Recent books about Jesus and early Christianity can be divided into two kinds: those that examine the life and work of the historical Jesus prior to his death and those that reconstruct events between JesusGCO death and the writings of the first Gospels. SawickiGCOs provocative book challenges the results of both kinds of research by using both archaeology and anthropology to situate Jesus clearly in his Galilean cultural context. Sawicki contests recent portraits of Jesus as a Mediterranean peasant, a Cynic sage, or the convener of a fellowship of equals. In addition, she calls into question readings of ancient Galilee that emphasize it as a society marked simply by economic stratification or by an GC honor-shameGCY sociology. Rather, she discovers the Galilean JesusGCO indigenous cultural idiom in its material structures for the negotiation of kinship, the management of labor, the distribution of commodities, and the construction of gender. SawickiGCOs book is the first to balance classical urban archaeology against the more recent archaeology of villages and of local and regional commerce. It frames current issues in Jesus research in terms that can guide both ongoing village excavations in Israel and responsible exegesis of the Gospels in church and academy. Marianne Sawicki is the author of Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices. For: Seminarians; graduate students; biblical archaeologists

From the first major discoveries a century ago, the painted portraits of Roman Egypt were a revelation to scholars and the public alike, and the recent finding of a new cache of these gilded images, which made national headlines, have only heightened their mystery and appeal. Published to coincide with a new major exhibition of these portraits, "Ancient Faces" is the most comprehensive, up-to-date survey of these astonishing works of art.
Dating from the later period of Roman rule in Egypt, shortly before the birth of Christ, the painted mummy portraits are among the most remarkable products of the ancient world, a fusion of the traditions of pharonic Egypt and the Classical world. They are historical and cultural objects of outstanding importance and beauty, superb works of art that represent some of the earliest known examples of life-like portraiture. Though the subjects of the portraits believed in the traditional Egyptian cults, which offered them a firm prospect of life after death, they also wished to be commemorated in the Roman manner, with their fashion of dress and adornment signaling their status in life. Despite their ancient history, these portraits speak to the modern eye with a beauty and intensity that would be lost to portraiture until the Renaissance.

This study focuses on the origins and development of resource exchanges between the regions bordering the Nile and the Red Sea, in the protohistoric period (3rd and 2nd millennium BC). Andrea Manzo looks at the geography, resources and routes of communication, textual and archaeological evidence relating to the exchange of objects and resources during this period. The political, social and belligerent implications of exchanges are considered and it is argued that exchange routes may have more to do with politics than the ecology or geography. French text.

This is a readable introduction to the religious traditions of the ancient Israelites, the people of the Hebrew Bible. It sets forth the biblical and extra-biblical evidence concerning their beliefs, myths, and ritual practices.

This volume contains first and second century documents in Aramaic and Greek said to come from Nahal Se'elim and now generally held to be from Nahal Hever (the provenance of the Babatha Archive and the Bar Kokhba documents). The transitional stage of the Aramaic language is documented here for the first time. The Greek language and script closely resembles that of the Greek papyri from Egypt. The legal documents in the archive of Salome Komaise, daughter of Levi from Mahoza (a village in the Roman province of Arabia), and similar documents from Judaea published here, like those of the Babatha archive, constitute the most authentic evidence for certain legal and social aspects of the life of Jews at the time. The evidence of assimilation of non-hellenized Jews to their environment contrasts with and complements that contained in contemporary and later Rabbinic sources.

This definitive scholarly edition continues the publication of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran Cave 4. It contains thirty-three manuscripts of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets, antedating previous Hebrew texts by a millennium. The scrolls are valuable witnesses to the pluriform nature of the ancient biblical text and have been used for recent revised translations of the Bible.

The story of the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho--three cities situated along a major fault line extending 1,100 kilometers from the Red Sea to Turkey--is the oldest such description in human history. In this book, noted geologists K.O. Emery and David Neev have revisited that story to shed light on what happened there some 4,350 years ago. With all the benefits of modern geological and forensic science techniques at their disposal, the authors explore an area where earthquakes, volcanic activity, variations in the Dead Sea's level, and oscillations between arid and wet climates have affected life there for over 10,000 years. In reviewing the geology, biblical paleogeography, and limnology of the region, the authors have produced fascinating insights into the tectonic and climatic changes that have occurred in the region over the last 6,000 years and how those changes have affected cultural life in the Middle East. The Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho is the first book to combine modern science and biblical archaeology to produce an authoritative account of the of these three great cities. It will fascinate students and researchers in geology, geophysics, and archaeology alike.

Joseph P. Free's Archaeology and Bible History, first published in 1950, served well an entire generation of pastors, Sunday school teachers, laypersons, and college students by summarizing the history of the Bible and shedding light on biblical events through archaeological discoveries. The author demonstrated how such data helps us understand the Bible and confirm its historical accuracy. At times he also dealt with issues of biblical interpretation and criticism, always from a historically orthodox position. When the book was withdrawn from circulation in 1976 after the fourteenth printing, many hoped for the day when it would be revised and updated. That task has now been undertaken by one of Dr. Free's former students and a biblical archaeologist in his own right, Dr. Howard Vos. He has brought the archaeological and historical material up to date and has modified earlier archaeological interpretations where necessary. The bibliography has been almost totally replaced.

This volume covers the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, a period marked initially by the struggle of two city-states, Isin and Larsa, for control over the land of Sumer in southern Babylonia. In the end the city-state of Babylon, under its energetic ruler Hammurabi, intervened. At an opportune moment, Hammurabi struck swiftly, defeated Larsa, and incorporated the southern domains into his own realms, thereby creating an empire that for a short time united the lands of Sumer and Akkad. The inscriptions in this volume are grouped by dynasties and arranged in order by ruler within each dynasty. Further, the inscriptions are arranged chronologically within each king's reign. A short introduction for each inscription gives its general contents, place of origin, and relative dating. Also included are a detailed catalogue of exemplars, a brief commentary, bibliography, and text in transliteration facing an English translation. The appended microfiches contain a transliteration of each individual exemplar displayed in a format reminiscent of a musical score.

Der vorliegende Sammelband untersucht die Konzepte, Methoden und Inhalte der Auslegung autoritativer religioeser Texte in Antike und Mittelalter. Diese Texte sind Ausgangs- und Ansatzpunkte in Unterweisungen, die zur Orientierung und Identitatsbildung dienen, dem Einzelnen ebenso wie Gemeinschaften und Gesellschaften. Fachvertreterinnen und Fachvertreter unterschiedlicher Disziplinen - aus Geschichte, Philologie, Orientalistik, Religionswissenschaft und Theologie - spuren der vielfaltigen Bedeutung der oft "heilig" genannten Schriften fur Bildung und Erziehung nach. Sie beleuchten die Rolle, die diese Texte fur Lehre und Lernen in ihren Ursprungskulturen hatten und haben. Daruber hinaus zeigen sie interkulturelle Bezuge auf, die heute fur Diskussionen um Bildung und Religion in den multikulturellen Demokratien Europas hoechst relevant sind.

This volume combines the papers held at the Minerva Center's "Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times" conference (Leipzig 2018) on the subject of writing and re-writing history by deliberate destruction in the regions of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. An international group of scholars studies the subject using a multi-perspective and interdisciplinary approach. Archeological studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, and biblical studies focused on the destruction of ancient sites in Israel and Judah in the 1st millennium BC. The perspective of the defeated Israelites, Jerusalemites, and Judeans is described in detail in the Old Testament and in postbiblical literature and shows that the destructions in the past were a cultural and identity creator of the first magnitude. The longue duree of the practice of reshaping the past through the deliberate destruction of a cultural heritage in order to shape the present according to current interests becomes evident based on the Neo-Assyrian Empire's practice up to the modern era and is demonstrated by the example of the Arabian-Muslim conquest of Aram as well as current Turkish politics.

This volume contains a collection of previously unknown compositions from Cave 4 at Qumran. These compositions, written during the Second Temple period, use specialized terminology that allows them to be classified as sapiential (or instructional) literature. As such, they are part of the larger genre of wisdom literature, common in the ancient Near East, which includes other collections of sayings and instruction such as the Book of Proverbs, Ben Sira, and the Epistle of James. The documents published here include Mysteries (a manuscript of which was also found in Cave 1), several Meditations on Creation, an Admonitory Parable, Work Concerning Divine Providence, Ways of Righteousness, a number of small sapiential texts, and one text written in the script known as Cryptic A Words of a Sage to All Sons of Dawn. These compositions enhance our understanding of the keen interest in theological and ethical issues (such as God's omnipotence, justice, creative power and design, and man's moral and ethical responsibility to his Creator and fellow men), both of the Qumran community specifically and of Second Temple period Judaism in general.

In this long awaited edition Baumgarten presents all the known Qumran Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document on the basis of J. T. Milik's original transcriptions. These eight manuscripts antedate the two medieval Cairo Geniza texts (CD) by more than a millennium and are indispensable for all future literary and historical studies on one of the major foundational works of the Qumran community. For the first time we have the paraenetic beginning and ending of the work, as well as major additions to the legal corpus found in one of the medieval texts. The laws of this corpus and the historical identification of the Jews who formulated them were earlier in this century the subject of much controversy, but have since been largely ignored in Qumran scholarship. Some even suggested that they were not an integral part of the Damascus Document. It is now apparent from the expanded corpus that the interpretation of biblical law was a central concern of the Qumran community. Among the new subjects treated are such matters as the ethical arrangement of marriages, the role of women in the sect, and the legal status of fetal life. These laws are found side by side with allusions to the cosmic conflict of light and darkness and a view of history in which periods of wrath are ordained to precede the end of days.

This volume continues the publication of the series of biblical Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered in Cave 4 at Qumran. It contains twenty-four Hebrew manuscripts of the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Kings. These texts antedate by a millennium those that had previously held the title of the earliest surviving Hebrew biblical manuscripts. They document a pluriformity acceptable in the ancient biblical textual tradition before the text became standardized later in the Christian and Rabbinic period.

The Living Inca Town presents a rich case study of tourism in Ollantaytambo, a rapidly developing destination in the southern Peruvian Andes and the starting point for many popular treks to Machu Picchu. Tourism is generally welcomed in Ollantaytambo, as it provides a steady stream of work for local businesses, particularly those run by women. However, the obvious material inequalities between locals and tourists affect many interactions and have contributed to conflict and aggression throughout the tourist zones. Based on a number of research visits over the course of fifteen years, The Living Inca Town examines the experiences and interactions of locals, visitors, and tourism brokers. The book makes room for unique perspectives and uses innovative visual methods, including photovoice images and pen and ink drawings, to represent different viewpoints of day-to-day tourist encounters. The Living Inca Town vividly illustrates how tourism can perpetuate gendered and global inequalities, while also exploring new avenues to challenge and renegotiate these roles.

Part One: Text Part Two: Catalog and Plates This set of two volumes presents the final report of the four archaeological campaigns carried out by the Oriental Institute at the site of Chatal Hoyuk in the Amuq (currently Hatay, Turkey) under the directorship of Ian McEwan and Robert Braidwood, more than eighty years after their field operations. The excavation's documents (daily journals, original drawings, photos, lists of objects, and letters) stored in the Oriental Institute Archives, as well as the approximately 13,000 small finds and pottery sherds from the site currently kept at the Oriental Institute Museum, provided the necessary dataset for the analysis presented here. This dataset allowed the author to reconstruct the life of a village which survived the political turmoil in the period from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age (16th-6th centuries bc). If Chatal Hoyuk was during the Late Bronze Age a village in the provincial part of a large empire (Hittite), it became a large independent town in a small but powerful new political entity (Walistin) during the Iron Age I and II, before being conquered by the Assyrian Empire. In this extended publication of small finds and pottery, many previously unpublished materials are made available to both general readers and scholars for the first time. The material culture discussed and analyzed here offers the chance to trace changes and continuity in the site's domestic activities, to point out shifts in cultural contacts over a long period of time, and to monitor the construction of a new community identity. 198 plates, 125 figures, 7 tables

Papyrus Leiden I 343 + 345 is one of the most extraordinary manuscripts providing a deeper insight into magic and medicine in Ancient Egypt. The main part of the papyrus deals with the ancient Near Eastern disease demon Samanu, who is well known from Sumerian and Akkadian incantations and medical texts. In addition, a broad range of other conjurations and spells against any pain and feet swelling are included. The papyrus also contains two curious spells dealing with 'falling water from the sky'. Eight out of fourteen incantations against the demon Samanu were incorporated twice in this papyrus. The texts are not only presented as parallel text edition but also with photographs of the papyrus. This re-edition of papyrus Leiden I 343 + 345 is a revised transliteration, transcription, translation and up-to-date commentary.

Robert J. Bull began the excavation of a vault on the south side of the Inner Harbour of Caesarea Maritima, Israel. The vault was one of a row of warehouses built to store goods unloaded from the harbour built by Herod the Great. Begins with an introduction to the excavation process; the study of the stratigraphy (analysis of the order and position of layers of archaeological remains) considers the later excavations of the adjoining vault, and includes new photographs, plans, and section drawings. The original construction phase, the vault's transformation into a Mithraeum (a sanctuary or temple of the god Mithras), abandonment, and final use as a "charnel house" are discussed in detail. Also, includes detailed studies of the fragmentary wall paintings depicting Mithraic iconography, and of the medallion found inside the vault, in the context of the practices of Mithraism in the ancient world. The reconstruction of the ceiling splay and the interpretation in terms of astrological symbolism important to Mithraism are also detailed. A second volume describing the structure of the vault and the material culture found is planned.

At the height of her career, Bell journeyed into the heart of the Middle East retracing the steps of the ancient rulers who left tangible markers of their presence in the form of castles, palaces, mosques, tombs and temples. Among the many sites she visited were Ephesus, Binbirkilise and Carchemish in modern-day Turkey as well as Ukhaidir, Babylon and Najaf within the borders of modern Iraq. Lisa Cooper here explores Bell's achievements, emphasizing the tenacious, inquisitive side of her extraordinary personality, the breadth of her knowledge and her overall contribution to the archaeology of the Middle East. Featuring many of Bell's own photographs, this is a unique portrait of a remarkable life.

Arising from a conference organized by the British Archaeological Association in Palermo in 2012, this book includes 16 papers that explores points of contact across the Latin, Greek and Islamic worlds between c. 1000 and c. 1250.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, growing numbers of tourists and scholars from Europe and America, fascinated by new discoveries, visited the Near East and Egypt - attracted by the riches and mysteries of the Land of the Bible. Almost all such visitors, no matter how esoteric or academic their pursuits, had to deal with the local authorities and the native workforce for their archaeological excavations. The vast majority of these visitors had to rely on interpreters, dragomans, translators and local guides. This study, based on published and unpublished travel memoirs, guidebooks, personal papers and archaeological reports of the British and American archaeologists, deals with the socio-political status and multi-faceted role of interpreters at the time. Those bi- or multi-lingual individuals frequently took on (or were forced to take on) much more than just interpreting. They often played the role of go-betweens, servants, bodyguards, pimps, diplomats, spies, messengers, managers and overseers, and had to mediate, scheme and often improvise, whether in an official or unofficial capacity. For the most part denied due credit and recognition, these interpreters are finally here given a new voice. An engrossing story emerges of how through their many and varied actions and roles, they had a crucial part to play in the introduction to Britain and America of these mysterious past cultures and civilizations.

This volume presents the results of the long-term co-operation of archaeologists from the University of Ghent and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago to establish the ceramic chronology for Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C. Drawing only upon pottery found in good context in well-conducted excavations, going back to the 1930s, but relying especially on the collaboration of other excavators who were working in southern Iraq from the 1960s onward, James Armstrong and Hermann Gasche, with the participation of cuneiformist Steven Cole and ceramic specialists Abraham Van As and Loe Jacobs, have created a typology of all major forms, showing the subtle changes that occurred in individual shapes through time at one site and at related sites. It also shows regional variations in shapes. Their graphic presention of the forms makes visible a centuries-long break in occupation of numerous sites in southern Iraq beginning in the time of Samsuiluna, the successor to Hammurabi of Babylon, and another break at the end of the millennium. There are detailed discussions of the forms and their geograhical distribution, as well as a treatment of the historical implications of the evidence.

When the British Museum opened its doors more than two centuries ago, scores of visitors waited eagerly outside for a first glimpse of ancient relics from Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Even today, in this age of satellite television and high-speed Internet access, museums maintain their unique allure, continuing to play a vital role in connecting us with little-known terrains and the deep mysteries of our historical past. That's because, as Stephanie Moser argues in "Wondrous Curiosities", museum displays don't just transmit knowledge - they actually create it. Based on her exploration of the British Museum's world-famous collection of Egyptian antiquities, this pioneering study reveals the powerful role of museums in shaping our understanding of science, culture, and history. Drawing on guidebooks and archival documents, Moser demonstrates that this British exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts was central to the way we came to define the remarkable society that produced them.