Inside BAR
One of the world’s finest collections of ancient Near Eastern art belongs to a single individual, and he wants to give it away. Elie Borowski, perhaps the last of the great dealer-scholar-collectors, has amassed a dazzling array of over 1,700 artifacts, which he has placed in the Lands of the Bible Archaeology Foundation. The collection ranges from Sumerian to Phoenician to Egyptian and Byzantine—spanning more than three millennia. Borowski, 71, dreams of a museum and study center in Jerusalem that will hold and display these unique pieces. In this issue of BAR we look at both the man and his collection. In an article by BAR editor Hershel Shanks, “Elie Borowski Seeks a Home for His Collection,” we follow Borowski from his Warsaw childhood through his wartime army service and his studies in ancient history and languages to his museum-like home in Toronto. Some of the highlights of the Lands of the Bible Collection are illustrated in a photo album, “Treasures From the Lands of the Bible,” which discusses how the artifacts relate to the Bible.
One of the most common archaeological finds in nearly every major period is the oil lamp. From humble beginnings as simple bowls, perhaps as early as the sixth millennium B.C., lamps evolved into a rich art form of Jewish, Greek, Roman and Arab craftspeople. In “Lighting the Way Through History,” Varda Sussman traces the development of the oil lamp.
Israel-born Sussman was raised on Kibbutz Pardess Hanna and attended an agricultural high school. Her strong feeling for the land led her to study for her B.A. and Master’s degrees in archaeology immediately following her army service in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Sussman studied at Hebrew University under such masters as Eliezer Sukenik and Michael Avi-Yonah. She participated in the first excavation at Masada in 1955. Now a mother of four, Sussman works as a curator for the Israel Department of Antiquities in Jerusalem.
According to the book of Joshua, the city of Ai was the second stop on Joshua’s military campaign into Canaan. Initially, the Israelites were defeated by the Canaanites. The Israelites then launched a second and this time victorious attack on Ai, destroying the city and its inhabitants. Despite the Biblical account, archaeological excavations of et-Tell, the site believed to be Ai, have revealed no trace of any Canaanite city from the supposed time of Joshua. Some scholars have suggested that the battle described in the Bible took place at a different site, or at a different time or not at all. In “The Problem of Ai,” Ziony Zevit matches his observations of et-Tell’s topography with the topographic descriptions of Ai in the Bible and concludes that et-Tell is, in fact, the site named Ai in the Bible. Zevit offers an explanation of the lack of archaeological evidence from the Canaanite period.
Born in Canada, Zevit has studied in Israel and holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies from the University of California at Berkeley. His field experience includes excavating at Lachish under the late Yohanan Aharoni. Currently, he is professor of Biblical literature and northwest Semitic languages at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and adjunct professor of religious studies at the nearby Northridge Campus of California State University.
In “Was My Excavation of Ai Worthwhile?” the excavator of Ai, Joseph A. Callaway, reacts to Zevit’s discussion of Ai. Senior professor of Old Testament and Archaeology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Callaway is a new member of BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board. Callaway golfs to unwind, recently scoring one under par on the front nine, but his final score—a respectable 81—was affected, he says, by “an onset of kinesthetic senility.” Callaway’s excellent photographs have appeared several times in BAR, including this issue in “The Problem of Ai.”
Also in this issue, editor Hershel Shanks reviews the annual meetings in Chicago of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion and the American Schools of Oriental Research and reports that when 4,000 scholars gather, the scholarly lectures may be upstaged by unforeseen events.
There is still time to plan for a summer experience of hands-on archaeology. Volunteers are needed at Beth Shemesh, Gilgal and Ein Yael; see
Book reviews in this issue include Sign, Symbol, Script, a catalogue from a University of Wisconsin exhibit that chronicles the history of writing. A. Thomas Kraabel, vice-president and dean of Luther College, discusses Dura-Europos: The Ancient City and the Yale Collection, by Susan B. Matheson.