Inside BAR

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The Persian Gulf War seems to have produced one last, belated explosion: an explosion of excavations in Israel and Jordan that seek volunteers for the upcoming season. Some digs that would normally have spent this year analyzing last year’s finds are instead taking to the field because they were forced to cancel last year’s season. The 1992 installment of BAR’s annual survey, “1992 Excavation Opportunities: A Spirit of Discovery,” presents a record number of digs—38 at 35 sites—one-third more than our previous high (28 in 1989). Although participation last year generally declined by about one-fourth to one-third, excavation directors expect a full complement of volunteer workers now that conditions have returned to normal.

The increase in sites means that volunteers have greater variety than ever before from which to choose. Volunteers may pick a date from January through December, a location from seaside to mountain to desert, accommodations ranging from tent camp to luxury hotel, and the remains of virtually every people that inhabited the Holy Land from the Chalcolithic period through Crusader times. Our 13-column chart and descriptions of the history and digging plans for each site will help you find an excavation that suits your requirements and will be enjoyable to read even if you are not planning to dig this summer.

When Gary ‘Termite’ Lindstrom volunteered for his first dig 22 years ago, he found more than artifacts; he found a whole new perspective on life. In “Volunteer for Life: ‘Termite’ Catches the Bug,” Theresa Wigginton takes a look at a man who has become a volunteer for life.

A free-lance writer, Wigginton graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in mass communications and magazine journalism and a minor in international studies. For five weeks in 1986, she volunteered at the Sepphoris excavation, where she met and worked with Lindstrom. She lives in Brandon, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.

“The Romans then applying the battering rams at three different quarters broke through the wall. … ” So wrote Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, of the Romans’ initial attack on Gamla during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. Today, one of these very breaches can be seen at Gamla, as well as much other evidence of a fierce battle, including 1,000 ballista stones and 1,600 iron arrowheads. As Danny Syon shows in “Gamla—Portrait of a Rebellion,” 14 years of excavation at this site on the Golan Heights have revealed a thriving city, complete with a synagogue and four mikva’ot (ritual baths), that came to an abrupt end at the hands of the Romans in 67 A.D., very much as Josephus described it in The Jewish War.

Since 1982, Syon has worked for the Gamla Excavations as a permanent staff member—as administrative director, photographer, area supervisor and public relations officer. He is currently preparing the excavated coins for publication. Now a research fellow in archaeology at the University of Haifa, Syon has a keen interest in natural history, hiking and nature photography.

Archaeologists are sometimes hard-pressed to come up with an explanation for what they have uncovered. That is not the case, however, with the large public structures found throughout ancient Israel known as tripartite pillared buildings (because they are divided by rows of pillars into three long halls). In fact, the problem is the opposite: archaeologists have put forward too many theories regarding the buildings’ purpose. One long-held view sees them as stables. No, counter other equally respected investigators, they were storehouses. Still others claim that they were military barracks or bazaars. John D. Currid, in “Puzzling Public Buildings,” weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the competing theories and, after a thorough review of the buildings’ architectural features, casts his own vote on the matter.

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Currid is associate professor of religion at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. He has excavated at Carthage and Tell el-Hesi and has directed the Lahav Grain Storage project since 1985. Currid has also edited the Manahat Excavation Report (forthcoming from the Israel Antiquities Authority). He is the author of the article “Why Did the Early Israelites Dig All Those Pits?” BAR 14:05.

As one scholar remarked recently, more has happened in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies in the last few months than in the previous 30 years. Following the publication of a computerized reconstruction of previously unpublished Dead Sea Scroll texts, the Biblical Archaeology Society now caps its efforts for open access to the Scrolls by announcing a facsimile edition of the unpublished Scrolls—the vast majority of which have never before been seen by anyone outside the circle of official editors (see “The Dead Sea Scrolls Are Now Available to All!”). But the story of the Scrolls does not end there. BAR editor Hershel Shanks, in “Preserve the Dead Sea Scrolls,” calls on the authorities entrusted with the Scrolls to turn their attention to preserving the precious fragments, which have been suffering deterioration since they were unearthed nearly four decades ago. And James M. Robinson, director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity and an instrumental figure in speeding the publication of the Nag Hammadi texts, suggests “What We Should Do Next Time Great Manuscripts Are Discovered.”

The Persian Gulf War seems to have produced one last, belated explosion: an explosion of excavations in Israel and Jordan that seek volunteers for the upcoming season. Some digs that would normally have spent this year analyzing last year’s finds are instead taking to the field because they were forced to cancel last year’s season. The 1992 installment of BAR’s annual survey, “1992 Excavation Opportunities: A Spirit of Discovery,” presents a record number of digs—38 at 35 sites—one-third more than our previous high (28 in 1989). Although participation last year generally declined by about one-fourth to one-third, excavation directors […]