Books in Brief

The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel

David A. Dorsey (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1991) 318 pp., 15 maps, $39 95

Not even a remnant of a paved road between Iron Age towns (c. 1200–586 B.C.) in Israel is known, and no map of roads across the Fertile Crescent (including Israel) is attested before the Roman period. With such paucity of evidence, can the roadways of Iron Age Israel be reconstructed with any degree of confidence? With this volume in the ASOR Library of Biblical and Near Eastern Archaeology Series, David Dorsey answers, yes.

Dorsey offers a comprehensive investigation of the nature and physical characteristics of roads in Iron Age Israel and attempts to reconstruct the courses of some 245 roads and branches that most likely existed during the Old Testament era. This work also takes up such fruitful topics as the nature, frequency and scope of travel in ancient Israel; the construction, maintenance and naming of roads; typical road and city-gate widths; and the relation of road to city. Dorsey is careful to define his terms by giving a detailed etymological, semantic and syntactical analysis of the eight terms used in the Hebrew Bible for “road.” In addition, he includes a comprehensive bibliography and three indexes (a scripture index and separate indexes of named and numbered archaeological sites).