Friday 28 January 2011

"Jewish worship, pagan symbols"

This illustrated article from Biblical Archaeology Review examines the occurrence and context of zodiac and other "pagan" symbols that appear alongside Biblical scenes in mosaics discovered from the 1920s onwards in the 6th century Jewish settlements of the Jazreel Valley near Galilee, dating from the time when Talmudic Judaism was emerging .
The article includes a great many pictures of the mosaics, many of which are very well preserved

Thursday 20 January 2011

Mapping Buddhist monasteries: a work in progress

Mapping Buddhist monasteries : 200 -1200 CE 


** This wiki-site is a "work in progress" and so content is liable to change at short notice for the time being **

The aim of the project is to catalogue and map details of Buddhist monasteries and convents built across South Asia, South East Asia, Central Asia and East Asia between 200 and 1200 CE. Currently, over 500 are entered on the wiki. The content can be searched by region or tag.
As well as viewing location data for each monastery or convent, the wiki also has country / region chronologies and a detailed bibliography section with links to full-text where content is available via open-access. In depth information and pictures of individual monasteries are also available through links to other websites (although these seem to be particularly aimed at tourists and travellers)

Friday 14 January 2011

Early Bibles (Hebrew & Christian): digitized texts

The Aleppo Codex Online gives access to a digitized copy of the oldest existent manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, dating from about 930. The online copy contains all the surviving pages of the Codex and is both browsable and searchable.
There are also linked articles about the history and significance of the Codex from the 10th century to the present day.
The website is hosted by the Ben Zvi Institute for the study of Jewish Communities in the East (Jerusalem)

The Codex Sinaiticus gives access to a digitized manuscript of the Christian Bible, dating from the 4th century. It is handwritten in Greek. The New Testament in the original vernacular (koine) and the Old Testament is in the early Septuagint version. Both documents are heavily annotated by early commentators.
Click on the "see the manuscript" tab to view the pages and transcription of the Greek text, and to browse and search the document. Background material on the history of the manuscript is also included.
This project was the result of international collaboration to reunite the previously scattered pages of the manuscript

Both links will shortly be added to SOAS Library online resources.

Monday 10 January 2011

New open access journal


This academic journal published by the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (frequently in monograph format) covers a wide range of topics and countries (ancient history, archives, religions, Middle Eastern studies etc.) There is a great deal of content that might be of interest to students of the study of religions


It is currently available as a digitized open-access texts from Vol.1 (1979) to Vol.44 (2007).
The current link address is via the AWOL (Ancient World Online blog)

Friday 7 January 2011

Christianity in the Middle East: manuscripts blog

HMML Chronicle is  new blog has just been launched by Dr Adam McCollum, Lead Cataloger of Eastern Christian Manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (St. John's University, Minnesota). The blog will discuss manuscripts and the languages, literature, and history of Christianity in the Middle East.
See also the Hill Museum's main website for more information on the collections (including material in Arabic, Armenian, Syriac and Ge'ez), and links to articles, images and exhibition reports.