Inside BAR

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Who were the people of the Exodus? Have archaeologists uncovered any buildings, artifacts, pottery or other evidence of a people who traveled north from Egypt and migrated into Canaan? Scores of surveys and excavations were conducted in the Sinai from the summer of 1967 until Israel turned the Sinai over to Egypt in 1982. In the Negev, teams of leading archaeologists have been excavating for decades. One of these archaeologists is Rudolph Cohen. In his article, “The Mysterious MBI People—Does the Exodus Tradition in the Bible Preserve the Memory of Their Entry into Canaan?” this distinguished Israeli archaeologist presents the first publication of a new theory: the people of the Middle Bronze I period (2200 B.C. to 2000 B.C.)—a people whose settlements, pottery, and general material culture were sharply different from what went before and what came after—may be the Israelites, or proto-Israelites, who left Egypt and came at last to their Promised Land.

Cohen—known colloquially among Israeli archaeologists as the “King of the South”—is now excavating at Nahal Nissana, the largest Middle Bronze I site in Israel. Since 1978 he has served as head of the Israeli Archaeological Rescue Survey team for the Negev. With the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreements, Cohen launched Israel’s most comprehensive archaeological survey and rescue in the Negev to date, working in areas Israel would need for airfields as troops withdrew from the Sinai.

In late 1983, Cohen will be digging at Nahal Aqrab, a tenth-century B.C. fortress in Israel’s central Negev. This fortress bears a strong resemblance to another site that Cohen excavated—at Kadesh-Barnea. Cohen’s work on this controversial Exodus site is already known to BAR readers: see “Did I Excavate Kadesh-Barnea?” BAR 07:03. In the January/February 1980 BAR, Cohen reported on “The Marvelous Mosaics of Kissufim,” BAR 06:01, the elaborate and delicate mosaic pavement of a sixth-century Byzantine church found on Kibbutz Kissufim near Gaza.

“The Sad Case of Tell Gezer” brings a disturbing situation to the attention of BAR readers. The 30-acre tell—occupied from 3300 B.C. to the Roman period, and the site of several major excavations—boasts the largest extant tower foundation in ancient Palestine, impressive Middle Bronze and Solomonic gates, and a unique Canaanite High Place with a row of ten monoliths. But the last excavator left in 1974 and the important remains are deteriorating quickly. Will Gezer be saved? BAR answers “yes” by challenging those institutions that were partners in Gezer’s excavation and others who are concerned about the site to join together with BAR to preserve the archaeological treasures that remain.

To American readers, “Rain in the Desert” may sound like a contradiction in terms, but Israel’s desert dwellers know that winter can bring sudden heavy rains. The dangers and the beauty of flash floods, hidden pools and green oases in Israel’s deserts can be seen in the photographs in this article.

The ancient Essenes have become well-known to us moderns, thanks to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among the sect’s extremist views revealed in the scrolls was a distrust, in fact a hatred, of women. In this issue, the distinguished Jerusalem archaeologist Magen Broshi compares one scroll fragment, popularly called “Beware the Wiles of the Wanton Woman,” to parallel passages from the book of Proverbs. Broshi is curator of the Shrine of the Book, the Israel Museum building that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although some scholars propose that the woman of the Dead Sea Scroll fragment is a symbol for a greater enemy, perhaps Rome or the opponents of the Essenes, Broshi demonstrates that it is simply the smooth-talking seductress herself against whom the Essene author warns the young men of his community.

Broshi has conducted a number of excavations in Jerusalem. He has also published regularly in BAR, including “Estimating the Population of Ancient Jerusalem,” BAR 04:02, and “Evidence of Earliest Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land Comes to Light in Holy Sepulchre Church,” BAR 03:04.

News from the Field, “Gold Hoard Found at Capernaum,” by Herold Weiss, brings BAR readers the story of this recent discovery on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, along with dazzling photographs of the 282 coins. This treasure dates roughly to the eighth century A.D. and is valued at about 003$250,000 on today’s market.

Weiss was in charge of an excavation square at the Capernaum dig in 1982 when the coins were discovered. Born in Uruguay, Weiss came to the United States in the 1950’s and earned a doctoral degree in Biblical studies from Duke University in 1964, while becoming actively interested in archaeology. Now a professor of religious studies at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, Weiss says he distracts himself “trying to build a house on 20 acres of partly wooded land in southwest Michigan, where my wife and two sons and I may enjoy the company of our cats, dogs, parrots, ponies, and an Arabian colt.”

In 1981 an American, Tom Crotser, conducted an illegal excavation in Jordan, searching for the Ark of the Covenant. After Crotser’s expedition was given national press-coverage, readers from around the country wrote asking us to report on Crotser’s finds. We complied in the last issue with “Tom Crotser Has Found the Ark of the Covenant—Or Has He?” BAR 09:03. Now another American, Lawrence Blaser, has gone searching for the golden Ark, this time in a cave at Ein Gedi near the Dead Sea. The result is reported in “The Ark That Wasn’t There.”

The Middle East in Pictures, by Eric Matson, reviewed by Anthony Pitch, documents a half century of life in the Holy Land. Four volumes display 5,000 moments captured by this little-known photographer—scenes of political turmoil between British soldiers and Arabs, portraits of the famous like Chaim Weizmann and Lawrence of Arabia, and details from the lives of the region’s many ethnic groups. Matson also took some unforgettable pictures of the land and of archaeological sites. Pitch last wrote for BAR in our May/June 1981 issue with a BAR Jr. column called, “Sharp Eyes Find Ancient Treasures on the Beach,” BAR 07:03.

Scholars’ Corner takes a giant leap from the early black and white photography of the Matson collection to electronic image processing developed by NASA for the space program. Read how this new process is being used to enhance otherwise unreadable inscriptions on ancient manuscripts in “Digital Images Expose Ancient Inscriptions.”

Who were the people of the Exodus? Have archaeologists uncovered any buildings, artifacts, pottery or other evidence of a people who traveled north from Egypt and migrated into Canaan? Scores of surveys and excavations were conducted in the Sinai from the summer of 1967 until Israel turned the Sinai over to Egypt in 1982. In the Negev, teams of leading archaeologists have been excavating for decades. One of these archaeologists is Rudolph Cohen. In his article, “The Mysterious MBI People—Does the Exodus Tradition in the Bible Preserve the Memory of Their Entry into Canaan?” this distinguished Israeli archaeologist presents […]