The Search for Biblical Heshbon

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In 968 Siegfried Horn of Andrews University began large-scale excavations at a site everyone thought was Biblical Heshbon. This was Tell Hesban (or Hisban). Horn, his chief archaeologist, Roger Boraas of Upsala College, and other staff members had participated in the influential Shechem excavations led by the dean of American archaeologists at that time, G. Ernest Wright of Harvard University. The Hesban dig was the largest ever to be fielded in Jordan up to that time. By uncovering this 50-acre mound about 15 miles southwest of Amman, the modern capital of Jordan, Horn hoped to find evidence of the […]

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Footnotes

See Siegfried Horn letter, “When was the Exodus?”, Queries & Comments, BAR 03:04.

On Jericho, see the following BAR articles: Bryant Wood, “Did the Israelites conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” BAR 16:02; Piotr Bienkowski, “Jericho was Destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Nor the Late Bronze Age,” BAR 16:05; Wood, “Dating Jericho’s Destruction: Bienkowski Is Wrong on All Counts,” BAR 16:05. On Ai, see Joseph A. Callaway, “Was My Excavation of Ai Worthwhile?” BAR 11:02).

See “Tom Crotser Has Found the Ark of the Covenant—Or Has He?” BAR 09:03.

Geraty, president of La Sierra College in Riverside, California, is the overall director of the project; LaBianca directs the survey; Douglas Clark of Walla Walla College directs volunteer and consortium support (Andrews University/Atlantic Union College Canadian Union College and Walla Walla College), and I direct the excavations at Tell El-‘Umeiri.

Endnotes

This development is clear in the preliminary reports published in Andrews University Seminary Studies: The first season (1968) in vol, 7, 1969; the second season (1971) in vol. 11, 1973; the third season (1973) in vol. 13, 1975; the fourth season (1974) in vol. 14, 1976; and the fifth season (1976) in vol. 16, 1978; the sixth season (1978) was a smaller excavation at one of the churches, reported in vol. 18, 1980. The final output: Hesban 1, Sedentarization and Nomadization, Øystein LaBianca; Hesban 2: Environmental Foundations, ed. LaBianca and Larry Lacelle; Hesban 3: Historical Foundations, Lawrence Geraty and Leona G. Running; Hesban 5: Archaeological Survey of the Hesban Region, Robert D. Ibach, Jr.; and Hesban 7: Hellenistic and Roman Strata, Larry Mitchell. Five more volumes are planned for the near future, primarily of the archaeological results.

Donald Redford, “A Bronze Age Itinerary in Transjordan,” Journal for the Society for the Study of Egyptian Archaeology 12.2 (1982), pp. 55–74.