Inside BAR

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An Israeli soldier named Ofer Broshi recently found by accident a partially buried ancient bronze figurine of a bull. With Broshi’s help, archaeologist Amihai Mazar was able to locate and later excavate the early Israelite cult site in northern Samaria where the bull had been buried. In “Bronze Bull Found in Israelite ‘High Place’s from the Time of the Judges,” Mazar illuminates the shadowy history of early Israelite religion when the cult of the golden calf competed with the worship of Israel’s God Yahweh. Mazar’s acquaintance with archaeology started early. When he was six years old, his father took him to visit his uncle Benjamin Mazar’s excavations. These visits, to Beth Shearim, Beth Yerach and Tell Qasile, continued over the years and when he was 15, Mazar himself began digging, Now senior lecturer at Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Mazar has excavated at Tel Batash and has conducted an extensive survey of Jerusalem’s ancient aqueduct system. He says his most exciting field work was at Tell Qasile where he discovered the first Philistine temple.

On May 14, 1929, a 30-year-old French museum curator, Claude Schaeffer, who had just begun excavating the corner of a 50-acre mound on the Syrian coast, unearthed a clay tablet written in an unknown cuneiform language. The site, now identified as ancient Ugarit, eventually yielded an archive of several thousand texts including some of the most important comparative material for understanding the Hebrew of the Bible.

Schaeffer died in France a year ago last month at the age of 84. In this issue, BAR highlights Ugarit and the 50 years of discovery since Schaeffer first started to dig there. “Claude Frederic-Armand Schaeffer-Forrer (1898–1982): An Appreciation,” by James M. Robinson, recalls Schaeffer, whose steady, productive work both at the site and in the scholar’s study continued right up to his death. Robinson is Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity of the Claremont Graduate School of Theology in Claremont, California. His interest in Ras Shamra (the modern Arabic name for the ancient site of Ugarit) began in the 1960s when he was married to Schaeffer’s daughter, Odile Marianne. In 1965, when Robinson was Annual Professor of the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, he excavated at Ras Shamra and at Bab edh-Dhra.

Peter C. Craigie, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, continues Robinson’s exciting story about the early days of Ugarit. In “The Tablets from Ugarit and Their Importance for Biblical Studies,” Craigie describes the extensive remains uncovered since 1929, including the largest palace in the Near East. He also relates the fascinating story of the decipherment of Ugaritic and compares the texts of several Ugaritic tablets with passages from the Bible. Craigie’s many publications include two new books on Ugarit: Psalms 1–50 (1983), in which he examines critically the late Mitchell Dahood’s use of Ugaritic in the translation of the Psalms and Ugarit and the Old Testament, reviewed in this issue in Even Briefer. A native of Scotland, Craigie has served as a pilot officer in the Royal Air Force. He describes himself as an avid motorcyclist, a founding member of the Deans’ Motorcycle Club of the University of Calgary.

“The Last Days of Ugarit,” by Claude Schaeffer himself, takes us back to the dawn of the Iron Age, about 1200 B.C., when life at this center of trade, industry and the literary arts abruptly ended. Although scholars long thought that invading armies probably destroyed the city, Schaeffer concludes, in this account written in 1965, that the city was destroyed by a natural disaster that may be related to the destruction of civilization at many sites in the Levant at this time. Schaeffer’s lively description is translated here for the first time by Michael David Coogan. Coogan’s new book of Ugaritic myths, Stories From Ancient Canaan is reviewed in Even Briefer. Associate Professor of Old Testament and Archaeology at Harvard University, Coogan last wrote for BAR in Books in Brief, BAR 08:03, when he reviewed Yohanan Aharoni’s The Archaeology of the Land of Israel.

“A Visit with Ahilud” takes us to the small Israelite village of Raddana, only six houses on a hilltop. Joseph Callaway, excavator of Raddana, vividly evokes the daily life of Ahilud during the time of the Judges. Living in an isolated but self-supporting settlement, Ahilud and other villagers like him exemplify 005the ingenuity and hence independence of the early Israelites.

Callaway is Senior Professor of Old Testament and Archaeology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Now semi-retired, he teaches during the summer term, but works full-time in his role as current president of the William F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and as a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities Project Review Panel. He has excavated at Bethel and Shechem, in Jerusalem with Kathleen Kenyon, and directed his own major excavation. Ai, for ten seasons. His numerous books and articles on archaeology and Biblical studies include The Early Bronze Age Sanctuary at Ai and “Sir Flinders Petrie: Father of Palestinian Archaeology,” BAR 06:06.

Callaway is a 15-handicap golfer, but claims his hobby is genealogy. As president of the Callaway Family Association, an organization of more than 900 members around the country, he is planning a 1983 celebration to mark the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the first Callaways in the United States, in Wilkes County, Georgia.

Since the 1930s, when archaeologists from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute uncovered the vast tell of Biblical Megiddo, King Solomon has been identified as the builder of its famous six-chambered city gate. Recently, however, Israeli archaeologist David Ussishkin proposed that it was King Ahab who built this gate, 50 years after Solomon reigned. Archaeologist Yigael Yadin disputes Ussishkin’s claim. In “Scholars’ Corner: Is the Solomonic Gate at Megiddo Really Solomonic?” Valerie Fargo of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the new director of the Tell el-Hesi excavations in Israel summarizes the debate and concluded that Yadin is right. Fargo has also excavated in Sicily, Cyprus and Iran. She enjoys nature photography and hiking around Chicago and sings in the University of Chicago chorus.

In “Whither ASOR?” BAR editor Hershel Shanks reviews the illustrious history of the prestigious organization of archaeological scholars, the American Schools of Oriental Research. Shanks highlights Philip J. King’s recently published history of ASOR. and documents current dissension within ASOR ranks regarding the legitimacy of Biblical archaeology. Shanks encourages ASOR to continue its tradition of fostering a special interest in the Bible while supporting scholarship in all other aspects of Near Eastern archaeology.

An Israeli soldier named Ofer Broshi recently found by accident a partially buried ancient bronze figurine of a bull. With Broshi’s help, archaeologist Amihai Mazar was able to locate and later excavate the early Israelite cult site in northern Samaria where the bull had been buried. In “Bronze Bull Found in Israelite ‘High Place’s from the Time of the Judges,” Mazar illuminates the shadowy history of early Israelite religion when the cult of the golden calf competed with the worship of Israel’s God Yahweh. Mazar’s acquaintance with archaeology started early. When he was six years old, his father took […]