036 Over 20 years ago, I was excavating a room on the south side of the Israelite fortress at Arad—it was the 1964 season—when Miriam Aharoni, wife of the director of the dig, came rushing over to warn us to be especially careful. We were uncovering an archive of old Hebrew letters, she shouted excitedly. Mrs. Aharoni knew this—and we didn’t—because she had been “dipping” the potsherds from the previous day’s excavation of this area. The “dipping method,” now common on excavations in Israel, was originated by her husband Yohanan Aharoni at Arad. Each sherd is doused in […]
