Inside BAR

002

Egyptology, after more than a century of excavation and study by hundreds of scholars, might seem to hold little prospect for startling discoveries. But such discoveries can indeed still be made, as Frank J. Yurco shows in “3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt.” Through his close examination of a wall of reliefs at Karnak, the famous Egyptian temple, Yurco deciphered traces of hieroglyphics that identify Merenptah as the pharaoh responsible for the reliefs, formerly attributed to Ramesses II. This was an important discovery in itself, but Yurco topped it with a remarkable insight: The battle scenes in four of the reliefs apparently illustrate the battles named on the famous Merenptah Stele as part of Merenptah’s Canaanite campaign. One of the battles in that campaign was fought against “Israel” (referring to the people); the corresponding relief gives us a glimpse of the Israelites sometime between 1211 and 1209 B.C.E., about the time of their emergence as a distinct people. And that glimpse contains a clue that hints at a solution to the mystery of the Israelites’ origin.

Yurco lectures on Egyptological topics at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, at the University of Chicago and in the Oriental Institute’s Membership Program. A Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, Yurco is writing his dissertation on “The Late Nineteenth Dynasty, After Ramesses II.” His even-handed consideration of a controversial topic, “Were the Ancient Egyptians Black or White?” appeared in BAR 15:05.

What can be learned about a site before it has been excavated? A lot, as Vassilios Tzaferis shows in “Sussita Awaits the Spade.” Combining information gleaned from aerial photographs, the findings of a small salvage excavation and historical records, Tzaferis introduces us to the rich finds—including the toppled columns of a cathedral—lying on and just under the ground at this magnificent hilltop overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Like Beth-Shean, featured in our last issue, Sussita (also called Hippos) was a member of the Decapolis, the League of Ten Cities established by the Roman general Pompey.

Born on the Greek island of Samos, Tzaferis was sent to a Jerusalem boarding school at the age of 13 to become a Greek Orthodox monk. He took his vows at the age of 18 and went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in archaeology at the Hebrew University. Tzaferis left the brotherhood in 1963, the year he received his B.A. He continued at Hebrew University, receiving his Ph.D. in archaeology in 1970.

Tzaferis has directed many excavations, including one of Second Temple tombs in Jerusalem, where he discovered the only remains of a crucified man ever unearthed (see his article, “Crucifixion—The Archaeological Evidence,” BAR 11:02). His most recent appearance in BAR was “A Pilgrimage to the Site of the Swine Miracle,” BAR 15:02, about the church at Kursi.

The articles we have been running (and continue to run) on the delays in publishing the remainder of the Dead Sea Scrolls shouldn’t give you the impression that all scholars emulate the flow of molasses when it comes to publishing their finds. One exception is the distinguished British scholar Donald J. Wiseman. In “The Bottleneck of Archaeological Publication,” Wiseman discusses some Mesopotamian finds and calls on his peers to publish first and analyze later—even if it means making an occasional error, as Wiseman is not afraid to admit having done himself.

Professor of Assyriology at the University of London since 1961, Wiseman served as editor of the journal Iraq from 1953 to 1978 and is now vice president of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Wiseman is a Fellow of the British Academy. He has excavated in Iraq (at both Nimrud and Rimah) and in Syria and Turkey. Wiseman numerous books include Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, (Oxford Univ. Press, 1985).

When the city of Jericho was put to the torch long ago, no one could have suspected that the event would cause sparks to fly even as late as 1990. But so it has—Bryant Wood’s article in our March/April issue, “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” BAR 16:02, has attracted international media attention and a chorus of praise from readers. It now also has its critic, in the person of Piotr Bienkowski. Follow the parry-and-thrust of the debate between Bienkowski and Wood in “Battle Over Jericho Heats Up.”

Bienkowski is curator of Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities at the National Museums and Galleries, Liverpool, England. He is the editor of the journal Levant, and the author of Jericho in the Late Bronze Age. Wood was a visiting professor last year at the University of Toronto. He has excavated at Khirbet Nisya, in Israel, and at Tell el-Maskhuta, in Egypt, and co-directed the Northern Jordan Dam Survey Project.

Even the greatest scholars makes mistakes—and serious ones at that—which later generations correct. But this is different from concealment—when a scholar keeps secret a text that may hobble the research of an entire generation of scholars. BAR editor Hershel Shanks looks at an especially appalling example in “The Difference Between Scholarly Mistakes and Scholarly Concealment—The Case of MMT.”

Further developments in what has become known as the Dead Sea Scroll Scandal are reported in a special section of BARlines. The good news is that another scroll editor has broken ranks and agreed to make photographs of his unpublished texts available to any scholar who wishes to see them. And another colloquium of scholars, this time meeting at the University of California, calls for release of photographs of all the unpublished texts.

Egyptology, after more than a century of excavation and study by hundreds of scholars, might seem to hold little prospect for startling discoveries. But such discoveries can indeed still be made, as Frank J. Yurco shows in “3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt.” Through his close examination of a wall of reliefs at Karnak, the famous Egyptian temple, Yurco deciphered traces of hieroglyphics that identify Merenptah as the pharaoh responsible for the reliefs, formerly attributed to Ramesses II. This was an important discovery in itself, but Yurco topped it with a remarkable insight: The battle scenes in four […]