Queries & Comments

008

Canaanite Religion

Kudos on Canny Insights

Let me express my deep appreciation for your good work. I have appreciated so much reading BAR down through the years, even the so-called controversial issues. But especially Claude Doumet-Serhal’s article on Sidon (“Sidon—Canaan’s Firstborn,” BAR, July/August 2017), which gave new insights into Canaanite religion. I have studied the Ugaritic materials, but this article and others in BAR have been extremely helpful to me in teaching of the Old Testament Prophets.

The endnotes in BAR articles are very helpful and important. I studied at Dropsie College in Philadelphia under the late Moshe Held, whose writings consisted more of footnotes than text. Keep up the good work.

Why Pilate Washed His Hands

History and Interpretation

R. Steven Notley’s article (“Pontius Pilate: Sadist or Saint?” BAR, July/August 2017) confirmed what I have long suspected, that some redaction had taken place in the story due to the embarrassment of a Roman official being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. This would have been particularly difficult after Rome had become the seat of Christianity.

Thank you for your wonderful work. I eagerly await each new issue of BAR!

Should Looters Go To Jail?

Hindering Historical Havoc

I read with interest the column by Hershel Shanks on looting (First Person: “Should These Looters Go to Jail?” BAR, July/August 2017). Being an archaeologist and conservator of many years’ standing, I thought I might offer some comments on it.

Looting, ancient or modern, is always driven by economic circumstances. People loot because they are financially desperate and have no other readily available way to make money.

The archaeological community (especially national authorities) needs to consider a program whereby they reward finders of antiquities with monetary payments for turning discoveries over to them. It may be argued that it is unaffordable to pay for such finds to be turned in, but when weighed against the legal and other costs of trying to repatriate looted antiquities, provided they can be traced, it is a bargain.

The most significant archaeological problem with this remedy is the loss of context, the physical circumstances out of which the looted (or illegally excavated find) comes, which is lost when not properly documented during excavation. It is a major problem and a valid point. But if we do not institute a system of reward, rather than punishment and imprisonment, we will keep the illegal activity underground, which will surely result in both loss of context, as well as loss of the antiquities themselves.

I appreciate your raising the issue with your article and hope it gets more attention and debate in future, as it deserves more discussion.

Justice and Prevention

Looters should go to jail. I presume that Israel, like most nations with a treasure of ancient artifacts, has laws to protect the patrimony of its people, and the looters broke that law.

Two solutions suggest themselves: The government of Israel could hire them to search the caves (and any others), pay them a living wage and supervise them to ensure that they don’t abscond with what they find, or the government could take the place of the dealers and buy what the freelance amateur archaeologists find. Of course, both solutions would require that Israelis and Palestinians cooperate on something, an unlikely event that would actually be beneficial in many other ways.

An Effective Alternative

Israeli justice seems to be very short-sighted regarding punishing young Bedouin looters in the Judean desert. As the information they provide archaeologists is clearly valuable, the looters should be paid for their efforts, not jailed for 18 months.

Israel should learn from Sir Charles Leonard Woolley when he was excavating the ancient Sumerian City of Ur (in modern 010Iraq), starting in the 1920s. He always paid his workers very well so they would not be tempted to loot. They were rewarded, not punished, for assisting archaeologists.

Give the Bedouin a position and financial reward of which they can be proud. Archaeologists cannot explore the terrain the way Bedouin youth can.

Two Thumbs Way Up!

Holding onto BAR

Living in far-off Australia, I have been reading BAR since the late 1980s. As we became pensioners, over the years we have had to cut out some subscriptions, and I have sadly let go three other archaeology journals and a couple of history journals—but I keep my BAR. This is just to let you know that your journal is appreciated, with affection!

Shards and Shakespeare

Discovery Play at Bethsaida

Thank you very much for Hershel Shanks’s interesting explanation pertaining to my use of the Shakespearian word “shard” (Strata: “Did Shakespeare Know Archaeology?” BAR, July/August 2017). I am not sure about my Shakespearian English, although some may have heard me at the dig saying: “A SHARD, A SHARD, MY KINGDOM FOR A SHARD” (an archaeological version of the famous quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III: “A horse. A horse. My kingdom for a horse.”)

Words and Music

Kudos and “at-a-boy” to Hershel and his team of writers. Romeo and Juliet were clearly mismatched by comparison.

The other magazines in your field are informative but bogged down by dry, technical verbiage. They rob the subject of all romance and excitement—assuming the readers are all jaded Rhodes scholars with 30 years of field experience at excavation sites.

Their writing reminds me of the time Mark Twain’s wife exactingly recited back to him a litany of swear words he had just uttered in a rage.

Twain sighed, “My dear, you have the words, but not the music.”

The Siege Ramp at Machaerus

Viewpoint

In Győző Vörös’s last article regarding Machaerus (“Machaerus: A 068Palace-Fortress with Multiple Mikva’ot,” BAR, July/August 2017), a caption on p. 38 says, “The military agger-ramp at neither Machaerus nor Masada was completed.”

However, according to Flavius Josephus (War of the Jews 7.8.5), a bank of earth was built, completed by a work of great stones, and then the war engines were able to destroy the wall of the fortress.

So, it looks to me that at Masada the earth work (ramp) was finished and was used by the Roman army.

Győző Vörös Responds: Thanks for your letter! When writing the article for BAR, I was following the latest archaeological research (published in 2016) concerning the “unfinished” Roman ramp at Masada.

However, an important academic article published last summer by Gwyn Davies and Jodi Magness brilliantly and convincingly proves that “the assault ramp [at Masada] was, in fact, completed and operational.”?¹

I now have no doubt that the Roman military siege ramp at Masada was finished and terminated, and I am correcting the article caption as follows: “Despite the strong similarities between the circumvallation siege monuments of the Tenth Roman Legion at Machaerus and Masada, only the agger-ramp at Machaerus remained incomplete.” The readers of BAR can see from this fine academic distinction how progressive science field archaeology revisits the ancient “cold-cases” with 21st-century scientific methods and techniques.

Canaanite Religion