Archaeology Odyssey, Winter 1999
Features
Opium for the Masses
How the ancients got high
The King David Hotel in Jerusalem has witnessed many historical scenes, some violent, others diplomatic. One of the more curious incidents took place in April 1974, when a security guard accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on an official visit to Israel happened to look out a window of...Read more ›
The Enigma of Hatshepsut
Egypt’s female pharaoh
The story of Hatshepsut is at first glance simple. She was the daughter of King Thutmose I, wife of King Thutmose II and mother of his daughter, Neferura. Upon her husband’s death (c. 1479 B.C.), she became queen regent of Egypt, ruling in place of the young heir who technically...Read more ›
Floating in the Desert
A pleasure palace in Jordan
For more than a century after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E., his heirs, the Seleucids in Syria and Mesopotamia and the Ptolemies in Egypt, fought for control of the portion of southern Israel known as Judea. Early in the second century B.C.E., a Jew named Joseph...Read more ›