Rick Steves is a tour guide most known for his travel shows for PBS as well as guides and tours of Europe.  However, he recently filmed a show about Iran that is well worth a view–you can see it for free (with a few commercials) on Hulu.  He tours Persepolis toward the end of the film and there are about 5 minutes of really good footage of the site.  Furthermore, he explores some of the contemporary issues surrounding the relations between Iran and America.

This morning I stumbled upon an interview of Eva von Dassow in which she talks about the ancient city of Ur.  It is worth a listen.

Here is the official website of the archeological dig at Ziyaret Tepe, or ancient Tushan.  This site made headlines this month with the announcement of the discovery of a Neo-Assyrian governor’s palace.

The Daily Mail has an interesting story reflecting upon the timing of the new exhibit at the British Museum on the city of Babylon.  (It is actually in the “femail” section of their website–I don’t normally read this; I case anyone is wondering, the link appeared in Google News.)  Here are the first two paragraphs:

Throughout history, the city of Babylon has served as a salutary reminder that even the most affluent, powerful civilisations can, when the tides turn, be reduced to rubble.
It is perhaps rather fitting, then, that at a time when some of the world’s wealthiest nations appear to be edging towards economic collapse, the British Museum has decided to launch an exhibition on the fallen capital of ancient Mesopotamia

Irving Finkel, assistant keeper (ancient Mesopotamia) of at the British Museum, has a great quote that I entirely agree with:

The extraordinary thing about studying the ancient world is that you discover that, despite the fact that these people were alive 2,500 years ago, they were just like us. Babylon is a salutary reminder of the ever-shifting sands upon which civilisations are built.

Studies of the early cities and states in southern Mesopotamia proceed in what most of the contemporary world of social and historical scholarship would regard as a curious cocoon. The circumscribed, indeed myopic, viewpoint of scribes and texts, wholly subservient to the beliefs and concerns of ruling authorities, whether secular or priestly, simply ignores the conditions of life of the vast majority. Yet the circularity of allowing the importance and success of research priorities to be largely judged only by direct disclosures of information in the texts is regarded as natural and unproblematic.

–Robert McCormick Adams, “An Interdisciplinary Overview of a Mesopotamian City and its Hinterlands,” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2008:1, 1.1.

Here is the third of what will be a four part series reflecting upon my forthcoming article in BBR 18.2 (2008) entitled: How Big Was Nineveh? Literal versus Figurative Interpretation of City Size. In this part I discuss the major interpretations that I call “creatively literal.” That is, interpretations that try to read the description of the size of Nineveh in Jonah 3:3 as a literal expression, however, these interpretations have to get pretty flexible to make it fit and because of this I would argue that they end up not reading the expression literally at all.

In the last part of the series I will present my view (I’m not the first) that we should read this phrase idiomatically. Also, I will discuss some of the implications of this article since I didn’t really write it to just talk about the size of Nineveh–I had bigger goals than that.

So, here’s part three. It is produced in a Ken Burns-like documentary style so I actually don’t appear in it except for the voice-overs. Tell me what you think.

In case you’re interested here’s a short bio of Donald J. Wiseman whose interpretations I critique in this video–I think very highly of him; I just think he’s wrong on this point.

Here is the second video in the series in which I reflect upon my forthcoming article in the Bulletin for Biblical Research 18.2 (2008). To view the Google Earth map of Nineveh that I discuss, click here (if you already have installed Google Earth). Tell me what you think.

I am producing a series of short videos in which I will discuss some of my writing projects.  First up is my forthcoming article in the Bulletin for Biblical Research 18.2 (2008) entitled, “How Big Was Nineveh? Literal versus Figurative Interpretation of City Size.”  This will be a multi-part series–here’s the first one:

P.S. The last word is a bit hard to hear; it’s “idiom.”

Wow, this is really exciting.  Archaeologists uncovered a newly discovered Babylonian town.  On one hand it’s not surprising–there are many more to be found including, astoundingly, the capitol city of the Akkadian empire, Agade.

However, here comes the sad part:

He added that his team has come across several cuneiform tablets but “there is no one to read the ancient writing because Iraqi experts with the knowledge to decipher Mesopotamian script have fled the country.”

This is a terrible shame, however, I’ll volunteer to read some of them!  Let’s pray that the site doesn’t get destroyed by looters.

The Guardian reports on a collaboration between the British Museum and the British Army in Iraq to try to help save what is left of the ancient sites of southern Iraq.  Some of the sites include the ancient cities Warka and Eridu.

While these efforts are very welcome they are also years too late.  I just hope that there is still something left to save.