NEAF Lectures

NEAF offers a range of public lectures throughout the year of interest to the lay-person. These ocassions are a great way to keep in touch with recent archaeological discoveries, as well as the chance to meet like-minded people who, like you, are fascinated by archaeology.

UPCOMING LECTURES

Did God have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel.
Professor William Dever
Tuesday 24th April 2012
6.30pm, Women’s College, University of Sydney

The Hebrew Bible portrays the religion of ancient Israel as monotheistic, the worship of a single male deity named Yahweh. Yet the archaeological data recently accumulated shows that this may have been the ideal, but the reality was quite different. We have hundreds of nude female figurines that represent the old Canaanite Mother Goddess ‘Asherah’. We even have 8th century BCE Hebrew inscriptions naming her as the consort of Yahweh in the context of blessing. This illustrated lecture will show how monotheism developed slowy and with great difficulty in ancient Israel.

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Archaeology and the Bible in Jordan: Sanctuary of Lot
Dr Konstantinos Politis
Tuesday 15th May 2012
6.30pm, Women’s College, University of Sydney

The Monastery of Aghios Lot is located at the south-eastern end of the Dead Sea on a steep mountain slope overlooking the modern town of Safi (biblical Zoara) in Jordan. As revealed by the excavations, the Monastery of Aghios Lot consisted of an early Byzantine monastic complex with a number of hermits’ cells above it. The focal point was a triple-apsed basilica church built around a natural cave that early Christians believed was where Lot and his daughters took refuge after the destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19). It is flanked to the south by a large reservoir and to the north by a refectory with an oven, a communal burial chamber and a pilgrim’s hostel. The church is adorned by five mosaic floor pavements inscribed in Byzantine-period Greek and dated to A.D. 572/3, April 605/7 A.D. and May 691 A.D. Three other Greek inscriptions on stone which invoke Aghios Lot, confirm the Christian identification of the site as Lot’s Sanctuary.

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