Here is where you will find the schedule of AIAS lectures for the coming months.
As you will be aware, all charities are going through hard times during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society is no exception. Although we do not charge for our lectures, any contribution to the general costs of the Society would be more than welcome, particularly from non-members.
Anyone who would like to make a donation, large or small, can send an email to: ad***@******rg.uk for details as to how to pay by credit card.
Our regular lectures are currently being held online, via Zoom, but we are also hosting some in-person events at various locations in London and elsewhere. Check the lecture notices below for details.
2026 Lectures:
Previous 2026 lectures can be found here.
Upcoming lectures:
| Date | Speaker | Title |
| Tuesday 15 December 2026, 6pm | Prof. Rina Talgam | The Magdala Stone: Its Meaning, Significance, and Function |
Was Nanaya-Kānat’s Father Judaean? (AfO 51/BaAr 6 A1)
This webinar features Dr Sandra Jacobs, Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature at Leo Baeck College Rabbinical Training College.
Wednesday 18 November 2026, 6pm (GMT) on Zoom.
In the wake of imperial conquests of the Assyrian and then the Babylonian empires from the late eighth century onwards, the independent kingdom of Israel was vanquished, after which the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar’s II army. These turbulent centuries were marked
by extensive deportations, moving indigenous local groups into the heartlands of the Tigres and Euphrates, so much so that by the late exilic and Persian periods (539-331 BCE) we find archival records of thriving Judaean communities in the vicinities of (Ãl) Iāḫūd ‘Judah’ town, (Bīt)-Abīrâm
‘House [of] Abiram’ and Bīt Našar , ‘Eagle-House’. While the majority of these cuneiform tablets deal with minor commercial and agricultural matters there is, however, a formal marriage contract involving a young bride (Nanaya-kānat) and her groom (Nabû-bān-aḫi). This presentation will consider the question: Was this bride’s father a Judaean deportee, or even a descendant of one?
Sandra Jacobs is the Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature at Leo Baeck College Rabbinical Training College, and an Honorary Research Associate at Kings College (London).
Her research focuses on physical disfigurement and corporal punishment in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and cuneiform law, and also on the legal capacity of women in early Judaean archival and epigraphic sources. As the grand-daughter of a former Iraqi (Baghdadi) Jew her interest in the cuneiform tablets from āl-Yāḫūdu and its environs is both personal and professional. The marriage record discussed in this lecture is subject to the “cuneiform exception,” which is explained at: https://www.asor.org/about-asor/policies/policy-on-professional-conduct/.
Recent publications include: “Was The Divine Name Tattooed Upon the Israelites?” in Exploring Sacred Ink: Tattooing, Identity, and Belonging (ed. Alinda Damsma; London and New York: Routledge, 2026), 49-77; “Slave-Trading (Western-Semitic and Judaean) Women,” in Summoning People – The Egibis and Beyond. Festschrift for Cornelia Wunsch by Colleagues and Friends (eds. Michaela Weszeli and Jeanette C. Fincke; Vienna: Archiv für Orientforschung: Internationale Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft vom vorderen Orient 37, 2026), 85-91; “ ‘Elite Emulation,’ and The Regulation of Women in Deuteronomy,” European Judaism 59.1 (2026):138–153; “Human Rights in The Hebrew Bible?” in The Cambridge History of Rights, Volume 1: The Ancient World (eds. Clifford Ando, Mirko Canevaro and Benjamin Straumann; Cambridge University Press, 2025), 71-91.
———IN-PERSON———-
Mapping the Twelve Tribes: A 2500 Year History
This lecture features Professor Nathan MacDonald, Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Testament, University of Cambridge.
Thursday 15 October, 6pm in person at JW3, 341-351 Finchley Road, NW3 6ET
AIAS is pleased to welcome Professor Nathan MacDonald as he presents Mapping the Twelve Tribes: A 2500 Year History for the 2026 Dr Richard Barnett Lecture.
The twelve tribes have played a significant role in the European imagination of ancient Israel. This illustrated lecture will examine the history of mapping Israel’s tribes and some of its unexpected turns. Together we will examine early mapping of the Holy Land both Jewish and Christian, why Christians were so interested in the tribal territories, and what they did or did not know about the physical geography of Israel.
Nathan MacDonald is Professor of the Interpretation of the Old Testament at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College. He was educated at Cambridge and Durham and worked at St Andrews and Göttingen before taking up his post in Cambridge. He has written extensively on the Pentateuch and on the Israelite cult. His most recent book The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony examines how the tabernacle accounts in the book of Exodus were of great interest to ancient readers and was a site for working out ideas about the priesthood, the temple and society.
POSTPONED: Josephus on Jesus
This webinar features Professor Steven Mason, Em. Distinguished Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Cultures, University of Groningen.
Wednesday 23 September, 5pm (GMT) on Zoom.
Join Steven Mason to discuss his 2026 article The Historical Jesus: New Evidence or New Techniques?
This January 2026 publication explores Josephus’ little paragraph on Jesus of Nazareth (Ant. 18.63–64), which long ago acquired its own name, the testimonium flavianum (TF), is indicative of its unique fame.
This article first contextualises the TF in Josephus’s life and his Antiquities, then summarises Schmidt’s historical case before probing its interpretations of Josephus, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature. It finds that his elaborate case for the TF’s oft-doubted authenticity (Part 1) must be taken seriously, but that his more sensational claims in Part 2 create problems that Schmidt leaves unaddressed.