Is the third millennium BCE burial mound at Tell Banat in north Syria a war memorial to the site’s defenders? What moves the living to take a random sample of human and animal bones and bury them in a mound that looms over their community? What is a kunga anyway and how does the modern sport of donkey basketball fit in? Our panelists are strangely eloquent, in an episode not to be missed.
To learn more
Pyramid-shaped mound holding 30 corpses may be world's oldest war monument
https://www.livescience.com/oldest-war-monument-discovered-syria.html
Resurrection genomics sounds fancy, even a little scary, but in this case it means cultivating date trees from ancient seeds and then sequencing their genes. What do we learn about the antiquity of this ever-popular fruit? And if dates are so great, how come the tree is the symbol and not the fruit? Our panelists are torn.
To learn more
Researchers Sequence Genomes of Revived 2,000-Year-Old Date Palms
http://www.sci-news.com/genetics/judean-date-palm-genomes-09627.html
The chance find of a strange Roman period half lamp in Jerusalem and the even chancier discovery that the other half is in Hungary has shocked the archaeological world. What is this strange light fixture and how can its separation lead to some high-class speculation about lamps, symbolism, and ancient psychology? What is light anyway, and why is it so darned good? Our panelists are incandescent in this episode.
To learn more
Matching half of 2,000-year-old lamp found in Jerusalem said located in Budapest
https://www.timesofisrael.com/matching-half-of-2000-year-old-lamp-found-in-jerusalem-said-located-in-budapest/
A recent study proposes that the Biblical King Solomon orchestrated maritime trade across the Iron Age Mediterranean. Is there really evidence for this? And why didn’t the kingdoms of Israel and Judah create monumental art and architecture like their neighbors? Or, for that matter, write much stuff down? Our panelists are intrigued but not confident.
To learn more
Was King Solomon the ancient world’s first shipping magnate?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/25/was-king-solomon-the-ancient-worlds-first-shipping-magnate
A tiny inscribed potsherd dating to the first half of the 15th century BCE from Lachish in southern Israel has six little letters. Is this the earliest alphabetic inscription in the southern Levant? Does it change the story of the alphabet? And who breaks nice pottery to write a note? Our panelists are puzzled, but not necessarily surprised.
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‘Missing link’ in alphabet’s history said unearthed in Israel on Canaanite sherd
https://www.timesofisrael.com/missing-link-in-alphabets-history-said-unearthed-in-israel-on-canaanite-sherd/
The discovery of an industrial scale beer brewery at the early Egyptian site of Abydos demonstrates the role of alcohol in ancient societies. Was drinking your dinner on the ruler’s tab a way to keep workers fed, or maybe just to keep them from asking questions like ‘why are we building this stupid pyramid for this so-called king?’
To learn more
Abydos beer factory: Ancient large-scale brewery discovered in Egypt
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56067717
New excavations in caves along the west side of the Dead Sea have revealed fragments of Biblical texts along with astonishing prehistoric remains. They raise the question of how people were getting and out of these caves, hundreds of meters above the Dead Sea, and more importantly, why one of them brought along a basket the size of a minivan. Our panelists offer learned if contrasting opinions.
To learn more
Bible scroll fragments among dazzling artifacts found in Dead Sea Cave of Horror
https://www.timesofisrael.com/bible-scroll-fragments-among-dazzling-artifacts-found-in-dead-sea-cave-of-horror/
King Seqenere of the 17th Dynasty has some gruesome head wounds. Fighting the hated Hyksos might have been the cause of death for Egypt’s version of Sonny Corleone, but what about the snoring hippos? WHAT ABOUT THE HIPPOS?!
To learn more
Egyptian royal mummy shows pharaoh wasn’t assassinated—he was executed
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/ct-shows-ancient-egyptian-pharaoh-was-captured-in-battle-and-executed/
The discovery of a 6,600 year old cache of olives off the shore of Israel raises questions: Olives? Underwater? What? Who was the first person to eat an olive, and how does the Assyrian Empire (eventually) figure in? And why do our panelists keep talking about fat tailed sheep and the history of writing?
To learn more
Israeli teams discover ancient olive-eating practices below the sea
https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/oldest-evidence-for-olive-eating-found-below-the-sea-657615?fbclid=IwAR3AkN-uOTQhSKDFCTydNPJWksGiNTKhPzZikexu7uSl5T3vVAx24LofrJ8
