The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished around the end of the Second Temple Period, i.e. between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. The main source of information regarding this...
Herod the Great was a Roman client king of Judaea (known also as the Herodian kingdom) who lived during the 1st century BC. He was also the founder of the Herodian dynasty, whose members, like Herod...
The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones prophecy is one of the most powerful prophecies of the prophet Ezekiel . In this vision, Ezekiel finds himself in a valley full of dry human bones of Israelite...
The Copper Scroll is part of the extraordinary cache of 1st Century documents first discovered in caves at Qumran , popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Copper Scroll, however, is very...
Isaiah the prophet is known for having urged Israel to rely on Yahweh, their national god, instead of on the political power, and the gods of nations like Egypt or Assyria for protection and...
Although Jewish people usually, but not always, share a common gene pool, they are not a race because any non-Jew who converts to Judaism will be recognized as being Jewish by all those rabbis who...
When was circumcision first practiced? How did it evolve? Why was it practiced? The earliest literary evidence of the practice of circumcision goes back to ancient Egypt. There are many hypotheses...
Recent discoveries by a team of specialists and students at Huqoq in Israel's Galilee, led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness, shed new light on the life and...
Two ancient jars dated to over 2000-years-old are mystifying archaeologists, as they were lowered down an “almost totally inaccessible... sheer 30 meter cliff-face” and stashed inside a tiny cave in...
Experts have made the remarkable discovery of a curse on a lead amulet from the Eastern Roman Empire. According to the Jerusalem Times, experts were shocked when they finally deciphered the message...
In the 6th-century BC, the armies of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah. They tore down the city walls, burned the temples, and ran down every person who tried to escape. The few...
Joan Taylor / The Conversation Over the past few decades, the question of what Jesus looked like has cropped up again and again. Much has been made of a digital reconstruction of a Judaean man...
One of the great adventurers and explorers of Spain’s Golden Age of discovery was Cristoforo Colon, Christopher Columbus. His exploits, centering on the discovery of new lands across the Atlantic,...
New York’s Authorities that go after illegally obtained antique artworks have searched the Manhattan residence and office of notable billionaire Michael Steinhardt, who is suspected of illegally...
In the week leading up to Hebrew ceremonies associated with the destruction of Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, archaeologists in Israel have uncovered the remnants of a firestorm, strong evidence...
An ancient blue dye, known as tekhelet, once adorned the precious robes of kings, priests, and high-ranking Jews. But around two millennia ago, this highly-valued commodity became lost to the pages...
The Sicarii - which may be translated as ‘daggermen’ from the Latin - were a group of Jewish zealots who lived during the 1 st century AD. The Sicarii intended to expel the Romans and their...
The story of Moses doesn’t just show up in the Bible. In the ancient world, nearly every culture had their own version of what happened. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans all had their own...
Troglodyte (which means ‘cave dweller’) cave houses are a type of dwelling that may be found in certain parts of the world. In Libya, this unique type of house can be found in the Jabal Nasufah (...
Israeli archaeologists have announced the discovery of a hoard of rare Byzantine bronze coins from a site dating back to 614 AD. The coins were discovered during excavations for the widening of the...
In the 14th century, the nine worthies were a list of nine men who were identified as paragons of chivalrous behavior, which included courage and honor in battle. The nine worthies consisted of a...
A team of archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have returned to Masada in Israel, after a 11-year hiatus, in order to excavate previously unexplored areas of the desert mountain fortress,...
It may come as a shock to learn that ancient peoples enjoyed making lists of greats as much as we do. Just as websites make Top 10 lists about topical items today, so too did the Hellenistic Greeks...
After being lost from the pages of history for about a thousand years, a legendary gemstone may find its way back home. An anonymous owner of what may be a very important religious artifact is ready...
