Archeology History

For more than a century, archaeologists have been unearthing the tombs, temples, texts, and artifacts of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world. Using new approaches, contemporary scholars have begun to synthesize this material with the biblical traditions. The Oxford History of the Biblical World incorporates the best of this scholarship, and in chronologically ordered chapters presents the listener with an integrated study of the history, art, architecture, languages, literatures, and religion of biblical Israel and early Judaism and Christianity in their larger cultural contexts.

The Aztecs believed offerings of human blood and human lives were necessary to the continued running of the universe. Indeed, in Aztec myths, the gods themselves make sacrifices of their own blood and even of their entire bodies in order to create a universe humans can live in and, in one story, to create humans themselves. To the ancient Aztecs, these practices seemed fitting, necessary, and honorable, helping to connect the world of humans to the divine world of the gods, a universe that in Aztec myth took shape in cycles of creation, destruction, and rebirth.

While this new faith was widely spread by word of mouth, the primary tool for the new religion was the Bible. Even now, nearly 2,000 years later the Bible continues to influence lives all over the world. How can this ancient document continue to have such a profound influence on the world? How has it survived the changing times and the feeble whims of mankind?

The Jesus Family Tomb tells the story of what may very well be the greatest archaeological find of all time: the discovery and investigation of the tomb belonging to Jesus' family. The tomb in question houses ossuaries (bone boxes) with inscriptions bearing the names of Jesus of Nazareth, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Judas, the son of Jesus.

In 2010, using a specialized robotic camera, authors Tabor and Jacobovici, working with archaeologists, geologists, and forensic anthropologists, explored a previously unexcavated tomb in Jerusalem from around the time of Jesus. They made a remarkable discovery. The tomb contained several ossuaries, or bone boxes, two of which were carved with an iconic image and a Greek inscription. Taken together, the image and the inscription constitute the earliest archaeological evidence of faith in Jesus’ resurrection.

Since the Victorian period, it has been understood that the story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, derives from a much older story that existed centuries before in ancient Babylon. But the relationship between the Babylonian and biblical traditions was shrouded in mystery. Then, in 2009, Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum and a world authority on ancient Mesopotamia, found himself playing detective.

This book welcomes listeners to appreciate the origins of Christianity within the Roman world in which early Christianity got its first foothold. It does that by immersing listeners in the life and culture of two thriving first-century towns—Pompeii and Herculaneum. Those towns (destroyed in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE) act as showpieces of the world into which the early Christian movement was spreading.

Does the near-mythical Ark of the Covenant still exist today? Countless people have thought so, dedicating their lives to finding this holy relic, all to no avail. Now Robert Cornuke, a modern-day adventurer, using the Bible as his guide, thinks he may know the exact location of the Ark. Join Cornuke as he embarks on this exciting and breathtaking adventure.

In 1925, James Henry Breasted sent a team of archaeologists to the Holy Land to excavate the ancient site of Megiddo - Armageddon in the New Testament. Their excavations made headlines around the world and shed light on one of the most legendary cities of biblical times. Digging Up Armageddon brings to life one of the most important archaeological expeditions ever undertaken, describing the site and what was found there, and providing an up-close look at the internal workings of a dig in the early years of biblical archaeology.

In 1939, a team of workers beneath the Vatican unearthed an early Christian grave. This surprising discovery launched a secret quest that would last decades a quest to discover the long-lost burial place of the Apostle Peter. From earliest times, Christian tradition held that Peter, a lowly fisherman from Galilee, whom Christ made leader of his church was executed in Rome by Emperor Nero and buried on Vatican Hill. But his tomb had been lost to history. Now, funded anonymously by a wealthy American, a small army of workers embarked on the dig of a lifetime.

The Copper Scroll Project tells the story of an Oklahoma arson investigator, Jim Barfield, who sets off on a decade-long quest to uncover Qumran’s secrets - the lost treasures of the Jerusalem temple - and show the world that the Dead Sea Scrolls were merely the tip of the archaeological iceberg. Could its secrets hold the keys to one of the greatest treasures in Israel’s history?

In the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira - archaeological treasure hunter and denizen of Jerusalem's bustling marketplace - arrived unannounced in London claiming to have discovered the world's oldest Bible scroll. When news of the discovery leaked to the excited English press, Shapira became a household name. But before the British Museum could acquire them, Shapira's nemesis, French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau, denounced his find as a fraud.

From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as an accompaniment to How Do We Look and The Eye of Faith, the famed Civilizations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art.

History is recorded in many ways. According to author James Deetz, the past can be seen most fully by studying the small things so often forgotten. In his completely revised and expanded edition of In Small Things Forgotten, Deetz has added new sections that more fully acknowledge the presence of women and African Americans in Colonial America.

George Smith (1840-1876) was an English archaeologist and Assyriologist who first discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the most ancient works of literature. The Babylonian account was similar to the biblical account of the Flood in Genesis. Smith discovered many more tablet fragments of the flood story, and published his work in "The Chaldean Account of Genesis".

The Minoan-Mycenaean Empire is one of the most compelling of the lost civilizations, so how does an advanced civilization vanish as if into thin air? This kingdom wasn’t limited to Greece and its Mediterranean tributaries, the Mycenaean Empire of Greek gods extended around the world, even into the Americas. Their technology included analog computers, humanoid robots, talking oracles, flying machines, transparent windows, hot and cold running water, flushing toilets, sewer systems, loose-stone pyramids that pulled water out of the air, and transcontinental ships with voice navigation.

The two great Persian invasions of Greece, in 490 and 480-79 B.C., both repulsed by the Greeks, provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece on a large scale. Using the Histories of Herodotus as well as other historical and archaeological sources, Jon Mikalson shows how the Greeks practiced their religion at this pivotal moment in their history.

Bob Cornuke is a real-life Indiana Jones, searching for evidence of biblical events and artifacts. In this book, he tells the story of his search for the remains of Noah's ark. Using investigative skills learned during his years as a police officer, Bob investigates all the clues, from ancient Scriptures to modern day eyewitness accounts. His quest to learn the truth about Noah's ark leads him from his safe home in the foothills of Colorado to the dangerous mountain ranges in Turkey and Iran.

When Oxford archeologist Mensun Bound, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the Deep" by the Discovery Channel, teamed up with a financier to salvage a sunken trove of 15th-century porcelain, it seemed a dream enterprise. The stakes were high: the Hoi An wreck lay hundreds of feet down in a typhoon-prone stretch of water off the coast of Vietnam known as the Dragon Sea.

Pilgern liegt wieder im Trend: Tausende von Menschen treten jedes Jahr eine Reise voller Mühen und Strapazen an. Aber warum? Abtprimas Notker Wolf geht der Geschichte des Pilgerns nach, erzählt von eigenen Erlebnissen, räumt mit falschen Vorstellungen auf – und diskutiert aktuelle Glaubens- und Gesellschaftsfragen ebenso unterhaltsam wie lehrreich. "Als Mönch bin ich zeitlebens in der Situation des Pilgers, der seine Familie, seine Freunde, seine Verwandtschaft zurücklässt, vieles aufgibt, was einmal zum Leben gehört hat, und täglich aufbricht, um etwas Größeres zu finden.