Inside BAR

The Philistines destroyed the city of Shiloh. The Bible doesn’t tell us this explicitly, but it offers some strong hints: “Just go to My place at Shiloh, where I had established My name formerly, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel” (Jeremiah 7:12). Now, thanks to excavations by Israel Finkelstein, we know what was done to Shiloh—indeed it was obliterated. And we know how—by fire.

In “Shiloh Yields Some, But Not All, of Its Secrets,” Finkelstein reports on excavations he directed from 1981 to 1984 at the Israelite religious center of Shiloh, where, according to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was housed for almost 100 years. The prominent Israeli archaeologist from Bar-Ilan University describes and illustrates an enormous variety of finds from this small, eight-acre site: a Middle Bronze Age fortification wall 25 feet high; silver and bronze jewelry, weapons and tools, and evidence of a cultic installation. But these finds do not point clearly to a location for the Tabernacle that held the Ark.

Born in Tel Aviv and educated at Tel Aviv University, Finkelstein has excavated throughout Israel, occasionally digging at several sites in one season—from southern Sinai to Tell Ira in the Negev, and at Izbet Sartah, Bnei Braq, and Tell Aphek. Recently, Finkelstein and colleague Aviram Perevolotsky shared with BAR readers ideas about “The Southern Sinai Exodus Route in Ecological Perspective,” BAR 11:04.