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]

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]

This book collects papers by many eminent scholars and young researchers on the topic of confrontation and historical, cultural, and economic relationships between East and West, particularly focusing on how the Orient was experienced and interpreted by Western travellers, historians, and scholars (of past and present times) in the light of E.…[Read more]

The paper presents for the first time to the public some wooden fragments of an ancient Egyptian ‘mummy cover’, kept in the ‘Egyptian Corner’ of the University of Pavia Archaeology Museum (Italy). The fragments, belonging to an original ancient Egyptian artefact which dates back to the end of the New Kingdom, are here published after a restora…[Read more]

In this paper I employ social scientific theories that conceptualize space as existing in physical, mental and symbolic fields simultaneously, and combine them with memory studies, in order to offer a new reading of how the authors of Leviticus construed Israel’s cultic origins and what aims they were pursuing with this composition.

We offer an archaeological analysis of the visual display of “space heroes” and Orthodox icons in the Russian Zvezda module of the International Space Station (ISS). This study is the first systematic investigation of material culture at a site in space. The ISS has now been continuously inhabited for 20 years. Here, focusing on the period 200…[Read more]

The commercial level trading which emerged at the start of the Bronze Age was made possible by a common written language. That language was Akkadian in its syllabic (cuneiform) form, its phonetic form (Phaistos Disk and these Minoan Linear A tablets) and all the early alphabetic texts prior to the rise of Greek and Latin. These translated Minoan…[Read more]

This paper aims to disambiguate the proper name “Seth” and its cognates or homonyms – perfect or imperfect – in texts from ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. It considers: (1) the Suteans, West Semitic Amorite/Aramean nomads who feature negatively in Mesopotamian records; (2) S(h)eth in the Hebrew bible, in which a dispara…[Read more]

A 12-page paper illustrating the likely presence, in geoglyph form, of a probably long-established cult art form in the UK, as elsewhere.

The aim of space archaeology is to understand the interaction of technology and human behaviour in off-Earth environments. This paper presents the methodology and results of the first archaeological study focused on human habitation in outer space. The International Space Station (ISS) is the only extant, continuously-occupied location in space,…[Read more]

Space archaeology is defined as the study of “the material culture relevant to space exploration that is found on Earth and in outer space (i.e., exoatmospheric material) and that is clearly the result of human behavior” (Gorman & O’Leary 2013: 409). The aim of space archaeology is to understand the interaction of technology and human behav…[Read more]

This course provides a survey of sculptural forms in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds from the
time of Alexander the Great to Late Antiquity. Key sculptural media will be considered from
chronological and thematic perspectives. Attention will be given to contextual analysis, social
history, form, technique, commemoration, regionalism, the…[Read more]

This course is an introductory survey of the urban centers of the ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian,
and Mediterranean worlds. In this course students will explore the development of urbanism in
these areas by studying the archaeological remains from the cities of ancient Mesopotamia,
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, from the Neolithic period until the…[Read more]