Features

New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin
Chemical tests link shroud to Jerusalem By Joseph A. Kohlbeck, Eugenia L. Nitowski

Even the skeptics have been unable to explain how the image on the Shroud of Turin was created. Moreover, modern science deepens, rather than allays, the mystery. If we knew less, we could assume more; we could suppose a host of easy answers—like painting. But the arsenals of modern science have done nothing […]

BAR Interviews Avraham Eitan
Antiquities director confronts problems and controversies By Hershel Shanks

Hershel Shanks: Avi, I’m especially appreciative of this interview because over the years we’ve disagreed about many things, but we’ve remained friends, and we’ve always been able to talk about our differences. And that’s a very gratifying thing. You haven’t liked everything that’s appeared in BAR. But you once told me that it’s the […]

Solomon’s Negev Defense Line Contained Three Fewer Fortresses

In the May/June 1985 BAR,a I reported on a large number of Iron Age fortresses in the central Negev desert. I argued that these fortresses (more than 40), formed Solomon’s defense line on the south. Together with their associated settlements, they revealed a uniform fortification effort involving the systematic construction of substantial strongholds. Such […]

The Iron Age Sites in the Negev Highlands: Military Fortresses or Nomads Settling Down?

Rudolph Cohen’s redating of some of his “Solomonic fortresses” to the Persian period will not be enough to satisfy many scholars. Some will continue to question the date of the remaining fortresses Cohen dates to the tenth century B.C. But instead of lowering the date for those fortresses to the Persian period (538–332 B.C.), […]

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