BARlines

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Sumer Event

Samuel Noah Kramer Leads Sumer Symposium

“The Sumerians: Four Days in May,” a celebration of a lifetime of scholarship, will feature the eminent scholar, Samuel Noah Kramer. From May 8 to 11, 1987, at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, California, Dr. Kramer will share his vast knowledge about Sumer—the world’s first great civilization, whose legacy is with us in our own time.

Using the “master class” format usually reserved for great performing artists, Kramer will give participants an intensive experience with Sumerology. Other noted scholars will participate in the master class. In addition, the West Coast premiere of “Inanna,” a 4,500-year-old Sumerian myth about the great Love Goddess and her spouse Dumuzi, will be presented during the program.

The co-sponsor with Pepperdine University of “Four Days in May” is the California Museum of Ancient Art (CMAA). The museum—with major holdings of Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Holy Land Art—is building a center in Los Angeles for the appreciation and study of the cultures that are the foundations of Western Civilization.

CMAA has an active membership and volunteer organization and invites distinguished scholars to Los Angeles to lecture as part of its International Scholars’ Forum. The museum publishes Ancient News four times a year. Those interested in finding out more about membership in CMAA or about the Kramer symposium should write to: California Museum of Ancient Art, P.O. Box 10515, Beverly Hills, CA 90213, or phone: (818) 762–5500.

Notice

Antiquities Dealer Files for Bankruptcy

Fayez Barakat of the Barakat Gallery has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the United States bankruptcy laws. The Barakat Gallery has stores in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Beverly Hills, California. The gallery has recently been soliciting orders for Volume Two of its expensive color catalogue.

Digs Seek Volunteers

The following information arrived too late to be included in “Excavation Opportunities 1987,” BAR 13:01. Eighteen digs were described in that issue, which may be obtained by sending $4.00 to the Biblical Archaeology Society, 3000 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008.

Tel Yarmuth

Located about 12 miles west of Bethlehem, Yarmuth is one of the five Amorite cities whose armies were defeated at the Battle of Aijalon where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still (Joshua 10:12–14).

Excavations reveal that Yarmuth was founded at the beginning of the third millennium B.C., making it one of the oldest sites in Israel. Well-preserved Early Bronze Age (3200–2300 B.C.) architectural remains, including a monumental fortification system, a residential quarter and an industrial area complete with kilns, were uncovered in past seasons.

From July 6 through August 14, volunteers will excavate Early Bronze strata, clear the fortification system and investigate the Israelite fortress on the city’s acropolis. Fees are expected to run about $100 per week. Volunteers willing to stay at least two weeks will be housed at a campsite in Emmaus. No academic credit is offered.

For more information, contact Pierre de Miroschedji, Director, Tel Yarmuth Archaeological Expedition, P.O. Box 547, Jerusalem 91004, Israel. Tel: (02) 248–788 or (02) 221–982.

Shiqmim

This 23-acre site is one of the largest Chalcolithic (c. 4500 to 3200 B.C.) villages in the Negev. The excavation season will run from September to October; exact dates are yet to be fixed. Volunteers are required to stay at least two weeks. The $20 registration fee covers meals and campsite accommodations.

For more information, contact Thomas Levy, P.O. Box 19096, Jerusalem 91190, Israel. Tel: (02) 288–956.

Tel Kabri

Spread over more than 79 acres, Tel Kabri is one of the largest Bronze Age sites in Israel. Kabri reached its zenith in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1600 B.C.) when the Canaanite city was fortified by a huge earthen rampart and city wall.

During July and August, volunteers will expand excavations of the Canaanite city and investigate the remains of the small Phoenician settlement that succeeded it. Applicants should be at least 18 years old. Registration is $20; cost for food and lodging at a campsite near Kibbutz Kabri is $5 per day for individuals and $8 for groups. Minimum stay is three weeks. Academic credit is offered.

Contact: Elli Miron, Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Tell Halif

Located on the arid edge of the northern Negev desert, about 12 miles north of Beer-Sheba, Halif nevertheless sustained almost continuous occupation from the fourth millennium B.C. through the Roman/Byzantine period because of its strategic location along a main inland trade route. Halif has been identified with the Biblical cities of Ziklag and Rimmon, both mentioned in the town lists of southern Judea in Joshua 15. During the Israelite period, Halif was one of the southernmost fortified cities of the Judean kingdom.

The excavation season begins June 21 and ends July 31. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and are required to stay the entire six-week period. Expenses include a $25 application fee and a contribution of $795 toward project expenses. Academic credit is offered through Mississippi State University and other consortium members. Volunteers 006may register to participate in a field school run on-site.

For more information, contact Joe D. Seger, Cobb Institute of Archaeology, Drawer AR, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762. Tel: (601) 325–3826.

Nahal Yatrir

The second season of digging at Nahal Yattir in the Negev Desert begins July 18, 1987, and continues until August 15. Understanding village life in the time of Saul, David and Solomon, the 11th and 10th centuries B.C., is the goal of the expedition sponsored by Hamline University, the Negev Museum and the Israel Department of Antiquities.

The excavation team will stay at the Beit Yatziv Hostel in Beer-Sheba. The hostel offers four-person rooms (each with a bathroom) and recreation and pool facilities. Accomodations for couples are also available. Lectures and field trips—to Jerusalem, Tiberias, Haifa, Arad, Masada, and other sites—are offered. Participation costs $1995, plus $85 for those receiving college credit.

For details, write to Dr. Steven Derfler, Department of Religion, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN 55104.

Shuni

If you’re willing to work at least two weeks you can help restore a Roman theater at Shuni, just six miles from Caesarea, the Mediterranean port city built by Herod the Great. Board and room (in tents) costs $10 a day, and the season runs from July through August. For more information, write to Mr. Eli Shenhav, Jewish National Fund, 11 Zvi Shapira Street, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Dahood Competition

Winners Learned of Contest in BAR

Robert J. Ratner, assistant professor of religion at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and Bruce Zuckerman, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Religion, are the winners of the 1986 Mitchell Dahood Memorial Competition for their essay “A Kid in Milk?: New Photographs of KTU 1.23, Line 14.”

Ratner writes that the winners learned of the competition from an announcement in BARlines. “We read our prize-winning essay at the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Atlanta and picked up our checks—all thanks to BAR.” The authors receive $1,000.

Ratner and Zuckerman based their scholarly paper on work originally done for a popular article they wrote for the Fall 1985 Bible Review, titled “On Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscription—Two ‘Lowly’ Epigraphers Speak Out,” BR 01:03. Both articles deal with a controversial 14th-century B.C. Ugaritic inscription, long cited by scholars as referring to a Canaanite practice of cooking a kid in milk. The conclusion was then drawn that it was this practice that was prohibited by the Jewish dietary laws forbidding the mixing of meat and milk products. Ratner and Zuckerman read the controversial line completely differently, as “coriander in milk, mint in curds,” thus severing its alleged connection with Jewish dietary laws.

The Dahood Prize was established in memory of the late Mitchell Dahood, a distinguished Ugaritic scholar who taught at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute.

The competition’s topic for 1987 is “Northwest Semitic Studies of the Hebrew Bible.” The Dahood competition is open to all qualified junior faculty and graduate students who have not reached their 40th birthday by December 31, 1986. In addition, applicants must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree, or be in the final stages of completing such a degree, and be recommended by an established senior scholar. All entries must be received by March 20, 1987.

The contest is sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature and Doubleday and Company. The competition committee consists of Frank Moore Cross, Jr., Harvard University; Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Princeton Theological Seminary; and Marvin H. Pope, Yale University. David Noel Freedman of the University of Michigan serves as the committee’s secretary.

Queries, nominations and submissions should be sent to Professor David Noel Freedman, Program on Studies in Religion, 445 W. Engineering Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

Correction

In “Excavating in the Shadow of the Temple Mount,” BAR 12:06, by Hershel Shanks, the two drawings of an Omayyad palace complex were wrongly credited to Y. Rachlin. Credit for the illustrations belongs to Jerusalem artist Claudia Himmelman.—Ed.

Sumer Event