Smithsonian Magazine (14)
Friday, 18 December 2009 00:00
Andrew Lawler on "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?" (December 2009)
Written by Andrew Lawler
By Megan Gambino Smithsonian.com, December 18, 2009 Andrew Lawler has written for newsletters, newspapers and magazines about topics such as astronomy and zoology. He has been a Washington reporter covering Capitol Hill and the White House and a Boston correspondent for a science magazine writing about universities. Currently, he is freelancing from his home in the woods of Maine.…
Once the dazzling capital of ancient Persia, Isfahan fell victim to neglect, but a new generation hopes to restore its lost luster Courtesy of Smithsonian website The courtyard is coated in a fine brown dust, the surrounding walls are crumbling and the flaking plaster is the same monotonous khaki color as the ground. This decrepit house in a decaying maze…
Resolving the dispute over authorship of the ancient manuscripts could have far-reaching implications for Christianity and Judaism Israeli archaeologist yuval peleg halts his jeep where the jagged Judean hills peter out into a jumble of boulders. Before us, across the flat-calm Dead Sea, the sun rises over the mountains of Jordan. The heat on this spring morning is already…
Discovering the grandeur of the monument built 3,400 years ago "Heya hup!" Deep in a muddy pit, a dozen workers wrestle with Egypt's fearsome lion goddess, struggling to raise her into the sunlight for the first time in more than 3,000 years. She is Sekhmet—"the one who is powerful"—the embodiment of the fiery eye of the sun god Ra,…
Amenhotep III was succeeded by one of the first known monotheists Not long after Amenhotep III died, in 1353 B.C., masons entered his mortuary temple and methodically chiseled out every mention of Amun, the god said to have fathered the great pharaoh. Astonishingly, the order to commit this blasphemy came from the king's own son. Crowned Amenhotep IV, he changed…
Anthropologist Amber VanDerwarker is unraveling the mysteries of the ancient Olmec by figuring out what they ate Courtesy of Smithsonian website Starting around 1200 B.C., in southern Mexico, the Olmec created what most scholars agree was the first New World civilization, building large cities with monumental architecture, carving reliefs of animal gods, and trading raw materials and finished goods across…
Two thousand years ago, it was the capital of a powerful trading empire. Now archaeologists are piecing together a more complete picture of Jordan's compelling rock city "Donkey, horse or camel?" The question from my Bedouin guide reminds me of a rental car agent asking, "Economy, full-size or SUV?" I choose economy, and we canter on our donkeys through the…
Andrew Lawler, author of "Raising Alexandria" talks about the hidden history of Egypt's fabled seaside capital * By Amy Crawford You say that Jean Yves Empereur looks like a literary figure from Forster's day. In your last story for us you described Egyptologist Otto Schaden as a neo-Victorian. Does archaeology draw these characters, or are you drawn to them as…
More than 2,000 years after Alexander the Great founded Alexandria, archaeologists are discovering its fabled remains Courtesy of Smithsonian website There’s no sign of the grand marbled metropolis founded by Alexander the Great on the busy streets of this congested Egyptian city of five million, where honking cars spouting exhaust whiz by shabby concrete buildings. But climb down a rickety…
More than 2,000 years after Alexander the Great founded Alexandria, archaeologists are discovering its fabled remains Trudging through swamp mud on a cold February day in 1608, Capt. John Smith and a small band of armed men approached a rickety wooden bridge. On the other side of a sluggish creek was the capital of the powerful Algonquian chief Powhatan, who…
The first tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut's is raising new questions for archaeologists about ancient Egypt's burial practices.It is barely 7:30 a.m. in the Valley of the Kings, and tourists are already milling just beyond the yellow police tape like passersby at a traffic accident. I step over the tape and show…
After more than 400 years, a fort built by conquistadors in the Carolinas has finally been found In the foothills of the Appalachians, I park in a cornfield just off an unmarked dirt road. A canvas canopy is the only structure visible in the quiet valley, where two dozen archaeologists and community college students are braving the July sun in…
AIn Iran, an archaeologist is racing to uncover a literate Bronze Age society he believes predates ancient Mesopotamia. Critics say he may be overreaching, but they concede his dig will likely change our view of the dawn of civilization. Swathed modestly in a black head scarf and wearing black sunglasses and a black visor, Akram Gholami is standing in the…
As archaeologists worldwide help recover looted artifacts, they worry for the safety of the great sites of early civilization. “Oh your city! Oh your house! Oh your people!” wrote a scribe of ancient Sumer, portraying a dark time in the land that would become Iraq. That 4,000-year-old lament sounded all too contemporary in April as Baghdad mobs stormed Iraq’s National…