Ancient Language Colloquium @ Macquarie

I just got this in my email. It looks like a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon to me!

Museum of Ancient Cultures Language Showcase Series X

A Language Colloquium

Friday, 16 October, 2009
2.00–5.00pm
Seminar Room, Museum of Ancient Cultures
Building X5B, Macquarie University

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As part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Ancient History at Macquarie University, the 10th installment of the Museum of Ancient Cultures Language Showcase Series looks back over the history of the Language colloquium series, and onto the future of research on the ancient languages at Macquarie, with a program taking in Biblical, Classical, and Egyptological linguistic work.

PROGRAM

First Session

2.00–2.10: Welcome

2.10–2.45: Ian Young, University of Sydney
‘“Late” Language, Loanwords, and Linguistic Dating of Books of the Hebrew Bible’

2.45–3.20: Marie-Louise Craig, Charles Sturt University
‘Pioneers and No Through Roads: The Story of Early Hebrew-English Lexicons’

3.20–3.50: Afternoon Tea

Second Session

3.50–4.25: Trevor Evans, Macquarie University
‘Counting Chickens in a Third-Century BC Papyrus’

4.25–5.00: Boyo Okinga, Macquarie University
‘Topicalisation and the assassination of King Amenemhet I – The Instruction of Amenemhet to his Son §7c-d’

I Really, Really Want This…

The new Hebrew and Greek Bible by Zondervan, that is. I’ve always wished someone would make a combo Hebrew/Greek Bible to bring with me to church, but to my knowledge no one has until now. Carrying both a Hebrew OT and a Greek NT to church is both cumbersome and, well, embarrassing.

I must own it. Who wants to buy it for me?

Theophilux.com

Just a quick note to say that I am now a contributor for theophilux.com, so I’ll probably be posting more there and less here from now on. I’ll use this blog for more technical posts and the NT Greek readings, which I plan to resume shortly.

If you want, check out the series I’ve started over at theophilux.com on how to choose a Bible translation (Part I and Part II). So far, it’s generated some decent discussion. More than my posts here usually generate, anyway.

First Few Days at Tel Rehov

This is Tel Rehov. As you may notice, there is an upper mound and a lower mound. We are digging in the lower mound, in the Iron IIA strata of Area C.

Classmates working on a new square.

Here is the area where I am excavating. I’m digging in the area just behind the famous beehives (which are covered). Interestingly, the area I’m excavating and the beehives seem to be in the same stratum, though they are at different levels. Hopefully as we excavate farther, we’ll figure out what is going on here.

A 3,000-year-old mud brick building in Area C excavated last season.

This is a horn from a horned altar uncovered by a classmate working in a new square. Several of these altars, including one complete one (which was featured in an article in the latest issue of BAR), have been found at Tel Rehov, particularly in Area C. This was a really exciting find.

Here is a destruction layer in which the ash from the razed city is visible in the stratigraphy.

Fallen mud bricks embedded in the balk—probably caused by an earthquake.

This is what looks to be the base of a red clay cooking pot that we began uncovering in my square just before the day ended. We’re quite sure that this area was a courtyard, and several blackened potsherds and a small bit of charred material might indicate that this was the cooking area. If this turns out to be a cooking pot when we finish uncovering it tomorrow, hopefully we’ll find an oven too.

I’m in Israel!

I’m here … and as you can see from the pictures below, I’m really suffering. We’re staying at the kibbutz Nir David, which is far nicer a place than I expected to stay for a dig.

Yep, we’re in Israel.

Our cabin at the kibbutz.

We have a hot tub in our cabin. Like I said: we’re roughing it.

This place is really just awful.

Cliff jumping in the river that runs through the kibbutz.

You can see that the kibbutz is quite literally an oasis. Behind all the greenery around the river is just desert.

We just relaxed today, but tomorrow excavation begins at 5:00am. In the next couple of days, then, I’ll actually have some pictures of our dig site, Tel Rehov.