046 047 For nine years, I have written reviews of the Annual Meetinga as objectively as possible. This year, however, I admit to being prejudiced—prejudiced in favor of this year’s meeting...

042 The crossing of the Red Sea in which the Egyptians drowned was an actual historical event that occurred in 1477 B.C. The miraculous episode took place in the coastal plain south of Lake Menzaleh, west of what is now the Suez Canal. The...

018 Eliechish, his brothers called him. Elie the dreamer. He does not deny it; he is a dreamer. Today he is 71 years old and still dreaming. One of Elie Borowski’s dreams is 20 years old. Whether it will ever be realized is still an open question...

047 Did Solomon’s temple contain a seven-branched lampstand known as a menorah? Most people answer this question with an automatic “of course.” 048 But the Biblical text is not so clear. The...

035 On Sunday, January 16, I interviewed Zahi Hawass in his office in Zamalek, the elegant Cairene island in the Nile and home of the Gezira Sports Club, from which Hawass commanded an army of 32,000 employees as secretary general of the Supreme...

066 To: Israel Gilad, Director General, Israel National Parks Authority From: Hershel Shanks, Editor, BAR You are really missing a good bet! You are supporting and financing the excavation and restoration of two important Roman-period sites in...

063 Can a reasonable case be made that this is King David’s tomb? Ask any ultra-modern, sophisticated archaeologist and he (or she) will most likely either express disinterest or brush off the possibility with a smile and an emphatic “No.”a Sit...

016 016 Pope John Paul II is planning a millennium pilgrimage in 2000 that will take him to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Sinai—and Iraq! Why Iraq? Because that is where the patriarch Abraham was born—...

034 What happened to tenth-century B.C. Jerusalem? This has been the focus of much recent scholarly attention and has engaged BAR readers as well.a The tenth century was the time of the United Monarchy of Israel, the glory days of King David and...

040 040 You’re an archaeologist. You’ve carefully excavated a site and written an exemplary final report. Your obligation to history has been met. But what about the site? What happens after...

064 An old friend of my mother recently returned to Florida from an extended stay in California. One of the highlights of her trip to California, she reported to my mother, was some lectures by a Dr. Horn. Knowing that the distinguished professor...

051 A little more than a year ago, we reported on a new excavation (directed by the Hebrew University’s Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor) of an imposing Israelite fort on the border with Philistia dating to the late 11th–early tenth century B.C.E...

062 Shlomo Moussaieff of Herzliya, Israel, and London, England, who owned the world’s largest private collection of Near Eastern antiquities, surpassing that of many major museums, died in Israel on June 29, 2015, at the age of 92. To the...

051 The following interview with Professor David Noel Freedman was conducted by BAR Editor Hershel Shanks on November 25, 1979. Professor Freedman has been more influential than anyone else in the United States in publicizing the Ebla tablets. In...

032 For more than a decade, Hebrew University professor Emanuel Tov has been in charge of the scholarly team that is publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls. It hasn’t always been easy; but now, with the 37th volume of the Discoveries in the Judean...

046 Jerusalem, April 22, 1983 Hershel Shanks: Ami, in the United States no one, or almost no one, has heard of you. You’re one of the younger generation of Israeli archaeologists. And the reason I want to talk to you about yourself and your work...

041 The Annual Meetings were held in San Antonio, Texas, this year. They say that you can go outside the city where there are no buildings and the land is so flat that if you take a good pair of binoculars, you can see the back of your head. The...

058 The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land Ephraim Stern, editor (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Carta; New York:...

079 BAR is entering its tenth year. For us—and we hope for our readers—this is indeed cause for celebration. We have, we believe, now demonstrated several things: 1. A widespread public is seriously interested in high-level scholarship in...

062 A maturing generation of brilliant young scholars went far toward making the 1990 Annual Meetinga a resounding success. Many of these young scholars are women. For four days in November, 5,613 attendees listened to scholarly presentations in...