Features

Rescue in the Biblical Negev

As work begins on the infrastructure required to relocate the Israeli army’s bases and training facilities from Sinai to the Negev—in accordance with the Middle East peace agreements—Israel’s archaeological institutions have been mobilized to survey and excavate on an emergency basis threatened sites in the area. Beginning February 1, 1979, salvage excavations began on […]

A Volunteer in the Negev

When I told my friends that I planned to spend the summer of 1979 on an archaeological dig in Israel’s Negev Desert, I got one of two responses: “You’ve got to be crazy!” or “Gee, that sounds like a lot of fun!” Both turned out to be true. I had been to Israel twice […]

Volunteer Opportunities in 1980

Volunteers are needed for a score—and more—of excavations during the summer of 1980. The projects listed below include only those excavations that were prepared to announce specific dates, costs and programs by the time we went to press. There will undoubtedly be later additions to the roster of digs in the field this coming […]

The Marvelous Mosaics of Kissufim

In June 1977 a tractor-driver at Kibbutz Kissufim on the coastal plain east of Gaza was preparing a new field for cultivation. Glancing back at the furrowed earth he noticed fragments of colored mosaic, and realized that he had inadvertently plowed across an ancient site. He notified the Department of Antiquities of his […]

A Scientist Looks at Velikovsky’s “Worlds in Collision”
Did a near-collision of a comet with earth cause manna to fall in the Sinai and the sun to stand still over Gibeon? By Carl Sagan

In the spring of 1940 Immanuel Velikovsky’s study of the Biblical accounts of the Exodus led him to conclude that a great physical catastrophe had befallen the earth at the time of Moses. He soon located references to what he believed to be the same event in historical texts, epics, myths, and folklore […]

Letter from a Hebrew King?
Aharoni claims Arad sherd bears a portion of a letter from King Jehoahaz to the military commander at Arad; Yadin disputes Aharoni’s interpretation.

Shortly before his untimely death in 1976 at the age of 56, Yohanan Aharoni, the director of the Tel Aviv University Institute of Archeology, published in Hebrew the text of his long-awaited Arad Inscriptions.a These inscriptions were painstakingly acquired from his Arad excavations by carefully washing and examining every sherd which might contain an […]