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Displaying 1 - 20 of 40 results
Kadesh-Barnea—In the Bible and on the Ground
Kadesh-Barnea, Tell el-Qudeirat, hasn’t been excavated since the 1980s, but a new pottery analysis indicates a settlement was there at the time of the Exodus.
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2015
Living Plants as Archaeological Artifacts
The climate of the Near East has not changed since Biblical times, according to most scientists, a view shared by climatologists, as well as by geologists and dendrochronologists (experts in dating tree rings). Thus most plants in Bible lands...
Biblical Archaeology Review, December 1975
Plants as Biblical Metaphors
For our ancestors, wild plants and animals of the Holy Land served as symbols and metaphors. These people were closer to nature than we are today and they understood the life cycles of the plants and animals about them. In the Bible, they...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1979
Jezreel—Where Jezebel Was Thrown to the Dogs
One day in 1989 rumor reached me that monumental Israelite architecture had accidentally been uncovered at Tel Jezreel in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. I was then, as now, a...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2010
The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?
Tel Dor, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is the site of one of the most conquered cities in the Levant. Although practically...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1993
Pagan Yahwism: The Folk Religion of Ancient Israel
The Bible imagines the religion of ancient Israel as purely monotheistic. And doubtless there were Israelites, particularly those associated with the Jerusalem Temple, who were strict monotheists. But the archaeological evidence (and the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2001
The Other “Philistines”
The Bible portrays the Philistines as Israel’s cruel and ruthless enemy. The two peoples engaged in a fierce struggle for control of the land in the 12th–11th centuries B.C.E. We all know the stories of Samson’s struggles against the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2014
“Do You Know When the Ibexes Give Birth?”
The Hebrew word ya-el appears three times in the Bible. In English translations it is usually translated as “wild goat,” and in some modern translations, as “mountain-goat.” In actuality, the Hebrew ya-el is the ibex (Capra...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979
Did Yahweh Have a Consort?
The new religious inscriptions from the Sinai
The book of Kings describes a time during the 9th–7th centuries B.C. when the land was divided into two kingdoms—Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Phoenicia and Israel were linked by commerce and royal marriages and Hebrew...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1979
The Many Masters of Dor, Part 1: When Canaanites Became Phoenician Sailors
History runs deep at Tel Dor—45 feet deep to be exact! Layer upon layer of ancient cities, each built on the ruins of its predecessor, have formed this immense mound on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, about 12 miles south of Haifa. As...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1993
Buried Treasure: The Silver Hoard from Dor
At first, our discovery—an unadorned clay jar—seemed deceptively modest. For months we had been excavating an area overlooking the southern harbor of ancient Dor, south of Haifa on...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1998
The Babylonian Gap
The Assyrians impressed their culture on Israel … the Babylonians left no trace
The Assyrians and Babylonians both ravaged large parts of ancient Israel, yet the archaeological evidence from the aftermath of their respective conquests tells two very different stories. Why? In 721 B.C.E., the Assyrians brought an end to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2000
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
What Happened to the Cult Figurines? Israelite Religion Purified After the Exile
Accidental discoveries of two pits containing cult figurines have led me to discern an extraordinary development in Israelite religious observance. This development occurred when the Jews returned from the Babylonian Exile in the sixth to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1989
Excavations at Tell Mevorakh Are Prelude to Tell Dor Dig
What a daughter site can tell us about its mother
In 1980, the first spade will sink into Tell Dor. As previously announced in BAR (“Yigael Yadin to Head New Excavation,” BAR 04:04), I will direct the field work at the new excavation. In a sense, however, this excavation began several years...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1979
Answers at Lachish
Sennacherib’s destruction of Lachish identified; dispute over a century’s difference in Israelite pottery dating resolved by new excavations; stamp impressions of Judean kings finally dated.
Lachish was one of the most important cities of the Biblical era in the Holy Land. The impressive mound, named Tel Lachish in Hebrew or Tell ed-Duweir in Arabic, is situated about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem in the Judean hills. Once a...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979
Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel
With a commercial empire that lasted a millennium, the Phoenicians were major players in the ancient Mediterranean world. Spreading their culture and goods, they came into contact with many different groups, but their relationship with the Israelites was distinct. Join Ephraim Stern as he explores the Phoenicians’ identity and interactions with their close neighbor and ally, Israel.
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2017
Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan?
It is now more than seven years since my first report to BAR readers on the excavation at Biblical Lachish (“Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06). At that time, I primarily discussed Iron Age Lachish, the Lachish of the Judean monarchy. Judean...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1987
Restoring the Great Gate at Lachish
BAR’s Archaeological Preservation Fund makes substantial contribution
The largest and most impressive city gateway in ancient Israel is being restored. It stands at the entrance to the ruins of the great Judean city of Lachish—a mighty reminder of past...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1988
Big City, Few People
Jerusalem in the Persian Period
I would like to take a somewhat radical, maximalist view of the size of Jerusalem when the Israelites (or, more precisely, the Judahites) returned from the Babylonian Exile and restored the city walls, as described in the Book of Nehemiah...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2005