Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1990
Special Section
Jericho Was Destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age
In “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” BAR 16:02, Bryant Wood argued that the destruction level at Jericho (John Garstang’s City IV), previously dated by Kathleen Kenyon to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1550 B.C.), should be dated...Read more ›
Dating Jericho’s Destruction: Bienkowski Is Wrong on All Counts
Piotr Bienkowski has challenged the results of my analysis of the date of the destruction of the fortified Bronze Age city at Jericho, maintaining that Kathleen Kenyon’s date of about 1550 B.C.E.a is correct and should be retained. Before taking up Bienkowski’s remarks, I wish to correct...Read more ›
Features
3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt
Winter of 1976–1977. I was in Luxor, in Upper Egypt, site of the ancient city of Thebes. As a member of the University of Chicago’s Epigraphic Survey, I was there studying the magnificent reliefs and recording the hieroglyphic inscriptions that almost cover the site...Read more ›
Sussita Awaits the Spade
The largest archaeological site on the east bank of the Sea of Galilee was once a thriving city of the Decapolis
Most stories in BAR are about sites that have been excavated. In fact, I can’t recall a single story about a place that hadn’t been extensively excavated. This story—about Sussita/Hippos, in the Galilee—may be a first. Of course, a scholar must be very careful...Read more ›
The Bottleneck of Archaeological Publication
For more than 40 years, I have been studying the ancient Near East and its cultures through archaeology. I have been especially interested in the documents that have been uncovered—mostly cuneiform tablets. My aim has been to make the results known both for their...Read more ›
The Difference Between Scholarly Mistakes and Scholarly Concealment: The Case of MMT
Mistakes in scholarship are inevitable. When they occur, they can lead other scholars into further error. One error begets another. I recently read a fascinating article, by a young graduate student at Hebrew University named Yosef Garfinkel, about an error made by the great Biblical archaeologist William...Read more ›