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Tag: Archeology

  • This Museum of the Bible curator takes care of some of the oldest artifacts in the world – WTOP News

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    Bobby Duke spends most of his adventures as chief curatorial officer of the Museum of the Bible studying and teaching about the priceless artifacts in its collection.

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    This museum curator takes care of some of the oldest artifacts in DC

    In the D.C. region, conversations often start with, “What do you do?” WTOP’s “Working Capital” series profiles the people whose jobs make the D.C. region run.

    Bobby Duke thinks many of the world’s treasures belong in a museum for everyone to see. In that way, he is similar to some of the silver screen’s famed history lovers — but he’s no Indiana Jones.

    “I don’t wear a fedora. I don’t have a whip, and I don’t have this John Williams theme music in the background,” Duke said.

    Even with a name fit for a hero, Duke spends most of his adventures as chief curatorial officer of the Museum of the Bible studying and teaching about the priceless artifacts in its collection.

    “It wasn’t like when I was in fourth grade, I said, ‘someday I want to be a chief curatorial officer!’” he joked with WTOP. “It’s not something you aspire to, but it’s something that you realize.”

    “For me,” he said, “being at the Museum of the Bible, having a Ph.D. in Hebrew, having researched the Dead Sea Scrolls, it kind of all comes together.”

    For nearly two decades, Duke worked at the School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University, where he served as dean.

    Duke studied Near Eastern languages including Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Greek at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received his Ph.D. He also studied the Hebrew Bible at Jerusalem University College and earned a theology degree from Multnomah University.

    “I was a researcher, I was a professor, and all of those experiences have now been woven together to give me the job skills necessary for what I do here at Museum of the Bible,” Duke said.

    He now oversees all exhibits, education and research across the museum’s collections.

    Duke said he learned early on that he liked studying the documents in a lab rather than digging in the Israeli heat looking for new scrolls and artifacts.

    “I became a tech scholar versus an archaeologist, because getting up at 4:30 every morning, digging in 100-degree temperature for weeks and weeks on end was something that I did not see in my future permanently,” Duke said, adding that he still visits dig sites every year.

    The museum supports two digs in Israel: Tel Shimron and El-Araj, which is likely biblical Bethsaida, the hometown of apostle Peter on the Sea of Galilee.

    “We have an annual lecture every year from both of those sites, just so we can take the discoveries in the field and bring it back here for our guests at Museum of the Bible,” Duke said.

    When he is not at dig sites, Duke is simulating them for children’s programs at the museum. The “Dip Deep program” allows students to experiences of archaeology through hands-on exploration.

    A recent exhibit at the museum was the return of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a particular focus of study for Duke, whose writing about the ancient texts is widely respected.

    Duke also conducts research and explained that new technology has opened the door to many possibilities. The museum operates a digital imaging lab that allows researchers to reconstruct items, like ancient Torah scrolls.

    “One of our items in our collection, we’ll actually be heading out in 2026 to Stanford (University) for some special multispectral imaging because it’s what we call a palimpsest. That means a text was written and then it was overwritten, and then it was overwritten again,” Duke explained.

    Museum researchers hope digital imaging will reveal all of those layers.

    “We’re in a season of scholarship around the world where it does take a team,” Duke said. “One of the things I’m excited about is that it really causes a sense of humility across scholars, because to really do the work we need to do, you need people that are chemists and biologists … to be able to get to the information that we need as text scholars.”

    Duke said he is thrilled that D.C. was chosen as the location for the Museum of the Bible, which opened to the public in 2017.

    “You cannot do a mediocre museum in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “You’re here right in the shadows of the Smithsonian. We have so many great museums, and it is a wonderful community.”

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    Luke Lukert

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  • Scientists Find Weed Traces in 17th Century Italian Skeletons | High Times

    Scientists Find Weed Traces in 17th Century Italian Skeletons | High Times

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    Researchers in Italy have found evidence that cannabis was used by residents of Milan hundreds of years ago by studying bones from a 17th-century cemetery. In a report on the research, the scientists surmise that weed was likely used recreationally, noting that hospital records from the time do not include cannabis in an inventory of medicinal plants used in Milan in the 1600s.

    Medical records from the Middle Ages show that cannabis was used in Europe as an anesthetic and as a treatment for gout, urinary infections and other medical conditions. But in 1484, cannabis was banned in what is now Italy by a decree issued by Pope Innocent VIII. In it, the pope referred to cannabis as an “unholy sacrament” and banned the use of the herb by all Catholics. 

    Marco Peruca, a former Italian senator and founder of Science for Democracy, led a referendum to legalize cannabis in Italy in 2021. He told reporters that the papal decree and other bans on cannabis throughout history have led to a stigma against the plant.

    “This was a plant belonging to another culture and tradition that was intertwined with religion,” said Perduca, who says it traveled centuries ago to Italy from the eastern Mediterranean.

    “So anything and everything that had to do with a non-purely Christian set of rules…was supposed to be linked with paganism and movements not only against the Church, but against the [Holy Roman] Empire.”

    Definitive evidence of the use of cannabis in what is now Italy had not been found in the centuries that followed the papal ban. That changed, however, when researchers studied the femur bones from skeletons of people who lived in 1600s Milan. The remains had been buried in the Ca’ Granda Crypt, under a church annexed to the Ospedale Maggiore, the city’s most important hospital for the poor at the time, according to a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

    “We know that cannabis has been used in the past, but this is the first study ever to find traces of it in human bones,” said biologist and doctoral student Gaia Giordano at the University of Milan’s Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology (LABANOF) and Laboratory of Toxicological Investigation. “This is an important finding, because there are very few laboratories that can examine bones to find traces of drugs.”

    Study Investigates Historical Use of Recreational and Medicinal Plants

    The research, which was published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science, attempted to discover traces of plants used for medical or recreational purposes by residents of 17th-century Milan. The results of the research can help fill in the gaps in the historical records of plants used for medicinal or recreational purposes.

    “Toxicological investigations on historical and archaeological remains are rare in literature but constitute a different and potent tool for reconstructing the past, and in particular for better understanding remedies and habits of past populations,” the researchers wrote in the introduction to the study. “Archeotoxicological analyses have been performed on hair samples collected from pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies revealing the presence of cocaine or nicotine.”

    To conduct the research, scientists studied nine femur bones from the cemetery in Milan. Two of the bones, one from a woman in her 50s and another from a teenage boy, contained traces of the cannabinoids tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), direct evidence that the two people had used cannabis.

    “The results obtained on bone samples showed the presence of two molecules, Delta-9-THC and CBD, highlighting the administration of cannabis,” the researchers wrote. “These results, to the best of our knowledge, constitute the first report on the detection of cannabis in historical and archaeological human osteological remains. Indeed, according to the literature, this plant has never been detected in ancient bone samples.”

    The researchers note that the findings suggest that people of all ages and genders used cannabis at the time. An analysis of the medical records of the Ospedale Maggiore did not include cannabis among its records of healing plants used at the time, leading the researchers to conclude that cannabis was used recreationally. The researchers believe that cannabis may have been added to foods as a way to relax and escape the realities of the time.

    “Life was especially tough in Milan in the 17th century,” archaeotoxicologist Domenico di Candia, who led the study, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Famine, disease, poverty and almost nonexistent hygiene were widespread.”

    Italy was a major producer of hemp for use in rope, textiles and paper for centuries. Peruca notes that the popularity of hemp in Italy throughout history makes it likely the plant was also used for its psychoactive effects.

    “People used to smoke and make ‘decotta,’ or boiled water, with all kinds of leaves, so it is very difficult to identify what was the habit back then,” Peruca said. “But because hemp was used for so many industries, it’s possible that people knew those plants could also be smoked or drunk.”

    This is not the first time the researchers have studied human remains to find evidence of historical drug use. In an earlier study, Giordano found traces of opium in cranial bones and well-preserved brain tissue.

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    A.J. Herrington

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  • Entrepreneur | The World’s Oldest Flush Toilet May Have Been Found in China

    Entrepreneur | The World’s Oldest Flush Toilet May Have Been Found in China

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    The invention of the first flush toilet is said to have been in 1596 by English courtier Sir John Harington. However, a new discovery may prove that another civilization was far ahead of the game.

    Archaeologists at the Yueyang archaeological site in Xi’an, Shaanxi province in China unearthed what could be the world’s oldest manual flush toilet. It was first discovered last summer in a series of broken parts and studied by researchers for months before putting together the discovery and releasing details, China Daily first reported. The toilet was found at the No. 3 site of the ancient city complex of Yueyang.

    “It is the first and only flush toilet to be ever unearthed in China. Everybody at the site was surprised, and then we all burst into laughter,” Liu Rui, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the outlet.

    Related: A 15-Year-Old From Quebec Bested Indiana Jones and Discovered an Ancient Mayan City Without Leaving Home

    The lavatory includes a bent flush pipe and is said to be 2,400 years old. The researchers describe the toilet as a “luxury object,” possibly located inside a palace, and likely used by Qin Xiaogong (381-338 BC) or his father Qin Xian’gong (424-362 BC) of the Qin Kingdom during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), or by Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), China Daily reported.

    “The flush toilet is concrete proof of the importance the ancient Chinese attached to sanitation,” Liu told the outlet.

    The researchers are now digging deeper into the discovery and hoping to learn about diet and eating habits by examining the soil found in the lavatory for traces of human feces.

    Related: Most Vintage Jeans Sell for About $100. These 19th-Century Levi’s Found in a Mine Shaft Just Sold for Much, Much More.

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    Madeline Garfinkle

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  • Has the Lost City of Jesus’ Apostles Finally Been Found?

    Has the Lost City of Jesus’ Apostles Finally Been Found?

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    Press Release
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    updated: Aug 7, 2017


    NEW YORK, August 7, 2017 (Newswire.com)
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     Excavations this summer on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee have uncovered what may be evidence of the ancient city, Bethsaida-Julias, home to three of Jesus’ apostles: Peter, Andrew, and Philip (John 1:44; 12:21). It was also a location for Jesus’ ministry (Mark 8:22), and is near the land where Luke’s gospel reports the miracle of Jesus feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish (Luke 9:10-17).

    The excavations were conducted under the auspices of the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology at Kinneret College (Israel), and directed by Dr. Mordechai Aviam together with Dr. R. Steven Notley from Nyack College (New York), who is the excavation’s academic director. Students and faculty from Nyack College joined volunteers from the U.S. and Hong Kong to excavate for two weeks in July.

    Because of its importance in Christian tradition, scholars have tried to identify the site. Historical sources suggest that it was located near the Jordan River, in the large valley between Galilee and the Golan Heights. For the last 30 years, popular opinion identified Bethsaida with the site of et-Tel where archaeologists found settlement in the late Hellenistic (2nd cent. BCE) and Roman periods (1st-2nd cent. CE), including two private houses. However, traces of the Greco-Roman developments reported by historical reports are lacking. Now evidence has been discovered indicating that Bethsaida-Julias was located at another site, El Araj in the nature reserve of the Beteiha Valley on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

    Flavius Josephus, the first century historian tells us that in 31 CE, Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great, transformed the Jewish fishing village of Bethsaida on the Kinneret Lake (Sea of Galilee) into a Greco-Roman polis (Ant. 18:28). As governor of the region, he renamed the city Julias, after Julia Augusta (née Livia Drusilla), mother of Roman Emperor Tiberius. Decades later, Josephus himself was responsible for fortifying the city’s defenses in preparation for the Jewish Revolt against Rome (66-70 CE). In 68 CE he was wounded in battle on the swampy marshlands near Julias (Life 399-403).

    -more-

    The Byzantine (4th-7th centuries CE) and Roman (1st-3rd centuries CE) period remains both point to el-Araj as the site of the city of Bethsaida-Julias. Under the Byzantine floor of a structure discovered during the first season were 30 coins that date to the 5th century CE. It is possible that these walls are the remains of a monastery which was built around a church. Combined with the many gilded glass tesserae (stone or glass cubes that are used for mosaics) that were found in the first and second season, they indicate the existence of a wealthy and important church. A Byzantine eyewitness, Willibald, the bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, visited the Holy Land in 725 CE, and describes a visit to a church at Bethsaida that was built over the house of Peter and Andrew. It may be that the current excavations have unearthed remains from that church.

    Roman pottery that dates between the 1st – 3rd centuries was uncovered under the Byzantine level. A bronze coin of the late 2nd century CE and a beautiful silver denarius of the emperor Nero from the year 65-66 CE that reads “Nero, Caesar Augustus” were also found. This alone could disprove speculation that there was no human presence at el-Araj in the Roman period. Furthermore, a Roman wall was discovered at a depth nearly 693 feet (211.16m) below sea level. Adjacent to this wall was a large portion of mosaic flooring with a white and black meander pattern still attached to its original plaster and similar to other mosaics known from first-century sites around the lake. Along with the discovery of clay bricks and ceramic vents (tubuli), which are typical to Roman bathhouses, these finds are evidence of urbanization.

    Another important contribution from this season is the elevation of the remains. Most scholars agree today, following the excavators of Magdala that the level of the lake was 209 meters below sea level, and so they assume that the site of el-Araj was under water until the Byzantine period.

    The current excavations have demonstrated that the level of the lake was much lower than previously thought, and el-Araj most certainly was not under water in the first century CE. Two geologists, Professor Noam Greenbaum from Haifa University and Dr. Nati Bergman from the Yigal Alon Kinneret Limnological Laboratory, studied the layers of the site and pointed out that there are layers of soil which indicate that the site was covered with mud and clay that were carried by the Jordan River in the late Roman period, and which corresponds to a gap in material remains from about 250 CE to 350 CE, but in the Byzantine period, the site was resettled.

    The El-Araj Excavations Project was made possible through the generous support of the Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins, Nyack College, the Assemblies of God, and HaDavar Yeshiva (Hong Kong).

    The excavations will continue next year, June 17-July 12, 2018 with the expectation to uncover more evidence for the Roman period settlement and the lost city of Jesus’ apostles!

    ###

    The Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins (CS-AJCO) seeks to foster greater understanding of the cultural, linguistic and physical setting for Second Temple Judaism and nascent Christianity, the relationship of these faiths and their shared socio-religious milieu, and to support efforts that will make current research about these topics more widely available.

    Our programs and resources support scholarly endeavors with the intention of making current research available to underrepresented students, clergy and wider public audiences.

    Contact: Constance L. Diggs

                   CSAJCO

                   646.378.6148

                   csajco@gmail.com

    Source: The Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins

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