A copied error from an online translation of the Gospel of Thomas may be the “smoking gun” that strongly suggests the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, a controversial papyrus fragment that supposedly refers to Jesus being married, is a forgery, scholars say. If the text is fake, it would represent an extraordinary tale of how an amateur with no knowledge of a long-dead language could fool some of the world’s leading experts by using a readily available Internet tool — and how scholars countered by rallying online to swiftly investigate the case together.

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One of the most compelling arguments for the fragment being a forgery has emerged from Andrew Bernhard, an Oxford University graduate and author of the book “Other Early Christian Gospels” (T & T Clark, 2006). He published an online paper last week pointing out a pattern of similarities between the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife and the Coptic Gospel of Thomas — similarities that include grammatical errors and line breaks found only in the online word-by-word translation of the Gospel of Thomas.

“It’s remarkable that a forger could have forged something like this using a simple tool on the Internet,” Bernhard said. “It’s equally stunning how quickly scholars could respond and analyze the text.”

Read more here.

By: Andrew LoPinto, 2012 Platt Fellow

After a long and tiring journey, which consisted of a flight from Chicago to New York, a nine-hour layover in New York, a flight from New York to Frankfurt, Germany, a three hour layover in Frankfurt, a flight from Frankfurt to Cairo, an over-night stay in Cairo (the flight got in rather late), and a three hour drive…we finally arrived at Mendes!  Do not get me wrong, the flights were smooth and the company of the other expedition members made the trip much more tolerable than had I been alone, but in total, I was awake and on the move from 8:00am Monday morning until 8:00pm Tuesday night, and that does not include the over-night in Cairo nor the drive to Mendes.

We arrived, got settled into the house, and I perused my lab space and the common areas (the library, the kitchen, the dining room, the roof etc.).  Arriving early to the site (before all of the undergraduate field participants) gave me a chance to get comfortable in my new surroundings.  Perhaps ‘comfortable’ is too casual a word, considering it was extremely hot and I was very tired from the previous two-days-worth of travel.  I got acquainted with what would be my home for the next five weeks.

The undergraduates arrived a few days after me, two other staff members, and the director and co-director.  At first glance they seemed to be a very amenable group of students, if also a little travel-worn and weary (and in desperate need of the bathroom; they came sprinting into the house and directly to the bathrooms after their long drive from Cairo!).

The excavation season was in full swing at 6:00am the morning after the students had all arrived.  They were separated into two groups of four, and assigned to different areas of the site under the watchful eyes of the two site supervisors.  For my part, I did not begin excavation the same day as the rest of the team owing to the fact that the First Intermediate Period burials had to be uncovered (they were identified in a previous season and went unexcavated).  I busied myself with work in the lab with intervals of recreational reading sprinkled in.  After two days in the field, the burials were uncovered and my work began.

Who knew excavating in Egypt in June and July would be so hot and uncomfortable?  Everyone, I suppose.  The students worked on a rotation with me (two per burial) and that gave everyone a chance to excavate human remains and work with “the bones guy.”  The first two students had, quite possibly the worst burial I have ever had the misfortune to work on.  It was not for the fact that the burial itself was in any way “bad”, but that the conditions under which we were excavating were brutal, to say the least.  After one day of excavating (note: we were in full sun and in a unit which was easily two meters deep, preventing all air-flow), it became readily apparent that something needed to be done or we were going to have an excruciating and frankly unsafe excavation.  Rather cleverly, I must admit, and with the help of the site supervisor and a few Egyptian workers, we managed to rig up a tarp to cover over the burial and keep the direct sun off of us as we worked.  That brought the temperature in the unit down from about 130 degrees to about 115 degrees.  Suffice it to say that it was a long, uncomfortable, sweaty, dirty job. 

The excavation of the other burials uncovered this season progressed much more smoothly than the first, thankfully.  Three adults and two children were uncovered and excavated during this season, so it gave all of the students a chance to see what burial excavation in the Delta is like (dirty, hot, poor preservation…and totally amazing!).

At each weekend the entire team took field trips.  We went to Giza, Saqqara, Tanis; toured the sites of ancient Alexandria and enjoyed some amazing seafood; wandered aimlessly through the Kanh el-Khalili and took in all of the vivid colors, exotic scents and boisterous sounds of ancient market, and then it was time to depart.

Unlike the front-end trip, all of the students and staff (save two—one who chose to remain in Egypt for a few extra days, and one Australian student) were all together for the return journey.  Once again it was a smooth, if extremely long sojourn.  The students and staff were all so exhausted from the field season that the majority of the return was spent in silence reading, or watching movies, or in many cases catching up on desperately needed sleep!  After slowly negotiating our way through the labyrinthine convolutions of the US Customs line at JFK at a pace that was the envy of every glacier in existence, we all retrieved our luggage and said our goodbyes.

All in all, despite minor ups and downs, as will happen at any field school, it was a good season overall.  Thanks to the generous support of the ASOR Platt Excavation Fellowship and the donors who make it possible, I was able to join this remarkable expedition and work with a fantastic group of people.

~~~

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Il est institué à Sousse, sous le nom de Société Archéologique de Sousse, une association dont le but est de grouper toutes les personnes qui s'intéressent à l'histoire du pays, à ses ruines et au développement de la région du Sahel. Cette Société aura pour objectif de faire mieux connaître la région et d'y attirer des visiteurs en aménageant et en protégeant les ruines qui contribuent si puissamment à son pittoresque.

Dans ce but la Société agira par les moyens suivants :

1- Fonder une Bibliothèque;
2- S'intéresser au développement du Musée municipal par le concours matériel et moral de ses membres, favoriser de toutes ses ressources l'entretien et la conservation des monuments historiques, antiques ou arabes, de la Région de Sousse et signaler à l'administration compétente tous les actes de vandalisme qui pourraient être portés à sa connaissance, grâce à la surveillance vigilante de ses membres ;
3- Publier un Bulletin où il sera brièvement rendu compte des séances, de toutes les découvertes faites dans la région et des événements l'intéressant au point de vue archéologique ;
4- Affecter tous les fonds non employés au Bulletin ou à la correspondance, à l'acquisition d'objets pour le Musée, ou autant que possible à l'exécution d'une fouille poursuivie d'une manière continue dans un des grands monuments de l'antique Hadrumète ou de ses environs;
5- Organiser :
(a) Des réunions au Musée ;
(b) Des conférences relatives à un sujet archéologique;
(c) Des promenades à Sousse et dans les environs immédiats de
la ville chaque fois qu'une étude ou une trouvaille intéressante y sera faite;
(d) Des visites aux fouilles effectuées dans la région;
(e) Des excursions aux ruines si nombreuses et si intéressantes de toute la contrée;
6- Echanger le Bulletin avec celui des autres Sociétés africaines ou archéologiques.

• The house and the city: Political and administrative spaces
• The Roman house as political, religious, social and cultural arena
• Newest theories and methods in the study of privacy/public in the Roman House
• Public and private in material culture and artefact studies
• The provincial house: Local and Roman building traditions and usages
• Changes and Continuities of the Roman house in Late Antiquity
• Gender in domestic space

New Open Access Article- An Corran, Staffin, Skye: a Rockshelter with Mesolithic and Later Occupation

http://www.sair.org.uk/

In the last few days, I have been putting up a new website, Jobs in British Archaeology- http://jobsinbritisharchaeology.weebly.com/

This website will contain all of my data on job conditions in British Archaeology. It will also have some publications, tools for calculating wages, etc. The move of all this from my current page on this blog is because, while wordpress.com is great, it is too restrictive.  I would like to add some interactive components but it is just to difficult to game wordpress to make it do what I need it to do. Over the next few weeks I will be putting up a lot of info there but I will make some mentions of it here.

2: 1951

Africa est une revue composée de trois séries. La première est consacrée aux études et aux recherches préhistoriques antiques et islamiques (Africa), la seconde aux études et aux recherches relatives au monde phénico-punique et aux antiquités libyques (Reppal), la troisième est consacrée aux études et aux recherches ethnographiques (C.A.T.P.).

Outre les études et la recherche scientifique, Africa publie tous les travaux d’inventaire, de sauvegarde, de mise en valeur et de présentation muséographique du patrimoine.

La revue accueille les contributions originales (articles, rapport de fouilles, notes ou compte rendus) en langue arabe, française, anglaise, italienne, espagnole ou allemande.

[1] 
[2] 
[3&4] 
[5&6]
[7&8]
[9]
[10]
[11&12]
[13] 
[14] 
[15] 
[16] 
[17] 
[18]

[19] 

Africa est une revue composée de trois séries. La première est consacrée aux études et aux recherches préhistoriques antiques et islamiques (Africa), la seconde aux études et aux recherches relatives au monde phénico-punique et aux antiquités libyques (Reppal), la troisième est consacrée aux études et aux recherches ethnographiques (C.A.T.P.).

Outre les études et la recherche scientifique, Africa publie tous les travaux d’inventaire, de sauvegarde, de mise en valeur et de présentation muséographique du patrimoine.

La revue accueille les contributions originales (articles, rapport de fouilles, notes ou compte rendus) en langue arabe, française, anglaise, italienne, espagnole ou allemande.

[1] 
[2] 
[3&4] 
[5&6]
[7&8]
[9]
[10]
[11&12]
[13] 
[14] 
[15] 
[16] 
[17] 
[18]

[19] 

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World was published in 2000 as part of an international effort to create a comprehensive map and a directory of all ancient places mentioned in sources and a selection of important archaeological sites.

During the following decade two digitization projects based on the Barrington Atlas were produced; Pleiades, which began as a historical gazetteer of locations and the DARMC project which is a complete layered historical atlas.

In 2010-2011, the geodata of DARMC was transferred to Pleiades but it became apparent that not all the places in the original Barrington directory could be matched between DARMC and Pleiades, resulting in many places without precise coordinates and feature data.

However the Pleiades gazetteer has had the ability to display most of the ancient places on a map, individually and with their immediate surroundings, using Google Maps API and Google Maps as a background layer.

In March 2012 the Ancient World Mapping Center launched a beta version of an online GIS application called Antiquity À-la-carte, covering the entire Greco-Roman world. This application was based on the Barrington Atlas, on geodata from Pleiades/DARMC and its own intensive digitization of features such as roads, aqueducts and ancient coastlines.

Creating an ancient places backmap

Yet, while the DARMC and Antiquity à la carte initiatives provide both geographical coverage and possibilities to create custom maps in layers, there has been no digital map that can be used as a background layer similar to modern mapping applications like Google Maps.

Thanks to Pelagios this has been completed with a view to aiding any archaeological or historical researchers interested in or using online mapping.

Creating a static (non-layered) map of the ancient places in the Pleiades dataset with the capacity to serve as a background layer to online mapping applications of the ancient world was no small task.

Because it is based on ancient settlements and uses ancient place-names, the map presents a visualisation more tailored to archaeological and historical research, for which modern mapping interfaces, such as Google Maps, are not appropriate; it even includes non-settlement data such as the Roman roads network, some aqueducts and defensive walls (such as limes and city walls).

For example, the tiles can be used as a background layer to display the occurrence of find-spots, known or new archaeological sites etc., to create opportunities to easily place data into their historical context.

The map has been released with a CC-BY license, allowing anyone not only to browse but also use it for representing their own data or to build on it their own applications, provided that they include a full attribution.

What is more, the map can be used with OpenLayers, Google and Bing maps, so that anybody who already has these systems in place, can easily swap map tiles for these historical ones.

• To see the basic background map (using Google Maps API), click HERE (default setting is Rome, zoom level 7 of 11).
• For information about the making of the map, sources of geodata, and a legend to the symbols, click HERE.
• For those of you interested in finding out about how the map came into being read the full article HERE

Source: Pelagios Blog

More Information

View the Ancient GoogleMap here – http://pelagios.dme.ait.ac.at/maps/greco-roman/

• Pelagios
• Pleiades
• Ancient World Mapping Center
• Antiquity À-la-carte

For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

Revue du Centre d'Etudes de la Civilisation Phénicienne-Punique et des Antiquités Libyques
Magallat ad-dirasat al-finiqiyat al-buniyat wa al-tar al-lubiyat

[1] (1985)
[3] (1987)
[4] (1988)
[6] (1991)

Close your eyes so tight you see only black. Now, picture ancient Egypt. Most of us can visualise it because we’ve seen photographs and drawings of the pyramids, Pharaohs, temples, monuments, pottery, tombs, and hieroglyphics.

But if you are blind, and have been since birth then what does ancient Egypt look like to you? With no visual references or imagery to rely upon.

Touch tours

A new set of Touch tours at the Penn Museum offers blind or visually impaired visitors a chance to “see” ancient Egypt through the sense of touch. The Museum contains the largest collection of Egyptian and Nubian material in the United States, with more than 42,000 items.

Trish Maunder, a consultant at the Museum says the Touch tours came about through an initiative by the Museum’s education department and Jean Byrne, director of community engagement. Working with conservationists and Egyptologists, museum staff identified six objects in the lower Egyptian gallery that could be used to teach through touch, the history of ancient Egypt.

After using wipes to remove oil from their hands, blind or visually impaired guests on the Touch tours can feel and experience the artefacts, an act usually prohibited at the Museum.

The six objects on the tour are the stone slab stela of King Qa’a (ca. 2800 B.C.E.); the relief from the temple wall from Bubastis (874-835 B.C.E.); the head of Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 B.C.E.); the column from Ramesses II temple at Heracleopolis (1292-1190 B.C.E.); the window of the palace of Merneptah (1213-1204 B.C.E.); and the Museum’s iconic sphinx (ca. 1293-1185 B.C.E.), the third largest sphinx in the world.

A story of dynasties

The artefacts impart “an interesting story across a couple of dynasties, learning about the kings and the Pharaohs, learning some of the stories, learning some hieroglyphics, looking at language, and talking about what was the art life, what was some of the symbolism,” Maunder says.

The Touch tours are led by the Museum’s volunteer guides (docents), who went through several weeks of special training to prepare for the new endeavour. Jane Nelson, the docent coordinator says the guides use more “verbal cues” to describe an object when they are working with the blind or visually impaired.

Blind or visually impaired visitors took the tour during the guides’ training sessions to help with instruction. Esther Payne, a docent in the Egyptian Gallery says one of the first things the visitors told them, “We’re blind, not deaf. You don’t have to shout!”

Payne says guiding the blind or visually impaired is a unique experience. “It makes us really pay more attention to detail,” she says. “I’ve been doing this for many years but I have never had to pay such attention to detail.”

Docents who have been giving tours in the museum for years have had to learn a new language of descriptive detail, getting to know the artefacts in a whole new way, such as textural changes in areas where conservators have filled in eroded gaps.

Sighted visitors usually view an artefact for a few minutes then quickly move on. The visually impaired spend an average of an hour exploring the six objects. The visually impaired have alerted them to details they never noticed before as, for instance how the sphinx’s paws have lines indicating the claws and how the sides have perceptible ribs.

Blessing Offor, a blind singer, songwriter and pianist, travelled from New York City to take part in the final Touch tours training session on Sept. 24. He says the license to touch the artefacts is “unbeatable.”

“It’s like full-immersion; if you want to learn a language, you have to just jump into the culture and environment,” he says. “If you really want to learn about this stuff, you have to go touch it. Even for someone who can see, I think it’s way more valuable to actually be able to put your hands on something.”

Source: Penn Museum

More Information

Those interested in taking a Touch tour must call the Museum at 215-898-4000 and schedule the tour ahead of time. The pilot programme runs until mid-December.

For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

Remains of an 8th century wall are discovered during restoration work of a collapsed Cham tower. They are believed to be part of the stairway to the tower.

8th century walls found at the Po Dam Temple, Tuoi Tre News 20121016

Ancient Cham walls dug up in Binh Thuan
Tuoi Tre News, 16 October 2012

Construction workers at the Po Dam temple complex of the Cham people in Tuy Phong district in the central province of Binh Thuan have discovered two underground ancient walls while working to restore a collapsed tower in the complex.

The discovered walls, each 1.9m in height, are thought to be part of the stair leading to the tower.

Right after the walls were found, Binh Thuan Museum suspended the restoration works and joined with the Vietnam Archaeology Institute to conduct research on the walls.

Full story here.

Dans la prochaine séance du séminaire Digital Humanities [1], nous vous proposons de venir dialoguer avec Alexandre Monnin.

Il sera question du projet SemanticPedia, qui est « une plateforme de collaboration entre le ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, l’Inria et Wikimedia France pour réaliser des programmes de recherche et développement appliqués à des corpus ou des projets collaboratifs culturels, utilisant des données extraites des projets de Wikimedia ».

Cette intervention marque le début du cycle « Projets », mais les enjeux du Web sémantique seront aussi l’occasion d’évoquer les principes d’une philosophie du Web et de réfléchir à la place des philosophes dans la constellation des humanités numériques.

La séance aura lieu le mercredi 24 octobre 2012, de 13 h à 15 h, au 190 avenue de France, salle 2 (et non salle 3, exceptionnellement). Rejoignez-nous, en pensant à annoncer votre présence !

1. Dorénavant DH EHESS sur ce carnet lorsque la forme abrégée s’impose.