arqueologia

Antonio Lombatti, em seu blog, tem um post de hoje com o título More ossuaries with the name “Jesus”.

Que trata de vários ossuários da mesma região onde Simcha Jacobovici diz ter encontrado O Sepulcro Esquecido de Jesus…

Há muitos sepulcros “encontrados” de Jesus! Vários ossuários trazem o nome “Jesus”…

Leia o post, que está em italiano, e veja as as fotos de ossuários e inscrições!

Sobre a tabuinha cuneiforme do Museu Britânico, decifrada e publicada nestes dias, e que cita Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, um personagem babilônico, supostamente também citado em Jr 39,3, leia o post abaixo de John Hobbins.

Como qualquer descoberta arqueológica que encontra possível correspondência em texto bíblico, também esta causa polêmica. Observo agora mesmo no blogroll do Google Reader que (hoje) multiplicam-se os posts sobre o assunto!

 

Jeremiah 39:3 and History: A New Find Clarifies a Mess of a Text – John Hobbins – Ancient Hebrew Poetry: July 13, 2007

News of an exciting find has been making the rounds of the media and biblioblogdom. It seems to me that what has been missing so far in treatments of the find is sufficient background in Assyriology to understand, not the tablet, but some of the ins and outs of the biblical text it supposedly confirms (according to some), or is more or less irrelevant to (according to others). I have read the posts by Chris Heard, Claude Mariottini, Jim West, Doug Chaplin, and Peter Kirk. This post takes its own way. I trust it will be found helpful.

This is the first post in a series. For later installments go here, here, and here.

Jeremiah 39:3 is rife with textual difficulties. The correct interpretation of the names and titles contained in it has eluded biblical scholars in the past because the obvious place to go to clarify its problems, the corpus of texts studied by Assyriologists, is little studied by them.

Assyriology is a field of study the advances of which have had a very uneven impact on the study of the Bible and translations thereof. Jeremiah 39:3 is a case in point, but it is by no means the only one. It is truly a case of: the harvest is bountiful, but the workers are few.

In light of all we know about personal names and official titles of the Neo-Babylonian era, three names and three titles are discernible in the garbled text Jer 39:3 contains.[1] With names and titles given according to the pronunciation they would have had at the time, Jer 39:3 is to be understood as follows:

All of the officers of the king of Babylon made their entry, and occupied the middle gate – Nergal-šarri-uṣur governor of Sinmagir, Nabu-šarrussu-ukin the Rab-ša-rēši, Nergal-šarri-uṣur the Rab-mugi, and all the other officers of the king of Babylon.

The personal name Nergal-šarri-uṣur, the name of both the first and third official, is known from neo-Babylonian sources. Nergal-šarri-uṣur son-in-law of Nabu-kudurri-uṣur (= the Nebuchadrezzar of Jer 39:1) ruled Babylonia from 560 to 556 bce. It is possible that the Nergal-šarri-uṣur who served as governor of Sinmagir for Nabu-kudurri-uṣur (605-562 bce) according to this text in the eleventh year of King Zedekiah (Jer 39:2: 586 bce), and said son-in-law of said Nabu-kudurri-uṣur who later ruled in his stead, are one and the same person. Nergal-šarri-uṣur governor of Sinmagir also appears in a prism fragment preserved in Istanbul. The prism dates to Nabu-kudurri-uṣur’s seventh year. A fine discussion of the text of the prism fragment is provided by David Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets (HSS 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999) 92-97.

The best way to construe Sinmagir or Simmagir when used in reference to high officials in Akkadian is disputed. As Kevin Edgecomb pointed out in offline correspondence, Sinmagir appears as the name of a king in the famous Sumerian King List. The best explanation I have heard so far – and it is Kevin’s – is that ‘of Sinmagir’ is short for ‘governor of (the house of) Sinmagir.’ The phrase attested elsewhere, šanû ša sinmagir, would then mean ‘the deputy of the governor of Sinmagir.’

The personal name Nabu-šarrussu-ukin follows a well-attested pattern and was attested before the discovery by Michael Jursa of a tablet including the name. As David Vanderhooft remarked, “A certain Nabû-šarrūssu-ukīn held the office of rēš šarri under Amel-Marduk in 561 B.C.E.” (The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets [HSS 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999] 151). It is possible that this is the same individual named as present in Jerusalem 25 years earlier according to Jeremiah 39:3. For details of Jursa’s tablet discovery among the many that have yet to be collated and published in the mass in possession of the British Museum, go here.

The tablet includes both the name and the title “Nabu-šarrussu-ukin the Rab-rēši [short for rab-ša-rēši],” is dated to the tenth year of Nabu-kudurri-uṣur, and is, in all probability, the very same person referred to in Jer 39:3. Rab-ša-rēši (rab-sārîs, a loanword, in Hebrew) is a well-attested title for a royal official, and is often translated “chief eunuch.” Said translation, however, is considered misleading by some scholars. Discussion of the issue is not possible here.

The title of the last person to be mentioned, another Nergal-šarri-uṣur, is ‘Rab-mugi,’ another high official of some sort. The title is well-attested in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian documents. See CDA, p. 215.

It does not matter what translation of the Bible you have (I checked NRSV, NIV, REB, NJB, NAB, and NJPSV): they all contain misinterpretations of one or more names and/or titles contained in Jer 39:3. Still, it must be observed: anyone with training in Assyriology could have come to the same, basically irresistible conclusions outlined above, which I came to. If I am the first to do so, I would be surprised.

Until now, the one missing piece of the puzzle was the exact name underlying –nebu Sarsechim in MT Jer 39:3 and Nabousachar in LXX Jer 46:3. Theoretically, an Assyriologist steeped in onomastica might have come up with the correct interpretation before Jursa’s discovery of the name Nabu-šarrussu-ukin on a tablet of the British Museum. [UPDATE: David Vanderhooft, cited above, did come to this conclusion in the 1990’s. For details go here.]

Bible scholars knowledgeable in Assyriology are rare birds. The reverse is also true.

In all probability, as said before, the ‘Nabu-šarrussu-ukin the chief eunuch’ of Jer 39:3 and the ‘Nabu-šarrussu-ukin the chief eunuch’ of Jursa’s tablet are one and the same person. For an identical conclusion, see Kevin Edgecomb’s comment to Chris Heard’s post. To suggest otherwise is a function of pre-understandings brought to bear on the text.

On the one hand, it is sensible to expect that in a case like Jeremiah 39, names and titles may have become garbled in the course of the textual transmission. In fact they have, big time. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect that said names and titles nevertheless go back to reliable sources, oral or written. Jeremiah 39 is a pretty straightforward narrative, with theological and nationalistic biases by all means. But there are no imaginable theological or nationalistic reasons why an author would have invented names and titles for the high officials of Nebuchadnezzar’s army who presided over Jerusalem’s destruction.

Jursa’s tablet clarifies a mess of a text in the Hebrew Bible. For an identical conclusion, see Kevin Edgecomb’s comment to Chris Heard’s post. To suggest instead that it clarifies nothing at all, or that there was nothing to be clarified in the first place, just “confirmed” or “proven right,” misses the boat.

UPDATE: see now Chris Heard’s new post, which aligns nicely with the above, and Peter Kirk’s second comment here. SECOND UPDATE: Charles Halton’s comment below and another post by Chris Heard. THIRD UPDATE: Kevin Edgecomb’s post, which includes a helpful review of an excellent book by John H. Walton. FOURTH UPDATE: offline, Kevin Edgecomb has convinced me that ‘of Sinmagir’ is to be understood as ‘governor of Sinmagir.’ I have modified my post accordingly. Here is a summary of his argument.

Bibliography: CDA = A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (ed. Jeremy Black, Andrew George, and Nicholas Postgate; SANTAG 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000).

If saying her name will truly secure her place in eternity, then Hatshepsut has nothing to worry about…

Como o nome Hatshepsut está em todas as bocas… logo a rainha egípcia não tem o que temer. Seu lugar na eternidade está garantido.

Hatshepsut reinou no Egito no século XV a.C. e era da Décima Oitava Dinastia.

 

Leia mais em Yet more re Hatshepsut, no Egyptology News, de Andie Byrnes.

 

If saying her name will truly secure her place in eternity, then Hatshepsut has nothing to worry about. However, I’ve added this page because it deals not only with the identification of the mummy, but also addresses other issues

A civilisation that flourished more than 3500 years ago still fascinates us. Dr Sabry Khater is well versed in Egyptomania. The head of the Egyptology sector of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities knows the power of our fascination with ancient Egyptian culture and how it helps drive some five million tourists to Egypt each year.

“People get crazy about Egyptology. They like to see more discoveries, more mummies, more gold and treasure. It’s like an adventure for them to come to Egypt.”

. . . .

In charge of all Pharaonic and Greco-Roman sites, Khater is responsible for both restoration and excavation. His focus today is putting in place management plans that balance the needs of tourists with preservation. Besides flash floods and a rising water table that threatens tombs that have survived 4500 years, his biggest headache is tourists exhaling – specifically inside tombs and temples where their moisture erodes the plaster and paint of murals. That’s led to limiting visitor numbers and rotating which tombs are open to the public.

Equally challenging is the eviction of villagers from historic sites. In Gurna on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor – the site of the Theban necropolis – bulldozers moved in last year to start dismantling the houses of about 2000 families living over the tombs.

A notícia é do fim de junho, portanto não é tão nova assim. Contudo, visite os sites indicados para ver as fotos. Pois, embora descoberta em 1903, só agora foi identificada a múmia da rainha egípcia Hatshepsut.

Belas fotos no site do Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretário Geral do Conselho Supremo de Antiguidades do Egito.

E as notícias e comentários no blog Egyptology News, de Andie Byrnes, de Londres, Reino Unido.

O colóquio sobre arqueologia e política com Terje Østigård na lista Biblical Studies, previsto para terminar hoje, foi prorrogado até dia 27. Aviso de Jim West, moderador da lista.

Isto porque o tema suscitou uma conversa bastante interessante e os participantes precisam de mais tempo para trocar idéias.

A lista de discussão Biblical Studies vai promover de 17 a 23 de junho um colóquio online com Terje Østigård a propósito de seu livro

Political Archaeology and Holy Nationalism: Archaeological Battles over the Bible and Land in Israel and Palestine from 1967-2000. Göteborg University: Gothenburg, 2007, 165 p.

O livro está disponível online em formato pdf na página do autor.

Para o debate sobre a chamada “arqueologia bíblica”, confira aqui.

Den Verrückten sage ich nur Verrücktes. Ao doido, doideiras digo.

Inspirado por Guimarães Rosa em Grande Sertão: Veredas, é o que penso que devo dizer destas falas do professor William Dever.

Que falas? As que estão na reportagem Archeology prof takes digs at some fellow academics.

Publicada pelo The Jewish news weekly of Northern California, com data de 1 de junho de 2007.

Se o link eventualmente parar de funcionar neste incerto jornal, confira a presepada do Dever aqui.

Em Abnormal Interests, Duane Smith chama a atenção para o artigo de Walter Reich, King Herod’s return, no Los Angeles Times de hoje.

Walter Reich é Professor de Assuntos Internacionais, Ética e Comportamento Humano na Universidade George Washington, Washington, DC, e escreve aqui sobre o uso político da arqueologia no Oriente Médio, tomando como ponto de partida o caso da descoberta da Tumba de Herodes.

Em determinado ponto ele diz:
For Israelis, such finds are seen as an emblem of the Jews’ ancient and unbroken connection with the land, going back 3,500 years, that justifies the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. For Palestinians, they’re seen as a way of legitimizing Israel — the creation of which turned many of them or their forebears into refugees — and are therefore often dismissed as myth or fantasy.

E termina assim seu artigo:
Only when each side recognizes the historical right of the other to live in the region will it be possible to begin to talk about peace and a fair reckoning on Jerusalem. And only then will it be possible to put Herod’s vengeful ghost back into his haunted archeological tomb.

 

King Herod’s return

By Walter Reich – May 30, 2007

WALTER REICH is a professor of international affairs, ethics and human behavior at George Washington University, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

AFTER 2,000 YEARS of indignity and ignominy, Herod the Great has finally gotten his revenge.

During their revolt against Roman rule over Judea between AD 66 and 72, Jews who remembered King Herod as a Roman puppet smashed his sarcophagus, which had been interred with royal pomp about 70 years before. Christians have identified him as a baby killer who forced Jesus’ family to flee Bethlehem. And Herod’s habit of having his rivals and relatives killed has hardly burnished his image.

True, he built monumental projects — not only Masada and Caesarea but the grand expansion of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem, the best-known remnant of which is the Western Wall. In the main, though, he’s been a forgotten and derided historical figure.

But now Herod is back, at least in spirit. Israeli archeologists announced earlier this month that they’ve found his tomb, eight miles south of Jerusalem. And that tomb has become yet another impediment on the already impassable road to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In the land of Israel — or Palestine, as Palestinians and others call it — anything that demonstrates the area’s Jewish past, whether above ground or below, makes a big impression.

For Israelis, such finds are seen as an emblem of the Jews’ ancient and unbroken connection with the land, going back 3,500 years, that justifies the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. For Palestinians, they’re seen as a way of legitimizing Israel — the creation of which turned many of them or their forebears into refugees — and are therefore often dismissed as myth or fantasy.

In 1983, I saw how the unearthing of evidence of the Jewish past gives heart to some Israelis. While researching a book on the West Bank, I visited the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the northern West Bank. Archeologists were digging at the nearby site of ancient Shiloh, which in biblical times was the first capital of Israel. It was in Shiloh that, according to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark of the Covenant rested. Every evening the archeologists would display their finds. When they showed artifacts from the Israelite period, the settlers cheered; for them this was proof that they were now living in the ancient heart of the land of Israel.

Small wonder that archeological finds like these provoke many Palestinians to deny that such discoveries, and any other evidence of Jewish history in either Israel or the West Bank, have anything to do with Jews. After the recent announcement that Herod’s tomb had been found, the Palestinian response was quick and sharp. A Palestinian official said the finding lacked scientific credibility and was driven by ideological motivations.

But this episode of archeological denial pales in comparison with the decades of denial in the case of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which is known to Arabs as Haram al Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary.

In 1930, when Britain administered the area, the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem noted that the Temple Mount’s “identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.” But at the Camp David summit in 2000, Yasser Arafat insisted that a Jewish temple had existed not on the Temple Mount but in Nablus. And an Arafat aide, Saeb Erekat, said, to President Clinton’s amazement, “I don’t believe there was a temple on top of the Haram, I really don’t.” Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian Authority president, later agreed with Erekat, as did the mufti of Jerusalem. Arafat later went further and denied the temple existed anywhere in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza, including Nablus.

Today, denial of the temple’s existence has become a mainstay of Palestinian rhetoric. “They say that the temple was here,” a Palestinian historian scoffed. “What temple …? What archeological remains?” And temple denial has turned into temple removal. During the last few years, Palestinians have discarded remains of the first and second temples.

This absurd Palestinian denial of Jewish roots in the land has been matched on the part of Israelis who deny that there was a large and long-indigenous population of Arabs in Palestine when the Zionist movement vastly expanded the number of Jews in the area more than 100 years ago. Fortunately, the denial of Palestinian history has been utterly discredited among nearly all Israelis.

Only when each side recognizes the historical right of the other to live in the region will it be possible to begin to talk about peace and a fair reckoning on Jerusalem. And only then will it be possible to put Herod’s vengeful ghost back into his haunted archeological tomb.

Andei falando sobre isso em:
O tom político da arqueologia em Jerusalém
Tumba de Herodes e conflito no Oriente Médio
Tumba de Herodes em território palestino ocupado

Breaking News: New tomb discovered at Deir el-Bersha

A team from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) directed by professor Harco Willems has discovered a completely intact tomb dating to about 2050 BC at the site of Dayr al-Barsha in Middle Egypt. The burial was located in a rock cut shaft in the tomb of Uky in a vast necropolis on the southern hill of Dayr al-Barsha. This area has been under investigation since 2005 by Marleen De Meyer, who carried out the excavation of the tomb.

The tomb of Uky consists of two consecutive rooms,of which the shafts in the entrance chamber had already been excavated in 2005-2006. This year the two shafts in the rear chamber were the object of research. The fill of one of these shafts, a square one in the rear of the chamber, soon turned out to be entirely different than that of robbed shafts. It consisted of almost sterile limestone debris that formed the original backfill of a shaft after a burial had taken place in ancient times. Already on the second day a small hole emerged in the north wall of the shaft, and through it an entirely intact burial chamber could be seen. Even though the burial took place over four thousand years ago, the colours on the painted objects were very fresh, and no dust even covered them.

Fonte: Egyptology News – May 21, 2007

 

Belgians find tomb of ancient Egypt courtier

Belgian archaeologists have discovered the intact tomb of an Egyptian courtier who lived about 4,000 years ago, Egypt’s culture ministry said on Sunday.

The team from Leuven Catholic University accidentally found the tomb, one of the best preserved of its time, while excavating a later burial site at the Deir al-Barsha necropolis near the Nile Valley town of Minya, south of Cairo.

The tomb belonged to Henu, an estate manager and high-ranking official during the first intermediate period, which lasted from 2181 to 2050 BC and was a time of political chaos in ancient Egypt.

The archaeologists found Henu’s mummy wrapped in linen in a large wooden coffin and a sarcophagus decorated with hieroglyphic texts addressed to the gods Anubis and Osiris.

The tomb contained well-preserved painted wooden statuettes of workers making bricks, women making beer and pounding cereal, and a model of a boat with rowers, a ministry statement said.

“The statuettes (are of) the best quality of their time. They are characterized by realistic touches and unusual details such as the dirty hands and feet of the brick makers,” the statement said, quoting Belgian team leader Harco Willems.

Minya is 225 km (140 miles) south of Cairo.

Fonte: Reuters – May 20, 2007

Por causa da Tumba de Herodes, o debate sobre a chamada “arqueologia bíblica” voltou a ferver…

Até que apareceu pouco nos biblioblogs, mas na lista Biblical Studies a coisa pegou fogo!

Por isso recomendo a visita a um post de 23 de abril de 2006 e aos links ali presentes.

Andei relendo as resenhas, publicadas na RBL – e indicadas no mencionado post – de um livro que defende a “arqueologia bíblica”. É um tema sempre atual. Demais.