleojudaic interest:

John J. KILGALLEN, �Hostility to Paul in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13,45) � Why?� , Vol. 84(2003) 1-15
Throughout Acts 13�14 Luke brings to the reader�s knowledge opponents of Paul who are called " the Jews" . The present essay attempts to clarify the meaning of this short-hand identification of Paul�s Jewish opponents. It seems best to understand these particular Jews in the light of zealotry which has its roots in centuries of vigorous defense of Jewish religious convictions.

MOSUL'S MUSEUM LOOTED (from the Guardian). And the ground floor of the Baghdad Archaeological Museum has been as well. See the article from ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and two from the Charlotte Observer here and here.

BAGHDAD MUSEUM LOOTED (from Boston.com).

Lehigh University Archeology Professor Calls Looting of Ancient Artifacts a 'Tragedy of Great Proportions'
By Ascribe, 4/11/2003 14:27

BETHLEHEM, Pa., April 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- Reports coming out of Baghdad (and just confirmed by ABC News) indicate that mobs have looted Iraq's largest acheological museum amid a breakdown in civil authority following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Lotters helped themselves to treasures in the National Museum of Iraq, which housed the remains of ancient civilizations, one of the richest archeological heritages in the world.

''It's a tragedy, a disgrace,'' says David B. Small, professor of sociology and anthropology at Lehigh University and an expert in ancient civilizations. ''The world's heritage is being destroyed, and the public information will quite possibly be lost to us forever.''

Small predicts that some of these artifacts will end up in the hands of private collectors, which means that ''priceless, invaluable artifacts will be lost to the public. It is a tragedy of great proportions.''

If true, this is a terrible tragedy. But so far I can't find any confirmation on the ABC News web page.

CONCERNS OVER IRAQI ANTIQUITIES in the Guardian:

US lobby could threaten Iraqi heritage

Donald MacLeod
Thursday April 10, 2003

Apparent lobbying by American art dealers to dismantle Iraq's strict export laws has heightened fears about the looting of the country's antiquities as order breaks down in the last stages of the war.

After the last gulf war a lot of treasures disappeared onto the black market and archaeologists in Britain and the US are concerned this will be repeated on a much larger scale in the power vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein, as happened in Afghanistan. For poor Iraqis the temptation to sell stolen antiquities will be greatly increased if it is known there is a ready market in the west.

Iraq, which encompasses Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, is so rich in remains dating back 10,000 years that it has been described as one vast archaeological site.

Dominque Collon, assistant keeper in the department of the ancient near east at the British Museum, said today that alarm bells had been set ringing by reports of a meeting between a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), with US defence and state department officials before the start of the war. The group offered help in preserving Iraq's invaluable archaeological collections, but archaeologists fear there is a hidden agenda to ease the way for exports post-Saddam.

The ACCP's treasurer, William Pearlstein, has described Iraq's laws as "retentionist", and the group includes influential dealers who favour a relaxation of the current tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities.

�

This week an international group of archaeologists petitioned the UN and Unesco, a cultural education body, to ensure that whatever body oversees post-war Iraq takes steps to preserve its priceless heritage from destruction and looting.

They urge that security personnel be posted throughout Iraq at its many archaeological sites and museum storage facilities as soon as possible to halt future thefts. "In the aftermath of the previous gulf war, Iraqi archaeological sites and museum collections suffered from extensive looting, the fruits of which continue to disappear into the international black market for illegally procured antiquities," they say.

There's more, so read it all, including the linked petition. This story makes me pretty nervous. Getting antiquities collectors involved in reforming Iraq's antiquities laws sound to me about like getting the fox to help out in the henhouse. And I'm all for having armed guards at the antiquities sites. But I don't have much confidence in the U.N. either and I'm not sure it's wise to involve them. I wish that House resolution weren't still in committee.

SCHOLAR FRANZ ROSENTHAL DIES AT 88 (from the Yale Daily News).

Near Eastern Languages and Civilization professor emeritus Franz Rosenthal, a noted Arab scholar and esteemed mentor, died April 8 in Branford, Conn., after a battle with cancer. He was 88 years old.

Rosenthal, who taught at Yale from 1956 to 1985 and became a Sterling professor in 1967, published prolifically, including a "Grammar of Biblical Aramaic" and a three-volume translation of Ibn Khaldun's "Muqaddimah."

"He was a scholar of tremendous international reputation," religious studies professor Steven Fraade said.

Rosenthal was one of the premier Aramaic scholars of the twentieth century as well.

LOOTING OF SCROLLS: according to this New York Times article on looting in Baghdad, "Ancient Jewish biblical scrolls were stolen from a museum annex" yesterday.

THE CURRENT ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES online has several paleojudaic articles:

Flavius Josephus on the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Paul Spilsbury
pp. 1-24

The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim before 70 CE
David Instone-Brewer
pp. 25-44

[phgr][agr][rgr][agr][ngr] or [beta][agr][rgr][agr][dgr] in Philo's QG
Howard Jacobson
pp. 158-159

High-Priestly Succession in Jewish Apologetics and Episcopal Succession in Hegesippus
T. C. G. Thornton
pp. 160-163

The full-text PDF files for all of these can be accessed on the linked page. There are lots of book reviews too and I don't have the patience to list the relevant ones, except to note that my book Descenders to the Chariot is there. Again, the same page has the PDF files.

THIS IS A "VULNERABLE MOMENT" for Iraqi antiquities according to this ABCNews article:

Some fear a valuable location like the Baghdad museum, which was a government-run building and dates back to the 1920s when it was founded by a British diplomat, could be an easy target. The museum is located near one of Saddam's presidential palaces in central Baghdad on the west bank of the Tigris River.

Baghdad Museum Likely Target

"It's a beautiful, sprawling building with an elaborate gateway out front," said [specialist John] Russell. "It's L-shaped and has three to four courtyards."

After the previous Gulf War in 1991, archaeologists estimate that looters seized thousands of ancient artifacts and then sold them on the black market. The Baghdad museum remained safe from looters during that conflict, although nine of 13 museums in Iraq's south and north were raided by mobs, who smashed exhibits and stole artifacts.

"If there is a time when you're going to lose the collection it's now � during this volatile transition between Saddam Hussein's regime and whatever comes next," said Elizabeth Stone, an archaeologist at State University of New York in Stony Brook. "Even here when Hurricane Gloria came through, people were looting and doing outrageous things.

"And that was just a hurricane. This is a regime change."

Russell has tried, but not managed to reach his colleagues at the Baghdad museum since the war began. Phone lines haven't worked and his friends haven't been able to use e-mail.

"There isn't even a Web site for the museum yet � things have been pretty closed, " he said. "But now, maybe that's one thing that will change."

No web page! When things settle down maybe we can get them to start a blog.

A REFERENCE TO A MUSEUM AT RUINS OF BABYLON in an article in the New York Times:

As they spoke, another general, Benjamin C. Freakley was calling for an army fuel truck to deliver diesel to a water plant. During the battles over the last week, General Freakley had been the forward commander, and he drove from one battlefront to the next, discussing tactics with everyone from commanders with maps to privates in bunkers.

...

Later, General Freakley stopped briefly at the Babylonian ruins. At a museum, the curator explained that the Hussein government had ordered one of the gates cinder-blocked up. This made the entryway inconvenient. Perhaps the general could help by having the cinder blocks removed?

General Freakley promised that he would. In his Humvee, he radioed the Army engineers, gave them a map grid number to steer them to the museum, and then turned north to Baghdad, where the 101st would join other troops.

"This has been a pretty good day," General Freakley said.

300 DEAD SEA SCROLL LINKS. Count 'em. Quality varies.

BAGHDAD MUSEUM CLOSED BUT STILL SEEMS TO BE INTACT.

From a Reuters article from several hours ago:

Babylon flourished twice in ancient times and laid the foundations for much of today's civilisation, with its emphasis on a legal code, culture and science. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

But Babylon does not attract the visitors its heritage deserves, in part due to Iraq's international isolation during Saddam's rule. To add to the ignominy, the war has cut off its electricity and the museum is closed to prevent looting.

Staff at the site idling in the shadow of a replica of the blue-brick Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous landmarks in the Babylon of King Nebuchadnezzar II, said they hoped peace would bring more tourists back to the area -- after the war.

UPDATE (9:12 pm): Note the following from earlier the same article:

Some soldiers were more sensitive than others to the site.

A general rebuked one officer after a tank from his unit of the 101st Airborne Division rumbled onto the main Babylon site containing extensive -- if, to some purists, rather vulgar -- reconstructions of the city: "We just can't have that," he said.

No we can't. Well done, General.

UPDATE ON BABYLON:

CENTRAL IRAQ: U.S. forces moved through the site of King Nebuchadnezzar's ancient Babylon, a cradle of civilization which also houses one of the many lavish palaces of Saddam Hussein.

U.S. soldiers combed the area in a search for Iraqi forces and weapons in and around the city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital. But Iraqi fighters had already left town.

BY THE WAY, the car keys were recovered today.

ARTICLES OF PALEOJUDAIC INTEREST in the current volume of the online Journal of Hebrew Scriptures include:

Christine Mitchell, "Accession in Chronicles: Transformations in Meaning: Solomon's Accession in Chronicles"

R. Christopher Heard, "Echoes of Genesis in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10: An Intertextual and Contextual Reading of Jabez's Prayer"

I've linked to the PDF versions of the articles, since the web version doesn't seem to work in Netscape. The reviews are not arranged according to volume, but you can find lots of them in alphabetical order according to surname of author by following the link

LEON LEVY, PHILANTHROPIST, IS DEAD AT 77

Leon Levy, a hedge fund pioneer who began investing at 13 with $200 and went on to make many millions, enough to make him one of the main individual backers of archaeological research, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 77.
...
The support he and his wife gave to archaeology resulted most famously in the 1990 dig in Israel that found a golden calf of the kind described in the Bible as being worshiped as an idol.

Mr. Levy funded the Ashkelon excavation, on which, as I mentioned earlier, I worked in the 1980s and where the "golden calf" was found. May his memory be for a blessing.

CTESIPHON AVOIDED. Note this passing comment in a widely published article on the capture of an apparent terrorist training camp (quoted here from the Guardian):

In attacking the military base, the Marines kept away from the nearby ruins of Ctesiphon, a Persian capital - its main architectural wonder, the 3rd century, 99-foot-high arched dome of King Sapor's great banqueting hall, still standing.

A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF MEGIDDO in the Toronto Star (via Archaeologica News).

Silent stones, scattered bones, Armageddon

OLIVIA WARD
STAFF REPORTER

MEGIDDO�On a deceptively tranquil spring day, one can sit on the crumbling stones of this ancient site, hypnotized by the birdsong and the sweet, heady scent of early jasmine and almond blossom, feeling at peace with the world.

But this is Armageddon, originally the Hebrew "Har Megiddon," a name that has gone through the ages as the sum of all fears: the biblical place of the final battle on Earth. A place of war, suffering and death.

Oddly, the article never explains how Mount Megiddo became the eschatological "Armageddon" (see Revelation 16:16).

SOME BOOK REVIEWS of paleojudaic interest in the current issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies online. The whole book review file for vol. 62.1 (2003) must be opened as a single PDF file - you can't access a single review on its own.

MARY JOAN WINN LEITH. Wadi Daliyah I: The Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions (Mark B. Garrison)

ERIC M. MEYERS ed. Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures (Edgar Krentz)

JOHN WILLIAM WEVERS. Notes on the Greek Text of Numbers (Nathan Jastram)

MAURICE CASEY. Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel (Michael O. Wise)

JOHN J. COLLINS. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (Chris A. Rollston)

SHAYE J. D. COHEN. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Lester L. Grabbe)

WE'RE BACK IN ST. ANDREWS and, yes, we made it to the castle. On Friday my son's finger had an unfortunate encounter with two Boules balls and the law of inertia, which led to an exciting visit to the casualty ward that afternoon - made more exciting by the fact that he'd lost his mother's car keys in the supermarket on Thursday and getting everyone to the hospital involved a kind neighbor, a kind coworker, and musical cars. But he was still up for the holiday and the bandaged finger caused no inconvenience apart from a short trip to the Dunfermline hospital on Sunday to get the dressing changed. Besides the castle and a visit to the Raptor Centre, we found some interesting potsherds in the vacant lot next to our motel and we brought back a rim with a cool design. (No, it wasn't discarded from the Food Court's dishware either, although I have no idea how old it is, apart from being, well, "old.")

OKAY, ONE MORE. This article from the Kansas City Star has a nice list of sites in Iraq which are important for biblical and Islamic tradition.

OFF TO KINROSS FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS, where my son and I intend to explore the island castle. Meanwhile, if you want something cool and paleojudaic to browse over the weekend, visit the web page for the interdisciplinary seminar on the Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism, run by my good friend Professor Alexander Golitzin at Marquette University. I praise it not because it has links to some of my own stuff, which it does, but for the numerous lectures and resources from Professor Golitzin and others on Jewish and Eastern Christian mysticism and related matters. Get a cup of coffee, get comfortable, click on the link above, and feast! Worth many visits.

I should be back Monday or Tuesday. Have a good weekend.

THREE REVIEWS OF INTEREST in the current issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion online. The theme of the issue, incidentally, is "Religion and Empire," although the reviews are not thematic.

Jason David BeDuhn: The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual
Reviewed by Horace Jeffery Hodges


Tod Linafelt: Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book
Reviewed by Francis Landy


Edmondo Lupieri: The Mandaeans: The Last Gnostics
Reviewed by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley

WAR DIFFICULTIES FOR POSTGRADUATES IN MIDDLE EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY

(via Archaeology Online News)

The war with Iraq has led scientists to place archaeology projects on hold in areas such as Jordan, Syria and Yemen until the ripple effects of the U.S.-led action subside. And while tensions kicked up by the war have led to uncertainty for researchers traveling to that area, a resolution to the situation in Iraq could ultimately provide archaeologists and anthropologists unlimited access to the country for the first time in 12 years.


McGuire Gibson, a professor of Mesopotamian archaeology at the University of Chicago, says that for now, American researchers have stopped working on projects in several countries in the Middle East.


"No one is working in Syria anymore and no one is working in Jordan," said Gibson, who studied in Iraq from 1968 until 1990. "Intellectual life has come to a halt in general until this is over." Representatives of Earthwatch, one of the nation's largest nonprofit sponsors of research abroad, said they have been forced to abandoned projects in the Middle East due to instability.


"In the past we have had projects in Tunisia, Oman, Turkey and Israel," said Blue Magruder, director of public affairs for Earthwatch. "These are all countries where we have done projects before and we are no longer doing them."


In the long run, the promise of political stability in Iraq could open a host of academic opportunities for a new generation of students.

Well, I guess that's bad news and good news.

THERE'S AN ARTICLE ON ENOCH AND JESUS in the current issue of Bible Review online:

Berger A. Pearson, "Parallel Paths to Heaven: Enoch and Jesus"

This is a subject dear to my heart, on which I've written elsewhere (the final draft of the latter piece appears in a book reviewed here).

FROM THE POPULAR CULTURE FILE:

(From United Press International)

SAVAE'S ANCIENT ECHOES


The past three years have been a powerful journey for early music ensemble Savae. It started when they came across a book of mystical translations of prayers in Aramaic, a language spoken in the Middle East 2,000 years ago. That was just the beginning of this historical mystery that unites ancient music and dialects with modern-day crises in politics and religion. The sacred music of Jerusalem's Second Temple maintains legendary status among scholars. According to the Bible, this ancient holy site was built around 540 B.C. and featured music many religion and music scholars believe directly influenced chant and other early Christian music. Both the music and temple, however, were lost for centuries. Until now. Savae's latest CD, "Ancient Echoes," draws on texts from the Torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and an ancient Greek tombstone. The music comes from research by a Jewish musicologist from the last century who demonstrated how dispersed and isolated Jews preserved ancient musical phrases for two millennia as well as from a French theorist who re-constructed the oldest form of musical notation that appears throughout the Bible. The dialect of the songs comes from an Egyptian phonetics instructor who taught members of Savae an ancient dialect spoken by Babylonian Jews and preserved to this day by Iraqi Muslims.

(My emphasis.) I hope it goes without saying that I'm linking to this out of a sociological interest in how this band is using the Dead Sea Scrolls etc., and not because I endorse their theories!

I wonder if their music is any good...

CALL FOR PAPERS IN GENIZA STUDIES:

(From H-JUDAIC Digest)

Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 20:44:57 -0500

From: Anna Urowitz-Freudenstein

Subject: Call for Papers, AJS Boston 2003 - Genizah Studies (Jerchower)

From: Seth Jerchower

Subject: Call for Papers, AJS Boston 2003 - Genizah Studies

A session on Cairo Genizah studies at the 2003 AJS Conference is currently
being organized. Proposals for papers on are now being accepted. Any topic
pertaining to original and/or current research dealing with the Cairo
Genizah will be considered. Special consideration may also be given to
proposals dealing with the "European Genizah" if the topic involves
original research within the field.

Those interested in participating are kindly asked to submit a brief
abstract no later than 9 April 2003. Please direct abstracts and/or
inquiries via email to Seth Jerchower at sethj@pobox.upenn.edu. For
additional information on the conference and the call for papers, please
visit the AJS website at:
http://www.brandeis.edu/ajs/Conference%20Information%202003.html

*************************************************

Seth Jerchower

Public Services Librarian

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library

University of Pennsylvania

sethj@pobox.upenn.edu

http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/
*************************************************

WAR CRIPPLES TOURISM IN JORDAN

Petra - An eerie silence grips the Nabatean splendors of Petra, Jordan's first tourist destination, where the only visitors to be seen are foreign journalists in the kingdom to cover the war in neighbouring Iraq.

The ongoing US-British offensive in Iraq has killed tourism in the southern red-rose archeological site of Petra with its imposing tombs sculpted into the rock just as it has crippled it around the Roman temples of Jerash in the north.

Jordan has been striving hard to shake off a slump in visitors, which followed the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada against Israeli rule two and a half years ago and was later compounded due to cancellations after the September 11 attacks.

From Petra to Jerash, shops and stalls manned by souvenir hawkers are closing one after the other with tourist guides desperately seeking to recycle themselves in new jobs.

NEWS FROM UR:

As of April 1st, the ruins and their caretakers seem to be unharmed.

TELL al-MUQAYYAR, Iraq (AP) - Burrowed in the sweltering desert, U.S. infantrymen ring a stark temple of a moon god and the sand-swept ruins of a city where 6,000 years ago civilization first budded and from which, it is said, three great religions blossomed.

In the opening days of the war, U.S. forces drove through Ur, home to the Biblical Abraham and an ingenious population that irrigated fields, forged agricultural tools and devised the written word.

The fighting, which continues in the nearby southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah, has so far spared the remains of Ur and the two families guarding them, who have worked as guides there for generations.

MEANWHILE, "ASHKELON FINDS HELLENISTIC CITY":

The remains of a Hellenistic city have been uncovered in the Barne'a quarter of Ashkelon.

The dig has thus far revealed a number of two- and three-room mud buildings built around a common yard that contained cooking facilities, apparently dating back to the third century BCE.

A three-meter wide road connecting some of the buildings has also been unearthed.

I was an assistant square supervisor at the Ashkelon excavation in 1987 and '88.

FORECAST OF MORE SERVER PROBLEMS: this time the University servers will be undergoing repairs during the next couple of days, with frequent loss of Internet access. I'll do my best to post around this. Also, I'll be gone over the weekend. So if things are quiet here for awhile, it doesn't mean I've forgotten you.

TONY BLAIR SPEAKS ON IRAQI SHRINES:

'SADDAM'S UNDERHAND PLOT'

Saddam Hussein plans to destroy religious sites in Iraq and blame the damage on Coalition forces, Tony Blair has told the House of Commons.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Blair said he had intelligence information about Saddam's plan.

Mr Blair said: "The fact that he is willing to do this underlines once again the true nature of his regime."

And he said the Coalition is doing "everything we can to protect those holy sites and shrines."

No specific mention of antiquities, but perhaps relevant.

NEW PAPYRI FOUND AT EIN GEDI:

(From Biblical Archaeology Review via the Archaeologica News Page)

Excavators have found two folded papyri and 11 bronze coins in a desert cave within the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, near the western shore of the Dead Sea. Three of the coins bear the name �Shimon,� Hebrew for Simon, and date to the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132-135 A.D.), which was led by Simon Bar-Kokhba. The artifacts were discovered last November by a team headed by Hebrew University�s Amos Frumkin and Bar Ilan University�s Hanan Eshel, inside a cave measuring just 23 feet by 13 feet.

Apparently these were found in November, but this is the first I've heard of them. Guess I need to get out more. Or something.

IRAQ ANTIQUITIES WATCH:

From UPI

CANBERRA, Australia, April 2 (UPI) -- Australia Wednesday accused Iraq of using historic sites to hide its weapons and Prime Minister John Howard continued to defend the length of the war, as anti-war protests in Sydney led to one arrest.

Australian Defense Force spokesman Brig. Mike Hannan said Iraq was using historic sites, such as the Ctesiphon, to hide its weapons. According to Hannan, Iraqi vehicles were parked in strategic places at the site, which is protected under The Hague Convention.

The ancient city -- dated to the 2nd century BC -- lies on the Tigris River, southeast of Baghdad. The Hague Convention protects the world's cultural and heritage sites.

The Guardian reports on the looming "Battle of Babylon":

In the Pentagon, they are calling it the battle of Kerbala gap, after the 19-mile stretch of dry land between Razzaza lake and the Euphrates river. For the headline writers, however, it may become better known, from the ancient ruins on the river's east bank, as the Battle of Babylon.

Iraq's military commanders appear to have thrown parts of five of their six Republican Guard divisions into defending the southern approaches to Baghdad, and the seat of Mesopotamian civilisation lies along the 50-mile ring around the capital, where the Iraqi guardsmen have been told to make a stand.

In the past 24 hours US mechanised and airborne forces probing the Iraqi defences have reported coming across corpses in uniforms of the Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar divisions, both named after ancient Babylonian kings in whose steps Saddam Hussein believes he is treading.

The Hammurabi has traditionally had the task of guarding Saddam's hometown of Tikrit; the Nebuchadnezzar are there to protect the eastern flank from Iranian invasion, while the south had been left to the Medina Division.

Both links via The Command Post, whose coverage of this issue has been excellent. They also link to this photograph of Ctesiphon.

UPDATE: More details on the situation in Ctesiphon from news.com.au. And - tangentially related - according to the London Times the British Museum is trying to raise �1.5 million to save the "Whore of Babylon".

THE British Museum is raising funds to save a spectacular carving of a naked woman, thought to be a high-class prostitute, which may have hung outside a brothel 4,000 years ago.

The terracotta relief is thought to have been made by a craftsman from the ancient city of Babylon, about 55 miles (90km) from what is today Baghdad.

It will be sold abroad unless the British Museum can raise the price � believed to be �1.5 million � although the owner, a Japanese collector, is keen for the sculpture to go to the museum.

I wonder how John of Patmos would feel about that (Revelation 17). (10:22 am)

UPDATE: More Iraq links and commentary at Archaeology Magazine. Plus ancient batteries from Baghdad? Really. (The latter is via the Archaeologica News Page.) (4:12 pm)

MAKE THAT TWO: It seems that the system published everything I lined up during the day. Well, whatever.

FOR APRIL FOOL'S DAY Blogger's publishing server decided to crash, hence no posting until now. Apologies. Meanwhile, it's spring break and I've had a day of bliss in the library, rooting through journals and photocopying articles. It's bedtime, but I'll put up one substantive post after this. Nitety-nite.

JUST GOT THE GOOD NEWS that my paper "Is the History of the Rechabites Really A Jewish Composition?" has been accepted for presentation in the Pseudepigrapha Section of the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta this November.

RECENT REVIEWS from the Review of Biblical Literature:

Doudna, Gregory L., 4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition

Luker, Lamontte M., Passion, Vitality, and Foment: The Dynamics of Second Temple Judaism

Runesson, Anders, The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study

Wellhausen, Julius, The Pharisees and Sadducees: An Examination of Internal Jewish History

Wineman, Aryeh, The Hasidic Parable: An Anthology with Commentary

MORE ON HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 113.IH, which I blogged on here a few days ago. I've just sent Rep. English an encouraging fax about this resolution. If you would like to do the same, his web page has a link to contact details. If you live in the U.S.A. you can send him a letter, fax him, or fill out an electronic form to e-mail him; from outside the U.S.A. you're limited to faxes or the post (which have more weight anyway). It wouldn't hurt for Mr. English to be able to point to letters of support, including from abroad.

The full text of the resolution is available online and the same link allows you to keep track of its status. I realize that we have become all too acquainted lately with the futility of resolutions, but if Congress passes this one, they will feel obligated to keep an eye on the situation and this is desirable.

LISTMANIA! "Ploni Almoni's" Amazon two-part list of books on Hebrew Bible, Early Judaism, and Ancient Near East History.

Looks good to me.

"WORK ON 'BULGE' IN TEMPLE MOUNT WALL BEGINS":

The fourth and nearly final stage of a major repair of the southern wall of the Temple Mount compound, during which most of the stones in the bulging part of the wall will be replaced, has finally begun.

(From Haaretz.)

RESTORATIONS PLANNED FOR THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK:

James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is emphatic. "We're not standing still in this complex period," he said. "With all the complexity here and in the rest of the world, we're operating as usual."

This week Mr. Snyder announced plans to restore its Shrine of the Book, the building that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most important archaeological treasures uncovered in the last century and one of Israel's most important patrimonial treasures. On April 1 the shrine will be closed for a year for a $3 million restoration and renovation.

Designed by the Austrian-born American architect Frederick Kiesler and the American architect Armand Bartos, the shrine has not been altered since its completion in 1965. While the original architecture will be preserved, the surface tiles on the dome will be replaced, as will the limestone of the plaza. There will also be new outdoor lighting. Inside, new displays are being designed, along with a lab and study center. The $3 million cost of the project has come from two grants, from the D. S . & R. H. Gottesman Foundation and from the Los Angeles collectors Herta and Paul Amir.

(From the New York Times)

MORE ON SADDAM AND NEBUCHADNEZZAR: A letter by Mr. Hazhir Teimourian to the Editor in yesterday's Times of London (unfortunately requires registration - and dinero - outside the U.K.) comments that

He [Saddam] told his first biographer:

I want every Iraqi to think of Nebuchadnezzar every day . . . we could go to Israel once more and bring all the Jews back here in Babylon with their hands tied beyond their backs.

Anyone know who this "first biographer" might be or which biography?

By the way, I can't get the link to the letter to work and have lost patience with trying, but if you're getting a search page, enter "Hazhir Teimourian" and it should get you the text of the letter. (Sorry, I seem to have accidentally overwrittten this post with the Masada story below, so I'm reposting it. This blogging thing can have a steep learning curve.)