Features

Introduction

Maybe you’ve always dreamed of being an archaeologist. Ever since your first Indiana Jones movie you’ve longed for an archaeological adventure, imagined making a big find. Maybe you’re eager to uncover the history of places you know from the Bible. Perhaps you’re a student trying to make a career choice or to obtain some […]

Site Gazette

Abila

Volunteers’ Views

Exploring Biblical Roots

Prize Finds

The Bull from the Sea: Geshur’s Chief Deity?

Dig Scholarships

BAR offers travel scholarships of $1,000 every year to a few people who would otherwise not be able to volunteer. In 1997 the three women shown below—Melody Knowles, then finishing her dissertation on the Hebrew Bible at Princeton Theological Seminary, Jessica Redford, a philosophy student who would soon graduate from the University of Southern […]

The Enigma of Qumran
Four archaeologists assess the site By Hershel Shanks

If you want to understand how archaeologists think, how they reason, how they work, how they interpret finds—and why they sometimes disagree—you will enjoy this discussion among four prominent archaeologists who know as much about Qumran and its excavation as can be known today. Long associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls found in nearby […]

Banias Dig Reveals King’s Palace
[But which king?] By John F. Wilson, Vassilios Tzaferis

“Trim the balk!” we cried to the volunteers, encouraging them to clean the sides of their excavation square. As volunteers dig down, they leave the balks standing to preserve the layers of debris deposits. The balks are critical for dating purposes, for they reveal the stratigraphy of the site. But to be useful, they […]

Let My People Go and Go and Go and Go
Egyptian records support a centuries-long exodus By Abraham Malamat

Nothing in the archaeological record of Egypt directly substantiates the Biblical story of the Exodus. Yet a considerable body of Egyptian material provides such close analogies to the Biblical account that it may, in part, serve as indirect proof for the Israelite episode.

Departments

First Person: A Name in Search of a Story
An Egyptian papyrus reveals an Asiatic slave with a Biblical name—a midwife mentioned in Exodus By Hershel Shanks
WorldWide
Egypt

Strata