Features

Qumran—The Pottery Factory
Dead Sea Scrolls Not Related to Settlement, Says Excavator By Hershel Shanks

Qumran, that desolate, supposedly monastery-like site with its ritual baths and communal dining room overlooking the Dead Sea, had nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls found in nearby caves, according to a just-released study. Your vision of a couple hundred celibate Essenes padding around praying whenever they were not copying scrolls in […]

Royal Palace, Royal Portrait?
The Tantalizing Possibilities of Ramat Raḥel By Gabriel Barkay

The first Judahite royal palace ever exposed in an archaeological excavation is bei ng rediscovered. And with this renewed interest come echoes of what is probably one of the bitterest rivalries in the history of Israeli ar chaeology—between Israel’s most illustrious archaeologist, Yigael Yadin of Hebrew University, and his younger colleague Yohanan Aharoni, who […]

Hyrcania’s Mysterious Tunnels
Searching for the Treasures of the Copper Scroll By Oren Gutfeld

I was hardly in a position to say no. After all, in 1999 I was a mere graduate student. So when Professor Amihai Mazar, the head of the department of archaeology at the Hebrew University, asked me if I would talk to an American who wanted someone to undertake an excavation, I, of […]

Did God Have a Wife?

Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel

First Person: Covering Controversy
Scholarly debates help us better understand the Biblical world By Hershel Shanks
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