Main gate of the Aleppo citadel. Photo: TMK, October 2008. Here’s a good little free guide to the Aleppo citadel, courtesy of the Aga Khan Trust (via AWOL). It has excellent illustrations to help visitors make sense of the multi-period monuments on the citadel. The Aga Khan Trust has similar guides to the Castle of […]
Category archives: Quick Notes
Bathing Culture in the Near East
Hypocaust in the late 4th-early 5th century Western Bathhouse at Scythopolis (Baysan / Beit She’an), Israel. Photo: TMK, June 2009. Here’s a pretty cool French blog on Near Eastern bathing culture from antiquity to today: Balneorient, run by a research project with the same title. Its latest post reports on the discovery of a 5th […]
Karnak Cachette Online
Painting of saint in the Festival Hall of Thutmose III, Karnak. Photo: TMK, May 2007. The French institute in Cairo has just announced the first online version of their database of the Karnak cachette, a massive haul of sculpture unearthed at Karnak between 1903 and 1907: L’IFAO a le plaisir de vous annoncer la sortie […]
The Politics of Street Signs
Street sign in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Photo: TMK, June 2009. Just another small but potent reminder of the political nature of everyday spaces in the Old City of Jerusalem: In the Jewish Quarter, the vast majority of streets (always labelled in Hebrew, Arabic and English) have had their Arabic names vandalised. […]
Staying Behind
The grave of G.L. Harding, Gerasa, Jordan. Photo: TMK, May 2009. The archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding is a name closely associated with Qumran as well as Jordanian and Palestinian archaeology in general. He is also one of the members of a small exclusive club of archaeologists that are buried on sites where they were active. […]
Roman Portraits in Context
A Break
The “Byzantine Esplanade” at Caesarea Maritima, Israel, discussed in one of the articles below. Photo: TMK, June 2009. Things have been slow on this blog, not only recently, but for a while. This will not change in the near future (although posts may randomly appear), due to a little thing called Dissertation. Instead, I will […]
Explanation Is Not Allowed
A message to interpretive archaeologists? Seen in the National Archaeological Museum, Amman. Photo: TMK, May 2009.
Conference Hat-Trick in Aarhus
Seven days, three conferences in Aarhus. Good thing I’m safely locked up in the Cambridge University Library… 14-16 May Constructing Religious Identities: Space and Texts in the Pagan, Jewish and Early Christian Near East, AD 100-400 19 May Grand Strategy? Defense in Depth? Desperation? City Walls and the Fortification of ‘Interior’ Provinces in the Later […]
Cambridge Seminar
I will be giving a seminar paper at Cambridge in May: Monday 4 May 5.15 p.m. in Room G.21, Faculty of Classics. Troels Myrup Kristensen (Aarhus): Pagan Idols and Christian Bodies