Your Filters
- (-) Remove Hebrew filter Hebrew
- (-) Remove Bible filter Bible
- (-) Remove Authors: Zeʼev Meshel filter Authors: Zeʼev Meshel
- (-) Remove Authors: Frank Moore Cross filter Authors: Frank Moore Cross
- (-) Remove Authors: Hershel Shanks filter Authors: Hershel Shanks
- (-) Remove Authors: Jack Finegan filter Authors: Jack Finegan
Displaying 81 - 100 of 176 results
Egypt’s Chief Archaeologist Defends His Rights (and Wrongs)
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2011
How BAR Was Born
A reason to return to Jerusalem
In 1972 Hershel Shanks took a sabbatical from his legal practice in Washington, D.C. He and his family went to Jerusalem for a year. Once there, the Shanks family became part of a network of friends and colleagues who comprised some of the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August September/October 2009
Abraham’s Ur: Is the Pope Going to the Wrong Place?
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—...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2000
A Tale of Two Meetings
Issue of Antiquities Splits Scholars in Atlanta
The decision was unanimous: Antiquities collectors are criminals, responsible for the worldwide scourge of looting. That was the theme of the annual meeting of the American Schools of...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2004
Archaeological Hot Spots
A roundup of digs in Israel
In an oft-repeated story that the Patent Office denies, a 19th-century Commissioner of Patents announced that he would retire because everything that could be invented would soon be invented. I was reminded of this story as I traveled from...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1996
1987 Annual Meeting in Boston: A Wild, Wonderful Academic Circus
There is nothing quite like it—the joint once-a-year sessions of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), known to all as the Annual Meeting. For...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1988
When 5,613 Scholars Get Together in One Place—The Annual Meeting, 1990
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1991
Magnificent Obsession: The Private World of an Antiquities Collector
The first time I telephoned Shlomo Moussaieff I naturally began by introducing myself. “I’m Hershel Shanks, editor of—” “I know who you are,” he interrupted. “I’ve been avoiding you for 20 years.” He has a high-pitched, almost whiny voice,...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1996
The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke
Leading scholar unveils new evidence and new conclusions; search goes on for archaeological support
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1981
Capital Archaeology
7,200 Scholars and two precious artifacts come to Washington for the Annual Meeting
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1994
A Short History of BAR
Talk about vision. I certainly had none when I started BAR. It began almost by accident, as an avocation. If I had any fixed notion, it was that it would be a magazine of ideas, not pictures. Excavations in Israel were full of stones, not...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1995
Roundup of Annual Meetings
There’s Nothing Flat in San Antonio
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2005
Will King Hezekiah Be Dislodged from His Tunnel?
It is one of the most famous sites in Jerusalem—right up there after the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall. And it is also one of the most exciting to visit—Hezekiah’s Tunnel. But is it really his? The...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2013
The Historical Importance of the Samaria Papyri
When the Ta‘âmireh bedouin penetrated the Daliyeh cave (as described in the previous article by Paul Lapp) they found within more than 300 skeletons lying on or covered by mats. The bones were mixed with fragments of manuscripts...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978
Dever Stars at Lackluster Annual Meeting
Let’s come out with it at the beginning. The archaeological presentations at the Annual Meetinga were, by and large, lackluster. There were notable exceptions, of course (some of which will be mentioned anon), but for the most part it was...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1989
Absorbing Archaeology at the Jerusalem Congress
A congress on Biblical archaeology can’t help but be successful in Jerusalem. The subject seeps from Jerusalem’s stones. And the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology,...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1990
The New Struggle for the Scrolls: Will They Go to the Palestinians?
Will the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ruins of Qumran, adjacent to the caves where the scrolls were found, be given to the Palestinians? As the Israelis and Palestinians struggle slowly and painfully toward some kind of accommodation that...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2001
Is It Possible to Protect Our Cultural Heritage?
We all condemn looting. But there is little talk about what can effectively be done about it. Telling people not to buy what may be looted antiquities makes the authorities feel good but has virtually no effect on looting. In the September...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2015
The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?
Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Was this God’s revenge? That’s not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Rather...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2010
Interview with David Noel Freedman
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1980