Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1987

It is now more than seven years since my first report to BAR readers on the excavation at Biblical Lachish (“Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06). At that time, I primarily discussed Iron Age Lachish, the Lachish of the Judean monarchy. Judean Lachish was twice conquered and destroyed. Lachish Level III was conquered and destroyed […]

041 To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime, and the pleasure, I confess, shows a note of perversity. —Henry James, Italian Hours

Until the discoveries of modern archaeology, we knew about ancient Jewish ritual immersion baths only from literary texts. Now, however, archaeology has provided us with numerous examples of Jewish ritual immersion baths, called miqva’ot (singular, miqveh), dating to the late Second Temple period, prior to and during the time when John the Baptist lived. […]

But for the curiosity, lively intelligence and considerable sleuthing of a group of young scholars, a unique and exquisitely detailed model of Jerusalem in the 1870s might still lie moldering in the basement of a museum in Geneva. Today, however, the completely restored 13-foot by 15-foot zinc model, crafted in 1872 by a Hungarian […]