Australian Institute of Archaeology - Studying the Ancient Near East

Monographs
Francis I. Andersen and Richard S. Hess, Names in the Study of Biblical History: David, YHWH Names, and the Role of Personal Names
Susan Balderstone Early Church Architectural Forms:A Theologically Contextual Typology For The Eastern Churches Of The 4th - 6th Centuries

>> Recent Articles & Stories

Queen Hatshepsut

See http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/851/eg11.htm for pix

Two years ago the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) began a five-year mummy project, involving CT scanning and DNA analysis more than 40 royal mummies at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. This program is being funded by the Discovery Channel. The DNA analysis is being carried out by Manchester University.

It is believed that the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut has been identified and that another mummy previously thought to be King Tuthmosis I, Hatshepsut’s father, has been found to be someone else. Hatshepsut’s DNA has also been matched to a mummy believed to be Ahmose Nefertari, her grandmother. This is only the beginning of such work.

Tutankhamen remains the only Egyptian New Kingdom King to be found in situ in his own sealed coffin. The identities of all other New Kingdom mummies are potentially open to question.

Very few tombs in the Valley of the Kings contained mummies. In antiquity, probably during the 21st Dynasty, royal mummies from many tombs were gathered together with their grave goods and stored in just a few tombs (DB320, KV35, KV17, KV57 and KV60). During this process all valuables were removed and the mummies, coffins and grave goods became mixed.

In the 1870s the Razzul brothers discovered a cache of 40 royal mummies in a tomb at Deir el-Bahri (DB320), outside the Valley of the Kings. Amongst this cache was Hatshepsut's empty sarcophagus, now in the Egyptian Museum, and that of her father, Thutmose I, also empty and now in Boston. Also found were some of Hatshepsut's funerary objects, Canopic jars, ushabti figurines, and a small wooden box inscribed with her name (Maat-ka-Re) containing amongst other things, a tooth.

Hatshepsut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV20, was empty, but in 1903 Howard Carter discovered a nearby tomb KV60 containing two well preserved 18th Dynasty female mummies in royal pose. One was a small female mummy inside an 18th Dynasty sarcophagus inscribed with the name of Hatshepsut's royal wet nurse Sittre-in. Lying on the floor next to the sarcophagus was a second mummy of an obese woman with a shaved forehead and long hair at the back of her head. The arms were laid across the figure's chest, and the hand was clenched, a classic royal pose. Carter had little interest in the discovery and left the mummies in the tomb.

In 1906 Edward Ayrton re-explored the tomb and removed what was thought to be Sittre-in's mummy along with her sarcophagus, to the Egyptian Museum. The obese woman was left alone in the tomb until 1989, when anthropologist Donald Ryan cleared KV60. Interestingly the recent book, The Complete Valley of the Kings does not mention the KV60 mummies.

The SCA program scanned two female mummies from the DB320 cache and Sittre-in's mummy without finding Hatshepsut’s profile. Eventually the obese woman from KV60 was scanned and was found to be like Hatshepsut, about 50 years old at the time of death. She had suffered from tooth decay and a number of illnesses, including diabetes, which may have contributed to her death. When her teeth were examined it was found that there was a gap left by a tooth broken during mummification which matched the tooth found in the Hatshepsut box from DB320. It seems that the mummy of Hatshepsut had been found.

The mummy of ‘the obese woman’ has now been moved to the second floor of the Cairo Museum to join the other royal mummies. As the project proceeds there will no doubt be more comings and goings from the second floor of the Cairo Museum.

King Herod meets a shrink

One well remembers a psychiatrist saying of Basil Fawlty that he offered enough material for an entire conference. Another person offering significant material is Herod the Great, whose tomb has recently been found at the Herodium near Bethlehem. Anyone who murders three of his sons, his beloved wife, and countless other members of his close circle must be a person of psychological interest.

Aryeh Kasher and Eliezer Witztum have recently published a book entitled King Herod: A Persecuted Persecutor: A Case Study in Psychohistory and Psychobiography (Walter de Gruyter) containing carefully researched and an up-to-date historical and psychological analysis of Herod.

They describe how Herod grew up with a vague sense of self. As a child and an adolescent he lived in an Idumaean- Hellenist environment in Maresha, and possibly Ashkelon, never meeting a Jew. In practice, he was "half-Jew" and "half-Idumaean/Nabatean." Aside from an unformed personality, he had an inferiority complex about his ancestry and his looks, his brother-in-law and sons were taller and better looking than him, according to Josephus.

During his life time he was never accepted by the Jewish people he ruled over. He would no doubt be amazed if he returned today to see how treasured the remnants of his buildings are by modern day Jews and Christians.

From adolescence Herod showed signs of paranoia, exhibited in pathological suspiciousness. He trusted no one apart from his quarrelsome sister and had delusions that people were plotting against him. He suffered from extreme mood swings that became progressively worse over the years. His paranoia increased as well.

Herod definitely goes on the list of people that one would want to avoid at any cost.

Adapted from http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=876330

More Alalakh Tablets

The site of Alalakh in southern Turkey was excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley between 1936 and 1949. He discovered many tablets, some of which are now in the keeping of the Institute. Word has recently come from Aslihan Yener, who is now excavating Alalakh that she has also just discovered tablets in the Level VII Palace courtyard. The earlier tablets are largely administrative and the context of the recent discovery would suggest that the new tablets will be similar in character.

see www.Alalakh.org

The Siloam Inscription

Jerusalem's mayor has asked the Turkish government to return the famous Siloam inscription which was hacked out of the Siloam tunnel and sent to the Istanbul Museum in the 1880s.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski made the request in a meeting with Turkey's ambassador to Israel, Namik Tan, suggesting that the tablet's return could be a "gesture of goodwill" by Turkey. There are no details about the plans that the mayor has for the inscription if it was returned.

From http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184168556599&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

New Genesis Text from the Judaean Desert

There is a preliminary note that a portion of Genesis (32:3-7a) originally from the Judean desert has been ‘discovered’. It has been in Zurich (where else?) since the 1950’s. The text seems to date from the 1st century AD, but shows no sign of the Qumran scribal school.
James Charlesworth apparently made the purchase and says that he has acquired another 30 fragments which he will make available online later in August. Questions of authenticity will be inevitable. The fragments would have yielded much valuable information if their original context was known. As it is they may raise more questions than they answer.

From http://targuman.org/blog/?p=716

Old Stone Age artefacts found in Abu Dhabi

Mohammad Khalaf Al Mazroui, Director-General of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, has announced that some stone artefacts from the Old Stone Age have been discovered in the Western Province of Abu Dhabi.

The finds were identified by a team from the authority and two visiting scholars. Dr Walid Yasin, manager of the archaeology division at the authority, picked up the first distinctive artefact from one of the ancient sites. The dating of Abu Dhabi artefacts is, estimated to fall in the Middle Paleolithic (150,000-35,000 years ago), according to Dr Ganim Wahida, a pre-historian from Cambridge University.

From http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Heritage_and_Culture/10139893.html

Petra’s highs and lows

Petra was rediscovered by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burchhardt in 1812 and was officially listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. Recently it was chosen by more than 100 million people in a global online poll and phone campaign as one of the world's top architectural marvels. Other winners included the Great Wall of China, Brazil's Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Peru's Machu Picchu, the Chichen Itza Pyramid in Mexico, Rome's Colosseum and Taj Mahal in India.

Tourism will continue to increase at Petra leading to concerns about its preservation.

Khairieh Amr, a senior archaeologist with Jordan's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has warned that Petra and other archaeological sites in the region could suffer because of a "building boom that is taking place" to expand tourist facilities. There are also concerns about the management of visitors, the need for better signposts, tour guides and clearly defined tourist paths, and increased site protection against artefact theft.

There is hope that the Jordanian Cabinet will soon pass a bylaw enabling the Petra Action Plan to proceed. However at the moment only about one fifth of the necessary funding is being spent.

Monographs

Francis I. Andersen and Richard S. Hess - Names in the Study of Biblical History: David, YHWH Names, and the Role of Personal Names, Buried History Monograph No. 2 . 20p + iv illus. bibliography ISBN 978-0-9803747-0-4

This study demonstrates the importance of personal names for the analysis of the authorship and composition of the Hebrew Bible. Using specific exam¬ples from the Old Testament and the Tel Dan inscription related to the spell¬ings of King David and of the suffix elements of Yahweh on personal names, the study demonstrates how these evolve in both biblical and epigraphic texts. Because the changing forms and spellings of names can be correlated with the dating of the original writing of the texts, it is possible to conclude that these spellings demonstrate an antiquity and authenticity to the biblical texts in which they occur.

Price: A$ 25 + Postage - ORDER HERE

Susan Balderstone - Early Church Architectural Forms:A Theologically Contextual Typology For The Eastern Churches Of The 4th - 6th Centuries, Monograph No 3. 70p + x, colour plates illus tables indexes bibliography, ISBN 978-0-9803747-1-1

This monograph analyses the archaeological remains of churches in the east¬ern Mediterranean region in relation to the theological debates of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, bringing together information from sources covering excavations undertaken over the past 100 years. It concludes that certain archi¬tectural forms or designs became accepted through association with particular doctrinal positions. A chronological and theological framework for the various architectural forms found in the region is provided. Illustrations include 38 plans which enable comparisons to be made and churches to be more easily understood as important markers in the history of early Christianity.

Price $45 + Postage - ORDER HERE

RECENT ARTICLES & STORIES

Protecting Iraqi Sites
Tel Dor 2006 website
The Wall of King David’s Jerusalem
Tintin in Syriac
When its not all Greek – Classical theatre acoustics
Magic bowls in legal limbo
Starting from the top can have its problems
To complete the circle – A report on the American Oriental Society meeting
Dig Into Jerusalem's Past Fuels Present-Day Debates
Police arrest archaeologist suspected of ancient relic trade
Nefertari's Tomb
The Baghdad Museum Tragedy By Christopher Davey
Looted Relics Returned to Baghdad Museum
100 Most Endangered Sites Announced
Ossuary Dethroned

Back to Top