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]

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]

How else can we grow out of the complacency of the familiar but to seek the unfamiliar? We remember that it has been common practice for artists to be inspired by outside sources in their quests for maximum beauty and truth. My impulse is not to appropriate nor to commercialize that imagery, but through it, with reverence, to expand our capacity…[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]

Cette contribution présente un manuscrit de Jean-François Champollion conservé dans les Archives historique et civiques de Pavie et relatif à une stèle d’époque saïte des Musée civiques de Pavie. ——– This article presents a handwritten document of Jean-François Champollion, kept in the Civic Historical Archives of Pavia, reporting the tran…[Read more]

Catalogue entry presenting an Amduat papyrus (catalogue no. E16) kept in the Archaeological Museum of the University of Pavia (Italy), included in the exhibition “Sotto il cielo di Nut. Egitto divino”, Civico Museo Archeologico, Milano, 11th March-20th December 2020 (organized by S. Ceruti and A. Provenzali).

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]

Some Egyptian and Hittite documents refer to the exchange of medical knowledge; on one hand, Egypt sent physicians and medical ingredients to the Hittite land; on the other, the Hittites provided Egypt with raw materials used to prepare remedies for healing purposes. The Egypto-Hittite correspondence frequently mentions the dispatch of medicines…[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]

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]