Antiquity & Archaeology
La Antikuedad i la Arkeolojiya · 33 articles
- The Name of JerusalemŞalom · 31 July 2019According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, a 2,100-year-old inscription is probably the first to contain the word Jerusalem in its full form (as it is pronounced…
- The Market of Ashkelon — Buy Cheap, Sell DearŞalom · 28 August 2019The name Ashkelon comes from shekel. Shekel is the name of Israel's currency. The word shekel has the same root as lishkol, which means to weigh.
- The Flood of BabylonŞalom · 30 October 2019The stories of the Flood (tufan) that were written in Babylon closely resemble the one written in 'Bereshit' (Genesis), though with many differences. There are some…
- The Education of Children in Antiquity (1)Şalom · 6 November 2019It seems to us that in antiquity only the scribes (soferim) knew how to read and write. Educating children in schools and preparing them for life…
- The Education of Children in Antiquity (2)Şalom · 13 November 2019The teaching staff fell into three categories: (1) the 'grammatistai', who taught how to speak correctly in words and grammar; (2) the 'kitharistai', who taught music;…
- Important Products of Antiquity (1)Şalom · 20 November 2019To manufacture something, to offer a product to the world, is the very subject of economics. Economics was always one of the reasons for invasions, wars,…
- Important Products of Antiquity (2)Şalom · 27 November 2019A third product of the economy was silk. History tells us that silk began to exist in China more than 4,000 years ago, and the Chinese…
- Important Products of Antiquity (3)Şalom · 18 December 2019Another important product of the economy was the cedar tree (sedir ağacı), found in abundance in Phoenicia (Lebanon), a tree already known more than 5,000 years…

- The New Year in AntiquityŞalom · 22 January 2020When the Jews were exiled to Babylon, they found there a festival called Akitu. It was celebrated at the New Year. The festival began on the…
- What Our Fathers AteŞalom · 12 February 2020Food, more than a means of survival, brings peoples together in community, creating a sense of family and brotherhood with its wealth of colour, flavour and…
- Immigrants with Blue EyesŞalom · 28 April 2020Thousands of years ago, immigrants from today's Turkey and today's Iran came to the north of Israel, to the Galilee, and the arrival of these immigrants…
- On the Archaeological Ruins of SynagoguesEl Amaneser · no. 184 · 3 June 2020I think it must be interesting to know how the synagogues we had nearly 2,000 years ago were built. Archaeology gives us signs of the existence…
- The Beer of the JewsŞalom · 24 June 2020Brewing beer has been known for more than 3,000 years. In the pyramids of Egypt we see figures showing how beer was made. The code of…
- The 'Cupping Glass' of MasadaŞalom · 28 July 2020At the Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, spectators noticed that the famous swimmer Michael Phelps, who won the gold medal, had round marks…
- The Name of Israel in HistoryŞalom · 19 August 2020We read the name Israel in the Torah, but we should also look for whether other peoples, other writers, mentioned this name in their writings. The…
- The Library of AlexandriaEl Amaneser · no. 188 · 14 October 2020When Alexander the Great died in the year 323 before our era, the dynasty of the Ptolemies began to control Egypt. King Ptolemy I established the…

- The Tree of LifeŞalom · 4 November 2020In the mythologies, many things were considered sacred. For many peoples the tree symbolizes 'life', with roots that go down to our ancestors and branches that…
- The Figures on the Rocks of the NegevŞalom · 1 December 2021The civilizations of Sumer and Egypt fed on observations of the sky. They relied on the events of the sky to know the future of those…
- Roots of the New YearŞalom · 19 January 2022In antiquity the new year was celebrated according to geography and astronomy. In Egypt the new year was the day the river Nile overflowed. In the…
- HammurabiŞalom · 9 February 2022On 5 December we commemorated the day when the right of women to vote and be elected was accepted in Turkey — a right that women…
- Clothing in AntiquityŞalom · 19 October 2022When we speak of antiquity, each of the peoples — the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Romans or the Chinese — had different customs for…
- Eating in AntiquityEl Amaneser · no. 213 · 9 November 2022Man always needed to eat in order to live. It is known that every civilization had its own customs and traditions in the way of eating,…
- Rubbish in AntiquityŞalom · 7 December 2022In antiquity man left very little rubbish. Today what we leave is mostly packaging, things that can be used only once, and what we peel from…
- Beauty in AntiquityŞalom · 28 December 2022It is said that in life everything changes. The thing that does not change is change. The same goes for beauty. It changes in every age,…
- Some Curiosities of YesterdayEl Amaneser · no. 224 · 11 October 2023The woman of today is lucky because she can know at once whether she is pregnant or not. But before? What did they do to be…

- The Library of AlexandriaŞalom · 23 November 2023Among so much lost knowledge, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which was a gradual event lasting several successive centuries, was not as disastrous as…
- A Woman Doctor in AntiquityEl Amaneser · no. 228 · 14 February 2024One day in the 4th century BCE, a woman of Athens named Agnodice was brought before the Areopagus, made up of men full of anger, and…
- On QumranŞalom · 28 June 2024Khirbet Qumran (in Hebrew just Qumran; khirbet in Arabic means ruins — in Turkish we have the word 'harabe', from the same root) is surely one…
- Health in AntiquityŞalom · 10 July 2024'Baths, wine and sex can harm the body; but it is these things that make life worth living.' A tomb inscription found in a tomb of…
- On JerusalemEl Amaneser · no. 233 · 10 July 2024The investigations carried out in Jerusalem have shown us that this city was at first very small; it is believed that perhaps some 500 or 700…
- Abdiel and Joseph the RighteousŞalom · 23 October 2024In 1980 Alain Zivie, an Egyptologist (an expert in the science of Egypt), began to excavate a rock-cut tomb at Saqqara, a place very near Cairo…
- The Olympic GamesEl Amaneser · no. 239 · 8 January 2025It is said that the Olympic Games began in the year 776 BCE. Although in the epics of Homer, who we believe lived before that date,…
- RubbishŞalom · 19 November 2025Elusa is an ancient city in the Negev, 20 km from Beersheba. Elusa was the departure point of the caravans for Egypt or for Sinai. In…