This article analyses orthographic variation in the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. Despite the general consistency in spelling found in Linear B texts from all sites, variation was in certain cases both permissible and entirely normal, even within the work of a single writer. Examining the patterns of orthographic variation…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

This graduate seminar approaches the urban and rural landscapes of peninsular Italy from the Early Iron Age until the Gothic Wars, with the goal being to examine key points of intersection (and departure) between the spheres of ‘town’ and ‘country’. In adopting an holistic approach to these categories that are often juxtaposed, the seminar…[Read more]

Troy has long captured the human imagination. The story of its fall and the tales of both its inhabitants and besiegers have caught the attention of artists and their audiences from antiquity to post-modernity. It seems we are drawn to the struggle that is Troy and the Trojan War, to the paragons of virtue, and the archetypes of other, less noble…[Read more]

Troy has long captured the human imagination. The story of its fall and the tales of both its inhabitants and besiegers have caught the attention of artists and their audiences from antiquity to post-modernity. It seems we are drawn to the struggle that is Troy and the Trojan War, to the paragons of virtue, and the archetypes of other, less noble…[Read more]

This course considers the archaeology and settlement history of the Mediterranean basin from the later ninth century B.C. to the middle of the fifth century B.C. in order to study, in a contextualized way, the interconnectedness of cultures and economies in this region. The interchange and exchange that occurred in the archaic Mediterranean world…[Read more]

This course offers a survey of the archaeology of settled landscapes in the ancient Mediterranean world, including both the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean basin. In particular, the course will focus on city-country dichotomies in order to study the patterns of development, demography, and land use in selected case study areas. While the…[Read more]

This article examines the instruction regarding the wood offering and the festival of new oil in fragment 23 of 4QReworked Pentateuch C (4Q365), and in particular its setting at a future temple (‫בית‬) in the land. It argues that while 4Q365 23 represents a departure from earlier versions of Leviticus, it should be considered nonetheless as part o…[Read more]

One of the medical manuscripts recovered from Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui (dated 186 B.C.E.) states that, “When a person is born there are two things that need not to be learned: the first is to breathe and the second is to eat.” Of course it is true that all healthy newborn human beings possess the reflexes to breathe and eat. Yet, the imp…[Read more]

This article examines the innovative focus on sabbath observance that characterizes the Holiness legislation (“H”). By comparing H’s conception of the sabbath with what is known about this sacred time from other biblical and extrabiblical sources, the article demonstrates that H creatively blends two aspects of the sabbath that were not alway…[Read more]

This article reviews the textual transmission of the ban on local butchery in Leviticus 17:3–4. It explores the importance of the manuscripts from the Dead Sea, in particular 4QLevd and 11Q19, for interpreting the plus at verse 4, attested in the Septuagint and in the Samaritan Pentateuch, as well as the change in address in v. 3, which is found i…[Read more]

The Persian King Darius I (reigned 522-486 BCE) constructed a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea – an ancient precursor to the Suez Canal that made it possible to sail from Egypt to Persia, and to places in between.

The Persian King Darius I (reigned 522-486 BCE) constructed a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea – an ancient precursor to the Suez Canal that made it possible to sail from Egypt to Persia, and to places in between.

This paper examines how the description of Aaron’s vestments in Exod 28 encodes a distinct concept of high priestly leadership. This chapter of Exodus has garnered relatively little attention in biblical scholarship, even among recent and comprehensive treatments of the high priest in the biblical and post-biblical traditions. This general n…[Read more]

In a groundbreaking endeavour to triangulate three important traditions of our collective cultural heritage, the Arkeologisk Museum of the University of Stavanger presents Eden and Everything After, a conceptual exhibition organised around notions of the loss of – and slim hope of reconnection with – the lost paradise. Mirroring the boldly exp…[Read more]

The historiola of an ancient Egyptian spell (AEMT 90) describes how Isis becomes a fugitive to protect her unborn/young son Horus from Seth, the murderer of her brother/husband Osiris. As her travel-group seeks refuge in the Nile Delta, a noblewoman’s inhospitality to the unexpected visitors results in her young son being stung by Isis’s sco…[Read more]

n this book the much-debated problem of political organization in Mycenaean Greece (ca. 1400-1200 BC) is analysed and contextualised through the prism of archaeology and contemporary textual (Linear B, Egyptian and Hittite) evidence.

From the early 14th century BC onwards, Hittite texts refer to a land Ahhiya(wa). The exact geographic position…[Read more]

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it argues that the Mycenaean Greek world served as a nexus for international trade between the Near East and Europe during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600 to 1100 BCE). Rather than a barbarian periphery, Europe – and in particular regions such as the Carpathian basin and the southern Baltic (Denmark and S…[Read more]

Poland has been recognized as important in the widespread migration of the Vikings, yet subject to little theoretical inquiry. I became particularly interested in the ways in which the Vikings in Poland understood and negotiated their world. To my knowledge, nobody has drawn together the pan-European evidence about the image of the two mythical…[Read more]

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]