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Austrian archaeologists have found a Babylonian seal in Egypt that confirms contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos during the second millennium B.C. Irene Forstner-Müller, the head of the Austrian Archaeological Institute's (ÖAI) branch office in Cairo, said today (Thurs) the find had occurred at the site of the ancient town of Avaris near what is today the city of Tell el-Dab'a in the eastern Nile delta. The Hyksos conquered Egypt and reigned there from 1640 to 1530 B.C. She said a recently-discovered cuneiform tablet had led archaeologists to suspect there had been contact between the Babylonians and the Hyksos....

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyBURIAL PITA CT scan, left, of a female skull at a burial site at Ur. Women were buried with elaborate adornments, right, and warriors with their weapons. A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say. Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps,...

Drainage work in the construction of the second runway has been moved as a resultThe oldest Phoenician remains yet to be found in Málaga have been unearthed at the airport as land was moved as part of the construction of the second runway.

An Oopart (Out Of Place ARTifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that, given their level of technology, are completely at odds with their determined age based on physical, chemical, and/or geological evidence. Ooparts often are frustrating to conventional scientists and a delight to adventurous investigators and individuals interested in alternative scientific theories. In 1991, the appearance of extremely tiny, coil-shaped artifacts found near the banks of Russia’s Kozhim, Narada, and Balbanyu rivers brought about a debate that has continued to this day. These mysterious and minuscule structures suggest that...

News to Note, October 10, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint...

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake. The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ. "We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy,...

A treasure trove of 4.4-million-year-old fossils from the Ethiopian desert is dramatically overturning widely held ideas about the early evolution of humans and how they came to walk upright, even as it paints a remarkably detailed picture of early life in Africa, researchers reported Thursday. The centerpiece of the diverse collection of primate, animal and plant fossils is the near-complete skeleton of a human ancestor that demonstrates our earliest forebears looked nothing like a chimpanzee or other large primate, as is now commonly believed. Instead, the findings suggest that the last common ancestor of humans and primates, which existed nearly...

A recent report of an ancient textile facility, of sorts, is turning heads.[1] Sifting through the debris on a cave floor in the Republic of Georgia, scientists recently discovered evidence that the early cave dwellers processed textiles in the cave. While searching for ancient pollen grains, they found tiny flax fibers in the dirt. Some of these fibers were woven, some were cut, and some were dyed black, gray, turquoise, or pink. They also discovered evidence that these people were processing fur (for clothing) and animal hides. What is surprising about the find is that this was supposedly happening 30,000...

Top Egyptian Daily: Joseph’s Era Coins Found in Egypt (IsraelNN.com) "...discovered many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh's court…" An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

Whether you believe that the biblical account of Joseph did happen (or something close to the biblical account), or if you didn't, this account of an Egyptian archeological find in a leading Egyptian Newspaper translated by MEMRI is very cool According to a report in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, by Wajih Al-Saqqar, archeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

Just heard in on WMAL (DC) at 9am….No link. Maybe someone can find the link.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- In what was slated to be the site of a new 122-room hotel, archaeologists say they have discovered one of the world's oldest synagogues in Northern Israel. The site, which was unearthed as preparations were being made for construction of the hotel near the Sea of Galilee, is believed to date back some 2000 years from 50BCE to 100CE. In the middle of the 120 square meter main hall of the synagogue archaeologists discovered an unusual stone carved with a seven branched menorah . "We are dealing with an exciting and unique find," said excavation director and...

King Jehoiachin was only 18 years old and had occupied the throne of Judah barely three months when he was led off into Babylonian captivity in 598 BCE together with his wives, his mother, his servants, his eunuchs and thousands of "the chief men of the land." But what happened to them when they reached Babylon? And what happened there to the tens of thousands of others who joined them in exile when the First Temple was destroyed a decade later? The Bible tells us of the return to Judah half a century later but virtually nothing of what the...

An Oopart (Out Of Place ARTifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that, given their level of technology, are completely at odds with their determined age based on physical, chemical, and/or geological evidence. Ooparts often are frustrating to conventional scientists and a delight to adventurous investigators and individuals interested in alternative scientific theories. In the Ural Mountains of Siberia, a stone tablet was found by a physics and mathematics professor of Bashkir State University, Alexandr Chuvyrov. Weighing in at nearly a ton, the three-layer tablet bears a striking topographical resemblance...

The Place Shazer in the Arabian Peninsula   Many Latter-day Saints have become fascinated about recent discoveries in the Arabian Peninsula that provide strong evidence for the authenticity and plausibility of the Book of Mormon. Much attention has been called to the finding of an ancient burial place with a name very close to Nahom in the only region where it could be, according to the description in First Nephi (and don't forget the recent discovery of altars with inscriptions that further strengthen the case for Nahom as evidence for the Book of Mormon). Much attention has also been directed...

Pictures of a piece of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat (meaning: sacred land or high land), eastern Turkey or former western Armenia, because Noah's Ark is in pieces!

The girder comes out from the glacier of Mount Ararat, at an altitude of 4200 meters. It's visible to the naked eye and the Alpine guide Claudio Schranz of Macugnaga has no more doubts: it's a piece of the Noah's Ark. He saw and photographed it at a distance of five meters. It's the morning of December, 2nd, Schranz is an Alpinist and he's 51 years old, he has hundredths of expeditions in all the world to his credits.

Many believe that Mount Ararat in Turkey hold the remains of Noah's Ark.

On the 2nd December 2002 Claudio Schranz of our group and alpine guide has been able to film clearly a beam of Noah's Ark protruding out of the ice on Mount Ararat. It was found at 4000m between the beginning of the Parrot glacier.

Workers renovating a house in the traditional town of Jesus' birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official said Tuesday.

ATHENS, Greece – Greece opens its long-anticipated new Acropolis Museum Saturday, boosting its decades-old campaign for the return of 2,500-year-old sculptures removed from the ancient citadel by a 19th century British diplomat.

WASHINGTON – Bits of pottery discovered in a cave in southern China may be evidence of the earliest development of ceramics by ancient people. The find in Yuchanyan Cave dates to as much as 18,000 years ago, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An island for ancient elites has been found in central Mexico, archaeologists say. Among the ruins are a treasury and a small pyramid that may have been used for rituals. The island, called Apupato, belonged to the powerful Tarascan Empire, which dominated much of western Mexico from A.D. 1400 to 1520, before the European conquest of the region. "Because Apupato was an island and relatively unsettled, it is a neat window into how the [Lake Pátzcuaro] basin looked like years ago," said Christopher Fisher, lead investigator and archaeologist at Colorado State University.

Iraq was home to some of civilization's first outposts and hosted conquerors from Alexander the Great to Americans. Much of that priceless archeological heritage was lost and looted in the chaotic months after the U.S. invasion in 2003. Now, the Field Museum and the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute are part of an effort to turn things around: They're training Iraqi archeologists and cultural preservationists, who will return home to train their colleagues, in techniques that would wow Indiana Jones.

Rome's underground Christian, Jewish and pagan burial sites, the Catacombs, date back to the 2nd Century AD. There are more than 40 of them stretching over 170km (105 miles). But, until now, they have never been fully documented, their vast scale only recorded with handmade maps. That is now changing, following a three-year project to create the first fully comprehensive three-dimensional image using laser scanners.

After a group of Israeli farmers sought last year to expand their property in the hills near Jerusalem, they discovered an archeological gem beneath the dirt. A team led by Daniel Ein Mor barely had to scratch the surface before finding the remains of a Byzantine monastery, he told CNN on Wednesday. "The excavation at Nes-Harim supplements our knowledge about the nature of the Christian-Byzantine settlement in the rural areas between the main cities in this part of the country during the Byzantine period," including Jerusalem, Mor said. The church is believed to have been built in the late fifth...

When archaeologists on a dig in southern Portugal last year flipped over a heavy chunk of slate and saw writing not used for more than 2,500 years, they were elated. The enigmatic pattern of inscribed symbols curled symmetrically around the upper part of the rough-edged, yellowish stone tablet and coiled into the middle in a decorative style typical of an extinct Iberian language called Southwest Script. "We didn't break into applause, but almost," says Amilcar Guerra, a University of Lisbon lecturer overseeing the excavation. "It's an extraordinary thing."

Put a fedora hat and worn leather jacket on Joan Markel, place her in the dusty rows of Frank H. McClung Museum's skulls, bones, books and spooky artifacts, and you have the makings of a George Lucas-like blockbuster movie sequel. Call the first one "Tennessee Markel and the Treasure of the Lost Map." Well, maybe that's a little over the top. But you get the notion. Markel is a librarian and an archaeologist with a furious heart for finding the Civil War history of Knoxville. She has uncovered a doozie. Capt. Orlando Poe, architect of Union fortifications in Knoxville during...

Hairs that likely belonged to humans living 195,000 to 257,000 years ago in Africa have been identified in fossilized brown hyena dung, according to a new study that describes the first non-bony material in the early human fossil record. Until now, the oldest known human hairs were from a 9,000-year-old Chinchorro mummy from Arica, northern Chile. This latest discovery, made at Gladysvale cave, South Africa, exceeds the mummy's age by about 200,000 years.

You have heard of the Egyptians, the Romans and the Greeks. Even the Sumerians may ring a bell. But the Trypilians? ...Well, you're not alone if you don't know who the ancient people of present day Ukraine were. Despite their incredible advances -- the 5400-2700 BC culture is credited at creating the largest settlements in the world during that time -- they quickly and mysteriously faded into obscurity, almost seemingly erased from the world's history books... Thanks to Ukraine's Orange Revolution five years ago, and further work done by a slew of the Eastern European country's museums, including the National...

Excavations have unearthed a hoard of more than 1,300-year-old gold coins under a car park by the ancient walls of Jerusalem, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said on Monday. Archaeologists said the discovery of the 264 coins, in the ruins of a building dating to about the 7th century, the end of the Byzantine period, was one of the largest coin hoards uncovered in Jerusalem. "We've had pottery, we've had glass, but we've had nothing like this," said British archaeologist Nadine Ross, who found the hoard under a large rock on Sunday, in the fourth and final week of a trip...

Archeologists in China are baffled after finding a tiny Swiss watch in a 400-year-old tomb. The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town. "When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound,? said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum. "We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch." The time...

The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery. "This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said. The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology...

URUMQI, China — An exhibit on the first floor of the museum here gives the government’s unambiguous take on the history of this border region: “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” says one prominent sign. But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story. One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down, her lips pursed in death, her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese. The...

Italian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of the ancient Roman hero said to have inspired the character played by Russell Crowe in the film "Gladiator." Daniela Rossi, an archaeologist based in Rome, said the discovery of the monumental marble tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, including a large inscription bearing his name, was "an exceptional find." She said it was "the most important ancient Roman monument to come to light for twenty or thirty years." The tomb is on the banks of the Tiber near the via Flaminia, north of Rome. Cristiano Ranieri, who led the archeological team at the site,...

LONDON — Two ancient Egyptian skulls unearthed in a yard in England have been returned to their native country. And the mystery of how they got from the hot sands of Egypt to the rainy north of England has been solved, investigators said Tuesday. The first skull was discovered by homeowner Matthew McClelland as he did some gardening at his home in the northern city of Manchester a year ago. He called authorities, and they discovered a second skull. An analysis by an Oxford University expert confirmed the skulls were a little more than 2,000 years old.

Almost every form of life that has existed on earth appears to have gone through a ‘giant’ phase. There have been giant plants, giant insects, giant reptiles, giant birds, giant fish, giant mammals and giant humans.

MOSCOW — A Russian archaeologist says he has found the lost capital of the Khazars, a powerful nation that adopted Judaism as its official religion more than 1,000 years ago, only to disappear leaving little trace of its culture. Dmitry Vasilyev, a professor at Astrakhan State University, said his nine-year excavation near the Caspian Sea has finally unearthed the foundations of a triangular fortress of flamed brick, along with modest yurt-shaped dwellings, and he believes these are part of what was once Itil, the Khazar capital. (edit) The Khazars were a Turkic tribe that roamed the steppes from Northern China...

FORT MORGAN, Ala. – When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery — a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969. Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

It's the sort of classic jewellery favoured by modern women except these earrings were worn 2,500 years ago.An archeologist  discovered gold earrings, a ring and other funeral gifts dating back to the 5th century B.C. while excavating  a Thracian tomb near the village of Kushare, about 280km from Sofia, Bulgaria.Some of the oldest examples of gold jewellery and artifacts have been discovered in Bulgaria and it's Black Sea coast is considered the birthplace of  the world's metal production. Thracian bling: The gold earrings discovered during excavations of a tomb in Bulgaria What are Bulgaria's borders today were part of several...

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a seal impression belonging to a minister of the biblical King Zedekiah, which dates back 2,600 years, during an archeological dig in Jerusalem's ancient City of David. The finding helps corroborate the story pertaining to the biblical minister's demand to have the prophet Jeremiah killed. The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found completely intact just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia's ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was unearthed three years...

(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists have unearthed proof of another Biblical story at Jerusalem's ancient City of David, this time corroborating the Book of Jeremiah. A completely intact seal impression, or "bula", bearing the name Gedaliahu ben Pashur was uncovered. The bula is actually a stamped engraving made of mortar. Gedaliahu ben Pashur's bula was found a bare few meters away from the site where a second such seal, this one belonging to Yuchal ben Shlemiyahu, an elder in the court of King Tzidkiyahu, was found three years ago, at the entrance to the City of David. According to Professor Eilat Mazar of...

A slab of North Texas limestone is on track to rock the world, with its two imbedded footprints poised to make a huge impression in scientific and religious circles. The estimated 140-pound stone was recovered in July 2000 from the bank of a creek that feeds the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas, located about 53 miles south of Fort Worth. The find was made just outside Dinosaur Valley State Park, a popular destination for tourists known for its well-preserved dinosaur tracks and other fossils. The limestone contains two distinct prints – one of a human footprint and one belonging...

I was privileged this week to preview, before its release to the public, what may well prove to be a masterpiece of the documentary film-making art—a new look at the Biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt in the light of contemporary archeology and politics in the Middle East. Filmmaker Tim Mahoney´s "The Exodus Conspiracy",[1] due to be released within a few months, seeks to demonstrate the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt on the basis of recent archaeological discoveries and geographic explorations. A secondary thesis of the film is...

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection By ETHAN BRONNER JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus...“This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This...

LONDON. A third of the Coptic sculptures at the Brooklyn Museum of Art are modern fakes. Its collection of late Egyptian sculpture was, until now, the second largest in North America. Brooklyn curator Dr Edna Russmann, who is concluding a study of the works, warns that other museums which acquired Coptic sculptures in the past 50 years are likely to face similar problems. The unmasking of the forgeries will be revealed in an exhibition on “Coptic Sculpture in the Brooklyn Museum”, opening on 13 February 2009. The Art Newspaper can reveal that ten of Brooklyn’s 30 sculptures are now deemed...

Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation. The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago. The Greenland ice core evidence showed that a massive reorganization of atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with each...

A flamboyant archeologist known worldwide for his trademark Indiana Jones hat believes he has identified the site where Cleopatra is buried. Now, with a team of 12 archeologists and 70 excavators, Zahi Hawass, 60, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has begun the search for her tomb. In addition, after a breakthrough two weeks ago, Hawass hopes to find Cleopatra's lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, sharing her last resting place at the site of a temple, the Taposiris Magna, 28 miles west of Alexandria.

Dig uncovers African beads buried in ancient village By Sean O’RiordanMay 22, 2008 BEADS that originated in Africa are some of the treasures archaelologists have found as they begin to explore an ancient settlement in north Cork. Test trenches also revealed pottery and weapons from a medieval period. In addition, there was evidence of prehistoric settlements in the area and an early ecclesiastic settlement, possibly from the 7th-8th century. Evidence of a large moat and cobbled walkways were also uncovered. Experts are due to conduct major excavations within weeks. One archaeologist said: “It’s one of the most exciting discoveries in...