BARlines
Ze’ev Meshel Joins BAR Board
With great pleasure BAR welcomes the distinguished Israeli archaeologist, Ze’ev Meshel, to the Editorial Advisory Board. Meshel, an assistant professor at the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, is well-known for his work at Kuntillet Ajrud. In that early eighth century B.C. Judean outpost in the Sinai desert Meshel found a treasure of Hebrew and Phoenician religious inscriptions and drawings. His article “Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” BAR 05:02, detailed and illustrated the rich and extraordinary material found at the remote desert waystation.
Meshel, a recent research fellow at Harvard University, has also examined the pottery collection excavated by Nelson Glueck fifty years ago at Tell el-Kheleifeh, a site Glueck believed was Biblical Ezion-Geber, the port of Solomon.
Still More Dig Information for Summer 1982
The Land of Gerar Project, directed by Eliezer Oren and sponsored by Ben Gurion University of the Negev, will break ground July 19, 1982. The five-week season continues until August 20, 1982 and includes an optional eight-credit academic program. Excavation will center on Tel Haror, a 40-acre mound occupied almost continuously from the Chalcolithic Period through the Iron Age—possibly the Biblical city of Gerar (Genesis 20–26). The expedition is based in the modern dormitory complex of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, with ample dining, swimming and tennis facilities. For more information, write to Dr. Martha A. Morrison, Rabb 141, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254. Phone: (617) 647–2638.
El-Ras in the Malha area of Jerusalem, an agricultural installation dating to the Canaanite and First and Second Temple periods, will be excavated July 4–30, 1982. Volunteers at least 16 years old are welcome to participate a minimum of two weeks. The dig is part of an on-going study of ancient agriculture and settlements around Jerusalem. The directors of the dig may be contacted for further information: Joseph Gatt, Department of Antiquities, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; or Gershon Edelstein, P.O. Box 586, Jerusalem 91004, Israel.
Biblical Shiloh, an Iron Age I Israelite encampment north of Jerusalem, will be excavated from July 11 to August 20, 1982. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and willing to participate a minimum of one week. Accommodations at modern Shiloh cost about $15 per day. Field trips, lectures, and academic credit will be available. Contact field director, Israel Finkelstein, Department of Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Aviv, Israel.
The Dor Underwater Survey, for qualified divers only, will explore marine construction and archaeological remains from the Middle Bronze Age to the Byzantine period. Although exact dates are not yet known, the season will begin at the end of June. Write to: Dr. Dan McCaslin, Marine Science Institute, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. Phone (805) 964–8582.
Hamat Gader, the site of a Roman spa and hot baths on the Sea of Galilee, will be excavated by Yizhar Hirschfeld and Giora Solar of Israel’s Department of Antiquities from August 22 to September 16, 1982. Volunteers must be at least 16 years old and must participate in at least one week of the four-week session. Air-conditioned accommodations at the Ha’On campsite cost $12 per day. For details, write: Giora Solar, 4 Paran Street, Jerusalem 97802, Israel; or Yizhar Hirschfeld, 22 Radak Street, Jerusalem 92186, Israel.
“Israel in Antiquity” at Jewish Museum
This June, visitors to the Jewish Museum in New York City will be able to view a new exhibit drawn from the Ratner Collection of 180 objects from ancient Israel and called “Israel in Antiquity.” The collection recently completed a three-year tour of the United States under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution.
Despite the very general name, the exhibit focuses on two locations and eras in Israel’s history: Lachish during the Iron Age and Jerusalem during the period of the Second Temple. The imaginative exhibit will invite visitors into a reconstruction of a sanctuary and a home from Lachish. Then visitors will walk through a small corridor representing the exile to Babylon and emerge in a vastly different world, one profoundly influenced by Hellenistic civilization. A reconstructed Herodian house from Jerusalem and a photo mural of a Second Temple model will dominate this gallery.
Objects displayed in situ, as it were, include a four-horned altar, Hellenistic glass unguent bottles, a string of 3,000-year-old carnelian beads and roof tiles from the synagogue at Dura-Europos.
Donated by Betty and Max Ratner of Cleveland, Ohio, the Ratner Collection and “Israel in Antiquity” will comprise a permanent exhibit of the Jewish Museum.
Nominations for Scholars Directory
Scholars and academicians who wish to be considered for nomination for inclusion in the Directory of American Scholars should send an appropriate curriculum vitae to BAR, in care of the editor.
The Directory of American Scholars, eighth edition, will be published in November 1982. Like the seventh edition, it will consist of four companion volumes I-History, II-English, Speech and Drama, III-Foreign Languages, Linguistics and Philology, IV-Philosophy, Religion and Law.
The publisher, Jaques Cattell Press in Tempe, Arizona, has asked the Biblical Archaeology Society to nominate qualified scholars for inclusion in the directory. There is no obligation involved, nor any charge for inclusion in the directory.
Corrections
For our subscribers who keep back issues, we would like to correct our error in the March/April 1982 BAR, in Abraham Malamat’s article, “How Inferior Israelite Forces Conquered Fortified Canaanite Cities,” BAR 08:02. Please read, “This, then, is another instance of the ‘conditioning’ we noted at Jericho, in which repetitive moves are designed to lull the enemy into a false sense of security.”
In the heading to the obituary of Professor D. Glenn Rose in the March/April issue (