Inside BAR

002

In the early centuries of the Common Era, scores of elegant bath complexes were constructed at natural mineral springs throughout the Roman empire. And of all these baths, from Britain to Judea, one of the most magnificent was the seven-pool complex at Hammat Gader in the verdant valley of the Yarmuk River. In “Sumptuous Roman Baths Uncovered Near Sea of Galilee,” archaeologists Yizhar Hirschfeld and Giora Solar reveal the historical and architectural grandeur of Hammat Gader.

Yizhar Hirschfeld was born on Kibbutz Beth Keshet in Israel in 1950. Now a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology at Hebrew University, he has already directed several archaeological projects in Israel, including a survey of the Judean Wilderness. Since 1979, Hirschfeld has co-directed the Hammat Gader excavations with Giora Solar.

A graduate of the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa, Solar has worked as an architect at numerous digs in Israel, including Tel Dan, the City of David, Shikmona, Aphek, and Lachish. Along with planning the reconstruction of the Hammat Gader baths, Solar is currently co-directing the restoration and reconstruction of the Citadel in Jerusalem’s Old City.

In the world of Biblical archaeology, interpretations of finds—from inscriptions to elaborate architectural installations—can be a tricky business. Sometimes scholars reevaluate their own work; sometimes others do, occasionally arriving at conclusions that differ from the original interpretation. In this issue of BAR, we reopen discussions of finds from several sites—Kuntillet Ajrud, Khirbet el-Kom and Tel Dan.

In “Who or What Was Yahweh’s Asherah?” French epigrapher André Lemaire attempts to resolve disagreements over asherah, a word that appears many times in the Bible and also appears in two recently discovered inscriptions. Although many scholars have proposed that asherah was the name of a goddess, perhaps even the consort of the Israelite God Yahweh, Lemaire argues that an asherah was a sacred tree or grove of sacred trees in a ritual “high place.” To support his claim, Lemaire reexamines inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud in Sinai (see “Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” BAR 05:02, by Zev Meshel) and an inscription from Khirbet el-Kom, near Hebron. The Khirbet el-Kom inscription was originally read by William G. Dever, but Dever did not discern a reference to asherah. Lemaire argues that the word is clearly there.

Director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris), Lemaire is currently preparing a corpus of paleo-Hebrew inscriptions from the First Temple period. He has excavated in Israel at Tell Keisan and at Tel Lachish, and is the author of “Probable Head of Priestly Scepter Surfaces in Jerusalem,” BAR 10:01.

“The Remarkable Discoveries at Tel Dan,” BAR 07:05, by John Laughlin, illustrated and interpreted a distinctive installation—a tenth- or ninth-century B.C. basin flanked by sunken jars. Laughlin and Tel Dan excavation director Avraham Biran agreed that the installation was used for some kind of water libation ceremony associated with the cult. In response to this article, two BAR readers, Cathy and Terry Small, suggested (Queries & Comments, BAR 07:06, that the water libation installation was really an olive press. Independently of the Smalls, archaeologists Lawrence Stager, Samuel Wolff and Oded Borowski made the same suggestion. In “Is the Cultic Installation at Dan Really an Olive Press?” the intriguing theories for the Dan installation are reexamined.

In past issues, BAR has offered comprehensive assessments of Bible translations (“What Does the Bible Say?” BAR 08:06) and Bible atlases (“Putting the Bible on the Map,” BAR 09:06). In this issue, we turn to another important reference work, the concordance. “What a Concordance Can Do For You,” by Lloyd Bailey, gives BAR readers guidelines for using a concordance and for choosing among the many English, Greek and Hebrew concordances available.

A former Methodist pastor, Bailey is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School. His books include Where Is Noah’s Ark? and Biblical Perspectives on Death; he also edited The Word of God, reviewed in this issue in Books in Brief.

In “The Verdict on Advertisements for Near Eastern Antiquities—Dubitante,” BAR editor Hershel Shanks looks at both the costs and benefits of publishing antiquities ads. If antiquities dealers disappeared, would the scientific study of the past lose or gain? The jury is still out.

In the early centuries of the Common Era, scores of elegant bath complexes were constructed at natural mineral springs throughout the Roman empire. And of all these baths, from Britain to Judea, one of the most magnificent was the seven-pool complex at Hammat Gader in the verdant valley of the Yarmuk River. In “Sumptuous Roman Baths Uncovered Near Sea of Galilee,” archaeologists Yizhar Hirschfeld and Giora Solar reveal the historical and architectural grandeur of Hammat Gader. Yizhar Hirschfeld was born on Kibbutz Beth Keshet in Israel in 1950. Now a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology at Hebrew University, he has […]