Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1981

There were skeptics who refused to believe that the Sinai leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi) still existed in Israel. They laughed at Giora Ilani and accused him of being a dreamer.

I was dreaming of the sea, paddling a rescue boat far beyond the breakers toward silence and tranquility. Tired of rowing, I dove into the water and pulled strongly downward listening to the silence of the deep. There was a ringing sensation in my ears. Half asleep on my cot, I was dimly aware […]

In the latest issue of the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (January–June 1979), P. R. S. Moorey of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford has written a remarkably candid assessment of the achievements and failures of Dame Kathleen Kenyon who for a quarter of a century before her death in August 1978 dominated the British contribution to […]

Until about 100 years ago archaeological method in the Near East consisted primarily of aimless treasure hunting.

North American Indians left few monuments of their civilization. Early European explorers and settlers in North America found no stone cities or defense walls or water systems or monumental structures built by the native Americans. The only exceptions were large earthen mounds obviously built by humans rather than formed by natural forces. Some of […]

It was the day before the excavation was scheduled to end. Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who discovered the site of Troy, had his crew of 80 workmen furiously digging through the tel’s various strata in quest of museum-worthy artifacts from the Homeric city (which he thought was at the bottom of the tel). […]

From Dan in the Galilee to Biblical Lachish, from Tel Michal on the Mediterranean Sea to Bab edh-Dhra on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea, volunteers will join archaeologists on numerous field sites in 1981. Always hoping that the next spadeful of earth will expose a stamped handle, an inscribed ostracon, a glimmer […]