{"id":90164,"date":"2021-02-07T22:06:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T05:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=90164"},"modified":"2021-02-08T18:58:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T01:58:47","slug":"archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html","title":{"rendered":"“Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The burial site at Sutton Hoo in mid-December 2010. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig<\/em>, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan<\/a>,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes<\/a>, and Lily James<\/a>.\u00a0 It will be just a bit slow for some folks, but I enjoyed it.\u00a0 The movie tells the story \u2014 fairly accurately \u2014 of the 1939 discovery of the sixth-seventh century East Anglian ship and burial horde at Sutton Hoo<\/a>, in Suffolk, England.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, last night, my wife and I listened in via Zoom! to an online fireside with Margaret Barker that was organized by a small group of Latter-day Saints based on Bainbridge Island, in Washington.\u00a0 It was, of course, fascinating.\u00a0 Passingly, she mentioned the controversial case of a book, found in Jordan, inscribed on metal plates.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a recent story about them that even mentions Dr. Barker:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCould these writings shatter Christian history? True or false, journalists might take a look\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her fireside and The Dig<\/em> the night before got me into an archaeological vein of thought.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lot of people have a far more optimistic view of what can be discovered via archaeological research than the facts or the record can justify, and they imagine that we know more than we do and that the picture that we have of the ancient world is clearer than it actually is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fact is that most ancient artifacts haven\u2019t survived.\u00a0 In fact, they often disappeared quite a long time ago, maybe only a very little while after they were discarded or abandoned.\u00a0 And, if they survived, the odds of their being found at all are very low.\u00a0 And if<\/em> they\u2019re found, there\u2019s a good chance that they\u2019ll be found by sheer chance, and that the archaeological context out of which they come won\u2019t be noticed or remembered.\u00a0 Even if professionals find them, though, the odds are sadly quite high, historically speaking, that no adequate archaeological report will be written up on them \u2014 finding stuff is fun; writing up reports can be dull \u2014 which means that the archaeological context out of which they emerge will never be known to most others and will be forgotten.\u00a0 And even conscientious archaeologists will often misinterpret what they find.\u00a0 (As brilliantly illustrated in David Macauley\u2019s classic 1979 satire Motel of the Mysteries<\/em>.). And so forth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But new things continue to be found:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cArchaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom: They ruled a big part of today\u2019s Turkey and defeated the legendary king Midas.\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cWe had no idea about this kingdom. In a flash, we had profound new information on the Iron Age Middle East,\u201d said Prof. James Osborne of the\u00a0Oriental Institute<\/a>, an archaeologist who specializes in examining Iron Age cities. Osborne and colleagues have discovered what looks like a major political center in ancient Turkey from about 2700 years ago \u2014 and we knew nothing about it.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think that it would do many people a whole lot of good if they were to read (and seriously reflect upon) the late and much lamented William J. Hamblin\u2019s important 1993 article\u00a0\u201cBasic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon,\u201d Journal of Book of Mormon Studies<\/em> 2\/1 .<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not only in archaeology that experts can be surprised.\u00a0 Other sciences, too, are capable of serving up the unexpected:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo exoplanet families redefine what planetary systems can look like: The planet densities and orbits at TRAPPIST-1 and TOI-178 buck astronomers\u2019 expectations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rev. Dr. David Wilkinson is a British Methodist theologian at the University of Durham. \u00a0He earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology. \u00a0But I should point out (especially to those who will reflexively dismiss him and his comments because he\u2019s a theologian) that he also holds a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics and that he is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.\u00a0 I\u2019ll share below three or four (essentially unrelated) passages that I marked during my reading of David Wilkinson,\u00a0God, Time and Stephen Hawking: An Exploration Into Origins<\/em> (London: Monarch Books, 2001):<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the light of such success, writers such as Richard Dawkins contrast science with religion in terms that science proves things while religion simply requires dogmatic belief despite the evidence.\u00a0 Such a view is based on a naive and outdated view of science.\u00a0 It is more of a nineteenth-century view of science rather than the reality of the twentieth century.<\/strong>\u00a0 (62)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quantum theory tells us that at the atomic level our common sense of everyday imagination will not work, but that through mathematics we can understand it.\u00a0<\/strong> (67)<\/span><\/p>\n

The traditional story that the theory of gravity came from Isaac Newton being hit by a falling apple in the grounds of Trinity College, Cambridge, is very doubtful.\u00a0 It does however stress the earthly nature of the discovery.\u00a0 Newton\u2019s friend Edmund Halley than applied the theory to comets and predicted the appearance of a certain comet in the year 1758.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Halley died before the comet appeared (such is science!), but it did appear and was thus named after him.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Halley was assuming that this scientific law proposed by the mind of Newton would apply to these exotic objects called comets.\u00a0 To put it another way he trusted in a resonance between the mathematics of our minds and the mathematics of the universe.<\/strong>\u00a0 (76-77)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, it has to be said, it is<\/em> exceedingly weird that there is such a \u201cresonance\u201d between mathematics and mathematical theories, on the one hand, and, on the other, the microcosmic and macrocosmic phenomena of even the most distant realms of the cosmos.\u00a0 It\u2019s what the Hungarian-American theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner was getting at in his famed 1960 article \u201cThe Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.\u201d\u00a0 (Wigner would go on, by the way, to win the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics \u201cfor his contributions to the theory of the\u00a0atomic nucleus\u00a0and the\u00a0elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, I offer an illustration of the limits of inquiry, and particularly of scientific inquiry, that was first suggested by the English astronomer, physicist, mathematician, and sometime philosopher Arthur Eddington (1882-1944):<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To follow an illustration of Sir Arthur Eddington, if you fish in an ocean with a net which has 4-inch holes, it does not mean that when you get your catch you conclude that there are no fish in the ocean smaller than 4 inches.\u00a0 You have imposed such an order.\u00a0<\/strong> (73)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily James.\u00a0 It will be just a bit slow for some folks, but I enjoyed it.\u00a0 The movie tells the story \u2014 fairly accurately \u2014 of the 1939 discovery of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7497,21244,21238,3655,21235,16140,56,10069,21247,21241,3580,5898],"class_list":["post-90164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anatolia","tag-anatolian","tag-archaeologist","tag-archaeology","tag-archeologist","tag-archeology","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-king","tag-midas","tag-sutton-hoo","tag-turkey","tag-turkish"],"yoast_head":"\n"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-02-08T05:06:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-09T01:58:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2021\/02\/Sutton_Hoo_burial_site.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-08T05:06:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-09T01:58:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom\"","description":"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom\"","og_description":"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2021-02-08T05:06:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-02-09T01:58:47+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2021\/02\/Sutton_Hoo_burial_site.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html","name":"\"Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2021-02-08T05:06:34+00:00","dateModified":"2021-02-09T01:58:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":"    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan,\u00a0Ralph Fiennes, and Lily","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/02\/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-discovered-a-major-previously-unknown-kingdom.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}