A number of American and foreign expeditions will be in the field this summer in the Holy Land. Almost all offer opportunities for amateurs as well as professionals. So if you have your Ph.D. or no experience at all, here’s your chance.
At Tell Dan in northern Israel, Dr. Avraham Biran, formerly director of the Israeli Department of Antiquities, will again lead the excavation team. He hopes to complete excavation of the royal processional route and the upper city gate. The digging season will last seven weeks beginning June 18 and will be divided into a four-week session and a three-week session. An introductory course in the archaeology of Israel will be taught at the site and periodic field trips to other sites will also be made. Inquiries should be directed to Dr. Paul M. Steinberg, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, 40 W. 68th St., New York, 10023.
Last season, the Tell Dan team was the talk of the archaeological grapevine when it uncovered a bi-lingual inscription—in Greek and Aramaic—carved in a piece of limestone and reading, “To the god who is in Dan” (see illustration). It was in Dan that Jeroboam set up a golden calf for worship, following Solomon’s death in the late 10th century (see 1 Kings 12 and 2 Kings 10:20). Although the Dan inscription dates from a much later period (3rd–2nd century B.C.), it perhaps goes back to an earlier tradition of idol worship or a special god of Dan at this site. The inscription mentioning Dan also places this site among the handful of sites whose identification has been confirmed by a written document found on the site. (Others are Gezer, Beth-Shean, Arad and Hazor; as to the last, see “American Tourist Returns ‘Hazor’ Tablet to Israel After 13 Years,”BAR 02:02).
Excavations will resume this year after a year’s absence from the field at Tell el-Hesi. Sir Flinders Petrie made the first effort at stratigraphic digging in 1890 at Tell el-Hesi. 1977 will be the fifth season of the modern excavation of the site. The excavation is sponsored by a consortium of American and Canadian colleges and universities under the sponsorship of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Academic credit is available. For further information, write the dig’s education director, Dr. Harry Thomas Frank, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 44074.
The American excavation at Tell Halif will be in the field full scale this year following last year’s exploratory probes. Here is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor, so to speak, of a new excavation. Write Dr. Joe D. Seger at the School of Fine Arts, University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska 68101 for details.
Information on Israeli-sponsored excavations may be obtained by writing Ms. Chana Harkavi, Ministry of Tourism, P.O. Box 1018, Jerusalem.
One expedition which will not be in the field this summer is the dig at the Temple Mount. Excavations in this area have been going on almost continuously since February, 1968 under the direction of Professor Benjamin Mazar. But Mazar, now 70, will complete his already wound-down digging within a month. The scholarly world will now look forward to publication of the expedition’s results.
A number of American and foreign expeditions will be in the field this summer in the Holy Land. Almost all offer opportunities for amateurs as well as professionals. So if you have your Ph.D. or no experience at all, here’s your chance.
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