Features

Ekron of the Philistines
How they lived, worked and worshiped for five hundred years By Trude Dothan, Seymour Gitin

The first joint American-Israeli archaeological expedition was conceived on a hot summer’s afternoon in 1980. Seymour Gitin, director of the William F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, and Ernest Frerichs, the Albright president, were having tea with Hebrew University professor Trude Dothan at her home in Jerusalem. We were discussing joint American-Israeli academic programs. […]

Ekron of the Philistines, Part I: Where They Came From, How They Settled Down and the Place They Worshiped In

The accumulated evidence from recent excavations at Miqne and other sites and current research on the material culture of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples make the time ripe for a reassessment of the initial appearance and settlement in Canaan of this enigmatic people. Critical to any such reassessment is the understanding that cultural […]

Introduction

In The Time Machine, H. G. Wells took his fictional Time Traveler to the future, but we suspect that readers of BAR would prefer to visit the past, especially the Biblical past. Now you can! You can walk in the footsteps of Jesus along the long-buried streets of Bethsaida, stand in a Middle Bronze […]

Prize Find: Pomegranate Scepters and Incense Stand with Pomegranates Found in Priest’s Grave

BAR recently published a beautifully carved ivory pomegranate with an important inscription on it.a As partially reconstructed, the engraved inscription around the neck of the pomegranate reads as follows: “Belonging to the House of Yahweh, Holy to the Priests.” Based on this reading, many scholars have concluded that the ivory pomegranate originally came […]

Volunteer’s Report: Searching for the Phoenicians in Sardinia

Tharros, the site of an ancient city in Sardinia, is best approached by sea. A scattering of ruins near a small village, it lies on a tiny peninsula that hangs south off the western coast of the island. The site’s easily defensible location and its ample harbor on the Bay of Oristano have shaped […]

Departments

First Person: New Life for an Old Theory
David’s general may have infiltrated Jerusalem via the water tunnels, after all By Hershel Shanks

Strata