It has taken him more than a decade, but Italian-Israeli archeologist Prof. Emmanuel Anati now believes his controversial view that the biblical Mount Sinai is in Israel’s Negev desert rather than Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula will soon be adopted by the Vatican.

The Gaza Strip was conquered by empires that left behind fortresses, alabaster jewelry, and bronze weaponry. Now the impoverished Strip is trying to rein in the black market in ancient treasure and better preserve items often found by chance.

New research has found that the sea level of the Mediterranean has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years.

Remains of a prehistoric building, the earliest ever discovered in the Tel Aviv region of Israel are estimated to be between 7,800 and 8,400 years old.

“A tidy house, a tidy mind.” Some of the more slovenly among us might bristle at this scolding old proverb, but to human evolution researchers it makes perfect sense. One of the hallmarks of modern behavior is the sophisticated way Homo sapiens organizes the spaces it lives in, with everything in its place. But new work at a nearly 800,000-year-old hominin site in Israel suggests that the roots of tidiness may lie deep in our evolutionary past.
Prehistoric humans did not start building permanent dwellings until about 15,000 years ago, but earlier …

Just four days ahead of Christmas, when billions of people the world-over will be celebrating the birth of Nazareth-resident Jesus Christ, Israeli archaeologists have announced their discovery of a Jesus-era house.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority said the find “sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus” in the Jewish settlement of Nazareth, where Christians believe Jesus grew up.
The find marks the first time researchers have uncovered the remains of a home in Nazareth from that time period, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said in a statement.
“The building that …

In a stone-age version of “Iron Chef,” early humans were dividing their living spaces into kitchens and work areas much earlier than previously thought, a new study found.
So rather than cooking and eating in the same area where they snoozed, early humans demarcated such living quarters.
Archaeologists discovered evidence of this coordinated living at a hominid site at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel from about 800,000 years ago. Scientists aren’t sure exactly who lived there, but it predates the appearance of modern humans, so it was likely a human ancestor such as Homo erectus.
Yet …

Tel Kabri is the only site in Israel where wall paintings similar in style to those found in the Aegean 3,600 years ago have been found; researchers say this was a conscious decision made by the city rulers to lean toward Mediterranean culture.
The remains of a Minoan-style wall painting, recognizable by a blue background, the first of its kind to be found in Israel, was discovered in the course of the recent excavation season at Tel Kabri. This fresco joins others of Aegean style that have been uncovered during earlier …

Israel displayed for the first time Wednesday a collection of rare coins charred and burned from the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple nearly 2,000 years ago.
About 70 coins were found in an excavation at the foot of a key Jerusalem holy site. They give a rare glimpse into the period of the Jewish revolt that eventually led to the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in A.D. 70, said Hava Katz, curator of the exhibition.
The Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire and took over Jerusalem in A.D. 66. After …

The volcanic explosion that obliterated much of the island that might have inspired the legend of Atlantis apparently triggered a tsunami that traveled hundreds of miles to reach as far as present-day Israel, scientists now suggest.
The new findings about this past tsunami could shed light on the destructive potential of future disasters, researchers added.
The islands that make up the small circular archipelago of Santorini, roughly 120 miles southeast of Greece, are what remain of what once was a single island, before one of the largest volcanic eruptions in human antiquity …