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Displaying 1 - 20 of 36 results
Burial Box of James the Brother of Jesus
Earliest archaeological evidence of Jesus found in Jerusalem
Amazing as it may sound, a limestone bone box (called an “ossuary”) has surfaced in Israel that may once have contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. We know this because an extraordinary inscription incised on one side of the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2002
The Great Mikveh Debate
In a letter to the editor in Queries...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1993
What Did Jesus’ Tomb Look Like?
According to the Gospels, Jesus died and was removed from the cross on a Friday afternoon, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath. A wealthy follower named Joseph of Arimathea requested Pontius Pilate’s permission to remove Jesus’ body from the cross...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2006
Surprises at Yattir: Unexpected Evidence of Early Christianity
Archaeology is full of surprises. Sometimes we don’t find what we had expected to find. Or we find something we never expected to find. Either way, the experience is always exciting—and...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2001
Solomon & Sheba, Inc.
New inscription confirms trade relations between “towns of Judah” and South Arabia
Southern Arabia is 1,200 miles south of Israel. Naturally, skepticism about the reality of trade between South Arabia and Israel in ancient times seems justified. Yet the Bible documents this trade quite extensively—most famously in the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2010
Another View: Do Josephus’s Writings Support the “Essene Hypothesis”?
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2009
“God Knows Their Names”
Mass Christian grave revealed in Jerusalem
How many thousands of Christians were massacred when the Persians conquered Jerusalem in 614 C.E. is unknown, but if surviving historical records are at all reliable, the number was huge. We now have the first archaeological evidence that may...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1996
Your Career Is in Ruins
How to Start an Excavation in Five Not-So-Easy Steps
A dig can start in the most casual of ways. Our partnership, for example, was hatched during a chance meeting in the summer of 2004. The encounter lasted less than a minute: Assaf: “Hi, Eric! Good to see you again. Want to reopen the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2006
Fragments from the Book of Balaam Found at Deir Alla
Text foretells cosmic disaster
The date was March 17, 1967, a Friday. A Dutch expedition led by Professor Henk J. Franken of the University of Leiden was excavating a mound named Tell Deir Alla in the middle Jordan...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1985
Probable Head of Priestly Scepter from Solomon’s Temple Surfaces in Jerusalem
Inscription containing name of God incised on ivory pomegranate
BAR recently published a fascinating article by Gabriel Barkay reporting on his excavation of a small rolled silver amulet, dating from the seventh or sixth century B.C. When the amulet was unrolled, it was found to contain the tetragrammaton...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1984
Masada: Arms and the Man
Sometimes we make discoveries not by digging in the ground, but by digging in the records of past excavations. So it is with Masada, Herod’s nearly impregnable palace-fortress in the Judean wilderness, occupied and defended by Jewish Zealots...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1992
Littoral Truths
The perils of seafaring in the Bronze Age
Poor Wenamun! Stranded in a foreign city, his money stolen and letters of introduction misplaced, the Egyptian official throws himself upon the mercy of the local administration—an all-too-familiar tale of a traveler in distress. But Wenamun’...
Archaeology Odyssey, November/December 1999
Earthquake Storms
What triggered the collapse?
It sounded like the roar of a high-speed train—but it caused far more devastation. The earthquake that hit northwestern Turkey at Izmit, near Istanbul, on August 17, 1999, measured 7.4 on the Richter scale and killed 17,000 people. The...
Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2001
Another Temple to the Israelite God
Aramaic Hoard Documents Life in Fourth Century B.C.
The scholarly world is abuzz. During at least the past 20 years, and more likely during the last 33 years, more than a thousand potsherds inscribed in Aramaic have come onto the antiquities market. About 800 of these have now been published.1...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2004
Are We Prepared to Raze the Edifice?
The dating of the Siloam Inscription proposed by Rogerson and Davies would not only change the interpretation of one of the most famous monuments of ancient Jerusalem. It would also change the dating of other Hebrew inscriptions of the First...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1997
Warriors of Hatti
The rise and fall of the Hittites, Turkey’s splendid Bronze Age civilization
Just who were the Hittites? When this question began to be asked a little more than a century ago, our only knowledge of the Hittites came from the Hebrew Bible.1 Abraham buys a burial...
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2002
Caiaphas Name Inscribed on Bone Boxes
Very few of the hundreds of people who walk through the pages of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament have been attested in archaeological finds.a Now, to that small list, we may add, in all probability, the high priest who presided at...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1992
They Are Ritual Baths
Immerse yourself in the ongoing Sepphoris mikveh debate
Scholars have been arguing for some time about the purpose of several plaster-clad stepped pools in the ancient Galilean...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2002
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Warren’s Shaft theory of David’s conquest shattered
We thought we understood the complicated waterworks beneath the area of Jerusalem known as the City of David, the oldest part of the city. But new excavations near the Gihon Spring will...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1999
Not a Country Villa
Everyone wants to know who lived at Qumran, the settlement adjacent to the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. And sometimes it seems that everyone has a different opinion. With hopes of helping to solve the riddle, I’d like to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1996