From two leading Christian apologists, here is a fascinating survey of the most important Old and New Testament archaeological discoveries through the ages.

Biblical archaeology has always stirred excitement among believers and curiosity among unbelievers. The evidence dug up with a spade can speak volumes?and serve as a powerful testimony of the reliability of Scripture.

Norm Geisler and Joe Holden have put together an impressive array of finds that confirm the biblical peoples and events of ages past. In a user-friendly format written in popular style, they?

• examine the latest finds and explain their significance
• include dozens of photographs
• provide an instructive chart of artifacts (along with fast facts)
• sample a variety of finds?papyri, inscriptions, scrolls, ossuaries, and more

If readers are looking for just one book to cover this topic both concisely and comprehensively, this is it!

The numbering system for the Early Egyptian inscriptions, which was originally introduced by J. Kahl (1994) and which was expanded by I. Regulski in her Database of Early Dynastic inscriptions, is mapped on the numbering system defined by J. Kahl, N. Kloth and U. Zimmermann (1995) for the 3rd Dynasty inscription and on this of P. Kaplony (IAEF, IAEFS, KBIAEF). The numbering system has been expended to provide a unique identifier for each inscription that can be used as a reference in databases and printed publications. (German introduction.)

Qatar: Evidence of the Palaeolithic Earliest People Revealed, with full text in both English and Arabic, tells the story of the long and difficult search to discover the identity of the first people to inhabit the sovereign State of Qatar, which is situated on a peninsula, that extends into the Arabian Gulf. The book synthesises the results of extensive fieldwork by the PADMAC Unit with the many diverse historical records and reports of investigations, beginning with Holgar Kapel's, in the early 1950s. The archaeology of the State of Qatar is an important part of the cultural heritage of the world. The loss of archaeological sites to urban and industrial development since the 1950s has been inevitable but the loss of over 30 years of Palaeolithic research in Qatar, an area of prehistoric significance, as a result of academic dissension, is certainly regrettable. The work of the PADMAC Unit in Qatar now marks the end of this Palaeolithic research hiatus.

This Element addresses the cultural production of ancient Egypt in the museum as a mixture of multiple pasts and presents that cohere around collections; their artefacts, documentation, storage, research, and display. Its four sections examine how ideas about the past are formed by museum assemblages: how their histories of acquisition and documentation shape interpretation, the range of materials that comprise them, the influence of their geographical framing, and the moments of remaking that might be possible. Throughout, the importance of critical approaches to interpretation is underscored, reasserting the museum as a site of active research and experiment, rather than only exhibitionary product or communicative media. It argues for a multi-directional approach to museum work that seeks to reveal the inter-relations of collection histories and which has implications not just for museum representation and documentation, but also for archaeological practice more broadly.

The aim of the Element is to provide a comprehensive comparison of the basic organization of power in Mesoamerica and Egypt. How power emerged and was exercised, how it reproduced itself, how social units (from households to cities) became integrated into political formation and how these articulations of power expanded and collapsed over time. The resilience of particular areas (Oaxaca, Middle Egypt), to the point that they preserved a highly distinctive cultural personality when they were included or not within states, may provide a useful guideline about the basics of integration, negotiation and autonomy in the organization of political formations.

This Element provides a new evaluation of burial customs in New Kingdom Egypt, from about 1550 to 1077 BC, with an emphasis on burials of the wider population. It also covers the regions then under Egyptian control: the Southern Levant and the area of Nubia as far as the Fourth Cataract. The inclusion of foreign countries provides insights not only into the interaction between the centre of the empire and its conquered regions, but also concerning what is typically Egyptian and to what extent the conquered regions were culturally influenced. It can be shown that burials in Lower Nubia closely follow those in Egypt. In the southern Levant, by contrast, cemeteries of the period often yield numerous Egyptian objects, but burial customs in general do not follow those in Egypt.

There is a long-held feeling in Russia that Moscow is the true heir to the Christian Byzantine Empire. In 1894, Imperial Russia opened one of the world's leading centres for Byzantine archaeology in Istanbul, the Russian Archaeological Institute - its purpose was to stake the claim that Russia was the correct heir to 'Tsargrad' (as Istanbul was referred to in Russian circles). This then is the history of that institute, and the history of Russia's efforts to reclaim its Middle East - events since in the Crimea, Syria and Georgia are all, to some extent, wrapped up in this historical framework. Ure looks at the founding of the Russian Archaeological Institute, its aims, and its place in the 'digging-race' which characterised the late Imperial phase of modern history. Above all, she shows how the practise of history has been used as a political tool, a form of "soft power".

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom offers a new history of the field of Egyptian monastic archaeology. It is the first study in English to trace how scholars identified a space or site as monastic within the Egyptian landscape and how such identifications impacted perceptions of monasticism. Brooks Hedstrom then provides an ecohistory of Egypt's tripartite landscape to offer a reorientation of the perception of the physical landscape. She analyzes late-antique documentary evidence, early monastic literature, and ecclesiastical history before turning to the extensive archaeological evidence of Christian monastic settlements. In doing so, she illustrates the stark differences between idealized monastic landscape and the actual monastic landscape that was urbanized through monastic constructions. Drawing upon critical theories in landscape studies, materiality and phenomenology, Brooks Hedstrom looks at domestic settlements of non-monastic and monastic settlements to posit what features makes monastic settlements unique, thus offering a new history of monasticism in Egypt.

The Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires are usually studied separately, or else included in broader examinations of the Hellenistic world. This book provides a systematic comparison of the roles of local elites and local populations in the construction, negotiation, and adaptation of political, economic, military and ideological power within these states in formation. The two states, conceived as multi-ethnic empires, are sufficiently similar to make comparisons valid, while the process of comparison highlights and better explains differences. Regions that were successively incorporated into the Ptolemaic and then Seleucid state receive particular attention, and are understood within the broader picture of the ruling strategies of both empires. The book focusses on forms of communication through coins, inscriptions and visual culture; settlement policies and the relationship between local and immigrant populations; and the forms of collaboration with and resistance of local elites against immigrant populations and government institutions.

Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.

The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent, stretched more than 2000 kilometres along the Nile and passed through diverse habitats. In the north, the Nile traversed the Mediterranean coast and the Delta, while further south a thread of cultivation along the Nile Valley passed through the vast desert of the Sahara. As global climate and landscapes changed and evolved, the habitable parts of the kingdoms shifted. Modern studies suggest that episodes of desertification and greening swept across Egypt over periods of 1000 years. Rather than isolated events, the changes in Egypt are presented in context, often as responses to global occurrences, characterised by a constant shift of events, so although broadly historic, this narrative follows a series of habitats as they change and evolve through time.

This book provides the first edition with an extensive introduction and full commentary of a unique land survey written on papyrus in Greek which derives from that area of southern (Upper) Egypt known as the Apollonopolite (or Edfu) nome and is now preserved in Copenhagen. Dating from the late second century BC, this survey provides a new picture of both landholding and taxation in the area which differs significantly from that currently accepted. The introduction sets this new evidence in its contemporary context, drawing particular attention to what it reveals about the nature of the relations of the Ptolemaic royal administration with local grandees, Egyptian temples and the army. No student of Hellenistic Egypt can afford to ignore this text, which importantly extends our knowledge of Upper Egypt under the Ptolemaic kings and involves some modification to the prevailing picture of landholding in Hellenistic Egypt.

This discussion will be centered on one ubiquitous and rather simple Egyptian object type - the wooden container for the human corpse. We will focus on the entire 'lifespan' of the coffin - how they were created, who bought them, how they were used in funerary rituals, where they were placed in a given tomb, and how they might have been used again for another dead person. Using evidence from Deir el Medina, we will move through time from the initial agreement between the craftsman and the seller, to the construction of the object by a carpenter, to the plastering and painting of the coffin by a draftsman, to the sale of the object, to its ritual use in funerary activities, to its deposit in a burial chamber, and, briefly, to its possible reuse.

A History of World Egyptology is a ground-breaking reference work that traces the study of ancient Egypt over the past 150 years. Global in purview, it enlarges our understanding of how and why people have looked, and continue to look, into humankind's distant past through the lens of the enduring allure of ancient Egypt. Written by an international team of scholars, the volume investigates how territories around the world have engaged with, and have been inspired by, ancient Egypt and its study, and how that engagement has evolved over time. Chapters present a specific territory from different perspectives, including institutional and national, while examining a range of transnational links as well. The volume thus touches on multiple strands of scholarship, embracing not only Egyptology, but also social history, the history of science and reception studies. It will appeal to amateurs and professionals with an interest in the histories of Egypt, archaeology and science.

This study serves as a source book on domestic food storage in Ancient Israel and Judah by outlining important ethnographic and ancient textual and pictorial sources relevant to the discussion. These allow us to understand the motivated actions in relation to food storage, and the significance of food storage in daily life. On the basis of twenty-two well-excavated buildings from thirteen Iron Age sites, representative archaeological data is examined. For each house the total preserved food storage capacity is calculated, activity areas are identified, and specific patterns are noted. Food storage equipment, the location and role of food storage in the household, and the integration with other activities are analysed. Storage rooms were often located at the margins of houses, but a considerable part of the stored food was kept in other activity areas toward the centre. The data indicates that in Iron Age I food was stored mainly domestically or in shared community facilities, while redistributive food storage became more common in Iron Age II, with significant domestic storage continuing. The ideal of self-sufficiency remained.

Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs deals with ancient Egyptian concept of collective identity, various groups which inhabited the Egyptian Nile Valley and different approaches to ethnic identity in the last two hundred years of Egyptology. The aim is to present the dynamic processes of ethnogenesis of the inhabitants of the land of the pharaohs, and to place various approaches to ethnic identity in their broader scholarly and historical context. The dominant approach to ethnic identity in ancient Egypt is still based on culture historical method. This and other theoretically better framed approaches (e.g. instrumentalist approach, habitus, postcolonial approach, ethnogenesis, intersectionality) are discussed using numerous case studies from the 3rd millennium to the 1st century BC. Finally, this Element deals with recent impact of third science revolution on archaeological research on ethnic identity in ancient Egypt.

In this book, Aaron A. Burke explores the evolution of Amorite identity in the Near East from ca. 2500-1500 BC. He sets the emergence of a collective identity for the Amorites, one of the most famous groups in Ancient Near Eastern history, against the backdrop of both Akkadian imperial intervention and declining environmental conditions during this period. Tracing the migration of Amorite refugees from agropastoral communities into nearby regions, he shows how mercenarism in both Mesopotamia and Egypt played a central role in the acquisition of economic and political power between 2100 and 1900 BC. Burke also examines how the establishment of Amorite kingdoms throughout the Near East relied on traditional means of legitimation, and how trade, warfare, and the exchange of personnel contributed to the establishment of an Amorite koine. Offering a fresh approach to identity at different levels of social hierarchy over time and space, this volume contributes to broader questions related to identity for other ancient societies.

In this book, Lisa Sabbahy presents a history of ancient Egyptian kingship in the Old Kingdom and its re-formation in the early Middle Kingdom. Beginning with an account of Egypt's history before the Old Kingdom, she examines the basis of kingship and its legitimacy. The heart of her study is an exploration of the king's constant emphasis on his relationship to his divine parents, the sun god Ra and his mother, the goddess Hathor, who were two of the most important deities backing the rule of a divine king. Sabbahy focuses on the cardinal importance of this relationship, which is reflected in the king's monuments, particularly his pyramid complexes, several of which are analysed in detail. Sabbahy also offers new insights into the role of queens in the early history of Egypt, notably sibling royal marriages, harem conspiracies, and the possible connotations of royal female titles.

Whether on a national or a personal level, everyone has a complex relationship with their closest neighbors. Where are the borders? How much interaction should there be? How are conflicts solved? Ancient Israel was one of several small nations clustered in the eastern Mediterranean region between the large empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia in antiquity. Frequently mentioned in the Bible, these other small nations are seldom the focus of the narrative unless they interact with Israel. The ancient Israelites who produced the Hebrew Bible lived within a rich context of multiple neighbors, and this context profoundly shaped Israel. Indeed, it was through the influence of the neighboring people that Israel defined its own identity-in terms of geography, language, politics, religion, and culture. Ancient Israel's Neighbors explores both the biblical portrayal of the neighboring groups directly surrounding Israel-the Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Arameans-and examines what we can know about these groups through their own literature, archaeology, and other sources. Through its analysis of these surrounding groups, this book will demonstrate in a direct and accessible manner the extent to which ancient Israelite identity was forged both within and against the identities of its close neighbors. Animated by the latest and best research, yet written for students, this book will invite readers into journey of scholarly discovery to explore the world of Israel's identity within its most immediate ancient Near Eastern context.

Since the beginning of Gandharan studies in the nineteenth century, chronology has been one of the most significant challenges to the understanding of Gandharan art. Many other ancient societies, including those of Greece and Rome, have left a wealth of textual sources which have put their fundamental chronological frameworks beyond doubt. In the absence of such sources on a similar scale, even the historical eras cited on inscribed Gandharan works of art have been hard to place. Few sculptures have such inscriptions and the majority lack any record of find-spot or even general provenance. Those known to have been found at particular sites were sometimes moved and reused in antiquity. Consequently, the provisional dates assigned to extant Gandharan sculptures have sometimes differed by centuries, while the narrative of artistic development remains doubtful and inconsistent. Building upon the most recent, cross-disciplinary research, debate and excavation, this volume reinforces a new consensus about the chronology of Gandhara, bringing the history of Gandharan art into sharper focus than ever. By considering this tradition in its wider context, alongside contemporary Indian art and subsequent developments in Central Asia, the authors also open up fresh questions and problems which a new phase of research will need to address. Problems of Chronology in Gandharan Art is the first publication of the Gandhara Connections project at the University of Oxford's Classical Art Research Centre, which has been supported by the Bagri Foundation and the Neil Kreitman Foundation. It presents the proceedings of the first of three international workshops on fundamental questions in the study of Gandharan art, held at Oxford in March 2017.

Most ancient history focuses on the urban elite. Papyrology explores the daily lives of the more typical men and women in antiquity. Aphrodito, a village in sixth-century AD Egypt, is antiquity's best source for micro-level social history. The archive of Dioskoros of Aphrodito introduces thousands of people living the normal business of their lives: loans, rent contracts, work agreements, marriage, divorce. In exceptional cases, the papyri show raw conflict: theft, plunder, murder. Throughout, Dioskoros struggles to keep his family in power in Aphrodito, and to keep Aphrodito independent from the local tax collectors. The emerging picture is a different vision of Roman late antiquity than what we see from the view of the urban elites. It is a world of free peasants building networks of trust largely beyond the reach of the state. Aphrodito's eighth-century AD papyri show that this world dies in the early years of Islamic rule.

This book gives a structured account of Egypt's transition from Ptolemaic to Roman rule by identifying key relationships between ecology, land tenure, taxation, administration and politics. It introduces theoretical perspectives from the social sciences and subjects them to empirical scrutiny using data from Greek and Demotic papyri as well as comparative evidence. Although building on recent scholarship, it offers some provocative arguments that challenge prevailing views. For example, patterns of land ownership are linked to population density and are seen as one aspect of continuity between the Ptolemaic and Roman period. Fiscal reform, by contrast, emerges as a significant mechanism of change not only in the agrarian economy but also in the administrative system and the whole social structure. Anyone seeking to understand the impact of Roman rule in the Hellenistic east must consider the well-attested processes in Egypt that this book seeks to explain.

While mortuary ruins have long fascinated archaeologists and art historians interested in the cultures of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean, the human skeletal remains contained in the tombs of this region have garnered less attention. In Bioarchaeology and Behavior, Megan Perry presents a collection of essays that aim a spotlight on the investigation of the ancient inhabitants of the circum-Mediterranean area. Composed of eight diverse papers, this volume synthesizes recent research on human skeletal remains and their archaeological and historical contexts in this region. Utilizing an environmental, social, and political framework, the contributors present scholarly case studies on such topics as the region's mortuary archaeology, genetic investigations of migration patterns, and the ancient populations' health, disease, and diet. Other key anthropological issues addressed in this volume include the effects of the domestication of plants and animals, the rise of state-level formations, and the role of religion in society. Ultimately, this collection will provide anthropologists, archaeologists, and bioarchaeologists with an important foundation for future research in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean.

A diachronic study of the development of Aqaba castle, an important Islamic khan at the junction of two major pilgrim routes, both based on Arabic and Crusader sources and the results of the excavations undertaken by Ghent University in Aqaba.

Text in English and French. Qumran Cave 11Q was discovered by Bedouin in 1956. In the cave, remains of around 30 Dead Sea Scrolls were found, a few of them in very good state of preservation (the Temple Scroll, the Psalm Scroll, the Paleo Leviticus Scroll, and the Targum Job Scroll). The cave was excavated by Roland de Vaux (Ecole Biblique et Archeologique FranAaise, Jerusalem) and Gerald L. Harding (Department of Antiquities of Jordan) in 1956; later by Joseph Patrich (University of Haifa) in 1988, and by Marcello Fidanzio and Dan Bahat (ISCAB FTL and Universitedella Svizzera Italiana) in 2017. Due to Roland de Vaux's premature death, the archaeology of Cave 11Q has never been published. This volume presents the final report on the 1956, 1988 and 2017 excavations at Cave 11Q. Next to discussing the physical characteristics and stratigraphy of the cave and offering a full analysis of non-textual finds, the volume for the first time presents many tiny manuscript fragments found in storerooms during recent work. These fragments, most of which were collected during 1956 excavation, have not been known until now. The volume, therefore, offers the final report of Cave 11Q excavations as well as the editio princeps of the new fragments, followed by a reevaluation of the entire set of texts found in this famous cave.