Features

Excavating Hazor, Part Two: Did the Israelites Destroy the Canaanite City?

A fierce conflagration marked the end of Canaanite Hazor. Across the site, a thick layer of ashes and charred wood—in places 3 feet deep—attests to the intensity of the blaze in the northern Galilee city. Within the walls of Hazor’s palace, the fire was especially fierce: The unusual amount of timber used in the […]

Bringing Collectors (and Their Collections) Out of Hiding

At the end of the late Nahman Avigad’s magisterial Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Sealsa appear a number of indices and lists that are not only helpful to scholars but also interesting to thumb through at odd moments. Leafing through the book recently, I came upon one that particularly fascinated me. It is a […]

Tripartite Buildings: Divided Structures Divide Scholars

BAR readers, as well as scholars, have long puzzled over the distinctive tripartite pillared buildings that have been discovered in so many excavations in Israel. Their architecture seems simple enough: long rectangular buildings divided into thirds by two rows of pillars that create a central hall and two side halls (hence the name tripartite). […]

First Person: The Meaning of Unhistory
Not everyone shows up in the written record By Hershel Shanks
WorldWide
Sha’ar ha-Golan, Israel

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