Antecedents of the Nineteenth Century

Written by: Dr. Scott Stripling an Open Bible (2025) advisor and contributor.

People in antiquity conducted “excavations” prior to the advent of modern archaeology, and they discovered, sometimes serendipitously, artifacts of great importance, prior the nineteenth century. According to the Sippar Cylinder, Nabonidus (ruled ca. 555–539 BC), final king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, dug up portions of several ancient cities, including Ur. The cylinder also mentions Belshazzar, his oldest son and crown prince, who plays a prominent role in the events of Daniel 5–7. As an archaeologist, I understand Nabonidus’ obsession with the past, even if I mourn the destruction it caused to the stratigraphy of the ancient sites.

Another example dates to the fourth century AD. Constantine ordered Macarius, Jerusalem’s bishop, to remove the remains and underlying fill of the temple of Jupiter in Aelia Capitolina (Hadrian’s Jerusalem) to reveal the place of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. According to Eusebius, he removed the matrix which Hadrian had used to cover Jesus’ tomb and support the platform of the Temple of Jupiter in his reimagined Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher now occupies this area. The Shroud of Turin, an artifact of immense potential importance, and some controversy, may derive from this very location.

There are many lines of evidence that point to the shroud being the burial garment of Jesus and not a medieval forgery as critics claim. In 1978, the Vatican granted the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team access to photograph and perform scientific tests on the ancient garment. The results of that analysis and the team’s ongoing work have revealed the presence of pollen known to be extinct before the Byzantine period. The facial image appears to reveal first-century coins in the eye sockets of the buried man. The inexplicable image of the crucifixion victim shows that he was nailed in the wrist, not the hand as medieval artists always portrayed crucifixion. The other wounds are consistent with the gospel accounts of Jesus’ execution. The herring-bone pattern of the cloth is typical of first-century burial garments as evidenced by the first-century AD shroud from the Leper’s Tomb in Jerusalem. Finally, the blood on the Shroud of Turin is red, even though it is ancient

– a phenomenon only possible when the liver experiences severe trauma.

Arguing against the shroud’s authenticity are the absence of mentions prior to ca. 1353 and the fourteenth-century radiocarbon dates. Earlier mentions of the shroud may not have survived antiquity, or they may yet come to light. However, the Hungarian Pray Codex illustratively depicts the shroud in the eleventh century. Several peer-reviewed articles have demonstrated the major problems, such as contamination, with the radiocarbon tests. In time, research may facilitate a consensus among scholars regarding this artifact.

Another ancient artifact known as The Peutinger Plates date to ca. 1265 AD. This is the oldest known map of the entire ancient Mediterranean world. Scholars often study this map alongside the sixth century Madaba Map (see Madaba Map entry) for clues on the location of lost sites. Despite these examples, archaeology did not really enter the public discourse until the mid-eighteenth century. Samuel Johnson defined “archaiology” as “a discourse on antiquity.” Henry Hitchings observes that Johnson and his contemporaries viewed archaeology as “the quaint antiquarianism of dilettanti” and as “an amateur pursuit, not science.”