Publishing Unprovenanced Biblical Antiquities

The legitimacy of collecting and publishing antiquities that have no secure provenance is one of the most controversial topics in modern archaeology. The debate involves two main camps: 1) Members of the first camp express a negative approach and argue that finds without known provenances are to be declared suspicious – therefore ignored – and actively seek to prevent publication on such objects. 2) Members of the second camp express a positive approach and argue that the corpus of the epigraphic material unearthed in controlled excavations is significantly smaller than that from unprovenanced sources. Therefore, avoiding the majority of the historical information just because the material was found by non-professionals willfully ignores the tremendous scholarly value some of this material may have. This presentation will examine the crucial role that unprovenanced artifacts have played in our understanding of the Biblical world, and make a case for why their publications should be considered rescue publications – their permanent value will increase with time.

This was part of the Elusive Biblical Archaeology DVD.