Tracing the background of basalt blocks?

LITHIC MATERIAL CULTURE: Israeli Archaeologists Create Method to Analyze Basalt – to Their Own Surprise. Primordial Israel was volcanic and the ancient northern cities were built with basalt. But did they all use the same source to sate their marble envy? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Now a team has shown that basalt from different sources can be reliably distinguished and grouped even if the sources remain unknown. Dr. Mechael Osband of Kinneret Academic College and the University of Haifa, with Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and Prof. Jeffrey Ferguson of the University of Missouri describe the methodology they developed to group the basalts at two sites in Israel based on composition. Their groundbreaking paper has been published this year in the journal Archaeometry.

The underlying article is open access:

XRF Analysis of Village and Urban Basalt Architecture in the Hippos Territorium during the Roman Period

Mechael Osband, Michael Eisenberg, Jeffery R. Ferguson

First published: 29 April 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12975

Funding information: ...

Abstract

This case study examines the use of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) as an effective method for defining distinct chemical compositions of local basalt stone from different sources in the Roman period, even when their quarries have not been identified. It also deals with the archaeological question if public and monumental structures from a village and urban site shared the same stone sources and stonemason's workshops. Ninety-six samples from the Hippos Territorium, mainly from the polis of Hippos and the village of Majduliyya, were analyzed. XRF was found to be an effective method for defining distinct chemical compositions of local basalt materials from different sources. The distinct composition of the basalt stones between the two sites provided valuable insights into socio-economic relationships, shedding light on the nature of city–village dynamics in the region. Additionally, it aids in discerning whether diverse basalt sources were utilized in both private and public constructions, as well as installations within a single site. Methodological questions and the application of this method in the archaeological research of basalt-based architecture are also addressed.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeological discoveries at and around Hippos-Sussita, see here and links. For stonemasons' marks on the basalt flooring blocks there, see here.

The site of Majduliyya is new to me.

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Israel's biblical trees

ARBOREAL HISTORY: Hiking through history: Discovering Israel's native trees on the trails. Explore the unique beauty of Israel's native trees on your next hike, where ancient oaks, carobs, and figs bring the rich history and landscapes of the Holy Land to life (SUSANNAH SCHILD, Jerusalem Post).

t took about 20 years of living and traveling in Israel for me to deeply appreciate Israel’s own native trees, and their excellent qualities, suited to the local climate. In this land of rainy and dry seasons, oversized trees need too much water to survive. The low, shrubby forests native to Israel are less susceptible to drought and fire, common dangers of long, hot Israeli summers.

Biblical mentions of Middle Eastern trees are plentiful. ...

For more on the carob, see here and links. And for a bit of fun speculation about oaks and terebinths, see here.

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Are Egyptians reviving Coptic?

COPTIC WATCH: Egyptians Are Learning The Coptic Language To Revive Their Original Identity (Farah Abdelkarim, lovin cairo).

A Bridge Between Past and Present

Coptic, the latest stage in the evolution of the ancient Egyptian language, is gaining renewed attention. This interest reflects a broader effort to understand and honor Egypt’s rich history, amidst ongoing debates about the true origins of the Egyptian people. Renowned archaeologist Zahi Hawass has reiterated in various media appearances that Egyptians “are neither Arabs nor Africans,” emphasizing cultural and behavioral differences from their Arab neighbors. This perspective has fueled curiosity and enthusiasm for Coptic among those keen to explore their ancient heritage.

Embracing the Language Through Modern Technology

The resurgence of interest in Coptic is being facilitated by modern technology. Social media platforms and online resources have made learning Coptic more accessible than ever. Experts in the field have leveraged these tools to offer online classes, providing educational materials and cultural insights to Egyptians eager to deepen their connection with their linguistic heritage.

For more historical background on the Coptic language, see here and links.

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A.I. is finding more Gilgamesh Epic

ALGORITHM WATCH: Piecing Together an Ancient Epic Was Slow Work. Until A.I. Got Involved. Scholars have struggled to identify fragments of the epic of Gilgamesh — one of the world’s oldest literary texts. Now A.I. has brought an “extreme acceleration” to the field (Erik Ofgang, New York Times).

Now, an artificial intelligence project called Fragmentarium is helping to fill some of these gaps. Led by Enrique Jiménez, a professor at the Institute of Assyriology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Fragmentarium team uses machine learning to piece together digitized tablet fragments at a much faster pace than a human Assyriologist can. So far, A.I. has helped researchers discover new segments of Gilgamesh as well as hundreds of missing words and lines from other works. ...

Before 2018, only some 5,000 tablet fragments were matched. In the six years since, Jiménez’s team has successfully matched over 1,500 more tablet pieces, including those pertaining to a newly discovered hymn to the city of Babylon and 20 fragments from Gilgamesh that add detail to over 100 lines of the epic.

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

Reconnecting cuneiform tablet fragments by shape seems to be a big part of this project. That's is a perfect task for A.I. The Fragmentarium site at the electronic Babylonian Library (eBL) is here.

For more on the Epic of Gilgamesh, and why PaleoJudaica is interested in it, with a trail of many links, start here.

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Verde & Rossi (eds.), Cultural Hegemony, Ideological Conflicts, and Power in Second Temple Judaism (Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS:

Cultural Hegemony, Ideological Conflicts, and Power in Second Temple Judaism

SERIES:
Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 337

EDITORS:
Verde D., Rossi B.

PRICE: 87 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042952676
E-ISBN: 9789042952683
PAGES: VIII-325 p

SUMMARY:

The literary texts of ancient Israel and early Judaism are infused with ideologies and reflect various social, economic, religious, and political agendas. On the one hand hegemonic and counter-hegemonic ideologies shaped the production of literary texts, on the other hand literary texts helped cement or at least spread such ideologies and worldviews. This volume explores the relationship between authoritative texts, ideologies, and social, religious, and political struggles in Second Temple Judaism by examining both the Hebrew Bible and other literary products of Second Temple Judaism, such as the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The volume focuses on a series of case studies and aims to shed light on how literary production in Second Temple Judaism is simultaneously the effect and medium of social struggles for hegemony. The first section of the volume focuses on the texts of the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch, explicitly engaging with Antonio Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony. The second section explores the broad themes of power dynamics, conflict, and different types of hegemonies.

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Phoenician Trade Associations in Ancient Greece

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: Phoenician Trade Associations in Ancient Greece (Denise Demetriou).

With their maritime ventures and their migratory patterns, the Phoenicians transformed the ancient Mediterranean basin and the societies that they encountered. They created the most important pan-Mediterranean artistic movement of the 8th–6th centuries BCE, conventionally called “orientalizing art;” they reintroduced a writing system adopted by the Greeks, Etruscans, Iberians, and later the Romans, among others; they transferred gods and myths to other groups living in the region; and they established new institutions.

One of these novel institutions was the phenomenon of professional associations structured around an occupation, the home state of its members, and that state’s patron deity. ...

Cross-file under Phoenician Watch.

Occasionally I like to link to this post, which explains why PaleoJudaica pays attention to the Phoenicians, the Phoenician language, the Carthaginians, and Punic and Neo-Punic.

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Tu B'Av 2024

THE FESTIVAL OF TU B'AV begins this evening at sundown. Best wishes to all those celebrating.

Tu B'Av (which just means the 15th day of the month of Av) is an ancient matchmaking festival. Its first mention is in the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4). It has been revived in recent years as a kind of Jewish Valentine's Day.

For past posts on it, see here and links and here.

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Meanwhile, in Neolithic Turkey ...

SOMEWHAT OFF TOPIC for PaleoJudaica, but I have mentioned the Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe before, so I may as well follow that up. It and Çatalhöyük in Turkey preserve remarkable material evidence for high culture, including religious culture, in the Neolithic era. Two recent stories:

A 10,000 Year Old Stone Calendar? (At Göbekli Tepe; Carl Rasmussen, HolyLandPhotos' Blog).

Çatalhöyük Mural: The Earliest Representation of a Volcanic Eruption? 9,000-year-old painting thought to depict an eruption at Hasan Dağ (Noah Wiener , Bible History Daily)

I can't guarantee the credibility of either. My expertise lies elsewhere. But peer-reviewed research underlies both. I blog, you decide.

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Satlow's Talmud course

TALMUD WATCH: Professor Michael L. Satlow is teaching an undergraduate, English-only course on The Talmud this autumn. Follow the link for the syllabus and a brief, introductory YouTube video. With a bonus A.I. mapping of the similarities between the two Talmuds.

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Is the Ivory Pomegranate inscription authentic?

BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY REPORT: Weighing the Evidence: Is the Ivory Pomegranate Authentic? (Bryan Windle).

If authentic, this small artifact has big implications, possibly representing the only physical evidence of the First Temple in Jerusalem. If it is fake, it is a clever forgery that has fooled some of the world’s leading epigraphers and led to Israel Museum, Jerusalem (IMJ) being taken for over half a million dollars.

HT Todd Bolen, just back from an 9,000 mile-road trip, at the Bible Places Blog.

Background on the debate over the authenticity of the Ivory Pomegrate inscription is here and links. The current leaning seems to be in the direction of authenticity, as Bryan indicates. I have no opinion on the question myself.

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Wisdom Between East and West (open-access, Venice University Press)

THE AWOL BLOG: Wisdom Between East and West: Mesopotamia, Greece and Beyond. An open-access publication from Venice University Press, edited by Francesco Sironi and Maurizio Viano.

The volume publishes the proceeding of the workshop Wisdom Between East and West: Mesopotamia, Greece and Beyond held at the University of Turin on 26-27 October 2022. The volume collects papers from Assyriologists, Classicists and Biblical scholars around the topic of wisdom. Scholars have investigated wisdom from various angles, from speculative thought to literature, from science, to dance, to proverbs.

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Tu B'Av explainer

COMING THIS SUNDAY: Tu B'Av: Everything you need to know about the Jewish holiday of love and romance - explainer. Tu B'Av is often considered a Jewish version of Valentine's Day. But this ancient holiday has its own distinct traditions and practices, which have evolved until today. Here's what you should know (Aaron Reich, Jerusalem Post).

While not very well-known internationally, Tu B'Av is actually a very old Jewish holiday associated with love. Today, especially in Israel, it is often seen as a Jewish version or alternative to the Christian day of love, Valentine's Day.

A thorough account of an ancient festival that has taken on new life in recent years.

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ASOR webinar: Magness on "What Makes Jerusalem Special?"

ONLINE EVENT: FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS: What Makes Jerusalem Special?

Friends of ASOR present the first webinar of the 2024-2025 season on September 4, 2024, at 7:00 pm EDT, presented by Prof. Jodi Magness. This webinar will be free and open to the public thanks to partial sponsorship by Oxford University Press. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required.

For details and free registration, follow the link.

For more on Professor Magness's new book, Jerusalem through the Ages, see here and links.

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Review of Magness, Jerusalem through the Ages

BOOK REVIEW: Unveiling Jerusalem: Jodi Magness’s comprehensive archaeological journey through time. 'Jerusalem through the Ages' is a wonderful survey of what became, uniquely, a holy city to three of the world’s major religions (NEVILLE TELLER, Jerusalem Post).

In the preface to her new book, Jerusalem Through the Ages, Magness asks and answers the obvious question: Why is another book on Jerusalem needed? She points out that most of the books covering the city’s pre-modern history and archaeology are either broad surveys written by non-specialists, edited volumes containing chapters by multiple specialists, or studies by individual specialists focusing on a specific time frame or topic.

I noted the publication of the book here. See also here. There are many PaleoJudaica posts on Professor Magness's work, notably, but far from exclusively, on the Huqoq excavation.

As it happens, another archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein, has also just published a book on the archaeology of Jerusalem: Jerusalem the Center of the Universe (SBL Press). It is a collection of his previous articles, so its remit is rather different from Magness's book.

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Why is the Gallus Revolt forgotten?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Jews And Christians In Roman Palestine (Philip Jenkins).

In other words, the Gallus Revolt of the 350s looks like a straight linear successor or rerun of those earlier and vastly more famous risings, although as I say, it is unknown to non-specialists. It makes nonsense of the idea that the Jewish population was so thoroughly and irrevocably purged after the 130s, and it must remind us of the strong Jewish community that paralleled and confronted the rising Christianity within Palestine itself, with its legendary center at Caesarea Maritima. Inevitably, our sense of actual population statistics is shaky, but there must have been thriving Jewish rural communities.

For more on the Gallus Revolt and the recent numismatic discovery underlying this essay, see here. And for a bit more on the revolt, see here.

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Diaspora Judaism and the Temple

DR. MICHAEL TUVAL: Judaism Transforms in the Diaspora During the Second Temple Period (TheTorah.com).

Even before the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora successfully created Judaic systems that provided them with identity, purpose, new ways of thinking, and alternative points of access to the divine, independent of the Temple rituals in far-off Jerusalem.

Cross-file under Tisha B'Av.

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Lieber, Staging the Sacred: SBL review panel, part 4

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Author's Response: An Invitation (Laura Lieber).

SBL 2023 Review Panel | Staging the Sacred: Theatricality and Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry, by Laura Lieber

... All this is to say that this book panel offered me an opportunity to reflect on the fact that the area in which I work did not exist as a field when I was coming up as a scholar: it is not Jewish Studies, or Rabbinics, or Biblical Studies. My book, Staging the Sacred, and the reviewers who so generously review it here represent at least a new corner in the field of Late Antiquity, if not a new field of study, one that is not Bible (Old Testament or New); not Liturgy or Ritual Studies but impossible without those areas; not Judaism or Christian or Islam, but perhaps all of the above; not necessarily Religious Studies but perhaps Art History and Architecture, or Classics, or Literature, or a mixture of several disciplines into one. It can feel like a very old field in its enthusiastic, omnivorous openness and very new, through its transgressive, almost aggressive desire to cross borders. ...

For the first three essays in the series and some background on the author's work, see here and links.

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The latest on Jewish-Temple denial

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: ‘A Jewish myth': In Arab world, many still refuse to accept existence of the two Temples - analysis. ‘Temple denial’ is a known practice amongst those who seek to deny any historical presence for Jews in Israel, leading to a denial of Israel’s right to exist (Ohad Merlin, Jerusalem Post).

On the backdrop of the political, religious, and diplomatic prospects, Tisha B'Av also catalyzes a well-established practice across the pro-Palestinian world, nicknamed “Temple denial.” This practice provides anti-Zionist voices with a platform to deny the indigeneity of the Jewish people to Israel, negating empirical historical facts, all in an attempt to strip Israel of its right to exist.

PaleoJudaica has been covering this problem for a long time.

I actually found this article a little encouraging. It notes some recent acknowledgement of the existence of the two Judean Temples. Perhaps all the push-back, including ours, has had some effect.

I discussed the issue in detail a few years ago here, with many links.

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Drainage channel profiles Jerusalem during Great Revolt

MATERIAL CULTURE: Detritus from ancient Jerusalem drainage channel captures moment of city’s destruction. Excavation reveals rare glass and ceramic vessels, oil lamps, tableware and food remains, offering insight into state of city in period before its sacking by Rome in 70 CE (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel).

This channel was usually cleaned regularly by municipal authorities, but the archaeologists found that it was half-filled with silt, indicating “a gradual neglect of city maintenance. And indeed, this very neglect and abandonment that we witness here corresponds to the story of the process of Jerusalem’s destruction,” said Dr. Ayelet Zilberstein, who directed the excavation.

I noted the discovery of the mentioned sword here.

Cross-file under Tisha B'Av.

Drainage channels in Jerusalem had preserved much information and many artifacts from the Second Temple Period and occasionally earlier. See here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Antoninus Pius coin sifted from Temple Mount

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: A RARE TEMPLE MOUNT COIN FEATURING THE PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR WHO REPEALED THE HARSH DECREES AGAINST JEWS AFTER TISHA B’AV 135 CE.

It is fitting that on the Ninth of Av, the day on which the Jewish people mourn the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem, we present this coin, minted by Antoninus Pius. As the successor of Hadrian, the Roman emperor who completed the destruction of Jerusalem that began in 70 CE under Emperor Vespasian, paganizing the city and rededicating it as Aelia Capitolina. Antoninus Pius ended the downward spiral of destruction, restored the right of the Jews to practice their religion and rekindled the hope of the Jewish people for a better future.

Cross-file under Numismatics.

This coin is rare, as the article notes. It seems that few coins from the reign of Antoninus Pius have been found in Israel. I noted the discovery of (reportedly) the first ever back in 2010 (here and here) and two more in recent years here and here.

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