Biblical Archaeology Review

A. baking tray

B. board game

C. cheese grater

D. archery target

E. calendar

Answer: (E) calendar

After 34 years, Seymour (Sy) Gitin has retired as director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR). During the decades of his leadership, the Albright has flourished, with the number of fellowships increasing and the library expanding.

The pentagram or five-pointed star was a popular symbol in the Hellenistic world as a magical religious symbol that had an apotropaic function (warding off evil). In the second century B.C.E. the pentagram became significant in Judea. For centuries, beginning in the late eighth century B.C.E., Judah would stamp jar handles as a mark of fiscal administration—perhaps as a governmental approval of the contents of the vessel or other certification.

A. Ceramic brick

B. Iron quarrying wedge

C. Grain-grinding mortar

D. Broken incense altar

E. Neolithic ax-head

Answer: (B) Iron quarrying wedge

December 13, 1204 A.D. Moses Maimonides (known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Maimon), the Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher who compiled Talmudic law in the 14-volume Mishneh Torah and was the foremost intellectual figure of medieval Judaism, died in Fustat, Egypt.

Hamlet. Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape like a camel?

Polonius. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.

Hamlet. Methinks it is like a weasel.