Saturday, November 26, 2005

Excavating Paul's Thessalonica

Unfortunately, archaeologists haven't had much excavating success when it comes to the ancient city of Thessalonica. Why? Because someone went and bunged the second largest city in all of Greece on top of it (Thessaloniki). Nevertheless, the excavation of the Serapeum (a bunch of tombs) has yielded many buried treasures and thus proved to be an exception.

One find in particular caught my smiling attention:

As archaeologists rummaged through the grit and mummies, one small image of the god Dionysus was discovered. However, this was no usual little man because it accommodated a removable ... what?

Answers on a postcard, and the first to get the right answer gets, err ..., a bit of honour for being first.

3 Comments:

At 12/15/2005 6:46 PM, Blogger Herobill said...

I believe the academically correct answer is: a phallus. Am I right?

For my prize, can you come over and see my Thessalonica project?

http://thessalonica51ad.blogspot.com

 
At 12/15/2005 8:26 PM, Blogger Chris Tilling said...

Woo hoo! Yes, you got it right.
What is the plan with the Thessalonians blog? Are you writing something on Thessalonica?
All the best,
Chris

 
At 12/19/2005 12:07 AM, Blogger Herobill said...

My plan is to put together all possible details about the city just as it was on the day Paul and Silas walked through its gates.

It seems like most study bibles just say, "Thessalonica was a large city in Northern Greece" and very little else. I'm simply trying to go to the opposite extreme.

It's been five years so far, since I only have spare time to do it in. But I'd love some feedback, if you'd like to leave some comments on my site.

Also, if you know any historians or biblical scholars who study this sort of thing, please give them the site address as well.

 

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