Strata

018

The Balm of Gilead

Is Ein Gedi’s Long Lost “Secret” Revealed in a Newly Excavated Tower?

“Whoever reveals the secret of the village to the gentiles,” warns an Aramaic mosaic inscription on the floor of Ein Gedi’s fourth-century A.D. synagogue, “the one whose eyes roam over the entire earth and see what is concealed will uproot this person and his seed from under the sun.”

Is this an oath, sworn by members of the ancient Jewish community of Ein Gedi, an oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea? And if so, what was the oath meant to protect? What was so valuable that the ultimate curse of divine retribution was to be brought down upon squealers?

These questions have puzzled scholars ever since the synagogue’s mosaics were accidentally uncovered 25 years ago by a bulldozer clearing land for a kibbutz.

Now, at last, Israeli archaeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld thinks he’s found the answer—lying concealed within the walls of a heavily protected stone tower: The solution to the mystery may involve what Ein Gedi had long been famous for in antiquity: the production of that rare, fragrant, intoxicating unguent—balsam oil.

The tower, standing about 500 yards above the village on a ridge, had previously been identified as a military outpost of the Hasmonean dynasty (152–37 B.C.). This past season, however, Hirschfeld discovered that the tower actually dates to the fourth century A.D.—making it contemporaneous with the prosperous Jewish village on the plain below. A formidable structure, the tower is preserved to two stories (18 feet high), though structural debris indicates that it originally reached three stories. A sloping glacis shields the tower’s entrance; along the outer wall, resting on its edge, is a huge round 019stone, 5 feet in diameter, ready to be rolled along a dirt track to block the doorway.

“This place was built like Fort Knox,” Hirschfeld told the Jerusalem Post.

Inside the tower, dominating its main hall, Hirschfeld found the reason for these impressive fortifications: a 7-foot-long rectangular vat he believes was used to process balsam. Liquid near the top of this vat could run off through a hole in the wall into a larger collection vat (still in place) abutting the outer wall.

“The tower’s vats are not like any other Byzantine structures,” Hirschfeld said in an interview. It is unlikely they were used for water, he noted, not only because they are larger than other Byzantine water basins, but also because they were deliberately built on two sides of the same wall in order to communicate with one another—suggesting some industrial purpose. Moreover, “the inner vat was the focus of the tower’s main room,” Hirschfeld said, whereas as a water tub would have occupied a less conspicuous space.

The Jews living in this desert oasis, who thrived by producing and selling balsam oil, Hirschfeld said, wanted to guard their “secret recipe” for turning the thorny, shrub-like trees (of the genus Commiphora, which includes myrrh) into the precious balsam perfume, which tradition holds was once used to anoint the kings of Israel.

In the Talmud, balsam (afarsemon) is identified with the Balm of Gilead, referred to in Jeremiah 8:22. The ancient sages say that the resinous oil has nearly miraculous properties: Not only does it heal wounds, but its aroma makes men dizzy with lust: A woman has only to dab the unguent on her heel to catch the nose of a man she fancies. Related strains of balsam trees are still cultivated in the southern Arabian peninsula and Somalia, where the oil is used as an antidote to snake bites and scorpion stings.

According to the first-century A.D. Jewish historian Josephus, the Queen of Sheba first brought balsam trees to Israel, 024presenting them to Solomon along with 120 talents of gold (see 1 Kings 10:10). Several ancient sources report that balsam trees were cultivated only in three places in the Near East: at Jericho; at Zoar, on the southeastern coast of the Dead Sea; and at Ein Gedi.

Archaeological excavations at Ein Gedi, first conducted by Benjamin Mazar in the 1960s, revealed that the oasis was almost continuously occupied by Israelites and Jews for more than a thousand years. Along a street in the earliest occupation level, dating to the seventh-sixth centuries B.C., Mazar uncovered installations—including ovens—that he thought had been used to produce balsam oil. He also found large pithoi (barrel-shaped pottery jars) that may have been used as vessels for the rare perfume. “Ein Gedi,” Mazar concluded, “was a royal estate which ran this costly industry in the service of the king.”

After Ein Gedi was destroyed by the Babylonians in 582 B.C., other settlements sprouted up there. By Roman times, Ein Gedi had re-established its reputation as a perfume supplier. So famous were its balsam orchards that the Roman emperor Titus (79–81 A.D.), after conquering Ein Gedi, displayed branches from balsam trees in his triumphal march through Rome.

Perhaps the most impressive settlement was the Jewish community. At least by the fourth century A.D., according to the Palestinian bishop Eusebius (260–340 A.D.), Ein Gedi supported “a very large Jewish village”—one of the finest examples from antiquity. Hirschfeld found some 300 coins indicating Jewish habitation from the Hasmonean period through the mid-sixth century A.D. This 10-acre village once supported about 1,200 people, with houses and shops aligned on either side of a street. Plastered channels transported water from Ein Gedi’s fresh-water springs into the town. At the end of the main street is the synagogue, with its beautifully preserved mosaics—one of which enjoined residents to keep quiet about the town’s “secret” under threat of divine wrath.

026

The entrance to the village had a special gateway that, according to Jewish law (halachah), rendered the whole town reshut hayachid, or private property; this meant that on the Sabbath residents could carry items (such as food) outside their homes—a practice normally forbidden by halachah.

The balsam orchards at Ein Gedi graced the terraced slopes above the village, surrounding the tower—lending support to Hirschfeld’s assertion that the tower was a perfume-processing plant. In the tower’s forecourt were the remains of a furnace and some ash, perhaps residue from the distilling process used to produce balsam oil. Entire balsam trees were probably boiled in oil, such as olive oil, Hirschfeld told BAR. The mixture was then removed to the vat inside the tower, where the balsam oil drifted to the surface and flowed through the wall into the outer vat.

There is one problem with this theory, however. Unlike most resins, balsam has a specific gravity higher than that of water; this means that the oil, once separated, would sink to the bottom of the vat, rather than rise to the top. If Hirschfeld is right about the process of producing the oil, then, he may be wrong about its being balsam.

Hirschfeld had organic material from the terraced balsam orchard tested in a laboratory. “The results are disappointing,” he said. “They only found herbs and ordinary vegetable material.” So far there is no physical evidence of balsam oil from Ein Gedi.

The test results also dashed hopes, at least temporarily, that organic material from Ein Gedi might help identify a spectacular find of the late 1980s as also being balsam oil: the 2,000-year-old oil found near Qumran, on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, where many of the caves that housed the Dead Sea Scrolls are located. In one cave, excavators found a sealed pottery flask buried several feet beneath the cave floor; the oil in the flask had remained undisturbed, though it had lost its fragrance. Chemical tests determined that the oil is vegetable, but that it resembles no oil known today.

Despite these setbacks, Hirschfeld is convinced that balsam oil was associated with the “secret” Ein Gedi’s Jewish community has kept under wraps for 16 centuries. Asked if he’s worried that the curse might still remain in effect, Hirschfeld said, “We haven’t found it, really. We know they made balsam, but we’re not yet certain how they made it.”

That’s the mystery.

019

Seger Develops the Allergy

ASOR President Resigns from BAR Board

The newly elected president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Joe D. Seger, has resigned from BAR’s editorial advisory board after 17 years’ service. In a letter to BAR editor Hershel Shanks, Seger expressed the hope that “we will enjoy continuing personal and professional dialogue on an informal basis.”

Traditionally, ASOR presidents do not write for BAR. Although Eric Meyers wrote for BAR prior to assuming the ASOR presidency in 1992, he has not written since then. Before him, James Sauer, while ASOR president, did not appear with a BAR by-line. After leaving the ASOR presidency, however, Sauer recently did contribute to our pages.

BAR Challenges the Tabloids

Produce Your Scroll “Expert” or Stick with the Princess Diana Stories

In 1998, Jesus will be reborn—to a virgin in Idaho. A year later, scientists will conquer all diseases by concocting an elixir from olive pits. Then, in the millennial year 2000, will come the second Flood.

These revelations are recorded in Dead Sea Scrolls smuggled out of the Vatican, reports the tabloid Sun. Adopting a vicious anti-Catholic canard (see “Is the Vatican Suppressing the Dead Sea Scrolls,” BAR 17:06), the Sun says the Vatican deliberately kept the scrolls away from the public because church officials “deemed these prophesies too controversial and dangerous for the masses.”

The Sun resurrected “internationally-acclaimed expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls” Richard Higgins from anonymity to comment on the new find. “The suppressed scrolls contain information that could spell the end for organized religions and world governments,” Higgins is reported as saying.

The Biblical Archaeology Society offers the following challenges: If the Sun can produce copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls as described on pages 20–21 of its June 11, 1996 issue, BAS will donate $10,000 to the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, an institute in Warsaw, Indiana, dedicated to the preservation of the Scrolls. If the Sun can prove that there is a “an internationally acclaimed expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls” named Richard Higgins, BAS will donate another $10,000 to the same foundation. The judge is to be Kent Richards, executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature, the leading American organization of Bible scholars.

020

The Rich Get Richer

Getty Receives Private Collection of Greek and Roman Artifacts

New York collectors Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman have donated the bulk of their collection of Greek and Roman antiquities to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. The gift constitutes the largest donation of antiquities to an American museum since World War II. The Getty will also purchase several items from the Fleischmans to acquire, in all, about 300 artifacts.

Since they began collecting in 1951, the Fleischmans have gathered artifacts from ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria, in central Italy. The earliest piece, a head of a Cylcadic idol, dates to about 2600 B.C., while the most recent, a cameo, dates to about 400 A.D. The collection includes a fifth-century B.C. architectural ornament depicting a mythological maenad and silenus, followers of Dionysos, as they sweep along in a lively dance (above), and an Etruscan hand mirror, decorated with a hammered relief of the Gorgon Medusa (above right), featured in WorldWide, BAR 21:04. Many works, including painted vases, terracotta figurines and bronzes depicting comic actors, reflect the Fleischman’s interest in ancient theater.

The public was able to preview the Fleischman collection last year, during an exhibition at the Getty Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. But the artifacts will not be on view again until the Getty Villa in Malibu—which closes next year for renovation—reopens in the year 2000 as a center for archaeological research and conservation.

The Fleischmans have contributed to many museums, including the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vatican Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Art, but not, so far, to any museum in Israel.

Tell L.A.

California Museum Offers Mock Dig

Beneath the sands of sunny California lies an ancient Israelite settlement … Well, not exactly. But participants in a mock excavation conducted at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles may overlook the 10,000-mile difference as they pick up a shovel and uncover the simulated fortification walls, houses, road, cultic site with four-horned altar, olive-oil press and animal corral of a reconstructed Iron Age town.

The Skirball Cultural Center, which opened last spring, presents exhibitions, concerts and lectures relating to the American Jewish experience. Founded by Uri Herscher, of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, as an expansion of the college’s museum, the Cultural Center occupies 15 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains, just off the San Diego Freeway.

The 1,000-square-foot mock excavation site lies just outside the compound’s Discovery Center, a hive of hands-on archaeological offerings aimed at junior high students. So, when the hot Mediterranean (whoops! California) sun starts to discourage the novice diggers, they may wander inside the Discovery Center to explore a reconstruction of an eighth-century B.C. rock-cut tomb from Khirbet el-Kom, near Hebron, and examine the permanent collection of Roman glass, Iron Age ceramics and other artifacts, collected primarily by archaeologist Nelson Glueck, president of Hebrew Union College from 1947 to 1971. Visitors may also follow Arti Fact (drawing above), the animated cartoon star of the center’s own computer game, “Dig It,” as he explains the essentials of digging—from choosing a site to analyzing the finds.

The Discovery Center is open to anyone, but the mock excavation is now open only to school groups (preferably fourth to sixth grade, although one local college plans to teach archaeology students the rudiments of digging there). The center hopes to offer weekend digs to the general public this fall. For more information, call 310-440-4500. The Discovery Center is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursdays 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. It is closed Mondays.

022

From Shattered Legs to Archaeological Surveying on Foot

Farmer, economist, writer, soldier, archaeologist. This may not be a typical career path for a leading excavator, but it has proved fruitful for Adam Zertal, who has recently been named head of Haifa University’s Department of Archaeology. During his three-year term, the former kibbutz cowman will oversee 280 students and 30 staff members. He replaces Joseph Patrich in the position.

Raised on Kibbutz Ein-Shemer (about halfway between Haifa and Tel Aviv), Zertal worked as a typical farmer until he was about 30, with time out for army service in the elite paratrooper brigade. After studying economics, he served as kibbutz economist for three years and then brought his agronomic skills to the Central African Republic and Rwanda, where he headed an Israeli mission and worked as an agricultural economist from 1969–1972.

Upon returning to Israel, Zertal began to study archaeology at Tel Aviv University. But the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 threatened to cut his new career short after only a month of study. Zertal was posted as a captain near the Suez Canal and, during a heavy artillery attack, a shell exploded near the new bridge on the canal, severely injuring his legs. His doctor said he would never walk again.

As he underwent a series of operations at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, counselors from the Ministry of Defense visited Zertal to inform him that he was entitled to a free education in a field of his choice. But, they warned him, with his injuries he would probably only be fit for office work. Another visitor, however, offered hope. Archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir (who has since directed excavations at Beth Shean and Rehovot in the Negev) had sustained severe leg injuries in the 1967 Six-Day War and customarily visited other soldiers with serious leg injuries.

Zertal remembers the first time they met: About 11 o’clock one night, Tsafrir came into the room Zertal shared with seven other injured soldiers—and he began to dance. Tsafrir’s ability to master his disability (although he still walks with crutches) and his enthusiasm for archaeology encouraged Zertal to continue to study archaeology at Tel Aviv University, despite the Defense Ministry’s misgivings. Zertal began working with tutors while still in a cast and wheelchair.

By 1978, with the aid of aluminum crutches, Zertal started researching his master’s thesis—an archaeological field survey of the territory allotted, according to the Bible, to the tribe of Manasseh, in the northern Samarian hill country, in sight of the kibbutz where he grew up. As he systematically walked the region on his crutches, scouring every square meter of land for evidence of human habitation, Zertal discovered a massive pile of stones, sprinkled with Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.) potsherds, on Mt. Ebal, the highest peak (over 3,000 feet) in the area. After receiving his master’s degree from Tel Aviv University in 1980, Zertal continued his graduate studies by initiating a dig on Mt. Ebal. Beneath the pile of stones, he uncovered what he identified as a stone altar, measuring 10 feet high by 30 feet long and 23 feet wide, approached by a stone ramp and filled with wood, ash and the bones of sacrificed animals.^a Zertal dates the altar to the 13th or 12th century B.C. (the period when Israel emerged in Canaan) and related it to the Biblical tradition of Joshua constructing an altar on Mt. Ebal: “Then Joshua built an altar in Mount Ebal to the Lord, the God of Israel, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded … ’an altar of unhewn stones … ’ and they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord” (Joshua 8:30–31).

While some scholars debated his identification (Aharon Kempinski classified Zertal’s cult site as nothing more than an old farmhouse converted into a watchtower^b), most of them agreed it was a cultic place (Michael Coogan allowed it was a cult site, but suggested it may have been Canaanite^c). Benjamin Mazar, Israel Finkelstein, André Lemaire, Nadav Na’aman and others agreed.

Tel Aviv University awarded Zertal his Ph.D. and Haifa University offered him a teaching position, which he has held since 1982. The first of the five volumes on his survey of Manasseh was published in 1992; the second (842 pages) just appeared. He is working on a separate book devoted to his excavations of Mt. Ebal.

Today, Zertal continues to excavate in the region of Manasseh, at Tell el-Ahwat, on a high hill about 9 miles east of Caesarea. Again, he has uncovered remains dating from 1500–1000 B.C.—this time a large, heavily fortified place—and is piecing together the site’s startling history and cultural relationships, which he plans to reveal to BAR readers in an upcoming issue.

024

The Phoenicians’ Best Friend?

Dog Cemetery Found in Beirut

Archaeologists have uncovered a Phoenician dog cemetery, dating to the late Persian period (fifth century B.C.), in central Beirut. The burial ground contains the carcasses of eight dogs. Sherds of amphoras, or large storage jars, broken before burial, covered the dogs, and flint tools were carefully arranged on the chests of several of the animals. The bones have been sent to the University of Tübingen, in Germany, for chemical analysis to identify the species of dogs.

No temple or structure has been discovered near the burial, and excavator Helen Sader of the American University of Beirut told BAR she has “no idea” what deity may have been associated with the graves.

When the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and became the dominant imperial power in the Near East, they found allies in the Phoenicians, who provided their Persian overlords with naval power and wealth from around the Mediterranean. In return, Phoenicians from Tyre and Sidon gained control of the Mediterranean coast as far south as Ashkelon. A handful of dog burials have been discovered throughout the region—including the only other dog burial excavated in Lebanon, at Khalde, which also contained eight carcasses, and the most spectacular, excavated by Lawrence Stager at Ashkelon, which includes more than 1,000 carcasses. (See Lawrence Stager, “Why Were Hundreds of Dogs Buried at Ashkelon?” BAR 17:03.) The Ashkelon dogs, however, were buried without any flints or other grave goods.

Stager has proposed that the Ashkelon dog burials were related to the worship of the Phoenician healing deities Eshmoun and Resheph-Mukol. Perhaps because of the curative powers exhibited by dogs licking their sores and wounds, these animals were associated with healing in the ancient Near East.

Sader suggests, however, that if dogs were associated with these Phoenician healing deities, excavations at the main Phoenician sanctuary of Eshmoun, in Sidon, would have uncovered dog figurines or other evidence of this connection, but none was found.

Sader discovered the Beirut dog cemetery while excavating the glacis, or man-made ramp, that protected the Phoenician city. As Beirut begins to rebuild its war-ravaged center, Sader and other archaeologists are quickly conducting rescue digs to uncover the city’s 5,000 year history.

028

The New Barbarians

Tourists Descend on Petra Like Conquering Armies of Old

Hidden among the dry river valleys south of the Dead Sea, in Jordan, Petra lay for centuries in relative neglect. In fact, when the ancient city was used as the setting for the dramatic climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, many viewers simply assumed it was one of director Steven Spielberg’s elaborate special effects.

Not anymore. The October 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, which opened up the borders between the two countries, has let the site out of the bag, so to speak.

Petra now receives some 4,000 visitors a day, compared to 700 a day in 1995, according to the news magazine Jerusalem Report. And the numbers keep on growing. Many of the tourists are Israelis, making respectable what used to be a popular sport, especially among young men about to enter the military—crossing into Jordan under the cover of night and sneaking into Petra.

Israeli tourists are joined by thousands of Europeans and Americans; every day this modern caravan, cameras and guidebooks in hand, descends on the desert city carved into the cliffs by Nabatean traders more than 2,000 years ago.

At first alarmed Jordanian officials tried to stop the onslaught. When that didn’t work, they changed horses and began to encourage visitors. Now Jordan is reaping the economic benefits of housing one of the Middle East’s star attractions. Just two years ago, the neighboring bedouin township of Wadi Mussa (population 22,000) boasted only three hostelries. Now it has 32 hotels, mostly stylish 4- and 5-star establishments, to accommodate the hordes of tourists arriving to see this stone spectacle. Is a Petra Hard Rock Cafe far behind?

Black Market Watch

Antiquities Market Awash with Iraqi Artifacts

Ancient Mesopotamian artifacts, ranging from the diminutive to the monumental and coming from a variety of sources, are flooding the world’s antiquities markets. Especially well represented are small, beautifully carved cylinder seals, which served as the ancient equivalent of signet rings. Their small size (typically an inch long and half an inch in diameter) makes them easy to conceal and to transport illegally.

The turmoil unleashed by the Persian Gulf War and the subsequent United Nations embargo against Iraq have loosed an open season on Mesopotamian antiquities. Valuable items are missing from Iraqi museums—thanks, some charge, to officials who are turning a blind eye to widescale theft or are involved with it themselves—and middle-class Iraqis hard-pressed by the economic boycott are engaged in a sell-off of family heirlooms.

But it is not only the easily concealable cylinder seals that are flowing out of Iraq. According to a June 23, 1996, article in the New York Times, Columbia University art historian and archaeologist John M. Russell reports that parts of three large reliefs from the throne room of Sennacherib’s Palace in Nineveh that he photographed in 1990 are now on the international market.

McGuire Gibson, a specialist on Mesopotamian art and archaeology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, who dug in Iraq from 1964 until the 1991 Gulf War, told the Times, “For decades, the Iraqis kept a very tight lid on stuff, and there was very, very little getting out. After the war, the selling started. Now stuff is just pouring out. They are selling everything. If this continues, there won’t be an archaeological site 029left that won’t be damaged.”

Although no exact account is available, the vast quantity of artifacts stolen from hundreds of museums, removed from thousands of archaeological sites and pouring from the homes of private Iraqis suggests that the value of antiquities illegally smuggled out of Iraq rests comfortably in the millions of dollars. Some of the more notable pieces can fetch up to $50,000 though typical prices range between $1,000 and $5,000; the Times report names London, New York and Tokyo as the centers of the trade in Mesopotamian antiquities.

Many believe that the majority of the sellers are looters and grave robbers, working alone or in tandem with international smugglers. This charge has even elicited criticism of the U.S. government’s sanctions against Iraq; some claim it is the average Iraqi who is suffering, while the politicians and soldiers most guilty of defying international policies are prospering through illegal smuggling.

American officials blame the Iraqi government, which they charge with “compounding the economic and material hardship [of Iraqis] with psychological and cultural suffering,” in the words of James P. Rubin, spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, paints the Kurds, engaged in continual rebellion against the central Iraqi government, as the principal culprits.

Regardless of where the blame is directed, the records of some of the earth’s oldest civilizations—the primary sources of our knowledge of Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian culture and history—are quickly disappearing from Iraq and resurfacing in the antiqutities markets of New York, Tokyo and London.

026

Mark Your Calendar

Exhibitions

Preserving Ancient Statues from Jordan

July 28, 1996 to April 6, 1997

Eight examples of some of the oldest human sculptures in the Near East, from Jordan.

The Gods of War: Sacred Imagery and the Decoration of Arms and Armor

Fall 1996

Explores the use of various religious and talismanic symbols, words and phrases on the armory of the Middle and Far East.

The Royal Women of Amarna

October 8, 1996 to February 2, 1997

An international collection of sculptures, reliefs and objects—including a dozen sculptures of Queen Nefertiti, her daughters and other royal women—demonstrate the transformation of the ancient Egyptian ideal of female beauty during the Amarna period (1353–1336 B.C.).

Discovery and Deceit: Archaeology and the Forger’s Craft

October 11, 1996 to January 5, 1997

Detectives needed. Half of the nearly 200 Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek and Roman “antiquities” in this traveling exhibit are counterfeit.. Explore why forgeries are made and what types are most frequently encountered.

Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt

October 20, 1996 to January 5, 1997

Examine the roles ancient Egyptian women played, as servant, priestess or queen. Portrayals of Egyptian queens, as well as gold, silver and faience jewelry, are among the exhibit’s 250 art objects.

Study Tours

It’s tour season at BAS. Call (202) 364-3300 for more information on any of the entries below:

Turkey—Crossroads of the World Tour

October 4 to 20, 1996

Visit Istanbul, Ephesus, Sardis, Lesbos and Troy with Avner Goren. September 15, flexible deadline.

Mediterranean Cruise

October 12 to 20, 1996

Joseph A. Greene lectures on “Phoenicians in the Western Mediterranean” during a 7-night cruise from Genoa, Italy, to Tunis, Tunisia, to Barcelona, Spain, to Marseilles, France. September 15, flexible deadline.

Las Vegas Study Seminar

October 28 to 30, 1996

Take a gamble and learn as Barry Beitzel, James VanderKam and Dan Schowalter lecture on the Bible and archaeology. October 15, flexible deadline.

Egypt and Nile Cruise

November 1 to 17, 1996

Visit the pyramids in Cairo, the Valley of the Kings at Thebes and the Temple of Karnak. Cruise the Nile from Abu Simbel to Dendera with Avner Goren. October 15, flexible deadline.

Israel—The Land, Its People, Its History

November 6 to 17, 1996

Gabriel Barkay leads this exploration from Jerusalem and Masada to the Galilee. October 15, flexible deadline.

November 21 to 23, 1996

New Orleans Study Seminar

Enjoy Cajun cooking and jazz while learning from James Tabor, Michael Wise and Martin Abegg, as they lecture on Bible and archaeology. Precedes the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion. October 15, flexible deadline.

018

What Is It?

A. Ceremonial axe head

B. Ivory earring

C. Handcuffs

D. Game board

E. Pasta maker

028

What It Is, Is …

D. A game board.

Players once raced their pegged playing pieces across this ivory board for the Game of 58 Holes, rolling dice to determine how many holes they could advance each turn.

Archaeologists discovered the board in 1937 in the sunken treasury of a Late Bronze Age (1550–1150 B.C.) palace at Megiddo. The treasury contained about 400 other ivories, including at least five of these popular game boards and numerous playing pieces, jewelry, animal bones, and golden studs that may have topped the playing pieces, but no dice. (See Hershel Shanks, “Ancient Ivory—The Story of Wealth, Decadence and Beauty,” BAR 11:05.)

The Balm of Gilead

Is Ein Gedi’s Long Lost “Secret” Revealed in a Newly Excavated Tower?