014 014 When archaeology student Zachi Zweig started to sift through the mountains of dirt that had been dumped into the Kidron Valley by Muslim authorities in charge of the unsupervised...

Although the Bible gives a detailed description of Solomon’s Temple, we have no physical remains of the building destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. Thanks to the recent excavation of several hitherto-unknown ancient Near Eastern temples, however, archaeologists are shedding new light on similarities and differences between these temples and King Solomon’s structure.

042 If you want to observe the latest scientific techniques being applied in a live excavation and, five minutes later, experience what it was like to explore the Holy Land in the 19th century, before archaeology touched it and ancient sites...

052 Visitors to Jerusalem understandably are often confused by the jumbled and disconnected layers of the past that exist side by side with the teeming modern city. Jerusalem at the time of the First Temple—the Jerusalem of the Bible, the...

020 021 It should have been the jewel in Israel’s archaeological crown. In fact, Israel’s excavation of the area adjacent to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, on the south and southwest sides of the...

The Royal Stoa at the southern end of Herod’s Temple Mount was “a structure more noteworthy than any under the sun,” according to Josephus. And when the First Jewish Revolt broke out in 66 C.E., this magnificent building became a hub for rebel coin minting

044 Stylistic and architectural similarities between the cave of Machpelah enclosure at Hebron and the Temple Mount enclosure in Jerusalem have been clearly demonstrated by Nancy Miller in “Patriarchal Burial Site Explored for First Time in 700...

028 029 Two extremely important Hebrew inscriptions have recently surfaced on the antiquities market. One appears to be a receipt for a donation of three silver shekels to the Temple of Yahweh...

023 Were it not for the efforts of the man who got Jerry Falwell started in television, the famous Dead Sea Scroll known as the “Temple Scroll” might never have come to light. At least that is the story according to Reverend Joe Uhrig, now...

038 As in Washington, so in Jerusalem: There are some sections you just don’t venture into. In Jerusalem one such section is the village of Silwan, on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley opposite the City of David (the oldest inhabited part of...

032 Slowly it emerged from the ground: a beautiful, 8-inch-long bronze incense shovel, the prize find of the 1996 excavations at Bethsaida, near the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The shovel lay in a first-century C.E. refuse pit. Just...

From Jerusalem’s earliest inscription to the discovery of Solomon’s fortifications, the city has been abuzz with archaeological activity. Our up-tothe-minute report puts the spotlight on these exciting new finds, as well as the projects and scholars who have brought them to light.

064 In the November/December 2008 issue of BAR, we reported on an inscribed limestone stela that had been purchased on the antiquities market by Judy and Michael Steinhardt and is on permanent loan to the Israel Museum.a The incomplete stela,...

016 Jerusalem is not only one of the oldest cities in the world, it is one of the few cities which has been continuously inhabited for more than 40 centuries. From before 1850 B.C., when the first wall surrounded and defended Jerusalem, people...

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...

066 Five years ago, BAR published an extraordinary artifact—an ivory pomegranate less than 2 inches high (1.68 inches, to be exact) that was probably used in the Temple of Solomon, the only artifact from Solomon’s Temple ever discovered (“...

003 What is not in doubt is that Kathleen Kenyon is virulently anti-Zionist. The more subtle question is whether this affects her work as an archaeologist. It is not hard to find Israelis who think it does. Others suggest it is only a...

057 Background to Hanukkah A major new inscription that recently surfaced on the antiquities market and has been acquired by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem sheds dramatic new light on the run-up to the Maccabean revolt in the second century B.C.E...

053 I’m looking for a clever aphorism saying that good things sometimes come from something bad. I have in mind the Muslim Waqf’s illegal excavation on the Temple Mount to accommodate a new, larger entrance to the underground Marwani mosque...

For 30 years, archaeologists have been excavating et-Tell in the Lower Golan, east of the Jordan Rift Valley. See why they believe their site is biblical Bethsaida.