Biblical Archaeology’s Top Ten Discoveries of 2014

A flurry of year-end announcements provided some late-breaking additions to the list of archaeological discoveries made public in 2014. Below are the top ten findings of the broad variety of institutional and salvage excavations taking place in the lands of the Bible.

10. Tomb of St. Stephen

The tomb of the first Christian martyr may have been located in an excavation just west of Ramallah. An Orthodox church news service recently reported that a church complex excavation revealed an inscription indicating that the church had been built over the burial site of St. Stephen, who was interred there in 35 AD. However, the lack of news of this discovery from other sources raises questions that bear further investigation.

9. Theater where Polycarp was martyred

Archaeologists in Izmir, Turkey, are currently uncovering the Roman theater of ancient Smyrna, one of the seven cities of Revelation. This theater is also the site where Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of the Apostle John, was martyred.

8. Tablet that said the ark was round

The world's potentially oldest clay tablet containing a flood story was found in the British Museum archives and put on display last January. Discovered by the museum's cuneiform curator, Irving Finkel, the tablet makes note of a round ark and is one of several versions of the flood story that have been found in Mesopotamian excavations. Although this tablet from ancient Babylon, dated around 1750 BC, may be the oldest found containing the flood story, it's not necessarily the earliest version of the story.

7. Olive oil from 8,000 years ago

Archaeologists announced in December that organic residue on pottery shards excavated at Ein Zippori, near Nazareth, was olive oil. The vessels were dated around 5800 BC, making them some of the earliest evidence of olive oil production in the region and indicating that it was a diet staple 4,000 years before the time of the biblical patriarchs. Read the rest at Christianity Today