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Israeli Archaeologists Support Sale of Artifacts

A new organization of nearly 200 professional Israeli archaeologists, the Association of Archaeologists in Israel (AAI), has asked the director of the Israel Department of Antiquities, Avi Eitan, to consider selling antiquities. According to an AAI newsletter, the storerooms of the department are “overflowing.” No response has yet been received from Director Eitan.

The purpose of such a sale, according to the AAI resolution, would be to reduce illegal excavations by providing the market with genuine antiquities that are fully authenticated but unneeded for scientific purposes. There would then be less economic incentive to the illegal diggers. The money from the sale by the Department of Antiquities would be used to support excavations and to restore sites already excavated, according to the AAI resolution.

The AAI position is almost identical to the position being urged by BAR (see “BARview: A Radical Proposal: Archaeologists Should Sell Ancient Artifacts,” BAR 11:01, and “BARview: Dubitante No More—BAR to Accept Ads for Near Eastern Antiquities,” in this issue).

Should We Stop Digging for a While?

Jacqueline Balensi has been doing a different kind of digging. She is studying the settlement at the ancient harbor at Haifa, Israel. What little is left of it is known as Tell Abu Hawam. But Dr. Balensi, who is a chargé de recherche at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, stationed at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem, is not out in the field with a pick and shovel. She spends much of her time digging in the basement of Jerusalem’s Rockefeller Museum. That’s where Tell Abu Hawam artifacts dug up over 50 years ago are stored, together with a series of excavators’ field notes. Balensi has been digging here for over seven years now and the results are beginning to come out.

In one of her recent reports, Balensi observes:¹

“All archaeological storerooms are stuffed with rich but unstudied material that might provide long-awaited answers and raise fruitful new questions. Our efforts should now be directed to these museum basements to process some 50 years of unpublished discoveries in the Holy Land.”

Neusner Decides Not to Sue

Professor Jacob Neusner of Brown University has decided not to sue BAR over its coverage of the annual meetings (“BARview: Annual Meetings Offer Intellectual Bazaar and Moments of High Drama,” BAR 11:02). In its coverage, BAR reported that Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University announced his concurrence with the late Professor Saul Lieberman of the Jewish Theological Seminary that Professor Neusner’s preliminary translation of the Palestinian Talmud should be consigned to the wastebasket.

Professor Neusner has also decided not to sue the estate of Professor Lieberman. Professor Neusner has not yet decided if he will sue Professor Smith.

Still More Dig Opportunities

Two excavations this autumn may interest those who will be in Israel after the peak summer digging season.

Banias

This ancient town of the Hellenistic through Crusader periods is located near one of the sources of the Jordan River at the foot of Mt. Hermon in the Golan Heights.

Volunteers work a minimum of two weeks in September and October and stay at the Tel Hai Youth Hostel. The cost of the dig has not yet been determined.

For more information, write to Dr. Vassilios Tzaferis, Israel Department of Antiquities, POB 586, Jerusalem 91004, Israel.

Tel Kinneret

Excavation at this site on the banks of the Sea of Galilee will investigate Iron Age II (1000–586 B.C.) remains. Volunteers are accepted for a minimum of three weeks between September 1 and October 12. The registration fee of $100 includes housing at the Karei-Desheh Youth Hostel. The dig, headed by Dr. Volkmar Fritz of the Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie der Johannes Gutenberg Universitat, will include semi-weekly lectures (in English) on Biblical archaeology.

For more information, write to Dr. Volkmar Fritz, Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie der Johannes Gutenberg Universitat, Postfach 3980, 6500 Mainz 1, West Germany.

Institute of Holy Land Studies Commemorates Anniversary

The Institute for Holy Land Studies, located on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, celebrated its 25th anniversary in November, 1984.

G. Douglas Young founded the Institute in 1959 to “create a Christian window on Israel.” From the start, the goals of the Institute were to open a dialogue between Jews and Christians and to encourage Christians to explore their roots in Israel. To achieve these goals, Jews and Christians, Israelis and Americans have served on the faculty of the Institute, bringing to it an understanding of both modern and ancient Israel.

At the anniversary celebration last November, George Giacumakis, who serves on BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board and who has been the director of the Institute 010since Young’s death in 1978, officially resigned his post to return to academic duties in the United States. The new interim director is Peter Veltman.

The Institute has some 5,000 alumni, and approximately 90 Bible colleges, seminaries and liberal arts colleges are associated schools of the Institute. The Institute offers three-week short courses, semester and year-abroad programs, and M.A. degrees in Hebrew, historical geography of ancient Israel, and Middle Eastern studies. Its American offices are located in Highland Park, Illinois.

Pettinato, Malamat and Ben-Tor to Teach in U.S.

Giovanni Pettinato, Abraham Malamat and Amnon Ben-Tor will be teaching at American universities beginning this fall.

Pettinato, perhaps best known for his controversial work as the first epigrapher of the Ebla tablets from 1974 to 1980, has been a professor of Assyriology at the University of Rome since 1974. He has published extensively on the Ebla tablets, including “Ebla and the Bible—Observations on the New Epigrapher’s Analysis,” BAR 06:06. Pettinato will be spending the fall semester as a senior fellow of the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, where he will teach a course on international trade, markets and politics in the ancient Near East.

Abraham Malamat, chairman of the department of Jewish history at Hebrew University, will be the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies at Yale University. An expert on Mari and the Bible, Malamat has written twice for BAR (“The First Peace Treaty Between Israel and Egypt,” BAR 05:05, and“How Inferior Israelite Forces Conquered Fortified Canaanite Cities,” BAR 08:02). He will be at Yale for one year.

Also at Yale, Amnon Ben-Tor, associate professor in archaeology at Hebrew University, will be the Jacob Perlow Fellow in Judaic Studies and the Humanities for the year 1985–1986. Ben-Tor is a director of the Yoqne’am Regional Project excavations in Israel’s Jezreel Valley and is the author of “The Regional Study—A New Approach to Archaeological Investigation,” BAR 06:02. He has excavated at major sites in Israel, including Hazor, Ein Gedi, Masada, Arad, Tel Yarmuth, Azor and Horvat Uza, and at Athienou in Cyprus.

Geraty Named Associate Editor of Biblical Archaeologist

Lawrence Geraty, a member of BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board and professor of Old Testament and archaeology at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, has been named associate editor of the magazine Biblical Archaeologist.

Biblical Archaeologist is a semi-scholarly quarterly published by the American Schools of Oriental Research and is edited by Eric Meyers of Duke University.

Geraty directed the first phase of excavations at Tell Heshbon in Jordan. He is currently leading an excavation at Tell Umeiri near Amman.

Corrections

In “Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal,” BAR 11:01, the maps located Mt. Gerizim west of Mt. Ebal. Mt. Gerizim should have been located south of Mt. Ebal.

In that same issue, in Inside BAR, we incorrectly reported that Adam Zertal, the excavator of the Ebal altar, studied at Haifa University. Zertal studied at the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. However he teaches at Haifa University.

“Lighting the Way Through History,” BAR 11:02, contained several errors for which the author is not responsible. We stated that the Byzantine period was said to have lasted from the third to seventh centuries A.D.; the Byzantine period began in the fourth century. In the captions for the mold-made Roman lamps, the dates should have read third to fifth centuries A.D. The Christian-era lamp is described as having a picture of “a seven-branched menorah” on it. This design is probably a palm branch. However, the author, Varda Sussman, points out that in many examples of this type of lamp, the design does, in fact, resemble a seven-branched menorah and that this resemblance has caused the lamps to be dubbed “candlestick lamps.”

The caption to the multi-nozzle lamp should have said “Nine nozzles radiate from a hollow ring. … ”

In the review of The Symbolism of the Biblical World (Books in Brief, BAR 11:03), the translator should have read Timothy J. Hallet. The book was published by Crossroad in 1981.

Israeli Archaeologists Support Sale of Artifacts