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Displaying 1 - 20 of 37 results
Politics—Not Religious Law—Rules Ultra-Orthodox Demonstrators
Political power, not religious law, motivates the ultra-Orthodox in Israel who violently protest archaeological excavations, claiming that ancient Jewish graves are being desecrated. Jewish religious law (halakhah) does not prohibit...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1997
Raider of the Lost Mountain—An Israeli Archaeologist Looks at the Most Recent Attempt to Locate Mt. Sinai
In an article entitled “Has Mt. Sinai Been Found?” BAR 11:04, Italian archaeologist and author of the popular, though now out-dated Palestine Before the Hebrews (New York: Knopf, 1963), Emmanuel Anati argues that he has found Mt. Sinai...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1988
Relics in Rubble: The Temple Mount Sifting Project
Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is one of the world’s holiest sites; archaeological excavations are prohibited here. But, in November 1999, the Islamic trust that controls the Islamic structures on the site bulldozed a massive area in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount and dumped the excavated debris into the Kidron Valley. Two archaeologists are running a pioneering project to wet-sift this debris to search for Temple Mount artifacts that have been concealed for centuries.
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2016
Searching for Israelite Origins
The emergence of Israel in the hill country of Canaan poses some of the most intriguing questions now occupying archaeologists as well as Biblical scholars. The archaeological reflection of the “Israelite settlement”1 is dozens of hill-...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1988
Royal Palace, Royal Portrait?
The Tantalizing Possibilities of Ramat Raḥel
The first Judahite royal palace ever exposed in an archaeological excavation is bei ng rediscovered. And with this renewed interest come echoes of what is probably one of the bitterest rivalries in the history of Israeli ar chaeology—between...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2006
The Southern Sinai Exodus Route in Ecological Perspective
Tradition locates quite precisely in southern Sinai a number of places associated with the Israelites’ history: the burning bush where Moses heard God’s call (Exodus 3:2–4), identified with a raspberry plant growing in the yard of St...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1985
The Garden Tomb: Was Jesus Buried Here?
First-time visitors to Jerusalem are often surprised to learn that two very different sites vie for recognition as the burial place of Jesus. One is, as its name implies, the Holy Sepulchre Church; it is located in a crowded area of the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1986
Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?
The Ophel excavations at the foot of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount have yielded numerous exciting discoveries, including a new Biblical signature. Archaeologist Eilat Mazar reveals what may be a seal impression of the prophet Isaiah—unveiled here for the first time ever—in honor of Hershel Shanks’s retirement as Editor of BAR.
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April May/June 2018
Back to Megiddo
A new expedition will explore the jewel in the crown of Canaan/Israel
Tel Megiddo is widely regarded as the most important archaeological site in Israel from Biblical times, and as one of the most significant sites for the study of the ancient Near East...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1994
Hadrian’s Legion
Encamped on the Temple Mount
After the Romans destroyed the Temple and burned Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the Xth Legion (Fretensis) of the Roman army camped on the southwestern hill of the city, in the area known today as the Citadel, by Jaffa Gate.1 This was not,...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2006
Royal Gateway to Ancient Jerusalem Uncovered
Dedicated to the memory of Professor Yigal Shiloh. The love and devotion he brought to the discovery of ancient Jerusalem will continue to inspire us for many years to come. For ten years—from 1968 to 1977—the area adjacent to the southern...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1989
Did I Find King David’s Palace?
There can be little doubt that King David had a palace. The Bible tells us that Hiram of Tyre (who would later help King Solomon build the Temple) constructed the palace for David: “...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2006
Achziv Cemeteries: Buried Treasure from Israel’s Phoenician Neighbor
Like so many archaeological projects, the excavation of the Phoenician tombs at Achziv was prompted by looters. In 1941, when Great Britain governed the land of Israel, the Mandatory Department of Antiquities assigned Dr. Immanuel Ben-Dor to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2010
What’s an Egyptian Temple Doing in Jerusalem?
Recent attacks on the historicity of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon (in the tenth century B.C.) have focused on the scant archaeological remains that have been discovered in...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2000
Mounds of Mystery
Where the Kings of Judah Were Lamented
At the beginning of the 20th century, when Jerusalem, still centered around its ancient core, was surrounded by agricultural land and orchards, 20 mysterious earth-and-stone mounds rose above the city’s western horizon, clearly visible from...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2003
Jerusalem Tombs from the Days of the First Temple
A few hundred yards from Damascus Gate and over the wall from the Garden Tomb, magnificent burial cave lies beneath a Dominican monastery.
Damascus Gate, the most important entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City, fairly bustles with activity inside and out. Arab men in their robes and keffiyehs; Arab women in long embroidered...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1986
Temple Mount Excavations Unearth the Monastery of the Virgins
For ten years, between 1968 and 1978, the area south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was intensively excavated by archaeologist Benjamin Mazar.1 His many spectacular discoveries...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2004
Burial Headrest as a Return to the Womb—A Reevaluation
In “The Peculiar Headrests for the Dead in First Temple Times,” BAR 13:04, Professor Othmar Keel takes issue with an earlier BAR article in which Amos Kloner and I discussed these stone headrests carved on top of burial benches (“Jerusalem...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1988
Is a Piece of Herod’s Temple in St. Paul’s Cathedral?
If you’d like to see what may be a piece of the Second Temple (Herod’s Temple), pay a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. I’ll tell you later where in the church it can be found. To explain how it got there, we must explore the life of a...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2007
Shiloh Yields Some, But Not All, of Its Secrets
Location of Tabernacle still uncertain
In the first half of the 11th century B.C., Shiloh was one of the most important sites in the central mountain ridge that runs through the Land of Israel. Here was the sacred religious center of the Israelite population of the hill country...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1986