Biblical Archaeology Review

The publication cited in endnote 1 indicates that this roundel was made and engraved on a lathe. This, too, is wrong. Lathes that could perform such tasks did not exist in the Hellenistic age. See Paul Craddock and Janet Lang, “Spinning, Turning, Polishing,” Journal of the Historical Metallurgy Society (1983) 17/2 pp. 79–81; Robert S. Woodbury, “The Origins of the Lathe,” Scientific American 208:4 (1963), p. 132, and Studies in the History of Machine Tools: History of the Lathe to 1850(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972).

The development of trigonometry enabled mathematicians to make precise calculations for the markings on the sundials. Crude sundials—basically a vertical object (even a tree or a person would suffice) are known from as early as 1500 B.C.E. in Egypt.

Adolfo Roitman, From Dawn to Dusk Among the Qumran Sectarians (Jerusalem: Shrine of the Book, 1997).

Cahill and Tarler, in Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, June–July 1990 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993), p. 626.

EA 243.10–18.

Gonen, “Megiddo in the Late Bronze Age—Another Reassessment,” Levant 19 (1987), pp. 97–98. A large gatehouse was uncovered and dated to the Late Bronze Age, but it is not known to what fortification system it was related.

EA 245.11–18.

Paul W. Lapp, “Taanach by the Waters of Megiddo,” Bibical Archaeologist 30 (1967), p. 8; Albert Glock, “Taanach,” in New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. Ephraim Stern (New York: Simom and Schuster, 1993), vol. 4, p. 1432.

EA 289–290.