The Bible and Culture

There are a few more items to note from the new Urfa museum and then a few to note from the separate new mosaics museum in Urfa. Firstly, here is a nice depiction of a Roman funeral procession heading to the necropolis.... And here is the sort of Roman who would have been in such a cortege.... Here is a statue of Nike, the goddess of victory from the NT era.... This is a bust from Syria, with a Syrian inscription. Note the woman's headdress....Having been to the Zeugma museum, anything … [Read more...]

The new museum in Urfa is mind-blowing. It is big, it is beautiful and it is full of things from Gobeckli Tepe.....There are helpful re-creations in this museum of the Gobeckli site, for example.....This drawing helps us picture the building of the site..... Perhaps the most remarkable find of recent vintage is the totem pole...... The totem clearly enough has a human figure at the bottom, appearing to be making some sort of clay vessel, then perhaps another human figure in the … [Read more...]

In some ways, it is as instructive to examine some of the newest dig sites, for example this one where you see a head of a monolithic column standing up, as is true at one of the squares on this site, both on the back side of the hill.... Some of these columns are highly decorated, some less so.... most have creatures on them and a few have humans or deities.... There is rather clear evidence this was a sacrificial site, for example note the holes in this column used to tether a large animal … [Read more...]

Snuggled in between the Tigris and the Euphrates (as was the garden of Eden according to Genesis), is Gobeckli Tepe, which means pot-bellied hill. Today the site is mostly under roof for protection, with the current roof being temporary.... it is difficult to get at, or see a lot of the standing monoliths, frankly. This was not the case when I first visited this site some years ago. The radiometry studies show some 20 circles to be excavated, but in 20 years, only five or so of them have … [Read more...]

I've deliberately saved the most important posts for last, the posts about the most ancient high place or religious site/sanctuary yet found on earth, dating to about 9.600 B.C. and so a Neolithic site. I am referring to the dig outside of the town of Urfa at Gobeckli Tepe, which I've blogged about before, so this is an update on the dig there.....Here's an orienting map. Here's the view from this high place.... This very area is where agriculture, the cultivation of drops, in this case seed … [Read more...]

One of our last stops before going into port at Marmaris (a truly touristic town, where apparently even Jesus has a shop)..... is the ancient city of Kaunos. Here is the sign at the site..... Kaunos was once a port city but as with Ephesus and other such cities, the harbor silted up..... We did not visit the high fortifications at Kaunos see here... Rather we toured the ancient theater..... here's the vomitorium or exit ramp for the actors... One can tell from the size of the theater this … [Read more...]

Among the various surprising things on the island of Kos is the Hippocratic Institute, where doctors and others meet who are interested in the pursuit of the goals of good medicine. Hippocrates and Galen were the two most famous 'founders of medicine' in antiquity, and Hippocrates in particular took a more passive, let the body heal itself approach, with the motto 'do no harm'. Here's a bust of the man himself found in the museum at the Institute.... Here is perhaps a more exact image of … [Read more...]

Let's start with a drawing of what the giant Asclepion temple would have originally looked like when completed. And here's an artist's rendering--- To say this place was massive is an understatement, and it required some real effort to get up to the temple site. The lower terrace is interesting as well, where we found one creature bringing his offering for a sacrifice. In case you're wondering he has a still live lizard in his mouth.... There is a fountain on the lower terrace with … [Read more...]