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Debate: Sticking to the Facts

Adam Zertal counters Israel Finkelstein

By Adam Zertal

In the May/June 2002 issue of BAR, we published Adam Zertal’s “Philistine Kin Found in Early Israel,” in which he argued that the ruins found at el-Ahwat in northern Israel were the remains of an Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.E) city built not by locals but by a tribe of Sea Peoples known as the Shardana. Zertal links the Shardana to distant Sardinia, basing his claim on the site’s many unusual features. Among them are small domed structures, known in Greek as tholoi, that resemble edifices found in Late Bronze Age (1500–1200 B.C.E.) Sardinia. Another is the apparent brevity […]

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Footnotes

1.

I sent a full answer to Finkelstein to the Israel Exploration Journal, where the original attack was published. When I asked the editors why they would not publish my response, they replied that publishing it would open “a Pandora’s box.” I then wrote a detailed ten-page response with full stratigraphical data and many plans, which they insisted needed “revision.” The policy of publishing a baseless attack yet not publishing a detailed response is beyond my understanding.