Wow. What a find! Buried treasure, at least in historical value if not monetary value. 

While digging in Yavneh to begin work on construction of a new neighborhood, archaeologists discovered a chicken coop from 1000 years ago. And in the coop they discovered a whole egg, fully intact.

TOI is reporting on a study of 2000 years of fish consumption in the ancient holy land. 

Archaeologists in Egypt just discovered, unearthed, a 3000+ year old city, near Luxor, that they are calling the Golden City of Luxor.

this is truly a fabulous and fascinating archaeological site. Back in early September we had an opportunity to get a tour of the site. Benjamin, the head archaeologist of this dig, gave a tour to a couple of groups. Benjamin happens to be a Breslaver chossid, very interesting fellow, new immigrant from Detroit. I have a few pictures of my own of the site, but not many as they requested we not take pictures of most of the site as they could not allow images to get out before the site would be published officially, which it was yesterday. If you get an opportunity to visit the site, you should go.

bones of neanderthals? that's pretty funky!

wow!

There has been a long-standing debate as to what the true size in modern measurements of the halachic measurements "kzayit", the size of an olive, and "kbeitza", the size of an egg.

The debate is commonly referred to by the sizes determined by Rav Chaim Naeh and the Chazon Ish. The Chazon Ish size is very large and the explanation given is that the ancient olives, and eggs, were much larger than what we are familiar with today. Without going into the various explanations of the opinions and sizes, if considering the debate in regards to how much matza one must eat on the upcoming holiday of Pesach, those who follow Rav Chaim Naeh's opinion will eat a minimum of 26cc while those who follow the Chazon Ish will eat a minimum of 50cc.

Recent advancements in technological capabilities have now allowed archaeologists to do a 3D image reconstruction of eggshells they discovered from Temple times. The imaging technology is normally used for reconstructing pottery shards, but someone had the idea to try to use it for the eggs to see if it can be determined how large eggs were in Talmudic and Temple times.

After a successful reconstruction, it turns out the size of the egg was very similar to our eggs we have today. It fell well within the range of our eggs of varying sizes, and was not unusually large as suggested by the Chazon Ish.
source: TOI

I do not know how many, if any, poskim will change their opinion on the halachic measurements based on this finding. the archaeologist himself says he will not be changign how much matza he eats anyways since as a Yemenite their tradition has always been using the sizes of our modern eggs being similar to the ancient eggs, so the discovery does not change anything for him. It would only potentially change things for Ashkenazim who follow the Chazon Ish.

We have found numerous items, sometimes dating further and further back. They are always interesting, even fascinating, and often shed light on what life was like in our land so long ago.. Rarely do these findings potentially affect our own behavior in a significant way. This is one of those findings that potentially could.

A 2000 year old bronze ring with a precious blue stone was found in the dirt of a structure that then housed a mikva adjacent to a path leading up to the Beis Hamikdash...

The ring was unearthed in the Emek Hatsurim sifting project. Archaeologists believe that the ring as lost when someone ascending to Har Habayit to visit the  mikdash stopped to purify himself in the mikve.

From The Times of Israel:

too much Jesus-talk that seems unnecessary to me..

Some more amazing archaeological artifacts have been recently discovered!
1. Fox News reports about a mosaic discovered in excavations of an ancient synagogue in Northern Israel. The mosaic depicts a scene of Alexander the Great meeting with the High Priest. This might or might not be the meeting in our tradition between Alexander the Great and Shimon Hatzaddik - see the article for more on that debate.

2.  Ynet reports about the discoveryfrom the year 70BC, a month after the destruction of the Second Temple, a weight that most likely belonged to the Kohen Gadol of the time and has his name inscribed on it.


It seems they have not yet been able to decipher the name of the kohen, but have been able to clearly read the name of the kohanic family on the second line as Katrus, which seems to have been famous.


3. also from the Ynet article, an ancient mikva was discovered along with other artifacts, including artifacts from the First Temple period...

this is fascinating. in the sifting project that sifts through the dirt and rubble removed from the Temple Mount area by the Arabs, archaeologists have discovered pieces of marble flooring. After dating them and piecing them together, they realize they have discovered tiles from the floor of the Second Temple!

the tiles the pieced together indicate there were [at least] three different designs of tiles used in the Temple areas:





source: Walla, TOI

this new archaeological find proves without a doubt that even Adam and Noah ate cholent...