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Rodman Makes Gift to Excavate Israelite Well at Arad

Morris Rodman, a prominent Washington, D. C., philanthropist, has donated $5,000 to the Biblical Archaeology Society to complete the excavation of the Israelite well at Arad and to reconstruct some ancient houses nearby.

Israeli archaeologists Ruth Amiran and Rudolph Cohen are now excavating the Israelite well, located in the Early Bronze Age area of Arad. This well is situated in the center of the Canaanite city, in the same location that was occupied by the water reservoir of that city about 1,600–1,800 years before the well. The Israelites inhabiting the fortress on the hill above the Canaanite city dug the well. The well water was then used to fill the cistern within the fortress walls. The well went out of use with the destruction of the fortress in 586 B.C.; during the Herodian period it was reused.

The well was discovered four years ago during the 14th season of excavations at Arad, when the archaeologists came upon a fragment of the well’s stone lining. The excavators have already dug down 52 ½ feet, and they do not know how much deeper they will have to go before they reach the bottom. The excavation has long been hampered by lack of funds. Moreover, excavating the well requires special equipment because of the depth and narrowness of the well’s vertical sides and the concomitant dangers.

Archaeologist Cohen was delighted with the gift, “It couldn’t have come at a better time.” Amiran added, “I am hopeful that Mr. Rodman’s generosity will enable us to get to the bottom of this unique ancient well. Nothing like it has been discovered before.”

Mr. Rodman has previously made significant contributions to Biblical Archaeology Society projects to restore 008Herodian Jericho and Biblical Ebenezer (Izbet Sartah).^a

“I believe more in the present than in the past,” Mr. Rodman said in making the gift to Arad, “but we cannot build in the present unless we understand and appreciate our past. This is what inspires us.”

BAS and Smithsonian Co-Sponsor Cross Lecture

“The Invention of the Alphabet” will be the topic of a lecture by Professor Frank Moore Cross at the Smithsonian Institution on October 24, 1984. The lecture is the second of two Smithsonian events co-sponsored with the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS).

Cross, who is Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, will trace the development of the alphabet back 4,000 years. Every later alphabet, including our own, derives from 27 or 28 phonetic symbols invented by Semitic people in Canaan in about the 18th or 17th centuries B.C. Although only a few inscriptions have been found in this alphabet in Canaan, many inscriptions in an identical alphabet have been discovered in Sinai. The Canaanite version of the alphabet is called proto-Canaanite and the Sinai version is referred to as proto-Sinaitic. (In the July/August BAR, photographs showed examples of the earliest alphabet inscribed on walls of turquoise mines in Sinai.)

Using slides to illustrate his lecture, Professor Cross will discuss the importance of the shift from cumbersome hieroglyphic and cuneiform systems to the simpler forms of this phonetic alphabet. With an alphabet, a person could easily learn to read or write in a relatively short period of time. Previously, literacy was limited to scribes who spent years mastering hundreds and even thousands of signs, each standing for a particular word, syllable, letter or non-phonetic guide to meaning. The spread of literacy brought about by the invention of the alphabet resulted in an unprecedented democratization of higher culture as more knowledge became available to more people.

Cross’s Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) is already a classic. He is a winner of a 1984 BAS Publication Award for Most Significant Article on Archaeology and the Bible. Cross is also a frequent BAR contributor^b and is preparing a major article for the premier issue of BAS’s new magazine Bible Review.

Cross’s lecture will be held in Baird Auditorium of the Natural History Building at 8 p.m. The cost is $5 for BAS members (all BAR subscribers are BAS members) and Smithsonian Resident Associates and $6.50 for nonmembers. For further information, write to the Smithsonian’s Resident Associates Program or phone (202) 357–3030.

“Homage to Albright” Symposium Scheduled

Famed for the breadth of his knowledge, as well as for the quality of his insights, William F. Albright dominated the field of Biblical archaeology until his death in 1971.

Professor at Johns Hopkins University, first vice-president of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), director of the ASOR school in Jerusalem, editor of ASOR’s scholarly journal—these were but a few of the positions Albright held during his long career.

Many of Albright’s former students are now leading scholars. Five of these scholars will participate in a symposium, “Homage to Albright,” sponsored by the American Friends of the Israel Exploration Society (AFIES), to be held October 21 at the Jewish Community Center in Rockville. The program (scheduled to run from 1:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.) will begin with a panel discussion, “Albright as Seen by His Students.” Then Delbert Hillers of Johns Hopkins will discuss “Albright’s Contribution to Philology.” Frank Moore Cross of Harvard will lecture on “Albright’s Contribution to Paleography and Epigraphy.” Gus Van Beek, Curator of Old World Archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution, will speak on “Albright’s Contribution to Archaeology.” David Noel Freedman of the University of Michigan will describe “Albright’s Contribution to Historical Studies.” Samuel Iwry of Johns Hopkins and Baltimore Hebrew College will talk on “Albright’s Contribution to Biblical Studies.” The program will conclude with a panel discussion on “The Present Status of Albright’s Contributions and the Future of these Fields.”

Admission to the symposium is free, but due to limited seating capacity, tickets must be ordered in advance. A buffet dinner will be held at the Community Center. The cost of the dinner is $6.00 for members of BAS (all subscribers to BAR are members of BAS) and AFIES, $8.00 for others. Address requests for tickets (maximum two per request) and dinner reservations to the Jewish Community Center, 6125 Montrose Road, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Community Center. All requests should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Artifacts from Land and Sea at Harvard Semitic Museum

Two hundred archaeological treasures from Israel, the result of recent excavations on land and in the waters off Haifa’s coast, are now displayed in a major exhibit, “Crossroads of the Ancient World: Israel’s Archaeological Heritage,” at the Harvard Semitic Museum. The collection spans 2,500 years, dating from about 1800 B.C. to the Moslem conquest in 640 A.D. The exhibit will continue through December 1984 and will move to Emory University in Atlanta in the spring of 1985.

“Crossroads of the Ancient World” illustrates ancient Israel’s strategic location in the complex maritime trade network connecting peoples of the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia. A major part of the exhibit is devoted to the subjects of seafaring in antiquity, Israelite involvement in maritime trade, and the establishment of naval traditions. Another section of the exhibit focuses on the finds made by archaeologists on land near Haifa, at the ancient settlement of Shikmona, where Mount Carmel and the Mediterranean meet. The artifacts unearthed attest to a mixture of cultures, a degree of prosperity, and at times, 010high artistic achievement.

Recently, growing ranks of archaeologists in scuba gear have turned their specialized equipment and skills to investigations of the Mediterranean’s coastal waters. Chance finds, such as ancient amphorae hauled up in fishermen’s nets, have sparked the development of marine archaeology in Israel. In the past 20 years, underwater archaeologists have excavated scores of submerged sites, many of them shipwrecks that still held cargoes thousands of years old. Examination of harbor installations, partly submerged settlements, and prehistoric caves have provided evidence of maritime activity in the Mediterranean possibly extending back more than 10,000 years.

Some of the outstanding finds in the Harvard Semitic Museum exhibit are from the sea: a 4,000-year-old stone anchor; a Roman sailor’s lead cooking furnace; tin, lead and copper ingots; mass-produced Phoenician goddess figurines; an ancient “hand grenade”; and a full-size replica of a bronze, three-pronged warship battering ram, the first ever found intact. The original ram remains in the Haifa Museum.

“Crossroads of the Ancient World” was organized by the San Francisco-Haifa Sister City Committee to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. The artifacts are from the collections of the Haifa Museum of Ancient Art, the National Maritime Museum, and the Center for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa. A pamphlet and an exhibit booklet are available at the museum.

The Harvard Semitic Museum is located at 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Museum hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Guided group tours are available by reservation. For further information, call (617) 459–3123.

Moshe Held Dies

Moshe Held, longtime professor of Semitic languages and cultures at Columbia University and adjunct professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, died on June 9 in Beersheba, Israel. Born in Warsaw, and a graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Held utilized the relationship between Eastern and Western Semitic languages to illuminate the world of the Bible. He will be particularly missed among linguistic scholars for his understanding of the Tell el ‘Amarna letters and his work in Assyriology. Dr. Held was 60 years old.

Correction

The photograph of the mountains of southern Sinai on pp. 50–51 of the July/August 1984 was taken by Richard Nowitz. The subject was mistakenly credited to Helfried Weyer, whose work appears elsewhere in that issue.

Rodman Makes Gift to Excavate Israelite Well at Arad