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Biblical Archaeology Review - Bible History to Life

CURRENT ISSUE

Table of Contents • Biblical Archaeology Review
January / February 2010

ON THE COVER: Melissa Fleischer, a student at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and winner of a 2009 BAS Dig Scholarship, climbs out of the trenches at the Mt. Zion excavation in Jerusalem. See our digs section to find out what life is like on a dig and how you too can volunteer in 2010.

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Special Section • Digs 2010

All in the Family

By Dorothy Resig

Anyone who’s been on a dig can tell you: long hot hours of grueling work in a trench with the same people day after day—getting dirty together, sharing the tedium of digging as well as the thrill of discovery. It can make almost any group of strangers feel like family by the end of a dig. But what about when the other excavation volunteers actually are family? We talked to three different families about what it was like to share the ups and downs of the dig experience with their father, mother, son or daughter.

Digs 2010 Volunteering

Dig Scholarship Winners

Nothing brings the excavation experience to life like hearing from volunteers—everyday people who finally decided to make their dreams of going on a real archaeological excavation come true. Here two of our 26 Dig Scholarship winners from 2009—a second-grade teacher and mother of five and an enthusiastic archaeology student—share their stories as first-time volunteers. From skeletal remains to sewage drains, they never knew what they’d be working on next.

28 Years Later Couple Recalls Finding “Lost Ark”

By Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers

A highlight of the Nabratein excavation in the early 1980s was the discovery of the pediment from the Torah ark of the Roman-period synagogue. In the wake of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, excavators Eric and Carol Meyers were caught up in a media frenzy that cast them as Indiana Jones-type characters.

Features

Under the Influence

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By Martin Goodman

From the time of Alexander the Great to the end of the Roman Empire, Greek culture permeated much of the ancient world. Judea was no exception. Hellenism brought with it new artistic styles, architectural forms and literary genres that helped give new expression to traditional forms of Jewish identity and culture.

The “New Cleopatra” and the Jewish Tax

By Shlomo Moussaieff

As announced on a rare Roman coin, when Nerva was proclaimed Roman emperor in 96 C.E., he rescinded the Roman tax imposed on Jews that paid for the temple of Jupiter. Was Titus’s lover, the Judean princess Berenice, influential in this decision?

Roman Coins Boast “Judaea Capta”

By Robert Deutsch

Roman emperors who conquered tiny Judea minted gold, silver and bronze coins to celebrate their victory over the Jews—more than any other conquest in Roman history.

Solomon & Sheba, Inc.

By André Lemaire

Was it business or pleasure that brought the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s court? A newly discovered South Arabian inscription documents a Sabaean commercial expedition to the “towns of Judah,” confirming the economic reality behind the Bible’s most famous long-distance relationship.