John MacGinnis of Cambridge University was deciphering the text on a 2,800-year-old Assyrian clay tablet from Turkey when he realized that the names of some of the women listed in the text were unique. He thinks the names may represent women prisoners of war who were captured in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, and that their names could represent a previously unknown language. The tablet, which was part of a local palace archive, recorded that the women were moved to another village, probably to work.

Controversial archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University claims to have uncovered shrines resembling biblical descriptions from the time of the Israelites’ early kings. The shrines are part of the 3,000-year-old fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, and they contained five standing stones, two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels, and two portable shrines. “There’s no question that this is a very important site, but what exactly it was – there is still disagreement about that,” commented Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University.

ORBIS is a new “Google Maps for the ancient world” created at Stanford University. The online map shows the cost of travel, likely travel times, and trade routes in the Roman world. Modes of travel include “rapid military march,” “ox cart,” and “camel caravan.” It even adjusts for traveling during the different seasons of the year.

A Confederate warship will be removed from the Savannah River to make way for a project to deepen the passage between a container port and the Atlantic Ocean. The ironclad CSS Georgia was scuttled in December 1864 to prevent its capture by Union troops led into Georgia by General William T. Sherman. At least two large pieces of the ship’s iron cladding are known to have survived, along with three cannons, and a propeller and other engine parts. “We don’t really have an idea of what’s in the debris field. There could be some personal items. People left the ship in a big hurry,” said Julie Morgan, an Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Thursday, May 10, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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