The REAL House of David (Dan McClellan and Dan Beecher; Data Over Dogma podcast on YouTube)

Thirty-some years ago, excavators at Tel Dan pulled three broken pieces of basalt out of the ground, and six of the letters carved into them spell out something no other inscription clearly does: the house of David.

This week, Dan M walks us through what the Tel Dan Stele actually says, why an Aramean king was bragging about killing two kings you can find in your Bible, and what it means that his version of events contradicts both biblical accounts.

Also: how one hunk of stone helps date the oldest historical prose in the Hebrew Bible, and no, Steely Dan was not named after it.

Chapters:

0:00 Steely Dan Jokes
1:18 What Is a Tel
2:06 Gates, Altars, Standing Stones
3:31 Three Fragments, One Inscription
4:19 Dating It to Hazael
5:00 The Chalk-Filled Letters
5:52 Dots Instead of Spaces
6:34 Bragstones and Royal Resumes
7:13 Reading the Inscription
9:04 Two Dead Kings
10:01 Kingdom Versus Dynasty
11:08 Evidence for a Historical David
12:30 Hazael in Second Kings
13:21 Jehu Drives Like a Maniac
13:53 Who Killed Ahaziah
16:22 Taking Credit for the Kill
17:53 Dating Kings and Chronicles
19:07 Who Really Killed Goliath
19:58 The Birth of Historical Prose
21:32 Poetry Came First
23:01 Story, Then Song
24:19 Steely Dan Came First
Interview: 

https://youtu.be/2nldu9Ox6qA?si=h_ayUNV6dNWTkLsG

They Found the Answer to the Nazca Lines

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb2n-OpoEYU

 

Israel expels Palestinians based on archaeology claims, building rules : NPR

The process of transforming this area where many Palestinian families have lived for generations into a Jewish neighborhood has accelerated under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, which includes two cabinet ministers who are settlers themselves. 

Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem and U.N. human rights experts say Israeli actions to force increasing numbers of Palestinian families out of East Jerusalem and the West Bank amount to ethnic cleansing. Human rights advocates say this has expanded since Israel's wars in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon have drawn away much of the world's attention…

 https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/nx-s1-5823861/israel-palestinians-east-jerusalem

 

The Archaeological Roots of Today's Strife in Jerusalem | Time

…Western Christians primed Muslims to feel that their sanctuary was under siege, and that feeling is stronger than ever…

https://time.com/6112694/jerusalem-israeli-palestinian-conflict-archaeology/

1,000-year-old remains in Finland may be non-binary iron age leader

 …Males with the syndrome, which affects about one in 660 men, are still genetically male and often do not realise they have the extra chromosome, but the condition can cause enlarged breasts, a small penis and testicles, a low sex drive and infertility...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/1000-year-old-remains-in-finland-may-be-non-binary-viking-researchers-say

Multiple lines of mysterious ancient humans interbred with us - National Geographic

Modern DNA suggests that the Denisovans were surprisingly diverse—and may have been the last humans other than Homo sapiens on Earth.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/enigmatic-human-relative-outlived-neanderthals/

Yakhchal: Ancient Refrigerators – EARTH ARCHITECTURE

By 400 BC, Persian engineers had mastered the technique of storing ice in the middle of summer in the desert. The ice was brought in during the winters from nearby mountains in bulk amounts, and stored in a Yakhchal, or ice-pit. These ancient refrigerators were used primarily to store ice for use in the summer, as well as for food storage, in the hot, dry desert climate of Iran. The ice was also used to chill treats for royalty during hot summer days and to make faloodeh, the traditional Persian frozen dessert.....

http://eartharchitecture.org/?p=570

400-Million Year-Old Fish Discovered Is Ancestor of Dinosaurs, Humans - Newsweek:

This was from long before the dinosaurs. ....
http://www.newsweek.com/400-million-year-old-ancestor-dinosaurs-humans-and-bony-fish-discovered-954474

Did God Have a Wife—And a Tail? - The Daily Beast

A controversial new claim out of a dig in the Sinai has deemed an ancient image to depict a well-endowed Yahweh (or having a tail) with a wife at his side. ....
https://www.thedailybeast.com/did-god-have-a-wifeand-a-tail

What the U.S. Invasion Did to Iraqi Archeology - The Atlantic

U.S. forces invaded the country 15 years ago this week—and left behind a booming trade in looted artifacts. ....
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/iraq-war-archeology-invasion/555200/

Humans bred with this mysterious species more than once, new study shows - The Washington Post

We rarely portray Neanderthals, our close relatives, as telegenic. Museum exhibits give them wild tangles of hair, and Hollywood reduces them to grunting unsophisticates. Their skulls suggest broad faces, tiny chins and jutting brows. But to mock Neanderthals is to mock ourselves: Homo sapiens had lots of sex with Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthal genes supply between 1 percent and 4 percent of the genome in people from homelands on several continents, from Britain to Japan to Colombia.....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/15/humans-bred-with-this-mysterious-species-more-than-once-new-study-shows/

Lasers Reveal a Maya Civilization So Dense It Blew Experts’ Minds - The New York Times

They were hidden there, all this time, under the cover of tree canopies in the jungles of northern Guatemala: tens of thousands of structures built by the Maya over a millennium ago. Not far from the sites tourists already know, like the towering temples of the ancient city of Tikal, laser technology has uncovered about 60,000 homes, palaces, tombs and even highways in the humid lowlands.....

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/world/americas/mayan-city-discovery-laser.html

Ancient Infant's DNA Reveals New Clues to How the Americas Were Peopled -- The Atlantic

Her 11,500-year-old remains suggest that all Native Americans can trace their ancestry to the same founding population. ....
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/upward-sun-river-infants-genome-peopling-americas/549572/

The oldest fossils on Earth show that 3.5 billion years ago there was life on our planet — Quartz

As humans, it’s difficult to take the long view of history because we’re the new kids on the block, having only been around 3 million years or so. Although you may feel old by the time you’re an adult, the reality is that people are a recent development. The first life forms existed long before our arrival, now confirmed as some 3.5 billion years ago.....
https://qz.com/1159798/the-oldest-fossils-on-earth-show-that-3-5-billion-years-ago-there-was-life-on-our-planet/

Archaeologists Just Got Closer to Proving the Location of Jesus’ Tomb -- The Daily Beast

This week National Geographic announced that, for the first time, the mortar from the tomb of Jesus at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher had been scientifically dated. The tomb itself, they reveal, was built in the fourth century. The evidence confirms the traditional story that Constantine built the first Christian church there around 325 CE. But does the mortar cement the Gospel story? ....
https://www.thedailybeast.com/archaeologists-just-got-closer-to-proving-the-location-of-jesus-tomb

Billion-year-old fossils of earliest life form discovered in India

A scientist in India found microfossils that have been dated to be a staggering 2 billion years old. The prokaryotic fossils represent the planet’s oldest-known form of life.....
http://www.newsweek.com/india-fossil-microfossil-bacteria-evolution-2-billion-years-722014

And Now the Good News #256: Cocoa Prevents Diabetes? Well, Sort Of . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9lLa_B3WN8&feature=youtu.be

Digging Up A New Dinosaur (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

We know dinosaurs are big. That’s the whole point of our fascination. But the latest dinosaur to enter the scientific literature is super big. Patagotitan, the super heavyweight dino out of Argentina – Patagonia – weighed in at 60-plus tons. Tall as a seven story building. Big as a Boeing 737. It makes the T-Rex look like a munchkin. Biggest land animal ever found. How did it live at that scale? We’ll ask. This hour On Point: the biggest dinosaur ever known. — Tom Ashbrook
Interview:
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/08/10/digging-up-a-new-dinosaur

New Tunnel Discovered Under Ancient Pyramid -- National Geographic

Archaeologists think the tunnel under the Pyramid of the Moon in Mexico's Teotihuacán may represent the underworld as part of an ancient belief system. ...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/tunnel-pyramid-teotihuacan-Mexico-archaeology-spd/