Eilat Mazar was struck by 2 Samuel 5:11 – Then King Hiram of Tyre sent messengers to David, along with cedar timber and carpenters and stonemasons, and they built David a palace. In 1997 she proposed searching for the site of King David’s palace in …
Have We Found David’s Palace?
What Eilat Mazar Found
Eilat Mazar and her team discovered there are giant walls which extend from what she calls the Large Stone Structure (Kenyon’s “massive public structure”) six to eight feet wide extending beyond the area they have excavated in every direction. The walls follow the eastern side …
Nadav Na’aman’s follow up work to Eilat Mazar’s Discoveries
I have told you that this Nugget would be delayed until I could get access to the Biblical Archaeology Review’s site. Some of you amused me with your response to my not-so-tongue-in-cheek comments on the delay. I am pleased to provide entertainment for you as …
Solving the Mystery of the Millo
I told you in the Nugget titled “No Evidence for King David?” that following the exploratory work of Kathleen Kenyon it was concluded there was no evidence for the zenith of the time of the Kings of Israel. In fact the archaeological evidence seemed to …
The Jerusalem Millo and its Implications
I have painted the background behind the complexity of archaeological digs in the centre of Jerusalem before. I have also explained the issues surrounding the dating of the conquest of the land and the fall of Jericho and subsequent issues concerning the timing of the …
Maps, Atlases and Navigation Terms
At heart I am a geographer. I take particular note of my environment. If I travel to a new place I like to get my bearings quickly. I take note of where the sun rises on the first morning I am there so I can …
The Beginning of Alphabets in the Ancient Near East
Let’s investigate the development of alphabets. I have told you before in past Nuggets that there is a remarkable correlation between the rise of the ancient civilizations around the fertile crescent, the site of the earliest civilizations known to man. The timing and succession of …
The Birth of an Alphabet in the Valley of the Writing
We are now one week into the New Year, so I consider it is time to clear out the holiday cobwebs and start our brains functioning fully again. My After Christmas Musings last week were an attempt to get you back into the process gently. …
The Key which Unlocked the Alphabet was the Serabit Sphinx
I told you in the last Nugget that the key that clinched the theory for Sir Alan Gardiner was the discovery of a unique bilingual inscription on a small sphinx with the meaning of the inscription left in a two parallel texts – one Egyptian …
The Serabit Alphabet and the Link Between Ancient and Modern Languages
As I have demonstrated in past Nuggets, the Canaanite alphabet discovered at Serabit El-Khadem was the bridge between ancient pictographic writing systems and the beginnings of phonetic based scripts we are familiar with in the writing systems of languages of the world today. The Cuneiform …