Memorandum Re: Restoring Gezer - The BAS Library
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Memorandum Re: Restoring Gezer

This is one of the most impressive archaeological sites in Israel, yet it is rarely visited even by aficionados because it is so difficult to get to—unmarked and neglected.

By Hershel Shanks

To: Israel Gilad, Director General, Israel National Parks Authority From: Hershel Shanks, Editor, BAR You are really missing a good bet! You are supporting and financing the excavation and restoration of two important Roman-period sites in Israel because they have great tourist potential and because the influx of new immigrants, mostly from the former Soviet Union, provides a labor pool that would otherwise be unemployed. The sites are Caesarea,a on the Mediterranean coast, and Beth-Shean,b in the Jordan Valley just south of the Sea of Galilee. You have been widely criticized because some scholars feel that tourist potential and […]

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Footnotes

1.

See the following BAR articles: Kenneth G. Holum, “From the Director’s Chair: Starting a New Dig,” BAR 17:01; Lindley Vann, “Herod’s Harbor Construction Recovered Underwater,” BAR 09:03; Robert L. Hohlfelder, “Caesarea Beneath the Sea,” BAR 08:03; Robert J. Bull, “Caesarea Maritima—The Search for Herod’s City,” BAR 08:03.

2.

See “Glorious Beth-Shean,” BAR 16:04.

3.

See Dan Cole, “How Water Tunnels Worked,” BAR 06:02.

4.

See Hershel Shanks, “The Sad Case of Tell Gezer,” BAR 09:04.

Endnotes

1.

R.A.S. Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1912).

2.

The final report so far comprises the following volumes, all published in Jerusalem by Hebrew Union College’s Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology: William G. Dever et al., Preliminary Report of the 1964–66 Seasons (Gezer 1) (1970); Dever et al., Report of the 1967–70 Seasons in Fields I and II (Gezer 2) (1974); Seymour Gitin, A Ceramic Typology of the Late Iron II, Persian and Hellenistic Periods at Tell Gezer (Gezer 3) (1990); Dever et al., The 1969–71 Season in Field IV, “The Acropolis,” (Gezer 4) (1986); and Joe D. Seger, The Field I Caves (Gezer 5) (1988).