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Hi Rachel — thanks for stopping by! The one thing that everyone in the world should know about the ancient Near East/Egypt is that aliens did not build the pyramids.

The most exciting thing is the wine cellar that we found last summer at Tel Kabri, a Canaanite site in what is now northern Israel, that dates back 3700 years ago. It is the oldest and largest wine cellar ever found from the ancient Near East. Here are the details: within a storeroom in the palace, we found forty jars that had once contained wine, most red and some white. The wine is long gone, but residue remained in the fabric of the jars and Andrew Koh, of Brandeis University, was able to determine what they had once contained. They held the equivalent of 2,000 liters of wine, which would be about 3, 000 of our bottles today. There is at least one more room full of more jars, which we will excavate when we return during the summer of 2015. Our find was widely reported, including in the NY Times. Here is the link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/science/in-ruins-of-palace-a-wine-with-hints-of-cinnamon-and-top-notes-of-antiquity.html?_r=0 .

He was a nice Jewish boy.

First, I have very high expectations for you, grasshopper. It was a hell of a paper, though; I'll grant you that! Secondly, the new discovery of the pharaohs at Abydos by Josef Wegner and his team from UPenn is extremely exciting. It is important not only because it vindicates previous theories but expands our knowledge of ancient Egypt, in terms of adding in a "missing" dynasty during the middle of the second millennium BC. See http://www.penn.museum/press-releases/1032-pharaoh-senebkay-discovery-josef-wegner.html .

Probably one who didn't have much of a choice... :-)