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Plundering the Sacred
German police recover thousands of artworks looted from Cyprus’s churches
One of last year’s most important archaeological discoveries occurred not in the field but in some apartments in Germany. And it was not made by archaeologists but by police after an eight-month sting operation. Last fall, Munich police...
Archaeology Odyssey, Summer 1998
The Image Destroyers
Only non-sacred images were destroyed in eighth-century Palestine
A curious episode in the history of iconoclasm—the destruction of sacred images—took place in eighth-century Palestine (present-day Israel and Jordan). The region’s Byzantine churches were often decorated with colorful mosaic pavements,...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 1999
Monasteries?
Heavens, no
When Cappadocians cut vast living spaces into the conelike formations of the local volcanic tufa around the turn of the first millennium, they created vestibules, halls, kitchens,...
Archaeology Odyssey, Fall 1998
The Cave-Dwellers
Cappadocia’s mysterious rock-cut architecture
According to Leo the Deacon, a tenth-century Byzantine historian, the inhabitants of the Anatolian province of Cappadocia were troglodytes: “They went underground in holes, clefts, and...
Archaeology Odyssey, Fall 1998
When Crusader Kings Ruled Jerusalem
It was one of the most romantic, chaotic, cruel, passionate, bizarre and dramatic episodes in history. In the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., a continual stream of European armies, mustered mostly in present-day France and Germany, marched out...
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2000
Polyglot Antioch
Will archaeologists ever find the city described in the literary sources?
Antioch-on-the-Orontes was one of the four great cities of the Greco-Roman-Byzantine world. Although almost unknown today, it once rivaled Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople. Ancient writers described it as a breathtakingly beautiful city...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2000
The Holiest Ground in the World
How the crusaders transformed Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
After defeating the army of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin, west of the sea of Galilee, in 1187, the Egyptian sultan Saladin marched unopposed into Jerusalem. European Crusaders, mostly from the region of present-day...
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2000
The Next Best Thing to Being There
Can’t tell a mattock head from a plumb bob? After a few weeks volunteering on a dig, you’ll be a lot cannier about the tools of the archaeology trade—and having fun, too. Archaeology Odyssey’s fourth annual digs list presents you with...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2003
Digs 2004
Pick up a Spade & Go for the Gold!
As the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens approach, people from Kalamazoo to Katmandu are refocusing on the ancient world as never before. Images of the Parthenon and Mycenaean masks appear in print ads, movies are set in ancient Rome and...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2004
Philadelphia of the Decapolis
In the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283–246 B.C.), Rabbath Ammon was renamed Philadelphia. Despite the name change, the city’s inhabitants remained largely Semitic and probably were never extensively Hellenized. When Arab Muslims...
Archaeology Odyssey, March/April 2002
A Subterranean Odyssey
Do you detest sparkling sunlight and fresh air? Would it be too onerous to visit beautiful, exotic lands? Would it bore you to tears to travel through time or touch a piece of history? If the answer to any (or all) of these questions is no,...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2001
Archaeology Odyssey’s 10 Most Endangered Sites
Any choice of the “10 Most Endangered Sites” is, at most, a kind of informed arbitrariness. Although all of the sites on our list are archaeologically important and in imminent danger, some have more value than others and some face greater...
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2002
Digs 2006: Odyssey’s Annual Roundup
A tour of the (ancient) world we cover
Uncover ancient timbered dwellings in Roman Britain, sketch prehistoric rock art in Italy, piece together pottery sherds in Greece and Spain—with the help of our annual Digs issue, you can travel back into the ancient world. On pages 44–45 we provide a detailed chart listing excavation...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2006
Canceled!
A new traveling exhibition of 5,000 years of Georgian art is already ancient history
Look at this crucifix,” said Gary Vikan, the director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore. He pushed a book across the table and pointed to a photograph of a silver sculpture of...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2000
The Mystery of Theoderic’s Tomb Solved!
The sixth-century A.D. Roman-gothic king built it to last
One of the most mysterious buildings in all of Western architecture—the tomb of Theoderic (454–526 C.E.), king of the Ostrogoths (see the sidebar to this article)—glowers at the end of a tree-lined avenue in Ravenna, Italy. The tomb’s heavy,...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2003
Welcome to the World of Magic!
In 1992 and 1993, at Sepphoris (in Hebrew, Tzippori) in the lower Galilee, we uncovered two inscribed amulets designed to invoke magical powers.1 It’s not abracadabra; it’s WHYHAW and AWAAA. See if that will cure your fever! These two amulets, small silver and bronze scrolls, open a fascinating...
Archaeology Odyssey, Summer 1998
When People Lived at Petra
It seems no work of Man’s creative hand, By labor wrought as wavering fancy planned; But from the rock as if by magic grown, Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone! Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine, Where erst Athena her rites divine;...
Archaeology Odyssey, July/August 2000
Colossal Enigmas
The ancient stone temples of Baalbek
It is unlikely that any archaeological work will be undertaken at Baalbek in the near future. This imposing site lies about 50 miles east-northeast of Beirut (ancient Berytus), between...
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2000
Death in Louisville, Roman Style
A fascinating episode in the history of Roman archaeology in America took place in Kentucky in the early years of the last century. In 1911 Louisville businessman and community leader...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2005
Were living Children Sacrificed to the Gods? Yes
The thousands of individual burials, the several mass burials and the animal burials all demonstrate that these were sacrificial offerings to the gods.
The evidence that Phoenicians ritually sacrificed their children comes from four sources. Classical authors and biblical prophets charge the Phoenicians with the practice. Stelae associated with burial urns found at Carthage bear decorations...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 2000