Inside BAR

002

In the heart of Jerusalem’s walled Old City stands an immense church of more than 30 chambers and chapels. The Holy Sepulchre Church is one of the most complex buildings in the world; renovated and repaired many times since its construction in the fourth century, it now incorporates Byzantine, Crusader and 19th-century Greek architecture.

The most recent restoration and the archaeological excavations that went hand in hand with it have now been published by Virgilio C. Corbo, O.F.M., in a three-volume final report. “Does the Holy Sepulchre Church Mark the Burial of Jesus?” by Jerusalem district archaeologist Dan Bahat, reviews Corbo’s report and assesses the evidence that this famous pilgrimage site does indeed enshrine the burial site of Jesus.

A specialist in Jerusalem archaeology, Bahat wrote about another Crusader church in Jerusalem in the “A Smithy in a Crusader Church,” BAR 06:02. Former district archaeologist for the Galilee, he has excavated at Tel Dan and Arad and has directed excavations at Beth-Shean, Tel Beit Mirsim and Caesarea. Bahat reported on still another of his excavations in the September/October 1978 BAR (“Did the Patriarchs Live at Givat Sharett?” BAR 04:03).

The enclosure surrounding the tomb of Jesus in the Holy Sepulchre Church may be the model for an exquisite gold ring discovered in Jerusalem. In “Ancient Gold Ring Depicts the Holy Sepulchre,” Israel Museum numismatist Yaakov Meshorer looks closely at some intriguing artistic and architectural comparative evidence and concludes that the ring is the elegant souvenir of a 12th-century pilgrim.

An officer in the Israel Defence Forces reserves and a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Meshorer has written about coins and inscriptions in three previous issues of BAR: “An Ancient Coin Depicts Noah’s Ark,” BAR 07:05; “How to Identify a Coin From Capernaum,” Queries & Comments, BAR 06:04; and “The Holy Land In Coins,” BAR 04:01. The Israel Museum published his City Coins of Eretz Israel and the Decapolis last year. Another book, Coins of Aelia Capitolina will appear soon. Meshorer is currently putting the finishing touches on an archaeological exhibit that will open at the Israel Museum April 15—the extraordinary collection of the late Moshe Dayan.

Popular BAR author and Vacation-Seminar leader, Siegfried Horn recounts a sensational episode in the history of Biblical archaeology in “Why the Moabite Stone Was Blown to Pieces.” The three-foot-high stone displayed the longest monumental inscription to come to light in the Holy Land when it was discovered in 1868, and today its 34 lines of text still claim this distinction. Tragically, a bizarre sequence of negotiations to purchase the stone, which involved Bedouin, Alsatian, Prussian, Turkish, British and French “interested parties,” ended with an explosion that left the priceless artifact in fragments. Some of these fragments were recovered, and together with a paper impression made of the stone, they have revealed the Moabites’ version of their rebellion against Israel, which is also described in 2 Kings 3.

Horn is dean and professor emeritus at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. When World War II broke out, Horn was working as a missionary in the Netherlands East Indies; and from 1940 to 1946 he was interned in Sumatra and India. Horn has made 20 archaeological expeditions to the Near East, including stints as excavation director at Tell Heshban in Jordan and as staff member at Tell Balatah (Biblical Shechem). BAR readers will remember his articles about “The Book Albright Never Finished,” BAR 10:01, and “What We Don’t Know About Moses and the Exodus,” BAR 03:02.

A journey through ancient Syria awaits visitors to five prominent museums in the United States between now and September, 1987. A major, traveling exhibit of archaeological treasures, “Ebla to Damascus” displays inscriptions, statues, mosaics and jewelry dating from 8000 B.C. to 1700 A.D. In “From Ebla to Damascus: The Archaeology of Ancient Syria,” Marie-Henriette Gates lets us view this panoramic exhibit through the eyes of an experienced archaeologist. Gates has dug in Turkey, Iran and Italy; from 1981 to 1984, she worked as field director for a joint Bryn Mawr/University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill salvage excavation at Gritille, in southeastern Turkey. Assistant professor of classical archaeology at UNC-Chapel Hill, Gates received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern archaeology from Yale University.

Richard Chute of Pomona, California, has won the first Undergraduate Biblical Archaeology Essay Contest and plans to use his $1500 fellowship to become a volunteer on a dig in Israel. Read about Chute’s prizewinning essay and about those of the runners-up in BARlines.

In the heart of Jerusalem’s walled Old City stands an immense church of more than 30 chambers and chapels. The Holy Sepulchre Church is one of the most complex buildings in the world; renovated and repaired many times since its construction in the fourth century, it now incorporates Byzantine, Crusader and 19th-century Greek architecture.