BARlines
Help Us Decide—Cast Your Vote!
Our January/February issue will feature a report on the major excavation of Ashkelon—surely one of the most important current excavations in Israel, led by Harvard’s Larry Stager.
The unusual finds include some so-called erotic lamps found in what may be an ancient bordello. Erotic lamps are oil lamps with a clay disk in the center explicitly depicting the sex act.
Should we print them? Please let us know your view. Simply drop us a note or a postcard with a number on it to tell us which of the three numbered positions below most nearly represents your view.
1. No. Don’t print them. It’s enough to describe them generally in words. BAR is seen by children. It is used in Sunday schools. Pictures of erotic lamps could add nothing to our knowledge, but would simply satisfy a prurient interest.
2. Yes. Print them. We count on BAR to inform us of what is found in current excavations. If this was part of life in ancient times, we are entitled to know about it. A picture conveys an impression and impact that cannot be achieved by words alone. That is why BAR prints pictures of things like fertility figurines, idols and altars, instead of just describing them. Don’t reduce BAR to the level of a children’s magazine.
3. Yes, but print them on a page with a perforation so that, without injuring the rest of the magazine, they can be torn out by anyone who doesn’t want them in their copy of BAR.
To help us decide in time, please send your ballots promptly to: Lamps, Biblical Archaeology Society, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008.
New BAS Chapter to Open in Portland, Oregon
The organization of a new BAS Chapter in Portland, Oregon, brings the grand total of BAS Chapters up to 12 nationwide. The Portland Chapter will be the first in the Pacific Northwest. All Biblical archaeology enthusiasts in the area are invited to attend the organizational meeting on Thursday, September 27, 1990, at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Standard Insurance Center Building, located at 900 SW Fifth Avenue, Portland, Oregon.
Chapter members can look forward to regular meetings featuring speakers, sometimes prominent scholars, and a congenial atmosphere for discussion.
Lecturer from Israel Available
Galmel Barkay, the excavator of the oldest Biblical text and senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University, will be in the United States for a lecture tour in February and March 1991. If you are interested in having Dr. Barkay lecture at your church, synagogue, community center or other organization, please call or write Marcia Goldberg, Biblical Archaeology Society, 3000 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008; 1–800-221–4644.
Barkay is the author of several BAR articles, including: “The Divine Name Found in Jerusalem,” BAR 09:02, “The Garden Tomb—Was Jesus Buried Here?” BAR 12:02 and, with Amos Kloner, “Jerusalem Tombs from the Days of the First Temple,” BAR 12:02.
His topics are “The Oldest Biblical Manuscript—The Discovery of the Priestly Blessing in Jerusalem,” “Biblical Archaeology in Israel Today” and “New Archaeological Discoveries in Jerusalem.”
Lawrence E. Stager to Speak in New York City on Ashkelon
Professor Lawrence E. Stager of Harvard University will give a lecture, “Excavations at the Philistine Seaport of Ashkelon: The Leon Levy Expedition (1985–1990),” as part of a lecture series called “New Horizons in Ancient Sites” sponsored by the American Academy in Rome. Stager’s most recent article for BAR, “The Song of Deborah: Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not,” BAR 15:01, won the Fellner award for the best BAR article of 1989. The director of the excavation at Ashkelon, he is currently working on an article about the site that will be featured in a future issue of BAR.
Stager will give his lecture on Monday, October 22, 1990, at 6:30 p.m., at New York City’s Harvard Club, located at 27 West 44th Street.
In “Epigraphy in Crisis—Dating Ancient Semitic Inscriptions,” BAR 16:04, the box containing the two drawings was published upside down.