Archives of the Nephilim Wars & Ancient History
102 finds · every claim carries its source, and each page says what could not be confirmed · checked for new publications through 2026-09 (28 pages note a partial check)
Outline: pointed-oval ridge; length measured 157 m (515 ft) by Wyatt and later workers; width given as 50 m maximum (district governorate; Avcı 2007); relief given as 4 m (Avcı 2007) to 13 m (governorate).
Number: 37 Aamu, written twice (the scribe's document and the caption over the group) (Newberry 1893 p. 69).
Find-spot: Palace G on the acropolis of Tell Mardikh; the archives' finding and arrangement are the subject of Matthiae, Studia Eblaitica 11 (2025) 1-20.
Asiatic princes list formula: 'Le prince de [pays] (appelé) [nom]' (Posener 1940, section E).
Excavation began with Parrot's first campaign, winter 1933-34 (Parrot, Syria 16, 1935, 1-28 and 117-140); second campaign winter 1934-35 (Syria 17, 1936, 1-31).
HSS V 67 (Speiser text 2): an adoption tied to a marriage. If the wife Gilimninu is childless she must provide her husband a Lullu woman; the concubine's children may not be expelled; if Gilimninu has children the husband may not take another wife (Speiser 1930).
Verso date: Year 1 of Sobekhotep III (PNM record, citing Hayes 1955 pp. 87-125, pls. VIII-XIV).
Destruction 'debris matrix' up to ~1.5 m thick across most of the tall, capped in places by a thin laminated 'blow-over layer' with plaster fragments, limestone spherules and charcoal (Bunch et al. 2021).
Grid 33 (eastern acropolis): 'walls built of huge boulders supported a multi-story structure'; large mudbrick walls parallel to the slope; 'tens of thousands of bones and pottery fragments' between them (Master and Martin, HA 2021).
Et-Tell: an Early Bronze city (EB IB to EB IIIB, c. 3300-2400 BCE) with walls, citadel and sanctuary, ending in destruction and abandonment (Marquet-Krause 1935; Callaway & Schoonover, BASOR 207, 1972; NEAEHL summary).
Found 1887-88 at Tell el-Amarna; Barton (1916, p. 35) gives 'nearly four hundred' tablets 'inscribed in the Babylonian language and characters'.
Grey granite slab, 46 × 39.5 cm, sawn to 7.5 cm thick, bearing three bound Asiatic captives with name rings (van der Veen et al. 2010, p. 15).
Found in 1967 by the Dutch expedition under H. J. Franken; editio princeps Hoftijzer and van der Kooij 1976.
Material: limestone tablet with the text scratched in. It is not an ostracon.
A destruction by fire at the end of the Late Bronze Age affected both the upper and lower cities (Selz excavation project; Ebeling 2003).
Object: Papyrus Leiden I 344, 378 cm × 18 cm, inscribed on both sides. The recto has 17 pages of about 14 lines each (Gardiner 1909, Introduction §1).
The last MB city (Sultan IVc / City IV) was destroyed by fire. Walls and floors were burned and mudbrick collapsed against the stone revetment (Garstang; Kenyon; Nigro & Yasine 2024 §§5-6).
Found in Silo A310, Area A, Khirbet al-Ra'i: two sherds on the last day of the 2019 season, a third in 2020 when the whole silo was sifted (Rollston et al. 2021: 3-4).
Text dated Year 5 of Merneptah, 3rd month of Shemu, day 3 (Breasted ARE III §607).
Rectangular Stratum I structure 8.75-9.00 x 7.00 m with a ramp on the west side, over a 2 m round Stratum II structure at its centre (Stripling et al. 2023 p. 3, summarising Zertal).
Three restorable Middle Bronze Age pithoi in Area D (the favissa area). Two held charred olives and one held wheat. Radiocarbon testing of the contents is planned (ABR, 22 June 2026).
Column IV N4 names four Shasu groups: twr byl, yhwꜣ, smt, bt ꜥn[...] (Kennedy 2019, citing Leclant, Les Fouilles de Soleb, p. 214).
A casemate fortress, later expanded into a fortified settlement (Pratico 1985).
Plan: central passage flanked by three chambers per side (a 'four-entryway' gate in Dever's wording), joined to a casemate wall.
Keyhole-shaped entrance pit, 34 ft 6 in long, 7 ft 5 in wide at north end and 14 ft 6 in at south; steps cut in its floor (Macalister I, p. 258).
Six-chamber plan (three chambers each side of the passage) joined to a casemate wall (Yadin; summarised by Madain Project from the excavation reports).
Casemate wall with megalithic stones; small-stone Hellenistic additions at the top (Millard 2011, p. 4).
Ink on a jar sherd, max. 15 x 16.5 cm; lines possibly missing above line 1 and at the right edge (Millard 2011, p. 4).
Walls 6-8 ft wide of large stones (Mazar, BAR 32.1, 2006).
Southern compound: five units facing a courtyard 55 m on a side, overall 64 x 85 m, with a water tank near the courtyard's centre (Lamon & Shipton 1939, p. 32).
Basalt, H 125 x W 69 x D 37 cm; incomplete, fragmented, reassembled with restoration (Louvre AO 5066).
Seven pithoi, neckless type, Early Iron IIA; one inscribed (Vainstub 2023, citing Mazar 2015: 467-468).
103 archaeological radiocarbon measurements plus 100 single-ring measurements from dated Irish oak (PNAS 2024).
Wall section c. 70 m long and 6 m high; eastern section 35 m long and 5 m high (Hebrew University release, 22 Feb 2010).
Macalister and Duncan (1926) exposed the upper edge and labelled it the 'Jebusite Ramp' (their Pl. V), with a southern 'Great Tower' and northern 'Maccabean Tower' beside it (Finkelstein et al. 2007: 143).
Fragment A was found 21 July 1993 in the eastern part of the flagstone pavement before the outer gate in Area A; the pavement had been exposed from 1992 and the fragment's tip shows in earlier photographs (Langlois 2024: 60, citing Biran and Naveh 1993: 81).
Site 30 radiocarbon-dated to the early Iron Age, 11th-9th century BCE, replacing the Late Bronze/New Kingdom date (Ben-Yosef et al. 2012, as summarized by the CTV Project).
Epigraph over register 2, transliterated: ma-da-tu šá mia-ú-a DUMU mḫu-um-ri-i ... am-ḫur-šu, literally 'payment of Iāūa son (DUMU) of Ḫumrî ... I received from him' (RIMA 3 A.0.102.88).
KA 3.1, red ink on Pithos A: '... I have [b]lessed you to YHWH of Shomron (Samaria) and to his 'asherah' (Ahituv et al. 2012: 87, as quoted by Smoak and Schniedewind 2019).
Line ii 91-92 transliterated: 2 LIM GIŠ.GIGIR.MEŠ 10 LIM ERIM.MEŠ šá ma-ḫa-ab-bu KUR.sir-ʾa-la-a-a: '2,000 chariots, 10,000 troops of Ahab of the land Sir'ala (Israel)' (RIMA 3 A.0.102.2).
About 500 carved ivory pieces from the royal quarter; only a small fraction restorable (Pienaar 2008, citing SS II and Kenyon 1960).
Findspot: 'In the eastern part of the courtyard in rooms 401, 416, 417, 419, 470-474, in the lowest part of the debris of occupation' (Lyon 1924, p. 227).
Display Inscription (RINAP 2 no. 7) ll. 90-109: Azūri of Ashdod stops tribute and is replaced by his brother Aḫī-Mīti; the people put up Iāmānī; Sargon marches 'with (only) my warriors who never leave my side'; Iāmānī flees 'to the (far) edge of Egypt, on the border with the land Meluḫḫa'; Ashdod, Gath and Ashdod-Yam are conquered and resettled under an Assyrian governor.
Display Inscription (RINAP 2 no. 7) l. 23b-25: URU.sa-me-ri-na al-me ak-šud ... 27 LIM 2 ME 90 UN.MEŠ a-šib ŠÀ-šú áš-lu-la 50 GIŠ.GIGIR.MEŠ ... 'I surrounded (and) conquered the city Samaria. I carried off as booty 27,290 of its inhabitants, conscripted fifty chariots from among them...'
Tell Abta stela, Ist 01326, line 9: 'Bel-Harran-belu-usur, the palace herald of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria'; the signs of the royal name are marked damaged in the ORACC transliteration, and the king's name is cut over an erased Shalmaneser (ORACC RIAo Shalmaneser IV 2; Luckenbill 1926 §824).
Annals (RINAP 1 no. 14 l. 10, slab BM 124961 (+) Detroit 50.32): ... mme-ni-ḫi-im-me URU.sa-me-ri-na-a-a, 'Menahem of the city Samaria', in a list of western rulers paying tribute alongside Rezin (Raḫiānu) of Damascus and Hiram of Tyre.
Fragment c. 2.5 cm, with about 20 cuneiform signs preserved and a cord impression on the back (City of David; BAS).
BM 21946 rev. 11-13 (Wiseman's transliteration): 'Year 7, month Kislev: the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to the Hatti-land, encamped against the city of Judah (āl ia-a-ḫu-du), and on day 2 of Adar seized the city and captured the king; he appointed there a king of his own heart, took its heavy tribute and brought it to Babylon.'
Inscription as published: 'to Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe' (names and title as given in Goren and Arie's 2014 title; Avigad's 1979 title renders it 'Baruch the Scribe').
Triumph scene: 156 captive-ovals in ten rows (65 led by Amun, 91 by the goddess of Thebes); about 75 names legible in 1906 (Breasted ARE IV §718).
Jehucal bulla: a horizontal oval from a nearly circular seal. There is no border line, and three lines hold five words without dividers. A chip removes the top of the first letter of line 2, the nun of bn (Mykytiuk 2009: 86).
Building 101 was excavated over 10 seasons (2006-2015); walls stood 1.0-1.5 m high; hundreds of vessels were found in place (Faust 2026: 35).
Found in the Babylonian destruction debris of Temple Complex 650, a 186 x 124 ft structure in the elite zone of the lower tel (Gitin, Dothan and Naveh 1998).
Clay bulla 13 x 12 x 3 mm; oval seal impression 9.7 x 8.6 mm with the frame of the seal ring visible around it (Hebrew University release, 2015).
Clay bulla about half an inch across, oval; upper portion and left side damaged (BAS report, 2018).
Double gateway: two doorways one behind the other joined into one block, through the paired inner walls (Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel) (Koldewey 1914, pp. 32-34).
About three hundred ration texts dated between Nebuchadnezzar's 10th and 35th years (CoJS); Pedersén (2025) publishes 527 texts and fragments from the palace archives.
Two limestone monoliths interpreted as altars were found in the shrine, each with dark residue on its upper surface (Arie, Rosen and Namdar 2020, abstract).
Two rolled silver plaques, IAA 1980-1495 and 1980-1496, now in the Israel Museum; height 3.9-9.7 cm, width 1.1-2.7 cm.
21 ostraca, ink on pottery, Old Hebrew cursive; found in the burnt gate complex of Lachish (Windle 2025; CoJS).
13 carved slabs from one room (Room XXXVI, 38 x 18 ft) of the South-West Palace at Nineveh (Layard 1853, pp. 148-151).
Area X exposed a mudbrick wall and two successive buildings with layers of the 8th-6th centuries BCE (BAS summary of the SJOT paper).
Location: c. 750 m northeast of Ramat Rahel, eastern outskirts of Arnona, Jerusalem ('Atiqot 110 abstract; Tel Aviv 49 abstract).
EIH: ten columns, 624 lines, archaizing script; first published in London in 1803 (Langdon 1905).
Stepped pool exposed June 2004 by Reich and Shukron during water-pipe repair south of the Temple Mount; trapezoidal, corners slightly over 90 degrees, one side c. 225 ft (BAS).
Eight rock-hewn rooms on the eastern slope, over 2,300 sq ft in total, about 300 yards from the Temple Mount (BAS 2026).
Man-made ditch about 30 m wide and at least 6 m deep near the summit of the Southeastern Ridge, with rock scarps on its north and south sides (Gadot et al., Tel Aviv 50, 2023, abstract).
Slab 28 stood in Sennacherib's throne room, Southwest Palace, Nineveh (Times of Israel 2026, reporting Compton).
Six lines of Old Hebrew carved on a smoothed patch of the tunnel wall near the Siloam end.
BM record: hexagonal clay prism, height 38.1 cm, BM 91032 / 1855,1003.1, dated by the eponym Bel-erumanni to 691 BCE, 'said to have been found at Nebi Yunus', purchased by Col. R. Taylor in 1830.
A trench over 2 km long, 5-6 m deep and more than 8 m wide, cut through bedrock around three sides of the tell, with the spoil heaped as a berm on one side (Ackermann, Bruins and Maeir 2005, abstract).
Stone wall about 7 m wide, c. 65 m of unbroken length exposed, preserved up to c. 3.3 m high.
Reading as published by the excavators: ליד[ע]יה (בן) עשיהו, 'Belonging to Yed[a']yah (son of) Asayahu' (TMSP, 30 July 2025).
Museum record: fired clay cylinder, length 21.9-22.8 cm, BM 90920 / 1880,0617.1941, excavated by Hormuzd Rassam at Babylon (Amran).
Cowley 30 (petition): dated '20th of Marheshwan, the 17th year of Darius the king'; recto lines 1-17, verso 18-30; Cowley calls it in excellent condition.
Hilprecht 1898: 'At the end of May, 1893 ... discovered a room (5.5 X 2.75 m. wide) about 6 m. below the surface'; 730 tablets gathered from the floor in a few hours.
Four exemplars of one text (RINBE 2, Nabonidus 32) in the British Museum: BM 91125, 91126, 91127, 91128; provenance Ur (CDLI records).
A city-wall segment and two towers stand on the crest of the City of David's eastern slope, above the Stepped Stone Structure (Finkelstein et al. 2007, describing Mazar 2007).
Hallock 1969: Elamite texts deal with transfers of food commodities in 509-494 BCE, years 13-28 of Darius I.
The palace terrace, residence and apadana at Susa were built under Darius I. The Louvre dates the palace objects to 'Achéménide : Darius I (-522 - -486)'.
Two inscriptions of the one word ṭwbyh are cut near the entrances of two caves in the cliff at ʿIraq al-Amir (Ji 1998, p. 419).
Findspot: Mughâret Abū Shinjeh, Wadi ed-Daliyeh, about 14 km north of Jericho. The papyri were bought for the Palestine Archaeological Museum on 19 Nov 1962 and 7 Aug 1963 (Dušek 2020).
XPa: 'Four times repeated on propylaea of Xerxes above the sculptured winged bulls; Persian, Elamite, Babylonian' (Tolman 1908, p. 39).
Rock-cut pool 55 ft E-W x 12.5 ft N-S, 30 ft deep, 24 steps from the east (Schick, PEF QS 1888).
Twelve ossuaries in one small family kokhim cave; five inscribed with names.
Prayer hall interior 23 x 17.28 m, facade to the south (Loffreda).
Quarrying traces are 'visible all along the exposed rock surfaces', with varied depths and unfinished stones (HA-ESI 2022 season report).
A late Hellenistic to Early Roman dwelling next to the Church of the Annunciation compound, with a three-level complex of subterranean pits or silos (Alexandre, 'Atiqot 98).
Josephus, Ant. 18.2.1 (18.28), Whiston trans.: Philip 'advanced the village Bethsaida, situate at the lake of Gennesareth, unto the dignity of a city ... and called it by the name of Julias, the same name with Caesar's daughter.'
Language is Latin, not Greek; office named is aedile (aedilitas), not treasurer.
Hull built of 12 plant genera; strakes 92% cedar, frames 75% unworked oak branches (Werker, 'Atiqot 50, 2005).
The numeral 26 for Claudius' imperial acclamations is legible; Deissmann calls it 'above all doubt' (1912, p. 248).
A residential quarter of basalt houses under the octagon; one room was repeatedly replastered and set apart (Custody summary; Corbo's publications).
54 columns, all 66 chapters of Isaiah (Israel Museum record).
Right calcaneus penetrated laterally by an iron nail, tip bent back on itself (Zias).
Three construction phases; the earliest, mid-1st century BCE, 'probably not used as a synagogue' (HA-ESI 125).
The name PILATUS and the nomen [PO]NTIUS are on the stone; only the first two letters of PONTIUS are restored.
The first word is the participle ΠΟΛΕΙΤΑΡΧΟΥΝΤΩΝ, 'being politarchs', spelled with ΕΙ (Burton 1898, 600).
Cave 1 yielded seven large scrolls in 1947, including 1QIsaᵃ. Caves 4 and 11 yielded thousands of fragments.
Soloi: the proconsul is named only as 'Paulus'. No praenomen or 'Sergius' survives (Hogarth 1889, 114–115; Cesnola 1877, 425).
Irregular quadrilateral: W 1,601 ft, E 1,530 ft, S 922 ft, N 1,042 ft; about 35 acres (SWP Jerusalem 1884, p. 119 and in the section on Arab measurements).
Robinson's Arch: three surviving courses of curved voussoirs, one 5 ft 4 in thick; a chord of 12 ft 6 in on the surviving arc; 350 ft from the arch to the rock scarp opposite (Robinson 1841, p. 425).