The world’s most famous (and powerful) oracle resided at Delphi, high up the slopes of Mount Parnassus in the Temple of Apollo. In ancient times, supplicants would wind up the mountainside, patiently hoping for words of wisdom from the priestess (called the Pythia) in the temple’s adyton (inner chamber). Corbis

Archaeologists are good at recovering things left behind by the past, such as buildings, incense altars, tools and relief carvings. What they are not so good at recovering are the ideas, feelings and emotions—the innerness—of sentient ancient beings. It’s one thing to examine a temple’s holy of holies; it’s another thing to understand what went on there and what people experienced. Sometimes, however, there’s an exception to the rule.

Numerous classical authors report that natural phenomena played an essential part in one of their most sacred religious rituals: the oracle at Delphi. According to the geographer Strabo (c. 64 B.C.–25 A.D.), for example, “the seat of the oracle is a cavern hollowed down in the depths … from which arises pneuma [breath, vapor, gas] that inspires a divine state of possession” (Geography 9.3.5). Over the past five years, a team of researchers—a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist—has put that claim to the test, making it much more likely that we will actually understand what happened at Delphi.

FREE ebook. The Olympic Games: How They All Began. Read about the ancient origins of the Olympics, some 2,700 years ago. Download now.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

When ancient Greeks and Romans had to make decisions, they consulted the gods—by drawing lots, casting dice, interpreting dreams and analyzing such signs as sneezes, thunderbolts and flying birds. But for matters of the utmost importance, they sought to hear the words of the gods in the mouths of oracles.^a

Pythias were virgins who dedicated their lives to prophesying on behalf of the god Apollo. The first Pythia is said to have been the goddess Themis, who is depicted on a fifth-century B.C. cup (shown here) sitting on a tripod and holding a bowl and a sprig of laurel (Apollo’s sacred tree). According to Strabo (c. 64 B.C.–25 A.D.) and other sources, the Pythia was inspired by mysterious vapors, though these accounts have been largely ignored by modern researchers. Now, however, a team of archaeologists and geologists have proved that the Temple of Apollo sat directly above fault lines that likely released intoxicating carbon-based gases into the adyton. Was this the oracle’s secret?

Paradoxically, in male-dominated classical Greece the most influential voice, the Delphic oracle, belonged to a woman. The oracular temple was perched on the south slope of Mount Parnassus, surrounded by high cliffs, about 75 miles west of Athens. Getting to Delphi required either a long trek across the mountains or a sea voyage to the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. However difficult the journey, thousands of visitors sought guidance from the holy woman, called the Pythia,^b who spoke on behalf of the gods.

The Pythia dealt less in visions of the future than in right choices: where to locate a new colony, when to attack an enemy, how to lift a curse, whom to choose as leader, what offering to make to which god. No kingdom, city or private person could afford to make critical decisions without consulting the Pythia. Thanks to her prestige, Delphi became the richest and most famous Hellenic sanctuary. The Greeks called it the omphalos, or “navel of the world.”

How could a mere mortal command such respect? The answer lies in the belief that Apollo—the god of revelation and inspiration—used the Pythia as his mouthpiece, taking possession of her during oracular sessions. The Pythia would fall into a trance, and the words she spoke were supposedly those of Apollo, delivered in a voice very unlike her normal tones.

Most scholars believe the Delphic oracle was established around the eighth century B.C., when founders of new colonies would consult the Pythia before setting out for the western Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia Minor or the Black Sea. The origins of the oracle are recounted in a story about a goatherd named Koretas, who pastured his flock on the slope of Mount Parnassus. Koretas noticed that when the goats grazed near a certain fissure in the mountainside, they began to bleat strangely. Approaching the fissure, he was filled with a prophetic spirit. Eventually, a woman—the first Pythia—was appointed to sit on a tripod over the cleft and give prophecies. Before she could mount the tripod, however, a goat had to be sacrificed to ensure that the day was propitious.

Image: Frank Ippolito.

During the classical period, supplicants would line up at dawn to walk along the Sacred Way, a steep path snaking up through the sanctuary toward the Temple of Apollo. The priests and temple attendants determined the order of the queue, giving priority to state embassies and then working their way down through military commanders, athletes, poets and, last of all, mere heads of families concerned about a child or an investment. The supplicants filed past bronze statues, war monuments and treasure houses dedicated in the past by grateful visitors. It would have been late in the day by the time the ordinary men at the rear reached the terrace of the temple and viewed the famous inscriptions, “Know Thyself” and “Nothing in Excess.”

Learn about the dazzling discoveries coming out of the Alexander the Great-era tomb at Amphipolis in Greece.

From here the way led up a ramp to a great colonnade of Doric columns, and then through a double door into the temple itself. Inside burned a constant pinewood fire tended by women of Delphi. The final approach to the oracle led downward into a sunken space below the level of the temple floor, where the visitor would be confronted by a gold statue of Apollo and the omphalos stone that marked the sacred spot. The Pythia sat in a recessed inner sanctum called the adyton, a Greek word meaning “not to be entered.” Standing outside the adyton, visitors would ask their questions and await the response.

Unlike itinerant prophets and omen-interpreters, the Pythia derived her power from the place—she could only prophesy while seated in the adyton within the Temple of Apollo. According to Strabo, the pneuma arose from a small opening (chasma ges) in the adyton: “Over the mouth [of the opening] a high tripod is set. Mounting this, the Pythia inhales the pneuma and then speaks prophecies in verse or in prose. The latter are versified by poets on duty in the temple” (Geography 9.3.5.).

Strabo was not the only ancient source to describe the adyton and the intoxicating gas. The second-century A.D. traveler Pausanias told of a spring in the temple’s adyton that made the Pythia prophetic. Also, in On the Obsolescence of the Oracles, the biographer Plutarch (c. 46–120 A.D.), who served as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, described an exhalation of vapor in the adyton that sent the Pythia into a trance.
Despite these testimonies, no serious scholar over the last 50 years has accepted the idea that the Pythia’s trance was caused by a gaseous emission.

FREE ebook: Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries. Finds like the Pool of Siloam in Israel, where the Gospel of John says Jesus miraculously restored sight to a blind man.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

Modern investigations began in the 1890s, when French archaeologists began to excavate the sanctuary at Delphi. They first moved the modern village of Kastri, household by household, from above the ancient sanctuary to the town of Delphi, west of the sanctuary. The French archaeologists uncovered the boundary wall of the ancient sanctuary, an entry gate, and the lower stretches of the Sacred Way. By 1893 they had reached the terrace of the Temple of Apollo—where they found that scarcely a stone remained in place above the floor. The columns had toppled, and the statuary had been carried off or destroyed. In the lower chamber, where the oracle once spoke, no trace of the ancient structure remained. Even the archaeologists’ attempts to reach bedrock were frustrated as water filled the excavated areas.

While the French team was excavating the temple, a young English scholar named A.P. Oppé published a report based on his visit to the site. Oppé proposed that the ancient sources had confused the fissure with a nearby gorge, and that the vapor was simply a fiction that had been passed down from source to source.¹

In 1927, after a hiatus precipitated by World War I, a scholar named M.F. Courby published the French team’s final report of the temple excavations. He described the bedrock under the center of the temple as “fissured by the action of the waters”—suggesting that the ancient traditions of an opening in the rock may have been correct.² By then, however, Oppé’s theory that the ancients simply misconstrued the facts had taken too strong a hold among scholars for the issue to be reconsidered. The final blow came in 1950: Pierre Amandry of the École Française d’Athènes stated definitively—or so it was widely believed—that exhalations of intoxicating gas could never have existed at Delphi. Only volcanic activity could produce such gas, Amandry (incorrectly) noted, and Delphi does not lie in a volcanic area.³ For almost half a century, debates about the geological origins of the oracle virtually ceased.^c

The first step toward a modern reassessment of the evidence was made in the 1980s by geologist (and co-author) Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, the senior member of our project in Delphi. De Boer was conducting surveys, under the auspices of the United Nations and the Greek government, to identify active fault lines. One area he studied was the south slope of Mount Parnassus, where he noted an exposed fault both east and west of the sanctuary of Apollo—though it could not be seen at the site of the temple, where it was covered by ancient construction and debris from rock slides. De Boer suspected that the fault did indeed run under the temple, but he gave the matter no more thought.

The acropolis in Athens is the most iconic remnant of the classical Greek world. Discover the site’s history and architecture in the article “Antiquity’s High Holy Place: The Athenian Acropolis“ by Harrison Eiteljorg, now available online for free.

It was not until the summer of 1995 that Zeilinga de Boer encountered an archaeologist, co-author John Hale of the University of Louisville, who assured him, first, that he could not possibly have seen any such feature at Delphi and, second (after Zeilinga de Boer described the fault in detail), that this might be a discovery of major importance. We decided to continue investigations at Delphi, eventually adding a chemist (Jeff Chanton of Florida State University and the U.S. Geological Survey Magnetic Laboratory) and a toxicologist (Henry Spiller of the Kentucky Poison Center) to the team.

In 1996, with the support of Rozina Kolonia, the director of the Delphi Museum, we conducted a survey of the site and found that the sections of exposed fault on either side of the sanctuary were indeed part of the same fault—an active fault extending about 13 miles east-west along the southern flank of Mount Parnassus. We named this fault the Delphi Fault.

This egg-shaped stone—the very stone described by the Greek writer Pausanias, who visited Delphi in the second century A.D.—represents the omphalos, or “navel of the world.” According to Greek legend, Delphi was fixed as the center of the world when Zeus released two eagles, one from the west and the other from the east, which met in the sky above Delphi. The original omphalos stone, now lost, was probably an archaic cult object that supplicants draped with wreaths, resembling the wreaths carved in relief on this stone. Erich Lessing

In subsequent seasons we identified a second fault, extending approximately southeast-northwest. This fault could be traced along a line of springs running through the center of the sanctuary. The highest spring, above the temple, is called the Kerna Spring; its water is currently channeled westward to modern Delphi. Further down the slope, though still above the temple, a mass of travertine (a kind of limestone) deposited by calcite-rich waters indicates another spring. There is also an elaborate channel for a spring built into the southern foundation wall of the temple itself. Although this spring is dry today, the early 20th-century French archaeologists found it difficult to reach bedrock within the sanctuary because their holes kept filling up with water. Down the slope below the temple, yet another spring emerges from a cleft in the bedrock near the Treasury of the Athenians.
We have named this southeast-northwest fault the Kerna Fault, after its highest spring. In de Boer’s opinion, the Kerna Fault intersects the Delphi Fault at or near the site of the temple.

What the ancient authors described as a fissure (chasma ges) in the rock over which the Pythia sat was probably a small fracture extending up from the intersection of these two faults. Very likely, this is also what M.F. Courby, in his 1927 publication of the French team’s excavations, was describing when he wrote that the bedrock was “fissured by the action of the waters.”

Greek geologists had already identified the limestone under the temple as bituminous (oil-bearing), with a petrochemical content as high as 20 percent. These petrochemicals appeared to be a possible source of gases. But how exactly could they be released from the rock into the atmosphere?

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

The Delphi Fault is linked to one of Greece’s most geologically active features: the great rift, or graben, that today is filled by the waters of the Gulf of Corinth. This is a recent feature, geologically speaking, having formed roughly two million years ago. The rift continues to widen; as it does, motion occurs along faults and earthquakes are triggered. In 373 B.C., for example, earthquakes almost completely destroyed the Delphic temple on the north side of the gulf, as well as coastal towns on the south side.

As slippage occurs along the fault lines, adjacent rock masses are heated, vaporizing the lighter petrochemicals in the limestone and expelling gases upward along the face of the faults. Once faulting has opened such a pathway, gases continue to rise, although the volume would slowly decrease over time. We believe that this is exactly what happened at Delphi: The rock masses deep in the earth were heated, and they intermittently produced gases that rose up along the intersection of the two fault lines, eventually entering the adyton of the temple through one or more fissures over which the Pythia sat.

Read about the discovery in ancient Hierapolis of Pluto’s Gate, a site shrouded in misty poisonous vapors and considered sacred to the underworld deity Pluto.

Exhalations of gases from bituminous limestone have been observed by geologists studying underwater faults in the Gulf of Mexico. There light hydrocarbon gases—methane, ethane and ethylene, all of them intoxicants—have been found bubbling up from the rock below. Closer to Delphi, similar exhalations were detected near the Isthmus of Corinth, as well as on the island of Zakynthos.

We decided to test the spring water at Delphi, along with samples of the travertine rock that the ancient springs had deposited on the retaining walls and slopes around the temple. If significant quantities of gases had been emitted with the spring water, traces of these gases might be found in the travertine deposits. The very presence of travertine rock, formed from dissolved calcites in warm spring water, is evidence that the springs along the Kerna Fault had their origin at deep levels.

The water and travertine from the sanctuary of Apollo, which were analyzed by Jeff Chanton, revealed traces of the light hydrocarbon gases found in the Isthmus of Corinth and on Zakynthos. Could this explain the Pythia’s state of intoxication in ancient times?

Apollo sits on a carved ompholos stone—perhaps even a representation of the stone shown in the previous photo—on a coin (shown here) minted in Antioch in 225–223 B.C. Clearly, the Delphic oracle and its association with Apollo were well known throughout the ancient world in Hellenistic times. By the first century A.D., however, the Pythia’s powers were failing, perhaps because the volume of gases flowing into the adyton had decreased—and by the fourth century, the demise of the oracle was complete. Photo: American Numismatic Society.

The ancient sources describe two distinct types of prophetic trance experienced by the Pythia. First, and more normally, she would lapse into benign semi-consciousness, during which she remained seated on the tripod, responding to questions—though in a strangely altered voice. According to Plutarch, once the Pythia recovered from this trance, she was in a composed and relaxed state, like a runner after a race. A second kind of trance involved a frenzied delirium characterized by wild movements of the limbs, harsh groaning and inarticulate cries. When the Pythia experienced this delirium, Plutarch reports, she died after only a few days—and a new Pythia took her place.

According to toxicologist Henry Spiller, both of these symptoms are associated with the inhalation of hydrocarbon gases. Spiller studies the effects of such inhalants on young people, known as “huffers,” who breathe in fumes from gas, glue, paint thinner and other substances because of their intoxicating properties. Perhaps the Pythia too was high on one of these hydrocarbon gases.

It may even be possible to identify the kind of gas. Plutarch—who, we recall, was a priest of Apollo at the Delphic sanctuary—noted that the intoxicating pneuma had a sweet smell, like expensive perfume. Of the hydrocarbon gases, only ethylene has a sweet smell—so ethylene was probably a component in the gaseous emission inhaled by the Pythia.

Now, there is a good deal of evidence concerning ethylene intoxication, particularly from the early 20th century. In laboratory tests involving human subjects, the pioneering anesthesiologist Isabella Herb and other scientists studied the effects of light doses of ethylene. Ethylene worked twice as fast as nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and achieved similar effects with only half the quantity. In high concentrations, ethylene produced complete unconsciousness; in low concentrations, it induced a trance state. Ultimately, ethylene’s use as a medical anesthetic was discontinued because of its combustibility: A spark from electrical equipment in the operating room could ignite the ethylene canister, causing it to explode.⁴

From the evidence of “huffers” and the experiments with ethylene, we know that subjects normally react to inhaling small quantities of these gases by entering a benign “out-of-body” trance. They can remain seated and answer questions, but their tone of voice and typical speech patterns are altered. Recovery takes place as soon as the subject is removed from exposure to the gas, and complete amnesia about the trance follows. In a minority of cases (about one in six) in the ethylene experiments, subjects experienced delirium, or a “bad trip.” Experimenters had to use restraints to hold down those undergoing this delirium, which was accompanied by groaning, shrieking and a thrashing of the arms and legs.

FREE ebook: Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete. Read the fascinating history of these mythical Mediterranean islands.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

Unfortunately, no detailed accounts of the Pythia’s behavior survive from the golden age (seventh to fifth century B.C.) of the Delphic oracle. By the time Plutarch took office as priest of Apollo at Delphi, the oracle’s powers had significantly diminished. According to Plutarch, emissions of pneuma in the adyton were slight and unpredictable, leading to the decline of the oracle itself. He suggested that whatever produced the pneuma in the rock below the temple had become exhausted, or that the fissures in the rock had been blocked up in the 373 B.C. earthquake. The Delphic oracle never recovered its former prestige after this earthquake, even though the temple was rebuilt.

The diminished flow of gas may not have been the only reason for the decline of the institution. Plutarch opined that the pneuma was merely a trigger for the prophetic trance, and that the Pythia’s lifelong training and psychological preparation played the most important role in her spiritual possession. In a memorable simile, Plutarch compared Apollo to a musician, the Pythia to a lyre, and the pneuma to the musician’s uncanny ability to produce music by touching the instrument. Perhaps there were socio-cultural reasons for the decline of the institution, or perhaps, as the gaseous emissions became less powerful, devoting one’s life to the oracle became less attractive.

Whatever the reasons for the oracle’s demise, we can no longer dismiss ancient traditions concerning its origins and power. Strabo, Plutarch and the others have been rescued by science from a century of calumny.

Read the Bible History Daily feature Medicine in the Ancient World.

The House of Apollo: A History

The Delphic oracle appears often in Greek myth, even in the account of the repopulating of the earth after a great flood. The high god Zeus, distressed over mankind’s wickedness, sends a flood to cover the earth, but two pious human beings, Deucalion (Prometheus’s son) and Pyrrha (Prometheus’s niece), survive by climbing Mount Parnassus. With the ebbing of the flood, the two descend the mountain and come upon the Delphic temple site, where they hear a voice: “Veil your heads and cast behind you the bones of your mother!” Like many of the Delphic oracles, this one is initially enigmatic, but Deucalion and Pyrrha soon realize that the earth is their mother; so they throw rocks over their shoulders, and the rocks are transformed into men and women, saving humanity from perdition.

Photo: Erich Lessing.

Another famous, or infamous, visit to the oracle was made by the young Oedipus—who, having been adopted as a baby, wanted to know the identity of his parents. (The third-century A.D. marble relief above shows Oedipus [center] sacrificing to the Delphic oracle in front of a statue of Apollo [left].) However, the Delphic oracle informed the young man that he would murder his father and commit incest with his mother. To foil the prophecy, Oedipus left Corinth, which he (erroneously) believed to be his native land. On his journey he killed another chariot-driver in a fit of ancient road rage—but unknown to him, the other driver was his father Laius, King of Thebes.

The oracle at Delphi was also consulted by non-mythical figures. In the sixth century B.C., King Croesus of Lydia, in western Anatolia, inquired whether he should attack King Cyrus of Persia. “If you attack,” replied the Pythia, “you will destroy a great kingdom.” Croesus attacked the Persians, suffered total defeat, and saw his kingdom absorbed into the Persian Empire. Croesus had destroyed a great kingdom—his own.

Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY

More than a century later, the philosopher Socrates—shown above in a Hellenistic bust—reminded the Athenians at his trial in 399 B.C. that the oracle had declared him the wisest of men, a fact that did not save him from execution.

Photo: David Harris/Collection Israel Museum

After Greece was conquered by Rome, a number of Roman emperors posed questions to the oracle. Nero (54–68 A.D.) was warned to beware the 73rd year, and he was later assassinated by troops who made the 73-year-old Galba emperor in his place. Hadrian (117–138 A.D.), shown in the bronze statue above, ever the intellectual, wanted to know the birthplace of the poet Homer. (The Pythia’s answer: Homer was the grandson of Odysseus and born at Ithaca.) The oracle advised Diocletian (284–305 A.D.) to persecute Christians—which Christians avenged by destroying a number of oracle sites in the fourth century A.D. Finally, the envoys of the pagan Roman emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363 A.D.) received word of the oracle’s demise from the Pythia: “Tell the king the fair-built hall has fallen; Apollo now has no house or oracular laurel or prophetic spring; the water is silent.”

Notes

a. The oracle at Delphi was not the only ancient oracle, though it was the most powerful. Other Greek oracles were located at Epidaurus and in Asia Minor at Colophon and Didyma. Italy’s most famous oracle was at Cumae (near Naples), where a sibyl, or priestess, prophesied in a cavern; originally, the sibyl’s utterances were inscribed on palm leaves.

b. “Pythia” derives from the original name of the site, Pytho. Homer, for instance, refers to Apollo’s “shrine in Pytho” (Odyssey 8.94). The name “Delphi” came later.

c. However, this was not so among such Greek scholars as Spyridon Marinatos (1901–1974), the excavator of ancient Thera (modern Santorini), which was buried in a volcanic eruption around 1638 B.C. Marinatos argued that Delphi’s active geological history made it difficult to know what changes might have occurred over the past two millennia. He also made a report on an anemotrypa (wind hole) in the modern town of Delphi—a small cleft in the rock that emitted gas with a sulfurous smell. Scholars outside Greece ignored these ideas.

1. A.P. Oppé, “The Chasm at Delphi,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 24 (1904), pp. 214–240.

2. M.F. Courby, Topographie et architecture: la terasse du Temple: Fouilles de Delphes (1927), vol. 11, pp. 65–66.

3. Pierre Amandry, La mantique apollinienne a Delphes: Boccard (Paris, 1950), pp. 215–230.

4. See Isabella Herb, “Ethylene: Notes Taken from the Clinical Records,” in Anesthesia and Analgesia (December, 1923), pp. 210, 231–232; Herb, “Further Clinical Experiments with Ethylene-Oxygen Anesthesia,” Anesthesia and Analgesia (December, 1927), pp. 258–262; A.B. Luckhardt and J.B. Carter, “Physiologic Effects of Ethylene: A New Gas Anesthetic,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 80 (January–June 1923), pp. 765–770.

“Was She Really Stoned?” by Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and John R. Hale appeared in the November/December 2002 issue of Archaeology Odyssey. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in May 2013.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Lay That Ghost: Necromancy in Ancient Greece and Rome

Solomon, Socrates and Aristotle

Who Were the Minoans?

Stoa Poikile Excavations in the Athenian Agora

The Gospel of the Lots of Mary

Word Play

Our website, blog and email newsletter are a crucial part of Biblical Archaeology Society's nonprofit educational mission

This costs substantial money and resources, but we don't charge a cent to you to cover any of those expenses.

If you'd like to help make it possible for us to continue Bible History Daily, BiblicalArchaeology.org, and our email newsletter please donate. Even $5 helps:

The post The Oracle of Delphi—Was She Really Stoned? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Codex Aretinus 405 contains the only surviving copy of Egeria’s Travels.
Lameiro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Egeria’s Travels is an early Christian pilgrimage account by an educated and well-traveled woman from the Roman province of Galicia (in modern Spain) that tells of her journey to and around the Holy Land. Dating to the late fourth century, this work is a rich source of geographical and historical information.

The account is unfortunately incomplete and survives in a single manuscript, now in the municipal library of Arezzo, Italy. Egeria’s work appears on pages 31–74 of Codex Aretinus 405, which was produced in the 11th century in the monastery of Monte Cassino. It is debatable how faithfully this copy transmits the original work. The parchment manuscript lacks the beginning and ending as well as four pages in the middle. Due to this state of preservation, the original title has not survived. The customary title derives from the work’s content and is variously given as Itinerarium Egeriae (Egeria’s Travels), Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta (Pilgrimage to the Holy Sites), or Peregrinatio Aetheriae (Pilgrimage of Etheria).

The eBook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Past, Present, and Future, brings together articles and interviews with the world’s leading experts on the scrolls. Receive your free copy today!

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

The author’s identity is similarly modern conjecture. Addressing her readers repeatedly as dominae (“ladies”), dominae animae meae (“my dear ladies”), and dominae sorores (“sister ladies”), she clearly was a woman—either a nun writing for fellow nuns or a noblewoman writing for her intimate circle of pious friends. The first scholar to publish the manuscript, G.F. Gamurrini, identified her with the fourth-century noblewoman Silvia di Aquitania. She was later identified with Galla Placidia (388–450), a daughter of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius I, and with “the religious person” whom the seventh-century hermit Valerius of Bierzo (in Galicia, Spain) praised, in a letter to his fellow monks, for her pilgrimage to the Levant. Since different manuscripts of this letter provide several different spellings of her name, she has been variously known as Aetheria, Etheria, and Egeria, the last of which is currently most widely used.

Although the surviving manuscript of Egeria’s Travels dates from the 11th century, the work was likely composed in the late fourth century. From internal evidence (e.g., historical events and names of local figures), scholars infer that Egeria traveled for three years sometime between 381 and 384. This early date makes her account the first Western report about the Christian communities in the Levant, and possibly the first female author from Spain. The text is written in a peculiar type of Late Latin, which was the original language of the composition. A blend of classical and colloquial constructions reflecting the style of the Latin Bible, Egeria’s style is simple and clear, though with numerous dialectal and regional idiosyncrasies.

Divided into two parts with epistolary features, the work possibly originated as two letters. The first one reports on four trips: (1) to Mt. Sinai and back to Jerusalem, via the land of Goshen (1–9); (2) to Mt. Nebo and the traditional tomb of Moses (10–12); (3) to Carneas in Idumea (13–16); and (4) the return voyage to Constantinople, with stops at Edessa, Charris, Tarsus, Seleucia, and Chalcedon (16–23). The second part concerns the liturgical rites Egeria observed in Jerusalem (24–45), the catechesis prior to and after baptism (45–47), and the anniversary celebrations of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (48–49), after which the text breaks off. It has been suggested that the lost parts of Egeria’s Travels contained descriptions of the holy buildings of Jerusalem, a trip to Egypt, Samaria, and Galilee (with a hike up Mt. Tabor), and details of an excursion into Judea.

Our website, blog and email newsletter are a crucial part of Biblical Archaeology Society's nonprofit educational mission

This costs substantial money and resources, but we don't charge a cent to you to cover any of those expenses.

If you'd like to help make it possible for us to continue Bible History Daily, BiblicalArchaeology.org, and our email newsletter please donate. Even $5 helps:

Egeria’s Travels was popular through the Middle Ages, and later works are known to have used Egeria’s account, including the 12th-century Liber de locis sanctis (Book About the Holy Sites) by Peter the Deacon, who apparently had the intact Codex Aretinus at his disposal.

The most recent English translation of Egeria’s Travels, with the facing Latin text, is Paul F. Bradshaw and Anne McGowan’s Egeria, Journey to the Holy Land (Brepols, 2020). The best critical edition of the Latin original appeared in the series Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vol. 175 (Itineraria et alia geographica, pp. 37–90; Brepols, 1965); a different Latin edition (from Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 296) is available online.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem

Where Was Moses Buried?

3 Pilgrimage Paths from Galilee to Jerusalem

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Text Treasures: The Pilgrimage of Egeria

Past Perfect: A Pilgrim on Mt. Sinai

A Pilgrim’s Journey

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on May 1, 2024.

The post Text Treasures: The Pilgrimage of Egeria appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Garden of Eden. Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Image: Public domain.

What do the Book of Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh have in common? Surprisingly, a lot.

Chapters 1–11 of Genesis reached their final form during the eighth–fifth centuries BC when the peoples of Judah were in sustained contact with Mesopotamian polities. And for this reason, Genesis 1–11 shares with the Epic of Gilgamesh stories of wily serpents, demigods, a catastrophic flood, supernatural plants, and herculean feats of engineering. Moreover, an unprovenanced cuneiform tablet from Kurdish Iraq published in 2014 adds one more commonality: an edenic divine abode desecrated by humans.^[i]

Parallels Between the Garden of Eden and the Sacred Cedar Forest

In the first half of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero Gilgamesh is introduced as being full of potential but reckless in his rule over the city of Uruk. As a result, the gods create a rival for him, Enkidu, to distract the king and curtail his abuses of power. After Enkidu is awakened to the human experience by a week-long sexual encounter with a divine female seductress, he is introduced to Gilgamesh, and the two embark upon a quest to a sacred Cedar Forest. The first half of the epic, then, culminates in the story of the Cedar Forest, where Gilgamesh and Enkidu arrive in awe of its sanctity and abundance—only to transgress by killing its monstrous guardian, Humbaba, and his “sons.”

The cedar forests of Lebanon helped inspire the scene of the sacred Cedar Forest in the Standard Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Image: Jerzy Strzelecki / CC by-SA 3.0.

Our understanding of the Cedar Forest was significantly enhanced in 2014 by the publication of an unprovenanced cuneiform tablet (acquired by the Sulaymaniya Museum in Kurdish Iraq) that filled in previously lost portions of the epic. In this tablet, dozens of unknown lines recount vivid descriptions of the Cedar Forest and the dramatic events that transpired therein. Moreover, these lines share similarities with Genesis 2–3.

FREE ebook: From Babylon to Baghdad. Ancient Iraq. Learn about Iraq and its cultural heritage. Download now.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

In Genesis 2–3, the man and woman are placed in a divine garden only to desecrate it and invite the curse of God on the ground, serpent, and all wild beasts (Genesis 3:14, 17). Also, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu enter the Cedar Forest, only to transgress against this divine abode and thereby desecrate it and the creatures within.

When Gilgamesh and Enkidu arrive at the Cedar Forest, it is described as “the gods’ dwelling place, the goddesses’ exalted abode” (Tablet V:7). It is described as idyllic, lavishly appointed, luxuriant, even edenic. The forest’s undisturbed splendor is conveyed by the array of animal sounds, at times described using alliterations and assonance (V:17, iṣṣūru iṣṣanbur, “ceaselessly atwitter;” V:18, iḫabbubu rigmu, “reverberating chitter(s);” V:22, riq raqraqqu “with the clatter of the stork”) that make the Akkadian poetry sound as though it sings:

They stood in awe at the Forest,
Staring at the heights of the cedars,
Staring at the entrance to the Forest.
A path was worn where Humbaba came and went,
The way was made ready, and the road was accommodating.
They were looking at the Cedar Mountain,
the gods’ dwelling place, the goddesses’ exalted abode,
The cedar raises its luxuriant (boughs) over the face of the land(scape),
Its shade was inviting, altogether pleasing.
(With) entangled thorns, an entwined canopy,
There was no way (amidst) the [densely packed] cedars (and) ballukku-trees.
There were cedar saplings as far as the eye could see,
Cypresses [seedlings?] almost as far.
For one hundred (feet) high, the cedar was covered with knots,
Resin [dripped down] like drops of rain,
Streaming away in channels.
Bird(s) were ceaselessly atwitter throughout the Forest:
[x x x] were echoing back and forth, reverberating chitter(s).
[x x x] the zizānu-cicada(s) modulating a cry,
[x x x] were always singing, belting out [x x x]
The wood pigeon was [co]oing, the turtle dove replying.
With the [clatter?] of the stork, the forest revels,
The forest brims with joy [at the cackle of] the chukar.
Female monkeys shout, young monkeys whoop:
like an ensemble of singers and percussionists,
All day long, they rumbled in the presence of Humbaba.
(V:1–26)

At the same time, the revelry of birds such as the stork (raqraqqu) and chukar (tarlugallu), while fitting for an idyllic place known as the gods’ dwelling place, also serves as omens. In Mesopotamian literature, birds are often presented as carriers of divine messages. Birds not only travel between heaven and earth as they fly, but certain birds had calls that could be understood in human (i.e., Akkadian) words. And in Mesopotamian texts, the call of the stork and the chukar, in particular, were known to be cautionary. For example, the clattering beaks of the stork exclaimed, “Go away, go away” (rīqa, rīqa), and the chukar warned, “You have sinned” (taḫtaṭa). The menacing soundscape of stork and chukar anticipates Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s desecration of the Cedar Forest by violently killing its guardian and his bird-like younglings and hacking down “a lofty cedar, whose top reached to heaven.”

In the free eBook, A Digger’s Life: A Guide to the Archaeology Dig Experience, step into an archaeological excavation and find out what it takes to find, prepare for, and work on a dig.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

The ominous literary motif of birds is already hinted at in an Old Babylonian version of the epic, where Gilgamesh and Enkidu enter the Cedar Forest only to kill Humbaba’s seven “sons,” or “radiances,” as if they were baby birds:

(Gilgamesh said to him, to Enkidu:)
“It is now, my friend, that we must secure victory …!”
Enkidu responded to him, to Gilgamesh:
“My friend, trap the bird, then where will its hatchlings go?
We should look for (his) radiances later,
When the chicks wander about in the Forest.”
(Old Babyolonian Ishchali 10, 14–17)

The new tablet makes clear that the inauspicious signs of the stork and chukar were realized in the killing of Humbaba’s seven “sons.” It delineates the names of Humbaba’s “sons,” which evoke the sounds of the winged creatures that first appeared at the entrance to the Cedar Forest: Cicada, Screecher, Rumbler, Screamer, Whining, etc. (V:308). The discordant noises used to designate Humbaba’s “sons” serve as the narrative’s judgment against Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s violent desecration of the Cedar Forest and its creatures. In fact, after killing Humbaba and his “sons,” Enkidu worries out loud to Gilgamesh about what they have done, saying, “My friend, we have made the Forest a wasteland!” (V:303). ^[ii]

Both the Book of Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh describe a paradise that is beautiful and bountiful—but then lost. And, in both texts, humans’ short stay in a divine abode carries serious consequences. By eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, humans come to experience death. By cutting down the lofty cedar and killing Humbaba and his younglings, Gilgamesh and Enkidu destroy paradise, and eventually, Enkidu pays for this transgression with his life. The texts then grapple with how to live in the resultant world of death, pain, and discord.

Adam E. Miglio is Associate Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Graduate Studies Program for Archaeology at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is an expert on Akkadian texts from Mari, and he has excavated in Kurdish Iraq, Turkey, and Israel-Palestine. He is also the author of The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1–11: Peering into the Deep (2023).

Notes

[i] F.N.H. Al-Rawi and Andrew R. George, “Back to the Cedar Forest: The Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66 (2014), pp. 69–90.

[ii] Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1–11: Peering into the Deep (New York: Routledge, 2023).

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Reading Genesis: Ten Methods

The Aramaic Afterlives of Genesis’s Giants

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

The Genesis of Genesis

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh—Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before

Symbols of the Goddess

World Wonders: The Demon Humbaba

Cedars of Lebanon: Exploring the Roots

The post Genesis and Gilgamesh appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Augustus of Prima Porta, Vatican Museum. Public Domain.

Excavations carried out in Italy on the northern slopes of Mt. Vesuvius by the University of Tokyo have uncovered what could very well be the villa that belonged to Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Also known as Octavian Caesar, Augustus founded the Roman Empire and ruled from 27 BCE until his death in 14 CE. According to Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, Augustus died at a villa located on the north side of Vesuvius, near the city of Nola, and it was subsequently turned into a memorial site to honor the emperor. However, the precise location of the emperor’s villa had never been discovered.

Following the clues of ancient historians, the research team from the University of Tokyo, led by professor of Italian studies Mariko Muramatsu, began excavations in 2002 in the Starzadella Regina area of Somma Vesuviana in Campania. According to reports, underneath the remains of a building dating to the second century CE the team discovered another building from an earlier phase.

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

Remains of what is believed to be the furnace that heated the emperor’s bathhouse. Image Credit: Research Division for the Mediterranean Areas, Institute for Advanced Global Studies, University of Tokyo.

Additional discoveries were made, including the remains of a warehouse used to store amphorae, which also date to the first century. Analyzing the volcanic pumice covering the ruins, the team determined that it originated from the pyroclastic lava flow, rocks, and hot gases from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Various amphorae discovered leaning against the wall of the ruined warehouse. Image Credit: Research Division for the Mediterranean Areas, Institute for Advanced Global Studies, University of Tokyo.

Unlike much of the ruins on the southern slope of Vesuvius, including Pompeii, reconstruction efforts appear to have occurred at the site in the decades following the cataclysmic eruption. A new temple-like structure was constructed atop the ruins of the villa in the middle of the second century. In contrast, Pompeii—which was covered in volcanic deposits several feet thick—didn’t see reconstruction efforts until the late Middle Ages.

“We have finally reached this stage after 20 years,” said Masanori Aoyagi, professor emeritus of Western classical archaeology at the University of Tokyo, who led the first research team that started excavating the site in 2002. “This is a major development that will help us determine the damage caused to the northern side of Vesuvius and get a better overall idea of the eruption in 79.”

The team hopes that studying how the ancients responded to large-scale natural disasters, like the eruption Vesuvius, can help modern researchers explore flexible responses for cataclysmic events.

Our website, blog and email newsletter are a crucial part of Biblical Archaeology Society's nonprofit educational mission

This costs substantial money and resources, but we don't charge a cent to you to cover any of those expenses.

If you'd like to help make it possible for us to continue Bible History Daily, BiblicalArchaeology.org, and our email newsletter please donate. Even $5 helps:

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Pompeii Fast Food Restaurant Uncovered

Excavating Pompeii’s Middle Class

The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

The Survivors of Mount Vesuvius

A Shrine, Frescoes, and…Pizza?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Discovering Herod’s Shrine to Augustus

Emulating Augustus

Augustus Takes the Cure

Climbing Vesuvius

Saved from Vesuvius

How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on April 29, 2024.

The post Has the Site of Augustus’s Death Been Discovered? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

In a recent study about the Essenes of Qumran, archaeologist Eyal Regev used the tools of social archaeology to answer the question, “Who were the Essenes?” (credit: Zev Radovan/www.biblelandpictures.com)

The study by Eyal Regev of Bar-Ilan University examines the architectural plan of Qumran and applies so-called “access analysis” to map the site’s spatial organization in order to uncover the social ideology of the Essenes of Qumran.

Regev characterizes this approach to studying the Qumran community as social archaeology, “now an established field of research which uses archaeological records to reconstruct the belief system and social organization of past societies.”

By physically dividing up and demarcating spaces—walls, doorways and entrances that are used on an everyday basis—the architecture thereby classifies and controls the movement of people and the spaces they inhabit. Studying these spaces can help archaeologists answer the question “Who were the Essenes?”

The eBook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Past, Present, and Future, brings together articles and interviews with the world’s leading experts on the scrolls. Receive your free copy today!

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

In a detailed analysis of the physical spaces of the Qumran community, Regev finds the occupied area is divided into different space segments, “each connected to a controlling central passage with minimal connections between segments.” The spaces within segments are also “minimally connected.” Access to most spaces is therefore “limited, and several boundaries must be crossed to reach most spaces from any starting point on the site.”

The large rooms (such as the dining room and the so-called scriptorium) used by the Essenes of Qumran “were not easily accessible and were out of view of casual entrants.” This, says Regev, means that “social encounters between the inhabitants were quite uncommon.”

From such analyses, Regev concludes that the spaces of the Qumran community reflect “an ethos of social segregation, not only between the inhabitants themselves, but, more importantly, between the inhabitants and the outside world.”

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

Based on “Moving About at Qumran,” sidebar to Sidnie White Crawford, “A View from the Caves,” Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2011. This feature was first republished in Bible History Daily on February 7, 2013.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Deciphered Dead Sea Scroll Reveals 364-Day Calendar

Josephus on the Essenes

Where Were the Dead Sea Scrolls Found and Who Put Them There?

Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period

Ancient Scribe Links Qumran Scrolls to Masada

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Qumran—The Pottery Factory

The Qumran Settlement—Monastery, Villa or Fortress?

What Jesus Learned from the Essenes

Essene Origins: Palestine or Babylonia?

Was John the Baptist an Essene?

Searching for Essenes at Ein Gedi, Not Qumran

The post Who Were the Essenes? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

For those who missed out on this wonderful weekend, here are a few highlights to whet your palate for future BAS lectures and events.

Spring 2025 Bible & Archaeology Fest speakers Yonatan Adler (top left), Susan Hylan (top right), Rachel Hallote (bottom left), and Jonathan Klawans (bottom right)

The Origins of Judaism: When Did Jews Begin to Keep the Torah?

Yonatan Adler

Our plenary speaker, Yonatan Adler, spoke on his research concerning the origins of Judaism as it pertains to the historical evidence. For many decades, it has been assumed that Judaism as we know it, with its strict adherence to the Torah’s purity laws, gathering for teaching in synagogues, etc., came about after the people of Judah returned from the Babylonian Exile. It was also believed that Ezra was instrumental in establishing this new era of religious piety among the people.

Working backwards from the first century CE—an era where ample evidence exists for adherence to the Torah—Adler showed that the previous view may be incorrect. By investigating various types of evidence, including ritual baths, chalk vessels, and teffelin—hallmarks of early Jewish religious piety—we can see when Judaism began to form. One of the most intriguing pieces of evidence comes in the form of coins minted by local authorities. It is well known that the Jewish people of the first century did not want graven images of people or animals on their coinage. Ample evidence of this fact can be seen, including on coins minted by rulers not known for their religious piety, such as the Herodians or the Roman governors. Even if the prohibition against graven images didn’t much matter to those rulers personally, they recognized that to produce such coins would have triggered outrage among the populace. This practice of religiously sensitive coinage can be seen as far back as the Hasmonean period, after the heroes of the Maccabean Revolt set up the first independent state in Judah since the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Before this, as far back as the early Hellenistic period, Jewish governors that included high priests were minting coins with pagan images, such as the owl of Athena and the goddess’s famous aegis shield. Like the coins, the other hallmarks of Jewish religious piety also do not appear in the historical record before the Hasmonean period. Looking at the ample evidence, Adler concluded that Judaism appears to have formed under the Hasmonean rulers of the second century BCE.

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

Women in the World of the New Testament

Susan Hylen

Professor of New Testament at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, Susan Hylen offered a fascinating look into the lives and status of women in the greater Roman world—the world of the New Testament. Women of various cultures across the world and in different time periods have often been marginalized and treated as nothing more than the property of their fathers or husbands. We see it in the historical record and in the modern day, which often fuels our assumptions about the past. Using several examples, Hylen showed that this was not the case for women in the Roman period. In fact, many women were independently wealthy and even helped finance some of the period’s most famous monuments. Many were also pillars of their community, with more social prestige than their husbands. Less elite women were also able to own their own businesses and engage in the economic life of the community or in long-distance trade.

One example is Junia Theodora who lived in the city of Corinth in the first century. Several inscriptions discovered in the city were set up to honor her for standing up for various marginalized peoples and mediating their cases before the city’s Roman officials. A Roman woman named Turia, who lived during the rise of Caesar Augustus (first century BCE), was honored by her husband at her death with a lengthy funerary inscription that recounts her virtues and deeds, which included avenging the deaths of her parents and helping family members with financial troubles. Her husband was on the wrong side of the aftermath of the Roman civil war and became a political refugee. Despite having a pardon from Augustus, Marcus Lepidus refused to drop the charges until Turia stepped up and pleaded her husband’s case, enduring verbal and physical abuse in the process.

Women in the New Testament appear to have had the same legal and social status as their peers across the Roman world—they had their own wealth, autonomy, and were local patrons. The Gospels even tell us that Jesus’s ministry was funded by a group of notable wealthy women who were his disciples and patrons, including Mary Magdalene.

Our website, blog and email newsletter are a crucial part of Biblical Archaeology Society's nonprofit educational mission

This costs substantial money and resources, but we don't charge a cent to you to cover any of those expenses.

If you'd like to help make it possible for us to continue Bible History Daily, BiblicalArchaeology.org, and our email newsletter please donate. Even $5 helps:

Between Genuine and Fake: Grading Suspicious Objects on an Authenticity Scale

Jonathan Klawans

Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Boston University, Jonathan Klawans delivered a thought-provoking lecture concerning how we should treat unprovenanced artifacts, which are often looted and sold on the antiquities market. Without treading to deep into the muck and mire of the ethical struggles surrounding the publication and study of these artifacts, Klawans addressed how we should treat these items of dubious historical value. Scholars have often taken a binary approach when it comes to unprovenanced artifacts. Since the archaeological context of such items can never be known for certain, they are treated by some as forgeries with no historical value. Other scholars take their authenticity at face value and consider them to be historical artifacts.

In contrast, Klawans proposed using a grading scale between 1 and 5, with 1 being “very likely forged” and 5 being “very likely authentic.” He then demonstrated this scale using several controversial items that have graced the pages of Biblical Archaeology Review over the decades. Category 5 items are often ubiquitous and can be compared to many standard items recovered from archaeological excavations, such as ceramics and coins. Falling into Category 1 is the infamous Ivory Pomegranate with the words “belonging to the temple of God.” Once displayed in the Israel Museum as a relic of the First Temple period, the artifact is now considered a forgery by most in the scholarly community. While not completely proven a fake, the pomegranate has raised many red flags concerning its authenticity, including its uniqueness and the fact that the ivory itself has been dated to the Bronze Age. Fairing only slightly better as a Category 2 object is the infamous James Ossuary. The bone box itself is often considered authentic, along with the “James the son of Joseph” part of the inscription; however, the inscription’s “brother of Jesus” element remains in question. Given the fact that the ossuary came from a collection that included other known forgeries, its authenticity should be considered highly questionable.

This year’s Spring Bible & Archaeology Fest included many more wonderful lectures by brilliant scholars. If you didn’t get to attend, fear not, there are upcoming opportunities, both online and in person. (And so many fascinating topics!) BAS will run the public symposium “The Life of Jesus in History and Archaeology” this May and a summer seminar, “Fakes, Mistakes, and Media Misrepresentations in Biblical Archaeology,” in July. Be sure to plan for our 28th Annual Bible & Archaeology Fest in Boston, Massachusetts (and online), where we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Biblical Archaeology Review.

The post What You Missed appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Nancy Lapp sorting pottery at Iraq al-Amir, Jordan, in 1962. Paul and Nancy Lapp Collection, 1962. Courtesy ACOR, Amman.

On March 3, 2025, we lost an understated and under-recognized giant in the field of biblical archaeology. Nancy Lapp (née Renn) was steadfast in her dedication to her family, to her scholarship, and to making the world a better place through her social justice efforts. Born in 1930, Nancy made significant contributions to Near Eastern and biblical archaeology throughout her career, which spanned over six decades. While she identified as a biblical archaeologist, Nancy was quick to clarify that her work was not intended to prove the Bible’s literal truth. Instead, she sought to understand the cultural and historical contexts of biblical narratives. Her approach pioneered a more nuanced perspective on how archaeology can inform biblical studies and inspired many colleagues and students.

Nancy was trained in ceramic typology during her early career, a foundational skill in archaeological analysis. Her academic journey led her to become the first female research assistant to William F. Albright at Johns Hopkins University from 1955 to 1957. Her expertise contributed to the accurate dating and interpretation of artifacts, essential for reconstructing historical contexts in biblical archaeology. After marrying Paul Lapp in 1957, together they emerged as a formidable team in biblical archaeology, participating in numerous excavations in Jordan and Palestine, including the Drew-McCormick Archaeological Expedition to Shechem

(Tell Balata). While Paul served as director of the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) in Jerusalem (1960–1965) (now the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research), Nancy played a crucial role in managing the institute and assisting with excavations at Bâb adh-Dhrâ’, Tell Ta’anach, Wadi Daliyah, and Dhahr Mirzbanah, all while raising their five children.

Following Paul’s tragic death in 1970, Nancy dedicated her time and expertise to publishing the results of their excavations. Her sustained ethical commitment to publishing final reports from multiple excavations ensured that valuable archaeological legacy data was made available to the academic community, expanding the field’s knowledge base. She authored and co-authored several monographs and dozens of book chapters and journal articles focusing on various aspects of Near Eastern archaeology. Her expansive scholarly oeuvre encompasses analyses for many of the region’s most important Bronze and Iron Age sites, including Bâb adh-Dhrâ’, Iraq al-Amir, Tell er-Rumeith, and Tell Ta’anach, and includes enormous contributions to archaeological research methods and approaches while advancing the field of biblical archaeology.

Nancy Lapp working with younger scholars at the Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (left to right: Megan Nishida, Tucker Deady, Nancy Lapp, Madeleine Kohl, Morag Kersel, Natalia Handziuk, and Meredith Chesson). Image courtesy of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain project.

In addition to her archaeological scholarship, in 1970 she became the curator of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology (now the Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology) and was named Curator Emerita in 2000. In this role, she transformed the museum’s exhibits, curatorial procedures, and mission, preserving and showcasing artifacts from biblical lands, contributing to public education, and encouraging early career scholars in academic research.

Nancy’s contributions to the field extend beyond excavations, museum work, and publications. Nancy and Paul Lapp’s extensive photographic collection documenting their expeditions has become an invaluable resource for researchers. Donated to the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Jordan, this archive preserves visual records of archaeological sites and artifacts, supporting ongoing studies in the region. She also served as a trustee emerita at ACOR.

Nancy was a true storyteller; her enthusiasm and passion for archaeology helped to captivate and educate the public about biblical archaeology. Her dedication to this work and her efforts to preserve and publish important research made an indelible mark on the field of Near Eastern archaeology. Through her various contributions, she advanced the field and fostered a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural context of the Bible. Her work enriched the methodologies and ethical standards of biblical archaeology, leaving a lasting legacy in the field and inspiring new generations of archaeologists.

Morag Kersel is Associate Professor of Anthropology at DePaul University. She is co-director of the Follow the Pots Project and the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain.

Meredith Chesson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. She is co-director of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain and the Follow the Pots Project.

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

The post Milestones: Nancy Lapp (1930–2025) appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Fresco of Helen and Paris from the newly excavated dining room. Image courtesy of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Ongoing excavations at the Italian site of Pompeii recently revealed a spectacular dining hall with elegant black walls, decorated with beautiful frescoes featuring mythological scenes inspired by the Trojan War. Measuring about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, the hall also had an exquisite mosaic floor.

One fresco features two of the central characters to the Trojan War saga—Paris and Helen, whose love ultimately resulted in the war itself. Helen is flanked by an attendant while a loyal hound sits at Paris’s feet. Of note is the Greek inscription next to Paris that refers to him by his other name, “Alexandros.” According to legend, Paris received this name (which means “Protector of Men”) for his bravery in his days as a shepherd before being recognized as the lost prince of Troy.

Opposite Helen and Paris is a scene featuring Priam’s daughter Cassandra and the god Apollo. Cassandra is a tragic character who ultimately could not prevent the Trojan War even though she had been blessed with the gift of foresight. According to myth, Cassandra agreed to be Apollo’s bride in exchange for the gift of prophecy. When the time came to give herself to Apollo, she refused and the god cursed her with a gift of true prophecy that would never be believed. Instead, she is treated as a madwoman by her family and people. Following the events of the war, she is taken by Agamemnon to be his prized slave.

Fresco of Apollo and Cassandra from the newly excavated dining room. Image courtesy of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

According to press statements, the team believes the walls of the dining room were painted black to prevent the smoke from oil lamps staining the walls. When used in the dark of the evening, the flickering lights from the lamps would have made the beautiful images on the black background seemingly dance and move, “especially after a few glasses of good Campania wine,” said Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel.

FREE ebook, Recipes from the BAR Test Kitchen Make your own food from recipes handed down from biblical times. Download now.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

The homes of wealthy Romans were often adorned with mythological figures and legendary scenes. While the paintings were definitely a sign of status, they also served a social function by offering dinner guests with subjects of conversation. “The mythical couples were ideas for conversation about the past and life,and only seemed to be romantic in nature,” Zuchtriegel continued. “In reality, they speak of the relationship between the individual and destiny.”

The townhouse dining room. Image courtesy of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

The exquisite dining hall is located in a domus (wealthy Roman townhouse) in the Regio IX area that the team has been excavating for about a year in connection with the Pompeii Archaeological Park’s extensive renovation efforts. Many exciting discoveries have been made in Regio IX recently, including a fullonica (laundry), pistrinum (bakery), and a construction site, all within the vicinity of the domus. In their official reports, the excavators suggest the laundry and bakery were residences repurposed by the owner of the townhouse. The name Aulus Rustius Verus was written on a millstone that was discovered in the bakery. This same man was running for a political office called aedile, according to political graffiti discovered nearby. The aedile was responsible for various public duties, including maintenance of public buildings, organizing festivals, and maintaining the civic infrastructure. Rustius Verus is known to have been one of the two duumviri (the highest office in a city), alongside Giulio Polibio, and could have possibly been the owner of the richly decorated town house.

This article was originally published in Bible History Daily on April 22, 2024.

Related Reading in Bible History Daily

The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

Luxurious Private Bath Uncovered at Pompeii

DNA and Gender at Pompeii

The Survivors of Mount Vesuvius

Pompeii Reborn

Excavating Pompeii’s Middle Class

Pompeii Fast Food Restaurant Uncovered

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

How to Find a Brothel in Pompeii

Saved from Vesuvius

Climbing Vesuvius

The post New Frescoes Discovered at Pompeii appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

A relief from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu depicting severed hands of defeated enemies. Asta, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Writing for the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Daniele Candelora presents her view in an article titled “Hands Off! The Severed Hands of the Hyksos Capital.” Her interpretation takes into account the location of the grisly find and the Asiatic background of the Hyksos, who ruled much of ancient Egypt from their palace at Avaris. Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean History at the State University of New York at Cortland, Candelora seeks to answer whether the severed hands reflect a local Egyptian custom or were something introduced by the foreign Hyksos.

Our website, blog and email newsletter are a crucial part of Biblical Archaeology Society's nonprofit educational mission

This costs substantial money and resources, but we don't charge a cent to you to cover any of those expenses.

If you'd like to help make it possible for us to continue Bible History Daily, BiblicalArchaeology.org, and our email newsletter please donate. Even $5 helps:

The only problem with connecting this widespread custom with the hands excavated at Avaris is that it appears only after the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt, during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BCE). “Indeed, there is no clear evidence that the Egyptians routinely severed hands before the time of the Hyksos,” writes Candelora. “Although the mutilation of enemy bodies is recorded as far back as the Early Dynastic period (on artifacts such as the Narmer Palette, dated to c. 3100 BCE), and some legal punishments from the New Kingdom included the severing of the criminal’s nose and ears, neither military nor judicial contexts record severing hands.”

At Avaris, in the eastern Nile Delta, archaeologists discovered three pits with severed hands. Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo and the Institute for Egyptology

The forensic analysis of the hands from Avaris revealed that 11 belonged to men but one may have belonged to a woman. In addition, the hands appear as if removed with surgical care, and they were apparently buried either before rigor mortis (i.e., within 6 hours after death) or after it had worn off (1 to 2 days). Possible scenarios of what might have transpired at Avaris, therefore, include amputation from both living and dead people, and a burial that took place either immediately or the next day.

Citing several West Asian legal traditions, including the Code of Hammurabi, Candelora prefers to interpret the severed hands from Avaris as a practice introduced by the Hyksos rulers of Egypt. “From the West Asian perspective, therefore, the Tell el-Dab‘a hands can best be explained as a criminal punishment for anything ranging from insubordination to rebellion. Given that the hands were clearly not deposited at the same time, we have evidence for at least two instances at Avaris when the king likely issued his judgment from the palace, the sentence was carried out, and the severed hands were buried in the courtyard.”

To further explore the ancient practice of severing and counting human hands, read Daniele Candelora’s article “Hands Off! The Severed Hands of the Hyksos Capital,” published in the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Hands Off! The Severed Hands of the Hyksos Capital” by Daniele Candelora in the Spring 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

This article was originally published in Bible History Daily on April 17, 2024.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Severed Hands: Trophies of War in New Kingdom Egypt

A Tomb in Jerusalem Reveals the History of Crucifixion and Roman Crucifixion Methods

The Expulsion of the Hyksos

Left-Handed People in the Bible

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

The post Severed Hands at Avaris appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Aerial view of ‘Ubeidiya National Park. Emil Aladjem, IAA

Just a few miles south of the Sea of Galilee in the Jordan Valley, a special ceremony marked the official opening of the new ‘Ubeidiya National Park. In addition to evidence of megafauna such as mammoths, sabretooth tigers, hippopotami, and giraffes, the site has also yielded remains belonging to the species Homo erectus, an early relative of modern humans, as well as a variety of stone tools. ‘Ubeidiya’s Pleistocene remains date back approximately 1.6 million years, making this one of the earliest known sites of its kind ever discovered outside of Africa.

A 1.6 million-year-old hippopotamus tusk discovered at ‘Ubeidiya. Yoli Schwartz, IAA

A Glimpse into the Distant Past

Located near Kibbutz Bet Zera, the site of ‘Ubeidiya was first identified in 1959 by Izzy Merimsky, an area resident who worked as a nature instructor. Since then, excavations led by professors Moshe Stekelis, Ofer Bar-Yosef, and Eitan Tchernov have revealed the site’s many treasures, including hominin remains, a variety of flint, limestone, and basalt tools, and evidence of a rich wildlife population.

Excavations ended in 1999, but were renewed in 2021 by Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Hebrew University and Miriam Belmaker of the University of Tulsa. Thanks to their conservation efforts and the development of infrastructure around the site, it was opened to the public, with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority declaring it a national park in 2022. Future plans for the site include converting the original field laboratory into an on-site visitor center.

FREE eBook: Life in the Ancient World.
Craft centers in Jerusalem, family structure across Israel and ancient practices—from dining to makeup—through the Mediterranean world.

Email(Required)

REQUEST FREE BOOK

According to Barzilai and Belmaker, the geological characteristics of ‘Ubeidiya create a unique opportunity for understanding what life was like between two and one million years ago. The site’s 30 geological layers have been pushed upward at an incline due to tectonic activity, and thus provide a remarkable window through time. Due to ‘Ubeidiya’s exceptional preservation, experts can use it to recreate much of the region’s early ecological conditions.

New signage has been posted for visitors to the site. Emil Aladjem, IAA

Barzilai and Belmaker highlight two key areas of interest for the public at ‘Ubeidiya. First, they note the broad array of species discovered there, most of which are extinct; this faunal record attests both African and European animals living side by side. Second, they point to the remarkable assortment of stone tools, including hand axes, scrapers, and chopping tools, with which the site’s hominin population conducted daily activities such as the processing of animal carcasses and vegetable matter for food.

“The ‘Ubeidiya region is an exciting journey backwards through time,” said Raya Shirkey, Director General of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. “We are happy to present to the public a historical site of such importance that links a beautiful landscape to history.”

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on April 12, 2024.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

1,800-Year-Old Roman Mosaic Revealed at Caesarea National Park

Mysterious Million-Year-Old Stone Spheres

Why Study Prehistoric Israel?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

‘Ubeidiya

Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!

Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more

The post Pleistocene Paradise appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.