Ancient Near East .net

Reports in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz this morning give notice of the announcement today by the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem of the discovery of the tomb of Herod (the Great) at the site of Herodium:

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/856784.html (initial announcement)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/856808.html (follow-up)

In an exciting development, the Austrian excavations at Tell el-Dabʿa now have their own website. It is to be hoped that it will be regularly updated and maintained. May many other excavations follow this good example.

Readers are heartily commended to check out the recently-published Festschrift for my dig director, Amihai Mazar, the papers having been assembled in 2002 for the occasion of the Israeli archaeologist’s 60th birthday.

Observations regarding the (almost inevitable) delays involved in traditional paper-based publication notwithstanding, the new volumes (there are two!) include 60 papers from 55 contributors, many of future key importance.

“I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times”
Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday
Note that this is a two-volume set (volumes not sold separately) and will incur an additional shipping charge
EIS - Eisenbrauns
Edited by Aren M. Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji
Eisenbrauns,2006
xxxii + 894 pages, 2 volumes,English
Cloth,7 x 10
ISBN: 1575061031
List Price: $97.50
Your Price: $87.75
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~MAEIWILLS

Word arrives today that the Egyptian Museum in Cairo has placed an additional 11 mummies of 20th Dynasty date on display. BBC Video News.

The ubiquitous Zahi Hawass, Chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, naturally was present at the museum for the occasion. Hawass wanted to impress that the mummy identified as Ramesses III was now on display. Some exception, however, could be taken with Hawass’ characterisation of Ramesses III as the “last fighter of the pharaohs”… What exactly does Hawass think Sheshonq was doing in the southern Levant less than two centuries later?

Word has come that a number of excavations in the north of Israel have had to be evacuated on safety grounds, owing to the ongoing rocket attacks by Hezbollah. Sites evacuated include Megiddo, Hazor and Tell Dan.

CAIS brings news of additional impending loss of archaeological heritage to reservoirs in the Near and Middle East:

LONDON, (CAIS) — The countdown has begun for the flooding of the 6000-year-old Kul-Tappeh site in East Azarbaijan province, as the Islamic Regime’ operators of the Sahand Dam started filling the reservoir.
An archaeological team tasked with carrying out rescue excavations at the site has found remnants from the Chalcolithic Era (copper-stone age, 4500-3300 BCE) to the Bronze Age.
“The discovery of some pottery works bearing geometrical engravings and a number of stone blades prove that the site was used by people living in the Chalcolithic period,” team director Mohammad Feizkhah said.
“But most of the residences date back to the Bronze Age. The construction of buildings with mud-brick walls and stone foundations is the main architectural characteristic in this era,” he added.
According to Feizkhah, the team has also found some other relics, such as pottery works and architectural structures believed to belong to the Iron Age, but due to the time constrictions which prevented further excavations and study, they could not conclusively determine that the discoveries were from the Iron Age.
The rescue excavations for the site began 40 days ago and the team was only able to dig a 2×3-meter trench for study. In addition, a team of anthropologists has been tasked with gathering information from the surrounding villages, which will also be flooded by the dam.
“We found artifacts from the third Iranian dynasty, the Parthians (248 BCE -224 CE) as well as from the Ilkhanid period (1256-1349 CE),” Feizkhah said, adding that the excavations were perhaps equivalent to about one percent of the studies currently being carried out behind the Sivand Dam.
Teams of Italian, Polish, Japanese, German, and Australian archaeologists along with Iranian experts are working in the Bolaghi Valley, where the Islamic Regime’s Sivand Dam will devour 147 archaeological sites. The process of filling the reservoir is scheduled to begin in late spring.
The construction of dams by Islamic Regime has caused serious damage to several of Iran’s ancient sites. The Karun 3 Dam in Khuzestan Province, which came on stream in November 2004, inundated many ancient sites from the Elamite era and other historical periods of Iran.
This is not the end of the story. The Gilan Cultural Heritage and Tourism Department has announced that 16 historic sites will be submerged by a dam that is under construction on the Pol-Rud River near the city of Rudsar in the northern province of Gilan.
The construction of the Gilan-e Gharb Dam, which is threatening a number of ancient sites dating back to the first millennium BCE in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah, has become another clash between so-called Islamic Regime’s devolpement programme and Iranian cultural heritage.

The Oriental Institute of Chicago continues its commendable practice of placing new publications online for open access (PDF format):

Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (Oriental Institute Seminars, Number 2)

Edited by Seth L. Sanders and with contributions by Seth L. Sanders, John Kelly, Gonzalo Rubio, Jacco Dieleman, Jerrold Cooper, Christopher Woods, Annick Payne, William Schniedewind, Michael Silverstein-, Piotr Michalowski, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Theo van den Hout, Paul Zimansky, Sheldon Pollock, and Peter Machinist.

Recent exciting news from the Getty Research Institute:

The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) is embarking on a six-year partnership with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) on the conservation and management of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens…. located on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor (ancient Thebes) (and) also the site of the Valley of the Kings….

The GCI will be working with the SCA on developing and implementing a plan for the Valley of the Queens to address… threats to the site, which include natural forces (particularly flooding) and mass tourism… In addition to the development of a conservation and management plan for the Valley of the Queens—which will involve the assessment of some eighty ancient tombs at the site—an important part of the project will be training for Egyptian professionals….

The Valley of the Queens Project is the GCI’s latest collaborative project with Egypt. Twenty years ago, Institute staff worked with Egyptian colleagues and an international conservation team on the conservation of the wall paintings in the tomb of Queen Nefertari, the powerful queen of ruler Ramses II. The thirteenth-century B.C. tomb, considered among the most beautiful to have survived from Egyptian antiquity, is located in the Valley of the Queens.

Other GCI collaborative work… has included the development of oxygen-free display and storage cases for the Royal Mummies in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, an environmental monitoring study of the Great Sphinx at the Giza Plateau outside Cairo, and preparatory work for the conservation of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Full Press Release

Continuing their praiseworthy efforts to place all their publications online, free of charge, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago have announced two additional publications, immediately available in PDF format:

OIP 131 - The Amuq Valley Regional Projects, Volume 1 – Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 1995-2002 (edited by Kutlu Aslihan Yener, with chapters by Stephen Batiuk, Aaron A. Burke, Jesse J. Casana, Amy Rebecca Gansell, Timothy P. Harrison, Hatice Pamir, Laurence Pavlish, Tony J. Wilkinson, and Kutlu Aslihan Yener, with a contribution by Robert K. Ritner).

OIMP 24 - Lost Nubia: A Centennial Exhibit of Photographs from the 1905-1907 Egyptian Expedition of the University of Chicago (John A. Larson).

It is sincerely to be hoped that other, similar institutions will follow this fine example.

Somewhat belatedly, attention should be given to the announcement of the Official and Unofficial Weblog of the Tell es-Safi / Gath Archaeological Project by dig director Aren Maeir, a well respected colleague…. Definitely worth a read! I agree with Aren: blogging is emerging as a particularly effective way to document and publicise an excavation…