First Temple Era Water Tunnel Revealed in Jerusalem

A tunnel built thousands of years ago – and which may even have been used during King David's conquest of Jerusalem – has been uncovered in the ancient City of David, just outside the Old City and across the street from the Dung Gate..........

Arutz Sheva

Oldest Hebrew script found

Five lines of ancient script on a shard of pottery could be the oldest example of Hebrew writing ever discovered, an archaeologist in Israel says.

The shard was found by a teenage volunteer during a dig about 20km (12 miles) south-west of Jerusalem.

Experts at Hebrew University said dating showed it was written 3,000 years ago - about 1,000 years earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls..........

BBC News

King Solomon's Mines?

Did the Bible's King David and his son Solomon control the copper industry in present-day southern Jordan? Though that remains an open question, the possibility is raised once again by research reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Led by Thomas Levy of UC San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, an international team of archaeologists has excavated an ancient copper-production center at Khirbat en-Nahas down to virgin soil, through more than 20 feet of industrial smelting debris, or slag. The 2006 dig has brought up new artifacts and with them a new suite of radiocarbon dates placing the bulk of industrial-scale production at Khirbat en-Nahas in the 10th century BCE – in line with biblical narrative on the legendary rule of David and Solomon. The new data pushes back the archaeological chronology some three centuries earlier than the current scholarly consensus..........

EurekAlert

Greece unearths neolithic home, household equipment

Archaeologists in northern Greece have unearthed the ruins of a Neolithic house, a rare find that offers valuable information about everyday life 6,000 years ago, the Greek culture ministry said Friday..........

ReutersUK

Rome reveals tombs of dark ages city

Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimics the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, according to officials who have unveiled a series of new finds in the Italian capital..........

Guardian

'Gladiator' tomb found in Rome

The tomb of a general thought to have been an inspiration for the main character in the Oscar-winning film Gladiator has been unearthed in Rome..........

BBC News

Archaeologists unearth place where Caligula met his end

Archeologists say that they have found the underground passage in which the Emperor Caligula was murdered by his own Praetorian Guard to put an end to his deranged reign of terror..........

Times Online

Coffin fragment of son of the High Priest found

The Bible and other Jewish sources are full of details about the priests and high priests, from the descriptions of their garments as described in the Book of Exodus, to the number of high priests who served in the First and Second Temples. Now archaeology is providing new evidence to show the institution indeed existed: a fragment from the lid of a sarcophagus, bearing the inscription "son of the high priest" in a Second Temple-era script..........

Haaretz