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Doliche was founded as a Hellenistic colony during the 2nd century BC in the present-day province of Gaziantep, Turkey. During antiquity, the city was located in the ancient region of Cyrrhestica, which was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD 72.Previous excavations in the city have unearthed the remains of a Mithraic temple, rock cut graves, and a stele depicting a previously unknown Iron Age deity.A recent study by the Asia Minor Research Centre has found over 2,000 seal impressions used to seal documents from the city municipal archive. The impressions consist of stamped clay lumps that range from 5...

Most are unaware that there were Ancient Greek kingdoms in China and that Hellenism spread all the way to Japan and Korea via India. However, the fact is that the Greeks were indeed in China, and, in addition to this, Hellenism spread to the entirety of the East Asian Buddhist world. In fact, the first anthropomorphic statue of Buddha was created by the Greeks. The famous Silk Road that connected Europe to China actually opened because of a war between Greeks of Alexandria Eschate. Alexandria Eschate, meaning “Alexandria the Farthest,” is located in the Fergana Valley in what is modern...

The tomb of a courtesan who seduced the elite 'during Alexander the Great's campaigns' has been discovered after 2,300 years.Found south of Jerusalem, Israel, it contained the cremated remains of a young woman, and a rare box mirror that looks 'as if it was made yesterday'.Experts say she was a hetaira – a high-class escort from ancient Greece, who offered elite clients not only sex, but also companionship and intellectual stimulation.And she may have plied her trade accompanying the armies of Alexander the Great, or those who warred for his vast empire after the conqueror's demise.The discovery, which is detailed...

New research suggests that this coin marks an eclipse of Jupiter by the moon. It happened on January 17, 121 BC and was visible in Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire. The coin itself show Zeus with a crescent moon above his head and a star like object hovering above the palm of his right hand... On one side is a portrait of Antiochos VIII, the king who minted it. On the reverse is a depiction of Zeus, either nude or half-draped, holding a sceptre in his left hand. Above the god's head is the crescent of the moon,...

In 2009 or 2010, three looted sculptures were taken from the ancient city of Palmyra. Several years later, customs officers in Switzerland seized them at a Geneva freeport. At last, they’re heading home to Syria, the Art Newspaper reports. The three sculptures date back to the second and third centuries B.C.E., when Palmyra was still a nexus of trade, possibly during the rule of Queen Zenobia. One of the sculptures is a bust of a priest wearing a ceremonial headpiece. The sculpture was badly damaged by the looters when they removed it from the site, as the head once had...

Ongoing excavations have revealed a historical latrina – a toilet or an even simpler facility used as a toilet within a sanitation system – at a historical theater in the ancient city of Smyrna, located within the borders of the western city of Izmir. The latrina is thought to have been used by the artists in the theater. The theater and the commode date back to around the second century B.C. and were used until the fifth century A.D., said Akın Ersoy, an archaeologist at Izmir's Katip Çelebi University and head of the excavation team.Touting "unexpected finds" during the excavations,...

Excavations in the East Jordan Land13 December 2007 This year Thomas Pola, professor for theology at TU Dortmund, and his team have continued the excavations in the East Jordan Land. With their findings on the mountain Tall adh-Dhahab (West) in the Jabbok Valley the archeologists could substantiate one assumption: everything points to the fact that the building remains from the Hellenistic and Roman era, found in 2006, were part of a yet unknown monumental building of Herod the Great (73-4 BC). This assumption is based on the floors of one of the discovered peristyle yards (yards enclosed by continuous...

Denver Newsroom, Mar 19, 2021 / 03:01 am MT (CNA).- Israeli archaeologists announced this week the discovery of several new sets of Dead Sea Scrolls— ancient fragments of biblical text that have, for the past 70 years, contributed to scholars’ knowledge about the Old Testament. The new scroll fragments, which the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced March 16, include the books of Zechariah and Nahum, both minor prophets. Dr. John Bergsma, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville who has written and spoken extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls, told CNA that an interesting feature of the scrolls recently found...

On a day that saw the Israel Antiquities Authority unveil the first Bible scroll fragments found in decades and numerous other dazzling artifacts from the “Cave of Horror” above the Dead Sea — including a huge 10,500-year-old complete woven basket, the oldest in the world — perhaps the most extraordinary news is that there are another 20 promising caves, holding untold potential treasures, that have yet to be excavated. That means the dozens of fragments shown to the public on Tuesday could mark the beginning of an exciting new era of discovery, 60 years after the last major scroll finds....

Dozens of 2,000-year-old fragments from scrolls containing portions of the books of Nahum and Zechariah have been unearthed in Israel, an extremely rare discovery in the Judean Desert. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of the uncovered fragments on Tuesday. They are the first of such discoveries in approximately 60 years. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragments of religious manuscripts that were originally found in the Judaean Desert decades ago. The newly discovered fragments are Greek translations of the two minor prophets. Despite most of the fragments being in Greek, the name of God is written in Hebrew. The...

They also discovered a partially mummified 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child.For the first time in 60 years, archaeologists have discovered a new fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts uncovered in the Qumran Caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavations, believes the new scroll, written in Greek, is actually a missing part of the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets” scroll, first discovered in 1961. It contains verses from Zechariah 8:16-17 and Nahum 1:5-6. The minor differences in the wording compared...

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate—declares the Lord.” These verses, from Zechariah 8:16–17, were discovered in a cave where Jewish refugees hid almost 1900 years ago. The verses, written on dozens of parchment fragments were discovered in a complex and challenging national-archaeological operation undertaken by the Israel Antiquities Authority on the cliffs of the Judean Desert, since 2017, in order to prevent antiquities...

TEL AVIV - Israeli archeologists on Tuesday revealed dozens of recently-discovered fragments of biblical texts, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which build on a collection of ancient Jewish religious manuscripts that was first discovered 60 years ago. Israel’s Antiquities Authorities said that the pieces of parchment feature lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum which have been radiocarbon dated to the 2nd century A.D. The discovery is the result of a years-long Israeli excavation in the Judean Desert and are believed to belong to a set known as “The Cave of Horror,” named for the...

We are in the midst of the Hanukkah season, the eight-day festival that commemorates the second century BC victory of Judah Maccabee and his family over the forces of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes. It was a remarkable, almost miraculous, victory. Antiochus was close to achieving the long-time Seleucid goal of recreating the empire of Alexander the Great. He and his predecessors had annexed Turkey, Mesopotamia, Persia and parts of India. They solidified their control of Judaea and came close to turning Egypt into a satellite kingdom as well. Like so many ancient rulers, Antiochus fixated on the idea he...

Samantha | Age 22 | Old Bridge, New Jersey | Last Voted: 2016 2016 was such a disillusioning experience. Going into the election, I was so proud to be in this country at this moment, so proud to be voting for Hillary Clinton. I had my Clinton sweatshirt on all day. I was on Twitter telling people that if they didn’t vote they were dead to me — like the whole thing. Watching the results come in, it was just disheartening. My faith in the whole system was crushed pretty quickly. That was the first general election I could vote...

An incomplete inscription might reopen the debate about the identity of the owner of a tomb from the Alexander the Great era, according to new research into blocks from the circular retaining wall of the mysterious mound. The tomb was unsealed in northern Greece 18 months ago. Dated to between 325 B.C. -- two years before Alexander the Great's death -- and 300 B.C., the tomb is located in Amphipolis, east of Thessaloniki, and is billed as the largest of its kind in the Greek world, measuring more than 1,600 feet in circumference. According to study author Andrew Chugg, a...

I would like to share a critical point about Chanukah, now that the chag is over. It's not just about Chanukah. The ideas are relevant year-round. We must not confine discussions relating to the Maccabean Revolt to annual Chanukah celebrations, since the original noble war to preserve the Torah's sanctity continued well beyond the miracle of the oil. Since the battle against Hellenism will surely continue until the arrival of Moshiach, we must wage war against Hellenism in every generation, in a manner that recalls our unrelenting war with Amalek. Since the time when the Greeks first polluted our waters,...

In 1964, Italian fishermen off the coast of the Adriatic Sea pulled out of international waters a nearly complete, life-size ancient bronze statue of an athlete. Standing with his weight on his right leg, the nude athlete reaches with his right arm toward the wreath on his head. Victorious in his competition, he will take off his crown and dedicate it to the gods. "The round face, with wide-set eyes, small nose, motionless cheeks, and petite, pointed chin appears somewhat vacuous," writes Jens M. Daehner of the Victorious Athlete. "The face subtly conveys a state of exhaustion, a situational realism...

It’s Hanukkah and I am in hiding. I don't want to see Facebook posts and news items about weird creative Hanukkah candelabras in which each flame stands for some new-fangled liberal cause. I don't want to see the significance of potato pancakes explained to senators or read that Obama is Jewish in his soul. I want to keep Hanukkah close to my heart, away from those who would tamper with its true meaning which is this: The Jews fought a war against assimilation and won. Those flickering Hanukkah lights have nothing to do with equality, integration, and multiculturalism. They have...

An audio class on the origins and practices of Chanukah in Jewish teachings, with application to our modern culture.