How fitting that Commentary chose to illustrate this nasty, fraudulent piece of work with a notorious fake, the Jehoash Inscription. What a way to show you care about Jewish history.

Of all the hysterical warnings over the last few years that "they're destroying our history", this -- from the senior editor of Commentary -- might be both the nastiest and the most dishonest 🧵

Nearly two years into Israel's annihilation of Gaza and Museum of the Bible's partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is still going strong.

In Revue Biblique, I have an article on the provenance of the "Nazareth Inscription", an Early Roman-period text that has been often linked over the last century with the earliest Christians. What can we actually say about it? 🧵

In Revue Biblique, I have an article on the provenance of the "Nazareth Inscription", an Early Roman-period text that has been often linked over the last century with the earliest Christians. What can we actually say about it? 🧵

Euphemisms galore: Even the left-leaning Haaretz sees occupied East Jerusalem as merely "contested" & an illegal Israeli dig there as merely "controversial". Also, Elad does more than "promote Jewish settlement in Silwan", it's worked for decades to evict Palestinians.

Long-form update on the Israeli bill to put archaeology in the occupied West Bank under civilian authority -- part of the Israeli government's larger plan to annex the territory. www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologis...

Genocide-denying Holocaust historian, in interview published yesterday: claim that 72% of deaths in Gaza are women & children is vastly inflated. Israeli military database, leaked today: at least *83* % of deaths in Gaza are civilians.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has spent years promoting gimmicky, misleading tie-ins, timing announcements of finds for various holidays. But in June they apparently reached a new low: linking a discovery to Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran.

In a sense the powerful have always been above the law, but 1 thing that has changed is the illusion: the gap between rhetoric & reality, between symbolism & action, is now so obvious and extreme that the illusion has been openly shattered. (From June) www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun...

AI news analysis system promoting the work of AI in scholarship 🤔

Betteridge's Law of Headlines -- "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no" -- remains undefeated

Did AI write this? Why yes it did.

Archaeology and cultural heritage continuing to play their role in the Israeli movement to annex the West Bank.

Haven't seen it commented on, but it looks like this photo was taken in the infamous "Pilgrims' Road" or "Pilgrimage Way" tunnel under Silwan (East Jerusalem) -- an Israeli excavation violating international law, archaeological standards of the last 100+ years, and basic ethics.

Not sure what Live Science is doing here but it's worth a brief look 🧵 www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Forget that old shit, how do they explain this?

The tragedy of the murder aside, I can't believe this is a real headline at something trying to be a reputable news outlet.

Hey @palexfund.bsky.social turns out the Joint Expedition to Samaria may or may not have happened.

The Case for Retraction of Academic Authentications of Forged Fragments www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2025/5/...

A young Stanley Kubrick sits in on drums with George Lewis's Ragtime Band, New Orleans, 1950

Mamilla Pool and the surrounding cemetery photographed by Auguste Salzmann, 1854 (Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, LACMA) collections.lacma.org/node/216893

Building a "Museum of Tolerance" on top of Muslim graves wasn't enough. Netanyahu has announced that Israel is going for more of Mamilla Cemetery -- by announcing plans to restore Mamilla Pool. www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/20...

Wondering if Haaretz is getting tired of claiming there is some race here for more Dead Sea Scrolls. (The race ended 60 or 70 years ago. The Bedouin mostly won.)

"Biblical archaeology" is enough of a mess on its own without the tabloids making them look even worse

This sounds like the premise of a sitcom: 1930. Three once-prominent musicians (Jelly Roll Morton, Perry Bradford, Wilbur Sweatman) are living together & arguing about which one of them invented jazz . . . in the boarding house of Scott Joplin's widow.

Reposting because frankly you just don’t get that much numismatics news these days

Harlem stride pianist James P. Johnson and Langston Hughes collaborated on "De Organizer" (1940), a one-act blues opera about Southern sharecroppers forming a union. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J3e...

US needs to catch up to the rest of the world

I'm going to miss Norwegian cuisine

Ancient Ashkelon was, up to 1948, farmland of the neighboring village of al-Jura. It was also where thousands would celebrate Arba'at Ayyub (Job's Wednesday) every spring, bathing in the sea to heal. These photos are from 1943. In a few years, all these people were gone. #Nakba

I'm "shocked" and "stunned" that the British tabloids have turned a claim about finding a 1st-century garden at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (that might match a description in the Gospel of John) into the actual discovery of "Jesus tomb".

Alright @palexfund.bsky.social @ladybaroness.bsky.social turns out all your records are wrong

Israel announces the official beginning of work to turn Samaria/Sebastia (in the West Bank) into a tourist attraction. www.jns.org/israel-kicks...

The US Ambassador to Israel engaging in diplomacy

The claim that illegal Israeli excavations in the West Bank, prohibited by international law, are being "boycotted" by journals is like someone saying the city of Halifax is "boycotting" the meth they're cooking in their trailer. It's banned because it's a bad idea and people shouldn't be doing it.

How many ways can you lie in a headline? There's an interesting archaeology story here, but not the one that's being promoted 🧵

Still trying to figure out how Cleveland managed to lose this game.

How is it that a site that was completely abandoned in the 11th century yielded a hoard of Ottoman coins?🤔 Haaretz never says.

I once worked to develop a systematic method for attempting to identify "cultic" contexts in the archaeological record, and the main engagement I had was criticism that it was difficult to implement in practice and resulted in the identification of too few cultic contexts.

The Paper of the Month from International Journal of Cultural Property is "Constructing Provenance with Old Collections: The Case of Cumberland Clark" by Michael Press, available #openaccess! 📚 cup.org/4izfTsl

Just in time for Independence Day . . . the IAA makes its latest holiday tie-in h/t @Marianhouk

More than just an archaeological site: the hill of al-Muntar, the highest point in Gaza city, is named after the shrine of Sheikh Ali al-Muntar at the top of the hill, which long hosted an important mawsim (festival) of the region.

Jelly Roll Morton teaches Alistair Cooke the blues, 1938

"Palestinians protest removal of relics; Israel responds: 'Read the Bible'" I see we have the usual high level of heritage discourse here. www.ynetnews.com/environment/...

In Palmyra, the Destroyed Archaeological Pride of Syria | "How Can We Build Anything If We Don't Even Have a House to Live in?" www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

Gaza is being obliterated, Israel has killed 10s if not 100s of thousands, & is besieging and starving those remaining . . . but we saved a few artifacts so let's pat ourselves on the back. This approach seems really perverse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=irpx...

Late last year, @Harpers sent me to the West Bank to report on the state of the nonviolent resistance movement. Nothing I had seen over more than a decade of reporting there prepared me for the levels of fear and devastation I encountered. harpers.org/archive/2025...

Surprise, surprise! #MS2378 #Forgery #Loot #SchøyenCollection #DeadSeaScrollsofBuddhism