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The tablets containing the Song of Liberation were excavated in 1983 under a Byzantine period church in the Hittite capital city of Hattusha. Writing for the July–October 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Eva von Dassow of the University of Minnesota reports on an intriguing, fictitious account of subjugation and liberation from Late Bronze Age Levant. The epic poem was originally composed in the Hurrian language, around 1600 B.C.E., but the surviving text comes from a Hurrian-Hittite bilingual edition from around 1400 B.C.E. It is recorded in cuneiform writing on a series of clay tablets, which came to light only...

Syria - Archeological Findings Palmyra- Syria 29-05 (SANA)- The Finnish archeological team working in Bashir Mount in the desert area of Palmyra ( Tadmor ) has unearthed 46 archeological sites that date back to 80,000 years B.C. Member of the team Prof. Margo Alstawt Watsing of Helsinki University said her group used sophisticated equipment to survey the mountain’s archeological traces that extend along the Euphrates River on the ancient famous Silk Road, some 180 KM east of Palmyra. She added that clay, copper, bone and granite pieces were unearthed at the scene, an indication that man had very long ago...

Six years ago, archaeologists uncovered a solitary, undisturbed tomb in the ruins of an ancient city in northern Syria. Now, in subsequent excavations, they have exposed seven more tombs at the site, making this the only known elite, possibly royal, cemetery in Syria in the Early Bronze Age, from about 2500 B.C. to 2200 B.C... The modern name of the ruins is Umm el-Marra, about 35 miles east of Aleppo and 200 miles northeast of Damascus. Scholars think this is the site of ancient Tuba, the capital of a small kingdom that thrived on the east-west trade route connecting Mesopotamia...

The debate about neonatal circumcision is over. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), neonatal circumcision is the result of ignorance, bad medical practice and American social and cultural pressure. Regarding the three most commonly cited justifications for neonatal circumcision (penile cancer, venereal disease and penile hygiene), the AAP now states that the benefits are negligible, which means that the majority of American men are walking around without foreskins for no good reason. Yet, the barbaric practice shows no sign of abating, and for this reason I plan to shed some light on the cultural dark spot of circumcision....