Finders of a Real Lost Ark - The BAS Library

Endnotes

1.

The 1981 excavations were sponsored by Duke University and the American Schools of Oriental Research; in 1980 the National Geographic Society and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary were additional sponsors. Eric Meyers served as Director, with Carol Meyers and James Strange as Associate Directors and Lawrence Belkin as Architect.
The 1980 season as a whole is presented in Meyers, Strange, and Meyers, “Preliminary Report on the 1980 Excavations at en-Nabratein, Israel,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR) forthcoming; the 1981 dig will likewise be presented in a forthcoming BASOR article. The stone ark fragment is discussed in detail in Meyers, Strange, Meyers, “The Ark of Nabratein: A First Glance,” (Biblical Archeologist 44 September 1981).

2.

See the twin shrines of Sardis in Asia Minor and the niche of Dura Europas in Syria in Hershel Shanks, Judaism in Stone (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 172, 89, 92. At neither of these sites, however, is the identification certain.

3.

Full publication and discussion of this piece will appear in the author’s article “The Ark in Art: A Ceramic Rendering of the Torah Shrine from Nabratein,” Eretz Israel forthcoming (Orlinsky volume).

4.

See Meyers, Strange, Meyers, “Preliminary Report on the 1977 and 1978 Seasons at Gush Halav (el-Jish),” BASOR 233 (1979):45.

5.

Cf. the Beth Ha Midrash or study house at Khirbet Shema’: Meyers, Strange, and Kraabel, Ancient Synagogue Excavations at Khirbet Shema’ (Durham: Duke University Press, 1976) pp. 85ff. and figs. 314, 315.

6.

“A Dated Lintel-Inscription from the Ancient Synagogue of Nabratein,” Louis Rabinowitz Fund for the Exploration of Ancient Synagogues Bulletin III, pp. 49–56 and Pl. XIII.